Breathing Fire (I'm Not Usually Like This)

A poem, to start us off:

Trump is the demon that keeps you all safe in your cells,
Never thinking to ask why exactly that is.
Offering prayers of benediction in the form of
confessing that you are lesser than others because
of your 'privilege', your Original Sin as taught
by the clergy of the Blue Church.
No gods but the ones called Marx, Lennin, Mao.
A divine order of saints you raise your fists for,
demanding the tithes of everyone you disagree with
and denigrate in the name of your Great Revolution.

And of course you deny any real God whilst invoking
the holy writ of your Apostles- Stelter, Maddow, Kissinger, Nuland, Clinton, Bush, Cheney, Ocasio-Cortez, Uyger, Vaush, Piker, Mulvaney. Cretins, warmongers, perverts, with a stack of bodies to their names rivaled only by the one assembled in the name of equity, the ultimate goal of the communist drone.

I would pity you, if I didn't rejoice in the idea that one day, you'll push the wrong person too far, and they'll make you swallow your own teeth.




So yeah, I'm in a bit of a mood, ladies and gentlemen. I had to put our family dog down the other day, and for about 24 hours, I was just numb, mechanical, offering stoic strength and routine for my wife and kids. The dog was my wife's at core, a puppy she'd gotten when she was 20. Eleven years she had with this beautiful, goofy, floofy Golden Retriever. Izzy was her constant companion, guardian, confidante. The dog became my guardian too, in her way; whenever I started having an auditory or visual hallucination break through the barriers of my medication and my normal self-awareness routines, I would look at the dog. You see, if she isn't reacting to something, I reasoned, then it isn't real, and I can handily dismiss it as a misfire in my brain.

You have no idea how helpful this became over the years. To be grimly honest with you, I think I've taken it for granted the last year or two as well. It's going to be rough for a little while.

I tell you all of this to put in perspective why I might seem more agitated than usual with today's Perspective post. This section of the Stack, "The Storyteller's Perspective", has been set aside for my real-world musings, thoughts, observations. When I have the occasional socio-political take to offer, it shows up here. If I'm offering an essay on a topic of daily life discussion, it shows up here, in the Perspective. I suspect I've lost more than a few subscribers because of this section of my Substack, because people don't necessarily want a peek inside a genre author's thought process. Back in the day, authors didn't share these things outside of a handful of highly influential interview outlets, and they were always very careful to curate their responses, to avoid alienating any potential readers.

Despite the wisdom of this approach from a bookselling business angle, folks understand nowadays that this can also end up coming across as inauthentic, which is even worse than simply being mercenary about the whole thing. I would rather be incorrectly labelled as one side or the other and then be able to personally clarify where I stand than simply have everyone assume I'm some mealy-mouthed coward who won't hold to his convictions.

So, let's have a crack at this one, because I see it causing all sorts of consternation in the literary arena these last few years, as well as, to be frank, everywhere else in our modern culture.

Pronouns. Yup, let's go ahead, Josh, and wander onto the minefield this topic has become. I won't be on this field for long, though. I have a sweeper here, and I'm going to go ahead and use it to clean up a lot of the mess that stems from the idiot arguments that have been causing so much trouble.

Firstly, what is the purpose of a pronoun? It is a shorthand term used to indicate a person without repeatedly naming them during dialogue and/or narrative flow. And how is a pronoun determined?

Here's where people get twisted around. You see, since 1955, thanks to a demonic little imp by the name of John Money, who was among other things a predator against children, people have been using the term 'gender' to identify differences between the sexes of male and female, replacing the biologically valid and provable term 'sex'. Because of this abuser and psychosexual maniac, the modern dialectic is riddled with people proclaiming that their pronouns are tied to their individual 'gender identity'.

"It's MA'AM!" As said 'ma'am' knocks over a shelving unit in a very unlady-like fashion at a Gamestop.....

The pronouns 'he' and 'she' are tied to sex, not gender. Sorry folks, this is demonstrable, and do you know how I know this? Because we have BOOKS from BEFORE 1955, and they identified characters with the use of pronouns in terms of 'he' for males, 'she' for females, and 'they' for groups or unspecified third parties. History and the uses of language did not begin in 1955.

"But Josh, the world didn't stop growing and learning at some nebulous point just because you don't agree with our mass delusions!" Very true, my fine xer, if that's what you wish to be called, but facts are facts, even when you don't like them. I'm sure you'd love to fly, so why not climb up to the roof and go ahead and jump? We'll just ignore the facts of physics so you can enjoy the trip.

CAN I GET A CLEAN-UP CREW OVER HERE?! I don't know, just, powerwash the blood and brains into that drain. Yeah, the one with the toothy clown holding the balloon. No, don't get too close, he'll head back to Derry soon enough....

I'm not going to argue that all things old or traditional are good, folks. I can't in good conscience argue such a thing, because another fine tradition among some peoples was taking a random virgin from the village and lashing her to a stake to be eaten by wild animals in order to ensure a good harvest. But constant progress for its own sake, perpetual growth, is all too often a death sentence as well. After all, that's the definition of cancer.

The pronoun thing is a stickler for me not because it takes time to adjust to. Believe me, I'm willing to try and meet people halfway, particularly when they make their requests calmly, reasonably, and without that smug smile that makes me want to reach for a freshly fueled chainsaw.

2-stroke engine oil, right? Good, good. Electric? No, I do not want electric, Allen! Because if I'm in the middle of a job, I don't want to have to leave it half done for 6 hours while the battery charges! Gas or nothing!

It's a stickler for me because the folks who demand the use of their own personal pet pronouns in conversation, be it spoken or written, are often making the demand (note: rarely a 'request') with their spoken words, while an unspoken threat lies just beneath. "Refer to me as I require, or be labelled a bigot and possibly lose your job, your associations, or even nowadays, possibly even your ability to access financial services. Maybe even be jailed, depending on the jurisdiction."

Moreover, it can lead to some really janky, indecipherable writing. I have tried to read some short fiction stories that include all of these special use/placement pronouns, and do you know what they read like? Often, like the ramblings of a 1950's mental patient, or a second-grader who can't remember if their primary character, Cody, is a boy or a girl or a sexless alien from the planet Fripton disguising itself as a human temporarily because Scooter the neighborhood stray dog accidentally activated an alien beacon device that looks like a fire hydrant when he peed on it....

I don't intend to breath fire on everything and everyone in these Perspective pieces, not all the time. Don't fret that I'm going to turn into one of those sorts of content providers. But every now and then, especially if prodded, this is the sort of thing you can expect to see.

At least, when I'm in a foul mood.

Hoping to come out of the funk soon.

Cheers.