It must be slow in the news business. Or, maybe, some of the Bat Guano Madness of the GOP presidential candidates is rubbing off on the poor people forced to actually, physically stalk them, in person (not just Twitter-stalk them, as 9 out of 10 doctors would plainly advise in similar cases of such severe mental contagion, along with plenty of hand-washing after initial contact or voluntary self-neutralization following prolonged exposure).
Maybe news headline writers are having a contest as to which one can single-handedly boost the consumption of booze or tranquilizers. Or the consumption of both -- even though we all know that such a sequence of events is a prescription to fall down without warning and not get back up again, no matter how many emergency pull-chains you have installed throughout your home, business, or underground sanity bunker.
I mean, some headlines can sneak up on you and go off unexpectedly, like leaning, loaded shotguns jolted into self-awareness by gravity, or how hair-triggered coiled rattlesnakes can be, once irked at having their tails set upon by rockers or lawn chairs.
My lifelong exposure to news items has pretty well blistered my mind, insuring a cushion of dead tissue that usually keeps most of the remaining mass safely in place, no matter how jarring or penetrating the unfolding events. Sometimes, though, my mind is folded and mutilated by events choosing to unfold themselves at arm's length -- going off in real time, almost, as I read about them.
These stories make me feel like I am working in the bomb squad, wrestling to defuse a five-story monster, all the while knowing I am putting in my last day -- my last 4 seconds! -- as a bomb squad tech, but giving it a brave go anyway...
The story that went off, right in my face, while I was working on it, was about abortion drones. I sat and looked at that headline for better than 60 seconds before I blacked out, then came to again, and found the strength to go find out more, if I really dared...
At first, I was pretty sure I'd accidentally stumbled onto the pages of The Onion, or maybe some lunatic fringe piece at The Wall Street Journal (or The National Intelligence-Insulter, or The American IQ Saboteur) or some such. Same difference, after all.
But, no this was indeed real. Drones delivering abortion pills. No kidding. OK, I thought to myself, this is certainly strange, but not as threateningly, lower-body-tighteningly sci-fi as it could have been. (You've seen the run of Alien movies, so you know what I mean here.)
That piece wasn't as threatening as are most stories that contain the word DRONE right up front, but it was also nowhere near as amusing as are most stories which flub around, trying to delight us on whatever crazy, lazy, hotnew use humans have discovered, perfected, and want to slap into service to fill our communal gullets with beer and pizza and sparkly bling, or cut down our precious wait time for online orders to mere nanoseconds.
Abortion drones: Another phrase that would have made no sense only a few years ago, and a phrase that is only now becoming anywhere near clear to me. I suppose there will be more of these escalations:
- Airspace and privacy-rights drone wars as reality teevee.
- Mandatory political screeds via tracking drone.
- Product sampler and focus group interruptions by on-the-spot, drop-everything, do-it-now drones....
I am surprised that any media still has the power to surprise anymore.
See, I consider myself completely jaded, but only on a part-time basis. This is because my on-purpose news options and accidental exposures are somewhat limited these days. Otherwise, I would be jaded full-time, perhaps even to the point of being jailed now, in protective custody, from self-inflicted Permanent-News-Rage injuries I'd somehow accumulated during my blackouts of surprise.
Jail would probably be the place, too. Despite hostile -- and semi-cordial -- corporate takeovers of the jail system, jail is still the most highly profitable, and the cheapest, place, pound-for-pound, to park all of society's spontaneous collisions and accidental combustions.
(I'm quoting from a glossy, GOP-sponsored brochure that makes the local work farm look like a vacation by lottery winners on Easy-Street-meets-Club-Fed-meets-The-Crystal-Princess cruise liner...)
Mobile first-aid stations, like for use right after emergencies, like after volcanoes erupting, combative outer-space aliens landing, or arm-flailing, tongue flapping GOP candidate speeches and line-ups -- sorry, I mean parades -- would be less expensive, but those rapid-deploy aid stations are in high demand during campaign seasons.
Leather straps and bite tabs are also very hard to come by, what with so many lunatics pouring from their very private woodwork, becoming suddenly open and so festive, running for public office and every possible perk they can pack away. All the most humane human handlers are already spoken for, because large piles of money speak very well, and very clearly, to those charging large fees -- so, the rapid-deploy tents and RVs are out.
(Oh, in an earlier era, with such deep, news-related wounds, I might have been triaged to spend a casual vacation in a sanitarium, taking in some deep, calming breaths, out in the garden, making motorboat sounds with a leaf or a twig pushed around in the pond. Nowadays, I'd be afraid I'd run into a stampede of Reagan-worshippers turning everyone out into the city, mad and sane alike -- inmates released en masse to run riot in the streets, to run for President, to run off at the mouth, foaming like an explosion of a Crazy Froth 3000 (TM) home meringue-maker, everyone making Rrrrrrrrr noises, for Rrrrrrrrepublican! while fanning the air like jazzed propellers with their pens and chad-makers, voting an invisible, straight-whack-o ticket, over and over and over...)
See, I use the teevee as an aquarium, paperweight, and movie monitor. Out here in the sticks, we can only get Rush and sports, and some static-y oldies on the radio, so the thing is as useful as a electric blanket in a heat wave. The radio is, as a result, as quiet, undisturbed, forlorn, and dusty as the thin, short stacks of lapsed news magazines and bankrupted newspapers stacked in the cobwebby corner, with all those sad Watchtower handouts.
Oh, I get around on the web, but the Phoenecians, or maybe the Mesopotamians, made my computer, so it can take a couple minutes to load a straightforward page, and it takes a Ninth of an Eternity [a standard computer-loading interval equating to 217.5 hours] to load something exotic and toxically chockablock with whirling, twirling, gyrating, undulating, hip-thrusting, spin-dizzy graphics and ads to boost eyeball count and revenue...
Such are the blessings of living in the sticks, with DSL that is closer to dial-up, and with the sputtering remnants of a Hammurabi 300 (TM) computer.
Anyway: I was surprised to learn about Donald Trump. Oh, I always knew he was as bogus as an eleven-dollar-and-29-cent-bill (his own picture's on the front, and there are forged images of his post-dated birth certificate on the back, all printed in red-and-black ink, to reflect his sincere concern, and his sincere lack of concern, to all audiences about the national budget and debt, and how he'd change things).
I'm not surprised at Macy's and NBC slam-dunking his butt, or even surprised at his racist remarks. Years of bad comb-overs, and pounds of hair spray, can eventually seep into anyone's scalp, with the toxins leeching any remaining reasonableness from the host in seconds flat -- a scorched earth policy for scalps and brain cells, ensuring no easy return of reason anytime soon.
I'm not even surprised that NBC did a teevee show with this absurd, asinine, bullying clown bait, because Americans will watch anybody famous humiliate and insult other people, in order to help inoculate themselves with Stockholm Syndrome Mindset, so that, as viewers, they will laugh and feel joy when they are insulted and bullied at work the following day, as mandated by moron bosses from coast to coast, who have all read Trump's book, "Make Easy Billions With Daddy's Money Or You Are the Real Chump."
No, I'm really surprised that Macy's has, since 2004, sold a line of menswear -- I swear -- named after this alleged human being. That's eleven years or so that there has been a line of clothing named after this vertical heap of sneers, self-superiority, and raving schozophrenia?!
My gawd, it makes me want to go start up a line of Silver Weasel's Smug Bastard (TM) Brand Underwear in retaliation! It would make a zillion dollars in the first week!
No? How about Psychotic Asshat (TM) Brand Frozen Grin Replacement Kits? The first 300 come with Miss Yoosa (TM) and Miss Universal (TM) autographed spongy-stretchable face-blotter beauty pageant sheets, for ...when the Bright Lights and the Big City Make You All Hot and ah-Sweeeeeety, Sweety (R)!
Get secrets of his brain-hurting techniques to wear down supporters, revealed only here, in his Gordion Knot Brand (TM) self-actualizing, self-help, self-healing, self-hypnosis accordion-accompanied tape set from Ponzi-Pissant Publishing, How to Be a Self-Important Drone and Be Almost Heard and Get Anything You Want While Droning On and On and On...
Well, if not, there's always the guaranteed crowd-killer, the Official Trump Mister-Know-It-All, Magic-Eight-Ball, Tarot Deck and Random Response Generator (TM), just like the Big Guy himself uses in his daily life -- from campaign stops, belittling supporters, to ordering in restaurants, and belittling wait staff! Baffle friends and enemies alike while heaping them in bullcrap!
(Unsurprisingly, I've got a million of 'em. You see, they brain-washed me years ago, and I'm still trying to wash them right outta my hair. And my mind. And my scalp, and the rest of my body. So far, no dice. Not even with chemo and radiation.)
In the end, I might have to break down and buy The Donald's (R)(TM) new combination book-lotion-beverage-home-electroshock kit, King Donald: Duck Fast, Quack Up Quicker!
Hell -- even if it works, I won't be able to look at myself in the morning, not with a straight face. And I sure as hell won't be able to look my store's regular staff in the eye, who'd be embarrassed for me, probably card me, check my ID, see if I was OK to be out wandering around loose, instead of haunting the Canvas Camisole Wing of the Local hostile Hostel-Hospice-Hospital they just started around here -- another weird GOP effort, for the 40 billionth time, to defeat Americans getting health care through the ACA.
But, lessee now, back to business: Keep my dignity and some measure of respect, or pull out all the stops, go for broke, go completely, 100 percent, full-blown, Bonzo-meets-Bozo, all-out nuts: Well, welcome to the Biq Question, here in ConsumptionTowne (TM) Yoosa, where everything's on the line, and on the barrel head, all the damn time.
Ka-ching.
Next!
