Just kidding. Well, half kidding, I mean we all have our vices. But I'm just joking. I really just took this summer to get lots of reading done, find a higher-paying job, write some more articles, and also finish a weird little dystopian play I had been working on for way longer than I care to admit. But it's done, bitches. My long hiatus away from this blog is at an end. Thanks for being here for me when i need you, waiting patiently. Also, full disclosure, I had to search for how to spell the word "hiatus". I've always tried to be honest with you from the start, dear reader, and now you know the frightening truth: that I'm a pretty terrible speller (luckily I've chosen to pursue a career where spelling isn't a hindrance, that is, writing. Ha.) That's it, the veil has been lifted, there are no more secrets.
Phones and Fears
Summer is now officially over. I took that time to continue to build my writer's resume, to network, and to continue to grow as an artist and creator. The elephant in the room, I suppose, is that I barely ever write on this platform. I suppose I could justify it by saying "well, I've been working on so many other writing projects, diving into so many other things," and while that is all true, it's still just an excuse. See every writer, every artist is faced with two choices throughout their day: create, or don't create. There are obvious times when one cannot create, of course, like when you are at your day job, or driving home, or showering, but it's what you do in between those times that matters. It's the push and pull of boredom and distraction, the balance between fear and motivation What you do defines you. And I find myself so often unable to write, and when I do write, I find myself just venting into the void that I'm unable to write. Now there's a terrifying paradox. It's okay in small doses to write about not being able to write, but eventually you just turn into a bitter asshole because you are personifying your worst fear: being too cowardly to have a voice.
It's hard enough to write really compelling characters with interesting, rewarding plots, but now there are so many more things getting in the way of our imaginations. Our phones keep us distracted more than anything this world has ever known. The need for a validating response for the work we do has never been higher. Especially for creators that are desperate to make a living off of their creations, like, there's a huge problem in creative industries where gate-keepers don't want to, you know PAY for the time and talents of creators. As though we pay our bills with Likes, comments, bylines, and "exposure". Yuck. The gate-keepers know this, and they prey on the creators who might be financially set otherwise, but they want to share their creative gift with others. But if your dream is to make a living off of your creative product? You have a tough road ahead. I certainly haven't figured it out yet. But in the mean time, the praise and acknowledgement keeps us pacified as creators, so because we love what we do, it's very easy for us to be taken advantage of financially. Even now I'm salivating over the notion of sharing this blog post and receiving validating responses or praises from anyone and everyone. And when we do ask for more money (or any at all) it comes as a huge surprise to those benefiting from our hard work. We have to be careful of that as creators. We, as Hemingway says, "have to be okay not writing for an audience." This is a difficult thing for me in the fact that I grew up as a performer. I received immediate, raw responses from audience when I told a joke, sang a song, did a jig on the stage. Our phones are a technological version of this clap-trap.
Bo Burnum observed that America raised a generation of performers, and the market said "okay, here you go, perform everything all the time."
Full Frontal
Anyway, listen to me casually dropping the wisdom of such a controversial figure without even acknowledging the most recent news surrounding him. Okay wait here it goes'...
Louie CK recently made a return to stand up comedy. He went away for a while, and I miss him. He's my favorite stand up comedian. I try not to lionize people, but I always did look to Louis in particular as a voice of hilarity and reason. Obviously his comedy is crude and brash and unfiltered, but I always felt that his shtick came from a very honest, human place. It's adult materiel, which means it's up to us as audiences to take everything at face value, to understand that he's a man sitting down with a pad and a pen just trying to make us laugh while he makes sense of the world. But recently his work is being viewed through the lens of him being some machiavellian sex offender, as though his offenses (that were never criminally charged, mind you) are comparable to a Weinstein or Cosby power dynamic. And so every awkward moment, every self aware dig at his own sexuality or desire to be desired, is coming under fire as him "hiding his perversions through media."
Here's an article of a bunch of writers talking about whether or not they should ostracize him from their community.
https://variety.com/2018/scene/news/full-frontal-bobs-burgers-writers-louis-c-k-return-sublime-primetime-1202939782/
That article, by the way is a round table discussion of writers from Samantha Bee's and Bob's Burgers on whether or not Louis should wait longer to return. Funny that none of the writers from Bob's Burgers had anything to say about their buddy Aziz who was himself publicly shamed for having a date go poorly. Aziz's "victim"aided in a smearing piece against the comedian. I revile her for remaining anonymous, and find it ironic that the entire smut piece shows her absolute complacency and disregard for her own agency, and she then hides behind the brutally ironic pseudonym "Grace" as she wines about how her attempts to bag a rich boy didn't go as planned. I do feel badly for the girl to an extent, she's under pressure like we all are while this #Metoo movement fills us all with confusion and defensiveness and anxiety about our sexuality. She had a shitty night with a guy who was under the assumption that she wanted to f@ck after she came up to his apartment and performed various sex acts with him. But according to her, he was too forceful with wanting to take it further, and he didn't pick up on her "nonverbal cues", so you know, let's ruin this promising young minority's career because he planned on using you for sex the way you planned on using him for status.
Sorry but when feminist writers like Margaret Atwood and Bari Weiss reject your narrative, and even liberal thinking Whoopi Goldberg drops knowledge on you, you know you've done your "movement" a disservice. Men are not mind readers. Now, Aziz is back doing stand up, and it hasn't been nearly as controversial as Louis' return, so I guess we've unanimously decided to pour all our hatred and angst into Louis. I suppose it's easier that way. All these evil sex criminals are hard to keep track of, after all.
Anyways, back to Louis. Can we talk about the hilarious irony that the article about Louis starts with "full frontal"? I don't care where you stand on the issue...shit is funny. Obviously if you've been living under a rock for the past 8 months, you'd not know that Louis was accused of some version of this: He jerked off in front of some female stand-up comedians in a hotel room. There are other stories from other accusers like he jerked off while being on the phone with someone, and also he made suggestive advances so you know, mild ass sh!t when held up to actual cases of violent assault. Regardless, he's perceived now as a creepy guy whose actions are innately predatorial in every context. Despite the fact that all accounts tell us he asked for consent from these women, he then realized that he may be using his professional power over these women irresponsibly, and then he even reached out to them and tried to right the perceived wrongdoings. Still FX, Netflix, and other studios cut ties with him. They have every right to terminate a contract with someone that they feel will be bad for their brand. That's the free market. They made a purely financial decision, and that is their right.
"Louis didn't step away long enough, it should have been at least a year," some say.
Oh is that the official decree from on high? Who made you the judge and jury to a situation where no crime was committed and no charges were filed?
"He should have acknowledged what he did"
Maybe. Would you work on a tight five of the most humiliating months of your life and then announce "mea culpa" to a room of strangers? Probably not. Who are you who gets to decide what a creator's content aught to be? Would you really come to an understanding with him if he decided to apologize through his self-deprecating humor, and see him as the pitifully flawed person he has always been? Or would you just use his words against him as a way to vilify white men? Just something to think about I guess.
It's also come to light that he used to ask his friend Sarah Silverman if he could j@ck off in front of her, and she used to allow him to. So do we now blame her in part for enabling his behavior to thrive? Should studios cut ties with her? OF COURSE NOT. People, this is a generation of humans, and Louis' show explores this often, where the systems in place were deeply repressive to the male and female sexuality alike. Everyone was shamed for wanting to experiment, or discover themselves sexually. Male, female, gay, straight, whatever. And it was Louis' and Sarah's generation that fully experienced the leftover sexual liberations of the 60's. But now we're all just openly deciding to shame people again. Cool. This behavior is only now being exposed because the media enables it, so you have these two completely polarized and over-simplified narratives where a woman is either an infantilized, lionized victim by default, or they are a toxic witch armed with the excesses of feminism in search of a pay day. And the media wins again, because all they have to do is dig up these endless moments of sexual confusion and BAM, they have their quota for the week.
My ultimate question for the people who don't want him to return to doing the thing he loves the most, what do you actually want? Should we publicly execute him? Should we give each of the women he "misconducted" their own Netflix specials? Should he no longer be able to make money on stage or in front of a camera? I'm really asking.
The clear answer is that (hold on to your butts) no punishment aught to be given that has no authority to punish. If any of these alleged criminals were to be prosecuted as such, then we have this thing called a justice system to dish out the proper punishment for crimes committed against its citizens, and then we also have this thing called a free market where you, the consumer, get to spend your money on the media, on the art, on the voices that you want to see and hear. Nobody can tell you that you can't go see a particular performer, and nobody can force you to see one either. But if you find yourself advocating that someone cannot make a living because you do not like them as a person, even though they have never been charged with a crime, you are the definition of an authoritarian. You are poisoned by an ideology that only seeks to serve itself, brought upon by out of touch bourgeoisie bureaucrats in malignant think tanks that just want to fabricate social unrest in order to gain power.
So Louis steps up on stage unannounced and does some comedy. Some were offended that they were not given a choice of whether or not they could see him. There are several levels of irony to this, of course. The first layer being that this controversy arose because Louis was allegedly trapping women in a room with him and forcing them to look at him while he jerked off. The second layer of irony is that of course he was not forcing these perfectly capable women to do anything they didn't want to do. They had every right and opportunity to get up, call him a creep, and leave the room if they didn't want to be in it. They were not assaulted by any measure. But we don't know really what was actually happening in those hotel rooms, and we don't know the context of the consent, or whether he was really leveraging these women's careers based on whether or not they let him... um...do his business? Well whichever narrative you prescribe to, you'll find the situation ironic for sure; I did.
The conclusion I came to:
A comedian entering a space that's entire mode of existence is a come-and-go environment where freedom of expression is paramount, is not a direct assault on your person. Therein lies the entire crux of the issue: the attempt to redefine "assault" as anything that a person might be made to feel uncomfortable with. This is what Johnathan Haidt has labelled The Coddling of the American Mind. So the way that this club has solved this issue is to put a disclaimer on their tickets that they do not control which controversial figures may or may not pop in for the evening and do a set. If you feel uncomfortable, you are free to leave, and they'll even pay your tab. I think that's pretty fair.
I don't know. I'm getting off this subject for now. I've done some dumb, selfish sh!t in my life. We all have. And I think part of the very human impulse to join the angry mob of the virtuous call-out culture, is that we're afraid that if we speak up, we'll be guilty by association, and the skeletons in our closet will be the next on the docket, being analyzed like a microscope. Sorry, that point reminded me of Eminem's song Cleaning out my Closet, and also lyrics from White America.
And they connected wit' me too because I looked like them
That's why they put my lyrics up under this microscope
Searchin' wit' a fine toothed comb
It's like this rope waitin' to choke
Tightenin' around my throat
Watchin' me while I write this like
"I dont like this, no!"
All I hear is
Lyrics lyrics constant controversy
Sponsors workin' round the clock
To try to stop my concerts early
Surely hip hop is never a problem
In Harlem only in Boston
After it bothered ya fathers
Of daughters startin' to blossom
So in conclusion, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." I think that was Jesus who said that.
Look, Louie is a gross dude, he's always been pretty upfront about that fact, we just liked pretending it was harmless because we all have gross, perfectly human thoughts running through our head. But now that outrage culture has reached its most pernicious peaks, it's become very popular online trend to moralize, through a trendy new lens, every single thing that's ever happened or been said. But that's the thing I try to constantly remnd myself of-- it seems to just be an online thing. It's on twitter where the only thing to do is to pound our opinions against the wall of the void as though practicing for an ideological tennis match, and see what bounces back. I listened to the taping, and it seemed like people were overall pumped to see Louis' return to comedy. I certainly was and I'm not ashamed of that. The only "outrage" comes from a fabricated media frenzy. A group of snarling sjw's on twitter and some columnists looking for something to write about is not a "public outcry." Again, it seems to me that every day working people have so much more to worry about than what the sexual habits of rich people are, and this machine that keeps feeding off of our outrage will soon consume us all. You might not feel it yet, and you might think that a lot of these issues brought out to the light are for a just cause-- but it's very easy to lose sight of a liberal culture if you are willing to persecute and sacrifice even 1 innocent person in the name of an ideology. That's no longer liberalism, that's cowtowing to fear.
Liberalism: Allowing people to live a life free of social percussion when they have committed no crimes, and despite the fact that the things they say may offend your sensibilities, you do your best to coexist with your neighbor.
Authoritarianism: Co-opting and weaponizing an unearned sense of moral virtue in order to persecute others and purge the world of anyone and anything that goes against your current orthodoxy or which makes you upset.
Neitszche says "distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful," and I think that's my takeaway from this controversial issue. If you don't want to see him, you don't have to buy tickets to his shows and you can protest him if he appears on SNL or Conan or what-have-you. You have that right. Exercise it all you like. But as far as public punishment, or atoning for his sins of being a creepy dude...we already have a rather intricate system in place that seeks to bring criminals to justice based on the set of laws that we, the people, put in place. It's called the justice system.
There's more important things to worry about. There are more and more school shootings that we, as a society are becoming dangerously indifferent to. There's psycho b!tches from Florida making plans to drink other kid's blood, and there's moron Republican foot-soldiers mailing bombs to our former heads of state (that dude's also from Florida, but I swear, that's just a coincidence). The media machine wants you to constantly be up in arms about all these issues no matter how large or small. They want you to take a stand, they want you salivate and constantly need to be on the right side of things that they search out, dissect, and moralize through the lenses and doctrines. Remember that very few of the voices on twitter have law degrees, very few have sat down to write or edit major works, very few understand how or why this country even exists. And remember that YOU are in control of what you pay attention to.
Here's a song to enjoy when you're a little lost in life and unsure what the next move is or why you might be feeling a bit lonely or confused or overwhelmed. Then just go outside and breathe, and try to be nice to one another. Points if you can find the theme of why I chose this tune.
Anyways, I'm glad to be back after what seemed like an incredibly short summer. I'm hoping to keep this up for as long as it serves me. It really helps get my motor going, get my writer muscles moving. I'll plan to post some poetry here, some more thoughts on topical/ important issues, probably vent about everyday life etc... but next couple blogs, I want to talk about music. Something happened this past spring that changed music for me forever, and I'd like to dive in and talk about it. We'll see how it goes.
I'm glad Louis is back doing what he loves. I'm going to feel free and comfortable to quote his body of work as a point of reference, and I'm not going to feel the need to defend his wisdom in relation to the controversy surround him. The incidents do not diminish his body of work for me. I hope this is the beginning to some road of redemption and healing. For the women that he made feel uncomfortable, for him, and for the culture.
If you don't know where to start, Start Anywhere
Anyways, moving the subject away from sexual stuff and controversy and forgiveness and judgement, sometimes it's just a bitch to sit down and write. Whether it's because you're imagining a lynch mob persecuting you for your thoughts, whether it's because some imaginary critic is taking a dump on every mediocre creative thought you've ever had, or because you couldn't get out of bed this morning and your head hurts, sometimes the writing just does. not. flow. And that's okay. It happens to everyone. Writing anything is a tiny accomplishment, and if everyone could write War and Peace or To Kill a Mockingbird, then they wouldn't be considered that great of accomplishments, would they? Not everyone can do that sh!t. So here are some quotes that help me start writing. Lots are from Hemingway because I've been reading him a lot lately. Some you might find to be tired aphorisms found on motivational corporate posters etc, but together they are an antidote to the chaos of the creative mind.
On being stuck:
"The secret of getting ahead is getting started"- Mark Twain
On perfectionism:
"...perfectionism is very dangerous. Because of course if your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything. Because doing anything results in (sacrifice)...it's actually kind of tragic because you sacrifice how gorgeous and perfect it is in your head for what it really is." -David Foster Wallace
"Have no fear of perfection. You'll never reach it." Salvador Dali
On the need for validation:
"One must be okay not writing for an audience"- Hemingway (paraphrased)
On putting too much pressure on yourself in front of the computer:
"Do not worry, you have always written before, and you will write now." -Hemingway
On putting too much pressure on yourself away from the computer.
"Don't think about writing when you're not writing." - Hemingway
On filtering your thoughts and stepping on taboo eggshells.
"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak because a baby can't chew"-Mark Twain
On fearing other people's opinions.
"I've already settled it for myself, so criticism and praise go down the same drain"
-Georgia O'Keeffe
Words I have trouble spelling off the top of my head, but am getting better at:
-hiatus (obviously)
-address (1 "D" or two, I ask myself every time.)
-exaggerate
-existence
-exercise
-drawer
-censorship
-incident
-acquire
-correspondence
-privilege
-endeavors
-Nietzsche (not exactly in common vernaculer, but I read and quote him enough so I should learn it.)
-vernacular
See you next time. Tell me your thoughts on some of these issues I talked about. How was your summer? Have you forgiven Louis, and many of the other males (and females) in media that have done some shady stuff that might not qualify as assault per se, or are you hoping for more punishment for this behavior and accountability? What about someone in your past that wronged you? Maybe they didn't coax you up to a hotel room and jerk off in front of you, maybe it was something else, and you've finally come to a place where you can offer forgiveness to them. Or, maybe there is something you've done that you wish to be forgiven for, if only someone would extend to you the ability to be forgiven. We all deserve that don't we? If the will to change and better one self is present, I believe that. Also, What gives you the most trouble when you create? What are the worst distractions you face when trying to achieve your goals?
Just some stuff to think about until next time.
--CjM
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