- IN A BAD PLACE
- THE HANGED MAN
- RED DYE #40
- LONE WOLF
- ECXTINTION EVENT
- UNMARKED VAN
- GENETIC MUTATION
- REDRUM
- BELIAL
- THE RAPTURE
- RADIATION SICKNESS
- BLACK GHOST
- FENTANYL PATCH
- NUCLEAR WINTER
- INFERTILITY
- THIS BORROWED WORLD
- DATA CAPTURE
- CONTAGION
- FLAKKA ZOMBIE
- MY SHEEPLE
It was a cheap, addictive entertainment.
Like Netflix.
Like porn.
Like the buildup to the Super Bowl.
The big event, as far as most media was concerned, was the landfall in Florida. This, it seemed, was the point to which all of our lives were leading, the apocalypse that was sure to prove whatever it was we needed proved. Days, perhaps even weeks before this happened, there was wall to wall coverage promising cataclysm. I learned to fear the “Cone of Uncertainty” and “Life Threatening Winds,” I listened to talking heads as if they were debating some sport, and I watched relentless loops of footage of nature destroying any puny mortal concerns that stood in its path.
And as the hurricane carved out it’s terrible path, each demolished, little island a grim foreshadowing of what was about to happen to over-populated and under-prepared Florida, the hurricane was simultaneously a prophecy of doom and a trailer for a Hollywood disaster film. Almost giddy, each day the broadcasters revealed– in all its punitive majesty– another verse in this Book of Revelations.
The media, of course, profited from our obsessive fear, and turned the volume up as loud as they could. The more clicks the better, and if it was terror and anxiety that ushered in these clicks, so be it. At one point a rain-soaked reporter, bent and staggering against the elements, conducted an urgent interview with a man who had not evacuated. Clearly the reporter was hoping for some Florida Man archetype to emerge from the scrub, a guy who looked like Kid Rock and was armed with a crossbow and some alligator mace, and wasn’t going to let some “lady storm” tell him what to do.
Instead, the reporter got a genius cardiologist, who with astonishing knowledge, detail and reasoning, explained precisely why it was safe to be exactly where he was. He was calm, too, not a trace of panic to him, and he made the reporter look like the very bad actor he was.
That the media manipulates and distorts news events, or even creates disaster porn, is nothing new. When 9/11 took place I literally could not take my eyes off the tv.
It was the most riveting thing I had ever seen, and it was a rating’s sensation. Now, with all our various technologies even further entrenched, this sense of chaos and anxiety has become a permanent, immobilizing fixture of our lives. The media, desperate to make a buck, feed us all the worst case scenarios, whipping us into a frenzy of panicky, dependent consumption.
My level of excitement had reached such heights that when Hurricane Irma finally struck Florida, I was actually disappointed–like I would be if I saw a movie where the trailers were better than the actual product they were selling.
This is completely perverse and backwards, but there you have it.
It is instructive when you’re caught in the swift currents of one of these types of stories to look up beyond your computer screen and out the window.
Remind yourself that we are actually living in the safest time in history.
( https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-10-23/world-actually-safer-ever-and-heres-data-prove )
Go outside, for surely something beautiful will fall to you.
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The other day President-elect Donald Trump gathered his cabinet together for a round of golf and some frank talk about America.
A transcript of their conversation in the locker room of Trump National Golf Course in Westchester, NY was leaked to the press:
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Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary:
Hey, you bitches know Florida, right?
General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, Defense Secretary:
Total smoke show.
Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:
That baby got back!
Mike Pence, Vice President-elect:
Testify!
Donald Trump, President-elect:
I love her coasts. Superb coasts. The best coasties in all of America. I love to get right in there, stick my face in the them and just splash them all around.
Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:
It is no Russian propaganda that you sir, are the the greatest man on the planet!
Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:
You da man! Big dog always huntin’!
Ben Carson, Housing and Urban Development Secretary:
She ever let you into her Everglades?
Donald Trump, President-elect:
Let me tell you, her Everglades are very exclusive, like so, so super exclusive that you wouldn’t even believe, and let me tell you, I have been to her Everglades many, many, many times. She can’t get enough. When I’m with her, I make it rain.
Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:
You’re the RainMaker, sir!
General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, Defense Secretary:
I once had a layover in Delaware. Did some real drilling there, let me tell you, yeah, some real drilling.
Donald Trump, President-elect:
Delaware?! She’s a village bicycle. Disease infested. Strictly bottom-rung. Not even a 6 out of 10.
Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:
Yo, you better get yourself checked by your doctor, could have the crabs.
Donald Trump, President-elect:
“Brain Surgeon!” Give The General here an examination, tell us if Delaware gave him the clap.
Ben Carson, Housing and Urban Development Secretary:
I can tell from here he’s got SDD, Small Dick Disease, and that it’s terminal!
Mike Pence, Vice President-elect:
That sick burn pleases the Lord!!
( High-fives and laughter from all)
Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:
Anyone playing Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare?
Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary:
Fucking rules. Took three Ativan and played it for eight straight hours last night.
Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff:
Zombie mode is the tits!
Donald Trump, President-elect:
Okay, okay, girls, let’s focus. Listen up. Okay. There’s a black guy and a Mexican in a car. Who is driving?
(The cabinet is silent)
Donald Trump, President-elect:
The cop!!
(The cabinet howls with laughter!)
Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:
You got to Tweet that one, President-elect!
Donald Trump, President-elect:
Okay, who lost that round of golf? Was it Ross the Loss? No? “Brain Surgeon”? Was it you? Bad Hombre Priebus? No, okay we’ll make it Sloppy Second Pence. Pence you’re today’s loser and have to buy us all dinner. Has to be an exceptional meal, super exceptional, the very best, and if it is, I’ll bring out those Sarah Palin hot tub pics I was telling you about.
