Dispatches from the Coronavirus Days #5

And the Dumbest MF'er Quote Goes to: Ohio resident Bradley Sluder currently on Spring Break in Florida vowed to keep partying despite the global pandemic. "If I get Corona, I get Corona. At the end of the day, I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying."
This wise sage isn't alone either. A whole gaggle of dumbasses has vowed to keep up the frivolity, ignoring all CDC warnings to the contrary.

Dumbest MF'er First Runner up: Indiana resident Atlantis Walker ---yes, you read right, he's named after the fabled lost continent --- got all social justice on the virus's ass by saying, "This virus ain't that serious. There's more serious things out there like hunger and poverty. We need to address that." Wow. A truly in-depth analysis of our society. So what if a viral pandemic could conceivably make those issues worse. Not to worry, though. Bradley and Atlantis are not alone in their abject stupidity.

Seems Pricey but your Hiney Will Thank You: Speaking of lowrent, profiteering scumbags, a man in Canton, Michigan was caught selling cases of toilet paper from his trunk for sixty dollars each. Even better, he was in a Meijer parking lot when he did it! For those that don't know, Meijer is a massive Michigan-based department store that has spread into other parts of the U.S. A disgusted man took video of the incident and it has been shared over 1000 times online.
(Source: WXYZ Channel 7- Detroit)

Now it's a Tragedy, Now it's so Sad to See: Those words, first rapped by Yale University Poet in Residence Marshall Mathers,certainly ring true in two significant ways. First, Donald Trump's untrue insistence that he always saw Covid-19 asa  pandemic when he clearly dismissed it as a hoax early on. Second, now that a member of congress has been diagnosed, it somehow matters even more. Florida Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart is urging people to take the virus very seriously, yet Florida continues to host the morons mentioned above on some of their beaches.

A Brief Herstory of Naming this thing: Covid-19 has moved so fast, jumping from animal to human and then to humans, that scientists didn't have time to give it a sexy name before the majority assumed it was "THE Coronavirus" despite there being many such as SARS and Swine Flu, and others throwing "China" into all references as a way to demonize an entire nation of people. While all indications are that it did indeed originate in China, referring to it as "The Chinese Coronavirus" as Donald Trump has or the "Wuhan Virus" as Tucker Carlson has serves no one except those seeking to create divisions among people. By the time the scientists came up with the semi-catchy name "Covid-19," the various deeds were done. Yes, we know it started in China and yes, we know the Chinese government probably lied about the infection and death rates. But blaming China accomplishes nothing good. For example:

Cotton Picking Fights: Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton wants to kick that mean old virus's ass 'Murica style. In typical flaccid rhetoric, Cotton said, "We will hold accountable those who inflicted it on the world." So watch out, Blofeld! 007 comin' for dat ass!

Can't Spell Dirty Triflin' & Evil Without "DTE": This one could have been posted two Dispatches ago but I waited in the hopes that even a wicked utility company might do the right thing. Well, they haven't so far and there's no indication they're going to. I received emails from such disparate companies as AMC initially stating that would be limiting theaters to 50% capacity before wisely choosing to follow the governor's directive to close. Banks have sent emails insuring the safety of customers and their empoyees. Well, Detroit Energy (DTE) sent an email, too. It was heartfelt and reassuring for anyone who might need help with their accounts right now. I know I'll always remember the day I read those three magic words:

  PAYMENT DUE REMINDER

Feel the love, everybody. 

Feel the love.

More to come?

Read Previous Dispatch here.

ANNOUNCEMENT FOR 2018: It's Been...Something...

All roads end, especially when they lead to nowhere. That realization has woken me up to a great many things lately, and sadly it includes writing. Not that many people care, but I've reached a point where it no longer feels worth it or even fulfilling. This isn't me being dramatic; take a look at the last time I had something published and it should be obvious I've been wrestling with this decision for a while.

As I've been told on several occasions, I attained my dream many times over. I'm not sure what that means but it's what I was told. Writers dream of writing and having people read what they write and of dying at their keyboards or notepads, still writing. At least, that's the stereotypical image of the writer. It probably applied to me at one time, too, but here's what my real dream was:

I was hoping to find those fans of the various genres I enjoy and give them what they were really hoping to see. Anyone who bothered to read my dark literary magazine The Darkness Internal and, more specifically, this editorial should know what that was. And while the magazine did all right for the few issues it ran, I doubt I reached anyone with what I was trying to do on any significant level. That's fine. Literary history is replete with glorious failures and near-misses. Sometimes all one can hope for is to leave a footprint on the surface for those who come next and accomplish a whole lot more.

Unfortunately, the Information Age has turned out to be a big fat turd. Where once I was optimistic that interests and ideas long suppressed and ignored would finally have a platform, now I am convinced that the human race is naught but a herd of grazing livestock desperately searching for someone to herd them off the nearest cliff. Okay, maybe I always suspected as much, but I allowed myself to hope and that was my mistake and no one else's. Perhaps my greatest mistake lies in expecting fandom to be anything except the dying beehive it's been revealed as thanks to social networking and content "writers."

In short, fandom is a cesspool of epic proportions, a pathetic pile of feces populated with self-righteous, provincial imbeciles who have no interest in seeing or reading anything that disrupts their comfort zones. Not everybody is like that, of course, but so many are that it no longer makes a difference. The latest "Star Wars" movie was a revelation because, by daring to invert expectations and drain sacred cows of their life-giving fluid, it exposed so many idiots at once it made the truth undeniable. What is that truth?

Simple: I am wasting my fucking time.

I thought fans of science fiction and fantasy and horror would want to be challenged intellectually, to embrace the various sources of their favorite mythologies rather than simply wallowing in the familiar retold ad infinitum. This is a time when genre is bigger and more popular than ever and, in many ways, it's worse than ever as well. In the mad rush to create the next pop culture water cooler phenomenon, absolute garbage and mediocre silliness is being passed off as quality. Meanwhile, those of us toiling to come up with something unique and genuinely different are deemed un-marketable.

I get it. Nobody wants to read my stuff anymore. I had my brief moment a few years ago but TV and movies, those monolithic crap-creators, have spoken and I am no longer welcome even in the margins. And if that's the case, I'm no longer interested in trying to find a way in. I thought I'd already done that.

So, am I "retiring" completely from writing? It remains to be seen. There are a few unfinished works I should complete before I walk completely away. However, for all intents and purposes, I no longer consider myself a writer. It's been a ride but all rides end, especially when they stop being fun.

Thanks to those of you who read what I put out over the years and to those who published it.

Issac Marion's Fake Trump Tweet & The Death of Political Satire

Years ago during the opening credits of one of the Halloween specials "The Simpsons" does every year, one of the many gravestones with funny messages on them featured political satire as the dearly departed. As usual, the alien time travelers who write for that show foresaw the future in hilarious and frightening ways.

At the time, political satire was still viable, despite needing occasional trips to the doctor. However, the dominance of social media, something that should have been a force for increased knowledge and understanding of parody and satire, has actually aided in the swiftly encroaching loss of this most vital component of a supposedly free society. Instead, we're now moving towards an era where all attempts at irony become fodder for an increasingly easily offended population. And political affiliation is becoming meaningless, as the so-called "snowflake" mentality is just as prevalent among those on the Right as it is on the Left.

Recently, horror author Issac Marion who wrote the surprisingly engaging zombie romance satire "Warm Bodies" dared to post a humorous dialogue between himself and *urp* President Trump. I have also used the fake Trump Tweet app a few times. To my delight, nobody could tell if they were real or not in most cases. I never created a series of them like Marion because I knew some imbecile would screenshot it and, at some point, somebody would think they were real. It never occurred to me that a new breed of imbecile would find offense in the satire itself, but that's exactly what happened to him.

In a stunning display of contextual ignorance, angry people who thought the exchange was real and jumped to Marion's defense went on the offensive, reading him the riot act for daring to indulge a fiction writing exercise designed to make a point about a subject he finds repugnant. I'd mention the irony of the invective coming from members of the Left Wing, but since irony is a rapidly diminishing resource, I don't want to waste any of it by mentioning something so obvious.

Marion  breaks down his perceived "offenses" in list form, each point more ludicrous and asinine than the last. The most telling is Point #2, wherein he addresses an accusation of spreading the now ubiquitous and soon-to-be-meaningless concept of fake news. In his analysis, Marion writes:

I am a fiction writer. I wrote a fictional dialogue and posted it on my personal Twitter account, without any surrounding context to suggest that this was a real occurrence rather than just another bit of nonsense theater squirting out of my brain. If anyone thought it really mattered, a quick click to my profile—or Trump’s—would have revealed the truth. But no one bothered to do that because IT DIDN'T MATTER.

That's right, it didn't. People are so primed for and even seduced by the very notion of outrage now that fact-checking is regarded as quaint and wasteful. Not to toot my own horn, but my first instinct was to question the veracity of the reposting. It seemed too good to be true. Trump had finally crossed the line from journalism antagonist to displaying a woeful ignorance of the fiction writing process. And he'd chosen a lesser known writer to attack! Within moments, I'd discovered the truth and guess what? I was okay with it!

Granted, I'm a fiction writer as well and, while my renown is significantly lower even than Marion's self-described low number of followers, I am at least acquainted with the creative process. I don't expect everyone else to be, elitist as that may sound to those who aren't, but satire and parody are protected by the First Amendment! That means it's something all thinking Americans and indeed humans should know about.  There is no excuse for being so wrapped up in one's personal cause that harmless and entertaining humor becomes viewed as worthy of ridicule and scorn.

We are now entering a very dangerous era and it all started when the drawings of schoolchildren containing vaguely violent imagery became calls to the police and mandatory psychiatric sessions. Think of all the people of previous generations--people like me--whose writing and drawing could have ruined their lives in such a free thought hostile environment. Now the same preposterous censorship of the darker aspects of our minds are being scrutinized in authors by over-sensitive adults with too much time on their hands. These same people actually feel the need to write "sarcasm" after their barely sarcastic comments and insist that others do the same to avoid potential offense.

Isaac Marion created a satirical piece, mostly for his own amusement. Leave him the hell alone and get over yourselves.

Quote of the Week.

"The specter of the fuming President-elect railing against fake news, this from a man who had promoted for years the lie that President Barack Obama was not American and whose speeches on the campaign trail were often Briar patches of mendacity - was an irony verging on Shakespearean tragedy. But if Mr. Trump and his inner circle think that this type of authoritarian behavior will cow the press, I think they will find it will only embolden us."

-Dan Rather