FRENCHING THE RING

Obviously, the most pressing happening of the past week is the latest extrajudicial murder in, and continuing paramilitary occupation of, Minnesota. I can’t form an extraneous thought without having it on my mind, so I similarly can’t really write a newsletter, even on a different subject, without acknowledging it. It’s not the prime subject of this newsletter, partly because I don’t have anything particularly new to say about it. Which is not to say it’s not new and novel pain.

It’s just that, at a certain point, it becomes unbelievably frustrating to have to find infinitely new lenses for people to view something that’s pretty clearly fascism. People are murdered for no cause besides opposition of the state, followed by smears of low-effort propaganda. There’s no need to go “oh man, this is like–” because you should already have everything you need to see how fucked up the situation is. 

If you need metaphors to place importance on what’s happening, I’m not sure you’re able to resist much of anything. Some of us seem to be built for the boot, unfortunately. I don’t want to come to the conclusion that any defense of independent human will is going to top out at a 60% approval rating, but it’s getting tough.

If there’s any – well, I don’t want to say “bright spot” – any faint sinus rhythm of hope? It’s the organizing and resistance going on in Minnesota, which is genuinely inspiring. Between this and the George Floyd protests, Minneapolis has been putting in a historically relevant amount of work in defending human rights. I’ll never raise my eyebrow when someone calls a soda a “pop” again. That person fought for our country and they can say whatever they damn well want.

Anyway, it’s a week where some sort of tension lightening is deeply needed, so here’s my recommendation of something I’ve been really enjoying this week: the weird little songs of a guy named Carter Vail. I’m apparently late to the party but I have been singing his 36-second opus “Dirt Man” to my dog to keep myself from collapsing all weekend. I’m generally reticent to recommend anyone with this kind of jawline, because they’re going to be just fine. However he seems to be a bona fide weirdo, which I always support, and barring him becoming a very handsome milkshake duck, I decree it’s good shit. 

Another song of his, however, that brought me to his channel, because it was in line with a newsletter I already planned to write. It’s a song called “Jeff”, which, in his words, is about a “fictional character” who used to sell books and now wears a “stupid f*cking cowboy hat, flying into space.” We’ll call him Jeff Jezos. The song is also either a direct parody or heavily inspired by CAKE. And CAKE kicks ass. I will play “Love You Madly” at my wedding, and every sardonic white boy will be immediately summoned to the dance floor. Not onto the dance floor, mind you. Just to the perimeter, to nudge each other and say, “oh man, Cake? I love Cake.”

I’m a big fan of telling Jeff Bezos to eat shit at any opportunity. Seeing someone with fame, whether achieved or seemingly on the horizon, say it? An immediate, lame thumbs-up from my stupid 35-year-old thumb. It still feels counter-cultural, but at the same time, it makes me wonder, who the fuck in the year 2026 is a fan of Jeff Bezos?

They must exist, because they pop up endlessly online like limp-dicked Pikmin to defend Business Geniuses. I’d like to think they’re all astroturfed or burner accounts, but they seem to be tied to real socials, with real posts about their recent divorce. 

For pretty much the past decade, everyone has been having a pretty bad time, man. It’s been a period of struggle where we’ve needed to rely on other humans. Yet, in that stretch, an inexplicable number of people have decided their allegiances lie, ‘til death, under the banner of big business.

Try as I might, as someone who’s generally pretty good at putting himself into someone else’s shoes, I simply cannot cram my tootsies into this mindset. I don’t know what builds a brain this way. Maybe it’s a genetically weak will. Perhaps these are the descendants of the serfs who sealed their tithes with a kiss. An unbroken line of suck-ups whose necks have evolutionarily developed a backwards curve to more easily blow kisses at the tower where the king resides. As if eunuchs somehow figured out how to further their bloodline despite their definitional lack of a downstairs.

That or it’s people who see themselves as the business moguls of tomorrow, which requires them to bow their heads to a “business genius” whose entire prospectus crumbles if a single employee isn’t classified as a freelance contractor. Trailblazing young entrepreneurs who have invented a toaster shaped specifically for hamburger buns, or a “savory protein bar” which, in their minds, is the start of Palantir 2.0.

It’s unbelievable toady behavior, especially when the “new world” these businesses have brought us into revolve mostly around being able to have a defective USB charger delivered in under twenty-four hours. If you’ve ever looked at a surge protector and thought to yourself, “but a house fire would be so exciting,” Jeff Bezos is here to burn down your shed.

These people get roundly dunked on already, and I think that’s something that needs to continue. What I do think we need is to increase our dunking efficiency. We need a new, tight insult for this sort of corporate supplicant. Obviously, all sorts of phrases including “capitalist” or things like “class traitor” come to mind, and accurate as they may be, they won’t work for our purposes, because these people think capitalism rocks and rich people truly are better than them.

I voiced these thoughts and thought out loud in a BlueSky post after I found myself wanting to throw around the term “corpo.” That, unfortunately, comes from a video game called Cyberpunk 2077 (unless it comes from the cyberpunk books of William Gibson that the game is all but based on, in which case I’d be happy.) I refuse to walk around using an insult from a video game. It feels too much like I’d say “lmao” out loud before or after it.

“Yuppie” would seem to be the historical equivalent, but it feels dated. It also implies that the person in question has at least benefited from business enough to be well-off financially, while most corporate apologists online today seem to be in the exact same tax bracket as everyone else. They’re still living paycheck to paycheck, simply in it because subjugation stirs something in their prostate.

It also can’t be clever wordplay. Clever wordplay never works for insults, because at best, it sounds like you spent a bunch of mental real estate thinking about them, which dulls the victory. At worst, it sounds like cut lines from a Deadpool game Ryan Reynolds turned down.

I’m not sure what the exact word is. “Stooge” feels perhaps the closest, no disrespect to the Three. Still, not quite on point. “Bootlicker” feels a little too military, especially with the current plague of practically literal examples tipping up their Oakley Gascans to spit-shine toes. 

Maybe I’m thinking entirely too much about it. All trees, no forest, et cetera. After all, what seems to drive the lips of these little ring-kissers is the idea of Success and Respect above all, in which case the right weapon’s been on the rack the whole time. Maybe they’re just fucking losers.