The only thing that’s changed about artists and people in power is that we now know a lot more about their beliefs and personal lives than we used to. One thing that hasn’t changed is that everybody has skeletons in their closet and is the hero in their own story.
As such, and given that I don’t seek out salacious details about people I’ll never meet, so long as their irrelevant-to-the-content/product personal views don’t filter into what they produce, I tend to be unaware of anything else about them.
There are of course exceptions, with Musk being at the top of the list. But as I’m not in an income bracket that would let me avail myself of any of his products, it’s still largely irrelevant.
And the further back you go in someone’s history to find dirt, the more likely they’ve changed. I’d hate to be judged now by some of my early columns in college when I was in my edgy atheist libertarian raver phase, so I’m inclined to give others a pass on adolescent musings.
With more recent stuff, as people let more of their personality into their crafted public personas, it’s not all that difficult to deduce whether their worldview is going to be offensive. But commerce overall is not about whether I’d enjoy grabbing a beer with someone so much as whether their product fulfills a need.
I’m not an expert in Polish politics, but Tusk is the sort of PM where, yeah. Anything left over from the old regime where there’s still some power left is going to lead directly here.
There’s a lot that needs sorted, and Duda is going to try to fuck things up as much as possible.
Not well. I guess I should be thrilled with having gotten the 75% discount at the local brewery today, but this first means I have to have purchased beer. This generally ends poorly. But I’m homeless and got a lot of job declinations last week, so I don’t really know how I’m going to survive past two more weeks, which adds to the stress and leaves me at the point that I’m going to the local brewery.
I have a very good idea of the options available for the indigent after my last job search, and they’re not good, to say nothing of my new fear of being away from my van for several days.
Actually, the second engagement was arguably worse. We were on the back stoop smoking cigarettes, and I opened the conversation with “obviously, I’m not going to ask you to marry me.” There are red flags, and then there’s this.
What I was unaware of was the ring out of a quarter machine she’d given me a week earlier “as a joke” was not. So she happily let me fumble words for some 20 minutes after that opening, knowing exactly where I’d end up and basically said “you were already mine, but this was fun to watch.”
It was 1995, and I’m not saying it was high art, but it did feel like absurdist music like that was one of the main outlets for expressing humour amongst my classmates.
I was in Hameln for school and socializing but lived in a Dorf some 5km outside of town.
With the first, we had about the most stoic engagement ever. It was a Saturday morning, I’d gotten out of the shower and was getting dressed while she was grabbing something out of the closet, and I asked if we were headed toward marriage. She gave it a think, and as we were a year or so into things, figured this is what we’re supposed to do next, so yes. Actually exciting weekend ensues, as we realise we’re engaged.
I still have Lieder, die Die Welt Nicht Braucht, by Die Doofen from my time as an exchange student, so I get the … as the French would say, “I don’t know what” … about it.
Anyway, we had that wedding at the local science museum after the mountain lodge we’d booked for the ceremony, reception and the whole place for the night … burned down the day after we sent out the save-the-date cards. Glad I worked at a copy store to be able to quickly print and mail “We’re working on Plan B” postcards.
As usual, our Overton window is all that matters to people in the states. There’s some active debate about how much longer centralized media control in all legacy formats will mean the level of control the phrase implies, but until that shifts, Overton is staying put.