Philosophy 101, 101

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What the fuck is the deal with all the memes around an imaginary college introductory philosophy class? Know what I’m talking about? Every once in a while from one of my super-religious relatives I get an email (they don’t try and fax anymore) telling the story of a noble student standing up to a pompous philosophy prof. In the tale the instructor has just said something no professor of philosophy in our universe would ever utter, like: “God does not exist. Here I will prove it with some shoddy logic or just stand here on this box and wait for God to push me off, har har.” These people obviously have tenure.

The Professor is alternately described as every bad thing a certain segment of old white people can think of: He’s an atheist. He’s a member of the ACLU. He’s gay, he’s drinking a fair-trade latte with wheat germ. And wearing a Che T-shirt. He has Sun Kill Moon tickets hanging out of his skinny jeans pocket and brews his own beer which he calls “SingleGear IPA” he has a cat named “Zune” and plays semi-pro amateur kickball. Both his ears are pierced. He was, up until very recently, on their lawn.

And then the noble student either refutes the dumbass argument in the most simplistic way possible or we skip that part and he comes down out of the audience of the lecture hall and just straight-up cold cocks him in his stupid ponytailed head with the fist-o-righteousness just like Jesus would have done. We then find out the student was Albert Einstein or a Marine named Todd or a Navy Seal or something.

Every word true

Every word true

Fortunately, the Internet has had a lot of fun with this meme, and has adjusted it appropriately:

Internet, you are my hero

Internet, you are my hero

But Internet aside, apparently enough people want to tell off/punch an imaginary philosophy professor that this has become a feature-length film starring TV’s Hercules as the asshole professor. This must be his penance for promoting paganism. We assume that his next role will combine his penchant for epic heroes and appealing to old people with a superhero action film called “The Cane Shaker.”

Also Walker Texas Ranger with a Walker

Also Walker Texas Ranger with a Walker

There is a lot of stupid here to unpack. So much stupid. But if there is anything worse than the Marine Todd, Albert Einstein and the Jesus of Hercules weirdness, it’s this turdwallop:

This shows up on someone’s FaceBook wall at least once per quarter and every time I physically restrain myself from using a quantum computer-enabled DNS attack followed by a well-placed series of hatchet blows on major fiber optic hubs in an effort to take down the Internet.

What the fuck class is this? Is this Intro to Platitudes? Do the study groups meet at Cracker Barrel in order to read off placemats? And why stop at the milk? There are radio waves, cosmic rays and subatomic particles aplenty coursing through the jar in between the solids and liquids jammed up in there. What do neutrinos represent, for instance? Skittles, maybe? There’s millions of them coursing through the jar every second completely unimpeded by matter, so maybe they could represent the persistent idiocy of humanity that makes me want to drink gasoline in order to weep flaming tears onto my laptop?

For the record, I took introduction to philosophy in college. You know what we did? We read a book of Kirkegaard so big it could be used as counterweight on a drawbridge. We talked a lot about “perception.” And I suppose the most important thing is we were forced to actually defend what we believed.

Pretty much like that, yeah

Pretty much like that, yeah

One assumes this is what’s got the inventors of Marine Todd, the writers of God’s Not Dead and the expropriators of Albert Einstein so pissed off. Not the bizarre “declaration of absolute truth” that anyone who’s ever spent any time around a philosopher knows never happens because that would preclude them getting off on their “pestering you with one trillion hypotheticals” fetish they all share.

It’s the requirement of having to explain some kind of logical underpinning to your beliefs rather than just, you know, having them because they feel good that’s got the ALL CAPS set so mad. FURIOUS, apparently. So they leave our reality and make up their own, where philosophy professors are stupid and where felony assault is a cherished outcome. That’s as close to an explanation for this phenomena as I can figure.

I have no idea what this is but people tell me it is funny. I don't have a TV.

I have no idea what this is but people tell me it is funny. I don’t have a TV.

But nothing explains the fucking jar upassedness. I will burn down the world next time I see that bullshit, I swear.

KT’s Hatesong: Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass”

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I’m back with another edition of “Songs KT Hates that will be stuck in everyone’s godforsaken head all week.” This week, we’ve got one that might be divisive: Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass.”

I have to admit the first time I heard it, I didn’t immediately want to fling myself out of my car into oncoming traffic. It’s an insipid and annoying song, but a little catchy. I am a certified not-skinny person, and hooray, a sorta catchy song about girls with chub! Except, no.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PCkvCPvDXk?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

First of all, I kind of thought this girl might be a robot for the entire video.

But then I watched again, and I guess she’s most likely human. She looks like an amalgam of all the people who bullied me in high school, right down to the doe-eyes, blonde hair, and weird Easterish dress. The video is inexplicably pastel and made to look like she’s maybe like thirteen or something (a very pink bedroom with a bright pink four-poster bed and a dollhouse?), but apparently she is 20. It doesn’t sit right with me that she’s got lyrics about dudes holding her booty at night, and then it’s all dollhouses and little girl bedrooms. Just me? Maybe it’s just me, but something freaked my brain stem out about this. I guess she’s from Nantucket, where bedrooms probably actually look like this (also they include a yacht and a pony, not pictured).

Not weird at all, totes normal.

Not weird at all, totes normal.

 

But here’s the first rub: Meghan Trainor isn’t fat. If she’s fat, I’m a fucking tubwhale. She may not be thin, but she isn’t even noticeably overweight. She’s what I’d consider “normal.” And that’s where it starts getting disingenuous. I said starts. Buckle the fuck up and let’s discuss.

So first off, she’s not fat. So what we’re initially given the impression of, is that media and body issues with women are at the level that a person at a normal weight has to assert that she is still just as good as someone underweight. What the fuck does this impress into the minds of real, actual overweight girls who are struggling already?

Next up we have the weird appealing-to-boys side of the lyrics. The song screams “I have what boys want.” Who the fuck cares what boys want? Why is she so desperate to appeal to boys? As Feministing wrote about this very song, “…loving yourself because dudes like what you’ve got going on is a pretty flimsy form of self-acceptance. In fact, it’s not really self-acceptance at all if it depends on other people thinking you’re hot.”

Let’s face it, the lyrics aren’t fucking body-positive at all. Telling girls they’re “perfect from the bottom to the top” and two goddamn seconds later shitting on “skinny bitches”? That’s grade-A bullshit, right there. You know that e-cards quote going around, “you can tell who the strong women are, because they’re building others up instead of tearing them down” or whatever someone like Ghandi or Abe Lincoln said? That applies here. The fact that this song can’t go without commenting on other women’s bodies to make its point? This song can go fuck itself. This isn’t what your girls should be listening to. At all.

And that’s the problem: this song is making money hand over fist because people are lining up to clamor over how positive this song is! Look, she tells us we’re perfect! No, she’s selling herself and exploiting the body image discussion for financial gain.

I don’t think I even have the strength to discuss the cultural appropriation, either. The CBC can do that for you.  “I have a Trinidadian uncle by marriage, so i’m going to appropriate an entire culture’s music and make it palatable to white people!” UGHHHHHHH.

I’m not the first one to get the douche chills from this song. I won’t be the last.

Fuck this shit, I’m out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Gloucester Clam’s Tournament of Fucktacular Intersections: Day 4

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Hola, Clampadres. It’s the last day of our first round of the Tournament of Awful, Ungodly Intersections. Make sure you get your votes in before we advance to the next round!

intersections

Poplar & Washington vs Centennial & Emerson

Poplar and Washington is kind of a sleeper entry into this contest. “It’s not THAT bad,” you say to yourself, but it kinda is that bad. All the time. Sure, taking a right isn’t automatically summoning death, but just try to take a left onto Poplar any time that isn’t the dead of night. People who don’t quite understand how a fucking rotary works (THOSE PEOPLE MAKE ME SICK) come flinging out of Grant Circle at ten thousand miles per second and almost t-bone you when you had a clear shot a millisecond ago. And try to take a left from Poplar onto Washington. On second thought, don’t. You’ll never make it. You will grow old and die waiting.

Centennial & Emerson/Commonwealth is one of my personal most hated intersections, mostly because my kid goes to Pathways so I go through this intersection four times a day. People FLY THE FUCK down Commonwealth now that it’s been repaved. It’s goddamn unbelievably dangerous.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObJV_PITRjA?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

LITERALLY THIS IS THE SOUND OF TRAFFIC WHEN YOU’RE JUST TRYING TO GET THROUGH THE FUCKING INTERSECTION. Listen, fuckwads, slow the shit down. You do have control over your acceloratrix. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost been taken out by some high school kid doing 90 late for homeroom.

[polldaddy poll=8338114]

 

Sayward/Bass/Brightside vs Norman/Magnolia/Shore Dr.

Oh my fucking god, Sayward and Bass Ave. It sucks sooooo baaaad. While sometimes you can scoot through with barely any pause at all, you just fucking try it on a Saturday with nice weather. I have been backed up to Captain Joe’s before, no fucking lie. “Hey, let’s make the exit of pretty much all of East Gloucester ONE FUCKING ROAD,” some asshole must have once said, “And then let’s put a cut-through in the same intersection. I have spent seven minutes getting from the top of Sayward at Haskell down to Meineke. I know this because I timed it, since I had nothing better to fucking do since traffic wasn’t moving. You know what the fucking worst is? When some super de dooper dickbag goes in the right lane and then takes a left. I want to punch these people right in the butthole. Although blog-friends of ours live on the corner and sometimes it’s fun to drink in their kitchen and watch people angrily navigate the intersection.

Norman/Magnolia/Shore is our attempt to reach beyond downtown and include our far-flung friends in Magnolia. I mean, no intersection is particularly bad, as Jim Dowd pointed out to me, “because it looks like a freight train of nerve gas tipped over there.” Point your angry letters in his direction. Anywho, the one time a year I bother going to Magnolia for whatever reason, this intersection kinda blows. I mean, first of all, why is there a round thing in the middle of an intersection if it’s not meant to be a rotary? We have a tourist population, people have no idea how to drive in optimal conditions, let alone when faced with a random barrel thing in the middle of a 4-way intersection. Nevermind, there doesn’t even have to be a fucking next thing, because that’s it. Yeah, and then the confusing one-way stuff going on there, that’s probably a thing too.

[polldaddy poll=8338120]

Gloucester Restaurants Mashed Up With Pop Artists.

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Two Sisters of Mercy

Gwen Sclafani’s

Destino’s Child

Ocean Soundgarden

Temple of the Dogbar

Mike’s and the Mechanics

Donny and Maria’s Pizza

Gloucester House of Pain

Daft Punkworth’s Bistrot

Boy George’s

Rolling Stone’s Pub

Fleetwood MacDonalds

Pratty Smyths

The Franklin Goes to Hollywood

MadFishbone

Tacos LouReeda

Halibut Pointer Sisters

Katrina’s and the Waves Bar & Grill

Bachman Turner’s Seafood Overdrive

Diana Ross and the Supremes Roast Beef

Belle and Sebastian’s Pizza

Jason Mrazorean

The Sheryl Crow’s Nest

No Snark Sunday, Post Fishing Reality

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The future can be a scary place. For instance: at some point in the future you, dear reader, are dead. That’s kind of a downer. Sorry. But it’s also true that everything awesome that’s ever going to happen occurs in the future. It’s where every sandwich you will ever eat from here on out resides. The next season of your favorite show is out there. Every upcoming breakthrough and triumph and most importantly, it’s where our kids live.

Downtown Gloucester, 2017

Downtown Gloucester, 2017

The future is something we ignore at our, and especially their, peril. There are aspects of it we can control and lots more we can’t.  But while it makes sense to remain optimistic, being delusional is another thing entirely. So with that in mind, I feel that it is the responsibility of The Clam to point out that, regardless of how we got here and who’s to blame for what, it’s a very real possibility that the fishing industry in Gloucester may dwindle down to pretty much nothing.

There. We said it.

Understandably, that comes as a gut punch to a lot of people. It gets others mad and they start going on about catch limits and how tourist jobs suck and all kinds of things that are not germane to owning up to this very real possibility. And because people get mad, we don’t talk about it.

I’m becoming worried that in order not to hurt understandably upset people, we’re not speaking about this openly. I’m deeply concerned that leadership is not addressing it, as this is their, like, job and stuff. I’m terrified that the only place willing to openly state: “The fishing industry in Gloucester may very well be on a downward slide from which it will never recover” is a satire blog best known for imagined lists of nautical strip-club names and the term “assweasel.”

Weasels are assholes

Weasels are assholes

For years I have listened to convoluted mental gymnastics from smart people when they are even tangentially confronted with this idea. I have heard a few intelligent people say that the fishing industry in Gloucester is “on pause” which I suppose is a step in the right direction in the acceptance of a possible post-fishing future. But it sounds sort of weird when you think about it for a second, right? On pause? Things on pause have a way of not coming off pause, such as my relationship with Sarah Andrews which went on pause at the end of Spring semester in 1989. I saw her at a reunion a few weeks ago, she has two boys and owns a bakery in midcoast Maine. We’re still on pause.

Ask your leaders, “Should we plan for a post-fishing future?” If the answer is “no” then we need to know why. If the answer is “yes” then we need to know exactly what that plan is. We need to think and prepare for what we’re going to do without fishing if we accept that possibility as a real one. We need to be prepared to make changes and spend money. We need to do this calmly and without freaking out.

Oh, who am I kidding. Here, let me get that out of the way:

“You WANT this to happen because YOU aren’t from here/are an elitist snob/whatever”

No I don’t. I’d rather there be a robust fishing industry, but I’m also not a fool. Also: your doctor might be an elitist snob, but she also can tell you if you if that weird mole is a concern. Those two facts have little bearing on each other.

“The reason we’re opposing change is because we’re grieving our loss.”

Grief is fine to a point, but once it begins to make it difficult to do the work needed to make necessary change, it’s corrosive. Lots of industries have changed, even right here. Quarrying was once a huge thing, now it’s not. Change happens, it’s hard and yes, sad. But the trick is managing it. And on grief: Mom may be grieving Dad’s loss, but if she can’t afford to stay in the big house then she can’t. It’s up to us to help her do the right thing. Not talking about it is not helping.

“We’re going to become like Newburyport!”

Newburyport

Newburyport

 

Not if we plan, not if we make some kind of real efforts to move forward will we come to resemble the most detested berg on the northern coast, a city whose name is spat like an epithet. But if we continue to do nothing, we’re going to wind up like Lynn after GE scaled down.

“You should have seen it back in…”

Stop. Stop right there. Nostalgia has, at this point, become a destructive force. I don’t want to hear about 40 years ago. I want to hear about ten years from now. We need to spend some time detaching ourselves from the past and figure out who we are now and who we plan to be. Sorry.

“Tourists Suck!”

Ok, fine. Give me another plan then. If we don’t want more tourists, then we need other business, but that’s even harder in a lot of ways. Businesses need the same stuff: hotels, restaurants, mixed use office spaces, parking. Businesses also require trained local employees, so get ready to spend a lot more on the schools. I’m ready for a non-tourist plan, though. Hit me.

“It’s over man! Game OVER!”

Pull your shit together, Hudson.

So, there. I said it. Be mad at me if if you want, but know this: I’m not responsible for catch limits or climate change or ground stocks or any of that stuff. I, honestly, don’t even want to have that discussion at this point because it feels like we’re on the Titanic, taking on water and all anyone wants to talk about is who was steering when and if the iceberg was tabular or non-tabular.

Sort of academic at this point

Sort of academic at this point

Be pissed at me, but know this: What I want is for the future of Gloucester to be as cool as any point in the past. That is all. We have resources that other communities would kill for, we have natural beauty by the fuckton, we have a formidable DIY spirit that will be essential as Western culture moves from passive consumers to situational creatives. We have the most visceral (to the point of frequently being alarming) group of out-of-the box thinkers you can imagine.

The future is going to get weird. And we’ve got just the right weirdos to meet it.

Clam, out.