Tag: commentary

Deo — Mon 10 Jul 2017 – 03:27

Perri, you say a lot of things. Your last rant (I won’t credit it with the title of article) about me said I was a “terrorist” in a “terrorist organization”. Those are incredibly damaging and outlandish accusations to hurl so freely. When you wrote that rant, and all the others that followed, you never contacted me to discuss any part of the events.

I have not been in the furry fandom for as long as some people, that is true. But after 12 years I don’t think anyone will buy your bologna that I am some sort of new invader bent on destroying the fandom. I have roots in this community, and people know me. Artists know I am generous, friends know I am kind, and con attendees know I love to host a good party.

“They do not create anything. Their purpose is the destruction of society itself. They are indoctrinated to infiltrate and destroy anything they can get their hands on.”

I do create. In 2005 I joined the fandom and since then I have made half a dozen fursuits, countless paintings and drawings, and one joint furry comic project.

Perri, I am a millwright keeping machinery running to produce metals needed for infrastructure and manufacturing. My work very literally supports society as most of our materials are used in American bridge building projects. Every time you drive over a bridge, I want you to think of me and my brothers in the steel industry holding you up. I build things, I repair things, I play my small part in keeping the wheels of industry and society running. I volunteer regularly and often to support my local community. You continue telling people that I, and those you lump in with me, are out to destroy society which is blatantly false.

Maybe if you had bothered to speak to me (like real journalists with ethics do) you would have known months ago before you took up this smear campaign that I am not some destructive collossus.

Deo — Sun 9 Jul 2017 – 20:33

I had heard of his passing, I sent a few condolences in private and avoided any public discussion. I found it distasteful of people trying to politicize his death, either trying to garner sympathy by loudly flourishing it about or even more distastefully making a joke about his passing.

I did not care for Xzavior while he was alive due to his loud racist and antisemetic comments, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it is sad he died and that his family is mourning him.

I think Xydexx had a good point on something though, to be careful with how we treat others and to take care avoiding hate speech because life is fragile and those could be what we end up being remembered for. I know I can be quite hotheaded myself and I would not like to be remembered for hasty words spoken in anger much less racist slurs.

Deo — Mon 10 Jul 2017 – 03:25

Sorry I am new to Flayrah, this comment was meant to be on the article as a whole, not directed as a reply to any person.

Perri — Mon 10 Jul 2017 – 15:16

Dear Deo,

2 posts, entirely directed at me, and one excuse trying to say the previous 2 are not off topic. I will say this for you. You can be funny.

I don’t recall doing a rant on you. I don’t think I’ve ever addressed you as a solo topic to any extent. The only thing I can think of that you might be referring to was a link I put in the Furry Raiders group to an article that shows Antifa has now been officially listed as a domestic terrorist group, and that, if you endorse Antifa, you support a domestic terrorist organization. There was no editorializing with it. It was just stating a fact. And if you don’t like that fact, all you have to do is denounce Antifa.

Anyway, it’s not like I don’t know you quite well. Your hate mongering tweets are in my face every day, whether I want them to be or not. And I did listen to every word of your interview with Furry Days. I have spent considerable time with you, whether you knew I was there or not.

And I will say this about you, Deo. There are a lot of Archie Bunker types in this world who are in some respects lovable in their personal life, in spite of being totally whacked in their prejudicial perspectives. Maybe you’re such a person. Maybe you honestly think you’re doing good by painting people as Nazis when they’re not. Maybe you’re a really good person who just doesn’t know any better.

But, to the people who continue to suffer because of the prejudice you continue to perpetuate, you’re scum. Actually, you’ve gone beyond scum. You’ve become the Furry Fandom’s equivalent of Big Brother.

That, of course, has nothing to do with how good a person you might be in real life. Life on the internet is very cut off from reality. There’s always this temptation to think nothing you do on the internet can possibly effect the real world. Never mind that you effectively destroyed an entire convention with one tweet, and set in motion a precedent which has not only already done serious financial damage to other conventions, but will in all likelihood cost us many more conventions in the future.

You remain blissfully detached from all that. In your mind you have no responsibility for this ever growing precarious rift in the fandom. All you care about is that people who disagree with you are Nazis, and Nazis have no right to complain about being attacked. I’m sure you’re totally mystified as to why anyone would hate you for that.

Part of me wants to feel sorry for you. After all, it’s difficult to tell what a nice fur you might have been before being indoctrinated into this hateful cult of Communism. But on the other hand, it’s not like anything we say is going to un-indoctrinate you. And even if we could red pill you, that would not undo the damage you’ve already done.

We can never go back to the way we were. There is no future for Furry Fandom as we knew it. You have won. You have set Furry Fandom on the road to ruin, as surely as your kind has done to the gamer and comic book fandoms. And as you eventually stand surveying the ruins, I hope you take a sense of pride in the destruction. Because, if you don’t, it will all have been for nothing.

As for me, I have no further interest in The Furry Community, beyond defending your victims. As soon as I’m no longer needed to speak for the speechless I’m out of here. But in the meantime, if you’d like to open some kind of debate in my journal, you’re welcome to.

In fact, if you like, you may compile a list of questions which you can send to perri_rhoades@yahoo.com . I will then create an entry to answer the questions, and we can carry on discussion in the comment section. If you’re up for the challenge I’ll look forward to hearing from you.

Love,
Perri

Deo — Tue 11 Jul 2017 – 02:31

2 posts, entirely directed at me, and one excuse trying to say the previous 2 are not off topic. I will say this for you. You can be funny.

One was directed at you thus why the comment clearly begins with “Perri” as to address you. The second comment was intended to be a reply to the article itself and I even said I was sorry for accidentally tagging you.

I don’t recall doing a rant on you. I don’t think I’ve ever addressed you as a solo topic to any extent. The only thing I can think of that you might be referring to was a link I put in the Furry Raiders group to an article that shows Antifa has now been officially listed as a domestic terrorist group, and that, if you endorse Antifa, you support a domestic terrorist organization. There was no editorializing with it. It was just stating a fact.

You wrote a rant posted to the Furry Times titled “The Fandom that Feared Itself”. (1) In which you claim my actions “did turn out to be a terrorist attack” on Anthrocon. Which is absurd and a vile lie. You claim “Antifa Communists”, “Communist terrorist group” and “SJWs” are responsible for a terrorist attack upon the furry fandom. You also name me as some sort of leader “the first name on her list of Communist furs was the infamous Deo, fired the shot that eventually killed RMFC.”

So yes, you have repeatedly called me a terrorist and not in some passable way referring offhandedly to a generalized antifa but by name and hosted on a so called news site. I do not take being slandered as a terrorist lightly, and you calling me so is completely vile.

As for your claim that I “fired the shot that killed RMFC”; what about the convicted child rapist and his best friend the Sovereign Citizen who impersonated a lawyer to mail illegal threats to my home? (2) See, when I talked to Sorin the con chairman he said it was the fact that two board members went rogue and mailed illegal threats behind the backs of the other board members that killed RMFC. The catalyst was these men writing this letter, not the fact that I posted the letter online publicly. Normal people blame the people who send illegal threats, not the person receiving the threats. RMFC had a myriad of other troubles at the time, but that letter was the final straw and reason the con sadly closed.

And if you don’t like that fact, all you have to do is denounce Antifa.

Antifa has been around since the 1920s, you seem caught up on specifically Berkeley and the one man with a bike lock as being the defining moment. Should I define all American gun owners by the actions of Dylan Roof? Or should I define all conservatives by the actions of Timothy McVeigh? Doing so is completely dishonest to gun owners and conservatives. Similarly defining Antifa by one man in Berkeley is dishonest.

Antifa is not a group with leaders or heirarchy. Antifa does look scary. Do you know why? For decades we have toed off with Aryan Brotherhood, Hammerskins, Sons of Odin, New American Nazi Party, and the KKK. We wear masks so they do not identify us and attack our families. We wear masks as an intimidation tactic against Nazis and to show a unified front. We wear masks so that if the police show up and inevitably gas the wrong group our lungs are better protected.

When I was in Antifa I defended historically Jewish neighborhoods from Hammerskins who wanted to march through with Nazi flags, break windows, and intimidate people. Antifa would mobilize, get there first, and stand our ground so that the neonazi group could not tromp through the neighborhood. Is this what you are so terrified of? People wearing masks stopping neonazis from attacking Jewish homes and businesses? Wring your hands Perri, because I won’t denounce them. I do not regret stopping neonazis from parading in Jewish neighborhoods.

Anyway, it’s not like I don’t know you quite well. Your hate mongering tweets are in my face every day, whether I want them to be or not. And I did listen to every word of your interview with Furry Days. I have spent considerable time with you, whether you knew I was there or not.

You obviously do not know me at all. You called me a terrorist. You have spent no time with me, you never once approached me to talk. You slunk off and wrote horrific things about me and had the sheer audacity to peddle it as news.

And hate mongering tweets? Which ones, citation is very much needed for my so called hate. I am going to assume you are referring to my tweets where I show the world what your Furry Raiders and AltFurry say by posting their own direct words from their public posts or chat logs? (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16) Because pointing out their shitty behavior does not count as me being hateful.

And I will say this about you, Deo. There are a lot of Archie Bunker types in this world who are in some respects lovable in their personal life, in spite of being totally whacked in their prejudicial perspectives. Maybe you’re such a person. Maybe you honestly think you’re doing good by painting people as Nazis when they’re not. Maybe you’re a really good person who just doesn’t know any better.

“Prejudicial perspectives”? I don’t like people who attack others on the basis of racial, religious, or LGBT status. I have not called anyone “a nazi” who did not support Nazi ideology or join a group whose leadership espoused Nazi ideology. I don’t go around calling people Nazis unless they do shit like this (17), or say this (18), or state for themselves that they are Nazis.

But, to the people who continue to suffer because of the prejudice you continue to perpetuate, you’re scum. Actually, you’ve gone beyond scum. You’ve become the Furry Fandom’s equivalent of Big Brother.

Your friends in the Raiders and AltFurry told me to kill myself, they sent me threats one of which was “Nigger bitch I will rape you to death [my address]”, when my grandfather died three weeks ago they gleefully sent me messages one was “One less kike!”

Who, again here is scum? Because this viciousness and depravity is something I have never done. You all should be appalled and ashamed of yourselves and the actions of those in your group. Further vilifying me does not lesson the millstone of guilt that hangs around their necks.

That, of course, has nothing to do with how good a person you might be in real life. Life on the internet is very cut off from reality. There’s always this temptation to think nothing you do on the internet can possibly effect the real world. Never mind that you effectively destroyed an entire convention with one tweet, and set in motion a precedent which has not only already done serious financial damage to other conventions, but will in all likelihood cost us many more conventions in the future.

Actually, good people are good online and off. Which is why I don’t say things remotely as bad as the group you chose to join and defend. And of course I know it affects the real world. Your idiot friends have mailed things to my home, physically through the US Postal service.

Also, nope, your friends in the Raiders and AltFurry got caught red handed damaging conventions. You can’t blame me for their actions of calling the hotel with threats and calling the hotel to report that Califur was harboring pedophile rings. Absolutely do not blame me for the actions of your group, have some decency to at least own up when they were blatantly caught. Stop lying Perri.

You can’t even say that the two groups, Furry Raiders and AltFurry, are separate entities because they are both compromised of the same bulk of membership between the two. That including most of Furry Raiders listed as being in leadership positions.

You remain blissfully detached from all that. In your mind you have no responsibility for this ever growing precarious rift in the fandom. All you care about is that people who disagree with you are Nazis, and Nazis have no right to complain about being attacked. I’m sure you’re totally mystified as to why anyone would hate you for that.

Shows again how little you know me and how unaware and ignorant you are of this situation. How can I be detached when I received death threats? Or when Foxler himself and others spread my home address with the intent to incite others to harm me? How blind are you that you cannot see that this was massively disruptive to my life? I enjoyed being unknown.

All I care about? I have a family to take care of! Your group not only threatened me, but the people who live with me, people who rely on me to survive. I care about my family, I care about my community, I care about my work, and I care about my fandom. I have not attacked these people in the magnitude and seriousness as they have done to me. I never told anyone to kill themselves, I never tracked down anyone’s home, I never called anyone’s employer, I never threatened to kill, I never threatened to rape, I never mocked the dead, all these things they have done to me. There is not one way in which you can twist these events to justify their sick actions.

YOU, Perri, are detached. You call me a terrorist, you join a gang of people that has threatened to rape me to death and called my deceased grandfather a kike. You don’t sewm to give a single shit about the horrendous actions of your new friends. Are you that desperate for some cause, to be important, or part of a group that you can ignore all these things? You don’t care about my family, you twist sob stories about these poor boys who threaten to kill me and threaten to break into my home. You are the one detached and without empathy or conscience, otherwise how could you condone these things and defend these people? Just admit it, you are a parasite sucking at any group that may fan your ego and fill the lonely friendless void within yourself and you don’t care who or what gets hurt. You can’t take the high road when you are determined to stand in with the shit Perri.

Part of me wants to feel sorry for you. After all, it’s difficult to tell what a nice fur you might have been before being indoctrinated into this hateful cult of Communism.

I don’t want your paltry fake pity, go mime human emotions at someone else. I am a communist because I care about people, I love people. 5 men own half the world’s wealth and 20 million people will die this year alone from easily treatable conditions. 50% of all the food grown in America ia wasted, 30% of it is left to rot in the fields because it is not profitable to harvest and sell while we have one in 5 American kids going hungry. I am a communist because I care more about those 20 million people than I do about my material possessions.

But on the other hand, it’s not like anything we say is going to un-indoctrinate you. And even if we could red pill you, that would not undo the damage you’ve already done.

Hahaha, you say I am indoctrinated and then say “we could red pill you”. Red Pill is a toxic cult ideology. Bitter, angry, insecure men taking their rage and pouring it online as if it was gospel or scientific fact. I know what Red Pill is. It’s toxic to men by being derogatory towards any man who does not fit strict hyper-gender-role criteria. Men who are short, men who are fat, men of color, men who have trouble growing their hair, men who have financial insecurity are mocked relentlessly as “betas”, “cucks”, and “manginas”. It is toxic to women calling them “dogs”, “children”, “cattle” who cannot be allowed choices or personal autonomy.

It tells people that there is no such thing as love, and relationships are solely an exchange of goods and services. (19, 20, 21)

We can never go back to the way we were. There is no future for Furry Fandom as we knew it. You have won. You have set Furry Fandom on the road to ruin, as surely as your kind has done to the gamer and comic book fandoms. And as you eventually stand surveying the ruins, I hope you take a sense of pride in the destruction. Because, if you don’t, it will all have been for nothing.

As for me, I have no further interest in The Furry Community, beyond defending your victims. As soon as I’m no longer needed to speak for the speechless I’m out of here.

Good riddance and take your racist slur spewing ethnostatist friends with you. Begone hyperbolic lying parasite.

Perri 1:18 PM 7/11/17

Nope. Actually you need to take that up with Equivamp. She’s the one who handed me the list with your name on top. Why she put your name on the list at all I don’t necessarily get, but if she hadn’t I might never have known you were a Communist. Anyway, you’re name being on the top of her list doesn’t make you a leader. But I can only assume she put you first because she regarded you as someone of unusual importance.

Sorry, it’s not slander to call you a terrorist after you’ve endorsed a terrorist group. You’re going to be getting a lot of that in the future, I’m sure. If you don’t like that, might I suggest that you come up with a statement denouncing and distancing yourself from Antifa? I think by the time you get that done my essays will have disappeared from the net.

No you’re not a passable terrorist. You’re a proactive and well organized terrorist who terrorized an entire convention out of existence. Excuse the hell out of me for wanting to give that the admiration it deserves. Single greatest trolling in history. If they gave awards for trolling, you would win the Cat Ass Trophy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard all those other excuses. But all reputable sources say it was the money you added to the cost of the con that killed it. You’re not getting out of it. Stop trying to hide your accomplishments. Take credit for your kill.

Oh my God. You’re not going to distance yourself from Antifa, are you? You’re going to talk about being a member of the actual street thug gang. All I ever laid on you was being an Antifa Fur. That’s nothing compared to how you just incriminated yourself.

Earth to Deo. Domestic Terrorist Organization. Unlawful Enemy Combatant. Imprisonment Without Trial. Oh, boy, do you have an interesting future in front of you.

Deo, who do you think you’re fooling? People don’t define Antifa by the 1920’s. They define Antifa by what they see on Youtube. And what they see is a bunch of thugs attempting to crush free speech, breaking windows, attacking helpless garbage cans, and avoiding real NeoNazis like the plague. Because, as Goldilocks found out the hard way, real NeoNazis hit back.

So don’t give me any bulls—t about how you’re protecting me from NeoNazis. What you’re protecting me from is free speech, and I don’t want protection from that. I don’t want you to protect me from Richard Spenser’s words. How am I going to tell if he’s a piece of crap or not if you don’t let me hear what he’s got to say?

All we’re going to see is some guy being attacked by a bunch of thugs. And we’re not going to side with the thugs. You make heroes out of these people by default. You make white supremacy look good. You make people seriously interested in hearing what you’re trying to shut up. Way to go, Antifa. You do realize, of course, if you’d left that guy alone, I’d never have heard of him.

By the way, Deo. You ever see the movie Park Heights? That’s where I live. Very old Jewish neighborhood. There’s a friggen synagogue on every corner. And I can guarantee you there are no Jews here who would feel safer with Antifa thugs roaming our streets. This is Baltimore. We got enough thugs. Thank you very much.

Ah, you don’t like being in the news. Well that’s too bad. You know, most people who don’t want to be in the news have sense enough to keep a low profile and not do things that nobody else has accomplished before.

Deo, dear, you’re famous. You’re going to be a legend in Furry Fandom. People are going to be writing about you from now on. You know why, because the more you hate on The Furry Raiders, the more you keep them in the news. And the news is not going to miss it when they hate back on you. I’d think you would have figured that out from the “Deo Is Watching You” fiasco.

Becoming not news is the easiest thing in the world. Just stop spewing your hate and let people forget you.

Why are you bothering me about AltFurry? You know damn well that’s Len Gilbert’s thing. It has nothing to do with The Furry Raiders. One is political, the other wants to get away from politics. We are very different entities. And, just between you and me and the other Commies here, AltFurry strikes me as a lot more dangerous. I wouldn’t play around with them, if I were you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same boring tweets. Everyday you gotta say something, and I gotta hear about it. And every day I’m like “Dear God, Deo, will you ever get a life?” I mean, come on, I’m a mod, I have to look at your BS when it gets dragged in. But you do not have to crap it out every day. Get a significant other. Go out on a picnic. Do something, anything that does not involve tweeting.

And another thing you need to stop is boo hooing because the hate you send out to others comes back to you in spades. You commission an insanely intimidating “Punch a Nazi” gif. And a bunch of people point guns at a blow up of your avatar. Like you didn’t ask for that. And you expect them to take that as a joke. So why aren’t you taking the guns as a joke

Besides, you’re a big bad Antifa street thug. You eat NeoNazis for breakfast. Don’t tell me it scares you that some of the people you’ve been giving a hard time might actually have guns. I don’t know if they taught you this in school, but actions tend to have consequences. And the consequences of bullying are not always pretty. So if you send out a hateful picture, you are probably going to get a hateful picture back. If you can’t take the response, don’t send the picture.

Like I said, I’m not going to address anything from AltFurry Discord. I am in no way connected with those guys. But I will rake you over the coals for claiming to be justified in calling Foxler a Nazi for trolling a Nazi group. He made a friggen joke out of them, The same way he makes a friggen joke out of you and everyone else who foolishly insists that a gay, half Asian man in a fursuit, in a relationship with a half black man can somehow be a white supremacist? Let alone a NeoNazi?

Tell me something, Deo. does everyone in Antifa know as little about Nazis as you do? And are they all as susceptible to a troll like Foxler mopping the floor with them as you are? You do realize he mops the floor with you every time you call him a Nazi. Technically you mop the floor with yourself.

I have the testimony of actual NeoNazis who put it straight up that there is no way in hell Foxler could ever be a NeoNazi, and that they are laughing their asses off at you. You, a friggen Antifa who can’t tell a Nazi from a hole in the ground. And how does that make you feel, Antifa, knowing the actual Nazis are laughing at you?

Aww, did the poor little devil get doxxed? Aww, gee, what a shame. But, uh, no citation on that one? So how do we know it was Foxler? I mean, you killed a convention. You made about 2000 enemies in that one shot. And why would Foxler dox his favorite troll toy? Sounds more like you pissed off AltFurry to me. Or maybe Kiwi Farms. They’ll dox you in a heart beat.

But I guess it doesn’t matter who did it. It comes back to the same thing. Your actions have consequences. And that’s how it’s going to be from now on. You don’t want to get doxxed, don’t make enemies. I fully expect to get doxxed any time now. Can’t imagine why it hasn’t happened already. You’re probably working on it right now. ^_^

Well, I know nobody from The Raiders called you “Nigger bitch,” because that would be a banning offense. And if AltFurry did it, that’s what you get for pissing them off.

You know, it’s a crazy thing. You go off on people, telling everyone how dangerous they are. And when they turn out to actually have some back bite and you get hurt, you’re like, “How dare they. People aren’t supposed to be allowed to hurt me back.” Hey, I’ll bet under all that bravado you’re just a little snowflake, aren’t cha?

“One less kike?” Still doesn’t sound like something that would come from a Furry Raider. Face it. You’ve got some serious enemies. You are being trolled big time. Which is not surprising because everyone can see what a sucker for trolls you are. And, another little bit of advice, don’t overlook your friends, because you keep some sleazy company.

We have no guilt where you’re concerned. Whatever you got you asked for, and chances are you didn’t get it from us.

Oh, nobody blames you for Califur. I know who did that. Len Gilbert called for that action. And I then personally ripped him a new one for acting like you. Even Foxler voiced his disapproval. But you’re still not off the hook because you set the precedent. You taught people how to attack conventions. And this BS is going to be going on forever now.

Deo, you’re full of s—t. AltFurry is not the same people. Maybe some of the same people, but not all of the same people. And definitely not the same concept. And as you can see above, everything they do is not ok with us.

Awww, you enjoyed being unknown. How sad. But you know what I enjoyed. I enjoyed Furry Fandom, before you Antifa/SJW creeps came in here and ruined it. Well, you’re never going to be unknown again, and I’m never again going to get to enjoy a non-political Furry Fandom. Isn’t that just awful. Aren’t we a couple of Sad Sacks? Don’t we just feel terrible for each other? No? Well get over it then, as that’s all that’s left to me to do.

Oh, will you stop with the hearts and flowers already. “All I want to do is keep my family safe.” Being a nasty bitch on the internet is a great way of accomplishing that, isn’t it?

Look, I feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for the people you live with. But you get this through that thick head of yours. If you’re really in danger, you did this to yourself. You did this to your family and friends. There was no reason on Earth for you to go on the internet and start making enemies hand over fist. There was no reason for you to assume there would be no real world consequences.

As hard as this may be for you to understand, The Furry Raiders do not hate you. Any tit for tatting we do with you is pretty much all in fun. But if we thought you were in real danger, we’d do whatever we could to protect you. If I knew for a fact that somebody was coming for you, I’d warn you. Why? Because we’re stupid that way. We wouldn’t be able to remember that you didn’t deserve any compassion from us.

But, unfortunately, I don’t know who your real enemies are. And even if I did, I wouldn’t have any influence with them. This is a really stupid thing you’ve done to yourself. Suicidally stupid. And the only way I can see that could possibly protect yourself and the people you live with, is to move.

You care about your fandom? Then why’d you freakin’ help destroy it?

Oh, dear God. Here we go with the waterworks again. Stop crying. It’s not convincing coming from the biggest bully in Furry Fandom. Do you seriously expect me to believe you can’t take care of yourself? Big mouthed Antifa bad-ass, goes out in the street and faces down real NeoNazis. Well, for crap’s sake. Where’s Antifa when you need ’em?

I am not detached or without empathy or conscience. I just don’t believe you. I don’t think you received these alleged threats. I think you’re making it all up. I think you’re a lying ass-hole, to be honest. I’ll be gracious and give you the benefit of the doubt that you got some threats, but they didn’t come from me or anyone I know. If you had gotten any threats from The Furry Raiders, they’d be harmless jokes you wouldn’t have to worry about. But then I know you do regard jokes as threats. To you everything is bloody serious business, unless you’re doing it to someone else. Then it’s just a joke. I’m well familiar with the pattern.

Now you try my patience. You evoke my anger. And my pleasant, friendly voice drops to the low growl of a wrathful god.

You are a Communist because you are a fool who has never lived through a cold war. You are a Communist Holocaust denier, who dares preach to me about 20 million Communism will help, in complete denial of the 100 Million who are already dead because of Communism, shot down in the streets because they did not think right thoughts.

And how do you express your great love for people? By bringing their society to ruin, never asking if they want you to do it. By persecuting the innocent? By twinking the nose of AltFurry and blaming The Furry Raiders for the consequences? By being a passionless smart-ass to people on the internet who beg you to understand they’re not Nazis? How dare you sit in judgment of me, you disgusting excuse for a human being.

You who will help bring death and disaster to millions. You who will leave this world in ruins. You who have been warned time and again the folly of your indoctrination, and still you will not care. You who would take everything I have come to hold precious. You who would rob me of my world itself. You, puny little Communist thing, dare tell me you care about people.

Another kind of SJW that has been out there for a number of years is the gay branch of this massive attempt to totally destroy culture and society. I ran into this on Wikipedia a few years ago where they were trying to put forward that Danny Kaye and Hans Christian Anderson were gay and should be made icons of The Gay Community.

According to the SJW’s from The Gay Community, if a controversy exists, dead people who can not defend themselves get to be claimed, even if it was these very same people who started the controversy by presenting and obviously prejudiced interpretation of the evidence, and then bullying anybody who suggests their arguments don’t hold water.

The fact that I got harassed by mods, called homophobic and lots of other unsavory buzzwords, and got threatened with being banned, just for suggesting they needed more evidence to be putting such personal conclusions out as undeniable fact, is one of the reasons I stopped editing Wikipedia.

The other day, Facebook recommended a page to me. This page was called “Jonathan Frid Was Gay And That’s Ok.” So I clicked on it and started looking for what citations they were offering. And again, the evidence was all pretty superficial and proved nothing. It could indicate gayness, or it could indicate asexuality, or it could indicate things totally unrelated to sexuality, just like with the Danny Kaye thing.

So we have this person who is either knowing or has been unwittingly indoctrinated into SJW practices, attending to divide the Dark Shadows fandom by going around the community making a big obnoxious noise about how it’s a stone cold undeniable fact that Jonathan Frid was gay, and anyone who doesn’t agree is not only homophobic, but a cruel-ass nasty person for not caring how even the slightest expression of homophobia “Triggers” him.

And, because much of the fandom seems to see him as a deranged obnoxious fool, he’s been repeatedly told to knock it off, shown evidence that contraries his claims, and probably been the recipient of some genuine hate; not for being gay, but for pushing a lie about the main beloved icon of that fandom. It really wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of people wanted to see this guy strangled for what I am going to give the name it deserves, “Gay appropriation.”

Gay appropriation can only be done with people who are dead. People who are alive can kill it just by saying, “Piss off. I’m not gay.” The families of the victims may strongly protest, but in true SJW form, the gay appropriator will then attack the family, the co-stars, the man’s biographer, the staff of the conventions, and of course the fans, with the most hateful accusations.

But this is all beneficial to the gay appropriator/SJW, because you now have a controversy burning hot enough to reach the outside internet. It becomes news that there’s a controversy over Jonathan Frid’s sexuality, everyone’s expected to take up sides on it, and if you don’t support the gay side, you’re going to get some unsavory labels pasted on you. But you can’t paste labels on SJW’s in return, because they have their patented, society approved “Label away.”

“Label away” says “I am right and you are wrong. Therefore, nothing you say will be listened to, because you’re the devil, and nobody should listen to the devil.”

But, anyway, let’s look at the “Undeniable” evidence in this case. The only evidence to suggest that Jonathan Frid might possibly have been gay seems to be that he was once seen at a gay bar and on a gay beach in the company of his openly gay co-star Louis Edmonds. Never mind that Edmonds has been noted for dragging his co-stars to events at his gay hangouts. The fact that Jonathan Frid sometimes accepted such invitations means he must have been gay.

I mean, it’s logical, right? If you’re not gay you’re homophobic. So, if Jonathan Frid was ok around gay people he must have been gay, right? Just like there can’t be any straight furs in Furry Fandom, because they all seem to be ok with hanging out with gay furs. It couldn’t be that some people just don’t give a flip about the sexuality of their friends? No, if you suggest that, you’re homophobic. Such is SJW logic.

By this logic you can technically take any picture that shows Jonathan Frid and Louis Edmonds together and call it proof of being gay.

I’ve never seen Dark Shadows fans or cast members turn on Louis Edmonds for being gay. In fact, cast members seem to have found Louis Edmonds adorable and funny specifically because he was gay. But I imagine this guilt by association crap drives many a Dark Shadows fan buggy. But if pressed for more substantial evidence, you know what the gay appropriator will give you? Gaydar.

That’s right folks, gaydar is an incontrovertible science. And you will then be hit by statements from innumerable gay fans that will insist that Jonathan Frid’s performance on Dark Shadows set off their gaydar. Some will even attest that he awakened them to being gay.

How could that be if he wasn’t gay? Couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the sex symbol character he was playing. Or that his character was called upon by the writers to subdue and control characters of both sexes.

It is actually a well documented fact that women objectified this guy as a sex symbol. It should be no surprise at all if gay guys drooled over him and fantasized that he was gay. It might not even be a surprise if, after 40 odd years, the gay guys who watched the original run of the show remember him best as the way they initially fantasized him.

Now, if any guy who could be said to be attractive to gays could be a gay icon, I don’t think anyone would have a problem with that. You don’t have to be gay to be on The Gay Community’s top ten list of hot male celebrities. But to be a gay icon, you do. Because a gay icon is a person being used to validate the state of being gay. And you would think it would cheapen gay esteem if it were known that a lot of their icons weren’t actually gay. But, if you are gay, according to SJW theory, you are never to give this a second thought.

As for myself, it doesn’t bug me if certain gay fans want to imagine Frid as gay. Hey, whatever floats your boat. If they saw something in his performance that awakened them as gay, great. By all means do celebrate that. But if you walk around in a Dark Shadows fan group proclaiming that the gayness of the man is a proven and well documented fact, some fans will naturally want to curb stomp you, because you’re not the only one whose imagination was personally touched by this guy.

Other people lay claim to him, just as much as you do. And while they will go along with something there is actual proof for, trying to act like your personal fantasies rule the entire fandom and can not be questioned will get you rudely ejected from just about any subculture.

So, in typical SJW fashion, the SJW activists start vilifying the entire fandom as homophobic, totally ignoring or playing down the fact that nobody is denying or saying anything against the other members of the cast who are known to have been gay. But, because the fandom is not prepared to let a television icon be branded gay on the most subjective of evidence, the entire fandom is being attacked and vilified as “The worst fandom ever.”

Well, I’ll admit. I don’t hang out in Dark Shadows Fandom. I’m obsessed with the show itself. And this was a show that went out over a major network, being viewed by millions of people. Therefore, I don’t have any expectation about what the average Dark Shadows fan might be like. I certainly wouldn’t expect to meet anybody there who would relate to me, because I’m weird, even standing out in a field by myself. So I’ve never really felt the need to get together with fans of a show I liked and seek some kind of validation from them.

Well, I did try it once by joining a Doctor Who fan club, but I really didn’t enjoy it. My major fandom involvements have all been with meta-genres like Anime and Furry. And, even though my series, “Spectral Shadows” takes a lot of inspiration from Dark Shadows, I expect Dark Shadows fans would like it even less than Furries like it. When you’re in a fandom for a specific show, you’re expected to be writing fan fiction of that show. Original fiction inspired by the show does not count.

So, having kept my distance because of those assumptions, I really couldn’t tell you if people in Dark Shadows fandom are particularly nice. I would expect a large percentage of them to be my age, and therefore somewhat irritable. But even if it could be shown that they were in fact the worst fandom in the world, I still would not be able to fault them for treating this guy with the maximum rudeness.

And if this guy is going to be so triggered by the rudeness he brings on himself, I would say, “If you feel that way don’t stay in Dark Shadows Fandom. Don’t join any subculture, because there is nowhere you can go that you will not be disagreed with.”

But that’s not acceptable in SJW theory. As far as the Cultural Marxist pseudo Communists are concerned, the fandom that won’t believe what it’s told to believe must be destroyed. And of course the things they demand to be believed are always so ridiculous no one can cope with them.

Still, just to keep the peace, those in charge of fandom events will try to show some support. Consequently there is now this very odd picture of the colorful gay pride flag flying over the strikingly black and white Collinwood mansion. (As if Johnny Depp didn’t do enough damage)

As you can see by the comments on the image, the fandom seems overly supportive and welcoming of it’s gay demographic. The only negative comment is about the guy trying to brand Jonathan Frid as gay. But to hear this guy talk, these same DS fans are just the nastiest bunch of gay haters you could ever encounter. And true to the Cultural Marxist/SJW theory, he has gone so far as to recommend re-education for them, in a major Sci-Fi magazine that he writes for, no less.

Seriously, I’m sure there’s a huge demographic of gay fans in DS Fandom. But rather than going around trying to force something that is at best a suspicion as fact, why not kick back and fire off some gay DS fan fiction? I know why. Because SJW’s usually don’t have any such talents. You have only to look at SJW Marvel Comics to see how devoid of talent they are.

In all likelihood the complaining SJW is not really a DS fan at all, but was probably assigned to it from a list of fandoms marked for destruction. Sound far fetched? Well, there’s about as much evidence for what I just suggested as there is for Jonathan Frid having been gay. So, if we go by SJW theory, accusations don’t need to be proven. The validity of an argument depends on who it’s coming from. The oppressed get to speak and the oppressors must be silenced.

Well, I get 12 out of 100 privilege points. That makes me pretty GD oppressed. So any accusation I throw out there can’t be argued with, even if I don’t really agree with it, which in this case I don’t. I have no reason to think he’s not a real fan. He’s just one of the numerous cracked-brains you meet these days who was raised on “Das Kapital” instead of “How To Win Friends And Influence People.”

Again, I wouldn’t care if Jonathan Frid was proven to be gay. It would not diminish the man in my eyes in the slightest. But like so many people who are attacked in this way by the gay faction of the SJW agenda, the man is no longer around to confirm or deny these allegations. So he’s seen as an easy target, and fans feel a natural compulsion to defend their lost hero against anything being attached to him that might be false.

Besides, if Frid had wanted his sexuality to be a matter of public discussion, he lived well into the era where “Coming out” wouldn’t have hurt him in the least. But instead he remained a sexually ambiguous actor who was pretty much married to the theater. If that was how he wished to be seen in life, what reason is there to assume he’d want to be seen any other way by history?

The character he played, that’s a different thing. I’m sure Frid thought it was all well and good for people to imagine Barnabas in any way that made them happy, and I’m sure there’s a crap-ton of gay Dark Shadows fan fiction out there for people to enjoy. I don’t see any way DS fandom could be exclusionary towards gays.

And again, if you need a gay hero in the Dark Shadows cast, Louis Edmonds was an undeniably gay man who knew how to enjoy being gay in times when gay was simply not talked about in polite circles. Why not jump all over him as a gay icon? For that matter, there’s also Joel Crothers, who was one of the early victims of AIDS.

In a show with a cast as large as that one had over its 1225 episodes, there’s bound to be a GBLT percentage in the cast, but this is not satisfying to the gay SJW. He must attack the main icon with the flimsiest of evidence, and sit back, calling everyone homophobes for not going along with it. And in the process, creating a rift in the fandom so wide that the whole thing will fall apart.

Anyway, good luck to DS Fandom in putting down this BS and saving their fandom from the fate so many other fandoms have suffered.

Today I had occasion to weigh in on the Magnus Diridian controversy in a closed group on Facebook. For those who don’t know, this is about the guy who created Arkansas, a fursuit character with a confederate flag (or General Lee) pattern, and is sometimes seen walking around with a pro-Trump sign as part of his act.

I wasn’t really surprised at the hateful, bigoted comments coming from the furs who don’t like this guy. It’s par for the course these days. But, you know, that’s still not ok. And I think it’s time a lot of people in this modern world were ripped a knew one, and told to their faces just how stupid they are. The following response may be considered my first contribution to that cause.

I don’t know if anyone has brought this up before, but has anyone stopped watching reruns of The Dukes Of Hazard because they find the car offensively racist? (Actually you can’t even watch that show anymore, which is one of the things Arkansas was created to protest.)

Has anyone considered condemning anyone who comes from The South as racist? This flag does not represent racism. It represents identification with a certain area of the country.

All this picture is saying is The South supports Trump. I don’t know if that statement is true or not, and I don’t think that’s the point the fursuiter is trying to make. I think the statement being made here is that, if you automatically assume people from The South, (or people who support Trump) are racist, then you’re the one that’s displaying prejudice and ignorance. And the more hateful you are in your condemnation of the image, the more ignorant and bigoted you make yourself look.

This could be called trolling the SJW’s, or you could call it a good old-fashioned artistic statement. Either way I think this is something that’s needed. We need to have our own prejudices challenged. We need to be encouraged to look deeper than the surface of things. We need to stop acting like a country full of fragile snowflakes, scared to death of our own culture and history.

The South existed and still exists. Get over it. That’s why the confederate flag is still around and still widely used. Seriously, are you going to start burning Lynyrd Skynyrd records and banning them from the radio because they used this flag on their album covers and concerts? Are you going to condemn Southern Rock as a racist music genre just because it references The South? Hell, why stop there? You could ban Country Music all together as the music of Rednecks. And then you can have Antifa show up to try to shut down Jeff Foxworthy performances.

You might think I’m being facetious here. But America has already gone so far off the deep end that no one would ever have believed Americans could be so stupid. Why now should anyone put any extent of stupidity past you?

Growing up in the MD/VA/PA/DC area in the 70’s, The Confederate Flag was a common sight. There was no controversy about it. There was not even that much controversy about Nazis. It was not at all uncommon to see planes sporting full Nazi symbolism at air shows, and no one was triggered. And even today, you Anime geeks see Imperial Japanese imagery every day, and you’re not triggered.

As I mentioned above, The Confederate Flag fronted an entire genre of music, which was not at all controversial. Southern Rock was considered uniquely American, the end product of all music considered to be indigenous to America, much of that music having been the invention of black people. Indeed, as Billy Joel once suggested, there is no American music that does not have black people at the root of it.

Much of 70’s Rock that has stood the test of time, whether it was made by American or UK artists, was a direct homage to said black people. And that is, to a great extent, why those black people are remembered so well today.

Well, I should say, remembered as well as they are. Because I don’t think the typical SJW knows anything about music history. To them, what Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton did with the music of Robert Johnson was “Cultural Appropriation.” Something the UN is currently considering making a crime worthy of jail time.

In other words, if you’re black, you’re not an American. You’re not related to anybody else in this country. You are a segregated group that has to make everything for itself. And no matter how good what you make is, nobody else can use it.

I don’t think this country was ever that stupid, or that racist. I mean, that is carrying racism to an extreme that would be impossible to practice. How are they going to prevent people from being influenced by the people of other colors and distinctions they live with?

Well there are only two possible ways to do that. One is complete segregation. Everyone is forced to live in a special reservation for their particular distinction, in which they can have no contact with anybody else. Total racism.

And the other way is to destroy all distinctions through interbreeding. So that there are no white Americans, no black Americans, no Jewish Americans, no Muslim Americans. Universal genocide.

Again this would seem almost impossible to pull off. But when I suddenly look around and realize I’m not seeing a heck of a lot of white people in this part of the country, I begin to wonder if somebody isn’t determined to give it their best shot.

I don’t for one minute believe this sudden embracing of SJW BS is an accidental and uncalculated thing. I mean, seriously, the opposition party is in power. It should be hard as hell for SJW’s to get any support, particularly while openly flying greatly offensive Communist flags. But you’re not allowed to condemn Communist flags in the hands of American SJW’s, even though a more open and shut case of cultural appropriation I never saw.

You can take your pick of the conspiracy theories that have been predicting this BS for over a century, and decide for yourself who you want to blame it on, but it’s generally pretty obvious that we’ve been getting screwed by somebody for a very long time, and just letting it slide. So much so that people are now saying it’s too late to care. We let freedom slip away and we’re never going to get it back again.

But, you know what? That’s BS propaganda too, meant to inspire complacent submission. Submission to what? Communism, apparently. Or something even worse, being as SJW’s understand Communism about as well as they understand anything else.

So, what do Americans traditionally do in a situation like this? Yep, they wrap themselves in The Confederate Flag and go out to make a protest.

Why The Confederate Flag? Why not The Stars And Stripes? Maybe because, to a lot of people, myself included, The Stars And Stripes has come to represent everything I regard as bad about America; it’s crooked politics, it’s bad government, it’s class policies and unrepentant worship of the root of all evil. The people of America have come to look on The Stars And Stripes as the emblem of their oppressors. And that is exactly the reason Magnus Diridian gives for the creation of Arkansas. It’s a rebellion against the tyranny represented by The Stars And Stripes.

And, of course, Magnus is not the only one in the fandom doing this. Foxler doesn’t have to keep taking flack for his armband. He could have dropped the armband as soon as the first complaint came in about it. But he’s like, “No, I’m sick of people trying to control my identity. I’m guaranteed freedom as an American and I’m going to demand they make good on it.”

So, if you’re an American with any love for your own freedom at all, thank your lucky stars for people like Magnus and Foxler who are willing to go out in the world, putting their own tails on the line, to stick it to the thieves who are making off with your freedoms every day.

And while you’re at it, be proud of Furry Fandom, which has such people in it. And screw the staff of Anthrocon, The Colorado Furs Group, Dogpatch Press, Deo Taz Devil’s branch of Antifa, SJW’s in general and any other Furry group or establishment that supports the agenda of Communists while trying to tear down the heroes of this fandom.

Yes, we have a Civil War in Furry Fandom. It was forced on us, and we will either deal with it, or be forever oppressed if these despicable Communists are allowed to hold sway. We are a microcosm of what is happening to the country, and if one fandom will stand to shut Communism down, it may inspire whoever is attacked next to not waste as much time as we have recognizing our enemies and dealing with them.

Link to original article
Link to statement by Magnus Diridian

Matt on YouTube wrote: “there is a lot wrong with this fandom we shouldn’t glorify it but at the same time we should not ignore it this fandom has so much shit in it that’s screwed up the porn specifically because there’s a lot of weird furry porn out there and a lot of weird people who enjoy that porn.”

When you talk about what’s wrong with Furry Fandom these days, my mind goes to rampant intolerance, exclusionism, forcing politics on people who aren’t here for that, general nastiness, and a sudden rush to basically condemn all the good things the fandom has tried to demonstrate all these years. The fact that we have porn, like every other fandom, doesn’t even raise a blip on my radar.

You know what does set off my radar? People saying the fandom needs fixed because there’s porn in it. That is either somebody who doesn’t comprehend the nature of fandoms, or somebody trying to lay down a foundation for censorship.

This is a fact of life in fandoms and on the internet in general. People are going to draw what they want to draw. Whether they do it to express some aesthetic they find pleasing or because it seems an easy way to make money, you can’t just be coming down on people and saying “You can’t draw what you want to draw because it makes us look bad and we think there’s something wrong with you.”

Though often what it usually boils down to is, “You can’t draw what you want to draw because your fetish is sick and my fetish isn’t.”

I used to be one of those people who said “We need to lock up all this porn for the benefit of those fans who just like cartoons and don’t want any adult stuff.” But after 15 years I’ve realized that such people are not here. They’re at Disneyland. We’re the adult alternative to the kids anthro fandom, which really doesn’t need any help from us. It’s far more successful than we are.

But any time something is specifically for adults, there’s going to be porn in it. And a lot of that porn is going to be weird. That is normal for geeks. Geek communities usually involve a lot of young, sexually obsessed or sexually repressed people. Nature and society create that situation. To fix it you would need to fix society. And society is only getting worse.

So, yeah, we got problems. But people drawing what they want to draw is not a problem. People going on FA without their filters on, seeing something they don’t like, and then making a big noise about how something needs to be done about this . . . That’s a problem, because FA has already put the filters there in acknowledgment of this complaint. They’ve even gone so far as to make sure their porn isn’t accessible through search engines.

So, any problem with the porn has already been dealt with. But you’re still not happy, because you’re still seeing this porn you don’t like, because you don’t use the filters. And there’s only one reason why anybody would not use the filters. Because they are there to look at porn just like everybody else. Maybe they like something else as well, but they don’t want to be excluded from the porn, because they might miss something they’d like.

And if everybody is there to look at porn, then everybody’s taste in Furry porn has to be catered to. And you can’t be saying, “This is some sick stuff here. This has to go.” Because somebody else will be looking at the porn you like and saying the exact same thing. People will say that about anything Furry, even if it isn’t porn. That is why we don’t get to make these choices for other people. Because if everybody could just make everything they don’t like disappear there’d be nothing here for anybody.

Now, I realize there is a new mentality these days. Maybe certain types of Furry porn “Trigger” you, and you think you ought to be able to make anything that “Triggers” you go away. Maybe you think Furry Fandom ought to be your safe space. But you’re a little late for that. All Furries regard Furry Fandom as their safe space. It’s a place they can feel secure about being themselves without being told they’re sick and need to be marginalized even further than society has pushed them out.

That doesn’t work. If you don’t like freedom of expression, tolerance and letting people be themselves so that your right to be yourself can be protected, you’re in the wrong place. You’re violating our safe space. But that’s ok, because we know well that some people are not happy unless they’re making totally unnecessary drama. And their free speech is protected in Furry Fandom as well, even though it makes us look bad, even though most of us think being a drama instigator is pretty sick. We’re like, “If that’s what you need to be happy and express yourself, we’ll put up with it as far as we can.”

Why do we do this? Because that is what we do. That is why The Furry Community is a thing above and beyond a gathering of people who just like to watch talking animal cartoons. Tolerance, it’s what we are, it’s what we do. If you can’t deal with tolerance, this community is going to “Trigger” you every day of your life.

So you can either get used to living in a constant state of being “Triggered.” Or you can realize that allowing other people to like things you don’t like is actually good for you. It promotes diversity. It creates a position for you to defend your own uniqueness. And it doesn’t stretch the patience of the people you want to deprive to such a point that they ride you out of the community on a rail, which is what I expect will happen to all the SJW’s currently trying to vilify Furry tolerance.

I’ve been going over my notes for upcoming episodes to see if there is any room to insert the scenarios where Christine, Vicki and Kacey are living in Another Life as yiffy versions of themselves, as well as the alternate universe story where a door in the house opens on an alt Cygnus where the furs have visible sexual attributes.

These scenarios are proposed for the deliberate purpose of justifying yiffier art for the gallery, which I feel pressured to do if I expect Furry Fandom to take more significant interest in the series. Unfortunately, I find that the planned course of Serial 11 is already so convoluted there is just no room for these fan service scenarios.

My next thought was to save the scenarios for Serial 12, which needs padding out at this point, but unfortunately by then continuity will have made it impossible for those scenarios to include Christine, Vicki and Kacey, as their stories all get resolved before the end of serial 11.

Bottom line: any alt universe scenarios created specifically for the purpose of generating yiffy art of my characters have to be treated as external to the main series. I can create little windows in the main series to justify such external projects. I can mention that Vicki and Christine end up living in a house with Kacey on Twee’s property in Another Life, and I can have Kacey discover the room that opens onto the other dimension, but I’ll have to leave it to fans to grab those openings and do their own rule 34 spin-off projects.

Actually, part of my disappointment in the reception of Furry Fandom for Spectral Shadows is that so far it totally breaks rule 34. It exists, and there’s no porn of it. That makes me feel like my characters aren’t reaching the level of attractiveness I want them to have.

Yes, it’s kind of pitiful that we live in an age where you can gauge your level of success by the amount of porn you’re generating, but such is life in the future, and I have to learn to role with life in the future, rather than constantly lamenting that things ain’t what they used to be. So I will continue looking for places to drop in these openings for yiffy side ventures.

Another thing this series needs to be more attractive to Furry Fandom seems to be military stuff, which is generally not my thing. But fortunately the regular story has a war scenario coming up, as well as a lot of action adventure scenarios. Plenty already there to grab attention from the fans of general violence, destruction and death. But I think this will require a lot of technically inclined art that will be beyond TK’s range. So I’m going to need to hire a second artist to do townscapes, action scenes and military stuff.

Where I’ll get the money to pay for a second artist I have no idea. Times are really tough right now, and the money I’m paying TK is already more than I can justify. Perhaps I need to reconsider a Patreon page. But so far none of the artists I’ve written to have even ventured to write back, which leaves me feeling that, as far as Furry Fandom is concerned, I’m just a big joke that doesn’t even rate a polite rejection. I have a suspicion a Patreon page would be similarly ignored.

And of course, I have yet to see a Flayrah article or an Ursa Major nomination, or anything that is not coming from friends who have their personal characters in the series. So, as I begin my 12th year of internet publishing I’m still not feeling like an insider with Furry Fandom – at least as far as my Furry creativity goes. And the longer that situation goes on the less motivated I am to continue.

Anyway, I’ll give it at least one more year. But I feel like this is the year that will make or break me as far as being a writer is concerned. I’ll be writing some of the toughest scenarios I’ve yet attempted this year. If I get to the end of the year and feel like Furry Fandom still isn’t giving a flip, I may just write it all off as the folly of a wasted life and retire.

This begs the question, “Why is the fandom important?” What do I care how much of an audience I’ve got, or if anyone’s watching at all? Why can’t I just do this for myself? But I don’t need to write my fantasies down for myself. I could just enjoy my fantasies without all the time consuming bother.

It’s no effort at all making these characters live for myself. It’s making them live for other people that consumes the majority of my life.

It’s like what an old time Prog musician said when asked why he quit. He said simply that he needed applause, and he wasn’t getting it.

It’s not a matter of I need to feel like I’m the best or I’m a star of the fandom scene or something. Actually, I dread the thought of fame and fortune. But to go episode after episode, year after year, without hardly a comment while other people who write less difficult projects get pages of comments on every episode makes for an oppressive uncertainty that can get to be unbearable. One just can’t feel good giving their life to something like this without the applause.

Today, as I watch the next round of stupid accusations being set up against The Furry Raiders, and I see them hoping I’ll be at the ready to explain why they have nothing to do with what they’re being accused of, I think there’s something else I need to write about first.

I need to write about the state of the internet at this moment in time and how the common modern mindset absorbs information and produces opinions. Because, if any of my readers are working with the logic that was standard 10, 20, 30 years ago, odds are you’re not going to believe any of the stuff I see happening is real. I find it hard to accept myself. But I can’t deny it because I’m in the middle of it, and thus not in a position to look away from it.

First of all, here is a new law to add to your internet memes. “Everyone on the internet is stupid.” Seriously, if you partake of social media in any way, you have exposed your mind to a disease that has infected your brain and impaired your rationality. It has totally exempted you from any standards of logic that are recognized in the real world, and you are now seeing everything through a filter of popular opinion generated by peers.

It’s like that old adage, if something is repeated enough, you’ll start to believe it. And even if what you’re starting to believe is the most irrational BS, for which there is not a shred of credible evidence, you will begin to see it as your reality.

These days I am constantly inundated with posts to the effect that “Trump is an idiot, Trump is going to ruin the country, Trump is going to blow up the world. Be frightened. Be very, very frightened.” Seriously, it’s a slow day if I don’t get linked at least 20 articles about some new thing Trump has done that was either stupid or dangerous. Under the circumstances, how could anyone come away from their computer not being scared to death that life as we knew it is over, and we need to blame Trump for it?

Well, in regards to that, I’ve good news and some bad news. The good news is we don’t need to blame Trump for the bad news, which is that the world as we knew it has already come to an end. We have arrived in the future, and it’s every bit as horrible as Orwell and Huxley anticipated. It just took us a little longer to get here than they expected.

But, no, Trump is not responsible for that. Trump is merely a product of it. Trump has his nose constantly in social media, and thus is just as infected with this common sense destroying virus as everyone else.

For example, we know that Trump listens to Alex Jones. In my early days on the internet, around the turn of the century, I had friends in Anime Fandom who swore by the likes of Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh. And so they had me reading all these articles about impending totalitarian takeovers of America, storm troopers marching through the streets culling the population down to desired figures. And of course there was also the global warming thing, impending race wars, and all kinds of fear inducing stuff like that driving people out of their minds with terror, even before 9/11.

Truly, the world that I knew ended with the passing of the 20th century, because it was in December of 1999 that I got my first computer and ventured into the very different world of the internet, where logic and reason were kicked to the curb, because it is opinions that rule the internet mindset, and it is fear that drives opinions.

Websites do not adhere to the concept of freedom of speech. On the internet, every site is a privately owned mini dictatorship where the opinions of the site owners are law. And if you don’t support their opinions, they kick you out, which seriously rubbed my 20th century mindset the wrong way, and still does to this day.

Free exchanges of ideas can not happen on the internet. You can not come into any one place with an alternative view to express and not be instantly hated, mocked, trolled and finally banned. And anyone who dares support your alternative view, they’re out too.

And this happens everywhere on the net, from Progressive Rock forums to Furry news sites to Atheist forums to alternative news sites on up to The White House itself. Anywhere you go there is only one opinion being listened to and acted upon, which nothing contrary is allowed to disturb.

And that is why, after 20 years of this, we have all been rendered stupid, because the inaccessibility of contrary ideas, which others make sure we either can not hear or have reason not to take seriously, has completely destroyed the logic process, which depends on being able to weigh the evidence of both sides, as well as to be able to think independently of a group.

Unfortunately, everyone now partaking of social media is in some kind of group. And that group is controlling their thinking. That group is inflicting the stupidity of the small minds that rule it on everyone, indoctrinating them to believe as the site owners believe, and being ridiculously successful at it, even if the ideas they’re impressing on you are so illogical as to assert that a group filled with infinitely diverse members of all races and disciplines of thought is a Nazi group.

See, if you are not running for the hills at the instant of hearing such nonsense, which is worthy of Louis Carroll, but instead you find yourself thinking, “Well, this person surely knows more about this stuff than I do. Maybe there is a way a Nazi could be a Furry, and gay, and in a relationship with a black man . . . Oh well, whatever. Everyone in this group is calling them Nazis, and I don’t want to support Nazis. So I’d better start hating these people, along with anyone who takes their side.” That’s a pretty good demonstration of how to be really, really stupid.

And as I look around me today, watching Deo Taz Devil and Patch Packrat set up their new gambit to reinforce hatred of The Furry Raiders, I realize that is what I’m up against; an internet brimming over with fools who will take any lies, no matter how ridiculous, into the core of their being, just because they saw it in print on some site that they can not conceive of having a reason to lie, or even a possibility of being misinformed.

Thus, in this digital world of unreality, any lie once printed and distributed becomes established fact in the minds of the majority of the populace, and to tell them that these people they’re hating on were never Nazis is about as likely to be accepted as telling a Christian Jesus never existed. And right now people are hoping that I can write up a storm that will counter this phenomenon of universal internet stupidity. Of which I’ve got about as much chance as I do of stopping Muslims from killing gays.

Of course, that brings up another interesting point, because I only have the word of some questionable people in the news industry that Muslims kill gays, abuse women, create a crime problem and any number of other things people incessantly throw at me to get me to start hating Muslims. Even for me the question of whether I should buy this hatred is a tough call. The only thing that really stops me from buying it is it’s kind of hard to picture Cat Stevens throwing a gay person off a roof.

But even so, I’m aware that this and any other hatred, or belief actively being pitched at me on the internet, is coming from snake oil salesmen with an agenda I probably don’t know anything about. Thus I make it a policy to just not buy hate, ever. I don’t care how good the salesman is. And even if they do eventually try to sell me someone who is actually worth hating, it’s better to not hate someone who deserves to be hated than to be tricked into hating somebody who doesn’t deserve it.

That, of course, is 20th century thinking. I don’t expect it will make a lot of sense to any Millennials reading this. But, if you’re a Millennial, and what I just said seemed an idea worth considering, hallelujah, there’s hope for the world yet.

Then again, I only have the word of certain groups that Millennials are as terrible as they’re made out to be. Propaganda would have me believe they’re all pretty much retarded. I’m wary of that too. I’m wary of any stereotype.

I’m even wary of Antifa stereotypes, if just to show I’m an equal opportunity distributor of benefit of the doubt. Are they all Commie anarchists, or is someone just paying them to put on a good show? It’s good to remember that I do not know these things, and anyone who tells me otherwise doesn’t know either. It’s just his opinion. And there is no law that says I have to always go with popular opinion.

Also, the group I find myself in at this point is pretty extreme in it’s contempt for Trump. In this circle, to voice support for Trump would be to apply an automatic label of stupidity to one’s self, and to invite a lot of hostilities. The same could be said of Social Justice Warriors. The people I spend most of my time with just hate their guts and don’t want to hear anything nice about them.

Not that I could tell you anything nice about Trump or Social Justice Warriors, because I’d have to venture outside of my circle to hear anything good about them, which I used to attempt to do in the early years when I didn’t know better.

I used to try sitting on the fence between the Atheists and the Christians, trying to find a place of balance between the two, because I don’t fully agree with either of them. But both sides just hate people who sit on the fence. They both feel that if you’re not completely with them, you must be against them. And if they can’t rope you in and indoctrinate you, they treat you as the enemy and persecute you with trolling until you just give up and go away, realizing that both sides are wrong, and the issue itself never held any consequence at all.

Most such disputes on the internet are equally inconsequential. If you’re able to maintain any semblance of being a free thinker through all the idiocy that’s constantly impressed upon you, you eventually begin to see that no extremist view can ever be right. It becomes a test you give yourself. “Is my view extreme? Then my view must be wrong.”

So now we have all these Alt-Right/Alt-Furry people vs. the Antifa/SJW’s, all trying to get at the absolute extremes of their right and left positions. And, of course, they’re all wrong; every last single one of them.

You would think that sensible people would realize that if the extremes of the left and right are Communism and Nazism, folks shouldn’t need a lot of encouragement to realize they don’t want to go there. But if you’re in the extreme left group, “Communism Is Good” is the only song you’ll be allowed to hear. And the big hit on the right will be “When The Nazis Come Marching Home.” And here I am again, sitting on the fence, getting this stupidity in full glorious hi-fi stereo, and not being allowed to say a word to either group of nut-bars.

Believe it or not, I’m not alone here on the fence. You know who’s sitting here with me? Foxler and The Furry Raiders, who, like Trump, get a gratuitous amount of press to the effect that they are the evil Nazis you’re supposed to hate, which is mainly coming from the extreme left, who are Communists who expect you for some reason not to hate them, while they continually try to stoke your hatred of Nazis.

Now let’s think about that for a minute. Why should we hate Nazis? The reason commonly offered is that they killed 6 million people. Boggles the mind to conceive it, doesn’t it? And yet, Communists killed 10 million people, but they’re somehow not as bad as Nazis and we shouldn’t hate them. We should want to join them, give them power over us, so they can save us from those horrible Nazis. And afterwards we can enjoy their tender mercies.

I think it was Danny Kaye who said, “That’s like giving all your food to a cat to keep a mouse out of your food.”

Meanwhile, we’re just sitting here on the fence, not wanting to be Nazis or Communists, because we’re Furries. And lets face it, nothing to the extreme left or right wants anything to do with Furries and their all inclusive ideas about freedom of expression. This “Be as nice as you possibly can to everybody” stuff just will never fly in extremist airspace.

So you might well ask, “What about those armbands? Don’t they imply identification with the extreme right?” Actually, quite the contrary. The paw print represents Furry Pride, being proud to be a Furry. And what is there to be proud of in being a Furry?

Furries are generally centerists as a community. We sit in the middle, draw people in from all sides, and do our damnedest not to judge. Because, if you’re a fellow Furry, that’s all we care about, and we want to be able to hang out with you. And when outside forces that have nothing to do with Furry are not mucking things up by encouraging rampant hatred and mistrust, we make a nice community that’s kind of worth being proud of.

But then you might say, “The paw print is all well and good. But why have it on an armband? Why not just put it on a jacket and avoid all this controversy?”

At this point, it wouldn’t make any difference. They could drop the logo all together, and the unreasoning hate would continue from all sides, because you’ve all heard it repeated so often that these people are Nazis that nothing is going to kick that cultishly indoctrinated idea from your minds. The internet has jammed it into the core of your beliefs, and the prospect of losing a core belief is terrifying. It puts you in fight for your life mode, as the scientists attest.

If you have accepted the belief that 2 Gryphon, The Furry Raiders and anyone else you’ve been told to hate is a Nazi, to lose that belief would leave you feeling a most devastated fool; the emperor in his final realization that he’s been running around naked; taken to the cleaners, if you will. And all it cost you was your freedom, your ability to live in harmony with your neighbors, a century of progress, and the last vestige of your ability to think for yourself.

Thus, giving up the armbands would serve no purpose, other than to give the Communists some illusion of a victory won over Nazis who never were Nazis. So The Raiders might as well be stuck with the armbands, but that’s ok, because you’ve got the real Nazi armband on the far right, and the Communist armband on the far left. And right smack dab in the middle you’ve got the armband of Furry Fandom giving the finger to the other two.

It makes a bold statement that we are neither Nazis or Communists, and we refuse, on pain of all the suffering you can inflict upon us, to be forced to choose to be one or the other. Both are disgusting beyond measure, and we do not need them, because we’ve build something better here.

We are Furries. We built the community were diversity, inclusiveness and freedom of expression are the norm, enabling all furs to proudly be themselves. We need no Social Justice Warriors here because we have already achieved social justice in as pure a form as anyone has ever achieved it, for in our community all furs are furs, and nothing more matters.

But then you might say, “That’s BS. The Furry Community is not utopia. All people ever do here is fight.” This is true. Indeed, we wouldn’t be in this situation now if Furries weren’t the most self justified bunch of pricks and bitches this world has ever seen.

Just like The United States, The Furry Community is a magnificent concept depending on the people to want to live by it with the good of all in mind. But nobody wants to think about anyone but themselves. So maybe it can’t work if the people don’t have enough sense in their heads even to value it.

Maybe Foxler and The Raiders are fools to be put through hell for their dream. But do you think living in a Communist or Nazi community would be any less hell? Do you think you would even dare have a dream living under such extremes?

In a world that is nothing but pain and struggle, is it not most important to preserve a place where one can dream of something better, something they’d rather be, something that gives them at least the illusion of a peaceful place to escape where they can be free to show what they hide inside, and be loved for it?

No, there are no illusions that The Furry Community is utopia. But even so, it was a pretty damn good start at one before these political interlopers tried to break it up with their Communist flags and talk of Nazis where none existed; before we fell for their spiel and bought our new set of clothes that exposed our gullibility to the world.

And if this damage can never be undone, and The Furry Community should never recover from the hatred that has been injected into it, that gives a whole other meaning to The Raiders armbands. In mourning for that which was and could have been; the dream that was never allowed a chance to prove itself.

The time has come for more self analysis. In all the talk and arguments about Furry Fandom recently, I’ve begun to wonder if I’m still a Furry fan or if my tastes have significantly changed, as it seems ages since I have felt any enthusiasm at all for watching cartoons, reading any Furry novels or even working on my own story.

Some of this I suppose could be attributed to my near suicidally depressing home life, but then my life has always been fraught with pain and difficulty. If anything living a hard life has, in the past, just fueled my need to escape into something cute and pleasant.

Yesterday I was over a friend’s place, and the friend left me alone for an hour or so with nothing to do but watch My Little Pony on his TV, which is a lot bigger than my set and gets High-Def cable. But no pony cuteness rush was forthcoming. The High-Def just made the outer lines of the characters easier to see, which was a constant reminder of what a cheap cartoon I was watching. Not only that, but it was just like solid blocks of colors everywhere, like a coloring book filled in with digital paint instead of crayons.

And I was thinking constantly, “How can adults watch this with the same enthusiasm they’d give to something like Star Trek or Doctor Who?” But what do I care why others watch it or what they see in it? It was so much easier back in the 80’s when I didn’t have to care what adults saw in MLP because I was the only adult who gave a care about it.

Now it’s a whole other ballgame because I’m connected to this whole internet full of people watching the same stuff I’m watching, seeing things in it that are different from what I see, and arguing that this is some kind of artistic breakthrough, rather than just something I watch to get my cute fix. And it didn’t help that these were Spike and Pinkie Pie episodes I was stuck watching, which didn’t have all that much gratuitous cuteness for me to get off on.

The thought has crossed my mind that I’ve just grown out of this stuff, like I grew out of Anime. Maybe what I need is something Furry that really isn’t made for kids. Something with the adult-minded sophistication I look for non-Furry works. I’m sure such stuff exists in the fandom, but I’m not really up for the challenge. I’m sure it would just put me to sleep, as everything else seems to do these days.

Anyway, what does it mean when watching animation becomes a useless dwelling on the nature of the art to the detriment of getting caught up in the illusion the art is supposed to provide? It means one has grown up to the point of becoming technical minded. Or, more likely, my mind is elsewhere, dwelling on some “Adult” BS I’m currently involved in; somebody I’m arguing with on the net about a fandom I continue to feel responsible for, even though I find it difficult to show where I’m still participating in it or getting any enjoyment at all out of it.

Always people want to argue about the fandom, what it’s for, what it’s supposed to be about, who it’s supposed to serve, and who should somehow be locked out of this thing that is supposedly based on someone’s taste in entertainment, as apposed to some kind of virtual community with theoretical rules as to what makes one belong there.

It’s all just kind of falling apart; the ideas no longer having enough logical glue to hold themselves together, leaving me with this overwhelming feeling of wasting my life on something with no reality at all.

It was different back in the days when I was all alone in these interests, when I alone cared what a Furry was, because Furry was just a word I made up to describe the genre I wrote in, which nobody else cared about, because nobody else realized there was some kind of relationship between Bambi and Watership Down, or would have thought it the most useless bit of information to point out.

Come to think of it, has “Genre classification shared by Felix Salten and Richard Adams” ever been a question on Jeopardy? And if it was, would some word I made up to describe that genre be considered an acceptable answer? Even to this day when so many people have adopted the word I chose, probably not.

Why? Probably for the same reason everyone I seem to meet through this community wants to argue with me about it. They all consider it their word to define as they will, their community to support or tear down to their heart’s content, their fantasy of some intangible non-reality where they conceive themselves as holding some kind of power over other people.

No, it isn’t any of that crap. It’s just a matter of do you care enough to see that there’s a relationship between Bambi, Watership Down, Bugs Bunny, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, My Little Pony, Spice & Wolf and Zootopia. The mundane world does not. If you even notice there’s a relationship between these things, you are not mundane. And the mundane of this world would regard that as some kind of illness one should seek treatment for.

That much hasn’t been changed by all these thousands of people who now share my original discovery. The existence of a Furry Community has not made me seem more sane. It just makes it seem like I’ve found a lot more crazy people to hang out with. And admittedly, when I was younger I thought hanging out with crazy people would probably be fun.

But you know what? It’s not. Because a lot of these people are not only genuinely crazy, they’re downright mean. They want to hurt each other, because this word “Furry” has been elevated to some sacred religion-like status. It’s something people are expected to build a lifestyle around. It’s something that’s almost achieved the status of being an alt-sexuality one has to come out of the closet about. It’s literally gotten to the point of there being so much craziness involved that I don’t even want to be bothered trying to keep up with it anymore. It’s just lost all interest for me.

As a means of describing the genre I write in, Furry was useful. As a means of YouTuber A calling out YouTuber B for saying things he never said which prove he’s a pervert trying to deny the sexual motivation of the fandom, it’s worse than useless. It does nothing to maintain my connection to the titles that fall under the Furry genre. It doesn’t keep me involved with them, having a reason to care about them, or even to remember why I thought it was worth building my life around them.

In these most essential things, Furry Fandom provides no support at all. It just runs around in circles like a crazy thing trying to convince itself it’s something of such outstanding social importance that it shouldn’t even be bothered about justifying itself as a fandom. And after 40 odd years of this insanity, I don’t even have a clear memory of what was supposed to be so all-fired great about this business of talking animals.

I do remember that it all started with Bambi, and that the moral of the Bambi novel could be interpreted as meaning, “Don’t join a fandom, because fandoms are for idiots who prattle and pontificate all day about things they don’t have the slightest understanding of. Instead, keep to yourself, in order that the purity of your perception and understanding should remain uncluttered with the insane twittering of idiots.”

Sadly that’s all we do in the internet age. We expose ourselves constantly to the tweets of the most unknowledgeable, imperceptive idiots on Earth; each in search of a following for their own peculiar idiocy. That chattering, narrow minded flock of seagulls whose life is nothing but fighting for scraps of fish, or in this case, scraps of self-validation to justify their existence. So Jonathan Livingston Seagull illustrated, leaving it’s protagonist no path to self-development but to get away from the squabbling flock.

Hmmm, let me see. What was Watership Down about? That was about starting a community, wasn’t it? Or was it about breaking away from crazy totalitarian societies to go live in seclusion from enslaving ideas on top of a big hill?

What about The Rats Of NIMH, what was that about? Oh yeah, going away from humans to live in an isolated valley because human ideas were not moral enough for enlightened rats.

One might get the impression that the concept of Furry in the days before the internet was rather anti-Twitter. I can see an over arching theme in the stories that started all this for me to the effect of, if you don’t want your life to be dominated by BS, you must get yourself far away from the major sources of BS. And unfortunately, that is what the society inspired by these stories developed into; a source of so much BS that any Furry with a capacity to think for his/her self wouldn’t come within a mile of it.

This means that anything I add to the cacophony becomes just as much BS as anything else, because what we’re talking about is an illusion; a pipe dream that exists only in our heads as we individually define it. An no description of an individual’s perception of Furry Fandom can have any relevance to anyone else’s, because everyone is dreaming it up independently.

This is why we see people like Green Reaper with such a drive to push a particular conception of Furry Fandom. Doesn’t matter whether he personally believes in it or not. It just seems good for the fandom that individual dreams of this total unreality should be unified as much as possible by imposing a narrative, a biblical list of begats that starts with Fred Patton and ends with himself begetting Wikifur and Flayrah, where he now sits enthroned as the laid-back dictator of fandom perception.

What a pity that people like me who prove that narrative is BS just by existing won’t go away and allow him to organize the perception of all these squabbling Furries into the image of his own thinking. Maybe in a few years when all the voices that can attest to Furry having some kind of presence before 1980 have been silenced, Green will become absolute dictator of Furry history. And you know what? I don’t give a damn what fantasy this fandom eventually endorses as canon, or whether it includes me or not.

I don’t think I’ve contributed anything of lasting value to the world that anyone should cry if it was lost. I don’t think the fandom has either. I think this current incarnation of the fandom will eat itself alive with intolerance, threats of violence, unreasonable infighting, and a total failure to maintain the foundation of what all this is built upon. It will all devolve into chaos and eventually just fizzle out as people find better things to do. And it will eventually be as forgotten as the Funny Animal Fandom of the 1940’s.

Maybe, in 60 years or so, old people will sit around reminiscing about their glory days on the internet, trying to recall all the long dead sub-cultures they trolled and bullied. Maybe in passing they’ll try to remember Furries. But by then all the old sites will have been deleted. Hell, even now I can’t take you back to drama sites that existed just 10 years ago. They’re wiped out without a trace.

All that will remain is the commercial media, which will still be popular, but will have passed back to the Disney and other such fandoms. And people will just be fans of it. They won’t think themselves part of some all inclusive sub-culture that couldn’t stop fighting over who to exclude. They won’t build a lifestyle around what they like. They may still FAP to it, but hopefully not in public.

Though maybe even this is wishful thinking. Some say the unique conditions that created Furries by inundating children with anthropomorphic animals during crucial times of development can never be duplicated. And who knows what hardships the future may hold that will eliminate the freedoms necessary for any fandom to exist?

Ah, yes. It could be that we are living in the golden age of BS. And it will be my posthumous satisfaction to have the world that exists now be as dead and disrespected as the world I grew up in is now.

Heck, I expect the disrespect coming to this era will be far worse than mine. The music of my time will probably still be played on radio, if it has not taken on the status of Classical Music. The music of this era may not even survive, as it was preserved mostly on perishable media with a shelf life expectancy of 20 years. Not to mention there is nothing classic to the music itself that people who weren’t inundated by it at the time of its popularity will be able to relate to. That is, assuming the world survives in such a state were people can even enjoy music, or if they don’t end up in some dictatorship that judges all music made after 1955 to be subversive, or under inaccessibly expensive copyrights; leaving The Ink Spots on the cutting edge forever after, like in Fallout.

Actually, if things go that way, Furry media will be banned as well, if for no other reason than the state will be able to point to the idiocy of Furry Fandom and determine that Furry media creates maladjustment in children. It’ll all be burned in big bond fires when the Communists take over, assuming Trump or whoever takes over for him doesn’t initiate some nuclear holocaust that will leave nothing but cockroaches alive to see whatever media we leave behind as nothing but good places to build nests in.

No matter how hard I search I can’t find a positive note to end this on. The human race is a total failure at working together as a unit towards the goal of its own survival. Everything it builds is doomed to eventually fail. And one of the things I used to like about Furry was that it pointed stuff like that out, hopefully to the end that we would realize our folly and do something about it. But no such luck.

It seems we’re fully aware that the human race is totally off the rails insane, but nobody cares, because insane people spend ridiculous amounts of money on impractical stuff that does nothing to feed or stabilize the world, giving a few of the nutters a chance to live out their lives in luxury, while the rest of us pull our hair out over totally useless politics that gets us worse than nowhere.

And nowhere is where I think I’m going to leave this, because I don’t have anymore time to try to resolve it. I’m just crazy. My needle can’t track the record humanity expects me to play. It just keeps skipping from one depressing thought to the next, never being able to find a hopeful passage. The only way to bridge the skips is to make up more totally fabricated BS that will justify everything and make the whole record sound like “The Wall,” a beautifully depressing work of art. But I’m trying to be honest here. And nothing real I can find in my pile of honest realities is in any way beautiful.