Sunday 9/1/24
A friend's daughter's friend's mother--and the mother's boyfriend--were found murdered the other day. They were shot forty-two times at close range. My friend sent me a link to an article. The mother was thirty-three, the boyfriend thirty-four. There were four kids in the house, who are alive. They all have different fathers, the murdered man having been a father to one of them.
My friend told me he believes another of the fathers did it. He had just gotten out of jail. He also told me that his daughter has asked several times if she could go to a sleepover there and he always said no but had been on the verge of saying that she could. I asked him why he hadn't allowed her to, and he said that something just seemed off. He didn't like the feeling he got.
I feel awful for these kids. How can you ever have a life after this? I mean, forty years down the road, how can be okay? Then there's now. My friend thinks the kids won't be split up, but I'm not so sure. Imagine just losing everything? Your mom, your dad if you had one, and your siblings? Maybe your school friends if you are relocated?
The other day, my buddy Amelia was over my mother's house for a few hours. What I know going into one of these visits is that later after Amelia leaves my mother will text that she's exhausted. Amelia can definitely tucker someone out. Anyway, I told my mom to say hi to my buddy for me, as I always do. Afterwards she texts me that Amelia said she doesn't have a buddy and that Colin was her sister Lilah's buddy. So we're back on this again. My mom then asked her if so and so was her buddy, and to each successive name, Amelia said, no, she has no buddy.
I have to say that this made me sad. This kid is the first thing I ask about. I came up with this cool idea the other day. I'll send all of the kids Halloween cards, but I'm going to send one to Amelia from me and...the little ghost girl! That's right. I'll even put CF and LGG on the return address.
Jaromir Jagr is continuing his career in professional hockey. He had this to say: "Age is nothing. I don't get old. I don't know why. You've gotta ask God, man."
That's a Zulu attitude.
I ate very little Friday, but felt good and strong on the stairs yesterday. I began work for Saturday at 11 PM on Friday night. Among other things, I've worked on a sentence for three days. I wrote an op-ed I wasn't able to move. I'll keep it for another time. It's one like that. I came up with something for "Dead Thomas" at Haymarket yesterday morning, post-stairs.
Saw a bio on Facebook in which the woman wrote, "I am a author." Of course you are. I look into this woman. She's in her fifties. Unpublished. Crazy. Stupid. Has an agent. I look into the agent. Now, if I wrote this agent, which I wouldn't do at this point--because this is how agents are and there is no agent qualified to represent me--and asked her about representation, the agent would either ignore me or make something up to say no because that would get this agent off, being able to have the power in this instance with someone she knows is on a completely different level along with her knowledge that she has no real business being my agent, despite all of the business that I could do. But it would be presented a different way, as though it was I who was lacking, and anyone would know it was a lie, which would be very easy to show on here. Imagine those prose offs between myself and the agent's clients? How about career offs? How about expertise offs? Range offs?
This agent was also simple and an idiot. She posted a lot about cats. So did the woman who wrote "I am a author," which, believe me, was par for her grammatical course, if you know what I mean. Huh. I bet this agent thought, "What remarkable commercial appeal this unpublished fifty-three-year-old cat woman has, we will make money!" or "She might not exactly scream big earnings, but this is a brilliant, visionary artist, and I want to do what I can to get her work to those who will treasure it!"
Do you think either of those things happened? I don't think they happened. Just like so much as a nickel will never be made. But it's not about things like that. Commerce, entertainment, art. It's about "We both suck and like cats! OMG!!!!!"
I have the screenshots of all of this. I have so many screenshots of so many of these things. I could have a whole separate blog documenting how this industry really works in screenshots. I pick my spots here with the screenshots. But that's how literary representation works. I'm reading through this agent's posts in these various places, and the idiocy is mind blowing. Then I'm showing them to some people, and they ask me if they're real, though they've seen so much of this kind of thing that they know that of course it is. Someone yesterday asked rhetorically, "How is it even possible that this exists? That this is how anything works?" An hour went by, when they texted me again to answer their own question: "Because it's all a fraud and lies."
That agent wants someone like her. And if you're like her, what are you? Exactly. If you're great, how is she going to respond? If you're greater than anything she's ever imagined, what then? A happy pairing? That's absurd. This person, like all of these people, is only going to associate and pair with people like herself. Do you think this writer and this agent are about sales? About art? Or do you think they're two double-chinned people doing cat talk and sharing cat memes?
These are not serious people. They're not serious about writing. They're not serious about reading and readers. They're the least serious people about writing in a world where no one even reads.
And they make sure that no one has a reason to read. And having made sure that no one has a reason to read, it's all just about their bullshit in their sandbox for them. As I said before, the publishing system exists so that the people of publishing can be the people of publishing. Learn those words verbatim, because they are the exact truth.
Facebook showed me a photo of someone with the words--obviously written by that person--"Crazy Cat Ladies for Harris" below that person's image and asked me whether I wanted to see more or less posts like this.
Gee, Facebook, what do you think? Your team of AI agents couldn't have worked that out on their own? Said person looked exactly like I would have expected such a person to look.
There is no intelligence out there. It doesn't exist. I see teachers--who you'd like to think wouldn't be this way--on a dating site not having any idea how then and than work, never mind every day and everyday. I wonder what percentage of American teachers know that it's not always "everyday," and it's actually usually "every day." Would you like to know that percentage if you could? I'm assuming you know how this works, or if you didn't before you know by now from these pages. Would you want to know that it was six percent? Because I bet you it's lower than ten and I'd go so far as to say six percent is too high.
But this doesn't mean anything, right? We needn't get anything correct. What a pedant, what a fiend, what a monster, what a tyrant we have with someone who thinks people should know grammar at the most basic of levels. You know how many people I see every day--there that is again--who don't know when it's is and when it's are?
Woman on a dating site matched with me. I have no interest in anyone because there is no one to be interested in. You will never encounter an intelligent or mildly amusing or insightful thought. So you force yourself to go through these motions or you do nothing. And if you speak to someone, you might last like thirty seconds before the stupidity is too much. There is nothing to recommend anyone. Looks? Okay, there's that. What am I going to do with just someone's appearance? This woman writes in her "about me" section--which most of them leave blank, or else put "life is to short to be anything but happy" or "sieze the day" or "live laugh love"--that she's a massive Francophile, loves boating, loves rivers, loves films. I say something about L'Atalante. She responds, "I don't like horror movies LOL!!!!!"
See? That's not only what you're dealing with, that's the best that you're dealing with, because she was able to say those other things, empty, meaningless words that they were. She at least typed something for ten seconds. That right there is the best of what is out there.
Today I wake up to a woman saying, "Hi Colin!!!!" It took her more than a day to come up with that. That's all she can think to say. Simple, simple, simple creature. Graduate school degree. None of that means anything. Look at these people in publishing. All of the people in these pages, and have you ever once thought, "Wow, that publishing person is so intelligent," or have you thought, every single time, "It's amazing how stupid that person is," and where do you think they went to school? It's all Harvard, Yale, Princeton.
And people want to go, "It's wrong to say that about women!" I'm saying it about her. But everyone else sucks. Everyone else is also simpler than an ant. A lot simpler than an ant, actually. But these happen to be humans and this is all humans are now. Each of them is less interesting than an ant. I watch ants do things that are beyond what humans do. I'll see them on the Connecticut gate stairs and they're up to important things that take skills and dedication. Strength. Focus. I'll observe this same ant doing a task the whole time I'm there. And it looks fairly complicated. One time they're carrying this, another time they're carrying that, the next time they're carrying another ant. I'm kind of intrigued by that ant's morning.
I'm never intrigued by any of these people. Men say a little more, but they also suck. Saying a little more as a general trend doesn't mean better quality, because what they're saying is so mindless and often pathetic and blatantly self-serving and obsequious because they're just trying to get someone to let them touch them.
My profile provides a great deal of fodder for someone. There's a lot you could comment about. You've never seen anyone like this, and it takes someone, what would you say, ten seconds to know that?
But no matter who that person is, there is nothing they can say, because people can't say anything.
I'll tell you how this would have worked with this woman, that is, how it works with her with other men. Someone else would have said "Hi!!!!" back, and there would have been the end of it, in all probability. Stalemate. She wouldn't have a response. What could she do? Think of something? She's not going to think of something. He had said what he could say. Done!
But let's say the guy wanted to try and make this happen. Next he would have said, "How long have you lived in blah blah." She'd say, "4 years lol." Right? Then what? Guy would ask another stock question, get the idiotic answer, and that's that. But the guy might keep going, because he wants to fuck. She looks good. She's not fat. Or, he's a wreck himself and she's down at his physical level so he might be able to get laid.
That will be his only motivation because what on earth else is here? Intelligence? Substance? No, no. He'll also have no intelligence or substance himself.
Everyone, just about, is this way, and so what do you think is going to happen? People are going to rise up from their environment and how everybody is and be this impressive person despite their surroundings and everyone around them and how the world now works and how the world now is?
The hell they are. Who pairs up? Two miserable, talentless pretend writers who got their MFAs and live in Brooklyn and have never had an authentic second in their lives (Paul Yoon, Laura van den Berg, for example). Two doctors. People in the same thing who are the same way. Or, if not in the same thing, definitely the same way.
The ties that bind aren't a matter of anything real or of depth. It's topical demographic stuff. People who make the same amount of money. Academics with academics. That's why they're together. Because they're both the same thing. And usually they're both basic, and, what's more, the same kind of basic.
So this person has seen what is written on my profile. (And there are other things, too, that you fill in or check off--music you've listened to recently, a list of activities one partakes of; so we're moving from Bach to Billie Holiday to Radiohead to college football to the ballet to museums in swift succession; bit different, right? Or not. Most people don't bother to read them because no one reads anything.
I'm at Starbucks yesterday and there's a sign that says, "Form line here" complete with an arrow telling you to go to the left of this divider. So everyone goes to the right. Do you think any one of these people are going to read that sign? Do you think they could even understand it if they saw it? They can't.
People aren't going to read anything. If someone is in the bathroom at this Starbucks, a sign comes up on the door that says, "Occupied." You can sit there at your table and watch twenty-five people in a row go up to the door when it says that and try the knob. They'll look perplexed that the door is not opening for them. I'm serious. Do you think an ant is this stupid? They're not. Then the person will try the knob again. And again. The door must be broken is what they think. Something is wrong here. Is someone playing a trick on me? Am I being done an injustice? Should I report this? Should I complain?
You might think they're all from foreign lands, but you'd be wrong. They just can't read that sign. Even when people see words right in front of their faces, when there is nothing else to see, they won't read them. And a lot of people don't know what the word "occupied" means. I'm serious about that, too. That's a borderline "vocab" word now.
So there are those who would never read a dating profile. They are alone, miserable, oft-drunk, own many cats. And there are those who could never, ever, ever, ever be roused to say a single thing, and don't have the brains to make a solitary remark with their own words. Quite a few of these people take to social media to complain about men. When the problem is them. Usually, the problem is that person. And now I'm talking about mostly everyone. Men, women, everyone. They have been the makers of their situation. Nothing in this world is against them. They have put themselves where they are. They're not battling an industry trying to suppress them, they don't bring out so much envy and resentment in others, and fear, because of all that they are and each of the things they are. Because they are nothing. And they are exactly like everyone else. They're not special, they don't try to be. They don't grow, they don't know, they don't give a damn about anything, let alone striving and standards. They can't get out of their own way, and they are their own biggest problem. But they have no clue about this, because they have no clue about anything, they're not smart enough to have a clue about anything in large part because they have made themselves that way, not because they had to be that way--see the difference?--and they could never face these truths. That person is also why the world sucks. Because that kind of person is practically all that is out there in this world. So they're a much bigger problem than their tiny, simple minds could ever conceive of. At this point.
And then here I am. Here's this guy right in front of you. With that mind, looks as he does, has that character. If you are looking for any intelligence, you will not so much as go on a single date in years. Because there isn't an intelligent person for you to go out with. I don't mean a brilliant person. I don't even really mean an intelligent person. What I mean is someone who knows how then and than works and who might, every now and again, say a single thing of mild--very, very, very mild--amusement in their own words, or even just someone who doesn't say "literally" every other sentence.
Think of how low that bar is. And that person is not out there. There are no individuals. There is no one who thinks. No one with their own stuff, passions. It's all the same shit. The same language, the same cliches, the same poses. Everyone takes their cue from everyone else. And when it's all shit, you have shit trying to be more and more like shit. When it's like, relax, you have that mastered, trust me. But what is it doing for you? Because everyone is so unhappy and almost always dead inside.
So hop on that social media, right? Sounds like that can fix everything and be a great substitute for all of the stuff no one has or is. Yea!
Later in the day yesterday my buddy phoned me on FaceTime. Or, rather, she had said she wanted Grammie--that is, my mom--to phone me. They were in a cart on a golf course. My sister and nephew were playing, and Grammie and Amelia had come along. Mostly, though, Amelia wanted Grammie to phone me so that she, Amelia, could hang up on me. Which she did.
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