The Antisocial Socialist

I am going to take the rare step of recommending a podcast series before it's over because I'm so into it. Like for the last two weeks I've woken up on Tuesdays and Thursdays looking forward to my walk to and from school because it means I get to listen to this.

There's personal backstory (watching wrestling as a kid with my Zaidie wherein he explained how it wasn't like it used to be) and fandom backstory and the fandom backstory is probably more interesting to you, which is to say that the Behind the Bastards fandom does a thing where they go on social media and beg Robert to cover particular bastards. For the longest time, it was Henry Kissinger, so he did a 6-part series on Henry Kissinger (which is really excellent and you should listen to it). Then it was Josef Mengele despite his insistence that you don't want that, so he finally did a 4-part series on Josef Mengele that most of the people in the fandom cannot listen to because ffs, Mengele was really one of the most horrifying people in existence and while they're brilliant episodes, they will break you.

Since Mengele the bastard everyone has been wanting is Vince McMahon, and he's been hinting at it for awhile, and once it was announced both BtB fandom and wrestling fandom went absolutely apeshit, apparently with an unprecedented enthusiastic response that he'd never seen before. Which. To be fair. I wake up on Tuesdays and Thursdays being like, I get to listen to this. It's the only time since I've been listening to the show that the sources that he cites actually contacted him because they were dying to talk about it so much.

And if you think that my nerdy, bookish ass would not enjoy listening to Robert and Cracked alumni Seanbaby and Tom talk about the bastard history of wrestling and Vince McMahon's bastardry in particular, you have probably missed:
1. ioplokon 's repeated and increasingly successful attempts to get me to learn about wrestling fandom.
2. Henry Jenkins' fascinating and insightful analysis of wrestling as participatory narrative and what it has to say about masculinity and storytelling. (Here's a sample, but read his books because they're really fun and interesting.)

The thing is for all of my attempts to be practical and grounded in my politics, the subjects that really make me excited are the way culture impacts politics. Yesterday I taught a class on the Hollywood Blacklist and how it broke American politics and the entire world, actually (alas, mostly unappreciated, but look, some day someone will be interested in this as much as I am) and McMahon's story in particular is a flashpoint for this. 

So yeah if you think that listening to a comedy writer turned anarchist war correspondent talking about the WWF is going to great fun, yes, it is. 

This series is going to be six episodes long, and the fourth one dropped yesterday. I'm recommending it before its conclusion because the first three have been that good (I'm currently listening to the fourth one). And yes, it's the same length as the one about Henry Kissinger.

Here's the first, I'm sure you can find the rest: "Vince McMahon: History's Greatest Monster."

Spicy take: Don Cherry was always garbage and we're all lucky that he's 85 or he'd be PM right now. Literally the only good thing about him was that dog, and the dog died years ago.

Chipotle take: Ron MacLean is worse because the only thing worse than a racist is a racist who's also a hypocrite and an enabler. Literally the bar for white dudes in this country is milquetoast "racism is bad" and he can't even manage that unless his career's at stake.

Ghost pepper take: Men's hockey sucks anyway; women's hockey requires way more skill and is more interesting to watch.

This was originally posted to The Face but it amused me and FB sucks at archiving, so I thought I would collect it here for posterty.
( Backstory, if you need it )

What follows is my running commentary on the game.
( Spoiler: It gets weird. )

I will leave to the alert reader to determine which of the above statements are literal fact. The percentage is higher than you'd think.

As you know, Bob, there is some sort of minor sporting event being held in an increasingly fascist country that has just passed some draconian anti-gay legislation. Our fine city has elected to—in a minor show of solidarity with the persecuted queer folks in Russia whose declining civil liberties and right to existence are being trampled so that pampered athletes can move very quickly and put balls in holes, and foreign journalists can complain about having to throw toilet paper in the wastebasket*—fly the rainbow flag over City Hall.

Okay, great! You'd have to be a real douchecanoe to object to that.

You don't even need to click to see what this link is about, do you?

Our paragon of upstanding morality and virtue states: “This about the Olympics, this about being patriotic to your country." Naturally, his handful of supporters leapt to declare him Not Homophobic despite his many, many homophobic statements and the fact that he's still not planning on attending World Pride when it arrives this summer to shower upon our fair city a shit-ton of money, tourists, and TD Bank-branded condoms**.

As always, the money quotes go to Brother Doug, who objects to the presence of buck-naked middle-aged men with potbellies (the fact that he clearly never looks in a mirror explains a lot, actually) and:

“He’s not homophobic, he has friends that are gay, he just chooses not to go.

I bet he has a lot of black fri—oh wait.

I for one would like to thank all of the potbellied, buck-naked middle-aged men out there for keeping these two bigoted wankers and their scumtastic drug-addled family away from World Pride. Pride should be classy, dammit.

In other news, rumour had it that late yesterday afternoon, two cops were seen entering Ford's office from the back door,† but I can find no confirmation of this online. Investigations into his myriad criminal activities are ongoing.

* Seriously? Travel to Not North America sometime. Though I did like the "dangerous face water" tweet.

** Look, a free condom is a free condom.

† Not a euphemism!

So whiny baby hockey hooligans* in Vancouver didn't like that their team lost, or something, and rioted en masse. Not that I begrudge anyone a good riot, but that's a stupid reason for it, and so we here in Hogtown get to feel a bit smug, I think.

Anyway, unlike the G20 (not a stupid reason for a riot), the rioters actually hurt people—stabbings and such. The cops probably got a bit brutal, but I'm struck by the disparity between the reaction of the Vancouver cops and the militarized police state we saw last year in the streets of Toronto. It sounds like about as many cars were torched and far more property damage accomplished—and in a much shorter time frame—but only 100 people were arrested, in contrast to the 1000 or so arbitrarily picked up here.

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being "can't fault you there, sabotabby" and 10 being "and you call yourself a role model?! Get me to my fainting couch while I clutch my pearls," exactly how bad is it that I find this all grimly hilarious?

Here, have a song:



Postscript: My favourite comment from The Face is: "Wonder if any of the rioters from last night will get 'not allowed to publicly express sports opinion' as part of their bail conditions"

* I guess it's hockey? A few of my co-workers were talking about "The Game" on the bus today and I never know if it's the one with the ice skates or the one with the stupid-shaped ball.

I have some critiques of multiculturalism as a national project, and in particular the façade of tolerance that passes for inclusiveness in this country and masks an ugly colonialist history and a white supremacist present.

But.

I saw some little girls wearing hijabs playing road hockey on the way home from school today, and is it just me getting sentimental in my old age, or is that not just the greatest thing ever?

Via BoingBoing, every violent act in the Superbowl ads:


Most of that just comes off as slapstick, to be honest. None of it's as violent as the following ad, which also apparently aired during the Superbowl (via fengi):



I know, rationally, that most men I encounter don't think that way about women. I mean, they can't, right? You can't hide that kind of hatred.

Can you?

I saved the worse for last. This story comes to us via audrawilliams.

( cut because I don't want to even look at the link when I check my LJ )

You know, I think I'm just going to curl up under a pile of blankets with my cats for awhile. Wake me up when the world doesn't suck so much.

1. I do not care about the Olympics beyond the fact that whenever they come to a city, social cleansing ensues. I get the feeling there's going to be non-stop chatter about the Olympics at my workplace, whereupon I shall be hiding in my bunker, not talking to anyone, until it's over.

2. Nor do I care about the Golden Globes or the Oscars. Though I suppose if Avatar beats Inglourious Basterds in any category I may be able to drum up some pop-cultural outrage.

3. I had no idea that the Superbowl was on until someone asked me if I was going to a Superbowl party. I have been to a grand total of two football games in my entire life, and I left both before the first period or inning or act or whatever you call it was over.

Anyway, wake me up when it's over and there's politics on the news again.

Every time I see an article or read a post about that swimmer who is apparently the Übermensch or whatever, I get momentarily confused because I think they're talking about the Westboro Baptist guy.

I am already sick of hearing about the Olympics.