Suck my clog

Monday 9/14/26

You can often tell everything you'll ever need to know about people by how they close doors behind them. A person who slams doors (and gates) will be someone who doesn't think, doesn't read, cares not a whit for art, never introspects, doesn't think of others, isn't perceptive, isn't attuned to environments, is unfeeling, coarse, insensitive, can't hear and understand music well, is incapable of empathy, doesn't do nuance, fails to discern, cares mostly only about themselves, has no manners or sense of decorum, isn't articulate, lacks in humility, is defensive and prone to doubling down, makes for a bad/unfit parent, a bad friend, a bad spouse, is uneducated in the true sense of the word, is ignorant and for all intents and purposes oblivious. It may not shake out that way 100 out of 100 times, but it's pretty damn close.

People are too dumb to come anywhere close to realizing how dumb they are. They're so dumb that they don't know they're dumb at all. Similarly, the world is such a nightmare that all of the dumb people of it are too dumb to have any real grasp of what a nightmare the world is, thanks in large part to them and their considerable role in making it so that it could devolve nto this thing. Making it possible for AI to take over, for the rich to enslave, and all this wonderful stuff.

Streaming services are meant to bleed people. To keep them paying money for things they don't own. Everything is an attempt to bleed more. It's what can be gotten away with, bleeding-wise. Take Amazon, for example. Used to be that a person could be on someone else's plan, and receive free shipping on items. Amazon determined that they could take this plan away, there'd be no negative--which is to say, financial--repercussions for them, they'd probably make more money because people are dependent on them, or think they are, and that's what happened.

Likewise, Amazon Prime members were able to watch certain designated shows and movies without advertisements. Then, Amazon decided they could get more money, people wouldn't abandon their service, so now you get two minutes of commercials at the start of anything on Amazon Prime and commercials throughout. The product/service became worse. But it didn't affect the bottom line, because people are dependent/addicted. Then it's about selling them more heroin. Worse grade heroin cut with whatever. Worse grade heroin at a higher price. Lessen/cheapen the product, raise the cost. There's no eye to a quality product and profits. The quality of the product is irrelevant, save insofar as what the corporation can get away with re: that product quality in the bleeding of the consumer. That's what it is, though: you're on tenterhooks, slit open, being bled out onto the ground. Win-win is a lie. The corporation would happily see the extirpation of their consumers--literally--if profit margins could be made to increase.

In one of the least surprising developments ever, I saw last night that Trump has decided/ruled that there must be more AI, that AI is all, that the US must beat China in the creation/backing/proliferation of more AI, and "winning" this AI arms race is tantamount to "winning everything." Trump is someone who would hate every single artist there has ever been. On principle. If you can call it that. He'd think they were a "loser." Michelangelo, loser, Mozart, loser, Keats, loser. This is someone I can honestly imagine terming the act of reading a book as "gay" in his head.

You think about the things Trump has probably never done. He's probably never mowed a lawn. Pulled out some weeds. Babysat. Nipped out for a jog. Gone to get coffee and asked someone if they wanted anything. Been there in the middle of the night for a friend in need.

Is anything less funny than humans? A race now virtually incapable of producing a single expression of wit. Isn't it wonderful in online comments when someone does their stupid joke and then along come fifty other people to try and "riff" on it by doing their every-bit-as-stupid joke? Can they possibly think they're funny? You wouldn't think so, but, again, see the second paragraph above.

This is what matches/rises to the average American's idea of humor: I saw an AI-generated image of Trump and some of his people in the stands at some football game with Trump and his group in diapers, cheering along. People love AI because now they can make the likes of this and be what they think of as funny. There's nothing simpler than most humans in 2026. A diatom could outfox many of them, and it keeps getting worse. Our entire world, our civilization, is becoming a single extended space of what I'm describing here. With the ceiling and the floor as one and the same. This is the lone level of our culture. Our humor. Our intellectual lives, which feels like a ridiculous thing to type, but for lack of a better term. Our creativity. Again, a ridiculous thing to type. Our sophistication. Ditto.

You think someone who posts the likes of that has ever read a book? You think they could understand half a page of prose meant for a fourth grader? A fourth grader of yore, because the fourth grader of yore is like a kindergartener now. You think they're fit to teach a young child about right and wrong? You think they're taking their children to the library? You think they're keeping screens out of their hands? You think they can listen to a good piece of music? Watch a meaningful film away from a streaming service? How many words do you think they know? What basic words do you think they have never seen before, never mind used?

Another example: saw a photo of four tubby Americans--big shock, right?--who went to Halifax and took a group photo of themselves (at the airport, so you know it was the first thing they did upon arrival, which packs its own meaning) with all of them wearing Lake America shirts. No shame, no embarrassment for being such a moronic loser. You think any of these people have ever read a book? Think they could? Think any of them have ever had an original thought? But I bet they say at the end of the day, hill to die on, literally, clapped back, gave him his flowers, etc., an awful lot. Wouldn't you? But they're big meme and gif fans.

Four dumb cows, who captioned their photo, "Like our sweat shirts? Not sure Canada will. Lol lol." America, baby. Also: if this is the trash you are, if this is how stupid you are, it's impossible for you to love your children and not be a terrible parent. And there are few bigger problems in this country than that of parenting. Because that's where it starts. Parents have massive amounts of influence in who a child/person is going to be in terms of their ability to think and their moral make-up.

That's probably like $250 in sweatshirts (one word), too.

A woman whose Threads bio reads, "I scare weak men"--and nothing else--and whose feed is photo after photo of herself, often close up, interspersed with photos of her cat, and clips of across-the-aisle-from-her idiots whom she's no less of an idiot than, with accompanying emoji-peppered text like

This is why I don’t have children! 🤬😡I would love to slam these masterpieces down this cuck’s throat.

Right. That's why. Kudos on that sterling knowledge of self.

When I mention such a person, it's not about the person, and the person isn't one person. The person is typical of millions of people. Millions of people are typical of how people are. How people are is how the world is.

There's no more offensive and hurtful word to affected families than the r-word. The n-word is less offensive. It isn't close. Because you have a large swath of people who have no problem not only using the n-word, but calling each other the n-word, and attempting to privatize the word. They give it social standing and make it a matter of linguistic classism. No one should be using the word.

But considerable numbers of the people to whom it is meant to refer are fine with using it amongst themselves. You won't find anyone who suffers with special needs who refers to themselves by the r-word, or whose friends and family refer to them that way. Because it's that hurtful. It's atrociously hurtful. It is beyond offensive. It's sick and cruel. Can you imagine what it feels like as a parent to have a special needs child whom you love and try and do everything for and you have to see that word used like it's used? It's lacerating in every single instance. Unlike--so one is told--with the n-word, when used by people who have "claimed" it or whatever that malarkey maintains.

And yet I'll see so many people among the "enlightened" left, and so many people on the right with Bible scripture in their social media bios, dropping this word over and over again into their conversations, texts, statements, responses. Casually as they please. Amending "tard" to the end of other words. There is virtually no one in this world who is sincere in what they claim to be sincere about. Being a good person, righteous, a writer, etc. etc. etc. All lies. All lip service. All self-serving. All bullshit.

The vicious sexism of male football fans is something to give you pause that people can be so base and warped in this widespread manner, rather than as an aberration, as evidenced by the comments I've seen about Texas coach Steve Sarkisian blowing off sideline reporter Holly Rowe after the conclusion of that game the other night. A lot of these obese middle-aged men will have online names like Jamieboy or some such. It's not hard to imagine them talking like some of the people I encounter in the Monument who sound like they're the product of a rich tradition of inbreeding behind the outhouse by the old creek where Uncle Skeeter liked to say he'd gone fishing when he was really knocking back a jug of that 'shine. My bad--crick. And how these guys live vicariously through something like an image--just the photo--of someone they elevate as a god in this prick of a coach, like "That's the way a real man does it!" style, is sickening.

You think these people have ever read a book? An article? You think they read to their kid at night? What chance do you think their kid's teachers have when they get those kids with how they've been raised to date?

No chance. Then that kid grows up and goes into the world and makes it that much worse, breeds, "parents" the same way, and on it goes.

I also can't believe this guy is only a year older than I am. He lost a head coaching job because he was drunk on the job. His drinking also resulted in his divorce, then Nick Saban hooked him up at Alabama--as with publishing, this is all just a case of being hooked up, not being good. The divorce was in 2016; he was married again--to someone younger, who doesn't look like someone who'd give this guy the time of day if he wasn't a notable college football coach with the money that brings--by 2020, which also should tell you all you need to know. I'm sure it's totally real and amazing love. Definitely.

And the comments about Holly Rowe's appearance...do these guys not see themselves? Not like it's any better if Adonis were making these remarks, but it adds a thick coating of irony to match their belly fat. Do you know what the chances are of a Red State white male football fan not being an obese load? It's like three percent. Even the "fittest" of these guys within load range are shaped like toothpaste tubes but, say, with bacon grease inside rather than anything to brighten your smile.

I should have put the guy up on here, but last year I wrote this op-ed in the Chicago Tribune about how you shouldn't just be a couch zombie all weekend now that football had started up again and sit there for like sixteen hours doing nothing else, and this guy writes me saying, "Fuck you! I'll sit on my fucking couch as long as I wand and eat as much as I fucking want!" and it was like, okay, Tubs Simpleton of Ohio, you sure showed me. Put his name on it and everything. "I'm a sixty-year-old man with the writing skills of a lagging first grader! Might have me a heart attack, that'll fucking teach you. America!"

There are these people in the Monument who look like they haven't stood up in ten years. This isn't the activity for them. And yet, no matter how much they're laboring, how slowly they're going, how much wind they're sucking, they have an issue with you wanting to get by them. They have no shame in delaying you and giving you a front row seat to their near death experience brought about by their sloth and corpulence. It's stunning. Really. It blows me away. They might as well turn to you--if they weren't gasping for air--and say, "SUCK MY CLOG!!!!!"

I mentioned the other day that this little girl was flying up the steps last weekend, and I had zero problem, being a sane person, with stepping aside for her to pass. Me. Stair guy. Like, of all the people...The entitlement is seared so deeply into these dumb Americans that it's like they're more entitled than they are human. And don't you have any shame? You're not embarrassed? You aren't self-conscious that you're holding people up because of your inadequacies? You're unbothered forcing people to come to a complete halt and wait until you're ready to try and do another dozen stairs before having another rest? You expect others to base the time in their lives around you and your caprices?

Yes, I know that's a word none of these people know. Or, as they often write it, that none of them "no," because that's how illiterate we are. That's real. That's the extent. That people write "no" for "know" regularly. You can't overstate how pervasive and destructive our literacy crisis is. Without literacy, you are far less likely to have thinking. We think in words. We think in prose. If we think. If you have no words, if you can't use words, if you don't know what words mean, if you can't read, in short, it's going to be very hard for you to think, or to even realize that you don't and can't. Thinking through a problem is like being present and reading through a story, understanding implications, not needing everything spelled out, doing some of the lifting with one's mind and reason. Concluding, deducing, being present, realizing aspects, pondering, capably witnessing, experiencing, seeing how those aspects fit together, and understanding. To think is a form of reading, and to read--to read something good, anyway--is thinking.

As I've also said, these are the exact same people who honk at someone to turn right on red when the walk sign is also on and there's a group of ten school children in the middle of the crosswalk, like they ought to be run down by that first car.