SOMETIMES A LACK OF CONCERN is pure, an exact rendering of how you feel about a given situation:
“I don’t care for liver,” you say.
“Meaning?” he responds.
“Meaning, I don’t like it, motherfucker.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. Get that alien testicle shit the fuck away from me.”
On the other hand, an announced carelessness can be a way to hide the fact that something really matters to you. It can be a smokescreen, a trick:
“Fine. Go if you want. But if you walk out that door, don’t even think of coming back,” says the overly assertive Lover #1. (He’s always been a little like that.)
“OK,” Lover #2 responds, reaching for the door handle, opening the door to the gray evening sky beyond.
Lover #1 sees rain falling like slivers of silver, like captured clarity. He notices her forgotten umbrella. “Wait,” he says.
“What?” She turns.
“Don’t go.”
Sometimes it takes a while—a little thought, a little writing; a door opened, one closed—to know which is which, to figure out whether you don’t care or you don’t care. Other times, you just have to settle for both…
These are seven things I don’t care about this week. Seriously, I just don’t care.
~
7. Hillbilly Miscreants (Duggars, Duck Dynasticists, Honey Boo Boos, et al.)
Coming this fall from TSFN (The Sheep Fucking Network) is Hillbilly Miscreants, an hour-long weekly reality show in which families of real live hillbillies will compete for the derision of America’s televisual faithful. Applying the broader definition of hillbilly, one that takes in not just the cabin- and cave-dwelling possum potters of the Ozarks, but retrograde white supremacists everywhere—from crackers and honkeys to neo-Nazis and the aforementioned mountain men (and at least a few women); from rocky Kentuck to the Tex-Ass badlands, the Deep South to the Big Sky—contestants will compete in a moonshine jamboree of petty crime, plotted insurrection, moral turpitude, and garden variety bad manners to see who can claim America’s grudging respect as the height of white shame. (Not to mention a billion dollars in Confederate scrip and a broken down Bronco full of “I Hate Obummer!” t-shirts) Hosted by Pat Boone, with weekly benedictions from rheumy-eyed Talker to Sky God, Reverend Pat “I See Demons” Robertson, Hillbilly Miscreants is sure to rule Sunday nights for years to come.
6. Politics (Up to and Including Obama Being the Antichrist)
Wild-eyed capitalists and small government theocrats piling into the Republican clown car (Oh, the times we’ll have…), Bernie Sanders (Yes, Seriously!) is a Socialist (And your point?), Martin O’Malley (Who?), Michael Bloomberg for Billionaire President, Sarah Palin Facebook rant (four words that should never go together), Donald Trump running for President (five words that should never go together), Hillary Clinton (Benghazi, emails, husband’s quarter-century-old blowjob, consultants, contributions, this-Gate, that-Gate, the-other-Gate…Quoth Denzel in Training Day, “Yeah, whatever. Whatever the fuck ever.”). But, but, BUT…Obama is the Antichrist, you say. Well, hold on jest a second there, little mister. Maybe we can sink our teeth into this one…
Now that you’ve computed the “numerical value” of “Black Guy in the White House,” which obviously adds up to 666. And…you’ve learned that Jesus Himself, the very first and greatest of all Christian capitalists, spoke of an antichrist, calling him expressly, “Baraq Bama,” again and again—Yes, fer reelz!—maybe things will stick this time. Maybe, finally, that supra-genius denizen of the Abyss has been found out by you smarty pantses. Yeah, maybe, except for the fact that we’ve known all this…like…literally, forever.
Those of us who voted for the Big O. or, as we initiates refer to him, His Infernal Majesty, have been plotting the demise of all that is good and holy for some time (actually since his Birth Mass (black, obvis) beneath that Satanic temple in the jungles of Kenya). Once we’ve borrowed enough money from China to finance tax cuts for all you rich, God-fearing Christian Capitalists, we’ll divert your copious (ever-increasing) charitable contributions to fund the ISIS invasion of America. Then, only after the U.S. of A. has been given over to the minions of Sharia, will President Obama claim his rightful place as the laser-gazed villain from a Christian fantasy novel we all know him to be. See the seemingly endless, albeit lucrative, apocalypse of the Left Behind series…
But, seriously, ladies and lunatics, if you want to show me something exciting, let’s see some actual Satanism at the White House. Until Obama struts out onto the front lawn wearing flowing black robes and a blood-spattered ram’s horn skull cap, just leave me the fuck alone.
5. The Sport of Kings
Lemme get this straight: You train tiny people to get on big horses and whip them so they’ll run. You do this with a bunch of tiny people and big horses all at once and call it a race. You let people bet on this and give prizes to the owners of the horses that win. You also give the owners tax incentives and let them destroy the horses if they get injured or otherwise can’t run. Society picks up the karmic tab for all the brutality and gambling addiction. Perfect. On the plus side, the Sport of Kings presents an excellent opportunity for the Mafia to launder cash. Plus…people get to come up with pithy names for their horses. (See American Pharoah.)
Did I see the Triple Crown? No, I did not. Not one flippin’ whit of it.
4. How Great Thou Art
You habitually describe yourself as a diva or a genius, a prodigy or a public intellectual, a babe or a specimen, a rock star or a giant. You like to say you “rock” things and events, clothes and meetings. You’ve even spoken on occasion of making said things, events, clothes and meetings “your bitch.” You joke, with friends, about actually being, “The Most Interesting Man in the World.” You do it so much we suspect you’re not joking at all.
You post incessantly on social media, telling your audience/followers/fans/underlings, hangers-on/servitors not just that you’re doing fine, but what precisely you’re doing so fine at. Alas, what you are doing fine/great/wonderful at is the same day after day. You regale us with tales of your great workouts and stellar stir frys, your fantastic shits and wonderful pisses. You describe in mind-numbing detail how you stupendously dug the lint from your belly button. You’ve been breathing well, you say; have a new modus operandi for nose picking, one you find efficacious indeed. When not doing the above or spilling the attendant details on social media, you philosophize, considering ways you may grow far greater still. We humbly salute you, Your Magnificence, and look with joyful hope to your next tale of soul-splitting banality.
3. Jurassic Anything
There’s an amusement park filled with dinosaurs. The unthinkable happens—again. And again. And again. Yes, that’s right: The dinos turn evil and/or get out.
Questions:
- How many times can the unthinkable happen before it becomes the thinkable?
- Can the heroes save humanity?
- Can there possibly be another one of these?
My answers: I don’t care. I don’t care. And I just don’t care. Not in the nineties, not in the aughts, not now. Maybe I could care if these dinosaurs had better personalities, if they knitted killer sweaters or solved complex math equations; if they starred in Broadway musicals or played dino-soccer. As is, no.
2. George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire
If you’re going to have the balls to write a seven-book cycle—and begin turning those books into a T.V. show before the fifth is even published—you’d better have a damned ironclad idea of what you’re doing. Unless you’re George Martin.
Five books and nearly two million words later, we see the author (also a writer for every episode of the hit show) presenting drastically different visions in print and T.V. We’re dealing with parallel universes, here—one universe in which a major character (Jamie Lannister) goes north to war, another in which he goes south to rescue his niece (daughter); one universe in which another major character (Stannis Baratheon) leaves his beloved daughter safe back at the castle, another in which he takes her with him to war then, y’know, burns her at the stake to appease his god.
In sum: WTF, GoT? WTF2, GRRM?
Since reading the fifth book in the series in mid-2011, I’ve been wondering whether Martin’s going to be able to complete the entire cycle of books. Now in his sixties, the quality of the books is on the decline while the interval between them seems to be increasing. Never mind the fact that the books have grown longer and far less focused as time has gone by.
With television poised to offer a conclusion to the saga well in advance of print (perhaps a decade earlier), I may be done caring about Martin’s books. Though that’s a pity, I can’t help thinking Martin has seen this coming for many years; that the situation represents, at least on some level, a bit of contempt for the fans who’ve made his career.
1. Other Things I Don’t Care About Jam-Packed Into One Bullet Point
Shit I can’t afford and the people who can: billionaires buying Picassos, billionaires buying elections, billionaires buying castles, mountains, and islands. Jaguars and Rolexes, Fitbits and MacBooks, and on and on…
FIFA: Soccer, yuck. Bribes in international sports? You’re surprised? A World Cup in Qatar? That’s really stupid, but they are playing soccer to start with so… Yawn.
Superhero Movies: This hurts because I used to care. Now, I don’t. Re-boots, re-imaginings, expanded universes. Please. Just. Go.
ISIS: Let me know when they get here.
