In another life I'm probably a fashion designer or a skrimshaw carver, in this one I'm a writer in NYC. Mostly regular contributor to the Postcard Fiction Collaborative. I sat next to Bill Murray in a restaurant once. Put the kettle on, get weird, and get some.
Short comic inspired by the adventures of the Mars Rovers Spirit, Curiosity, and our lately gone dark Opportunity. Really lucky to have made this with @jorgefmunoz after trying for several years to find a project we could line-up on.
The kids on TikTok think that just because he was a classic country singer, Johnny Cash was conservative??? My babies he covered a Nine Inch Nails song in his seventies.
Classic country singers (the majority of which came from poor roots) were always talking about how much The Man sucked because they were taking money from poor rural folk. You’re gonna tell me that’s conservative?? Get outta here.
And somehow on the opposite side of the scale with the same exact opinion the conservative kids say “I like the old country music, because there’s no politics to it” Woodie Guthrie’s got a “this machine kills fascists” sticker on his guitar? You think there’s no politics in 9 to 5 or Folsom Prison Blues?!
For anyone confused there was a sudden and dramatic shift in the country music genre. It used to be a genre fixated on the experiences of people. Lived or common experiences that resonated with the common people. It was music that you listened to and it thrummed in tune to your soul because you had lived it yourself. And a lot of that was about ordinary people getting ground up in the gears of society.
The hyper patriotism, beer, and trucks chimera we have now didn’t show up until after 9/11 and the world is lesser for it
Allow me to post the entire lyrics to the Johnny Cash song “Man in Black”, released in nineteen goddamn seventy-one and written about why he always wore black onstage:
Well, you wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colors on my back
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone
Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime
But is there because he’s a victim of the times
I wear the black for those who’ve never read
Or listened to the words that Jesus said
About the road to happiness through love and charity
Why, you’d think He’s talking straight to you and me
Well, we’re doin’ mighty fine, I do suppose
In our streak of lightnin’ cars and fancy clothes
But just so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back
Up front there ought to be a man in black
I wear it for the sick and lonely old
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold
I wear the black in mournin’ for the lives that could have been
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men
And I wear it for the thousands who have died
Believin’ that the Lord was on their side
I wear it for another hundred-thousand who have died
Believin’ that we all were on their side
Well, there’s things that never will be right, I know
And things need changin’ everywhere you go
But ‘til we start to make a move to make a few things right
You’ll never see me wear a suit of white
Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day
And tell the world that everything’s okay
But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back
'Til things are brighter, I’m the man in black
That right there is an anti-war, anti-bigot, anti-mass-incarceration, anti-war-on-drugs (Cash was an addict in various stages of recovery who was pissed as hell about how this country treats people with substance issues), eat-the-rich protest song. And it was arguably his signature song, his personal manifesto. Notice that even the Jesus reference, which today would be a signal that the song is about to drop some racist dogwhistles, segues immediately into a line about “the road to happiness through love and charity”. As in “Motherfucker, our shared god said love thy neighbor and care for the poor and the outsider, and we both know he didn’t fucking stutter.” He’s throwing shade at self-described Christians who use his religion as a cudgel to beat people with.
Johnny Cash wasn’t a conservative. I’m pretty sure if he were alive and in reasonably good health today, he’d knock Jason Aldean’s teeth out (or, failing that, write a song so devastatingly memetic about how much Aldean sucks that Aldean would never work in music again).
Johnny Cash was punk rock. He just happened to be punk rock in the body of a country singer.
everyone dunking on that automated fleshlight sex toy needs to remember that disabled people get horny too ok 💜
having a masturbator that moves itself, holds your phone, and gives the user exact and immediate control of speed and intensity is fucking revolutionary for disabled people who cannot jack off without assistive devices. for some reason nobody wants to talk about disabled people masturbating but since all of you #sexpositive #feminists agree that jacking off is normal and good and everyone should be able to do it, you have to extend that sentiment to disabled people too. people who cannot move their hands/arms get horny. people who have no core strength get horny. if you physically cannot hump a fleshlight or use a manual sex toy or give yourself a handjob then it is very difficult to experience sexual pleasure without another person involved.
disabled people deserve sex toys that work with their bodies. disabled people deserve to be able to sexually pleasure themselves. disabled people deserve adapted sex toys that the entire fucking internet does not decide to make “lazy basement dweller creep” jokes about.
Reminder that in the 1970s, disabled man Gosnell Duncan, who was paralyzed from the waist down, created body-safe silicone and silicone dildos as a response to the needs of the disabled community. Duncan’s work was important in bringing sex toys — particularly dildos — into the public eye, meaning they became much more accessible for all Americans.
You can’t disconnect sex toys from disability and disability history. If you use any body-safe silicone today, sex toy or not, you have Duncan to thank.
*The people of the USA have a lot to complain about, but this is really quite bad. When you’re dying faster than everybody else, people start to shun you
Reagan - AIDS
Trump - Covid
Yeah Republicans are worthless idiots and shouldn’t be allowed to run the country, well, ever again.
I was gonna say “what you think he had insurance???” but 1) at least in the early aughts to mid-teens, NY was one of the less excruciating states to get medicaid in, and 2) he was a minor and it’s a LOT easier to get medicaid for a minor, especially when said minor’s legal guardians are retirees on fixed incomes I’d wager.
So yeah they’re all just fuckin dumbasses! I love them.
This is why I think it would be peak comedy for the radioactive spider to be of a non-venomous species and for there to be a scene of a new Peter Parker/Spiderperson looking up the spider’s features or posting a photo to an identification subbredit before being informed of the fact that nothing will happen
entemologist reddit: oh yeah, that one’s venom isn’t strong enough to cause anything other than a bit of localized pain at the bite site, no worries.
Peter Parker the next morning, stuck to his ceiling: Well someone fucking LIED!!!!
In Canada, it’s “the moderates are okay with healthcare and the right is doing everything they can to sabotage it”, AND THAT’S STILL A BIG ENOUGH DIFFERENCE TO VOTE.
Anyone who tries to tell you voting is pointless is trying to suppress your vote.
How old were you and Terry when you each first got published? Huge fan of both of your works and I’m always curious when my favorite authors first got published. As I get older I feel like any chance of finishing and publish something I’m proud of get slimmer. Thank you in advance if you answer and no worries if you don’t, I know you must get flooded with questions every day lol. ❤️
I was first published when I was 22, but didn’t publish any fiction until I was 23. Terry was 15.
In which Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett are both statistical outliers (especially Terry) and should not be counted.
Seriously, I doubt the average writer is aware that the statistical average for newly- published writers is somewhere around 40. But they are going to see this post, and it’s going to discourage them, because they’re 30, or 40, or perhaps 50 and haven’t gotten anything published yet.
I wasn’t really publishing fiction or any good as a writer until I was about 28. Terry was about 44 when he published The Colour of Magic, his first (to my mind) important book. We both started young and got good slowly.
Important point. You become a writer the first time you sit down with the intent to write. You become successful through perseverance.
