True Enough

I’m so glad to see William K. Wolfrum bringing this up, because I admit to being too stunned by it to say anything (and I have to half done posts in Drafts to prove it).

I’ve been reading those “Ha, ha, Warren’s a fat-ass” posts and just being gobsmacked.  I mean, is it really so hard to understand that if you don’t want to be singled out for shitty treatment because of some characteristic you have that singling out someone–even someone you see as your enemy–because of some personal characteristic of him is not only wrong but morally vacant?

Plus, I’m not on Warren’s side, but it does piss me off to read people who are ostensibly on my side using “fatty” or “glutton” as a way to denegrate him, like there’s something so disgusting about the characteristic I share with him that of course he should be ashamed of it, shamed by it, so, I guess, should I.  And that makes me less excited about hearing their message.

The Pile on My Floor

Oh, People of Earth, if there’s one thing I can give you for Christmas, I hope it’s a picture of my parents sleeping in a big pile of mattresses, blankets, dog, and cats in the middle of my dining room floor.

I will try tonight.  Wish me luck.

We spent today delivering presents and shopping.  Now we’re watching football and then trying to de-cardboard box my front window by swapping out the blinds.  They had Christmas tree-shaped rosemary on sale at Lowe’s for fifty cents.  I wanted to buy them all but I just got one and repotted it.  I’m just hoping I can keep it alive until we put together the herb garden in the spring.

Last night I dragged my parents from Christmas party to Christmas party.  I think they had an okay time.

They’re dragging us to Christmas Eve services because we owe God.  We owe God, but we’re eating ham for Christmas.

Ha.

Bringing Locals Back Downtown

I had a brilliant idea for how to bring locals back downtown for eating and hanging out and shopping and spending money.

Free parking for cars with Davidson county plates.

I’m Still Reading the OA Until They Ban Me from Doing It

Someone, and I won’t mention who, for fear that Smirnoff is going to start challenging folks to duels next, told me to skip ahead to the Grant Alden piece and it’s thought-provoking.  The stuff he writes on music criticism and what the role of a music critic does is extraordinary.  And then, as you might guess, from the tone this whole conversation has taken, it turns to a discussion of how the internet is ruining everything and writers who write on the internet are basically the cause for him having to work at a coffee shop.

And, of course, I both feel for paid writers who feel that way and am a little angry about it.  Does it suck that it’s harder for writers to get paid because so many people are giving it away for free on the internet?  Yeah, I think it sucks for writers who need to eat.

But I wish that we could talk about that without putting down people who write on the internet.  I mean, when I write about music, I’m not sitting there being all “Bwah ha ha!  I hope this means that Grant Alden’s children have to eat generic Pop Tarts!” and twirling my gigantic moustache.  I’m writing about music for the same reasons kids play stickball in the streets, because I love it and I love seeing people do it, and I want to share in that.

It’s hard to see what you’re doing because you’re inspired by the writing of someone like, say, Grant Alden or Marc Smirnoff, derided by those same people as somehow ruining what they’re doing.  Spoiling it for them.

I mean, who wants to be told that you’re fucking it up for the people who inspired you in the first place?

But, on the other hand, the world is changing.  Even if we all stopped writing and just left it to the people who have decided that it’s their turn to be the taste definers, the way that information is transimitted has changed and all the complaining about the internet in the world isn’t going to change that.