I lost the plot decades ago, and I've been spinning in rage ever since. Due to events far beyond the control of a young lad, I was sent to live with The Terrible Old Man for 3 years. This wasn't bad, except that I sort of missed EVERYTHING. I went from a city where you could walk anywhere you wanted, to a huge abortion called Hamilton, Ontario, where you couldn't walk anywhere. And since my grandparents were, well, grandparents, I didn't get any of the cool cultural shit that was happening at the time.
My friends at school were watching Black Sheep Squadron, and I had to settle for that fucking Hee Haw, a travesty that is hard to explain to kids today. It was AWFUL, and it put me straight up a tree at age 9. HINT: If a 9 year old thinks it's passively racist garbage, CHANGE THE CHANNEL. My friends got to listen to Sly & The Family Stone and The Silvers and all kinds of other cool shit you've never heard of, and I got ANN FUCKING MURRAY, the woman responsible for every bad haircut on a Canadian woman since.
But it wasn't just that. Newfoundland in the 1970s was a special place, special enough that I recognized it and appreciated it at the time. All the great folk musicians had migrated there to escape the drug haze & sleaziness that the 60s in America had turned into, so there were all kinds of really cool festivals, etc, going on. The place was packed full of scientists, including my folks, who were there studying metal accumulation in fish. They got so sick of fish that they A) organized hiking expeditions, etc, and brought me and my siblings along, and B) threw truly hysterical parties that involved hauling a sperm whale's jawbone around and dumping it on someone's lawn (where it had to stay until the next party). They were all educated people, and they instilled in me a respect for education that has remained with me to this very day, a sense that educated people are more FUN.
But then I was in Hamilton. Then Chicago. Then the army, and we won't discuss that. Then here. And I woke up this morning, realizing that I'm 3183 miles and 35 years from home, and I'll never, ever see it ever again. I haven't got any roots, all I have is rage and the terrible feeling of something missing, a sense of loss that I can't really articulate.
Instead, I will fix broken shit for the rest of my fucking life, and until they haul me out feet first, that's all I'll see...Broken shit and broken people and a fundamentally broken society. Because we can't have nice things like 1970s Newfoundland. We won't tolerate it. Instead, we have "culture wars" about who gets to get married and who doesn't, and who is a Good American™, and who is a dope fiend that should be locked up for life in a private prison. Well done. WELL FUCKING DONE.
I'd tell you how much I hate you all, all of you Goddamn primates, but it would come off as hyperbole, because nobody would ever believe it. Ha ha! That crazy TGRR! Listen to him rant about hating people, he's such a fucking kidder! FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU IN YOUR NO-GOOD, BUSYBODY, PUNISHMENT-FREAK EARHOLES.
That's all I have to say.
Or kill me. Bastards.
Whoa. "3183 miles and 35 years from home."
That's some rough truth.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on March 27, 2013, 07:11:21 PM
Whoa. "3183 miles and 35 years from home."
That's some rough truth.
Thomas Wolfe was right.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 27, 2013, 07:14:04 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on March 27, 2013, 07:11:21 PM
Whoa. "3183 miles and 35 years from home."
That's some rough truth.
Thomas Wolfe was right.
SURE YOU CAN GO HOME! YOU MIGHT EVEN FIND A COUPLE OF PEOPLE LEFT YOU USED TO KINDA SORTA KNOW!
AND IT'S NOT
ALL NEW STORES!!!!!!!(tm)
I WENT HOME AND MANAGED TO FIND AN OLD HANGOUT STILL STANDING
(http://i.imgur.com/0tVvTjk.jpg)
AND GRANDMA'S HOUSE(http://i.imgur.com/GghiIdN.jpg)
I have a deserted bar pic someplace too. WAHOOOOOOO!
HURRY BEFORE THEY KNOCK
THOSE DOWN!
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 27, 2013, 07:03:01 PM
I lost the plot decades ago, and I've been spinning in rage ever since. Due to events far beyond the control of a young lad, I was sent to live with The Terrible Old Man for 3 years. This wasn't bad, except that I sort of missed EVERYTHING. I went from a city where you could walk anywhere you wanted, to a huge abortion called Hamilton, Ontario, where you couldn't walk anywhere. And since my grandparents were, well, grandparents, I didn't get any of the cool cultural shit that was happening at the time.
My friends at school were watching Black Sheep Squadron, and I had to settle for that fucking Hee Haw, a travesty that is hard to explain to kids today. It was AWFUL, and it put me straight up a tree at age 9. HINT: If a 9 year old thinks it's passively racist garbage, CHANGE THE CHANNEL. My friends got to listen to Sly & The Family Stone and The Silvers and all kinds of other cool shit you've never heard of, and I got ANN FUCKING MURRAY, the woman responsible for every bad haircut on a Canadian woman since.
But it wasn't just that. Newfoundland in the 1970s was a special place, special enough that I recognized it and appreciated it at the time. All the great folk musicians had migrated there to escape the drug haze & sleaziness that the 60s in America had turned into, so there were all kinds of really cool festivals, etc, going on. The place was packed full of scientists, including my folks, who were there studying metal accumulation in fish. They got so sick of fish that they A) organized hiking expeditions, etc, and brought me and my siblings along, and B) threw truly hysterical parties that involved hauling a sperm whale's jawbone around and dumping it on someone's lawn (where it had to stay until the next party). They were all educated people, and they instilled in me a respect for education that has remained with me to this very day, a sense that educated people are more FUN.
But then I was in Hamilton. Then Chicago. Then the army, and we won't discuss that. Then here. And I woke up this morning, realizing that I'm 3183 miles and 35 years from home, and I'll never, ever see it ever again. I haven't got any roots, all I have is rage and the terrible feeling of something missing, a sense of loss that I can't really articulate.
Instead, I will fix broken shit for the rest of my fucking life, and until they haul me out feet first, that's all I'll see...Broken shit and broken people and a fundamentally broken society. Because we can't have nice things like 1970s Newfoundland. We won't tolerate it. Instead, we have "culture wars" about who gets to get married and who doesn't, and who is a Good American™, and who is a dope fiend that should be locked up for life in a private prison. Well done. WELL FUCKING DONE.
I'd tell you how much I hate you all, all of you Goddamn primates, but it would come off as hyperbole, because nobody would ever believe it. Ha ha! That crazy TGRR! Listen to him rant about hating people, he's such a fucking kidder! FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU IN YOUR NO-GOOD, BUSYBODY, PUNISHMENT-FREAK EARHOLES.
That's all I have to say.
Or kill me. Bastards.
Also THIS.
Hee Haw always creeped me out.
HOLY SHIT ROGER
Suddenly I have a much better idea of why we get each other so well. SOMEHOW, On opposite coasts, we had THE SAME FUCKING CHILDHOOD.
Well, with some differences that are insignificant.
When I was 11, I was Exiled to Canada. Except it wasn't Canada, technically, it was a US island so close to Canada that we only got Canadian channels. Which are quite materially different from US channels.
Hee Haw, Gilligan's Island, and Rowan & Martin's Laugh In. Year after year.
God help us all.
When I was 12, they ran The Day After on broadcast. I watched it on my 12" black and white teevee.
You know what? THAT SHIT IS NOT OK. I have NEVER been the same.
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 28, 2013, 02:25:47 AM
When I was 12, they ran The Day After on broadcast. I watched it on my 12" black and white teevee.
You know what? THAT SHIT IS NOT OK. I have NEVER been the same.
Threads was far, far worse. In fact, it pretty much spelled the end of Britain's "own, independent nuclear deterrent".
Buy The Day After was bad enough. I remember watching that when it aired. Doesn't seem like much now, does it?
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 28, 2013, 02:28:35 AM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 28, 2013, 02:25:47 AM
When I was 12, they ran The Day After on broadcast. I watched it on my 12" black and white teevee.
You know what? THAT SHIT IS NOT OK. I have NEVER been the same.
Threads was far, far worse. In fact, it pretty much spelled the end of Britain's "own, independent nuclear deterrent".
Buy The Day After was bad enough. I remember watching that when it aired. Doesn't seem like much now, does it?
Fuck, that's the scary thing. We're from a byegone era, when graphic depictions of death on broadcast TV were
controversial.
I fucking mourn that for/with you. I've spent my whole life looking for (and trying to create) 1970s Newfoundland. Fuck. This put a lump in my throat.
All I can say is that I'm trying to make it for my kid...just a mini-microcosm wherever I can pull the edges of the fabric together and find some bits of tawdry lace to tack it down and cover up the seams. This is all I have, kid. It ain't much but I'm educated. I'm educated and fun and I've found some fun educated people to share this world with. It'll have to do.
And I guess I'll watch out for him in case he gets lost...save up to buy an old, wooden plane in case he wanders too far away. Paint chipping, propeller creaky, I'll get on the thing like...like this guy:
(http://i.imm.io/10Zty.png) and bring home to him.
Fkn The Day After :argh!:
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on March 28, 2013, 03:16:01 AM
Fkn The Day After :argh!:
Listen, in an age where Reagan wanted a nuclear war, the Day After was kinda necessary. So was Threads.
I've actually written about this elsewhere. The Day After was why I was afraid of two things as a kid: Aliens and Nuclear War.
The cold war, Reagan and nukes and shows like Day After and Threads made me the - live in the moment, fuck the future, fuck the consequences - kinda guy I am today. Nihilism was the logical choice of philosophy back then.
It's probably why I can laugh at the new "terrurism" boogeyman they're trying to scare me with these days. A pale imitation.
I've never seen The Day After or Threads. I was a bit too young when they came out, wasn't even in school yet.
But I have found them and will be watching them soon. Just so I know what everyone is talking about.
Though somehow I don't think it will have the impact on me that it has on everyone else here.
Quote from: Sita on March 28, 2013, 01:40:11 PM
I've never seen The Day After or Threads. I was a bit too young when they came out, wasn't even in school yet.
But I have found them and will be watching them soon. Just so I know what everyone is talking about.
Though somehow I don't think it will have the impact on me that it has on everyone else here.
Threads might be a bad idea. Seriously. It was necessary when it came out, but it's a couple of hours of incredibly dense misery that isn't necessary now. The war lasts about 5 minutes for Sheffield (the city in which the story takes place), then you get the watch the human race crawl into its collective grave for an hour. Doesn't end well.
To be honest, some would consider the nuclear obliteration of Sheffield to be an improvement in living standards.
Quote from: Cain on March 28, 2013, 01:57:11 PM
To be honest, some would consider the nuclear obliteration of Sheffield to be an improvement in living standards.
Problem is, the Russians miss. Just barely.
So you get the best of both worlds, so to speak.
A guy was blinded from looking at the blast. Little kids our age died horrible deaths of radiation poisoning. Nuclear War = hell that nobody wins aaaand...ROLL CREDITS.
Somehow, the idea of dying a slow painful death of the shits was otherworldly scary to me. Went down well with my not-yet-jaded-kids-of-the-60s parents too.
Imagine being a child...a smart child who both comprehends and is scared of that movie. Now imagine sensing that your parents are also scared and disapproving of nuclear war.
My eight-year-old-mind was like "Wait. This is REAL? You guys are afraid of this happening too? OMG THEY'RE GONNA SET UP US THE BOMB."
Quote from: navkat: navkat of...navkat! on March 28, 2013, 03:10:19 PM
A guy was blinded from looking at the blast. Little kids our age died horrible deaths of radiation poisoning. Nuclear War = hell that nobody wins aaaand...ROLL CREDITS.
Somehow, the idea of dying a slow painful death of the shits was otherworldly scary to me. Went down well with my not-yet-jaded-kids-of-the-60s parents too.
Threads was a little different. 1:55:50 long, the war takes place at about minute 55. Then there's 40 minutes covering the following 16 days, then 10 minutes covering 1 year later, then 5 minutes covering 10 years later, as the last of the humans die of cancer or starvation in the cold.
I think someone needs to get ahold of a copy of it, rip it and host a discordian viewing party. Let's face this.
AFTER the chirren go to bed.
Quote from: navkat: navkat of...navkat! on March 28, 2013, 03:20:37 PM
I think someone needs to get ahold of a copy of it, rip it and host a discordian viewing party. Let's face this.
AFTER the chirren go to bed.
It's on youtube, last I checked, in its entirety. Search "threads 1984".
I didn't see either. Sounds like they extended the fuck out of "Morning Dew".
Did anybody go insane?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After#Effects_on_policymakers
Quote from: navkat: navkat of...navkat! on March 28, 2013, 03:22:23 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After#Effects_on_policymakers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads
Looks like MOST of them went insane. :x
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VG2aJyIFrA
THEY ALL TURN INTO SKELETONS BEFORE THEY DIE.
I think I shat myself whenever a fallout siren went off in the neighborhood after this.
God, this still makes the GI twitch.
A google image search for "Hiroshima" or "Nagasaki" will show you that not everybody turns into a skeleton.
Reality is worse, though. Much worse.
Nono. Watch it. Watch it with the mind of an eight-year-old.
I live about 30-40 miles from where they Hee-Haw. A friend of mine's dad was their coke dealer.
The show makes a lot more sense when you understand that everybody on the show except Grandpa Jones was fried out of their gourd on cocaine.
Quote from: Emo Howard on March 28, 2013, 03:59:33 PM
I live about 30-40 miles from where they Hee-Haw. A friend of mine's dad was their coke dealer.
The show makes a lot more sense when you understand that everybody on the show except Grandpa Jones was fried out of their gourd on cocaine.
Holy FUCK. Why did this never occur to me?
For some reason the dad getting shot by the other family was more horrifying to me. Everyone was just trying so hard to survive somehow and they finally made it to hospitals and maybe? No. No you can just get shot and die because someone else is eating what's left of a cow that used to belong to you and there's nothing anyone can do about it. And that's the end of you. Good job planning ahead and protecting your family, guy! You get shot and they all die horribly anyway! Nothing you did ever mattered!
Nothing ever looked the same after I saw that movie. It was one thing to be afraid of nuclear war, it was another thing to be shown what it looked like.
Alternatively, if you want to see a beautiful depiction of nuclear holocaust, watch When the Wind Blows (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Wind_Blows_(film))
All of these movies have kind of lost their edge nowadays, tho, given that we're not fully expecting to have a nuclear war any time in the next couple of days. Coincidentally, this was the main reason I have never believed democracy is something we want to be allowing to happen. This was, seriously, the best idea these stupid bastards could come up with. I'd stab a politician in the throat a long time before I'd consider voting to give him the power to engage in this kind of dumbfuckery :argh!:
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 28, 2013, 05:36:20 PM
Nothing ever looked the same after I saw that movie. It was one thing to be afraid of nuclear war, it was another thing to be shown what it looked like.
*shudder*
It makes the current bogeyman of Terrorism seem pale in comparison... but in that same way, all the more insidious.
How do you show people the madness of a world driven to reckless paranoia by terrorism, in a way that persuades them of the need to keep things in perspective? Terrorism isn't exactly the gaping abyss of humanity's doom that nuclear holocaust is, so the Fear can be endless recycled.
In nuclear holocaust, death is a certainty. From terrorism, death is a possibility. A chance, if you will. And people often get addicted to games of chance.
I don't know where I'm going with this. Something about how the world at large became full of people who needed so badly to be right, that they were willing to do more than merely kill their enemies. They reached farther and farther for weapons until they found the pulsing heart of annihilation, a heart which beats but once.
And when they looked into the merciless light of the abyss, Death stared back at them, naked and terrifying. Death, stripped of the decorative raiments we normally force it to wear before it enters our domain. Raiments like "honor" and "glory" and "fighting for our children's future," all burned away. We saw, for the first time, what The End really looked like, and realized that all the stories were wrong.
So their will was broken, those who had dared to fling open Death's front door and beat their chests, screaming "I AIN'T CHICKEN!" What was left were broken fools that had to retreat into power fantasies to keep away the vision of what they had seen. They had found a way to kill the monsters so hard that it would make no difference. So they looked for smaller monsters.
A quivering idiot in a padded cell, playing out gory fantasies with dolls in lieu of the horrors he's seen.
Cainad,
maybe needs to be getting more sleep
Quote from: Cainad on March 28, 2013, 10:48:48 PM
It makes the current bogeyman of Terrorism seem pale in comparison... but in that same way, all the more insidious.
How do you show people the madness of a world driven to reckless paranoia by terrorism, in a way that persuades them of the need to keep things in perspective? Terrorism isn't exactly the gaping abyss of humanity's doom that nuclear holocaust is, so the Fear can be endless recycled.
In nuclear holocaust, death is a certainty. From terrorism, death is a possibility. A chance, if you will. And people often get addicted to games of chance.
I don't know where I'm going with this. Something about how the world at large became full of people who needed so badly to be right, that they were willing to do more than merely kill their enemies. They reached farther and farther for weapons until they found the pulsing heart of annihilation, a heart which beats but once.
And when they looked into the merciless light of the abyss, Death stared back at them, naked and terrifying. Death, stripped of the decorative raiments we normally force it to wear before it enters our domain. Raiments like "honor" and "glory" and "fighting for our children's future," all burned away. We saw, for the first time, what The End really looked like, and realized that all the stories were wrong.
So their will was broken, those who had dared to fling open Death's front door and beat their chests, screaming "I AIN'T CHICKEN!" What was left were broken fools that had to retreat into power fantasies to keep away the vision of what they had seen. They had found a way to kill the monsters so hard that it would make no difference. So they looked for smaller monsters.
A quivering idiot in a padded cell, playing out gory fantasies with dolls in lieu of the horrors he's seen.
Cainad,
maybe needs to be getting more sleep
That stung like poetry, man!
Cainad, you need to write more often.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on March 28, 2013, 10:55:43 PM
Cainad, you need to write more often.
Thanks; if I was in better practice that might have had a little more flow. It felt very jagged, coming out of my brain.
My head hurts, my stomach feels gurgly, and I'm running on less sleep than usual. And I spent the day catching up on the latest of PD.com's merciless efforts to show me what the world I live in is actually like. All that seems to help with the word-making.
Is was goooood.
Well-written, Cainad.
I disagree, though. This past few years, I've been faced with a lot of the dark, ugly side of people...just shit that pretty much fucked up my head and shut up my whore mouth, whining about silly shit like "justice" and things not being "fair."
It it this: there are people who are the aggressor not because they were bullied, are afraid of being seen as chicken or any other fears inherent to the Human Condition. Maybe some are but I think it's possible even most of the time, that's not the case...
No, mostly when someone is being aggressive, they're doing it for all those seemingly-2-dimensional cartoony reasons Skelletor did it to He-Man, Mum-ra did it to Lion-o, Dr. Claw did it to Inspector Gadget: to win. To get something. To overpower. Because they're evil.
No one was afraid of being chicken. Dropping The Bomb is a conversation ender. We Win. Booya. You tried, you lost. Ha ha. We win and you can't do shit about it, now suck my dick and make me a sammich, bitch.
It doesn't matter who's right.
Fair doesn't matter.
Might makes right.
The bad guy usually wins because he's willing to be ruthless.
Do you know what a lot of ruthless bastards say after they raped and beaten someone to death or strangled someone?
"Things just got out of hand."
"I didn't think I hit her that hard."
"It was just a little push. He was pushing me back but things got out of hand. I didn't expect..."
This is a really difficult thing for someone who cares about others to grasp. It makes me a little sick. It makes me want to hide somewhere and check out and just go to sleep for a few years.
For whatever reason, I can't do that. I feel it necessary to keep the dim light shining: batteries draining, cone of illumination ever shrinking. Every once it awhile it goes out and I have to smack the thing with my hand to keep it running. We must...if we don't, no one will.
But they're going to win anyway.
:mittens: