david proves his use as a perpetual witness. again.

[foxtongue]

Secret Knots Update
(Start of "Unspeakable".)

Last thing we need now is a great leader, by Penn Jillette

My voting station was in the gymnasium of one of Vancouver's oldest elementary schools, only a couple of blocks from my house. To get there, we had to walk through the thin strip of nameless industrial area that jackets the foot of Clark Drive, all auto-body shops and unidentifiable offices, where low rent prostitutes cluster on the corners at night. The way over was unremarkable, a short, pleasant walk of a couple of blocks, David and I discussing the Canadian women who fought for their right to vote back early in the 1900's. The way back, however, is worth a story.

We've already crossed Clark, we're not even a full block away from my house, when a speeding red "sportscar" hits the breaks next to us so hard the tires smoke, and the driver, a young, thin man of about twenty-eight yells intensely out the window at us, "GOTH IS GREAT! ROCK THE VAMPIRE REVOLUTION! I'M WITH YOU! FUCK EVERYTHING BUT BLACK! RAAAUUUGH!".

Now, David and I, dressed as we are in perfectly ordinary clothing, are baffled. We stop, look at each other, decide simultaneously that he's off his rocker, and look back at him.

"Excuse me," I say as he stopped shouting to take a breath, "but we're not even dressed a little like goths." Disgusted that I managed to get a word in edgewise, he replies, just as loudly, practically frothing, "FINE, FAGGOTS, WHATEVER." "Anyway," I say, "their band practice is a block up. You've got the wrong street."

He then growled at us, spat out the window, then drove off as fast as his car could actually go.

...

A few moments later, I turned to David, "Were we just goth-bashed?"
"I think so."
"Wow. What a freak."
"Yeah."

Comments

[jason0x21.livejournal.com]

The terrible result of goth-bashing is all the dreadful poetry. For the sake of everyone! End goth-bashing now!

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

What I love is that he's trying, yet failing. Step One to goth-bashing is FIND SOME GOTHS! He can't even do that right! Hooray for ignorance.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Dear Livejournal.

Today the evil, soulless Preppies and Jocks displayed their ignorance again. They were making fun of my hair and my clothes and everything. I wasn't even dressed like a Goth today. I just had my Bauhaus hoodie and my fishnets and spikes and also some wicked inverted-cross contact lenses that I bought from Ardene last week. You know, normal going-to-the-store clothes.

Just typical. In civics class they talk about freedom and diversity, but as soon as they see someone freer and more diverse than them it's like, they can't fucking stand it because it shows them how hollow they are. I hate them.

Current Mood: cold and indifferent
Current Music: Coal Chamber

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Hee!

That's fantastic.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

IT'S MY IMPRESSION OF YOU JHAYNE
DO YOU LIKE IT?

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

LAWLZ, LIK YOU TOTALLY DESCRIBED MY BLACK SOUL PERFEKTLY!

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

..I'm rather impressed.

Though I did love the time when someone went to me and my mate (not dating) 'omigod, lesbians! EYURRRGH!'

My mate raised an eyebrow, gave them a disdainful look and said 'Yes, and? Mine's prettier than yours and I'm getting some. Wouldn't touch yours with a bargepole.'

Some day, I wish to be good at the snappy comebacks.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

*snorts*

That's rather fabulous. I always appreciate quick thinking.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_stranger_here/]

Repressed style-envy is a sad, sad thing.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

If he really wants my laundry-day t-shirt that badly, he can have it.

[eastvanhalen.livejournal.com]

And *that* is the line that sums it up perfectly. Brava, Jhayne.

[a-dream-tiger.livejournal.com]

Goth-bashed. Tee hee.

Reminds me of the times I've been "kilt-bashed." A friend of mine uses the phrase "anything for a weird life" and I've always found the occasional confused, misguided and ultimately pathetic outbursts from such meager souls are a pittance to pay for the "weird life" I choose.

Of course all that would only apply if they had even had the sense to identify goth when they saw it. *snicker chortle*

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

That's the thing that gets me. Why shout at us about goths when only our coats are black, you know? I was wearing tan. There is nothing goth about tan.

[a-dream-tiger.livejournal.com]

True. Nothing goth about the colour tan and most certainly nothing goth about having a tan. I expect more discernment from those who randomly harass me. Kids these days. :-T

[eastvanhalen.livejournal.com]

As for that piece by Penn Jillette: it's pseudo-libertarian wankery. Nothing more, nothing less. The idea that having a thoughtful intellectual leader somehow deprives him of his ability to "try to be a grown-up and take care of [his] family" is ridiculous.

I am not an advocate of party politics, not at all. But advocates of "less government" who can't articulate an idea of governance other than "I want the government out of my life" don't know jack shit. Just saying.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

It made me grin a bit. A lot of his political writings are really tongue in cheek.

[skonen-blades.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of a favourite story.

Once, two friends of mine, a couple, had a similar experience. Now, this story differs a bit in the way that the woman had blue hair and the boy had a green mohawk. They were in Kits. A pickup track drove past and a guy leaned out the window and yelled,

"You buncha hairy fucks!"

To this day, it makes us LOL.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Brain to mouth FAIL.

[natowelch.livejournal.com]

"People won't even hear someone suggesting that our president should do less and individual citizens should do more for themselves."

Like, say, electing a president who's not stupid? Who does he think we're doing all this for? A TV movie of the week? Doesn't getting involved in civil governance count as "doing something for ourselves"? Why the emphasis, neigh the insistence, on individuality (or, in Penn's case, family)?

I'm starting to see a stark pattern in libertarianism. It depends completely on the notion that government must always be "them", when the central notion of democratic republics is that government is "us". You know, "of, for, and by" the people? A libertarian is someone who insists on individuality, for themselves and others. It's divisive, as in "divide and conquer". That's why "individual" is the central term. For libertarians, if it can be divided, it should be.

Small government means small democracy. Doesn't individual freedom include the freedom to organize collectively? We're not just talking about government, here - we're talking about things like unions, too. There's power in cooperation, and I don't see a legitimate reason libertarians insist we give it up. I mean, sure, eschewing collective organization makes us easier to exploit, but that's a reason they like it.

But at times I wonder if a libertarian direction is all that bad. I mean, the right-leaning corporate welfare (cf the financial industry bailout causing House Republicans to revolt and tar it "socialism") and union suppression we've witnessed over the past few decades isn't exactly libertarian at all, is it?

[natowelch.livejournal.com]

Libertarians just want to be left alone.
Progressives just want to be left together.