Let's think about this

Wednesday 4/9/25

When I listen to just about anyone talk about just about anything, I think that there is now next to no one who knows anything about anything.

People talking about Alexander Ovechkin and Wayne Gretzky would be but one example from today.

Another 400 words put to "By Water."

I really need to barrel through some nonfiction.

What a Grateful Dead person thinks is a bad sounding audience tape is kind of funny compared to what's out there for most bands from the 1960s and early 1970s.

Acquired all of the White Stripes' show from Boston in 2003 at the Orpheum. Most circulating versions are incomplete. Rare is the day that I do not find myself singing "Red Bird" from this show, which was the only occasion on which the White Stripes performed it to the best of my knowledge. I was there that night and dazzled by that number in particular.

When I was a kid, the chatter pertaining to Vincent Price was often negative. He'd be described as this big ham. He was really a great actor, though. Or, at least, an actor who classed up and improved every picture he was in. You can't go very wrong watching a film with Vincent Price in it, as I just did with Shock, from 1946 (whose poster had a proto-Revolver thing going for it with the people in the hair). You are both drawn to and charmed by him on the screen, even when his character is up to no good or is a weasel (as with 1944's Laura).

April showers have been happening. Right now--around three in the morning--it's twenty-seven degrees.

Someone asked me to come on their podcast. There was no money, so that was one thing, and then they insulted me about a dozen ways over--in a blundering, clueless, but exploitative fashion--which was another. An easy no.

Here's something to remember: If you know lots of things--if you know everything seemingly about everything including many things that no one knows anything about--someone will come along and attempt to take advantage of you by treating you differently--like some one-off creature designed in a lab--than they treat everyone else. They'll treat everyone else better and the same way, from person to person. Because those people know nothing. They don't offer anything. But the more you do, and the more subjects on which you do, the more that someone is likely to try and take advantage of that by picking whatever it is that strikes their fancy to use you to break up their personal monotony. They look at you as something they can exploit for their own indulgence.

So with this show, they have on bad authors to discuss their bad books. Plug their bad books. But they wanted to have one author come on to discuss this thing that he knows about that no one else does. Not to discuss something he wrote. See how this works? Now, if I sucked and knew nothing, and I just had some shitty books, then that's what I'd be talking about. But I have an endless amount of things you can pick from, so someone like this will sit back and think, "Let's see, let's see, what would I like to pick."

This was also someone who didn't know what basic words meant--as conveyed by their email--and didn't even do enough looking into matters to know that I'd already spoken about this topic many times, and the "tape" of all of it was out there. You have to ask yourself, "Why would this person want to do this thing I'm asking them to do?" There has to be something in it for both parties. From me, you get what no one else in the world can provide. You get a knowledge that no one else has. But what's in it for me? No money? Insults? Being used? To talk about something I've already talked about and which does nothing for me?

Do people ever think? I never do things like this. I've never carried myself that way. I've never approached anyone that way. I approached bigots and bad people politely, professionally, with works the likes of whose quality they'd never seen, after having just published however many things I'd just published, despite having pretty much the whole of a system against me.

Why do people not know how to be and how to carry themselves and what's appropriate, simply not dumb, and professional? You have to ask yourself--if you don't otherwise automatically say and write the right thing--how whatever it is you've written or said or are about to say comes across or will come across. You have to take a little care.

Now, this wasn't intentional--which is why I wouldn't use a name here--but it doesn't matter and that can often make things worse.

For instance, think how commonly people will fuck up and do something terrible to you and treat you poorly and say, "It wasn't intentional."

Yeah. That's not better and is can be worse.

Because that means you were treated that way naturally, which very likely speaks to how that person regards you (or doesn't). Reflexively. How they take you for granted. At least if they did it intentionally--which is obviously horrible, because that's fuckery by design--then it's not this automatic reaction of a lack of consideration for the person you are and your feelings.

If you are much stronger than the people you know, you've likely experienced. In the back of their minds, they think they can treat you poorly, they don't need to be kind to you, can worry about doing the right thing with everyone else but you, because you'll be fine. That's the heading in life under which they have you. "She'll be fine."

And, if you're a good person on top of that, it becomes worse, because then they think you'll be fine and also you'll continue being great to them, because that's who you are. And they also won't think they there's any need to come to you, to see how you're doing, to make sure you're okay, because, again, you're so strong.

They will end up treat you differently--and worse--than anyone else they know, including people they don't even like. That's the part that hurts the most--that it is only you who they treat that way. That will do your head in. You will be limited in who you can go to with that, if there's anyone. The stronger you are, the kinder you are, the likelier all of this will be true to a degree proportionate to how strong and kind they believe you to be.

"That wasn't my intention" typically doesn't mean what people think it does and isn't anywhere near the balm they (also automatically) think it to be.

What's hard about this? I'm dumbfounded by how these things that are so plain and simple to me are now like these rarefied bits of hidden-away insight that hardly anyone is cognizant of.

It's amazing how much smarter someone can now be than practically everyone just by applying a little logic to things. That's how warped the mental state is of most people.

The more you think, the better you get at it. The more you stop to think, the more automatic it becomes so that you're no longer saying, "Wait...let's think about this."

The thing is, no one is going to think, because everyone is just like them, doing the same thing, failing to take notice of anything or understand anything for what it is, and be wrapped up in themselves. They act that way, too, while--and this is rich--bemoaning what--and who--isn't out there, the implication being that they're this strong and kind person when they're not. It's sort of like all of those people, in broken. English, who post about seventy percent or whatever is of people reading at a fifth grade level or lower, never realizing that that means them.

Then people are unhappy. And they're alone. They give up. They never tried very much. They blame this, they blame that. They probably blame Trump. But how often do we really look at ourselves and what we're doing? How often do we think about that? How typically do we ask ourselves even things as basic as some of the questions I've raised her. "How does this come across?" etc.

But if we thought, and we tried, and we got better at thinking, and didn't have to remind ourselves to think, apply a bit of logic, a touch of scrutiny, to set our precious, delicate feelings aside every now and again and maybe gain a bit of toughness, work on that strength so we can be of better use to others, ourselves, our community, and the world, things would be a whole fucking lot better for all relevant parties, which is all of us.

Right?