Podcasting during quarantine just feels like the Weasley Twins in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with their little radio show.
Friendly reminder that you can follow me on instagram if you haven’t realized their new terms of service specifically outlines how they can track for text messages, access your contacts, watch you through your front facing camera even if it’s not open, which, mind you, they were already doing, they just weren’t explicitly telling you.
Anyways, I’ve been absent for a few weeks. I like to make a point of not always being predictable or accountable. I think it’s best for all of us, just so we all know what to expect. I’m kidding…Kinda.
No, honestly, quarantine has been hard. Obviously, I was working as an epidemiologist in Florida on it for a few months and was teaching remotely. I thought Biden winning the election would alleviate some of the stress, but it turns out it’s “surprisingly” not comforting to realize there was only a 4% difference in who wanted fascism in this country. Crazy, right. On top of that, I had 2 people in my life commit suicide within 3 weeks of each other, then my grandfather died, then my childhood pony died, and then I had to experience the stress of holidays when I don’t speak to the majority of my biological family. I was, however, the only family member invited to my GAY side of the family’s Thanksgiving. The dinner was wonderful and it may be one of the last times I will get to see my Godmother, as she has had terminal cancer for a few years. Her children are risking the chance of flying over to DC for Christmas, and they didn’t agree for Thanksgiving, so I take that as a sign she’s not doing too well in spite of what she says.
We were laughing about art, as my godmother is responsible for introducing me to artists like Monet, and my FAVORITE FAVORITE painting to date (even with how much I love studying Van Gogh and Salvador Dali’s work) is “The Fingerprint Granny”, by Chuck Close, that was hanging in the National Gallery of Art in DC. It’s this huge black and white portrait of a grandma that is made with thumbprints. It’s incredible, I love it. I actually got to meet him on a field trip my senior year of high school. He drives a cool x-men type wheelchair. Well, turns out, like all our favorite white men, he was responsible for abusing his position of power as a superior and title as an “artiste” to sexually abuse the women, even minors, who would work for him. I’m now rethinking why his assistant eagerly asked ME what I thought about it instead of the 10 other classmates that were also looking at the painting around me. #HotGirlPrivilege
So, these past few weeks have been pretty heavy for me. Fittingly so. I pretty much just shut down as a person for a few weeks. Went into a depression induced hibernation for a while. Am I out of it? Probably not. I don’t ever think people move on from pain rooted in sadness or loss, especially permanent events. The idea of just shoving it aside doesn’t make any sense to me. I think healthy people find different perspectives on it, channel it into a positive even when it’s the most complicated, heartbreaking backstory you’ve ever heard. Some people choose to dismiss it, because they’re either so sociopathic they don’t care or they’re too scared to admit they don’t like themselves or what pain they’ve caused. Some people are embarrassed to need others, so they refuse to admit they do. I think it’s most natural to myself to embrace it. To learn from my experiences. The pain I’ve caused myself and others. To study it, like I study everything in life, and to understand I cannot change the past but every day I choose the future. To love it, because it makes me who I am. It shapes my path.
What started to pull me out of the abyss, though, was a few things. My turkey, Thanksgiving, started flying up to my window and waking me up every morning to make sure I was okay. Since it’s colder in the North East, I haven’t been going outside as much as the skies are grey and really gross and he really misses the company. We got a puppy, because my mom’s 14 year old Jack Russell also had to be put down. I watched my mom’s dog be born at my riding instructor’s house after a lesson on my horse, Viola, once. Huge, beautiful thoroughbred, crazy, powerful, ex-track horse. Way too much of a fucking bitch for how small I was. I did not like riding her. She used to throw me off every single lesson. So after one lesson, my riding instructor’s dog had started to give birth, I just watched the whole thing and we eventually took the runt of the litter, Penny, home. Penny also lived with us for 14 years, so I don’t necessarily view death quite in the same sense of sadness. Whether that’s because I’ve experienced a lot of it, I don’t know, or whether it’s because I take a more holistic, circle of life, view to it, related more towards spirituality and learning from loss and feeling the presence of people whether or not they’re around you.
Our puppy, Sydney, though, is the sweetest soul and most perfect edition to the farm. She is the spunkiest, wiggliest Australian cattle dog, but she is not accepted into the professional breed registry because her nose is the wrong color, apparently. I also stopped working. Honestly, I won’t get into it, but it turns out myself and incompetent authority do not get along and removing the major stressor for my life was key to my happiness. If anyone would like to marry me so I can have access to their healthcare, slide in my DMs. I currently have unlimited time, no schedule, and a few months to figure things out. I can city jump for a bit and live like a house plant in your apartment. Sounds kinda fun and right up my alley, actually. Honestly, I would even be down to just take up someone’s extra room and provide them friendly company. Times are tough. People are lonely. I am capable of living in a cage for a few months, like Sawyer and Kate from Lost, anyways. That is NOT an invitation to kidnap me. I take it back, that was horribly worded. Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark would be screaming at me right now. Big, big, big, big, big yikes.
I still live every day waiting for civil war to actually break out in D.C. Being in the vicinity, it’s incredibly tense every single day. Even without the traffic. After the election, people started going out more and more, due to the holidays, and coronavirus cases started spiking obviously. But for what? Why do we HAVE to buy stuff? People going back to work instead of demanding change and a stimulus and going to the houses of these GOP congresspeople, calling them incessantly, FORCING THEM TO DO THEIR FUCKING JOBS WHICH SHOULD NEVER HAVE TO BE FORCED BECAUSE THEIR ENTIRE JOB IS SUPPOSED TO BE WORKING FOR THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE, but instead, we use a holiday marked in Christian religious sentiment to overshadow the fact that anti-semitism is at an all time high this Hanukkah and “thank them” for the extra $600 because “it’s better than nothing”. So things are a little intense for me, lately. My PTSD is pretty much off the charts.
Best part? My PTSD just makes me VERY aware of the brevity of life, what’s actually important when it comes down to measuring your significance. Coupled with my intelligence, which makes me VERY aware of the inefficiency of our current state and refusal to acknowledge the importance of merging both life experiences and personal anecdotes with observational narratives and a formal education. So, I’m just a walking ray of sunshine these days.
So, like Eleven in Stranger Things, I bought 37 boxes of Eggo Waffles. (Kidding–I only bought like 3, and they were blueberry not normal). I soaked in my sensory deprivation tank (my bubble bath with the same temperature as the fiery pits of hell I will supposedly suffer in according to your book of no judgment). And, I emerged from my meditative trance embracing my powers and recharged for yet another glorious battle.
I’m gonna take things in a less serious route and take a trip down memory lane. A wise Schrute once said “Nostalgia is one of the greatest human weaknesses. Second only to the neck.” and I believe this to be true. It’s why, during a pandemic, impending civil war, and general state of the USA, you can set aside all of your anxiety, gather round with your family, and bask in the comfort of what is most likely your whiteness because major holiday seasons and the way our cultural society and workforce is set up is around the Puritan work ethic and Christianity in general, so…
And for the record, I understand, like all things American, its ties to consumerism is supposedly what makes it “not about Christianity” and all that jazz, but I’ve seen the megachurches you don’t condemn and we all saw the tweets about Jeff Bezos having billions of dollars, getting exponentially richer during this pandemic, having all of our wishlists, and still not being Santa Claus”. Meanwhile, Amazon also doesn’t have to pay federal income tax. Turns out, there’s a lot you’re willing to look past in the name of religion and convenience, is all.
Kinda spicy, I did not mean to start it out with that tone but I never really know where the night is going to take me and it’s 5:45 am.
Anywho, we’re gonna do a media dive into some of my, and the rest of the world’s, favorite entertainment. TV Shows, a few movies, and then just childhood genres and white culture classics. Since I represent the type of white people who found White Chicks funny, without being insulting, but then wasn’t allowed to try to try out for cheerleading because of “Bring it on!”, had a My Twin! Doll and matching outfits despite having a little sister who is actually my twin, and watched Hidalgo while living on a horse farm and doing 100-mile trail rides. Despite my so-called “Radical” views, which, as a reminder, are only “radical” and “super liberal” because I live in the United States and everywhere else in the world that is a developed country views the way I think as “exceptionally moderate”, although, you know, a little sassy. Despite this college-instilled liberalism, though, I like to think I am the epitome of the 1990’s white American dream.
I can trace my family, thanks to military records, back decades, those who married in were usually immigrants escaping war. (All white ones, though.) Shout out to my cousin Mark for breaking the trend and for also, like me, taking an “extended break” from our horribly toxic family.
The sigh of relief I found uncovering that my great-great grandfather was a Union general was audible. As was the discovery that we spoke 9 different Native American tongues so we could trade and communicate, not mercilessly steal the land from and plunder. A symbiotic relationship, hopefully, more so than others. However, I am still white. The standards are REALLY low in 2020. I am SURE at some point my ancestors were the plague upon humanity the Bible warned you all about. White people in Florida are currently holding that title. I have blonde hair and green eyes and a German last name. If it’s not Hitler, I’m SURE we can trace it back to kingdoms at some point in time, which I was absolutely either related to some rebellious peasant or the black sheep outcast of royalty (like Fiona from Shrek–we’ll come back to that). For this reason, it’s also probably why Disney movies and The Princess Diaries really resonated with me. I see women in the Future Female Leaders of America on instagram trying to represent Elle Woods, as if a woman who advocated for congress to set aside their issues and come together would ever endorse the current state of the GOP and Trump Administration, and I’m reminded of those Clique books and my middle school bully who was so intent on forcing her purity and righteousness above others because it was the ONLY thing she had that represented her identity in any kind of way. So it was the only thing she clung to and the fact that it might not be something to parade around town to establish how entitled to respect you are was a harsh reality for a lot of white women. News flash–that is not your sole identity. It doesn’t represent anything about your value. 55% of white women of which, who refused to admit the reality or just live in delusion happily. I think we can all thank the Jonas Brothers for ditching their purity rings so all of the country Christian girls from Georgia could stop only doing anal because they thought it would somehow exempt them from their sin. I actually know a girl like that from highschool. Which, as far as that argument goes, I’d like to point out, 1. if homosexuality is a sin, then Jesus died for the gays, and 2. We see the religious ties to how their religious leaders would molest altar boys and children in general and the excuses for it. Anal just doesn’t count. Jerry Sandusky made national news, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell get dragged through the media publicly, yet you won’t condemn it or accept that it happens and is fostered through the mentality within your own communities because you refuse to condemn the people you associate with.
Which reminds me– I’ll be having my friend from Penn State’s football program on, who was a freshman when the Joe Paterno stuff and Jerry Sandusky expose went down, on my podcast in a few weeks so keep an eye out.
Anywho, white culture is problematic in a lot of ways. Almost exclusively because of colonialist expansion mentality based around the NEED to constantly be exerting our dominance. Which should come as absolutely no surprise to still be endorsed by a country who is #1 in olympic gold medals but not healthcare, human rights, happiness, average income, women’s rights, but IS in things like homelessness, financial insecurity of the middle class, gap between median and average income, student debt, medical debt, you name it. We throw the word “freedom!” on something and we just stop trying, I guess. Even though we’re #1 in prisoner population. Crazy how much you like scientists for things like war machines and the ability to get plastic surgery if you can afford it to keep your barbie-esque image for male consumption, but not any other factor of intelligence.
We also think so ethnocentrically that if Americans were around in historic times, we would’ve been the dumb asses who proposed that the sun revolved around us. We would be the “scientists” proposing things like anti-vax theories (and fabricating the data and subsequently losing their medical license) and how WE must be the center of the universe. Look at Florida right now! Ron DeSantis fucking gestapo raided the data scientist’s house who was publishing the legitimate data–something the government should have been doing FROM THE BEGINNING because the history of ethics and public health can not take any more hits. Where the fuck did your public health policy experience come from? Mike Pence’s handling of HIV/AIDS in Indiana? Ronald Reagan’s refusal to acknowledge “gay cancer” for YEARS until it also started affecting people who weren’t gay? Florida and Texas’s coronavirus response is just more proof to my theory that we got all of the Europeans who were too fucking ignorant to remain in Europe and, instead of accepting progress and science, literally just hopped on a boat and sailed away HERE (also why I think this same group of people so adamantly uses the “go back to where you came from!” mentality because that’s how projection works) and they also played “finder’s keepers” with the land. You wonder why there’s a tik tok trend about “nobody’s gonna know!” and it’s because our entire country is literally founded on doing the wrong thing, and praying for forgiveness, but then not actually having to be accountable for your behavior because you have a fall back option of “he loves us all” and we wonder if this is “NEW”.
You all are fucking idiots. Please, just shut up.
Back to media and entertainment. We’re gonna start off with our classic favorite, Shrek.
Now, I’ve always taken a special liking to Shrek. I have a hat that says “daddy” in Shrek letters with little Ogre ears, and my dream is to wear it for my next boyfriend when he fucks me, so I’m obviously a big fan. However, quarantine is making me increasingly uncomfortable because I realize my childhood is very similar to Dolores’ from Westworld. And I don’t say that because I was a raised on a tobacco farm/horse farm by Missouri natives in the military and parents who were engineers so we also have this whole “Ender’s Game” thing going on simultaneously in a “best of both worlds” Hannah Montana thing, but also because quarantine is making me revisit my favorite movies and identify problematic things with my newfound “outlook” on life. An outlook of which, is really the stunning realization of how biased our society is towards a Christian religious cultural norms and how our electoral system has absolutely hindered progress of the country on a global stage that is about to bitch slap us in the face when the reality of what our government has done for 4 years gets uncovered over the next few decades, in some inevitably dramatic HBO-series-Chernobyl-documentary style.
Remember how Americans watched that and were like “the government corruption! Could you imagine?!” It’s almost like they have never heard of Three Mile Island or Tom’s River, have never thought to look into why developed countries elsewhere were moving away from pesticides and stressing the importance of chemical knowledge It’s almost like they’ve never read Silent Spring or, if they had, assumed it was “liberal propaganda” and the DDT “didn’t actually do anything to the eagles” (an actual quote from my stepdad), and wonder exactly what it was that drove the development of the EPA and why leaving it up to individual states or industries to “do the right thing” means making the right thing the easiest thing, or at the very least, the most financially rewarding with severe enough punishments to deter deviation from the path, FROM THE BEGINNING. It means clarity, reality, and comprehensive views. Making it simple to be a good person. Tactics of which are apparently not taught or stressed in any administrative capacity and political systems which refuse to pass or enact policy to rectify the impact of lobbying, the ability to profit from your public government position and set your own salary at whim while also making budget cuts to the communities you control, limiting the number of terms, making campaigns publicly feasible, clear, and less biased. It’s an infuriating time, so I turned to my good ole childhood favorites for some amusement and distraction.
Shrek, my savior, someone I never thought would let me down. I watch Shrek at least once a month. Weeks I’m super anxious, I’ll watch it 3-5 days in a row. Having a photographic memory, I remember most times I’ve watched it with others, when it’s been in the background of studying and what I learned, it brings up a wonderful layer of memories.
But let’s look at Shrek from Fiona’s point of view.
Fiona, a beautiful princess, waiting patiently daydreaming in her tower. We’ll give her a pass on waiting for a man because I don’t think we need to defend why she didn’t personally fight a dragon after watching male after male die in a fiery shock like a barbecued, spit-roasted pig for the dragon to then devour. Either way, Fiona’s still spunky. She isn’t about to take shit from any man. She can fend for herself, singing birds to death and then cooking their babies. She tells men exactly what she wants and expects. You know, she did insist Shrek kiss her. Although, when he denied it, she just accepted that as well. She can kick the ass of 20 or so men in what would only be assumed to have been an attempted gang-rape by Robin Hood, kinda like the ones that go on in Egypt to journalists or India to married women sold off in gambling debts because women’s rights have still not progressed enough globally for any of us to feel like we can just “sit back” and “enjoy” our lives”. She’s a real tough girl, capable of fending for herself. We later find out she gives up her beauty, her financial status, and her elitist familial lineage for a POOR OGRE WHO IS MOTIVATED SOLELY FOR PERSONAL GAIN. He isn’t doing a good thing because it’s “the right thing”. This story is about a man who is redeemable almost exclusively BECAUSE OF THE INFLUENCE OF A STRONG WOMAN. It does nothing to address the fact that all Fiona got out of it was a financial demotion, some children and the impending threat of nearly a divorce as well as feared infidelity, and, of course, finally being “ALLOWED” to be her most natural ogre self. Like Shrek brought out something different in her? Completely changed who she was? “Allowed” her to be herself?
The love we have for Shrek is the kind of love white men who still listen to Joe Rogan or think he’s “connected” to reality in any way think voting independently and refusing to believe you’re liberal because you think those policies are “unrealistic”, when in reality, what’s “unrealistic” is that you endorse recreational drug use but not public or mental health programs or universal healthcare. She was just as bad ass and great as a person, so headstrong, capable of forging her own path and choosing right from wrong (when she learns to be aware of the choice in front of her), but you’re gonna tell me that only WITH A MAN, AND AN UGLY POOR ONE AT THAT, is Fiona “ALLOWED” to “be her most authentic self”. EXCUSE ME. Literally ALL he did was change the outside and offer companionship.
For those of you who are like “but wait, Fiona had baggage, Shrek did her a favor.” Oh did he? How? Shrek gave her adventure and companionship, that’s all. She could have gotten the same, however short of a time frame, by trying to escape on her own. I’m SURE she could’ve had a great friend of her own, maybe even donkey, at some point to go on solo gal adventures with. Clearly the dragon could communicate to some degree. Maybe they would’ve gotten along. Fiona was this bad ass white woman who supposedly deviated from the “princess” options we were given to idolize as children, but HOW?! By forewarning us that choosing the path of a good marriage meant anticipating being poor, struggling to get by, and having our husbands leave to address government incompetence at whim? Why was this our martyr in any way. She was, however, very realistic.
Not to mention, Rapunzel swung out her tower all the time on her hair, but she just didn’t MOVE AWAY until a guy was there. Then, with Frozen and Moana, women, children, FINALLY have some complex female characters NOT motivated solely by men to leave their homes.
Back to Fiona and the dragon communicating, though. That is literally ALL women ask of you in the USA NOW and you can’t even be honest, communicative partners. At least in Shrek 2, his infidelity was a mistake! Not some recurrent snapchat in the same chef hat you wore in the one year anniversary post with your girlfriend from the night before. The same guys who LOOOOOOVE Shrek are either not dating the “tough” girl, because “she’s a little too difficult”, saw the whole “love potion making you handsome” thing in Shrek 2 and instead thought you should ENCOURAGE your girlfriends to seek out plastic surgery and look like an HD version of a human instead of focusing on the “you’re perfect the way you are” theme.
That, or they still endorse Dave Portnoy because they don’t realize his skinny jeans and tik tok videos with 18 year olds (if that) are the Lord Farquaad height equivalent. Yet, you’re still lining up around Duloc to listen to what he has to say and quietly sitting while your friends shout misogynistic bullying but advocate very fiercely for equality on reddit anonymously. On a note about Barstool, I went to undergrad with Caleb Pressley. He’s the exact same person. And KFC is one of the only open Biden supporting males, and, because of that, gets a SIGNIFICANT amount of reminders in his comments section regarding the time he cheated on his pregnant wife. From the same people who voted for Donald Trump. The irony. I also think this is an excellent reminder of how, because of his support for a “liberal” base, the white men who previously ate up every word went mob mentality on his ass and remind him of his one major public mistake every single post, just like they hold every single mistake women in politics make over their heads to disqualify their opinions in some intellectual capacity. I fucking hate this country. LMFAO.
Switching directions COMPLETELY, I also watched Breaking Bad for the first time recently, and it really brought up some memories. For context, my biological father used to design nuclear weaponry and do counterterrorism stuff and my parents were SO competitive cause they were both in STEM that they used me as their trophy of “doing something right” and really showed me that you don’t get success or love until you’re willing to bleed for it. It’s a wonder I’m so peachy these days. But my hometown has a lot of historical preservation outside of DC. A lot of history has happened here, John Wilkes Booth rode across my farmland to Dr. Mudd’s house. Dr. Mudd is a relative to one of my best friends from high school. George Washington was born here, whatever. It’s also outside of DC and the new gambling districts of National Harbor and MGM studios and housed several of the DC-native strip club owners, so southern Maryland tends to offer an incredibly unique and diverse cultural amalgamation.
Let me tell you. There’s a lot of similarities to Breaking Bad.
The first was how my neighbor’s house down the road in the late 2000’s got confiscated because their detached, like 8 car garage was being used as a meth lab. Half of my neighbors were secret service or worked for the FBI or another federal agency, this was an idiotic place to cook something next to one of only 2 main roads in town. I know someone from the city would probably come to the country and feel super isolated, thinking this was smart, and “well hidden”, just because it’s on a dark country road without street lights. But anyone who ACTUALLY lives in the country knows you’re not REALLY alone until you’re a good 30 minutes away from civilization. And then it really IS every-man-for-yourself. Nobody is out there to save you. If you can get away, and live, you have to take those chances cause one wrong move or putting your trust in the wrong person and you’ll end up buzzard food. It’s not a lifestyle for the weak.
Now, let’s look at Walter White. Great biochemist who never amounted to anything more than a teacher. An insult to teachers everywhere. I’ve mentioned before, but my narcissistic asshole of a father, who I will eventually do a full “daddy issues” segment on, in the kind of way that Beyonce’s song covered it, but that just does not deserve the spotlight currently. My own dad, an aerospace engineer who designed nuclear weaponry and various missiles, worked on flight trajectory and development, counterterrorism. Incredibly brilliant man. Also obsessed and motivated by power. He used to love watching movies like Revenge of the Nerds, you know, even with the rape scene, and I ultimately think his downfall was working on intelligence that you had to keep quiet instead of being some big “Heisenberg” name for himself. It’s almost frustrating for me too, because he is BRILLIANT. Undeniably a physics genius. But, like Walter White and Elon Musk, it is overcompensating for his lack of talents or intelligence elsewhere. His narcissism is only undermined or gets frequently excused, in my opinion, because he’s a white male, so he didn’t have to beg for power–it was handed to him as long as he put in the work. Nobody ever doubted whether he’d be “the right man for the job”, because countless white men before him had done a fine job. Plus, after designing nuclear weaponry he is now a high school physics teacher. Can’t wait for the new seasons whenever he develops cancer.
That might sound particularly cold, until you realize that, with my oncologic research, cause I worked out at MD Anderson, the top cancer research center in the USA for 2 of the top 100 oncology specialists in Head & Neck and Thoracic Cancer. It is my viewpoint that “cancer“ is essentially just your cells aging in ways they aren’t supposed to. With time, you’re more likely to get SOME type of cancer. There are over 150 different strains that all work on different organs, within different bodily systems, utilizing completely different mechanisms. Every year of life, more cells within your body have gone through more cell cycles, broken down, been “caught”, identified, and burned in the fiery depths of your immune system (hopefully) so you’ve never noticed or even known these invaders, created by your own body (or some environmental pollution, which is the entire reason the EPA exists, for the record. KIDS in New Jersey had a cluster of particularly rare BRAIN CANCER. I would love to start a Christian book club and introduce them to “Toms River” and THEN ask them how they feel about small government or “state’s rights”.) All I’m saying is that IF he were to get something, and I WERE to find out he was literally Walter White 2.0, but in Florida, I’m just NOT going to be surprised at all. I’m not “wishing” cancer on him, either. Every year that each individual walks this earth is another year of cell divisions and an increased likelihood that you’ll get SOME type of disease, and particularly SOME type of cancer. Maybe you should holistically invest and fund fucking science instead of your “tax exempt but not against receiving taxpayer money” prayer services, you absolute buffoons.
So, naturally, there was nothing more enjoyable than watching the downfall of Walter White and all of his associates and the mass death of anyone who pretended they were acting “redeemable” for “the greater good” (but, ultimately, were acting in their own best interest.) It was particularly enjoyable while I remembered a time when my father and brother would sit on the couch and watch the show together, after my father yelled at my mother or mocked her for her emotions or, better yet, accused her of stealing money from him. At least Walter had the decency to keep Junior out of his marital drama with Skylar, for a time. Or, when I thought of all the times he mocked Johnny Knoxville in “The Ringer” for the mean popular girls on my field trips who I didn’t even like, then went to work publicly at his “volunteering” out of “the kindness of his heart” with the special olympics foundation. To this day, I will stand by my assertion that he does things solely for the dopamine rush of others telling him how great he is. He isn’t a good person behind closed doors. Or in front of different audiences. Because, unlike Walter White, HE can’t admit he was ever wrong. Unlike Mr. White, MY father has either mentally blocked out the pain so he legitimately does not remember doing it, OR it was simply never that important or significant to him because screaming obscenities in the household was a regular occurrence and why would he remember the 1-2 times he yelled at me when he was CONSTANTLY, CONSTANTLY doing it to my siblings or mom. What kind of grown man who can throw a 93 mile per hour fastball, hurls a wiffle ball as hard as he can at his son, regardless of what his CHILD UNDER TEN YEARS OLD did?
Well, while he was doing this, and I was watching, processing, Lil Wayne was teaching me that “real G’s move in silence like lasagna” so I just never found it particularly admirable and quietly bided my time never giving him a reason to punish me, letting my hatred silently build until I could legally get the fuck away from him. Apparently he had no idea. Shocking for a narcissist, I know.
Let’s move on to Saul.
The only reason Saul was never scared to die was obviously because he had no reason to be scared. He had nothing to fight for but revenge, pride, and power. So I was not surprised one bit when we learned his backstory. How the fuck did so many of you white men watch Breaking Bad, understand just how much corruption some of these people are escaping, see the way people were roped into drug cartels as CHILDREN, and then STILL VOTE IN THE 2020 ELECTION AS A LIBERTARIAN BECAUSE YOU REFUSE TO ADMIT YOU’RE A DEMOCRAT. Is this because places like West Virginia keep people dumb enough with their poor public education system, because “state’s rights” and all that you think white people aren’t born into poverty or genuinely choose to remain in it? Is it because we have MTV shows that glorify the hollers of West Virginia, as the point was never that you can’t have fun or enjoy your circumstance or relate to others in those circumstances, but it should have been that you didn’t need to become someone’s access to reality television to finally have people care about you, validate your existence, and let you forge a name for yourself or be able to afford and be aware of alternatives to the life you’ve always known? That it shouldn’t take someone ELSE exploiting and benefitting from your life to achieve that? How the fuck is it that we have GENERATIONS of abused and hurt people, sexually, physically, mentally, and you all just THINK WE ARE SUPPOSED TO ACCEPT THAT.
Anyways, Saul was careful, clever, but still mortal. I, for one, was thankful that all of the drug ring members were brutally murdered because I was actually hesitant to watch Breaking Bad initially, as doing drugs because YOU’RE interested in doing drugs is one thing. Become a chemist and cook it yourself, in your own house way away from people, whatever. I’m all for intelligent drug use, curiosity, trying new things from an educated pedestal. The issue is that our own version of the drug cartel, the opioid epidemic, is a fucking white crime drug cartel of a private industry who utilized the flaws in our capitalist, archaic government structure and was able to successfully avoid THE MASSIVE AND WIDELY KNOWN ADDICTION RATES OF THESE SUBSTANCES AND THE POWER OF INFLUENCE THAT IS ASSOCIATED WITH “PRESCRIPTIONS” (aka: a prescription is safe) in such a way that it harms the medical community TREMENDOUSLY and addicts physically threaten providers in areas without access to enough resources to build treatment centers. It also has enabled the mentality like you’re not abusing your xanax just because you’re drinking on it. Other people are drinking too, so it’s fine. You’re prescribed it. You’re way better than Sara without an H from Tri Delt who buys it from the guys at DKE and isn’t medically depressed. SO much difference between you and her just because you *technically* follow the law. Spare me. Or how it’s “not” a drinking problem because you’re under 25 and “it’s college”. You incoherently blackout screaming at your roommates in a coked out rampage or physically attacking your sister after you stumble home from the bars at 3 am is not something “healthy” people do.
People’s negativity towards drugs and addiction are for one of a few reasons:
- They’re scared. They don’t want to admit they have a problem.
- They seem to have absolutely no awareness that drugs, medications, and even substances like food, are all ultimately just some type of chemical we’ve studied the effects of and monitor within your body. The only difference between something like weed and alcohol is how your perception is shaped by the society in which you were raised and what punishments you perceived would occur if you had them. Don’t even get me started on cocaine and adderall.
Our public school education on D.A.R.E. was really inadequate, and I know the effects of certain drugs are important not to downplay–physically and mentally. I’m just pointing out how subjective of a line it is to rule out some substances as illegal and others as not.
- You really want to have tangible proof that you are somehow better than somebody else in some minute way, so that it makes you feel a little bit better about why you have more than them or why you shouldn’t invest time in helping others or why you won’t need to bear the emotional guilt of actively trying to change the reality. And drugs, addiction, and mental health issues in general are the easiest cop-out because individualism stresses the “bootstrap” mentality, and you think everyone else is just “weaker” than you. It makes you feel strong in your own mental struggles.
If you want to hold the same energy towards criminals with a history of violence, particularly domestic violence, sexual assault, rape, or pedophilia, be my fucking guest. As I said, there’s no excuse for violence. Cycles of abuse ARE cyclical. I started seeing my therapist after punching my boyfriend in the face for finding tinder on his phone while I was blacked out at his Valentine’s Day cocktail the same week I took pictures as “Sweetheart” of his fraternity. So, you need access to therapy (which isn’t necessarily accessible). But looking down on someone because of the highly addictive substances they’ve used with absolutely no insight into WHY they use those substances, how they came to try them, and how little resources we may have to address them is terrible. I’m not saying you need to sit there and feel guilt for your happiness. I’m saying you need to be conscientious of the butterfly effect and the awareness that everything you do is being watched. Yes, I’m Edward Snowden-ing you, but it’s true. People you may not even be aware of are constantly monitoring you, seeing how you treat others, coming across your pages, your body language, the tone in your voice, the gaze of your eyes. You influence far more as an individual, actively and passively, than you may recognize. Be aware of your behavior and character and use it for the positive.
It feels especially relevant to remind people that our beloved Coca Cola used to have cocaine in it, and cocaine and heroin were both common pharmaceutical prescriptions only about 100 years ago! However, Atlanta, Georgia, Coca Cola’s headquarters, are currently in a huge Senate runoff AND marijuana still hasn’t been legalized in that state yet for recreational use! Georgia has clearly made a lot of progress with the power of big corporations. Let’s remind everyone the CDC headquarters are also in Atlanta and the governor wouldn’t even attempt to control coronavirus, little Trump cronie, so every day in the United States is currently a mass casualty event. For the love of everything, vote for Jon Ossoff.
People use addictive and hallucinogenic substances because either reality sucks, they’re peer pressured to, or they’re just curious and bored. Honestly, if VR would just come out with some “trippy” experiences with full body effects and you could experience them without the actual physiological toll, I bet a lot less people would care to try the actual substances, particularly with the questionable effects recurrent or chronic use can have on your brain over time. The government making all of this stuff illegal just allowed it to be underground, and for programs like the CIA to complete unethical experiments that are basically just the observational ones your local drug dealer could ALSO run without IRB approval. Only, they can do it FULL scale and make it societally generalizable. I’m not NOT saying I’m jealous, for the record. Being ethical is hard. Take, for instance, how anti-vaxxers are still enabled to get life saving medical treatment. Or how the congressional leaders who were denying coronavirus was even real and letting thousands of the people who voted for them die were amongst the first to get the vaccine. Fuck your ethics.
What’s super obnoxious about being intelligent is you start to sound like a conspiracy theorist once you began making connections and identifying patterns in society. It’s also especially frustrating coming from a background where you’ve ONLY EVER been around special security clearances, because you KNOW there is legitimacy to every single thing you say, yet you come off wildly bonkers because the rest of the US is so fucking stupid that half of the people were willing to vote for someone “on account of democracy” who is arguably going to prove to be one of the most undemocratic people, and absolutely the most undemocratic president (which is saying a LOT), in the history of the United States.
I feel like the insight I give people to me lately, particularly with my blog and podcast, is eye-opening, not necessarily in a great way for my popularity, but in a way that you need to know. I have told you guys who I am for YEARS, for the record. I’m an open book, but you do HAVE to ask.
After studying biochemistry and working in chemical synthesis (yeah, let’s give a shout out to my father for not letting me watch Breaking Bad “for the influence” and then my subconscious for just choosing things at whim that I later realize were and are incredibly relevant to everything people, not just him, have told me NOT to do), our system of criminalizing drugs is archaic. We’ve allowed huge corporations that still dictate our economy to this day to utilize them for capital gain, only outlawing them as a political move and SOMEHOW, unlike the pathetic attempts at alcohol prohibition, thought we would get ANY FUCKING DIFFERENCES. Everything you put in your body is a different chemical. Coffee can be protective against certain cancers and also cause others–should we outlaw it, too? Most of our food and vitamins has synthetic, unnatural additives in it, yet you’re fine ingesting those. Our PASTEURIZED CHEESE ACTS AS OPIATES AND SOME OF YOU JUST GNAW ON HUGE BLOCKS OF CHEDDAR LIKE ITS AN ICE CREAM SANDWICH. Yes, I would rather live in a society where I didn’t just randomly run into people in public who will attack me because they ate bath salts. I would also like to be able to live in a society where I can call the police to protect a black person and not be worried they might end up getting shot “mistakenly”. Or one where everyone has housing that is affordable because there are so many “hotels, motels, Holiday Inns” (yes, I sang that in a Ludacris voice) and abandoned houses, but we have SO MANY HOMELESS PEOPLE. Our cities will actively put up SPIKES on BENCHES IN PARKS to keep homeless people from sleeping there. You do realize this is pretty fucked up, right? Do you know how many people, especially those without access to healthcare, have mental health conditions that result in them having a psychotic break or particularly bad episode and they just disappear, their families don’t know what has happened to them, and it turns out they were just homeless and got lost, or are later found mentally disoriented in some shelters. You wonder why I feel this way about the world?! You just downplay the reality of it because you’ve numbed yourself to emotion for years because our country is built on jumping from war to war and viewed emotion as a negative. Many of which are, need I remind you, THE RESULT OF SELFISH CONSUMERISM MENTALITY AND NOT ACTUAL JUSTICE aka did we really need to be there? NO!
Breaking Bad, as all favorite American entertainment shows do, did an excellent job at beginning the series masquerading the white man as the benevolent protagonist. He was who we should root for. Everybody loves a good cancer sob story, particularly US citizens. They will go crazy donating to something if they think they’ll get a multicolored rainbow ribbon magnet to stick on their car. They have to get something out of it, though. They need to see tangible proof that they helped it directly. A name on the donation. A facebook post about their good deed and how warm it made them feel to give back. Here in the US, we have to crowdfund and start GoFundMe’s for people to care about things like health or civil justice, so this shouldn’t be surprising. 10/10 for Relatability for Breaking Bad, though. Throw in the good ole fan favorite of “deplorables” and only portraying Hispanic immigrants as the drug cartel, savage and viciously destroying the sanctity of the American economy, and this was always going to do great things and be well received.
The other day, I re-read one of my “Madeline in Paris” books from childhood, but it was “Madeline comes to America”, and the illustrations are so messed up. It’s broken down on my Tik Tok. Which, if any of you follow, that’s a whole other personality of me, we don’t speak of it. In the Madeline book, though, they fly from Paris, where Madeline lives at boarding school, to Texas upon the death of her grandfather. You know, so the lawyer can explain her inheritance and show her the assets she acquired. They visit her, this small child’s, cattle ranch in Texas and the ONLY brown people in the book are the poor farm hands. I’ll let that quick little summary speak for itself.
Anyways, it’s shows like Breaking Bad which make me want to have access to research trends in violence over time, the use of inspiration and effects on trends in criminal activity, public perception towards criminalization, fluctuations in substance abuse disorders. My curiosity is driven towards understanding the world around me, studying it with intrigue, although cynicism, seeing how it relates to my own life, envisioning the Rick & Morty style of various dimensions in play out in the lives around me.
Every human is just an interesting pawn in the game of life. Some of us, like in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (although I believe it was called the Philosopher’s Stone for its release in the U.K. because they’re a bit less weary of the magic of chemistry, horoscopes, and all that across the pond), have the ability to move our own pieces. Restricted by rules, we follow certain paths as they appear. Others controlled by an unseen figure, moving with purpose, perhaps the central figure in another movie, but not this one.
Maybe the better analogy is that everyone has their own chessboard, and they’re all just playing against time in a crowded park. Some of your pieces become lost, sacrificed, a necessary victim to advancement. Others are only useful in certain scenarios, rarely accessed, but there to provide defensive support if needed. People around you, watching on their breaks, happening upon you, may offer advice or, those whose own games were completed, resulting in their end, serve symbolically as they stoicly float amongst the crowd. Your own game may end abruptly, sooner than anticipated, because you failed to pay attention and didn’t learn the strategy well enough to protect yourself, your opponent was better, or maybe your chessboard was just knocked off the table by your cat “accidentally”. Either way, life is chess, not checkers. And we all saw the Queen’s Gambit.