Like many Americans and Canadians one of my best good friends Heather and I have been trying to solve our cashflow problems and so far our best idea has been the lottery. I've inspected the local lottery and even bought a few tickets. They have more numbers down here! It's HARDER! So that has not proven fruitful.
Our most recent idea has been something called NaNoWriMo. It's an incentive website where people form writing groups and upload their progress on their novels during the month of November. We're already both behind and with my 11th and most intensive M. Ed. course beginning tomorrow, I have my doubts that my book, "The Last Dreamer" is the working title, will ever be completed. Since nobody really reads any more and when they do, it's so often on a device that can play a movie anyway, I see the ultimate goal of novel writing to be having your book bought by Hollywood and made into a movie. In fact I'd settle for Bollywood turning my book into a music and dancing movie, I'm not picky.
Even though my novel is set sometime in the future when humans have lost the ability to dream and even though it's about a young boy who has miraculously retained this gift and even though it's set in Canada where the Canadian government has set up companies to make fortunes from broadcasting this boy's dreams onto computer screens, interpreting them, and selling the best prognostications to countries that could be impacted by them, I'm finding it difficult to keep current events out of my story. For instance even though "proggers" are about 75% accurate, a recent "prog" proved to be wrong and Hurricane Juan swept across Florida demolishing Mar-a-Lago, the former residence of the originator of K.A. (The Kingdom of America). What has yet to be written is that progging is really 100% but errors... DISASTROUS errors are allowed in order to increase the market value of dream prognostication. But THAT concept is hardly futuristic...
See what I mean? I always seem to circle back to the impending doom that will only make Heather and my cashflow problems worse. So today I got to thinking...
You're probably thinking I should be writing a fantasy like Lord of the Rings or a children's adventure tale like Harry Potter. A superhero book might sell well while they're hot although the bottom of THAT barrel has been scraped pretty clean. Squirrel Girl, Arm-Fall-Off Boy, Maggott, Bird Brain, Glitter Girl, Door Man, Dog Welder, and maybe my fave, Matter-Eater Lad. Check them out. These are not made up! The Simpsons superhero Lard Lad could be the next successful Simpsons spinoff! I haven't read any Matter-Eater Lad but I imagine if there's something the matter, he'll just eat it. He'll be a massively obese Everyman sort of hero. lol And how super could Arm-Fall-Off Boy be? I gotta check those out!
Sure enough, Arm-Fall-Off Boy's arm detaches with a "plorp" and he can beat opponents with it. To be fair, he WAS rejected by the Legionnaires...
No, my idea is even more super than Arm-Fall-Off Boy who, tell me if you agree, looks like he's old enough to be Arm-Fall-Off Man doesn't he? At any rate, I won't take off my arm and beat you about the head with this side-idea any longer. My REAL idea came to me this morning when I heard that Marco Rubio was chosen to be Trump's Secretary of State. Trump calls Rubio "Little Marco" and makes fun of his big ears. Rubio calls Trump vulgar and offensive and makes fun of his little hands. A match made in Heaven to be sure!
Kristi Noem, who Trump might nickname "Killer Noem" had a dog named Cricket that she called "untrainable" in her book. So she shot her dog. Now she'll be in charge of homeland security. Anybody caught crossing the border more than once might be considered by her to be "untrainable." Who knows?
Robert F. Kennedy called Trump a "terrible human being," "unhinged," "barely coherent," and "probably a sociopath." Trump called him a "radical left lunatic." Kennedy said that under no circumstances would he join a Trump presidential ticket. Buuuuuut Trump promised to let Kennedy "go wild" on healthcare.
You may know Kennedy as that roadkill guy or the one with a worm in his brain. Now he's likely to become - you guessed it - a member of the Trump presidential ticket. My favourite quirk about Kennedy is not those two stories or his ideas of making vaccines a little less "sciency," it's his anti-fluoridization stance. I can't help thinking that maybe Kennedy has seen the following speech one or two times too many. Hell he even has a striking resemblance to Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper! Do you suppose he blames the Russians for contaminating our "precious bodily fluids?"
I'm telling you, if this wasn't all so tragic, it'd be fucking hilarious! Soon Trump will appoint as secretary of education someone like Alfred E. Newman, Beavis or Butthead, Curly or Larry or Moe, Don Quixote, Jar Jar Binx, or... ummmm... Betsy Devos. Soon he'll appoint Jimmy Kimmel as his secretary of pro-Trump propaganda. Soon he'll appoint Secretariat as his secretary.
Well I'm not going to sit back and let this opportunity pass me by. Neither is Heather. We have abandoned our fledgling novels in their infancies to embark upon more modern and lucrative enterprises. Nobody reads anyway. We are going to start uploading vids absolutely slagging Trump. It's something we're already good at. It's always fun. And we're both constantly in front of our computers anyway.
This is a cinch! First we will need to get Trump's attention. We'll need a good jab like Kimmel's "Isn't it past your jail time?" We'll know we've been successful when he gives us nicknames. Nothing too clever, but something just a bit beyond "Poopy ca-ca head." I imagine he'll call me Dummy Dave or Dopey Dave and Heather will get Hosebag Heather or Heather the poopy ca-ca head. Yeah, I change my mind. He's NOT beyond Poopy ca-ca head.
So then we can update our YouTube handles in ironic reverence to his nickname prowess. We'll get more followers. Some who like us and some Magaflakes who hate us. Then the money will start coming in. YouTube will recognize our popularity with small cash rewards. 2-12 bucks for every 1000 views can really add up!
Once we're established we could even make vids as a team. Join forces and increase our viewership. We might even be so hated by the new administration "Season 2 of the Celebrity Appotus" that we will receive financial backing from liberals and left-wing activists.
The ultimate goal, and I see this as being a lot more achievable than a successful novel, would be for Trump to hate us SOOOO much, he'll give us cabinet positions. All we'll need to do then is completely flip-flop, start cranking out theater like all the flunkies currently associated with him (except maybe his wife. Models seldom make good actresses.) and we're on Easy Street.
I'd better get busy. Forget this blogging shit, there's vlogging to be done!
I remember having faith in the people of America. Maybe because I have met some Americans who are above average. Turns out I didn't know how far above average they were. I say this with the tiniest morsel of respect that is due, you fucking, fucking morons! You got the leader you think you wanted. I'm talking about the vast majority of the people who voted for this convict out on bail. "I voted for the convict." "I'm voting for the convicted felon." The hats and T-shirts are selling like hotcakes to those who are not taking this election seriously. They like this orange meatball because he pisses off people they don't like. Well THAT'S worth a vote isn't it? Fucking cretinous numbskulls. Soon they won't have the spare cash to buy that kind of merch. But they'll blame that on Biden I'm sure the same way they blame the Trump Covid crash on Biden. This was the largest single day drop in the history of the DOW. March 16, 2020. This made the rich richer and Trump will do it again. This time he won't have a pandemic to blame it on, but he's got more power now so he doesn't fucking care! Trump vs. the United States saw to that. A supreme court that he had previously loaded voted on making it okay for the POTUS to fracture a few laws here and there.
The only people who voted for Trump intelligently are the super rich. They should have been the ONLY ones voting for Trump. Why? Because he's gonna crash the economy. You know this "plan" he has been hinting at? The one with tariffs? He'll put huge tariffs on anything foreign (except his Trump Bibles and other merchandise made in China of course). There is no doubt about the effect this "concept of a plan" will have. Take it from some Nobel prize winning economists:
Next year when you are dumpster diving and collecting food stamps, at least you'll be able to have a good laugh at the vote you cast for this con man convict. You might even still have the T-shirt. Most likely by then you'll be so mad at Trump you will want to have him thrown in jail... which is where he WOULD be if he hadn't been elected you witless buffoons!
I was watching the election coverage yesterday and it was repeatedly reported that the number one and two issues on voters' minds were the economy and democracy. I ASSUMED the electorate were going to be smart enough to vote for the candidate who would have been far and away better for the economy... but I was wrong. I saw a couple with a few kids and one on the way interviewed after voting. The husband was a business owner and he said he voted for Trump because his business was struggling during the Biden presidency. Probably blaming Biden unfairly and he probably jumped on the Covid supply chain excuse bandwagon and raised his prices knee-jerkily right into a downturn in profit. Probly blamed THAT on Biden too. And his wife was nodding and agreeing and his 4 kids will likely be told how Biden hurt them. You think you have hard time NOW.... you stunned schmucks!
And how about democracy? The guardrails of government that protect democracy have been removed. Trump doesn't like neutral rules of governance. They obstruct his ability to rule like his non-democratic heroes Shi Jin Ping, Vlad Putin, Kim Jung Un, Hitler, and the late great Hannibal Lecter. Here's a vid that explains it well. Particularly the last parts labelled "tariffs" and "government."
This guy who should be in prison is going to run the US like a dic(k)tator and he's got the power now to do it. "Only he who does not desire power is fit to wield it." This guy has broners for the dicktators who have most irresponsibly abused power AND he needs the power of the presidency to keep himself out of prison. Does anyone desire power MORE? He'll probably pardon himself. And maybe other co-conspirators. Then imprison his detractors like a good dicktator. Maybe he'll remove term limits like his buddies Putin, Shi, and even Orban. He'll probably invent new ways to abuse his power. The effects will not happen in a vacuum. The US, like it or not, has the most influence of any country on the rest of the world. I can foresee little to no positive influence forthcoming, but maybe I'm just thinking negatively.
Anyone see an upside to this?
Addendum: I usually remember my dreams. They never have any real significance. Like the other night I dreamt Kelly handed me some butter that was soft and I told him to put it on the middle shelf in the fridge which was completely empty. You KNOW that was a dream! lol But I am living with an American family that is fortunate and smart and hardworking enough to have a constantly full fridge. So maybe that dream DID have some significance.
I got up at my usual 4:30 early thinking/writing time today, the second day after Doomsday, after having a dream that was not really a nightmare, just a feeling of frustration and helplessness that shocked me awake. I was in a theater or an auditorium somewhere and I was the only one making any noise. I was talking or breathing or something and noticed that the hundreds or even thousands of people surrounding me were dead silent. I mean I got the feeling they COULDN'T make noise. It was so strange! Not just the alienation of being alone in a huge crowd but the correlation to real life I almost never get from my dreams. THIS is the feeling I am having right now. It's like I'm the only one taking this election of Trump seriously. I know I'm not and I'm with other people who recognize the gravity of this election, which is comforting, but that seems all we can do: huddle together and comfort ourselves while the thousands of voiceless zombies around us go down with the sinking world we're on. Is this too dark and pessimistic? I don't think so, but maybe I'm wrong.
I saw Jimmy Kimmel trying to make sense of this and like my other news anchors, Seth Rogan, Stephen Colbert, and the crew of the Daily Show, he just couldn't. Then he went out to the streets and interviewed the public asking, "Today, November 6th, are you going to vote?" and "Do you think Biden or Trump will win?" We don't get to see how long it took for his crew to find these clueless folks but it would probably be depressingly fast. They had people saying they were going to vote and they walked past the line-ups at the polls and they think Biden will win and they wish Kamala Harris well and how important it is to get out and vote because there are a lot of rights on the line...
If you know me well enough you know I do not believe the lesson we should be learning from this is that we should vote. It IS the lesson many will try to derive from this state of affairs, but it's the wrong one. There was one tattooed kid with big O's in his earlobes that said, "I don't believe in voting because it's the higher-ups on Wall Street that run the show." They made a joke by saying, "And they don't listen to us, right? They need bigger ears." ha ha ha. The thing is, that kid is right. When you have a feckless, soulless husk of a man who could be the author of the end of the world running for the most powerful position of leadership in that world and all you have to combat him is an almost completely disempowered vote, you realize there needs to be a better way of doing things. But that's the noise I have been making since I started this blog and it has made me feel like I felt in my dream. A lone voice in a sea of apathetic silence. Here's the Kimmel:
And here's a quote from Noam Chomsky, "An uninformed electorate votes against its best interests." Is that what happened? I'm not even sure of THAT. Here's another statement that was made by someone we all know - can you guess who said it? If there were fair elections the Republicans would never win. I can't put quotes around it because the person probably didn't use those exact words. I'm quoting another person quoting him. It was Donald Trump. This didn't stop him from crying foul when he lost, but I don't hear him crying foul now.
Elections in general and particularly the ones in the US are too important for the rich to leave to the electorate. There is no way that Trump in the Whitehouse is what the majority of America sees as a good thing. I just can't believe immigrants are voting for a guy with KKK in his blood and his henchman from the country of apartheid who will cut 2 trillion in unnecessary programs from the federal budget. They may be uninformed, but not THAT uninformed. I can't see women voting for a guy who has pledged to take their rights away and is an infamously misogynistic scumbag . They may be uninformed, but not THAT uninformed. But that's what their owners are giving them and telling them to like. "Nothing like this happens in functioning, developed countries." Maybe it's time for America to face the hard fact that it is NOT a functioning, developed country. It goes so far beyond the vote! Fix your broken democracy that is all about greed and money and power that comes with wealth and THEN the vote will mean something. I am not the only one who feels this way. Here's another voice in the silence:
This is what Noam said back in Trump's FIRST stint as president. I can only imagine how he feels right now.
But back to that family... I love them very much and felt gutted when I woke up to the news that Trump had been placed in the position of power he so richly does not deserve. Of all the families I know, this family will be most impacted by this tin pot dictatorship. Jobs will be erased by Elon Musk's "fat" trimming, careers will be destroyed before they start, health will suffer due to pre-existing conditions, and the economy crash on TOP of all that... this is hurting my friends. Directly. I think there are few people who DON'T have loved ones that will be hurt by this. Votes have proven impotent. NOW what are we gonna do about it? Does ANYbody really believe the country of America that is SO proud of their "freedom" and "democracy" said, "What the heck, let's try this strongman thing."??? Come ON!!!
Rachel Maddow has some advice for practically the whole world, not just the Americans who are going to get fucked by this crap. Time to be frickin' pirates. And THIS is what I've been saying for years. Maybe it's starting to sink in...
