Big Goodbye

Another installment of the Vay Con Dios Files. J.G. Ballard, who lived large in genre that was eventually labeled Transgressive Fiction, has gone to the great beyond. I supposed I would write a lot of f'ed up fiction too if my childhood had been like his. The movie and novel Empire of the Sun is based on his experiences as a child in a Japanese prison camp during the second world war. Aside from Empire of the Sun, a select few weirdos in this world are familiar with his book Crash, which is about car crash fetishists. I won't begin to explain that one. He definately slaughtered a lot of the sacred cows of fiction (and normalcy for that matter) and paved the way for the Chuck Palahniuks and Trent Reznors of this world. Adios amigo, it was weird knowing you.

Ares

Hopefully We're All Going To Die

Let the salivation begin. Pavlov has rung the bell and on cue the media outlets have begun to drool. There's a multi-national disease outbreak in the larval stages. Death and suffering that's photogenic soon to follow. “Flu outbreak could become pandemic” proclaims my local rag in that same voice that teenagers hoping to get laid use. Act I is people wearing surgical masks in public. Act II will be hospital shots and government press conferences. Some network, somewhere, will show the movie Outbreak before next week is out. My spam inbox will start piling up ads for antibiotics. Never mind that this particular organism has a very low mortality rate. Disregard that over 36,000 people die every year in this country from regular old fashion flu. Twice that many die from hospital screw ups. The rational medical professionals will get very little face time in the coming weeks. Reason, logic, and facts don't make for good numbers. Instead of specialists we'll get journalists that have written books providing prediction.

My favorite quote thus far: “How quickly can Swine Flu make you sick? About 90 minutes of CNN should do it.” Second favorite: “The virus does not travel at the speed of Tweet.” I'd love to sit here and pontificate some more but I've got canned goods to stockpile and money to hide in a mattress.

Ares

Tea

I have to admit I'm having fun watching people debate about what the debate means with regard to the Tea Parties. Because if there is one thing Americans are good at, it's talking about thinking about how the conversation is going. On the one hand you have legions of people that have only in the last 4 months found their voice about government spending, as if it all began in the middle of January. On the other hand you have people that six months ago were saying dissent is the highest form of patriotism, now rummaging through their Thesaurus to find new derisive descriptors. Running through all of this you have the media (sans Fox) conspicuously either avoiding coverage or deriding protesters. Anderson Cooper's indulgence in teabagging references dug the credibility hole even deeper. And as over half a million people protested on April 15th the New York Times did it's Marcel Marceau impression. Somebody tell the Gray Lady she ain't wearing any clothes.

I'm not pimping for either side here. I think everyone here is sufficiently infused with enough bullshit to strain credibility. The bigger worry is that with every corner of the national discourse propping itself up on foundations of sarcasm, hyperbole, and worst-case-scenarios how are we going to recognize authentic truths when they make an appearance?

Ares