#tim barrus new york times

[timbarrus]

Take notes. I am not amused. The good. The bad. And the indifferent. A legal argument. It's usually a legal/religious debate. If you read closely, that would be David French debating David French. This is illegal. It is also illegal for any person to drool over all the money these corporations never have because they are always losing money. Fiddledeedee. Overreaction to the felon's throne. "He may well be," is a term that seems to pop up a lot. Let's go with what we know. We know that the felon is a felon. He's a felon, don't listen to the convicted felon. Increasingly amused by overreaction. A bit smug. Ever notice how these guys are telling us in no uncertain terms that such and such a barbarian is at the door. And the next day, they are telling us we are overreacting. This feels like a speech in a courtroom to me. It's kinda slick. Nothing about family, Jesus, pornography. Nothing that says: the government is corrupt. Nothing that says A Culture War is an ironic thing to pin your hopes and dreams on. Nothing that says corporate greed plays a role in this. CEO bows down says: my bad. Leave the room backing up. Bowing down. Bowing done. Let us talk of humiliation and the men who cling to it not unlike a weapon. I don't know how the Normals do it. I'm autistic. All the bowing down. Can someone explain all this bowing down in the throne room. Now, we call the felon unstable. Be very careful it's the unstable felon. Felon with nukes. The nuke felon. Nothing on that. Either.

[lesmagnifiquessauvages]

tim barrus

[timbarrusart]

[timotheebarrus]

Tim Barrus and the New York Times

[timbarrus]

Take notes. People demand to know if Shawn is gay. These are the people who will make him pay for it. His fan base is mainly composed of fifteen-year-old girls. There's a lot of anecdotals attached to Shawn. I hear a lot of: No One Cares If He's Gay. That is not true. Those young girls care a lot. The problem is that Shawn is writing about intimacy. And so are they. It's a double-edged sword. Everybody wants to be a Normal. Let's be very clear here. There are rules and acuterment to being a heterosexual. The red truck would be one. Teenage boys see Shawn as a threat. They stand in the background grimly. They tolerate him but barely. They think he's gay and just isn't willing to pay the price for it. All of this translates to clicks and hits. The paparazzi are all over Shawn because those editors know clicks, hits, and give us the dirt. I know these guys. Identity is a witch. They are waiting for the pictures of Shawn with another guy. In fact, they're drooling for it. The media vampires will take him in and spit him out. They will take his career and drown it. It's lucrative. Shawn is not the problem. Being eye candy is always a problem. They are pouring him into the great big box of fun things to stereotype him because he's unavailable. Sexuality is just another whipping post. The term, Mental Health, is code for gay. This is all stuff Shawn has talked about. Here's the bottom line. People would like to make love to Shawn Mendes. To be a fantasy has never been a calling.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. "Our basic civility as a nation." There it is. The beating heart. The problem is that we have no idea what civility even means. I think it is one thing. Moderators think it's another. I think everyone should express themselves. Even if I do not agree with where they stand on individual liberties. I'm a big boy, and can read hate without jumping on board. Americans always think they are being subjected to advertising. Because they are. I cannot say what I am not allowed to say. Because it would cut away at their prearranged TV ideas like one naughty word is uncivil. In the face of government shut down, life and death stuff, moderators are looking for a naughty word. To wit: People burdened with HIV around the world are being killed by the Felon. Why do we use his name. Call him the felon. But no.

Moderation chips away at the gravitas of millions of people who are already dead. But they are foreign (as a verb) so we can kill them with impunity and wash our hands of them, and HIV. The felon is no judge. He is not god. He must be shunned. The systems that protect him will be reinforced. We must remove them. To survive. Meanwhile, we are waiting. We are waiting patiently. This dog and pony show you are so protective of will be challenged.

So where are the people outraged about the felon making HIV drugs essentially illegal. A bad word is not a problem. It does not matter if Americans worship a psychotic. It matters if he is killing people and he is. No HIV drugs, period. There must be some way that radicalism can fight back. As long as they use nice words my grandmother would approve of. This is your grandmother's newspaper. No bad words even if your life is over. You all will die from a thousand cuts. He is coming for you, and you think civility will save you. "Our basic civility as a nation." Grow up.

Why can’t we resurrect ACT UP. Act Up knows how to deal full head-on rebellion and they could out-TV-performances by the felon rapist who is killing millions with no HIV meds because he doesn’t like the color of their skin. No drugs no skin in the game. Wanna bet.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. I love this piece by Pam Paul. I am more than a little autistic. Neurodivergent doesn’t work for me. For me, neurodivergence must be like something you do to get inside someone’s brain. I do not get metaphors. I take what you have to say, literally. What people are saying is important because their awareness lends you something of a road map. For me, it’s a photograph. To make it out alive at the end of every day. It can’t be that bad (Oprah). Wanna bet. Half the time, especially if you are stuck in metaforland, I will not understand a thing you say. Pam Paul calls it masking. Smile constantly. There are too many metaphors in the word Alone. Alone is my friend. How are you today. Caffeinated. If you say to me: Oh, go stand in the middle of the road, I would stand in the middle of the road. I am being attacked 24/7. Especially in print. I know who does this like a bunch of junkyard dogs. Other writers. I did not murder an entire race of people. Far from it.

How are you today, I do not say Fine. Fine is a filament. A simple strand of hair. I am living in a landscape where I am losing my ability to comprehend what you articulate. Have a nice day. What is your gut telling you. Excuse me. I love you. I love you, too. What does this mean. I employ about ten masks. At a time. When you remove one from my face, I have others. I can hold an audience for no longer than fifteen minutes. Civil war. Civility. Shaking hands. See you later alligator. I see swamps. What’s wrong. Nothing.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. This piece is your garden variety photographic retouched post production brochure invigorated adventure with no regard whatsoever for the dramatic impact tourism has on the lives of the people who actually live in these places because you make it your business to filter out the realities of reality, the places you are visiting have sold their souls so you can take a selfie that you were there, and there, and there. As a photographer (Flaunt), I have been to all of these places which makes me a bonafide hypocrite prowling for images an editor somewhere back in the States will like. I'm out to haunt more beautiful places and this whole schemedic falls apart whenever I use some editor's eyes, and not my own.

How about some poverty porn of Lagos where children live in sewer ditches. Put that in Vogue and fly there. In Appalachia, we know who the tourists are. As they waddle down Main Street in their shorts and thongs, guzzling down a supersize ice cream cone. You get a nice big chocolate on your nice big fluffy pillow. I would argue that the world is not all that beautiful a place. There is a desperate edge to tourism in locations where tourism means that you get your very own dream job driving a bus with a microphone. You have now reached the historical parking lot George Washington parked his cars in. Interpreter of events that never happened. Tourists fresh off the bus in the middle of a hurricane. There was no electric to keep the ice cream cold. Stay home.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. Appalachia is not cheap. Nevertheless, the endemic poverty of Appalachia is so fundamental, so ingrained, so intransigent, that even I cannot articulate what a waste of lives, resources, no vision that can make it better. Families with dirt floors. No hope. America is done. Suicide rates for Appalachia are more than 20 per 1k. It just shot up. Please do not move here. There is nowhere to put you. Hurricane Helene came at us with a #5 when it hit (with virtually no warning). We were not prepared. New people here will be a disaster. But we realize what is coming, and we do not want you here at all. You will be a huge problem. More that a few families are existing in their cars. Nowhere to live. We are all very bitter. Pitching tents in the cold. No water for a month. Some of us are bathing in the river. People are living in their cars. Do. Not. Move. Here. It's treachery. Democrat or republican. Frankly, we do not care. Building back here will take a decade. Go move somewhere else. Democrat or republican. It doesn't matter here. You will be in our way. Go home. We will not put a piece of chocolate on your upper middle class pillow. The rich just move away. Wherever they go, they will still be rich. Wherever we go, we will still be excluded. There is no housing for us anywhere. It's political, yes. Our republican congress guy was videotaped having sex with another guy. We endure. We hurt. We are disconnected. From your culture. The electoral college is the real pornography.

[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. "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]

Take notes. It was Armageddon. I am still clawing out of it. Even as my neighbors are just beginning to deal with the trauma of losing everything. The tourists are pouring in. A steady stream of tourism -- disaster porn -- didn't even flinch at another opportunity to see us struggle. I have not seen any evidence there even is a government. I have always known that the government doesn't really want to help us. So we become as self-reliant as we can. We cut our own trees. We dig the graves. When some power was restored last night, I am told they are still finding bodies in trees. I can't think of whatever else we might do to entertain the tourists. They do not arrive with chainsaws. No government. No food. No water. No hospital. Nothing. Do not show your tourist face to us. The humans hit hardest are babies. And they will be the ones who decide who gets to live where, and who will not live through storms like Helene. Because, it's all gone political. Remember what our fearless leader said: Global warming is a hoax. Homo sapiens are not going to care until some devil of a storm blows the doors off their hinges. I am now unhinged. Some door. Now guns. I am hundreds of miles from any ocean. You can only take care of yourselves. Where is FEMA. Even as the hurricane was furious, it had been decided by the business community to keep the T-shirt shops open. Someone might need a cocktail and a T-shirt. The videos are a pornography. In Appalachia, we are ruined. -- Tim Barrus

[timbarrus]

Charleen lives down the dirt road from me. I will not dwell on trailer stereotypes. Charleen is poor. We read a lot about the poor poor. Charleen and her babies lived in the car that now sits at the side of the trailer in the thick nettle weeds. Charleen gets rides. Charleen is my entire poll. I want her opinion. She's pretty free with it. "I think I should be Vice President." I take her to Denny's and we talk. Charleen would be horrible as Vice President. Charleen has goings on back in that woods. Charleen has only been twenty-five miles from where she was born. Right here. Her mother sneaks them food. Her mother will babysit. Charleen does not approve of local politicians. "More crooked than a barrel of fishhooks." Charleen reads all the wrong things. The poor have no face in the media. You do not know how we live. We are not a novel. We are not a film. No one sees us. We're just the poor. We don't vote. We don't matter. We do not care because every day, we are just the bottom feeders. Trying to survive by the skin of our teeth. Charleen has a few teeth left. No one takes Charleen to Denny's. I explained that she cannot be President. "Why." I gave her my best Because You Are Nineteen Look. Oh. I get a bad case of sensory overload from too much East Coast Political Handwringing. Charleen likes Kelly because he went to the moon. I refuse to discuss that one. Charleen hides pregnancy. I have delivered her to the clinic on my dirt bike. She does not own her own body. Men do.

[timbarrus]

Take notes.“Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice (she was surprised), that for the moment she quite forgot where she was living. Alice is separate from the newsroom. The Felon is separated from his subjects. I wonder how long it will take to get Trump University back together again. Let's have tea. Tuition will be high. The fundamental deviance of a fundamentally deviant cult that the American people embrace. No one did a thing when the Felon was elected. The American people celebrated. Cover your ears, now. The American people, themselves are deviants.

You have simply replaced one deviant paradigm for another. You have replaced capitalism with Curiouser and curiouser! Alice cried. We are Alice. Who has no idea where she is, or who she is. She sleeps. Apple fell on her head. We are Alice. The big fat queen wanted her head on a spike. We are Alice. The problem is that homo sapiens gatekeep tribalism after tribalism. Everyone has a relationship with the tribe, and who people mate with matters. We are Alice. She has amnesia because if she didn't, the whole idea of society, still based as the shining hill to live on so we don't have to see all the thems on your heathen way to work. Americans have no soul because they need stuff, and you can mess around with them for a short period of time so you forget life ever happened. It's diseased. And there is no hope for it. It gets worse, To wit: Who really believes we have the power to alter climate change. It's coming for the Rabbit.-- tim barrus

[timbarrus]

Take notes. This is not migration. This is diaspora. Migration is lame. Biology confirms it. Maps, wars, biology. Drives diaspora. What this says to governments of every kind is that they are ephemeral. We clearly suggest that your Great Culture can be undermined easily. Your staunch support of family, Americans, is self-deceiving, and beneath contempt, there is always a class in the world of caste and class, that is lower that you. Historically, they're easy to kick, and often the kick is from the lower middle class, with its concomitant risk of slipping. Then medicare, slaps you in the face. Frankly, I have been reading for years the same paradigm for ideas that don't fit. I was asked to join a team of artists who had a mission. To create big signs on ships everywhere in the world. "If you rape a Woman in Western Culture, you are going to prison.’ It was a shock to many men, and men drive diaspora. You cannot control wind or leaves. It appears random. No pitchforks. I will not read another same old thing. Why aren't journalists covering who are these supposed soldiers who shoot people, bust into their homes, aim guns at kids, arrest citizens who were born in the States, and have never spoken anything other than English. We call it terrorism. "Why Are You Doing This to Kids." I want to boys with guns to know we are watching you. Give it a name. Children killing children. Stuff you do not want to hear. The lie they are just doing jobs is to invite you to examine reality.