Topics
– Patreon bans Sargon of Akkad
– Loss of patrons ripples outward to unpolitical creators
– Simple pleasures
– The importance of prioritizing spending
– Why creators shouldn’t be ashamed of trying to monetize their work
– Accreditation vs. Education and Creative Confidence
– Publishing paradigms
Links
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
Email | mellow.mission.productions@gmail.com
Tipjar (for now) | https://www.patreon.com/TheFractalJournal
Lucas was even less thrilled about waking earlier than early.
He stumbled to the spook tent with all the enthusiasm of a snail approaching salt.
It took what would otherwise have been a comically epochal span of time to realize the gravity of the situation.
“Wait….what…what the fuck…” He muttered as his eyes narrowed on the bichromal display.
Slowly, ever so slowly, his face turned ashen white. An effect rendered all the more impressive by his deep Amazonian sunshine induced bronzing.
“Pai Nosso que estás no céu Santificado seja o vosso nome…” Cook muttered under his breath.
“I didn’t know you were religious.” I said.
“I am not but sometimes one must…Ai meu Deus!”
“Nah…god damn is more like it.” Lucas interjected.
“Perhaps…” Cook said looking as wistful as the cramped quarters could afford.
Lucas tugged at my shoulder.
I instantly recognized it as a prompt for private conversation.
“Excuse us Doctor Cook.” I said.
The doctor simply waved us away as he played and replayed the grim little video.
Lucas and I stepped into a thicket just outside the camp’s perimeter.
“Ok…what the hell is going on?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“He’s….killing people…?” The statement trailed off into the tonal quality of a question.
“Uh..yea..looks like it…”
“Why….”
“Fucked if I know…”
We both stared at our boots.
“Your theory…might be right…”
“What theory…”
“This is real Alan…”
“Yea…either that or he’s just gone mental…”
“Hoyt…old pussycat Hoyt with the soft gray eyes…the nerdy bent…he’s not even military for Christ’s sake…and since when in all fucks name does he hunt…”
“Since when does he hunt people…” I added.
“No something happened….” Lucas said. “Something far beyond the power of suggestion…”
Again we examined our boots as if they were the most interesting thing in the universe.
“No wonder the natives avoid him. But…the thing that’s got me most bothered is why Lobo allows it.”
“What if he’s commanding it…” Lucas began.
“I dunno…I kinda wanna go back…”
“I don’t think we can…”
“Sure…just call it quits….if Cook and what was once Grahamathy wanna find some abomination in this god forsaken hell they can do it without our help…”
“Yeah…but Baird…if they do…they’ll have ultimate say…over whatever…whatever it is…”
“Is that the way it works?”
“I dunno…but it’s too risky to just let it unfold.”
“Fuck!” I stamped my foot against the ground.
Then as if I’d unwittingly performed some summoning spell Graham Hoyt emerged from the treeline with a pair of wild pigs in tow.
Lucas and I must have stared the oddest stare. Yet he was unflinching as he had been since the Luckadoo incident.
“What?” He asked.
“Where the hell have you been…?”
He was silent for a moment as if considering something.
“The roots were thirsty.”
And with that he made his way past us into the camp.
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
Email | mellow.mission.productions@gmail.com
The economic landscape has shifted dramatically. That is what we are told. It certainly seems to be true. I have my reservations but that’s beside the point. The validity of that statement isn’t the focus of this here essay.
No. What seems of utmost importance to weed (stoner laugh) out is whether this supposed shift is good. So for the sake of some truly Fractal – ‘integrative analysis’ let’s say that the Amazon cheerleaders are correct – brick and mortar is dead – human labor is soon to be obsolete.
What are the pros…the cons…the ethics…if any?
There are those that say this will usher in a renaissance of creativity where people freed from the bonds of common toil will create Sistine Chapels whilst sat in their living rooms.
Thus far I don’t see much besides cat videos.
But ok…this Utopia is on the way. Maybe cat portraits are how Michelangelo got his start. I’m game.
Suppose that we have a whole phalanx of virtuoso cellists selling their albums via Amazon to fund a perfected chemotherapy for dwarven children with cancerous buttocks.
Such nobility is surely good? Let’s all scurry to the altar of Bezos and use our Gen Z super powers to be a generation of thinkers, movers, and shakers who through the power of affiliate marketing make dwarven butt less tumorsome.
What of those who know nothing but crab fishing in a depleted bay?
Can everyman learn Javascript? (probably) Should he? Probably not. Seriously outlaw beards…now. Right now!)
This to me is the crux of the problem the place where principle and profit diverge. I can’t for the life of me understand how a culture in which a teenager flatulating into a microphone has more economic prowess than a chowder soup cannery.
Don’t get me wrong. I think the post-industrial thing is kind of cool. But are we really there yet…and if we are…how cool is it…how sustainable is it?
There are many pundits masturbating with chafed abandon over the concept of meritocracy. I see the exact opposite of meritocracy. I see opportunism. Albeit one that is more often than not unwitting.
Herr Bezos IMO is someone who was at the right place at the right time. I’m sure he’s as clever a lad as any and don’t care to dwell on his character but he’s not that impressive. He was there when a technology emerged and was operating in a milieu where capitalizing on that technology proved succesful. A bit of code a bit of business savvy and boom…he’s basically richer than God.
And there are now a billion microbezos attending to their affiliate market feudal fiefdoms and shilling their ‘systems.’
What precisely makes these systems possible? Is it merit? Is it genius? Is it meritorious, merit based boostrapping, asskicking 10 simple steps genius?
Or is it this:
Seems to me that people still have to make things. And 3d printing is still quite a ways from conjuring a cozy three bedroom apartment in Seattle with the Iphone that it craves.
So if one has the choice to make something or to position oneself to sell things others make by learning how to weasel with SEO…and he chooses the former…
Is he a buffoon? A dinosaur? Or should the SEO beardo be less easily rewarded by a handholding matrix of taxcuts, backroom deals, and suburbanly available tech so easy my baby cousin could master it in his sleep. And then use it to buy himself Legoland…
I think that something is deeply amiss. And before we pop the champagne we should do some reflecting.
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
Email | mellow.mission.productions@gmail.com
A bit of a rant I threw together while in one of my sourer moods. The subject is algal blooms and their effects on fisheries. Triggered in part by Jimmy Dore’s coverage of west coast fisherman suing energy companies for AGW. But mostly triggered by general ignorance and tribalism.
See prior video for relevant links (in the description)
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
Email | mellow.mission.productions@gmail.com
Tipjar | https:/www.patreon.com/TheFractalJournal
The dos and dont’s
The was and wont’s
The fronts
The rears
The wars
The years
O it was just a phase
That’s what they’d say
Funny turn of phrase
Just one of those days
Yeah my son o son my son
Where are the suns rays
The poets are cannon crushed
For fools and whores
So we’re rushed
Through the dos and dont’s
The was and wont’s
To the fronts
Just like gears
For the wars
The fools and whores have fears
That’s what they’dsay
If honesty was policy
Yet fools are ever dapper in their double tongue
Deception with felicity
Flays the virgin young
O nurse become a chef
Turn this pancake lad right over
He’s got no bottom half
Couldn’t duck for cover
Quiet quick enough
Yeah there was a fine parade
He was called a diamond in the rough
Left his better shade
Out somewhere in time
Cause we have to get paid
Elsewise its a crime
Responsibility that’s the rules
To feed the whores and fools
Keep them coddled warm in bed
Yeah they’ll send the poets
Till poems are dead
The dos and dont’s
The was and wont’s
Are ringing in my head
I am stern above the marble
Waiting in the tower
Sleeves are heavy
With tears Ill shower
Yes Ill shower clean
That which this wicked sphere has been
I do not worship
I am not worshiped
Soon I will be seen
Will be seen
Seen
(Goodness the formatting is getting weird as I switch between classic and Gutenberg?)
Pardon the Mess
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
Email | mellow.mission.productions@gmail.com
The satellite view was deceptive. Google maps reveals an impressive looking patchwork of highways in the Mato Grosso and all throughout Brazil. Labeled with such bureaucratically soporific appellations as MT 101. Yet, these thin lines stretching like gossamer serpents to overgrown pioneer towns were nothing but dust in a vast ocean of green.
So knowing that we could eventually break through to another highway should the need arise, wasn’t as comforting a thought as one might suppose.
These were the things I pondered as I watched Lucas shoo a stick bug the size of a forearm off of his pack.
“That thing is almost as scary as Graham.”
“You mean Jeeves?”
Schmidt chuckled. “Jeeves…?”
“Or maybe he’s more of a Bertie Wooster.”
“What the hell are you talkin bout man?”
“Guess you Krauts are just that uncultured.”
“I’m American man...U..S…A – U….S….A – U…S…A – U…S…A!”
“I wouldn’t be proud of ignoring the glory of Stephen Fry no matter my origin.”
“Can’t ignore what you don’t know.”
“That’s the definition of ignorance.”
“Whatever.”
We sat for a bit in the fold out chairs appreciating the familiarity of the fire rather than the warmth. The polyglot chatter of the voices mixed with twilight and the occasional cry of howler monkeys had a surreal effect. God, my legs ached. Even more so my feet. Even with the best gear the planet had to offer there was no way, no precaution, no circumspection that would allow you to adequately address the damp. I had athletes foot. I had it bad.
“Fuck.” I cursed.
“I’m not into dudes.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, if I go gay I’m goin for old bedroom eyes over there,” I said flicking a thumb in the direction of one of the Brazilians with especially large liquid brown eyes that seemed to ever be on the verge of weeping.
“Pffft….my ass is better.”
“I thought you weren’t gay.” I laughed.
“Just cause I’m straight doesn’t mean I’m not vain.”
“Glam rock kid?”
“Yep.”
Our banter was a silent pact to balm the weirdness. Graham had become eerily good at hunting. I’d never known him to hunt. In all the years I’d spent with him…I’d never heard him mention hunting. Nor did I know that he could carve out, string, and pull a long bow.
What was stranger was that no one stopped him. Brancos were not supposed to hunt on tribal lands. Yet no one stopped him. The Kuikuros and other tribes among us were terrified of him. The Brazilians disliked his taciturn nature, and the terseness of his replies. As for Lobo and his mercenaries they were far too busy keeping watch on the brush. The latin spec-ops guy also seemed to have gained a deep respect for old Hoyt.
Which is why he made no attempt to stay the silent stride that carried the lanky predator beyond the perimeter.
“What I don’t understand is how he’s able to get close to anything with that reek.” Sam remarked.
“Yeah…”
Hoyt had continued smoking like a chimney throughout the week. I could always smell him before I could hear him.
“So, I guess we have to talk about it…” I said after yet another prolonged silence.
“Let’s not and say we did.” Lucas said.
“Yeah…you tasted that Finnish pussy…you should appreciate Suomi wisdom…silence is sacred.”
“Fancy yourself an ascetic now motormouth?”
Sam flicked his tongue between a piece sign. “Motormouth is what your mom calls me.”
“O yea…score that postmenopousal tang…ya tiger!” Schmidt rolled his eyes.
“Jesus Christ guys…I’m serious what do you think is going on here…”
Lucas sighed.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you can’t tell me that this is actually real…”
“Well it is…we’re here, wet and miserable as fuck, likely to die of dysentery or oversaturation at any given tickby of a god damn second.”
“No I mean…I don’t think Thornton is a Gman at all…I don’t think we’re really propogandists…or shrinks…or drug manufacturers…”
Each of us eyed our boots uncomfortably.
“I think he’s the arch-druid and we’re bringing him the vestal virgins on a silver fucking platter.”
“You guys wanna…call it quits…”
Slowly we all shook our heads.
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
Email | mellow.mission.productions@gmail.com
Tipjar| https://www.patreon.com/TheFractalJournal
This little episode was prompted when one of my favorite pundits, Jimmy Dore, discussed the plans of some fisherman to sue oil companies for causing global warming. Which said fisherman implicate in their troubles catching fish.
I point out that nitrification from agriculture and urban sources is a much stronger causal link for marine life dieoffs.
I then launch into a broader discussion of the fact that science does not work by consensus, and dissect the ‘97% of scientists agree’ claim.
The boundary between science and politics needs to be understood and respected.
Thanks for watching.
JDS| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyHn6a1lx78
Algal Blooms | http://www.thebaynet.com/articles/0515/harmful-algal-blooms-more-frequent-in-the-chesapeake-bay.html
Crichton Quote | https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/344539-i-want-to-pause-here-and-talk-about-this-notion
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
Email | mellow.mission.productions@gmail.com
Ah, the rain…it was after all a rain-forest. Though we were careful to embark during a season that was dry relatively speaking…the problem was that we were speaking relatively.
We were coping… swimmingly.
That is we were in essence swimming. Though everything was waterproofed in a spectacular fashion…I kept waiting for something to give out. It was of course a relief from the heat…but hardly that either. The decrease of hell was but a scant degree and a half if that.
There were times that we’d have to cut through bush, and times that we could walk freely between massive trunks, shrouded in a dark misty shower.
No wonder the Indians walked about nude. Hey…maybe they were the first people to evolve…hairlessness would certainly be an advantage here…
“What’s got you so perplexed?” Dr. Cook inquired as he fell into step beside me.
“Oh just thinking about ultimate origins. This place sort of makes it inevitable. That and what a spectacle we must be. We are an utter invasion.”
Cook laughed.
“We are but a germ’s germ here. Even if we took the whole population of Brazil. Even with the deforestation…”
This was not a comforting thought.
“So do you believe what that anthropologist at Kuikuros village told us?”
Cook stared at his footfalls for a bit.
“Believe him in what way?”
“That the cities were simply a larger scale version of those massive grass huts? That the conquistadors were being too European in their imaginings. That cultural nearsightedness was the cause of their failures. They were looking for stones, causeways, roads – and this was wrong…”
“Oh well certainly yes as regards the Kuikoros. You yourself saw the ditches and depressions for the palisades the remananats of the plaza. However…our friend is a bit too enthralled with a certain glib neosketpticism. It’s an odd thing common in academics my age…they want to reform ‘Western Conceptions’ so much that once something fit for that purpose is found…they cease inquiring.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they’re in love with the noble savage myth. I am too…to an extent….but there is a reason the Kuikuros and many others are fascinated and frightened by their own myths about the ‘people of the cloud’ that live somewhere beyond their borders. There were ample reasons for the early explorers to lie. Grants…glory…etc…but that does not mean that they lied. Nor does it mean that they lied to themselves mistaking boulders for bricks.”
“What makes you so certain? Is it Hoyt’s map?”
“Pffft…well, it certainly buttresses the case for alternative history. But, that history frankly stands well enough on its own.”
“O?” I said as I smacked the billionth demon from my cheek. It was remarkable how they braved the rain for blood.
“Well, yes…I have shown you Gobekli Tepe…you yourself saw the ‘Brazilian Stonehenge,’ and Stonehenge itself. Certainly certain clever physics may have been applied…and perhaps many a thing has the accustomed mundane explanation…but when one takes all these things together…and when one see the explosions of high culture…the surprising spread and syncretism.”
“Syncretism….So what you’re telling me is that if someone was seeking to create a new faith…a global faith…it would in fact be an old faith?”
Cook and I trudged along in silence for a great long while before he spoke again.
“Yes.”
I began to see Thornton’s prodding in a different light. He was not a G-man who wished to use psychological and chemical tricks for martial purposes. He did not simply want to gain compliance through memetic warfare. He was a sorcerer…a high priest in some mystery religion I was only beginning to understand. And we were all his unwitting altar boys…o good.
And I began to feel a very strong urge to deny the doctor.
“Yea…but come on…what could be out here…that we haven’t seen…you yourself have been studying the area for forty years you say…and you have not yet found a single thing resembling El Dorado or whatever…”
Cook laughed again.
“I have already told you…we are a germ’s germ here…much there is unseen beneath the canopy…and much more beneath…the soil beneath the canopy…and you and I hold a clue to original elevations, to a four hundred year old topography in the map of your strange friend there…” he said as he pointed to Graham hiking a few bodies ahead. “You yourself have seen the strange stones that we’ve been passing the odd dispersal of trees where they should be thick…no my friend…you are going to see something far more ancient and impressive than a thatched roof New York.”
We were again silent for a great length.
“Babylon ex nihilo?” I inquired incredulously.
Cook simply shook his head.
“Babylon is simply a fragment…and nothing arises ex nihilo…all physic things have a metaphysic origin.”
“You’re beginning to sound like Thornton.”
“So be it.”
“So you are basically proposing the stoned ape theory?”
Cook smiled broadly. “That’s an oversimplified version of an aspect of what I’m saying but what I’m saying can’t really be said. It like theoretical physics or any complex systems can only be understood through rigorous study. But…it can also be seen. And I aim on seeing it.”
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
And after having mangled, and torn, and completely stripped the two brothers, the mob dragged their naked and bloody bodies to an extemporised gibbet, where amateur executioners hung them up by the feet.
Then came the most dastardly scoundrels of all, who not having dared to strike the living flesh, cut the dead in pieces, and then went about the town selling small slices of the bodies of John and Cornelius at ten sous a piece.
-Dumas
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
Hungry?
Those unfamiliar with the Journal may wonder why a Russian with a Scottish surname has such a weird kink for Germany. Well, there’s Bach..and then there’s Schnitzel…!
A good friend of mine finally reopened the Stammtisch he owns and operates with his mother. It has been around for thirty years if not more. I don’t have a picture of its first iteration but here is the second…with which I am most familiar:
It was basically a converted trainstation or motel right behind a newly built strip mall featuring giants like Whole Foods and other yuppie delights. Considering this I’d definitely call it a hidden gem. Very Gemütlichkeit!
I’ve helped out at the place before and loved it well…so it’s sad that the location and memories are now just history. But not too sad considering this:
Julia’s German Stammtisch not only sports a swank new look but now offers several excellent German beers on tap! Today I enjoyed a Warsteiner lager and a Franziskaner Hefe-Weisbier Dunkel. This was their opening day and the lunch hours so I may have well had the first if not one of the first sips out of the keg!
So if you are ever near the Midlands and need something that sticks to your ribs look up Julia’s German Stammtisch.
You may even run into a certain goateed fop having jam sessions and brews with the music loving restauranteur!
Social Media | https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow
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