#tim barrus barrus on format

[timbarrus]

Now, he's god. Those of us who lead kinda mundane lives can read this stuff about one old man -- I call him IT to dehumanize him and to rob him of his humanity which will be a challenge because he has no humanity -- and how he lives his execrable existence, caught within a labyrinthine catalogue of hatreds, and shrug. I guess he doesn't mean what he says. Seriously. Every word has a bitter twist. Every single writer or journalist who has ever been critical of the IT, might want to think about Plan B. Where you gonna move. You might want to think about somewhere that allows you to see them coming. Think Idaho. The IT releases his middle-earth minions. The last time we went through Royal Decree, George III, my precious, was still around, and guess what. He taxed. He sent troops. He hanged a lot of people. He burned books, elderly women. He controlled printers, publishing. He was the Church. He waged wars everywhere. He drank tea. He went mad. The word bully has no gravitas. ORC has gravitas. ORC commands us from his ORC mountaintop. We obey. Ho hum. He announces he's god and we keep our heads down and agree. Anti-ORK Journalists who continue to publish thought that insinuates IT might not be as Supreme as he says he is. Will face his fury. Why are all these people winking. God always goes to prison. Forms a story arch. Just before the beginning of his thermonuclear reign. A crown of bloody thorns. How dare they say bad things about the banality of god. They must be punished.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. I am a radical. Not a democrat. Not a republican. There are no independents. They employ the same political and cultural infrastructure -- how things work -- that the rest of us are compelled to use. Climate: Not a word. It's the Trump go to for climate change, a hoax. Americans are in denial. Why. Not a word about that. Save the American Dream. The American Dream is flat-out vanished. Is America is a corpse because it has a fetish for illusion. The American people still believe in the goodness of Gotham. Hollywood's Gotham is urban decay on steroids. Not one word about how Hollywood's cultural prostitution, carved from graves for advanced rot. Criminals rise to power. The word criminal is not to be found. There are metaphors for the word rapist. There are metaphors for the word crook. There are metaphors for the word deviant. You will not find the word deviant here because the republican (small d) party cannot bring itself to believe it's leader (ownership culture) is aberrational. Even the bad word sex is an economic negotiation. Or it's rape. You get to pick one. Not both. They take a deviant, and they normalize him as a leader who struggled. Another idea they avoid is based on the word individual. Individual is Americana. This is about the rise of Trump. And what did I learn. The word nothing has a metaphor, too. Vacuum. They are telling us America loves Trump. Genuflect. Now, the truth. Scratching heads. Suddenly, perplexed. More questions. No answers.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. I had to make a judgement call. I got my family out of North America. My decision was based in what the New York Times take is. In all the talk about vibes, the publication has one, too. It's dark. It's fearful. It's nervous. If it wasn't, something would be very wrong. Pollsters are beginning to look like stunned deer in headlights. One question dominates journalism. How Bad Is It Going To Be. What I hear in the voices of these conversations is a reckoning with defeat. Is there anyone at the New York Times who thinks he won't go after journalists. Journalists often feel immune to what to what is happening around them as they are there to cover it. A calm before the storm. No one has ever talked about a dynamic that is inherently stalking Trump. There is a psychotic link between suicide and homicide. It is not uncivil to say that because it is simply fact whether it is polite society or not. Trump is not stable. I have always seen him as being suicidal. Homicidal ideation is as toxic as suicidal ideation. He dreams of executions, and no one is pushing back because we cannot bring ourselves to believe it. Believe it. Ideation can swing like a pendulum back and forth. Them or me. Them or me. There is no us. There is no Other. There is no there there. The internal and the external is a contest between pitbulls in a cage. One of those caged dogs will win. And then both dogs will die. America is not immune. Trump is a junkyard dog. Let's fight. We remain transfixed.

[timbarrus]

I can't take this stuff seriously anymore. All I see are suits and suits and suits. The New York Times is the great-grandpa suits of suits. Your grandfather's paper is still your grandfather's paper. What one suit says to another suit. That's always news. Not a single new idea. Some of us like to play We Are Suits but I am a mid-western Barn Boy. Pelosi is who we should be electing. Roll out the problems of the suits into a big Cleopatra carpet. Now, unroll it. Suits be popping out. Give me Ceaser or give me death, Ezra. Threads. Seriously. Kamala is playing it safe. Ezra is as safe as you can get. I hear the echoes of a tin can. I am so not going to vote. Why. Simple. Kamala is a suit and so is her friend. You can dress a suit up with another new suit, but the suit is still a suit. Sometimes the suits wear controversial stuff like a nametag. The democrat suits are going to lose. I was all out for Kamala. Excited actually. But there was something wrong here. She's a suit. It hit me like god and a clap of thunder. Suit ideology. Suits like other suits. Last night, I threw my television out the window. I have to replace that window. I have overdosed. On suits. It's a bitter pill to swallow.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. "But voters still trust his positions more than his opponent’s."

Don't tell me. Show me.

I do not believe it. There's a different standard for showing, and clinging to a narrative that is dubious at best. How do we know that Americans trust Trump more. Where are the figures and whose data are we talking about. What did you know and when did you know it. Criminality is culture, too.

Americans will opt to grab at the simple solutions. They're busy. They live in terror of losing their jobs. They're hung over. Nervous. Their kids are failing. They're in debt. But they get to vote. Yet Americans want to be controlled.

They are already controlled. That is what advertising is. You being controlled. You being told there is a god and you must worship him the way we tell you to worship period. Let us away to art.

1969: They Shoot Horses, Don't They. Gig Young was Rocky Gravo, the evil ring master of ceremonies. Rocky can sell you anything. The Bob Barker of 1934. Just keep dancing. Just keep dancing. Just keep the people entertained with who dies first. Just keep the people on their toes with who dies last. Rocky Gravo has to prove that he is not ordinary. Rocky Gravo is ordinary. Look around the dance arena and you will see the people we never see at all. They blend into the walls. Rocky Gravo is dog eat dog. Complexity is not his problem.

Immigration is code for Let's Make Them Dance. Come on down.

[timbarrus]

He's going down. The crazy daisies will now be his status quo. He's not going to put himself in another debate with someone who just ragged him into a pool of make-up and sweat. But can she win the election remains the last pseudo-journalistic place to hide. But can she win. But can she win. She can win. She will win. And the maga maestro can join his mate, Putin, who will eventually have to face the reality that their fates are intertwined because they themselves have intertwined it. I don't believe in a god. But here in the trenches of America, I am fervently praying that Americans can still be smart. Cats and dogs are embarrassed and humiliated that they were a part of Trump's playbook. My dog would have eaten his playbook for lunch. And there's the problem. It's their problem. The courtiers, the lobbyists, the lawyers, the snakes. Trump's problem is that he's going to lean into it. There will be recipes. Into the mixing bowl, crack an egg, throw in some high heels and and some blondes. Finally. Someone. Stood. In. His. Way. It took a black woman to do it. Today, he's calling for civil war. Grandpa, we have to go home now. I will hold your hand. And we're walking. And,we're walking.

[timbarrus]

Take notes: I am a super cool parent and I have set no one adrift. I do not bite Barbie's head off. Who actually parents children in a politikal context. My three-year-old is a Nazi. She orders everyone around. Are you telling me that republicans have children. Who demonstrate the teachings of a lone homo sapiens who never had any children let alone a marriage. Yes, Jesus had many republican children. This was more difficult than walking on water. Weird. My three-year-old usually knows a fantasy when she sees it. I teach her that everyone who is republican is bad. Republicans smell as they do not bathe. Republicans give Barbie cigarette burns. Republicans are mean to dogs. You are Wonder Woman, you have Wonder Woman pajamas, and you have magic ropes to tie people up so republicans have to tell the truth which is what makes them all go blind, they run into things. Wonder Woman (or our image of her) was never subservient to a male. Any male. Men are bad. Repeat after me: Men Are Bad, Men are Bad, Men are Bad. Why. Don't ask questions. And don't marry one. Why. Because when you have children, they will probably be men children. Why. Because men children play with matches. Pick me up. No, you have to walk by yourself. Everytime I say that I have to slap myself. We all fall down somewhere in our lives, republican or Democrat. Bring in the next one. There are no prophets in the world dreaming of things to come. Those would be our kids.

[timbarrus]

Bells. Whistles. Smoke. Screens. Lawyers. The lawyers win. Americans are famously attracted to the back porch light of conflict. Google invented it. Google wrote the script. Do no harm while you strangle other trade homo sapiens engage in. Are we giving it to you now." Yes, Google. Yes. Until you don't. Google will fail. The concept of do no harm was thrown out of the ballpark decades ago. The only way you do no harm is to stop existing. All of these stuffed suits will fail. The reach for conflict is the conflict. Engagement. Is not increased engagement. It's Vegas on steroids. Vegas on steroids does a lot of harm. Everything that is wrong with Google's Genesis, their rolling out of AI, feels like (after checking out every company selling or renting AI) I cannot find the voice behind the voice, the soul of the thing, is a discovery. It's not a good product. Yet. But that yet is a big one. Too little, too late. The bigness is a burden. For a company to pretend they do no harm, releasing a vague, lame, voice for everyone, is called attitude: We do not need you, you need us." But no. Not everyone needs a monopoly to coexist with homo sapiens whose origins, too, usurp conflict after conflict. It is us even if we are loathe to admit it. Our lizard brains were arranged so as to recognize conflict, and go over there to start some of your own. In my subjective opinion, all search engines engage in placement hierarchy where conflict results in increased engagement. So end the conflict.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. Google is the black plague. I have articulated and written that for the past twenty years, Wikipedia must have a financial stake in the arrangement with the algorithm. Google manages to place Wikipedia first. They subvert the algorithm that they made in the first place. Wikipedia cherry picks. Google drives the cherry picking. Especially with SEO, and their subjects get defined by people who have no idea whatsoever what they are talking about. What would drive Wikipedia into cherry picking. I once had the misfortune of watching Google work. Their video I saw produced by Google, was about a scenario where a few video staff members (with equipment) fawned over their supervisor's Rolex watch. That was it. That was the video. A group fawning over a watch someone bought for 25K which is a pornography.

Kevin Rose just loves his little watch. Turn Google into something that has meaning like pawing over a watch and presenting that as a product Google fools around with. What a waste. I find them intimidating and mean. I deleted Google from everything. I loath saying this but Bing seems to have no financial arrangement with Wikipedia. Bing has never characterized me as a set of lies that people thought that I abused publishing. Wikipedia has a field day riding on the back of Google, the enforcer. Publishing abuses itself. Are Google and Wikipedia so connected that one is the other and the other is the other. Google is the King for everybody except me. They are not welcome in my house.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. After I put my kids on the flight out of America, and all the crying had slightly ebbed, I had to sit in the airport for about an hour because I could not get up. I knew I had done the right thing. America is just not a place to raise kids. Life is giving them whip lash. This piece has little to do with keeping your papers organized. It's insulting that Americans would even think that. It's denial, folks. You do not know how to raise children, and you are leaving them with a toxic planet. Because you do not care. I am autistic and do not understand many of the rules I follow every day. I avoid the police because they will kill me as they are so easily threatened. I have never had so much as a parking ticket. America will not help in protecting my children. If we are going to slide into a civil war, and I think we are doing exactly that, I don't want my children anywhere near the Great American War Machine that focuses on identity. Our public policy is a pornography. Doing away with the Department of Education, or hobbling it, is a great plan to keep the marginalized in their place. Will there still be schools. Or indoctrination centers. The America you fear is coming at you like a trainwreck. I want my kids off the tracks, off the grids, I have already taught them how to fight. I want them educated. I want them to know how hatred runs the world of men. I want them to be able to recognize the power of authority, and to always sit where you can see the door.

[timbarrus]

Take Notes. I have to watch what I write. What are the risks of having a voice. As a writer, every time I turn around, there are new rules. There are the NYT rules of etiquette. There are the religious rules about specific words that are not allowed. All new ideas articulated will be subject to rigorous investigation. What Americans really want to know is where can they get tickets for the executions. Americans have taken sides. Neither side has the ability to recognize the humanity of the other. If we remove their humanity, we can... Do nothing. Which is what we always do anyway. We are powerless. Keep your head down. Do what they say. Look at the ground. Never look at them in the eye. Suits have always told us everything will be fine. Obey the rules. Rule #1. Do not speak. Ever.

All these people with voices. While your neighbors are being handcuffed, pull the shades. This is America. Has anyone noticed that the price of ammunition has skyrocketed. What do these people know that we do not know. What they know is that the price of the ticket must be paid. Retribution and revenge will guide the well-meaning authorities and their helpers to only execute the bad people. Managed quietly. The Night of the Long Knives in 1932 was a Brown Shirt German purge which was supposed to strike fear into the hearts of the compliant who were already about as compliant as you could get. There are many lessons in this. There will not be another civil war. The grass would get our shoes all wet.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. There are alternatives for renter folks who know how to look. Farms. I was living in a cabin that I built on a mountaintop in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was pastoral on steroids. Hurricane Helene changed everything. It wiped us out. I am renting a house in town. The basement is filled with snakes. There are no services. Like trash. Hurricane trash has piled up ten feet high, little mountains themselves. No one is coming to haul it away. FEMA never showed. Not one person in authority has stepped up. A telephone pole (why do they call it that) was blown over, the wires are still whipping around in the wind. No one will take responsibility. Not our problem. Not our problem. Not our problem. I am going to attack the wires and the pole with a chain saw. Maybe then, I can haul it away. Every day, we sit around, deeply depressed, and we all have skin diseases from the flooding torrents. My skin is now totally inflamed. The water was toxic. We watch life go by. I got on my bike and roared out of town. When I need money, it's Vegas. I gamble. I have never once lost. After a day, I drove home, and could make the rent. Vegas is its own rumble. Renting is about the cash. I count cards. I'm good at it. Autism must be worth something. Vegas is my bank. Fifteen dollars an hour is a pornography. I know a place next to the Carl Sandburg farm. I have lived on farms before. Life on a farm. Renting is a sweet revenge. The hurricane gods are the real landlords.

[timbarrus]

Year of the Hyena a novel by tim barrus

[timbarrus]

Take notes. All flights (to anywhere) on November 6 are filling fast. I have already got my family out. The trick is to know when to get out of Dodge. The American people simply do not believe Trump will do what he has pledged to do. The threat to execute people he doesn't like seems to be, to most Americans, overkill. He wants you to be afraid, and we are. What will we be in 2028. If we are left standing at all. We are worried about 2025. 2028 seems so far off we refuse to examine the possibilities. Exactly how does he trash the US Constitution. How do you trash something you have vowed to protect. Do you burn it. Or do you rip it up. Question: Where are the other voices who have sworn to protect the Constitution. Why can't those voices do what they have vowed to do -- protect the Constitution. From Trump. What would that mean. Civil war. When the Confederacy was defeated in 1865, Jefferson Davis was captured, arrested for complicity in Lincoln's assassination, accused of treason, and imprisoned at Fort Monroe. Trump and Davis share analogies. A commitment to enforced institutional racism. We never really ended slavery. We just call it other names. Black prisoners working for the man (suits) do not represent an antithesis to slavery. That is slavery. Selective punishment, revenge, and it placates white people who are threatened every other minute. We have never settled the War Between the States. Fort Monroe is a museum. Bit it could still contain one old man.

[timbarrus]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/28/opinion/kamala-harris-dignity.html#permid=137174224

Take notes. Dignity in the face of screaming rage. By someone who has been burned before. This was very well written. I could never get into the whole nonviolent affect that speaks to us of calm. Calm is a problem. Anita Hill is pointing to a bigger issue. Her focus is rational and restrained. Sexism and racism are not compatible with human rights. If I were Anita Hill, I would be putting out feelers as to what flight she can pop into before Trump gets on the train toward his first day executions. It sounds downright dizzy, but we have all looked into the heart of Donald Trump and finding only an old man's venom.

The US prison system would volunteer to put on shows with hangings and beheadings. Do not think they won't. All you have to do is ask them. Small children will be required to watch, too, so they can begin indoctrination. I'm not going willingly when the big bad men from Ice arrive and batter the door down. There is risk in this scenario for them, too. Some of us don't get pushed around. Torture. Televised. Entire cities torched. The noose will be slipped on tight. Margaret Atwood had it right. What they really hate is sex. Once again, sex becomes a political act. Doing dignity does the same thing. It projects the whole idea of the word no. This is the hopeful view. My own is grounded in knowing who these people really are, and what their bottom line is among the wealthy who will win this culture war. Dignity is a great thing. But it will not stop Donald Trump.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. The despair is real. The hate is real. And the revenge that drives the beast is real as well. We don't talk about jealousy too much. This is a Culture World War. You will be told that it's more complex than that, and it is. But not to the threatened species that is homo sapiens. They recognize complexity, and they emerge rattled. Knowing how things work, is work. Politics is television. They are one and the same. Throw in some dancing, an orchestra, and french fries. It's Your Dog And Pony Show. I want to know why Americans talk the talk, but there is no way we are going to walk that walk. What are the institutionalists going to do. When the Politik twists toward blue. Who do you think the Gestapo is looking for.

They are looking for you. Here's how it works. Elon gives Trump the names and the data. Anyone critical gets a visit in the middle of the bad spy night. If you think that the lower class (I am lower class) wants to punish the class that has always had their boot pressed up against our throats, that is because they always have their boot shoved up against out throats, and this is their punishment. It's a little bit about a lot of things. Cross cultural warzones. It's still punishment. What else do they have. American indifference and American compliance. Trump knows where you live. DOJ gets the order, and ICE gets a green light. Your children get a barracks and tin foil. You know where you are marching to. And you never said a word.

Like no. — Tim Barrus