The self-appointed TV watchdogs who were so common in the late ’70s and early ’80s…raised a huge public stink about any show that might be too intense for a timid 6-year-old with a nervous disorder.
– “Diary #605”
It’s sad to see how many people still want to believe that actual sex workers with individual human personalities could be replaced by plastic dolls or computer-generated images without minds. – “The Pygmalion Fallacy (#1310)”
Millions of people in the developed world, acting individually or collectively, feel completely justified in digging into the affairs of those who have different beliefs from them, in hope of discovering some transgression or mistake that can be used to destroy the victim’s life with the help of faceless, merciless corporations and institutions. – “O.B.I.T.”
One year ago today, at about 2 AM, I lost my best friend to what appears to have been an acute ischemic stroke, brought on by cancer, chemotherapy, and long-standing circulatory issues. We had known for years that her end was approaching, and had I not refused to see them, there were clear signs that it would be sooner rather than later. But human beings are very good at failing to see what we do not want to see, and I’m certainly no exception; I’m sure part of the reason was that I wanted to maintain a positive outlook to help her do the same, but most of it was just that I’ve already had so much pain and loss in my life I did not want to consciously face what even our idioms recognize as among the worst misfortunes that can befall a person.
Whenever a friend suffers a loss, we are moved to try to say something, anything, to assuage their pain; some of those things are helpful and some are not. But of the things my friends said to me, two stand out, and I still think of them often. One of them is philosophical: Grief is the price we pay for love. Indeed, people who have suffered emotionally sometimes become afraid of love because they fear the pain that must come when we must part from the loved one, and the greater the love, the greater the pain. The other helpful thing was more practical: The waves of grief never stop coming, but they do grow further apart. For the first few weeks after her passing I thought of little else, then for most of last year the waves came at least daily; in more recent months they’ve come two or three times a week. They have not yet become less intense, though I’m sure that, too, will happen in the fullness of time.
As I knew I would through long experience, I have tried to cope with the grief by retreating a bit from the world and burying myself in my work; the most important product of that work is a new series of pulp-style adventure stories featuring characters based upon Grace and myself, in which the narratives are suffused with my thoughts on friendship in general and our friendship in particular. They’re the longest and most complex individual works I’ve ever written, and the next project in the series will be my first novel. And the many hours it takes to create them not only feel like a way for me to share Grace with the world, but also a means by which I can squeeze just a little more time with her out of a world which took her from me much too soon.
The happy ending here is that despite all their ridiculous mumbo-jumbo and frantic posturing, Death will win as it always does.Ave Mortis, Imperator Mundi.
Given the corrupting effect of power, the most powerful person on the planet will INEVITABLY become the worst person on the planet, even if he wasn't to start with.
A one predisposed to disobedience since childhood, who has suffered social censure for that inclination since the early 1970s, I've always viewed the American self-image as "rebellious" as a crock of self-aggrandizing bullshit.
My paternal line did not emigrate to America; America bought our home from Napoleon. IOW America chose *us* rather than vice-versa.My late friend Grace's ancestors were here long before the 1st Europeans.And both of us would tell you that people sworn in this morning are just as American as us.
My X's anniversary is also MY anniversary, though I would nor more expect a computer to grasp that than I would trust it to compose a post on the topic, presuming I was such a narcissist that I would request such a childish thing.
My turn! It just dawned on me that if the ICE agent were a circus clown, and the woman the ghost of Anne Boleyn, and the roles were reversed, but the ghost threw her head at the clown instead of shooting him, he could juggle it and The Coulrophobia Lobby would be fully on the side of the ghost.
While I was working on “Until the End of Days“, I realized it would only be the first of a series of stories featuring Angela Morgan & Diane Rousseau, pulp-adventure characters based on Grace & myself. And by the time I was done with the first story, I already knew that the second installment would be a prequel, telling the story of how they met. Now that one is done as well, so I’m about to start the process of getting Lost Angels, the collection in which they’ll both appear, into shape; I’ve already started discussing the cover with Chester Brown, so I think we’re on track to publish by the end of spring. And here’s the really exciting news: my experience with these longer tales has convinced me that the next adventure should be a short novel, which I’ll probably begin in the next couple of months. But in the meantime, here’s a sneak preview of “Hellhound”, describing the events of Saturday, June 10th, 1922; the video at the end is a song which plays a part later in the novelette.
…While I was perfectly happy to dress and behave like a respectable maid of honor instead of a flapper for one day, there was no way I was going to indulge the government’s current exercise in wet-blanketry. So I took a generous sip from my punch to make room while on my way to the ladies’, then once I was safely away from prying eyes I lifted my skirt to get my flask from its hiding place in my garter and topped the glass back up with rum. Then I checked my hair, smoothed my dress and opened the door to find Tante Mathilde standing just outside.
She gently raised my hand to sniff my glass gracefully, and said, “Just as I thought.”
“Honestly, Auntie, it’s not like you’re a big fan of the Volstead Act yourself.”
She waved a hand dismissively. “No, I’m not, but you’re still too young.”
“I’m twenty-one, Auntie, and I just graduated with a real degree and everything; I’m not exactly still in pigtails.”
“Hmph. Well, at least you haven’t chopped off your lovely hair like so many girls your age.”
“Remember when I fell out of that tree when I was about twelve, and they had to shave my head to stitch it up? I know what I look like with short hair, and it ain’t pretty.”
“Nonsense, dear girl; you’re always pretty.”
“Thank you, but I know you didn’t come looking for me just to see if I was drinking.”
She took my left arm in the way she always did when she wanted a favor. “No, it’s because I want to introduce you to someone.”
“I think I already know most of the guests.”
“She’s not technically a guest, and I think y’all probably met in passing once or twice a few years ago”…She took me over to the doorway that led toward the hotel kitchen; in the next room were several large tubs of ice with electric fans blowing across them to cool the air. That may sound quaint to the modern reader, but keep in mind that air conditioning was extremely expensive back then, and it was still several years before even theaters and hotels in New Orleans began to install them. Diane was standing nearby, apparently taking the opportunity to cool off; she was a tall, fairly slender woman in her mid-twenties with long, straight black hair, hazel eyes, and strong features, and she did look somewhat familiar. “Angela, this is Louis and Claire’s youngest daughter, Diane. Diane, this is my grandniece Angela.”
She stubbed out her cigarette, turned to face me, flashed a quirky but winning smile, held out both of her hands to clasp mine, and said, “Hey there, honey! Ah think we met before.”
“Since you’re Miss Claire’s daughter I guess we have, but I don’t remember exactly when.”
“Ah been tourin’ with the band for almos’ five years, so musta been when we was in town.”
“Must have. I’ve been to the Orpheum quite a few times since then, but I guess never when y’all were playing…Are you doing anything with your friends tonight? You could come over to my house and we can make up for lost time.” She did not answer, but instead looked pointedly at my aunt, whose innocent expression had yielded to a rather sheepish one.
“Actually, that was why I wanted to introduce y’all. Diane has a little problem and I thought you might be able to help.”
“Oh?” I had instantly liked Diane, so I was already inclined to help if possible. But I wasn’t about to make it easier on my aunt; this wasn’t the first time she’d volunteered me for something.
“Normally, Diane stays at my place when she’s in town. But a strange man has been lurking nearby since she arrived Thursday evening, and she thinks he’s been following her.”
“We been seein’ him in the theaters an’ hotels for the last three stops, but we jus’ figured he was a fan; some of ’em are pretty devoted. But he’s hangin’ aroun’ your aunt’s instead of the hotel where the other girls are stayin’, so it must be me he’s after.”
“Ah, so if we can get you over to my place without him catching wise, maybe that’ll throw him off. But won’t he just follow y’all to your next gig in…?”
“Mobile. Yeah, we’re hopin’ to confront him before that. Mah daddy tried las’ night but he took off like his pants was on fire as soon as Daddy came out on the porch. If he loses mah trail today, he’ll need to come to the theater Monday night to pick it up again, then the bouncers can catch him without havin’ to call the cops to the house.”
“Makes perfect sense. You can have Marie’s room; she won’t need it any more!”
“Thank you, ah really appreciate it.”
“I’m guessing you already brought your luggage?” I asked, giving my aunt a look.
“Yeah, it’s in the green room.”
“I hope it’s not a lot; the only place we can carry it in my car is the rumble seat.”
“Just a big carpetbag. Except for mah bass and such, ah try to travel light.”
“There is no way we can fit your bass in a Stutz Bearcat, unless you think you can balance it on the running board”…
…About midnight, I went to get myself another punch, and asked if she wanted more bourbon, which was what she’d been drinking. “Actually, if you don’t mind, ahmana roll myself a reefer.”
“Go ahead; better a legal intoxicant than an illegal one, eh? I’d use it myself, but I’m afraid my lungs are too delicate; I can’t even smoke cigarettes.”
“If you wanna try it, ah could make you tea. Ah usually travel with some ’cause marijuana is illegal in some states, and sippin’ tea is more discreet than smokin’ a reefer.”
I was definitely interested in trying it, so we adjourned to the kitchen and Diane fixed it for me…I can’t say I cared for the taste, but sugar helped, and it wasn’t like I was drinking it for the flavor. Diane told me it would probably take an hour or so before I started to feel anything, but warned me that it might hit me pretty hard because I was unused to it.
“Why don’t we head upstairs, then? We can get you settled in Marie’s room, then if I’m too bent to manage the stairs I can just stumble next door.”
“That sounds like a plan!” she said, so I locked up and turned off the lights, and before long she’d put on her pajamas and we’d made her comfortable in Marie’s bed. I sat in the wingback chair while she rolled her smoke, and soon we were giggling like a couple of schoolgirls. Because we were already in such good spirits I didn’t notice the effects of the drug until I was already highly illuminated, and I think I got quiet for a little while as I adjusted to this new feeling. When I finally spoke up I realized Diane had dropped off, but I was still content to just sit there quietly, looking at everything through chemically-altered eyes and enjoying the breeze through the open window.
After Diane had been asleep for a little while, something very eerie happened; at first it spooked me a bit, but I told myself it was just a drug-induced hallucination and I should sit back and enjoy the show. There seemed to be a greenish-purple aura around her body, and as I watched it seemed to become concentrated around her left hand; it then began to take form like smoke, blowing out from her ring like steam from a teakettle (but in complete silence). It gathered itself into a cloud above her sleeping form, then moved like a living thing toward the window. As it exited I really wanted to get up to see where it went next, but I just couldn’t get myself to move out of the chair; it was almost as though I were tied down with the softest ropes imaginable, or weighed down with an entire litter of contentedly-purring kittens. It was less like not being able to move, and more like I just didn’t want to, even though I did…
Most people today think of Theodor Seuss Geisel as an author and illustrator of children’s books, but in the 1930s and 1940s he was best known as an advertising and political cartoonist. He would later use his children’s books to teach simple moral and political lessons, such as this one about tyranny from the early 1950s. Given that his books are no longer as universally read as they once were, you may be unfamiliar with it, but unlike the last couple of times I’ve used the good Doctor to illustrate a point, this time I didn’t need to change a single word.
Οn the far-away Island of Sala-ma-Sond,
Yertle the Turtle was king of the pond.
A nice little pond. It was clean. It was neat.
The water was warm. There was plenty to eat.
The turtles had everything turtles might need.
And they were all happy. Quite happy indeed.
They were… until Yertle, the king of them all,
Decided the kingdom he ruled was too small.
“I’m ruler,” said Yertle, “of all that I see.
But I don’t see enough. That’s the trouble with me.
With this stone for a throne, I look down on my pond
But I cannot look down on the places beyond.
This throne that I sit on is too, too low down.
It ought to be higher!” he said with a frown.
“If I could sit high, how much greater I’d be!
What a king! I’d be ruler of all I could see!”
So Yertle, the Turtle King, lifted his hand
And Yertle, the Turtle King, gave a command.
He ordered nine turtles to swim to his stone
And, using these turtles, he built a new throne.
He made each turtle stand on another one’s back
And he piled them all up in a nine-turtle stack.
And then Yertle climbed up. He sat down on the pile.
What a wonderful view! He could see ‘most a mile!
“All mine!” Yertle cried. “Oh, the things I now rule!
I’m king of a cow! And I’m king of a mule!
I’m king of a house! And, what’s more, beyond that,
I’m king of a blueberry bush and a cat!
I’m Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!
For I am the ruler of all that I see!”
And all through that morning, he sat there up high
Saying over and over, “A great king am I!”
Until ‘long about noon. Then he heard a faint sigh.
“What’s that?” snapped the king
And he looked down the stack.
And he saw, at the bottom, a turtle named Mack.
Just a part of his throne. And this plain little turtle
Looked up and he said, “Beg your pardon, King Yertle.
“I’ve pains in my back and my shoulders and knees.
How long must we stand here, Your Majesty, please?”
“SILENCE!” the King of the Turtles barked back.
“I’m king, and you’re only a turtle named Mack.
You stay in your place while I sit here and rule.
I’m king of a cow! And I’m king of a mule!
I’m king of a house! And a bush! And a cat!
But that isn’t all. I’ll do better than that!
My throne shall be higher!” his royal voice thundered,
“So pile up more turtles! I want ’bout two hundred!”
“Turtles! More turtles!” he bellowed and brayed.
And the turtles ‘way down in the pond were afraid.
They trembled. They shook. But they came. They obeyed.
From all over the pond, they came swimming by dozens.
Whole families of turtles, with uncles and cousins.
And all of them stepped on the head of poor Mack.
One after another, they climbed up the stack.
THEN Yertle the Turtle was perched up so high,
He could see forty miles from his throne in the sky!
“Hooray!” shouted Yertle. “I’m king of the trees!
I’m king of the birds! And I’m king of the bees!
I’m king of the butterflies! King of the air!
Ah, me! What a throne! What a wonderful chair!
I’m Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me!
For I am the ruler of all that I see!”
Then again, from below, in the great heavy stack,
Came a groan from that plain little turtle named Mack.
“Your Majesty, please… I don’t like to complain,
But down here below, we are feeling great pain.
I know, up on top you are seeing great sights,
But down at the bottom we, too, should have rights.
We turtles can’t stand it. Our shells will all crack!
Besides, we need food. We are starving!” groaned Mack.
“You hush up your mouth!” howled the mighty King Yertle.
“You’ve no right to talk to the world’s highest turtle.
I rule from the clouds! Over land! Over sea!
There’s nothing, no, NOTHING, that’s higher than me!”
But, while he was shouting, he saw with surprise
That the moon of the evening was starting to rise
Up over his head in the darkening skies.
“What’s THAT?” snorted Yertle. “Say, what IS that thing
That dares to be higher than Yertle the King?
I shall not allow it! I’ll go higher still!
I’ll build my throne higher! I can and I will!
I’ll call some more turtles. I’ll stack ’em to heaven!
I need ’bout five thousand, six hundred and seven!”
But, as Yertle, the Turtle King, lifted his hand
And started to order and give the command,
That plain little turtle below in the stack,
That plain little turtle whose name was just Mack,
Decided he’d taken enough. And he had.
And that plain little lad got a little bit mad
And that plain little Mack did a plain little thing.
He burped!
And his burp shook the throne of the king!
And Yertle the Turtle, the king of the trees,
The king of the air and the birds and the bees,
The king of a house and a cow and a mule…
Well, that was the end of the Turtle King’s rule!
For Yertle, the King of all Sala-ma-Sond,
Fell off his high throne and fell Plunk! in the pond!
And today the great Yertle, that Marvelous he,
Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.
And the turtles, of course… all the turtles are free
As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.
The heads came off and…the bodies kept marching in place.
It’s rare to see a new, original, Gothic horror video online, with nary a jump-scare in sight! And I found it just in time to sneak it in before the end of Christmas. The links above it were provided by Franklin Harris, Jesse Walker, Lucy Steigerwald, Nun Ya, and IncarcerNation (x2), in that order.
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
On this day two years ago, I wrote: “I’ve gradually come to the realization that I’m happier now than I’ve ever been for any extended period in my entire life…but having a realistic view of the world requires accepting that it and everything it contains is impermanent.” Then almost a year ago, the truth of that was slammed home when I lost my best friend to cancer, and just like that the only extended period of happiness I’ve ever enjoyed in this Vale of Tears was snatched from me, never to return. I’m not saying I’m constantly miserable now, nor that I was prior to my retirement in 2021, but previous periods of happiness were both shorter and far more conditional than that four-year stretch of peace and content. My readers needn’t worry about me; pain and melancholy have been familiar features of my life for almost as long as I can remember, and decades of experience have taught me the alchemy of turning that darkness into beauty. In the past year I’ve written more fiction than I have in any year since 2016, including my first novella (which looks like it will turn into my first major series of tales). This is not in spite of the darkness but because of it; ever since I was a child, the monsters have been the constant attendants of my Muse of Fiction, and it seems foolish to expect that it will be any different in the time I have left. Creative writing is, in a sense, a form of exorcism, draining off the energy of my inner demons to drive the mills of my art. The process, however, is never so efficient as to completely dry out that black wellspring, and though I don’t cry for Grace every day any more, in any given week the tearful days still outnumber the drier ones. As a friend told me soon after she died, the waves of grief never stop coming, they just get farther apart. And as I’ve said many times in the last year; it’s not that I feel any sense that she died too young or too soon, or that her death was somehow unfair; it’s just that I miss a beloved friend who was a constant presence in my life for twenty-seven years, and whose departure has left a very large hole.
When cops use profanity at us, think of what they're telling us. Would you ever curse at your boss? No, but he can curse at you because he has power over you. What would happen if you cursed out a cop? But they curse at us routinely. That tells you how they perceive their relationship with us.
People suffering from advanced dementia often fall back on old "scripts". It's why your senile great-grandmother calls you by your mother's (or even grandmother's) name, and it's why Trump seems to think he's still on a TV show he did two decades ago.
Reporters need to ditch the word "taken" when writing about actions of government thugs.The property wasn't "taken" by goons; it was STOLEN.The person wasn't "taken to the ground"; he was TACKLED.The person wasn't "taken into custody" as if on a date; he was ABDUCTED.Stop soft-peddling evil.
Reading what people say about Twitter makes me realize that the vast majority online expend absolutely no effort on account hygiene. If they treated their bodies like they treat their social media accounts, they'd never bathe, brush their teeth, or change their clothes, and would eat only junk.
In the late 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was called "the sick man of Europe". Now the American empire has become the sick man of the entire planet.
I have lived my life in such a way that I can't picture either of these women accurately enough to compare them in my mind. And I'm very pleased about that.
I block every single MAGA account and every associated lunatic on Twitter the first time I see it. As a result, I now see far more Trumpery on Bluesky than on Twitter, because people keep screenshotting and calling attention to accounts I blocked long ago.
I'm so exhausted by journalists, who should know the meaning of the words they use, referring to people who are not cautious of change but rather mindlessly destroy every Chesterton's fence they can find, as "conservative".
Maybe this misuse of the word "democracy" is a problem of Millennials and Zoomers, who are too young to remember that about half the communist dictatorships of the late 20th century had the word "Democratic" in their names, eg "Deutsche Demokratische Republik" (German Democratic Republic).
OK, y'all, we all get it: politicians and partisans are all huge hypocrites who theatrically perform anger when the "other team" does the same thing they do when in power.Find another goddamned tweet boilerplate. Holy shit.
The problem is that the tech industry is intentionally conflating two different things under the fantasy label "AI". Machine learning is a real, useful tool; chatbots are a toy and a technological blind alley. Conflating the two is like pretending color TV is the same technology as a hula-hoop.
Anyone who’s ever perused my Amazon wishlist has probably noticed that it features a lot more weird, nerdy things than the expensive “luxury” things most guys seem to like buying for sex workers. That was true even long before I retired, and it’s even more so nowadays. The reason, as I’ve explained before, is that I put things I actually want on my list, and my tastes run to the odd and nerdy. In the last couple of weeks, several of my generous readers have sent CDs and DVDs from the list, and several of the DVDs were of old movie serials. I’m quite pleased about that because, as some of you have noticed, I’ve increasingly turned my back on the modern world this year. Now, a large fraction of my TV and movie viewing has always consisted of things that aren’t current at the time I view them, and I rarely read any fiction written after I was born (and almost never after I graduated from high school). But since early summer that’s even more true than usual, and probably half of my current entertainment was created between 1920 and 1960. Part of the reason is practical; the new adventure fiction series I’m working on takes place in the 1920s and ’30s, so immersing myself in period fiction helps with mood and color. But the rest of it is purely emotional; this blog and its attendant social media focus mostly on current events, and I needn’t explain how absolutely awful those events have become. Simply put, by the time I’m done with blog writing every day, I am so sick of 21st century political atrocities and media enshittification that I cannot handle one more minute of it. So to those of you who have indulged me with these gifts, please accept my heartfelt gratitude not merely for the kindness of a gift, but also for helping me find temporary solace from a world which feels increasingly hostile to me.
Premium users can also converse with Satan. – Chrissy Callahan
When I opened YouTube in search of something last week, this was at the top of the page. Naturally I could not resist. The links above it were provided by Jesse Walker, Ryan Marino (x2), Mike Masnick, The Onion (x2), and IncarcerNation, in that order.
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
If you want to donate but don't want a recurring charge, you can send any amount you like via PayPal to my email address (see below). Be sure to include a note so I can thank you!
All original content on this website (i.e. all of my columns, pages and anything else which I write myself) is protected under international copyright law as of the time it is posted; though you may link to it as you please or quote passages (as long as you attribute the quote to me), please do not reproduce whole columns without my express written permission. In other words, you have to say “pretty please with sugar on top” first, and then wait for me to say “okey-dokey”.
