November 2nd, 2020 - A for Alone
Dear TNY,
I’m not sure what to say about “A for Alone”. Or anything really. But, I’ll give it a shot.
Firstly, this story another fucking leftist, anti-Trump story. And I don’t support Trump. At all. I don’t really support the opposition either. In fact, both my sons this year are getting mixed messages in their normal, not-with-me lives about which candidates are good or bad. And I told them they are too young to give a shit about something so overly dramatic as this election and, most importantly, any politician at the Federal level is a hot turd no matter what. They asked me how I was going to vote and I told them that I briefly flirted with voting for the Pants Party (which I did vote for during the primaries) in which I chose joint candidates, them (my sons). But I told them this election seemed important enough to actually vote and that my only qualification for president is who would be the least embarrassing for our nation. That’s how bad politics are. I say all this to say I’m fucking over it, man. I’ve deleted DJ Dickweed from my newsfeed. I voted. Get off my fucking back already, man. You stroke these motherfuckers’ ego every time you publish political material, good or bad. Like kids throwing a fit, they only go away if you ignore them. Just like most people ignore your fiction. Same same.
While I’m on the agenda topic, this story tries to use its political agenda to approach a real human issue: connection and/or lack of it. The problem is that you are using such a strong agenda, and the characterization here is so weak, that the character development doesn’t overshadow the agenda. This is epitomized by the final scene in which the story brings Pence back up, missing the best fucking opportunity to make it about these people and not this agenda.
Most of the best part of this story is on the cutting room floor, anyway. The only interesting part of this story is the affair, in which we could have learned about what one of the lunch dudes labeled as “transformation” for the MC, but because the whole affair part is told in summary, and is briefly told at that, we miss a real window into why someone would do these things. Well, at least for the main character. Because Jack remembering that little scene about the earthquake tattoo, that’s the only real thing in this story and is a reason all in itself. And it was quite good. Exactly the right detail. Exactly the kind of thing that acts as a lockpick to a million little locks that one sets in their union to another person that are never supposed to be unlocked.
What am I trying to say here? I don’t fucking know. As I’m sure you have already parsed, I’m a divorced, straight, white father of two (also, all of those <— things are just labels, your labels, labels you seem to care so much about in each of your agenda stories whilst running with this “we don’t see labels” mantra in your fiction; big eyeroll, motherfuckers (also, Condé Nast at large is really blowing it with these fucking labels à la Bon Appétit Video and the complete lack of apology but sudden appearance of more “color/gender friendly” chefs; maybe, and I’m spitballing here, it would have been better to save face and work it out with your previous chefs and make amends instead of sweep that shit under the rug and offer “better” “diversity” hoping we’d all forget how fucking ludicrously you botched that shit (side side side note here: I’m not going to watch that channel again because of how you handled yourselves))). But because of how boring the main character is and how intentionally constructed her relationship is to facilitate this particular ending to the story (Peter works all the time, eh? Doesn’t care about her art? Basically leaves her entirely alone? Like, it could not have been more fucking convenient for this turn of events. And then he just acts like nothing fucking happened afterward? Give me a fucking break.), I find myself wanting to have an affair with Jack just to get out of reading this fucking story. Maybe I could have read another story. That would be alright, too. One in which people really fall in love vs infatuation. Fuck knows. Fuck even knows the difference between those things, while I’m at it. I sure don’t. Fuck knows anything at all.
For the record, I’m pretty sure I’m on board with the Pence rule, not that you asked. Not universally, or anything. But, I’ve been alive long enough to know that marriages are never always going well and men are monsters (women can be monsters too, certainly, but I’m going to lean heavily into testosterone in the upcoming text, and it’s about the quantity of that drug when I say “men are monsters”). And yeah, I know, I said earlier that I’m a man and qualify as a monster. Fucking noted for sure. I guess, maybe I’ll change what I’m saying. I’m not saying I’m with the Pence stance. What I am saying is that civility, in totality, is a made-up artifice that represents the very best that we can be as humans. Absolutely the pinnacle of evolution. And how old is civility? We’ll give it the grace of saying as long as human history exists (written), so maybe 5000 years? And that’s very gracious given the amount of slavery/rape/murder/war that occurred in all that time (spoiler alert: none of those things are civil and justifying them away with excuses is, well, very DJT of you). But this human form has roughly been the same for what? 50k years? 100k? Long than that, probably. And you’re going to sit here and tell me that we can evolve to civility this quickly? So no, I don’t see two civil, apex evolution humans sitting at lunch together. I see two apes evolved from an era when we were using spears to slay mammoths and short-faced bears. I see apes that shouldn’t outlive 30 years who now, because they have outlived that quota, have a deep underlying yearning for meaning in this newly bought time and this newly developed civility that will tear apart their lives to find it. I see two time bombs sitting across from each other; it’s just a matter of when they’ll go off, and if it will be at the same time. So, yeah, I’m definitely not on the Pence plan, because that plan seems to be religious-based and organized religion is silly (again, I’ve posted about this before: #1 human-based reason for killing others is a made-up sky ghost (take your pick of religions) and that shit is the antithesis to a benevolent god or gods). But I’m wary of these lunches because I don’t believe humans are civil. As I said, to me it’s two apes loaded up on chemicals we don’t understand smelling for pheromone clues as to whether or not we are going to dump all the chemicals at once and make some bad decisions (or good ones; who here among us knows which decisions are good or bad and who made you judge?).
Anyone who says otherwise, that they have somehow cracked the code to biology and are above the base nature of this meatform we’ve taken, they should not be trusted. Because they are either lying to themselves or are denying their actions or, worst of all, justifying their previous actions as conscious choices they made that were somehow uninformed by the basic mechanisms driving their existence. These lie-versions of human ape are far more dangerous than one of the aware human apes.
Jesus. Where the hell am I going with this? Fuck knows.
Better stop, though. All of the hate mail I will receive will be…wait, that would require a readership of more than that individual from Montreal and the other individual from The Philippines. I hope I didn’t piss you guys off (non-sex specific form of “guys”). Thanks for reading, by the way. I really appreciate it. Truly. Warm heart cockles.
Later.
Nick
