In St. Louis last year, during my weekend of debauchery, my companion and I visited the hotel bar. A couple of cute young things settled in near us, and my gregarious companion struck up conversation.

I tried to edge my way in, and of course I was mostly unsuccessful. As you can probably guess, I’m not so great in small talk with the kind of people the Subgenii call Pinks[1], and these kids were definitely rosy. These kids were visiting from some northeastern metro area, I forget which one, and talk turned to upcoming Pride celebrations. I saw an opportunity for joining in, started talking about how I stopped by Stonewall once and was surprised by how small it was, how it lacked the aura you’d expect from such a historic place.

The kids, barely old enough to be sipping their frou-frou cocktails, gave me a blank stare. I blanked and blinked back at them, started throwing out prompts that might dislodge something in their heads–”Cops raiding a bar while people were mourning Judy Garland’s passing? Rioting drag queens?”–and got nothing.

Seeing recent, vital history die right in front of you can be a real buzzkill.

[1] It is widely assumed that anyone who legitimately identifies with a subculture outside the mainstream cannot be Pink. I dispute this. It seems to me that a gayboy who worships Britney Spears[1a] and Paris Hilton, a geek who thinks spouting rote Monty Python bits and “42!” are the height of humor, and a straightlaced suburbanite whose aesthetic needs are fulfilled by Tommy Hilfiger[1b] and Thomas Kinkade are all equally Pink. Resisting the Pink isn’t merely a matter of being other-than-whitebread, it requires subversion of all the narratives that can provide an easy self-definition.

[1a] I gather that Britney Spears isn’t Britney Spears any more, but I don’t know who has replaced her as this year’s Britney Spears.
[1b] See [1a], mutatis mutandis.

I found this tract and something touched my shriveled, black heart. I’m not sure what that something was, and it’s probably best not to ask and hope never to find out.

As he moonwalked off this mortal coil, Michael Jackson managed to crash both Twitter and Wikipedia. That’s certainly a testament to something.

A couple years ago I went to this one-day conference about the projected impact of emerging technologies on education. Yeah, a laff riot, I know. Bear with me.

This was a 9-5ish event, with three solo speakers and a lunch. With each speaker getting a little over two hours to him- or herself, the presenters gave us a short break during their talks.

The after-lunch speaker was invited because of her great authority in the field of…being relatively young. No, really. She was 23 years old, had taken a year to travel between undergrad and library school, and had written a couple of articles about The Kids Today. Not research articles, mind, but the kind of limited-vision opinion pieces you’ll find in any campus newspaper.

So. For the first hour of her presentation, the speaker talked about how The Kids Today are fundamentally different, what with their internet and iPods and GPS units and such. She talked about how an instructor must respect these fundamental differences in the classroom, not just incorporating new technology into the curriculum but also allowing the students to make independent use of new tech while in the classroom. “We’re a generation of multitaskers,” she said, “so respect that. Don’t be offended if we’re texting and IMing during class; we’re still paying attention to you.”

And then after the break, while we were resettling into our seats, the speaker took the stage again, approached the mike, and beamed out at us. “Before we get started again,” she said, “I want to thank you all for being such a respectful audience. I noticed that many of you have laptops with you, but you put them away while I was speaking and I really appreciate that.”

I don’t know what was funnier: The fact that she said this completely without self-reflection or irony, or the fact that she wasn’t laughed right off the stage.

I never thought I would use this word as a pejorative, but: Our chattering class is decadent.

Proof? Proof:

The president swatting a fly is news.

The president swatting a fly should not be news, should never be news, should in fact never be anything anyone notices outside of an episode of Seinfeld.

It’s a fucking fly. Flies exist, even around presidents. And when flies exist, even around presidents, they get swatted. A cat can look at a king, and a fly can be swatted by a president. No story there, and yet.

Dear god, I hate these people so.

“Dude, you really shouldn’t do that.”

“No, don’t do that.”

“No. It’s a bad idea. Don’t do it.”

“Dude, no, stop. Don’t do that. Don’t.”

“You really, really shouldn’t be doing this.”

“This is such a bad idea.”

“You shouldn’t have done that. Don’t do it again.”

…

“Dude, you really shouldn’t do that.”

That’s one of the really weird things about having zero impulse control: The above is a representative monologue, not one part of a representative dialogue. The li’l angel on the shoulder isn’t debating a li’l devil opposite, it’s just shouting its lines into a void while the urge–whatever the urge of the moment might be–goes silently about its reckless business.

Last Sunday, I began experiencing car problems. The accelerator pedal was no longer cooperating; instead of respond gracefully to the ministrations of my foot, it balked. No longer would a slight pressure induce a slight increase in the amount of fuel given up to the carburetor;instead, I had to jam the pedal with ridiculous force just to achieve regular in-town cruising speeds. Trying to match traffic while merging was a nightmare.

I worried. I fretted. I’m a month past due for a transmission fluid change; could that be the problem? Is there some sort of feedback mechanism under the hood, sticky gears convincing the accelerator to stick in solidarity? Was my car, in fact, conspiring against me in protest?

The needed shops were closed on Sunday, and I didn’t have a chance to get to them in time on Monday. I still had a few errands to run, and every time I jammed my foot against the gas pedal, achieving only moderate acceleration, I worried that my overworked mechanical bits were going to blow.

Tuesday I again missed the shop–why oh why are these places only open during the times people are at work? they’re as bad as banks–but had to run out. Driving up a hill, breaking a little sweat, I noticed that the heel of my right foot was slacking.

“Hey, heel,” I said. “What are you doing resting like that? You should be up in the air, helping the rest of the foot get centered on the pedal. We need maximum force here, man!”

And the heel said, “I dunno, boss, just doing my job. The rest of us on the foot down here are doing just what you said, but I’m still resting on the floor. Guess the carpet came up to meet us or something.”

And then I tapped my heel, felt the semi-plush mat bunched up below my heel. A little exploration showed just how irregular the topology down there had become. I did a little pushing and scraping and felt the hump return to a plane, and the accelerator pedal resumed its quiet obedience.

And I was so terribly embarrassed.

For Christmas last year I got an XBox 360, and I keep meaning to play it more often than I do. There are just so many lovely distractions to be had these days….

Anyway, I also had a couple of games under the tree, and a local game shop had a great sale on used discs at which I picked up three more.

Since December, I’ve played through (and thoroughly enjoyed) Fable 2. I’ve also tried out Beautiful Katamari, which is freakin’ awesome but which appears to require more dexterity than I’m capable of demonstrating.

And then there’s Civilization: Revolutions.

It’s not as great as Civ II, the most recent PC entry I’ve played [1], but it’s pretty cool. And it’s apparently stuck in my console. I keep meaning to take it out and try something else, maybe give Katamari another try or finally load up Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. There’s a new downloadable scenario for Fable 2 I’d like to try out as well. [2]

Except every time I decide to play some video games, I inevitably yield to inertia and load up another game of Civilization. It’s a good game, a perfectly good game, but I can’t help but feel a little guilty for limiting my options so. And yet I don’t do anything to break the pattern. Le sigh.

[1] When Civ III came out, my then-current computer wasn’t quite up to the requirements. I think I had the minimal configuration needed to run it, but I seem to recall reading things that suggested a more powerful machine was needed for optimal gameplay. Since then I’ve decided that Civ II is as close to perfection as any game can be anyway, so why bother?

[2] If any game were to easily break my holding pattern, it would probably be the downloadable content for Fable 2. I’m a total Fable slut, I have to admit. Unfortunately, I can’t quite get up the enthusiasm to go back, because I’d want to play through the new scenario with the character I built up during the main quest; alas, I messed that character up. One of the post-game optional quests has as its reward an irreversible sex-change potion. After winning it, I equipped it and misread the on-screen instructions; I just wanted to examine the (sometimes clever) description text for the item, but I ended up activating it. Now my big brawny hero boy is a big brawny hero girl, and it just feels weird playing her after spending so much time levelling her up as a him.

The bluenoses are in a huff in West Bend, Wisconsin.[1]

A local couple has undertaken a drive to remove books infected with teh ghey, specifically those that could potentially corrupt young adults. It looks like they may’ve broadened their set of targets to all YA books that fail to condemn teh secks, but it was gaymosexuality that originally lit their fire.

There’s good personal coverage by a local LGBT advocate at a blog called Queery. More interesting, I think, is the coverage on a blog maintained by the prime petitioner herself. Reading over the first couple of pages of those blogs, I find that the petitioner has taken inspiration and resources from one of the most dreadful organizations I didn’t know existed, Parents and Friends of Ex-gays. I also find that the petitioner is, if not strictly illiterate, functionally incoherent.

This isn’t the usual toothless challenge; four library board members have already been denied reappointment. Here’s hoping that the people with actual control of the library board and the purse strings keep, or come to, their senses.

[1] Things Are Different in Wisconsin. (TM)

I have Post Secret in my RSS reader because I love the idea of anonymously sharing with the world things you’d never dare say to a single person with your identity attached. Usually every Sunday has some that are amusing or heart-breaking or even terrifying, but given Sturgeon’s Law most of them are pedestrian. I have no problem with that.

What I do have a problem with are the ones like “I turn 18 tomorrow” and “It’s odd. Once you accept that life is longsuffering”. (They’re both from this week’s batch, follow the link above before next Sunday if you haven’t already. There doesn’t appear to be an archive at the site.)

These aren’t secrets. I can only barely conceive of a person who wouldn’t be willing to repeat those sentiments to their family, to close friends, even to strangers. Hell, it’s hard not to conceive of a person who held those beliefs and wouldn’t buttonhole passersby to share their oh-so-profound philosophies.

So why do these writers act as if they believed such banal statements as secrets? I suspect that it’s part of their general self-aggrandizement. Narcissists, or so I’m led to believe, like to present themselves as thinking of themselves as superior beings[1], and a commonly recognized trait of superior beings is superior modesty. By posting these Hallmark sentiments as if they were secrets, they get to express their superior outlooks on life while also demonstrating their superior moral fiber. Or so suggest the liner notes to an episode of Armchair Psychologist Theatre.

I basically just really hate Post Secrets that aren’t really secrets. That’s all.

[1] I’m also led to understand that narcissists don’t actually believe they’re superior; they’re just compelled to act as if they believe they are. It’s a sort of malignant, inescapable LARPing.