#morale will sorta improve? here's hopin'!

[gentleoverdrive]

[5/300] 1800 miles of skeletons on the interstate!

I love my L.A. friends. Especially the ones who were either either born and raised there, partially raised there or have lived there long enough to be considered an Angeleno. Their hatred of automobile traffic, while seemingly clichéd to some, is a legit thing that happens when you've spent enough time around the "best coast". ---- A friend video-called me today to complain about how much he wishes he could punch El*n M*sk in the balls for fucking over the plans several of our friends/acquaintances had for improving the seemingly eternal L.A. traffic problem, and I couldn't help but to let out a sobering chuckle. For people in the West Coast, M*sk's bullshit has always been sort of a known quantity for as long as he's been in the spotlight in some way, shape or form since the late 90's. ---- It's sorta surprising that it took this long for news to travel around; it was almost as though we were back on pre-Web 2.0 days, but... well, I guess it just goes with the bias of the times or something. I don't know. Shit, it's weird to think about how quickly it took for M*sk's (in hindsight, not-so much) "carefully" curated image to unravel once the Disney and Fox-sponsored media handjobs (obviously they were not the only ones, but I'm laying the blame at their feet first and foremost) were no longer in the public consciousness to obscure the fact he's a fucking idiot. ---- Now, there's nothing wrong with being stupid, idiotic, etc or engaging in stupid-like behavior, even from people you'd expect better from, as long as you don't get yourself or someone else irrevocably hurt or worse. Despite my best attempts, I often fall on my face with great gusto trying to keep myself from fucking up. we're a perpetual work in progress, y'know? ---- But one of the advantages of being a dumbass who promises to do better is that you get to work on yourself when nobody is looking, in that way, you can sorta at least fade out from people's consciousness and, like, at least improve whatever perception/standing there was of yourself considered to who you were, even if the change is minimal. M*sk, unfortunately, kind of symbolizes that one tweet we love to quote when it concerns terminally-online people. ---- And it kinda sucks because, when you get down to it, he's just kind of a garden variety boring-ass, grifting failson, isn't he? It almost feels like the hatred my LA friends hold for him is kinda wasted, because the things he did are just the boring contractor equivalent of ratfucking, which yeah, it's asshole behavior, but hardly noteworthy. ---- There are plenty of rich people just out of sight who just mind their own businesses and rot their empathy in private, and you'd think M*sk would've figured out that he could benefit from taking a tour of duty away from the public eye, but maybe as that one quote from World War Z's own T. Sean Collins (named after T. Sean Shannon, Max Brooks' former co-worker in SNL's writing staff) goes:

___ You'd think it'd be hard, wouldn't cha? Either way, let's just make like Paul Anka & Lisa Simpson said and ignore the sad little cartoon boy, a'ight? See ya' later, alligator!