Overheard at Booth 4: The Horrorprompts of Verble Gherulous - 2020

Verble Gherulous Horrorprompt 2020

Dec 7, 2020
#horrorprompt 399 Sacred Offering 
My cat always brings things to me at the back door, puts them at my feet like a sacred offering: birds, field mice, rabbits. 
But this morning, this morning I tell you my blood froze in my veins, when she dropped at my feet 
a child's hand.

Dec 3, 2020
#horrorprompt 398 In the Bogs 
In the pub, October minded her pint, while two locals discussed the men who'd gone missing over the past month. 
"Family abandonment," said one. 
"Spate of suicides?" asked the other. 
Passing them on way to the door, October said, "In the bogs."

Dec 1, 2020
#horrorprompt 397 At Your Door 
You grew up, being taught to fear the wolf at your door, when instead, they should have warned you about the wolf you occasionally glimpse in the mirror.

Nov 21, 2020
#horrorprompt 394 Coagulated Strands 
The deputies knew he'd thrown the girl's body into the well, but when they pulled out the bloated pieces to find coagulated strands of different hair that they realized ...they needed to look at the last 30 years of missing persons reports.



Nov 12, 2020
#horrorprompt 390 Leave a Scar 
Surgeon [to the intern]: The art of this extraction is not to leave a scar. 
Intern: Is that what the ice is for? 
Surgeon: And why you prop 'em up in the tub. Hand me another bucket.

Nov 10, 2020
#horrorprompt 389 Shadow Dragon 
Chasing the Shadow Dragon, he’d wasted his life & the family fortune. 
On his deathbed, he was tended by his only remaining family: his sister. 
As she injected the phenobarbital into the IV, she said, “You. The Shadow Dragon has always been…you.”

Nov 10, 2020
#horrorprompt 388 Pins and Needles 
Back at October’s brownstone, Terry swigged his after-dinner drink, then tried to kiss her. 
She said, “Wait. Anticipation is sweet.” 
“I’m on pins and needles,” he grinned. “Well ... you will be.” 
Then, the room shifted and colors blurred …

Oct 7, 2020
#horrorprompt 382 Insane Asylum 
October spent her formative years at the Caldwell Insane Asylum, upstate New York. 
She says it was a good preparatory school: She keeps hair samples in clear plastic bags, liquified skin samples in corked beakers. 
All meticulously recorded.



Oct 6, 2020
#horrorprompt 381 Interdimensional Gateway 
Jed’s research into interdimensional gateways cost him his family. 
Shunned, mocked by his peers, living in a storage unit, he worked feverishly, until finally, it opened & he saw himself, who smiled & said, "Now I have your world, too!"

Sep 15, 2020
#horrorprompt 376 Perpetual Penance 
"For your crimes, you are banished to the land of Perpetual Penance." 
"No! Anywhere but there! Please, just kill me here!" 
"That would be too merciful. You deserve the worst Hell in the Universe."
I looked at my new prison: Earth.

Sep 8, 2020
#horrorprompt 374 Final Crescendo 
He called himself The Conductor.  
He tapped the podium with the baton, and the music began to play, 
slow at first, then building in intensity, the strings 
tightening around the wrists of his players ... 

pulling 
pulling 
to the final crescendo.

Sep 3, 2020
#horrorprompt 373 Inhaling Death 
During Freshman year, Paul developed the idea that sleep is "inhaling Death." 
He did everything he could to stay awake, & would wander the campus, whacked-out, all hours of the day. 
Christmas break, he finally slept. Garage. Car still running.

Sep 2, 2020
#horrorprompt 372 Forged by Fire 
"Well, it is indeed the double-edged sword that is forged by fire," she said, as she dug the kidney out of the man she'd brought to the motel, as he lay there, unconscious in the bathtub filled with ice.

Jul 14, 2020
#horrorprompt 356 Dissolving Memory 
The more the old woman slipped away, losing touch on a dissolving memory, the more we thought we’d never know who murdered all those children. 
Until her final day, in a brief burst of clarity, she smiled,
… and told us in detail how they begged for death


Jun 10, 2020
#horrorprompt 351 Inoculated 
The vampire snapped back from the woman's neck, its throat searing in pain. 
"HOW?!" it screamed. 
"Lunch," she replied, drawing forth a wooden stake. "Garlic-stuffed chicken. Three full cloves." 
The last word the vampire said: "Inoculated!"

May 27, 2020
#horrorprompt 350 Spiderweb Dreams 
 


Apr 29, 2020
#horrorprompt 349 Normal Life 
Having broken quarantine, Jeremy tore through the drumstick, Lizzie dug into the breast, & Joey chewed gizzards. 
Mum & Dad poured wine into glasses from the veins of the traveler's eviscerated corpse. 
They raised a toast. “To Normal Life again!’

Apr 29, 2020
#horrorprompt 348 Wave After Wave 
They bombed us, wave after wave, for days, but when the bombing stopped, that was when we knew true fear. 
Because they would now be coming door to door, looking for survivors.

Apr 17, 2020
#horrorprompt 347 Desperate Hordes 
 


Apr 13, 2020
#horrorprompt 346 Rabid Bunny 
The Sheriff explained to the Feds who’d come to investigate the serial murders, 
“The guys say she humps like a rabid bunny. Don’t snicker! 
I’m sure it’s all fun and games for the vics until she jams the icepick into their eye socket.”


Apr 3, 2020
#horrorprompt 344 Solitary Confinement 
It wasn't the solitary confinement that drove him mad. 
It was the voices that were locked in there with him.
Mar 31, 2020
#horrorprompt 341 Dust Bowl 

Dust Bowl, Oklahoma 

The drought had killed most of the crops and the locusts took the rest.

Birds perched on branches, 
waiting for us to die.

Still, 
Ma, granpa & I held on, until
the day, 
from the wall of dust, 
earth to sky, 
he 
walked toward us.

And we knew his name.


Mar 22, 2020
#horrorprompt 339 Quarantine 

Hector, 8 years old, heard his mother & her boyfriend in the other room, 
talking about not leaving the apartment during the quarantine. 

"Fuck," mom's boyfriend said, "If I'm stuck here, I’m gonna wind up
using the belt like -
every damn hour!" 

Hector started to cry.


Mar 20, 2020
#horrorprompt 338 Second Wave 

The first wave decimated us. 
Bodies incinerated, buildings in ruins. Electronics useless. 
We are completely on our own. 

But the second wave was even worse. 
Because in the second wave, they took us alive.

Mar 18, 2020
#horrorprompt 337 The First Act 
A Passion Play 
Director to actors: In the First Act, we choose a member of the audience, and shower adulation on him/her. 
For the Second Act, arguments and divisions ensue. 
Third Act: the stage crew brings out the cross, hammer and nails ...

Mar 17, 2020
#horrorprompt 336 New World Order 
CDC meeting 
Virologist: The virus is a sentient hive mind and only kills those who can't be absorbed into the collective! 
One official: That's a bunch a crap! 
Virologist *eyes glazed, metallic voice*: That is why you'll be dead by sundown.

Mar 10, 2020
#horrorprompt 334 Fresh Kill 
Tom was amazed by Amber's collection of various blades, from pocket knives to the wall-mounted 8' pole lance. 
As she showed him her favourite flaying knife, she said, "I always keep the blades sharp, you know why?" 
"Why?" 
"I love fresh kill."

Mar 3, 2020
#horrorprompt 333 Seeds of Dissent 
It was so clear, so very clear at that moment, as the crowd broke through the doors & poured into the palace to murder my entire family, making me watch before they gouged out my eyes, that I had been the ruler who had sown the seeds of dissent.

Mar 2, 2020
#horrorprompt 332 Fibonacci Sequence 
The moment I saw the victim, her intestines pulled from her torso & spiraled around her body like a snail shell, I knew the press would call this guy "The Fibonacci Killer." 
Great name, sure, but plays to the narcissism of every mathematician.

Feb 26, 2020
#horrorprompt 331 Blank Stare 
They'd been living together on a few months when he realized that she sleepwalked, nights that he would find her, standing over the bed, silent, with a blank stare. 
Then, one night, he saw the glint of moonlight against the metal of the scissors.

Feb 22, 2020
#horrorprompt 330 Hunter's Call 
Taking the key from the motel desk clerk, I heard a shrill cry from the nearby hills. 
"That's just the Hunter's Call," he told me. 
"It's midnight!" I said. 
"Well don't complain about it," he said, "That's how we had a vacancy for you."

Feb 20, 2020
#horrorprompt 329 Powder
In opening letters to forward to the Top Office, they trained you to distinguish between true needs & false flags, to weed out profane invectives, yet they can never fully prepare you for when you open the envelope & out spills the yellow-tinted powder.

Feb 14, 2020
#horrorprompt 328 Ornamental Skull 
The ornamental skull on the shelf looked vaguely familiar, the chip above the eye socket, the indention in the cranium. 
Behind me, she said "That's where the hammer fell." 
I stretched forth my fingers to touch ... but they passed through.

Feb 12, 2020
#horrorprompt 327 Empty Shell 
Meg was the best of them: funny, kind, always painted cartoons for the kids & baked for the elderly. 
The whole town mourned when they found her by the county line: entrails scooped out, torso propped against fence post, looking like an empty shell.

Feb 7, 2020
#horrorprompt 326 Wilted Bouquet 
The cake, imploded. 
Forks, scattered. 
Wine from overturned glasses stains the white lace. 
Broken guitars. Broken cameras. Broken bodies. Broken chairs. 
In the corner, they are still feasting on the bride. 
In her dead hand, the wilted bouquet.


Feb 6, 2020
  
Jan 23, 2020
“I’ll never leave you,” he said passionately, to her horror. 
#Tenzen #hangtenstories #horrorprompt


Jan 21, 2020
#horrorprompt 323 Useless 
The dark damp fog curled in around their legs and wrapped tendrils around their waists and when it reached their throats,
that was the moment that they realized
screaming was quite useless.

Jan 18, 2020
#horrorprompt 322 Without a Trace 
The Sheriff said Margot disappeared without a trace, but with an abusive father & drunken mother, she'd been vanishing for years. 
Which is why I went to her house. 
And, looking through the basement window, I saw the fresh patch of concrete.


Jan 9, 2020
#horrorprompt 321 Winter's Return 
She had lived on her own in the mountains for years, 
knew the valley like the curves of her own body, 
yet even she knew better than to tempt the cold spirits of the lake 
upon winter's return.

Jan 5, 2020
#horrorprompt 320 Darkness Within 

She was blonde hair, blue eyes & fair skin when she deployed. 

When she returned after two tours, her husband still found her all light & sunshine. 

But one day, in the bedroom, service pistol to her head, 
she let out the darkness within.


Jan 2, 2020
#horrorprompt 319 Fresh Skin 

She slipped on the sleeve, wiggled the fingers a bit. 

Then she pulled on the leggings, they were a little tight in the toes. 

But when she stretched into the face and snapped the eyes into place, she said, 
“Ah! New Year! Nothing like fresh skin!”

Overheard at Booth 3: Notes from the Writing of "The Tongue is Also a Fire"

 

There is a call that is coming from the ships on the sea

A call that is flying across the land

You can’t ignore the hurricane and you can’t outrun the flood

And soon the streets and valleys will be filled with fire and blood.

MR

2020-0429

NOTE: These four lines were found in the working document for "The Tongue is Also a Fire," a song based on James Chapter 3.   Somehow these lines were inspired by that chapter or that passage.

Overheard at Booth 5: Christmas at 50

Christmas at 50

The kids, gone to the movies,
to see WW84.

The wife, in Washington state,
watching the slow, anguished passing
of her mother.

Me, watching, "It's a Wonderful Life,"
for free on Amazon Prime.


MR
2020-1225

Overheard at the Counter: And So It Ends...

 and so it ends, this miserable year, and we are left wondering how this will be treated in the history books.  Will 300,000 dead have their eulogies?  Will the meanderings of the flaccid politicians be endlessly discussed?  Will the poets have their say?  What will be the final verdict upon our rampantly dissolute culture?

And who is going to get their "I SURVIVED 2020" t-shirt?  

Overheard at Table 2: End of the Year

1: Thank God this year is almost over.

2: Yeah, because we all know that COVID will magically disappear on January 1st.

1: Actually, that's on January 20th.   

2: Good one.  Yes, on January 20th, there will be a vaccine, COVID will disappear, the economy will improve, everyone will have jobs, and Brexit will be a done deal.

1: Brexit?  Now you're just moving in the realm of fantasy!

Overheard at Booth 4: Zoom Call for Abuelita

 
Zoom Call for Abuelita
 
The family gathered around the Zoom call.
The sons, the daughters, the grandchildren, all their spouses.
Abuelita at the center of the screen, a propped doll
In a bed, immobile, unspeaking, responding only
In grunts when Gabi spoke, or when Julie spoke.
 
Carlos, with his wife and new baby, simply said,
“You are going to a better place, grandma!”
He was the only one who spoke in English.
 
Still, Abuelita said nothing, barely moving.
The hospice nurse propped her up a little with a pillow.
Everyone was crying.
 
What would she have said if she could have said anything?
Would she have said, “Remember that I prayed for each of you,
By name, daily, in the morning and at night”?
 
Would she have said, “Know Him as I know Him”?
Would she have said, “Give my recipe book to Nohemy”?
 
Everyone made plans to fly to Washington state,
To see her in person one last time, flying during
This COVID year, this messy year, this year of such
Uncertainty and impending death.
 
The air turned cold that day, the skies grey and blue-black
With freezing rain, a chill as far south as Houston,
Sweeping all our uncertain futures into the Gulf of Mexico.
 
 
 
MR
2020-1215

Overheard at Booth 1: Poem of the Day "At the Gender Reveal Party"

At the gender reveal party,
the man's daughter tells everyone
it's a girl.

A girl.

The man goes out to the garage,
so no one will see him cry.

Tears of relief.

This world is so hard
for Black boys.

From an article I heard on NPR this morning at 6:20am 2020-1113

Yuki Noguchi in Minneapolis ... about the trauma that Black women face that leads to lower birth weights, more maternal deaths in childbirth, higher infant mortality rates.

MR

2020-1113 

Overheard at Booth 4: Hallowe'en

Lindsey said, "You know, I'm really not sure I should let the kids go out this Hallowe'en, I mean with COVID and all that, you don't know whose door they're gonna knock on that has it or not, and then every kid is sticking their little fingers in the same basket, but then I thought, hey, they're young and it's just a little cough and nobody really gets it, I mean they say that 250,000 people have died but only one person I know of at church died and the president said nobody really gets it, I mean, he got it and got over it, so I figured if the kids get it they'll be OK and if they pass it to me, I should be all right, so yeah, I'll just make sure they wear their jackets tonight because it's supposed to be chilly."

Overheard at Table 3: Riot

1: So you gonna riot on Tuesday?

2: No, I'm gonna vote.

1: You throwing that vote away.  Then you gonna riot.

2: Yeah, OK, whatever, sure.

1: See you there. 

Overheard at Table 2: Let the Games Begin

 As we kick off the three month holiday season, during the election that no one ever thought would happen, let this be a raucous celebration - starring with the festivities against the demons and the dead that is Hallowe'en, which moves into the reverence of All Saints Day, which is followed by the bringing to life the headstones of the cemeteries in the days that are called the Day of the Dead, which is crowned on November 3 by the election that will determine if the demons win this country or if the living souls maintain the democracy.

And then, all those shredded families get to face each other over a Thanksgiving dinner, where their prayers to God will be filled with gloating from the side that one, and prayers for deliverance and smiting from the side that lost.

Overheard at Table 2: Song "Keep Calm and Mask On"

 KEEP CALM AND MASK ON

I don't trust the CDC
I don't trust the GOP
I don't trust the government.
I wonder where my money went.

I don't have an IRA
I don't like the NSA
The NRA is after me
This year is a calamity!

KEEP CALM! MASK ON!

KEEP CALM! MASK ON!

I don't trust the COVID test
Got an aching in my chest
Stick that swab into my nose
To my brain's how far it goes!

Standing in the grocery store
Standing back 6 feet or more
Little kid looks in my eyes
He says, "Hey man you're gonna die!"

I say
KEEP CALM! MASK ON!
KEEP CALM! MASK ON!

MR

2020-0921

Overread at the Counter: Poem for 9-11 and Orange Caligula

 What Once Was Music Is Now the Crashing of Towers

What once was music is now the crashing of towers,
Tumultuous tumbling down to bury the bodies
Of people known, and unknown, and no longer known,

And every breath we draw is the drawing of ashes
Of the trees that once gave us air, now dying
In the flames of our iniquity, our perdition

Now takes our tears and rises the oceans,
Until the waves overtake us, and we drown;

All this is nonsense, insensate.  The music
That once was our love is now merely the 
Clanging of cymbals, the clanging of a madman

Who laughs at us, telling us that our deaths,
In the rubble, in the fire, in the depths of the oceans,
All these deaths 
Is simply is
What it is.



MR
2020-0911

Overheard at Booth 1: Cuties

So there is a petition to have Netflix drop the French film "Cuties" because it supposedly promotes pedophilia, but no one in America really knows why or how because no one has yet seen the film.

Netflix started the conflict by putting out a flyer with tween girls in sexually explicit costumes, which apparently is a scene from the movie during a dance number.  The original poster in France for the original title Mignonnes, shows the same girls laughing and shopping.

Looking only at the trailer, which is the only access I have to the film, I have made my snap judgement after a few seconds.

Yes, it is a coming of age film.  Europeans have ALWAYS had coming of age films, usually about 11 year old boys in love with 40 year old women just at the outset of World War II; this film appears to have the implication that this young Senegalese girl will become attracted to a French girl, but I would rather hope that they are only friends, simply because Lesbianism is part and parcel of every film genre these days and frankly is becoming a bit banal.

About the hypersexualization: young girls in dance and tight clothes will probably bring out the pedos, but then the pedos already get their stuff off the internet, so real pedos will probably find this movie a bit boring because they have so much worse videos in their personal possession.

That said, what I find interesting is that the Conservatives want to ban this movie and Liberals are relatively silent.  Should be the other way around.  Conservatives should love this movie and Libs should hate it. 

Why?

Glad you asked.

It's about a Muslim girl who is saved by white French girls.  Saved from a domineering mother, saved from her oppressive religion, liberated into being free.

In Modern America, this should play right into the worldview of each:  Conservatives should see it as the triumph of White European Colonial culture, and Liberals should see it as just another glory of imperialism using the old trope of the White Savior.

But then ... they haven't watched the movie yet.  Maybe they will all change their minds when it drops on September 9.

Overheard at Table 3: No Movies this Summer

Wife: So when are you going to take me to see a movie in the theatres again?

Husband: Well, most of them are closed.  And the ones that are open aren't showing anything new.

Wife: What about Mulan?  You told me that Mulan would be out by now.

Husband: That's what they said last month.  But now they've kicked it back another month.

Wife: And what about Wonder Woman?  That was supposed to be out this Summer.

Husband:  Same thing.  I think they've pushed that back into the Fall.

Wife: Well, I heard there is a move about Marie Curie out on Amazon.  How about that one?

Husband:  That the one with Rosamund Pike?  Aw hell no!  I saw what she did with a box knife in Gone Girl, I don't wanna see what she can do with raw nuclear material!

Overheard at Table 2: Norsemen on Netflix

Meg: Season 3 came out last night.  Binged it while you were asleep.

Meg's Boyfriend: How was it?

Meg: So stupid!  You know I hate flashbacks!  The whole Season 3 is one giant flashback to before Season 1.

Meg's Boyfriend: Does that mean it's got Freya in it?

Meg: Yeah, it's got Freya in it.

Meg's Boyfriend: Then I'll watch it.

Meg: What ... you got some sort of thing for Freya?

Meg's Boyfriend: Of course I do.  She reminds me of you.

Meg: Then maybe I should ravish you like she did to one guy in the episode 2!

Overheard at Booth 3: Movie Idea

So, my wife and I were taking our evening walk around the neighbourhood one day last week and we saw one of our neighbours at one of the house at the end of the street pulling a bunch of palm branches from the back yard to the front yard for the trash to pick up the next day.

We commented that it looked like she was doing a lot of yard work that day, and next thing I know we were getting this story:

"Well," she said, "I finally divorced my husband and my two boys are off in college.  Well the other one is, the younger just graduated high school.  But of course, you know, this year, there wasn't all that much of a graduation, with Corona and everything, and he doesn't even really know if he wants to go to college in the fall.  I don't really want him to but I don't want him to stay with me either.  The only time he comes out of his room is to ask me when I'm going to make dinner.  If he is gonna be like that, he can just go live with his dad.  But on a day like today, when I have to clean up the back yard to get the house ready to sell?  No help at all, neither of them.

"The older one can't be, of course.  He's my miracle baby.  Dad left when he was born and when he was five, my husband - the one I just divorced - was supposed to be watching him while they were out fishing, but he wasn't watching and he fell over the edge of the boat and smacked his skull open on the outboard motor - I thank GOD every day it wasn't running because it would have killed him right there.  They thought he was going to die.  They thought he wouldn't make it, and if he did they said he would be unable to finish fifth grade or even be able to walk. 

"But he made it!  He was varsity basketball in high school.  Then he went to college on an academic scholarship.  But even he never wants to come home to help me.  He just wants to stay on campus, but they've closed campus, so now he's just in the apartments on campus and I got NO clue what his plans are for the fall.

"But I'm downsizing.  So they can figure it out.  I'm 52 this year.  52!  Can you believe that?  But everyone says I look good for my age, so I guess it's time for me to get this 52 year old butt back into school and finally finish that degree and boy it's gonna be interesting getting back out into the work place after all these years.  I tell ya... I gave up any chance of a career just having my oldest and then nursing him back to health after the accident.   But he's my miracle boy, so I guess it was worth it.

"But it's my time now, don't you think?  Don't you think it's my time now?"

And the wife and I agreed.  I mean, how could we not. 

And to home, and processing, and as we discussed the 52 year old woman who was downsizing and restarting, what came to mind was the movie that we had just seen, "Just One of the Boys."  That movie, in 1985, this woman would have been 17 at that time - the same age as the main character.

Imagine this: a movie set in 2020, the time of Corona, the character of that movie, who had been so set on becoming a journalist.  Imagine that character as this woman... who had a child, whose father left, then married another man, who let the child get hurt horribly, then she had a child with that man, and now is divorced and looking to reclaim the career that she never had. 

What kind of movie could you make of that?   Definitely you would have to bring back the brother, but all the other characters from the original movie would be long gone.  But the possibilities are endless - for comedy, for tragedy, for introspection, for a deep delving into what it means to be successful, a peeling back of the sacrifices that we make for our children.

I think it could be a great movie.

My wife, on the other hand, thinks it would be boring.  Like "My Dinner with Andre" ... which she will never let me live down making her watch one time back in 1995.

Overheard at Table 1: Fact Check Trump I Can't Breathe

I thought so as well, that Trump was making fun of George Floyd, but it turns out that the clip was from February, when he was making fun of Michael Bloomberg's lackluster performance in the Democratic debates.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-trump-cantbreathe/fact-check-trump-was-mocking-bloomberg-not-floyd-in-i-cant-breathe-clip-idUSKBN23A2XA


OK, fine ... but then, let's also state that the "I Can't Breathe" didn't start with George Floyd.  It started with Eric Garner, and had already been used as a rallying cry for systemic racism in policing across the country.

And if Trump knew that and still used it, he's still disgusting.  And if his supporters knew it and still think it's funny, then they're disgusting.

And if Trump didn't know it, then shame on him.  In the position he currently holds, he should.

Overheard at Booth 1: Fourth of July

So the firecrackers are going off in the street in front of my house, echoed by deeper works somewhere in the distance.  I feel somewhat like I am sitting inside "Fever Dream" - a novella by Wallace Shawn told from the point of view of a man with a fever, holed up in a hotel room while a revolution explodes in the streets below.

To be honest, this seems a bit surreal.  We seem to be celebrating for no other reason than we can buy firecrackers and it's what we've always done.  It's like eating when you're not hungry, or having sex with someone just because you're living together and you're bored with nothing else to do.

We are going through the motions this year.  This Fourth of July, even the flags hanging in front of the neighbours' houses seem sad, as though they really have lost the spirit as well.  Maybe it's just because it's already hot as August in Houston, these miasmic summer days that make you wonder why the hell do we even go out in this?  Who can live in this?

And the heat is just a reflection of the sullen apathy that is gripping us all about the state of our country and the state of this miserable year.  Racist spouting White Nationalist hate in front of Mount Rushmore, while we are all wearing masks and my son has locked himself in his room because he thinks he has COVID.

This is how we live in 2020, this foetid, miserable year, that will be so much better in the past.

Another explosion.  Then another.  Now the smell of gunpowder seeps into the house.  The wife thinks that something has hit the roof.  Better run outside to check and make sure that our house is not on fire.

Which ... as we all know, it is.

Overheard at Booth 3: Survivor

First of all, I didn't even know Survivor was still on. I mean, Jesus, how many seasons does this make it?  50?

But I heard on the news yesterday that now there's a big stink because only 5% of the winners have been blacks, even though they've been 30% of the cast.  So, it's like they're over-represented on the cast, but under-represented on the winners.

AND! another thing!  They're all talking about how behind the scenes they've had people being rude and quoting movies with the n-word and how that led to a toxic work environment, and that's when I went

HOLD UP!

This is a television show whose very premise is to METAPHORICALLY KILL PEOPLE ... each week, they vote someone off the island... as though they are killed off!  The whole fucking POINT of Survivor is to make alliance and stab each other in the fucking back until you're the last one standing.

Losing that show should be a point of PRIDE!  "Hey, I've got some shred of decency ... those other assholes have no fucking moral code."

I think the fact that most winners are white should tell you something: that white people are trash assholes who will lie, cheat, steal, and backstab in order to get ahead.  They will use others and then shred them when their usefulness is over.

Survivor should be a goddam testament to the entire notion of Manifest Destiny and White Supremacy and all that shit!

So, people should not be wanting Blacks to win more Survivor.   No way.
In fact, no people of color should even want to go on the show.  Let the white folks kill each other off!

Overheard at Booth 1: We Always Go Low, We Never Go High

The movie Frida had a line in there in which Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo said that she always used the "tu" form with everyone, not the more respectful "Usted" in order to show that everyone was equal.

Which is good.  Equality is good.  Sure, yeah.  But I always wondered why she then used the more familiar "tu" instead of just using "Usted" with everyone.  Wouldn't that have shown that all people are deserving the respect that we normally reserve for kings?

This came to mind last Sunday when the pastor during his sermon said that pornography among women was at an all-time high.  Made me think of the current cultural trend that allows women to pursue an unchecked libido, something which had, in prior eras, been reserved only for men.  This is evidenced by my high school children's reports that, "Dad, you just don't know or understand ... girls just practically throw themselves on top of guys, right in the classroom.  You can't really get what you and Mom used to think of as just going out.  Girls wanna do it on the first date.  They expect it."

Again, I know the culture is saying YAY!  WOMEN GET THE SAME AS MEN! And while we think we can celebrate the unchecked libido of the American female, why did we promote that instead of, for once and for all, tell men to keep it in their pants?

But instead of telling men to keep it in their pants, we told women to unzip their flies whenever the mood strikes.

We always go low.  We never go high.