YouTube Obsession

Like most people, I’m pretty obsessed with everything coming out about the Epstein Files. Though, the purpose of a 40hr work week, the least amount of vacation days/PTO in first world countries and tying healthcare to employment is to make sure no one has enough time or energy to look too closely at the the state. Thank god for journalists and YouTubers doing the work to dig through these files and bring what is interesting.

I've not watched any of Dr. G’s other content but his Epstein coverage has been great. He is always very clear that he is stating opinions and not fact. This is exactly what should be a happening. Independent investigators look through the files and summarize the factual events within.

However, demonizing the ultra wealthy with hearsay, rumor and allegation is also based.

Flesh Simulator has tons of great videos on his channel (can't remember if I’ve talked about him before?) and his Epstein videos have been the perfect balance of drawing horrible alleged conclusions from factual evidence.

As always, rich people aren't human anymore. None of their depictable crimes should surprise us at this point.

Watching

I've been on a kick of watching older movies to help get a foundational understanding of Movie Language™ and The Freshman from 1925 just entered the public domain. I just unlocked a new comfort movie.

It was genuinely surprising for a silent film to make laugh this much. Most comedies from the era don't really do it for me¹ and comedy in general is a hard genre to nail down. But somehow, this movie managed to charm me into laughing the entire time.

That’s really it too, the character of Harold Lamb is just a loveable dolt with a lotta heart. Is impossible not to like him.

It's an 80min movie, there’s little reason not to watch it for free, in good quality on YouTube.

Reading

This article on the viral video of a kid punching a Pro-ICE protester in school would usually be down in “Other Notables” but I had a little to say about it. Specifically, the part where the pro-ICE kid lapses into “following the rules is cool actually” Karen-ing.

This is infuriating to read. I think I would have punched the kid at this point. It’s just perfectly illustrates the hypocritical nature of “rules” and how they only protect unmarginalized people.

I wish this kid well though. I had a lot of terrible beliefs growing up (and I’m grateful social media wasn’t around to immortalize them.) so I know idiot teens in puberty can change. And guess what, I had to get punched in the face a few times to learn some things as well.

Though, it’s not looking great since he seems to be learning the entirely wrong lessons from the experience:

Basically: What I feel is right, everyone else is wrong.

I do worry about the interiority of these younger generations. Extreme capitalism removing almost all of the free public spaces (malls, parks), increasing reliance on social media instead of developing in-person community is creating a diaspora of parasocial relationships and forcing these kids to create their own realities. It’s got to be really hard to view other people as real.

Or maybe I’m just old.

Listening

One of the first albums I ever bought with my own money was Marcy Playground’s freshman outing; Marcy Playground. Though I definitely bought it for the subversive hit Sex & Candy, I was surprised to find that Marcy Playground rocks pretty hard.

Not only that, they are really, really weird.

The whole album is really good and it’s quite the nostalgia trip. Surprising no one, the whole album, from the mid 90’s is mostly about drugs in that poetically metaphorical kind of way.

I'll leave you with my favorite song on the album.

Psst, it’s about drugs.

Other Notables

** The children are fuuuuuuucked.

** Society sucks in a lot of ways but this has got to be the most obvious.

** “I don’t believe it….and I'm gonna spread it as much as I can!”

1  Granted, I've never seen any Marx Brothers movies. Are the same era tho? Who knows? I don’t. Shoot me.