An Open Letter To Twiddington (& others): What Just Happened.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Dear Nephew Twiddinton (and others),

You were apparently confused by what happened over the weekend.  I am too, to a degree, but I have some facts and ideas that might clear things up just a bit.  Some of this is old news, but I urge you to read it anyway, as it has a direct bearing on the subject...And to understand the situation, you have to understand the people involved, and the places and things that influence them.

America is a giant cage, you see, and inside it your liberty is the meat of your masters.  This cage has not been cleaned in a while, and the bottom of the cage is piled high with filth.  That filth is Arizona, and Tucson rests inside it.  To the casual observer, Tucson is on top of a mountain, much as in Flatland, a three-dimensional cylinder appears to be a circle.  Tucson is actually under your streets...It is the catch basin of America.  The rubbish has to go somewhere, right?

Years ago, P3nt mentioned that Tucson was too clean, when viewed from Google Earth.  That's because the garbage we catch are the crazy ideas that every other state has the good sense to flush down the toilet, and the terrified retirees of 49 states, who come here when they die.  With them, they bring their terror of change, of loss of privilege, of sliding backwards.  Of dying.  This is what they fear.

Now Portland, that's a different story.  Portland is the little swing at the top of the cage, for the bird to sit on.  And let me tell you, that bird had better sing.  It had better sing a jaunty tune, looking and sounding pretty, so that it gets fed...The bird that doesn't sing dies, and falls down into Tucson.  Tucson is always near, only a bridge away, and you can believe the bird knows it.  Now we know what the bird fears.   

Twid, I was – in life – a man ruled by his moods.  In this afterlife, I am very much the same.  So when the n^th feminism thread began, I was driven to distraction by the chanting of YoU yOU yOu YOU YOU YOU and privilege privilege privilege.  Every argument, no matter what, was shut down with this term.  The interesting thing is that hardly any of us understood what was meant. Did it matter?  No argument could be brought forward, no questions asked, without having that endlessly hollered at us.

So, being the kind of person I am, I snapped a bit.  The really sad part is that AFTER the snap, the term was explained not once but twice, the second explanation being complete enough to finally make sense.  I will say that this didn't excuse the endless chant, but it did at least explain why they were chanting.  There was mention, very early in the game, that because of this privilege, some people would have to take a backseat in the struggle for equality.  If you can make sense of that, let me know.

In any case, Nigel objected to my outburst.  I won't go into the painful details of what happened here or what happened off line, or anything like that.  She decided, it seems, that I am not the kind of friend she wanted, and that PD isn't the Discordia she wanted (that cage liner is really close, remember). 

Wait...That's not entirely accurate.  What really happened is that she wanted me to know that she had little or no respect for me (or merely "less", depending on the time elapsed from the initial incident), and that I would have to decide whether we should still be friends given that change.  She, being the sort of person she is, seems to have had no choice in that call.  Me, being the person that I am, found that condition to be unacceptable. 

That's how it would seem in Flatland, anyway. 

Here, we know differently.  Here we know that the rubbish bin we call Tucson periodically sends the garbage men out to clean things up.  Discordia was getting too loud, too certain of itself...So The Cleaners went out with a pile of uniforms and fixed things.  They fixed LMNO so that he turned inward in grief, they fixed you so you'd be too worried about being Irish and maybe a little too worried about alcohol.  They fixed RWHN so that he was a little more amenable to statism.  They seem to have fixed Garbo and Nigel so they'd concentrate on just that one thing, and explode away from Discordia if people didn't put on the uniform, and in just the right way.   They fixed everybody.

If they fixed me, I don't see it.  I don't suspect most people see when they get fixed.  On the other hand, I'm already in the cage liner, so maybe they didn't have to, right?  I'm already rubbish, the cast off skin of a different time.  I was The Good Reverend Roger, and now I am Nobody...Just another corpse in the City of the Dead.  And now I've lost my muse, so maybe a fix was made.  That's why I can't seem to write anymore...because for the last 6 years or so, I've always been writing to Nigel.  I don't trust the magic without the familiar, as the expression goes. 

In any case, we were out of line, and we got cleaned up.  Discordia is no longer a threat to the status quo.  It has become bitter and angry with itself, just like Pastafarianism, The Church of the Subgenius, and every other group that laughed just a little too loud at all the wrong jokes, and made people nervous.

So that's what happened.

Nobody,
Sitting in the filth

[Freeky]

Sigh.  True, that.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'd like to add that I don't find any blame here.  It's an unfortunate side effect of keeping things tidy.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Dear Uncle Roger,

Cleaners.  Going to have to let that sink in a little.

In a sense I suppose I'm glad I was taking a little time off from here. Sounds like the feminism threads got a little argumenty. Which is odd, because I don't really see anybody here disagreeing with it in general. Apparently the details mucked things up, from what I gather at any rate. I'm wondering if everyone's a little touched in the head at the moment. I found myself arguing with some old guy in a bar the other day over politics. And that's quite silly. No one's going to make any head way there, even if we were sober, or even if we were anywhere close to each other in age. The connection there is that it's an election year, which, no matter how apolitical one is, gets people angry. If you're a liberal you're angry at conservatives. If you're conservative you're angry at liberals. If you don't care, you're sick of the arguing going on around you and just want everyone to shut up. And if everyone's on the same page they have to yell at each other anyway. Everyone's riled up and cranky you see.


Anyway, I missed all of the background stuff. I did find Alty's fuck feminism a poor choice of words, but considering what happened to him that night, I figured I wouldn't bother addressing it, and I knew what he meant by it regardless. As far as Nigel goes, she is recovering from surgery and such, so her reaction to Alty is also something that I was just going to give a pass to. But that's how it looks from Boston. The view from Boston's a tricky thing, always. There's a lot of light pollution, for example. You would think that the universe is an empty place, with a few lonely pinpoints struggling against oblivion up there, and so here, in order to ignore such a horrible thought, we have to turn inward, and make some noise, make it brighter, complain about the weather and how disappointing the Sox are, whether Sam Adam's Oktoberfest is going to be better than the Summer Ale (it is). And in my case, am I drinking to much of it? Was I an asshole when I did? I keep getting calls from England, I wonder if that's dad and if he's still ok like he was at grandma's funeral? Gotta call my sister, dad wants me to pass along a message. Mom sounds like she's hitting the sauce again, but she is apparently on painkillers right now. There's a lot of noise pollution too, and not all of it can be heard by others. Sometimes it's just your own head doing a lot of shouting. So that's the two senses a human relies on the most for collecting data on distant objects being overwhelmed. The third sense that does that is relatively weak, and usually overwhelmed by the smells of the city, which admittedly does at times smell like garbage, and quite unfortunately, the stale urine of a homeless person.

The other two senses involve direct contact, which make it difficult to sense Tucson. I certainly wouldn't want to lick it. You keep saying it's a pile of ancient coyote poop. Not very appetizing.

But thank you for writing to me, and telling me how it looks from Tucson. It distresses me when my Uncles and Aunts aren't getting along, and hope that regardless of how it looks from Tucson, or Portland, or Alaska for that matter, that this eventually becomes the proverbial water under the bridge.

In the meantime, I have to find out what the fuck cis means, since I apparently missed the memo on that too, as well as some other things, both online and in real life. I got a solo show this Saturday that I am very underpracticed for. Considering how the last two went, I gotta make sure I don't look like a rank amateur who just learned a couple of chords last month.

Your favorite Nephew,
Twid

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Dear Uncle Roger,

Cleaners.  Going to have to let that sink in a little.

In a sense I suppose I'm glad I was taking a little time off from here. Sounds like the feminism threads got a little argumenty. Which is odd, because I don't really see anybody here disagreeing with it in general.

It was a fucking two-way seal hunt, Newfoundland style.  It was a great big bucket of fucking bile that we all crawled into, and then hollered at each other for making waves.  It was the exercise of monkey screeching and utter fucking stupidity.

Anyway, I missed all of the background stuff. I did find Alty's fuck feminism a poor choice of words, but considering what happened to him that night, I figured I wouldn't bother addressing it, and I knew what he meant by it regardless.

Not sure why I got blamed for it, though.

And in my case, am I drinking to much of it? Was I an asshole when I did?

I have no idea.  I was referring to your concern about it, not the actual action.

The other two senses involve direct contact, which make it difficult to sense Tucson. I certainly wouldn't want to lick it. You keep saying it's a pile of ancient coyote poop. Not very appetizing.

Sooner or later, everyone eats shit.

But thank you for writing to me, and telling me how it looks from Tucson. It distresses me when my Uncles and Aunts aren't getting along, and hope that regardless of how it looks from Tucson, or Portland, or Alaska for that matter, that this eventually becomes the proverbial water under the bridge.

Apparently she has lost all respect for me, on account of losing her temper at Alty (?).  Friendship can only exist when there is mutual respect. 

In the meantime, I have to find out what the fuck cis means,

It means "GET IN YOUR FUCKING BOX.  EVERYONE ELSE IS IN THEIR BOX, WHY AREN'T YOU?"

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I just looked it up. I think I have to agree with you.

There seems to be so many labels around these days. Everything has a nice little tag on it. I'm apparently a cisgendered male. I always just thought of myself as male. I didn't know that needed to be further defined.

While I think it's nice that people can have labels if they want to, I'm wondering more if it's just overcomplicating things, and further separating us from each other. Finding more difference than sameness. I don't think I will ever call myself cismale.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

What makes it even better is all the assholes who helped make all this happen, standing around like nothing's fucking wrong. 

But why should they care?  No fucking consequences to them, right?

I'm too Goddamn bitter to continue here.  Taking a break.

UP THE REVOLUTION, COMRADES!

Your Pal,
Archie fucking Bunker.

[Freeky]

What makes it even better is all the assholes who helped make all this happen, standing around like nothing's fucking wrong. 

But why should they care?  No fucking consequences to them, right?

I'm too Goddamn bitter to continue here.  Taking a break.

UP THE REVOLUTION, COMRADES!

Your Pal,
Archie fucking Bunker.

Or perhaps standing around not knowing what to do.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

What makes it even better is all the assholes who helped make all this happen, standing around like nothing's fucking wrong. 

But why should they care?  No fucking consequences to them, right?

I'm too Goddamn bitter to continue here.  Taking a break.

UP THE REVOLUTION, COMRADES!

Your Pal,
Archie fucking Bunker.

Or perhaps standing around not knowing what to do.

They knew how to fucking break it.  Now they're all innocent bystanders, not wanting to get involved.

START ANOTHER THREAD.
MAKE SURE THAT IT TURNS INTO A CLONE OF ALL OTHER THREADS.
ENSURE THAT EVERYONE KNOWS THEIR FUCKING PLACE.
GEE, WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?  OH, WELL, NOT MY PROBLEM.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

And I'm not leaving myself out of this.

I plan to make an attempt to fix things.

No, I don't expect anyone to fucking help, so nobody get your underpance in a bundle.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Don't even try, Twid.  You'll get brain bubbles.   

It isn't anything you're even in part responsible for.

SDG,
Has a brain like a fucking bubble bath, right now.

[Faust]

I would like to look at the different divisions of privilege amongst the fifty remaining Discordians.

I think its grossly unfair how ten refuse to accept that their values are not as good as that other ten have less privilege, and then both of those groups are grossly unfair for refusing to accept the values of the less privalaged remaining 29.

I of course have the worst values as the Illuminati primus, throned upon the White CIStern which I fill with oceans of my tears wrought by my lack of understanding of all those less privileged.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I would like to look at the different divisions of privilege amongst the fifty remaining Discordians.

I think its grossly unfair how ten refuse to accept that their values are not as good as that other ten have less privilege, and then both of those groups are grossly unfair for refusing to accept the values of the less privalaged remaining 29.

I of course have the worst values as the Illuminati primus, throned upon the White CIStern which I fill with oceans of my tears wrought by my lack of understanding of all those less privileged.

Christ, I hate that fucking word.

[Cain]

I would like to look at the different divisions of privilege amongst the fifty remaining Discordians.

I think its grossly unfair how ten refuse to accept that their values are not as good as that other ten have less privilege, and then both of those groups are grossly unfair for refusing to accept the values of the less privalaged remaining 29.

I of course have the worst values as the Illuminati primus, throned upon the White CIStern which I fill with oceans of my tears wrought by my lack of understanding of all those less privileged.

Conversely, by virtue of being Greek, you are among the most oppressed of us here.

I suggest beating up VERBL, and then stealing his wallet.