Based Safety vs. Cringe Propaganda #55

This week in Based and Cringe...

THOUGHTS:

I woke up uncharacteristically light this morning (186 lbs.,) 10 pounds lighter than I was just last week. It appears I’ve dialed in my conditioning, and that my metabolism is firing on all cylinders. Once the Autumn is upon us, I will get huge. I’m hoping to add 10 pounds of lean muscle tissue to my frame, so at this body fat (around 9 percent) I will weigh in at about 200 pounds.

Bodybuilding is my greatest distraction. I am very good at it, you see, and I need that distraction right now. I have been sitting on and editing the longest and strangest piece of fiction and literary art that I’ve ever created since December of last year, and, as it turns out, learned recently won’t be released until February of 2024 or, possibly, a little later than that. It’s anxiety-inducing, of course, but no bother. I have plenty of other things to work on in the interim. Plenty reps to get in. Much growth hormone to pin. And I’d prefer that this piece of writing come out in its best form a little late than in an inferior form far too early.

Fuck it. Waiting is an opportunity.

BASED SAFETY:

I don’t hide my enduring admiration for the literary art of Gary Indiana — indeed, he is rivaled only by Houellebecq and Bret Easton Ellis as my favorite living fiction writer — and I always enjoy reading takes on his work. Bailey Trela here discusses the recently re-published Rent Boy (1994), one of Indiana’s more absurd novels about gay hustlers getting involved with an organ harvesting scheme, and finds its genius not in its plotting but, as always with the writer, the vibe: “As ever with Indiana, an ambient dread thrums below the surface of the prose, the fluorescent glare of an ersatz modernity casting sickly highlights onto everything it touches,” he says. It appears this Trela person is pretty serious, because here’s the writer again with an interesting piece while visiting the home once lived in by our reactionary hero Balzac himself. Another interesting piece by Benjamin Fong, this one addresses the politics of and history of amphetamine, after the Adderall shortage has left many speed needy adults with the shakes. I never much believed in ADHD — what adolescent doesn’t have trouble paying attention? school is fucking boring — and I have always responded terribly to both amphetamines and cocaine (heroin and MDMA, on the other hand, that’s a whole other story.) But alas, what do I care? You need some amphetamine charge to power through the day, you won’t find any judgement here. In response to the death of Martin Amis, Nicholas Harris explains why young men “need” bad boy literature. Well, young men also should read but that sure as fuck isn’t happening anytime soon. Finally, normally I’d never give positive attention to anything posted by the house of horrors that is the Verso loft, but I’m a cuck for Pasolini and I look forward to reading the new collection of Pasolini’s art criticism that just dropped. Plus, T.J. Clark is a smart art historian, more or less. Also, Spielberg looks back on Jaws – no one dislikes Jaws.

How appropriate in the face of the overwhelming reality that Russia has flattened the so-called Ukrainian counter-offensive with this Bardo Methodology interview with one of the finest bands that Russo black metal has to offer, Blackdeath, in a discussion that addresses sub-cultural crime and ideological battles as much as it has to do with bleak and extreme music. While on music, Jim Jones appears on the charmingly retarded Noreaga’s Drink Champs podcast to discuss the rise of one of the most fascinating rap collectives in the history of hip-hop, The Diplomats.

In Safety Propaganda sports, we have two new champions of the athletic competitions that best harness the counter-ideological vibes that the Counter-Agency of the Avant-Garde covets. First of all, thank you Sean O’Malley. Because I believed in you and your hype and outsized personality, Takashi 6’9 hair style, and severe knock out and striking skills, and because I just can’t ever root for wrestlers in the UFC, I betted on you beating Aljamain Sterling at UFC292. Because of my faith, I was awarded $750. Hallelujah, hallefuckinglujhah! Congrats Sean, and finally we have a fighter that could be as hilarious and interesting as Conor himself rise to prominence within the UFC. Second, IFPB pro Andrew Jacked narrowly beats out Hunter Labrada at the Texas Pro bodybuilding show to earn his second qualification for the vaunted Mr. Olympia show this fall. Andrew looks, quite literally, insane. Already sporting one of the most aesthetic fizeeks in the sport, the athlete filled out with five more pounds of stage weight and looks like a fucking blessed behemoth with his 6 ft 2 frame. Congrats Andrew!

In the biggest podcasting appearance this summer, none other than Bronze Age Pervert meets up with Anna and Dasha to discuss Nietzsche and red pilling leftists; alas, if BAP fails to red pill the dirtbags who still listen to Red Scare, surely this will finally push them over the edge back towards the comforting, flabby arms of the beardos of Chapo Trap House (if such a thing indeed still exists.) Zach Langley Chi Chi hosts Matthew Denicola (the fine young man and photographer who benevolently photographed the ball and chain and I with our beloved, late puggle Bibi on the last day of our dog’s life) in Tokyo to pay respects to the man who made so much of our “scene” (or whatever) happen: Jack Mason and his show The Perfume Nationalist. On that, Jack himself hosts good friend of SP Glen Rockney and “Cathy” to discuss the career of Bowie.

My updates: I make an art historical case for Hunter Biden as a contemporary practitioner of political art brut for Compact and I appear on my homies’ Agitator podcast to school them on the history of Japanese noise and Japanese psychedelic rock.

CRINGE PROPAGANDA

You always know there’s an election coming up when Jacobin stops running its milquetoast “criticisms” of “da left” and reverts back to its real form as lowbie propaganda arm of the DNC. Here, the either completely retarded or flagrantly dishonest (or both, more likely) Branko Marcetic makes the case: “Ahkshually, AOC isn’t a complete bust,” and then celebrates the government’s most ratched and obnoxious congresswoman for a bunch of fake achievements. I guess if the sole achievement of your 10 years in politics is electing a bunch of POC grad school ‘tards to Congress to “challenge the Democrats from the left” and then said ‘tards just vote with the Democrats on every meaningful issue while screaming about fake political grievances (transphobia, racism, the usual,) then you’d have to pretend there’s more to celebrate there than there actually is.

Three whiny losers — Pitchfork Media’s Puja Patel, Jeremy D. Larson, and Ryan Dombal — discuss why they hate Sam Levinson’s gorgeous and orgiastic pop art mini-series The Idol and their criticisms are so dreadfully 2015 it’s like they’re living in a time machine. They totally miss the point, of course, scratching their heads as to why the “bad thing” that seemed to be headed Jocelyn’s way in the series never materialized. If you watched it and you are smart, you realize that is because Levinson posits his belief that someone of Jocelyn’s status, fame and talent is truly unexploitable. That’s the whole point. Her “descent” was purely illusory – she needed it to get over a bad case of writer’s block.

In this piece, Lori Marso compares the work of arthouse legend Chantal Akerman and Barbie director Greta Gerwig but doesn’t make the comparison that I’d make: that is, they are both women and they are both mediocre directors who are nevertheless treated as serious artists that we all must worship by the film press. The Indiewire “Best Films of the 1980s” list has some disappointing absences and some pleasantly surprising presences. However, I simply cannot abide the idea that Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing is THE BEST film of the 1980s. Sure, it’s nicely made and certainly one of Spike’s better films. But you’re telling me it’s better than Dead Ringers, Blade Runner, Blue Velvet, Terminator, Scarface and god knows how many other classics? How hard do we have to convince Indiewire that “confronting racism” is not the same thing as “making great art”? Moreover, Indiewire includes the Carey Mulligan behicle A Promising Young Woman on its “Sexiest Films of the 21st Century” list. How THE FUCK is an anti-sex, #metoo-fried, rape fantasia a “sexy” movie? THE FUCK is wrong with you guys?

Cal Newport argues that we don’t need a new Twitter. Well, Cal, SUCK IT. As our friend Jack Mason loudly proclaims: Twitter is Dead, Long Live X the fascist misinformation app. In this interview from 1977, former Melody Maker Allan Jones chats with Lou Reed about Metal Machine Music. This would be a great read if not for Allan’s premise that MMM is an “unlistenable” record. No, Allan. MMM is in-fact a gorgeous record of joyous and meditative white noise that opened a nearly limitless number of possibilities within the sonic avant-garde. Don’t get it twisted. Somehow, the art world is still pontificating on the failures of the Brooklyn Museum’s Hannah Gadsby-curated It’s Pablomatic exhibition, overthinking the controversy around it to an extreme degree. I, of course, started the It’s Pablomatic controversy in May, but do I ever get referenced or mentioned by these pretentious assholes? Of course not.

If you’re wondering who the retarded NY Times columnist and neocon hawk David Brooks thinks is the best candidate to replace Trump on the GOP presidential ticket: it’s Nikki Haley (LOL!)

Strategically, it doesn’t seem to make all that much sense for Putin to have Wagner mercenary group head and attempted coup leader Yevgeny V. Prigozhin whacked right now. The last week has seen the media finally concede that Russia is handily winning its war with Ukraine after Zelensky’s failed counter-offensive has seen his soldiers’ casualties number skyrocket. Now, of course, the Western media will have more ammunition for its “Putin is scary bad dictator” talking point. Rather undisciplined, though I can’t imagine an American president would allow a coup leader to live either (though, he’d at least put him through a fake show trial, for the veneer of democratic respectability). Putin could have at least waited a year to off his foe, no? This article here is actually rather interesting despite its typical mainstream media uses of terms like “dictator” and such.

ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Sean O’Malley bantam weight champ of the UFC
2. Gary Indiana
3. Andrew Jacked at Texas Pro
4. AOC weeps
5. Priozghin