ROLEY

Author: Kris Roley

  • Tuesday, August 1st, 2023

    There is no Culture War. It’s fiction.

    However, it’s a fiction that is going to define the next two years of our lives because of the loud minority that created the fiction, and the media that perpetuates it.

    There is no Culture War. It’s fiction.

    Real people in the real world know that no one gives a shit about your Holiday Starbucks Cup, or whether or not you say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, no one cares what Sally and Joe next door are doing, or what Sally and Joe and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice are doing. No one cares about whether Little Priscilla needs to get an abortion for whatever reason. No one cares if Jim is Jeannie on the weekends down at Don’t Tell Mama’s, or if Jim really wants to be Jeannie full-time. No one cares if Little Priscilla would like to be known as Dylan and uses some other pronouns than she/her. Do you know why no one cares?

    Because there’s no Culture War. It’s fiction.

    Remember that when you hear someone screaming about all this stuff that no one in the real world cares about.

  • Monday, July 31st, 2023

    Last night was the first night in a while I was able to sleep most of the night uninterrupted. For a start, the weather broke and it got down to the high 60’s overnight. I’m not sure what the other part was. It could be that I did a podcast episode yesterday and felt good about completing something. I took a cold shower before bed, which may have helped under the circumstances. Also, because I occupied myself for most of the evening I didn’t eat or drink anything caffeinated close to bedtime. Might be a combination of all three, I don’t know. But since I’d like to sleep more than 4 hours at a time, I’m going to troubleshoot it and see what what the item or combination that’s keeping me awake.

  • Saturday, July 29th, 2023

    I don’t know who needs to hear this, but the issue with ancient people in elected positions doesn’t start with those ancient people.

    It starts with the folks and the money that keep electing them.

  • Friday, July 28th, 2023

    Never underestimate the odds of two–or even three–separate appliances in your home going Tango Uniform simultaneously.

    The corollary to that is never to underestimate the ability to find someone who has had at least one occurrence of those appliance issues to have posted a fix for your problem on YouTube.

  • Thursday, July 27th, 2023

    If you have been looking for yet another reason why cable news needs to go the way of the dodo, you need look no further than today’s breathless hovering over the DC Courthouse. CNN and MSNBC (Sorry, there isn’t enough money in circulation to get me to watch the third one) spent hours breathlessly wondering if today was going to be the day we got a third indictment. Chris Jansing of MSNBC noted at the end of her hour on MSNBC that sources inside the Courthouse said an indictment was not likely today or tomorrow. You would think that would be the end of it, but they were right back at it in the next hour as if they hadn’t debunked any possibility of it 5 minutes earlier. Gotta keep those eyeballs any way you can, I suppose. Seriously, kill off cable news. It’s idiocy, making idiots.

    On the other hand, turn on CNN or MSNBC at 3am if you’re unlucky enough to be awake at that hour. There’s no talking head that wants to be opining at that hour of morning, so what you get is an anchor reporting the news, and the packages they’ve prepared. You know…news. Like the CNN of old, before Reagan got shot, or before the Gulf War or 9/11, when they realized continuous disaster coverage attracts eyeballs and gets people through the next ad break. Cynical? Of course it is, but then you must realize that cable news is not a public service, it’s an attempt at ratings and profits like everything else on TV is. Rachel Maddow isn’t competing with Hannity, she’s competing with WWE RAW and Monday Night Football. Read that sentence again and again until it sinks in.

    I don’t know when news became a profit center, and maybe I’m an idealist for thinking that profits should not be the prime motivator for journalism, but here we are.

  • Wednesday, July 26th, 2023

    Today I was reminded of my yearly subscription to my refrigerator. Every June or July the compressor switch blows and the part to replace it is around one hundred dollars. Since 2010, when I bought the first iteration of this fridge, I replaced the switch and associated parts that make the fan go fanny and the frost go frosty more times than I care to count. I’ve long since reached the part where we never buy another Frigidaire anything ever again. The thing is, I’ve yet to cross that threshold where 100 bucks for my yearly fridge membership has pissed me off to the point where I spend 1500-2500 for a new fridge. You might ask why I would buy something that costs that much, and my only answer for you is that I married the Redhead so you don’t have to, so let’s just say Yes Dear and leave it at that, okay? It’s a nice fridge, whenever I decide to buy it.

    Sinead O’Connor died today. I hope wherever she is, she’s found some peace. She had a hard life of addiction and mental illness, and we collectively rejected her for telling what turned out to be a truth we didn’t want to accept. We owe her a big fucking apology, and it seems to me the only way we can do that now is to listen to her music. I assume that any royalties she would make now would go to her children, so go buy or stream her music. Everybody knows THAT song, but I urge you to go deeper. The Lion and the Cobra is a great album that deserves your time, as is I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, which contains THAT song. She had a magnificent voice, one that deserves your admiration.

  • Tuesday, July 25th, 2023

    Today is the first day of my 53rd Year.   Today is the day I stop taking any more bullshit from anyone, including myself.   I’m asking a lot of myself here.  One year of consistency.  That’s the mantra for this year.   Consistency now, or never.    

    I must acknowledge why I’m having trouble, address it, and get moving.  

    Let’s see if we can just manage this small blog posting first. We’ll call it my personal journal. Why not, that’s what a blog was in the beginning, wasn’t it? Hell, I think I know at least one person still on LiveJournal doing things, or at least one that isn’t a very tardy novelist.

    When is the Winds of Winter coming out, by the way?

    The point of all of this is simple: I’ve spent six months feeling pitiful and I’d like to not do that anymore, please. That should start with writing at least one thing a day, even if it’s just one sentence.

    So let’s see if we can just do that.

  • Photo: An Unexpected Dragonfly

    When editing photos of the thunderclouds over the weekend, I took this photo as a companion to the VB Convention Center photo from June. The curves complement each other. What I hadn’t expected is my little winged friend in the photo. A happy accident, which I’m happy to share with you. Taken with iPhone 12, edited in Lightroom.

  • Yay. More Reality TV. Great.

    This may not be a very popular take, but what the hell.  I think there are two kinds of reality TV.  There’s one that takes you through a process that has a tangible result at the end.  The other kind is trash tv that manufactures conflict for the effect.  Laughs, Screams, WTFs, whatever it is.   You might have guessed that I’ll watch the former but hate the latter.  It wasn’t always the case; for example, I watched Gene Simmons’s Family Jewels. I’m sure I watched other stuff, but so much of it is so forgettable…I’ve forgotten it.  I have never watched a Kardashian do anything, I have no interest in Real Housewives of Insert city here, I could care less about your love before, during, or after lockup, I just don’t care.  About the only things you can count on in 2023 on TV are a Law and Order, an NCIS, a Chicago, and somebody upending a table and going after someone nails first because they…well, I assume a producer told them to.  

    I mean, we all know the drill at this point, yes?   Reality TV is not real.  Maybe it was at one point that I was naive and gullible in my “When people stop being polite and start getting real” youth.  I thought The Real World NY and LA were legit.  I thought Survivor season 1 was legit.  Of course, living here in Virginia Beach, I had to root for Rudy the retired Navy Seal.   But after that, and before Gene Simmons, certainly, by the time Gene Simmons came around, Reality TV started blurring the lines.  Manufacturing conflicts, Inventing roadblocks, and conjuring plot twists are all designed to get you…to the other side of the ad break.  Cynical, I know, but let’s face some facts.  If reality TV was really “Reality”, as in totally unscripted, it would be boring as fuck.  So they gin it up.  

    The other thing about Reality TV that you may or may not know is how utterly cheap it is to make compared to scripted TV.   The reason is that they have a simple production value and a much higher ROI than NCIS.   Hell, Game of Thrones was around 6 million per episode in the first season.  Reality TV episodes might reach 1 million per episode these days, but that’s probably the big ones like Real Housewives.  They are not paying a million for Mama freakin’ June’s latest train wreck, I promise you that.  

    Regardless, TV is chock full of ‘reality’ish TV, and I hope you’re OK with that because that’s gonna be the only new stuff we see for a minute.   For the first time in 60-some-odd years, the Writers and the Actors are on strike together at the same time.  That pretty much stops everything being filmed right now that’s not reality TV, I would imagine.  Hell, it might stop *some* reality shows but not all, and it certainly won’t stop the networks from coming up with every crazy idea you can think of.    Also, if you believe some reports, management will try and wait this out.  I saw a quote somewhere about the WGA coming back to the table once people start losing their homes.  That’ll be around October or so, and depending on how desperate management is, I expect a phone call.   I’m joking.  Not really.   If you get to me and my crazy ideas, you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, I assure you.  And just so we’re clear, I’m not scabbing for anyone.   If someone seriously ever wanted my shit, they will be paying me.  

    But what can we do?  Well, for a start, if you’re a creator, don’t give your shit away for magic beans when they come calling.  Don’t cross the line.  You’ll be remembered if you do.  Consumers?  I’m not sure what to tell you.  I want to tell you to stop watching TV, but that’s tricky.  One of the sticking points that caused the strike is streaming.  If I’m binging Season 12 of NCIS right now on Paramount Plus, for example, am I part of the problem? And what about AI?  I had heard that they want to take an extra, scan them, pay them once, and use that image in perpetuity.  I don’t believe that’s cool at all, and if that’s true, they need to come up with another arrangement. 

    Finally, if we just leave the labor unions’ point of view for a second, I heard something this morning that may not cross your mind so I’ll bring it up.  Keith Olbermann on his Countdown podcast—yes, I’m a fan, don’t hate—brought up the tiers of businesses in and around the film and TV industry that a prolonged strike will hurt.  Caterers, Dry cleaners, Custodial staff, Waitpersons and Bartenders, the people down here like you and me that work in what Keith called possibly the last company town in America.  He may not be wrong.   For that reason alone—the little guys who take your order at that bar on Sunset—that this gets resolved quickly, and someone can get back to work writing Gibbs back onto my favorite GD tv show. 

  • It’s Time To Not Be Nice

    In 1968, after Congress passed a gun control bill that was, in the words of the late ABC anchor Frank Reynolds, “emasculated”, Lyndon Baines Johnson asked—to paraphrase—how much more anguish must America endure?   Now, before we start going down the gun control rabbit hole—Trust me, we’ll have time for that—I’m choosing to focus on that quote, and another one.  You’ll know this one, it’s Patrick Swayze from Roadhouse.   “I want you to be nice until it’s time to not be nice.”  

    I find it hard to not be nice anymore.  Here’s another quote for you, Keanu Reeves.  “I’m at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you’re right – have fun.”  I want to be kind or be silent.  I want to get rid of all the drama, go live by the beach somewhere, and just…be. 

    But I can’t.  Because it’s time to ask once again, how much anguish we must endure.  It’s time to not be nice. 

    It’s time that we do not agree with the people that think 1+1=5, and tell them to have fun.  All the fivers believe there is an objective reality where this is true.  They have people in the alternative and mainstream media that pander to their fivieness, They have politicians that lock on this fivedom and run on it.  They post fivist memes on social media to own the twos.   Frankly, I’ve had my fill of fives.  

    It’s time to insist that 1+1=2.   Firmly.  

    It is time to not be nice. 

    It is not time to reason with the fivers that ask “What about the threes?  You don’t mind the people who think 1+1=3?”   It is not time to justify a Two who said something nice, or even something atrocious about the fives years ago.  It is not time to deal with the fives of bad faith who scream about why you, a two, won’t debate them.  

    It’s time to insist that 1+1=2.   Firmly.  

    It is time to not be nice. 

    Fives did not suddenly appear out of thin air.  They weren’t created in a vacuum, they weren’t grown in a vat of ooze, they’re people who, in a lot of cases, hopped on board much later.  It’s kinda like going clear and then they tell you about Xenu and the Space DC 10’s flying Thetans into volcanos.   You, a two, look at these folks and ask HOW IN THE HELL DO YOU BELIEVE THAT? THAT’S CRAZY.   That’s easy.  1+1 didn’t equal 5 originally.   They found time in 1968 while Mayor Daley was out preserving disorder to just bump it up a little.  It equaled 1.1 back then.  And little by little, they bumped up just a tad every year until they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar in 1974.  Then they had to reset.  1+1=2 all the way through to 1981 when they found a guy who was good at making people believe 1+1 was whatever he wanted to be, and we went along with it, mostly, because whatever 1+1 was at the time, this guy had a way of making us feel really good about it.  So much so that we didn’t notice what those incremental little bumps were doing to some of us.  These little bumps continued until someone with a uHaul truck and the belief that God told him the answer was 2.5 said the quiet part out loud and blew the front of a building off, and then things quieted down for a bit.   But one of those guys who got ejected during the reset of 1974 decided he needed to create a platform for all the folks who knew objectively that 1+1 was whatever we say and if you don’t agree, you’re Two Stupid.  They even made up a nickname.  Two Stupid.  If you’re Being Two Stupid you have mental problems.   You might even be what’s destroying this country!   And over the years that number has been growing and growing until some guy who deals with more zeroes than anything else got elected President getting people to believe 1+1 is now 5.   And now you see how things start small and snowball, and it gets crazier and crazier and the people get more and more zealous and…

    It’s time to insist that 1+1=2.   Firmly.  

    It is time to not be nice. 

    I don’t want to be an asshole, I don’t want to cancel anyone, and I don’t want to belittle anyone.  I don’t want to own the fives.   As my Dad used to say “You have the right to be wrong.  You also have the responsibility of what being wrong means.”, and that’s where the proofing meets the problem, which is twofold.   First, the fives believe that there’s no consequence for believing 1+1=5.  Second, and this is more important, there are more twos than fives.   A lot more.  

    And it is time to insist that 1+1=2, it has always equaled two, and it will always equal two. 

    Not maliciously, not condescendingly, but kindly and firmly. 

    Because, at long last, it is time to not be nice.