Author: Mark Alexander

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Social Media

I just can’t any more.

I joined Twitter ten years ago. Until the arrival of Trump and his minions, the platform was kind of harmless, mindless fun for me—at least in the circles I traveled.

But lately it’s become a cesspool of hate. People screaming horrible things to each other and a total lack of civil discourse has soured me to the whole damn thing.

I can hear you now. “Then why don’t you just leave?”

It’s because I really don’t want to lose my @voenixrising moniker in case I ever wanted to return and there are still remnants of those halcyon days of mindless fun to be found if you look.

Take for instance, the wacky residents of the fictional Vaca Muerta Estates, and in particular, Myrna Tellingheusen, “retired executive secretary for Mr. Stanley Bogenshoots, Senior Vice President at Huges Aircraft.” Those accounts are a respite, a little bit of insane sanity in the sea of effluent that the social media platform has become over the past several years.

I have several lists created of some of the folks I follow: My Boo (obviously), Apple News, Apple Anons (loved the inside drama that was associated with that group for years, but now it’s slowly being overrun with political toxicity), and lastly, Vaca Muerta Estates, where I’ve gathered all the “residents” of the mobile home community under one roof.

I use Tweetbot as my Twitter client. On the Mac it allows me to show my regular feed and/or any number of lists I’ve created on screen in convenient columns. On the phone, it allows me to select either my main feed or any one of my lists as the default when I open the app. What I’ve done to minimize the constant stream of stupidity and hate is to have the phone app open directly to Vaca Muerta. The desktop app shows me only my lists, without the main feed appearing at all. It helps, believe me.

That may keep me on Twitter a while longer. I know the platform will never return to what it had been prior to Trump even after he’s ousted from office, but hopefully the cesspool will drain after he’s gone.

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But Seriously Though…

Does it come with wi-fi?

Come and listen to my story about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
And then one day he was shootin at some food,
And up through the ground come a bubblin crude.

Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.

Well the first thing you know ol Jed’s a millionaire,
The kinfolk said “Jed move away from there”
Said “Californy is the place you ought to be”
So they loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly

Hills, that is. Swimmin’ pools, movie stars.

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Another Waste of Time and Gasoline

Okay, I will admit that when I put in the application—not really wanting the job because the commute alone would sour me to the whole endeavor but simply to satisfy my job search requirements for continued unemployment compensation—as a Desktop Tech at Scottsdale Community College a couple weeks ago I never dreamt they’d actually call me in for an interview. But they did.

I didn’t want to go—and as recently as on my there I entertained the thought of simply turning around and going home—but I resolved myself to the fact it would get me out of the house, and if I did somehow end up getting offered the job, it would at least be a job. I’m not anywhere near the point where I’m bored with not working (it would be a hell of a lot more fun if there was still income), but I am becoming more annoyed at the whole situation than anything else.

The interview ended up being of those horrid by-committee things where they slip you a paper with the questions on it and announce, “We’ll be going around the room to ask the questions.”  The committee consisted of the Lead Tech (who retrieved me from the waiting room but didn’t bother to introduce himself until we all sat down and then proceeded to let out an exasperated sigh after each of my answers), one peer who looked like a burnt-out hippie, the director of theater and music (Why?!), and the I.T. Manager, who seemed annoyed that she had to be there. After the round of 11 questions, there were two practical tests: one involving customer service (list the order in which you would address these issues) and one involving basic Mac knowledge (connect to the internet—the ethernet cable was unplugged), run Speedtest, and clear the Keychain). I was initially told the entire interview (including the practical test) would last about an hour. It took half that. It was almost as if they couldn’t get me out of there quickly enough, and I was happy to oblige. There was nothing about any of it (or the people for chrissakes) that made me want to work there.

 

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Living Vicariously Through the Lenses of Others

One place I have wanted to see since I was in my early 20s was Egypt. The pyramids, the ancient monuments…they’ve always been like a siren’s call. Unfortunately, I never made it while I had the energy (and the lithe body) that would have allowed me to navigate the tunnels and chambers of the Great Pyramid, and now it’s all but certain I’ll never see Luxor, or Abu Simbel, or Karnak with my own eyes. With the ongoing instability in the region over the past four decades, I’ve always been concerned about the safety of traveling to the country, but at this point, with the standing of the United States dropping precipitously with each passing day Orange Twitler is allowed to remain in the White House, I think I’d be too frightened to travel at all as a US citizen.

But there is, I discovered, a vicarious alternative to being limited to the stock photos published in books of the ancient monuments, something I stumbled upon quite by accident.

One day I opened Instagram, and one of the many hot, bearded “Instagram models” I follow was posed in front of the Temple Complex at Luxor. I clicked on the geo location link and my screen filled with hundreds of pictures of the temple—with views of the complex I’d never seen before.

Naturally this led me to the great pyramid. And the temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel. And Karnak. Even a generic #egypt hashtag showed me ancient wonders from a perspective I’d never seen before. I was hooked. The multitude of tourist photos posted to Instagram was showing me Egypt in a totally new way.

Here are a few that caught my eye…

























I can’t help but wonder what the people who built these monuments were like. Were they like us, with the same wants, needs, and desires? What drove them? What inspired them? Did they suffer the same petty jealousies and insecurities that we do today? Were they as driven to buy, sell, and own stuff as we are? Despite their apparent lack of “technology” were they actually more advanced in certain areas than we are? Did they possess esoteric knowledge we lack, or were they as clueless about the ultimate meaning of “Life, the Universe, and Everything” as we are now?

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Dining Disaster

On our way back from Tucson a week ago (has it only been a week?), the four of us wanted to stop for dinner in Casa Grande. The initial decision was to go to Olive Garden, but upon arrival it was obvious we weren’t going to be seated any time soon. That led to a discussion of where else to dine, and one, well actually two of our party suggested Cracker Barrel.

I have never set foot in one of their establishments, having long since decided to boycott the chain for its past misdeeds to the GBLT community. I didn’t want to go that night either, but I was outvoted.

The fact that the place was nearly deserted at 6:30 pm on a Saturday should’ve set off red flags, but for some reason it didn’t.

After getting past the gut-wrenching kitsch, we were seated and after being handed menus, I can honestly say there wasn’t a single item listed that I wanted to consume. I finally settled on a cheeseburger, assuming that would be a safe choice. Ben went with biscuits and gravy, and one of our friends went with chicken fried steak. When our food finally arrived—easily 30 minutes later—our friend took one bite of his chicken fried steak and asked his roommate to have a taste.  “It’s like it was fried in stale oil.” Roommate agreed, and it was sent back to the kitchen and exchanged for something different.

Ben described his biscuits and gravy as “flavorless.” My cheeseburger was wholly unremarkable. The bun—much like our friends steak—was stale and the French fries were mushy, like they’d been sitting under a heat lamp for hours.

Lesson learned. Don’t compromise your morals, because in the end it will get you nothing.

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Own It

You’re trash. You’ve always been trash. When liberals were polite, you were trash. When liberals got a little rude, you were still trash. Now that we’re tired of your shit and treating you like the trash you are, you’re mortally offended and blaming us for being trash? Get the fuck out of here.

You laugh at sexual assault victims. You cheer Latino children being tortured. You get off on police murdering unarmed black men. You mock the disabled. You send death threats to high school students opposed to guns. You call for the murder of homosexuals. You. Are. Trash.

I know it’s hard to look in the mirror and realize that you’re the worst that humanity has to offer but you made that choice. No one forced you to be a garbage person. You did that. You. You can stop any time you want, too. But you won’t because deep down inside, you like being trash. Own it. That’s why you love Trump so much. He told you that being trash is OK and you thought you could come out of the shadows and walk tall as a garbage person.

It’s not working out the way you thought it would and that’s pissing you off so very, very much but I couldn’t care less. Blame us all you want for your weakness. No one believes your whining bullshit anymore. Not even you. You’re trash and in four weeks, America is going to take the trash out.

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