I just cleaned up a handful of typos. Always impatient, I do everything just a bit too soon! Early dementia doesn't help. Two or three weeks ago, I got up at 4PM but thought it was 4AM. Seeing my neighbor drinking a beer, I said, "Why are you drinking before five?!" Walking downtown an hour later, I noticed the streets so festive, but didn't think too much of it. At 6, it was still dark, so I half suspected something was weird. When it was still dark at 8:30, I finally realized it was night and not morning!
It's not dementia. When I was in high school I would occasionally wake up not knowing if it was a.m. or p.m. I blame it on the long, gloomy, New England nights.
Yes. Me, too. But I had gone to sleep around 6 p.m. and woke at 8:30 p.m. I first thought I had gotten a good night's sleep until I realized that the time elapsed was only 2-1/2 hours.
Getting AM and PM flipped has happened to me twice: The first time was after drinking and waking up with a pretty Brazilian woman in Bahia, the second was, again, after drinking but while on my own in a Youth Hostel in Singapore; I remember thinking that it was a strange time for The Guns of Navarone, a movie my dad had liked, to be playing on the TV in the Hostel's communal room.
I read "Winesburg, Ohio" years ago, but had completely forgotten that sad story you started quoting from.
Interesting photos--is the guy in that last photo looking at porn? And apparently in a public place, no less. I've read some incredible statistics on the number of internet users that view porn on a regular basis. They need not worry--"view only" will soon give way to Huxley's "feelies," whose technology is reaching maturity. Then it will no longer be necessary to venture out of one's pod for anything.
Old guy didn't expect anyone to peer over his shoulder. With nearly everyone looking at their phones nearly all the time, you can stare at child porn or a snuff film in public without too much worry!
I never really looked at porn except for a few peek a boos throughout the years then I recently joined twitter after Musk took over and low and behold porn showed up on my conspiracy feed and now I have over 20 chicks following me! I am not gonna chase them though, I am going to improve my act and get them to come to me! That's the way the internet tells me to do it. This Gomer is gonna make Clooney move over...
Are you sure they aren't bots? Off and on, I have had a number of such bots follow me on Substack. There was a rather well-known one named "Hannah Williams" (I think) awhile back. "Her" profile included a photo of a very good-looking woman that turned out to be a stock photo from somewhere on the internet.
Yeah, they are only following me to drum up business for their Only Fans account. I wouldn't be comfortable with these types but if one without tattoos came my way, I might not just shoo them away right away...
I love this essay and the photos, especially Si Ma Cai, Vietnam on 2/18/20 taken (already) four years ago. I see centuries framed in that picture you captured in one moment. It's amazing.
Si Ma Cai is a wonderful town but awful foodwise. It's poor and still mostly populated by tribal people. The landscape around it is spectacular. Surrounded by peaks, it's often cloaked in mist. From Si Ma Cai, I trekked for 3 1/2 hours towards China, but was stopped by a startled soldier from crossing over. It was beyond stupid of me to even try. Had I succeeded, I would have been arrested if not shot!
"Naked and wordless, we will crawl on hands and knees through burnt cities."
Perfect epigraph to a post-apocalyptic film that will never be made. The more bleak the writing the closer it seems likely to be to the truth. At least, it appears so from my perspective, though maybe I'm just a miserable person drawn to artful expressions of misery.
Beat poet Allen Ginsberg had a line in 'Howl' about his generation being, "run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality". I imagine Linh Dinh as lone passenger in the back of one of those cabs, watching with a mix of curiosity, dismay, alarm, and weariness as the heedless, berserk vehicle swerves endlessly into and over crowds, parked cars, dogs, food carts, sidewalks, trash cans, school kids, traffic cones, past burning buildings and confused, incompetent rescue workers. Occasionally, he snaps a photo.
There's so much chaos and tragedy to be witnessed while tearing through these cities of Absolute Reality. None of it, however, means a thing.
I too have awakened to viewing rap lyrics as living documents of thug culture. Ebonics for the Masses. The content is ripe for satire. Problem w/ that study is tolerating the "music" they're embedded in. That and deciphering actual meaning. Combined, it's a toxic spew that repels a civilized sensibility, even one debased by decades of rock and roll.
Of course there've been periodic cultural crossovers w/ white youth - our wiggers, the hybrid nu-metal genre, corn rows for cuties ... more to come I fear.
The reversed baseball cap worn w/ insouciant reverence by hipsters was the first sign of infection I remember. Ah, Wiggermania! That's a book that won't be published. Satire of sacred cows not being popular w/ the guardians of morality and all.
I sort of came of age in the nineties when ghetto culture was gaining a quick foothold in the minds of America's youth.
There was a brief spell where underground, "conscious" acts like De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest were pretty eloquent , creative and honest. It didn't last long.
I have no "beef" with anyone that I encounter on the street, but if anyone were to judge music by the hyper aggressive "thump n' bump" that passes my window, one could conclude that "beef" is all that's left.
In all reality, I'm a snowflake in a very mixed neighborhood and I do ok. One has to be aware, but it's no reason to stay inside.
I think that Jim Goad is considering publishing "The Negronomicon", much like you suggested.
Good for Goad. The turning point for rap was NWA, the gangsta rap Tyranosaurus. I remember seeing their "conscious" cousins, Public Enemy, my first and only experience w/ live rap. Watching incredulously as no actual musicians played anything and Chuck D and Flava Flav sang nothing. Yet, this was the band Bob Guccione (Spin Mag) listed as one of the top 7 rock and roll acts of all time. I cancelled my sub immediately.
Best of luck in the mixed neighborhood, Troy. I had to move from the edge of Spanish Harlem to mafia safe Hoboken when I was younger.
Public Enemy and NWA were beloved out in the sticks. Anything to break the monotony.
I saw the Beastie Boys and Tribe Called Quest at the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago. My first and only stadium show. It was terrible.
Yes, in retrospect I think that Chuck.D and company, NWA were tailored made for white kids in the burbs and sticks. Such angry dudes. And payola they made. I'd guess that their label people made more. Ugh, Rap, What a crooked disappointment.
You just ain't cool enough to appreciate the genius of, say, Riskay! Public Enemy is for half dead old heads!
In May of 2022, I wrote:
Recently, a reader brought to my attention Riskay’s “Smell Yo Dick,” which begins:
Nigga this is the 15th motherfucking time
That I called and left your ass messages
I done text your bitch ass
And you ain't responding to nothin'
What the fuck is you doing?
Who the fuck is you out there with?
You think I'm stupid
My girls already done put me up on your ass tonight
When you get home I got some news for your bitch ass
Why you comin' home 5 in the morn'?
Something's going on, can I smell yo dick?
Don't play me like a fool, cause that ain't cool
So what you need to do is lemme smell yo dick
So what you need to do is lemme smell yo dick
Just hitting her artistic strides, Riskay only has a few hits, but already, her vision is twerkingly clear. Another song is called “Dollas Over Dicks.” When you deploy killa, bitch assed words, there’s no need to overburden listeners with a fussy vocabulary. Pale cisgendered Shakespeare merely coined bandit, critic, swagger, lonely and lackluster, etc. Whatever, man. That square could never come up with “dick down the whole town.”
Riskay’s admirers are of all colors and ages. On YouTube, I found ukulele and keyboard versions, as performed by white women. On Valentine’s Day of 2016, Muhlenberg students harmonized this classic on stage. It’s hard to believe I once taught at that Allentown university. There’s also a public performance by high school students, and why not? Lemme smell yo dick is so cheeky. As we become more progressive, toddlers will rap this funky anthem.
It's porn set to computers with caricatures performing. Almost auto generated at this point.
You are correct Linh, some of the twerking across the way last summer was a bit outrageous. It's a pretty safe neighborhood all in all, but things get frisky sometimes. It'll start soon as the weather warms up.
Hi everyone,
I just cleaned up a handful of typos. Always impatient, I do everything just a bit too soon! Early dementia doesn't help. Two or three weeks ago, I got up at 4PM but thought it was 4AM. Seeing my neighbor drinking a beer, I said, "Why are you drinking before five?!" Walking downtown an hour later, I noticed the streets so festive, but didn't think too much of it. At 6, it was still dark, so I half suspected something was weird. When it was still dark at 8:30, I finally realized it was night and not morning!
Linh
I thought I was the only one who did that?
It's not dementia. When I was in high school I would occasionally wake up not knowing if it was a.m. or p.m. I blame it on the long, gloomy, New England nights.
Yes. Me, too. But I had gone to sleep around 6 p.m. and woke at 8:30 p.m. I first thought I had gotten a good night's sleep until I realized that the time elapsed was only 2-1/2 hours.
Getting AM and PM flipped has happened to me twice: The first time was after drinking and waking up with a pretty Brazilian woman in Bahia, the second was, again, after drinking but while on my own in a Youth Hostel in Singapore; I remember thinking that it was a strange time for The Guns of Navarone, a movie my dad had liked, to be playing on the TV in the Hostel's communal room.
I read "Winesburg, Ohio" years ago, but had completely forgotten that sad story you started quoting from.
Interesting photos--is the guy in that last photo looking at porn? And apparently in a public place, no less. I've read some incredible statistics on the number of internet users that view porn on a regular basis. They need not worry--"view only" will soon give way to Huxley's "feelies," whose technology is reaching maturity. Then it will no longer be necessary to venture out of one's pod for anything.
Hi JustPlainBill,
Old guy didn't expect anyone to peer over his shoulder. With nearly everyone looking at their phones nearly all the time, you can stare at child porn or a snuff film in public without too much worry!
Linh
I've read that porn is what a majority of people use the Internet for.
I never really looked at porn except for a few peek a boos throughout the years then I recently joined twitter after Musk took over and low and behold porn showed up on my conspiracy feed and now I have over 20 chicks following me! I am not gonna chase them though, I am going to improve my act and get them to come to me! That's the way the internet tells me to do it. This Gomer is gonna make Clooney move over...
Are you sure they aren't bots? Off and on, I have had a number of such bots follow me on Substack. There was a rather well-known one named "Hannah Williams" (I think) awhile back. "Her" profile included a photo of a very good-looking woman that turned out to be a stock photo from somewhere on the internet.
Yeah, they are only following me to drum up business for their Only Fans account. I wouldn't be comfortable with these types but if one without tattoos came my way, I might not just shoo them away right away...
My nervousness would though.
I love this essay and the photos, especially Si Ma Cai, Vietnam on 2/18/20 taken (already) four years ago. I see centuries framed in that picture you captured in one moment. It's amazing.
Si Ma Cai, Vietnam is a wonderful picture. Fine composition.
Hi Jerry and Elaine,
Si Ma Cai is a wonderful town but awful foodwise. It's poor and still mostly populated by tribal people. The landscape around it is spectacular. Surrounded by peaks, it's often cloaked in mist. From Si Ma Cai, I trekked for 3 1/2 hours towards China, but was stopped by a startled soldier from crossing over. It was beyond stupid of me to even try. Had I succeeded, I would have been arrested if not shot!
Linh
So good it turned out ok for you.
the world is mad, I was trying to speak to a tax department in Norway, and a robot
told me to write my questions I did, but the robot didn't understand and asked me to rephrase
I asked for the address of the tax office she could not give me as it was secret
"Naked and wordless, we will crawl on hands and knees through burnt cities."
Perfect epigraph to a post-apocalyptic film that will never be made. The more bleak the writing the closer it seems likely to be to the truth. At least, it appears so from my perspective, though maybe I'm just a miserable person drawn to artful expressions of misery.
Beat poet Allen Ginsberg had a line in 'Howl' about his generation being, "run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality". I imagine Linh Dinh as lone passenger in the back of one of those cabs, watching with a mix of curiosity, dismay, alarm, and weariness as the heedless, berserk vehicle swerves endlessly into and over crowds, parked cars, dogs, food carts, sidewalks, trash cans, school kids, traffic cones, past burning buildings and confused, incompetent rescue workers. Occasionally, he snaps a photo.
There's so much chaos and tragedy to be witnessed while tearing through these cities of Absolute Reality. None of it, however, means a thing.
I've been working on my ebonics and wrote this down on 1/27:
(When confronted with a tough situation)
Hit em with a:
"Whewwleetoobimbazzem, shinglemuhting! N'aww mean, N'aww mean?"
It's funner than the News. It's not even English, it's way cooler. N'aww mean?
From 1/17, a rap:
"Primitive situations,
Primal scenarios,
don't f*"k wit me fool,
I'm fit t'explode I swearios!"
This is what caged people do in their spare time.
I too have awakened to viewing rap lyrics as living documents of thug culture. Ebonics for the Masses. The content is ripe for satire. Problem w/ that study is tolerating the "music" they're embedded in. That and deciphering actual meaning. Combined, it's a toxic spew that repels a civilized sensibility, even one debased by decades of rock and roll.
Of course there've been periodic cultural crossovers w/ white youth - our wiggers, the hybrid nu-metal genre, corn rows for cuties ... more to come I fear.
The reversed baseball cap worn w/ insouciant reverence by hipsters was the first sign of infection I remember. Ah, Wiggermania! That's a book that won't be published. Satire of sacred cows not being popular w/ the guardians of morality and all.
I sort of came of age in the nineties when ghetto culture was gaining a quick foothold in the minds of America's youth.
There was a brief spell where underground, "conscious" acts like De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest were pretty eloquent , creative and honest. It didn't last long.
I have no "beef" with anyone that I encounter on the street, but if anyone were to judge music by the hyper aggressive "thump n' bump" that passes my window, one could conclude that "beef" is all that's left.
In all reality, I'm a snowflake in a very mixed neighborhood and I do ok. One has to be aware, but it's no reason to stay inside.
I think that Jim Goad is considering publishing "The Negronomicon", much like you suggested.
Good for Goad. The turning point for rap was NWA, the gangsta rap Tyranosaurus. I remember seeing their "conscious" cousins, Public Enemy, my first and only experience w/ live rap. Watching incredulously as no actual musicians played anything and Chuck D and Flava Flav sang nothing. Yet, this was the band Bob Guccione (Spin Mag) listed as one of the top 7 rock and roll acts of all time. I cancelled my sub immediately.
Best of luck in the mixed neighborhood, Troy. I had to move from the edge of Spanish Harlem to mafia safe Hoboken when I was younger.
Public Enemy and NWA were beloved out in the sticks. Anything to break the monotony.
I saw the Beastie Boys and Tribe Called Quest at the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago. My first and only stadium show. It was terrible.
Yes, in retrospect I think that Chuck.D and company, NWA were tailored made for white kids in the burbs and sticks. Such angry dudes. And payola they made. I'd guess that their label people made more. Ugh, Rap, What a crooked disappointment.
Yo Troy,
You just ain't cool enough to appreciate the genius of, say, Riskay! Public Enemy is for half dead old heads!
In May of 2022, I wrote:
Recently, a reader brought to my attention Riskay’s “Smell Yo Dick,” which begins:
Nigga this is the 15th motherfucking time
That I called and left your ass messages
I done text your bitch ass
And you ain't responding to nothin'
What the fuck is you doing?
Who the fuck is you out there with?
You think I'm stupid
My girls already done put me up on your ass tonight
When you get home I got some news for your bitch ass
Why you comin' home 5 in the morn'?
Something's going on, can I smell yo dick?
Don't play me like a fool, cause that ain't cool
So what you need to do is lemme smell yo dick
So what you need to do is lemme smell yo dick
Just hitting her artistic strides, Riskay only has a few hits, but already, her vision is twerkingly clear. Another song is called “Dollas Over Dicks.” When you deploy killa, bitch assed words, there’s no need to overburden listeners with a fussy vocabulary. Pale cisgendered Shakespeare merely coined bandit, critic, swagger, lonely and lackluster, etc. Whatever, man. That square could never come up with “dick down the whole town.”
Riskay’s admirers are of all colors and ages. On YouTube, I found ukulele and keyboard versions, as performed by white women. On Valentine’s Day of 2016, Muhlenberg students harmonized this classic on stage. It’s hard to believe I once taught at that Allentown university. There’s also a public performance by high school students, and why not? Lemme smell yo dick is so cheeky. As we become more progressive, toddlers will rap this funky anthem.
https://linhdinhphotos.blogspot.com/2022/05/crumbling-sewer-on-hill.html
Linh
It's porn set to computers with caricatures performing. Almost auto generated at this point.
You are correct Linh, some of the twerking across the way last summer was a bit outrageous. It's a pretty safe neighborhood all in all, but things get frisky sometimes. It'll start soon as the weather warms up.