tell me in the tags either the worse drink you’ve ever had or what you do to alcohol to make it palatable
So this is kind of random but also related to issues with taste of alcohol…apparently I super-taste tannins? Which means I absolutely adore white wine (especially a good Riesling) and even many blush wines still taste good to me but most red wine is somewhere between “hmm, interesting, I can understand HOW this is good” to “meh” to “ICK NOPE”.
Likewise, black teas need lots of milk or sweetener or both to be drinkable to me. Green tea is manageable, and white tea and herbal teas are absolutely delicious magic.
Watch out for any job listings that claim youâll cruise the seas for American gold, fire no guns, and shed no tears. These are all scams and the job is NOT as advertised. Source: I fell for it and am now a broken man on a Halifax pier
So, okay, fun fact. When I was a freshman in high school… let me preface by saying my dad sent me to a private school and, like a bad organ transplant, it didn’t take. I was miserable, the student body hated me, I hated them, it was awful.
Okay, so, freshman year, I’m deep in my “everything sucks and I’m stuck with these assholes” mentality. My English teacher was a notorious hard-ass, let’s call him Mr. Hargrove. He was the guy every student prayed they didn’t get. And, on top of ALL OF THE SHIT I WAS ALREADY DEALING WITH, I had him for English.
One of the laborious assignments he gave us was to keep a daily journal. Daily! Not monthly or weekly. Fucking daily. Handwritten. And we had to turn it in every quarter and he fucking graded us. He graded us on a fucking journal.
All of my classmates wrote shit like what they did that day or whatever. But, I did not. No, sir. I decided to give the ol’ middle finger to the assignment and do my own shit.
So, for my daily journal entries, over the course of an entire year, I wrote a serialized story about a horde of man-eating slugs that invaded a small mining town. It was graphic, it was ridiculous, it was an epic feat of rebellion.
And Mr. Hargrove loved it.
It wasn’t just the journal. Every assignment he gave us, I tried to shit all over it. Every reading assignment, everyone gushed about how good it was, but I always had a negative take. Every writing assignment, people wrote boring prose, but I wrote cheesy limericks or pulp horror stories.
Then, one day, he read one of my essays to the class as an example of good writing. When a fellow student asked who wrote it, he said, “Some pipsqueak.”
And that’s when I had a revelation. He wanted to fight. And since all the other students were trying to kiss his ass, I was his only challenger.
Mr. Hargrove and I went head-to-head on every assignment, every conversation, every fucking thing. And he ate it up. And so did I.
One day, he read us a column from the Washington Post and asked the class what was wrong with it. Everyone chimed in with their dumbass takes, but I was the one who landed on Mr. Hargrove’s complaint: The reporter had BRAZENLY added the suffix “ize” to a verb.
That night I wrote a jokey letter to the reporter calling him out on the offense in which I added “ize” to every single verb. I gave it to Mr. Hargrove, who by then had become a friendly adversary, for a chuckle and he SENT IT TO THE REPORTER.
And, people… The reporter wrote back. And he said I was an exceptional student. Mr. Hargrove and I had a giggle about that because we both knew I was just being an asshole, but he and the reporter acknowledged I had a point.
And that was it. That was the moment. Not THAT EXACT moment, but that year with Mr. Hargrove taught me I had a knack for writing. And that knack was based in saying “fuck you” to authority. (The irony that someone in a position of authority helped me realize that is not lost on me.)
So, I can say without qualification that Mr. Hargrove is the reason I am now a professional writer. Yes, I do it for a living. And most of my stuff takes authorities of one kind or another to task.
Mr. Hargrove showed me my dissent was valid, my rebellion was righteous, and that killer slugs could bring a city to its knees. Someone just needs to write it.
This is the first time I’ve seen this post but I know I’m gonna love reading it every time it shows up on my dash
Before 10th grade we took a test to get into honors English, and I wasn’t on the list.
My mother called the teacher, who looked at the essay I’d submitted, and said, “Someone graded this maliciously, you’re in the class.” (It had been graded by a third party.)
Later, he called her to ask if it was possible I’d plagiarized something because the writing was too mature. She laughed at him. And he believed her when she said I was too cocky to copy anyone else’s work, and from then on, he was my best English teacher at that school.
I butted heads with half that English department, but him? He got me.
The vulture capitalist hedge fund that bought and subsequently destroyed Toys R Us now owns Overdrive/Libby.
They have already begun making it worse/less usable and they have a chokepoint monopoly on the delivery method of ebooks borrowed from public libraries in the US.
A fun thing about capitalism is that rich people can buy something a lot of people love and depend on, and then destroy it for fun and profit, and thereâs not really anything we can do about it.
so Iâve seen this medium post going around on twitter and also tumblr and i just want to provide a US librarianâs perspective on the Overdrive/Libby side at least!
first of all, Overdrive absolutely has a monopoly and they are absolutely price-gouging libraries. ebook licenses cost on average $60 per copy, and they often come with a limited number of uses or a year-long license or other strings. (ask me how long we can circulate a $15 physical book! because itâs more than a year.) but that has been happening since WELL before KKR bought them out. iâm not here to cape for KKR, but the person to get mad at here is (primarily) the virtual monopoly. (and also the publishers, who generally set the T&C that their books are sold with.)
BUT. i did read the entire Medium post linked, but I think a number of the concerns are coming from a place of genuine but misinformed concern.
Deep Search is a new (and separate!) feature rolled out this springâ it lets you search across multiple libraries, if you have more than one library card. Itâs actually a huge improvement to how searching used to work, where you used to have to search each library card separately. Itâs entirely unrelated to the Notify Me feature, which I do think is a definite downgrade, and Overdrive has been frustratingly opaque with us about the reasons for the change. (I will say that many library networks didnât ever offer the ability to suggest books via Libby/Overdriveâ purchase requests were an opt-in feature.) I donât doubt that there are profit-driven reasons for that change, but I also think that in general Libby is more usable these days than itâs ever been. and itâs been 3 years since the KKR buyout!
Relatedly, the Libby app was first released in 2017. It was meant to be a big improvement over the pretty clunky Overdrive app, and in most respects it wasâ except that it didnât offer screenreader functionality. This was a huge misstep on Overdriveâs part, and they should have had screenreader support built in from the gate. But THAT is why Overdrive the app was only shut down in May of this yearâ they needed to get screenreaders up and running in Libby (which they did in fall of 2021) before they could begin to sundown the Overdrive app. And honestly, Iâm glad they got rid of the old app! It doesnât make sense to have two apps with the same functionality. Itâs confusing for patrons, and itâs hard for librarians to support multiple apps (ask me how much I love when someone calls in and says âthe library app isnât workingâ and I have to ask which of five separate apps it could be.)
Again, Overdrive absolutely should have taken less than four years to get screenreaders working in Libby. Accessibility should have been a feature from the start, and I still find it frustrating that thereâs no built-in autoscroll for people with mobility issues. But honestly, keeping the old app running for a while and gradually sunsetting it is good user supportâ it gives users time to transition slowly and helps librarians have lots of lead time to warn patrons about the change. And frankly, none of this has anything to do with KKR, which bought Overdrive three years after Libby was released!
I am absolutely not caping for KKR. Iâm deeply concerned about venture capital in general, and I think KKR in particularâs purchase of S&S is a real fucking bad thing! I literally left my last job bc a VC buyout led to burnout and an RSI so bad I had to get major surgery. I donât want capital in publishing! But I also donât want people to panic about a series of arguments that donât accurately represent the situation on the ground.
I see an article like this and frankly, I see what feels like well-intentioned fear-mongering. Libraries are dealing with a LOT of shit right now. We are underfunded and often overworked. We are the place people go for help with every section of our failing bureaucracy. Also, a lot of people are calling us pedophiles for providing kids with queer books! What we really do not need is a lot of people calling us in a panic with misinformed concerns about Overdriveâ believe me, we know better than anyone the places in which it fails (mostly, charging us through the nose, which again it has been doing for waaaay longer than KKR was involved.)
So where do we go from here? Continue to support and advocate for your local library. (You donât need to stop using Libby. In fact, the more users we have, the better weâre able to negotiate better pricing. If Libby really does enshittify, THEN weâll figure out what to doâ libraries are pretty good at figuring out how to make a lot happen with a little when we need to.)
If youâre able to, consider checking out physical books! Theyâre a lot cheaper for us to provide, and plus you get to talk to a librarian or staff member while you do so. (Or you can use self-checkout, if you donât want to talk to anyone. I get it!) If you want to purchase a book thatâs not in the libraryâs catalogâ ebook or otherwiseâ look on the libraryâs website for a purchase request form, or ask a librarian where to find that form.
And if youâre involved in local politics, advocate for libraries in your city or countyâs budget. (If youâre not involved in local politics, consider becoming so! It is imo the biggest bang for your buck in terms of involvement vs outcome you can get, politically.) Contact your representative about state budgets. And if youâre not sure how to get started or who to contact or what meetings to go toâ hey, why not ask your local librarian?
I have a thing to get to but had to get this out real quick
This is what âyour emotions are validâ means.
It doesnât mean that any random shit you do is fine so long as youâre angry or sad. It means that the anger and sadness is fine, attacking the emotion is pointless, and itâs your behaviour in response to it that can help or harm.
i actually do kinda like delivering groceries on the side because it gives me such a unique cross-section of the community. i never know whose groceries im shopping for until i finish the delivery and see them/their home and it’s like it adds more detail to the picture of who they are. the baby supplies going to the apartment that i know for a fact is one bedroom (they’ll be moving soon - i bet they’re apartment hunting, i hope they find a place). the new cat litter box, bowl, and kitten food going to the house covered in “i <3 my dog” paraphernalia (a kitten definitely showed up on the porch recently and made itself at home). the fairly healthy boring grocery order that includes an incongruous tub of candy-filled ice cream going to the home of an elderly woman with toddler toys in the yard (it’s clearly for her grandkids, whom she sees often).
shopping for someone else’s groceries is a fairly intimate thing. i’ve bought condoms and pregnancy tests, allergy medicine and nyquil, baby benadryl and teething gel, a huge pile of veggies paired with an equally huge pile of junk food, tampons and shampoo and closet organizers and ant traps and deodorizing shoe inserts and a million other little things that tell a million different stories in their endless combinations. one time someone had me buy one single green bean. i messaged them to confirm that’s actually what they wanted, and they said yes - neither of them liked green beans very much, but they had a baby they were introducing to solid foods, and they wanted to let him try one to see if he liked them. another time i had someone request 50 fresh roma tomatoes - not for a restaurant, but for a person in an apartment. the kitchen behind them smelled like basil and garlic when they opened the door. another time i brought groceries to three elderly blind women who share a house. that was one of the few times i have ever broken my rule and gone inside a place i’ve delivered to, because they asked if i could place the grocery bags in a specific location in the kitchen for them to work on unloading and there was no way i was going to refuse helping.
i gripe about the poor tippers, but people can also be incredibly kind. one time i took shelter from a sudden vicious hailstorm inside an older lady’s home in a trailer park, while i was in the middle of delivering her groceries. we both huddled just inside the door, watching in shock as golf-ball-sized hail swept through for about five minutes and then disappeared. she handed me an extra $10 bill on my way out the door.
when covid was at its deadliest, people would leave extra (often lysol-scented) cash tips and thank-you notes for me taped to the door or partially under the mat. i especially loved the clearly kid-drawn thank you notes with marker renderings of blobby people in masks, or trees, or rainbows. in summer of 2020 i delivered to a nice older couple who lived outside of town in the hills, and they insisted i take a huge double handful of extra disposable gloves and masks to wear while shopping - those were hard to find in stores at the time, but they wanted me to have some of their supply and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
anyway. all this to say people are mostly good, or at least trying to be, despite my complaints.
Your personal triggers and squicks do not get to determine what kind of art other people make.
People make shit. Itâs what we do. We make shit to explore, to inspire, to explain, to understand, but also to cope, to process, to educate, to warn, to go, âhey, wouldnât that be fucked up? Wild, right?â
Yes, sure, there are things that should be handled with care if they are used at all. But plenty more things are subjective. Some things are just not going to be to your tastes. So go find something that is to your tastes and stop worrying so much about what other people are doing and trying to dictate universal moral precepts about art based on your personal triggers and squicks.
I find possession stories super fucking triggering if I encounter them without warning, especially if they function as a sexual abuse metaphor. Iâm not over here campaigning for every horror artist to stop writing possession stories because they make me feel shaky and dissociated. I just check Does The Dog Die before watching certain genres, and I have my husband or roommate preview anything I think might upset me so they can give me more detail. And if I genuinely donât think I canât handle it, I donât watch it. Itâs that simple.
#this excludes writing pedo or incest.
If you look at the tags on my original post, this post was originally about hospital horror, and how itâs allowed to exist even if an individual has medical trauma and doesnât like the genre. But since someone wanted to go and put some shit on my post that I disagree with:
No, actually, it doesnât exclude those things. Dark themes in fiction are allowed to exist whether you like them or not.
Vladimir Nabokovâs Lolita was not a real little girl who really got brutalized. She was a fictional character. No real child was harmed. People are not reading Lolita and going out thinking, âoh, this told me to abuse children, and clearly itâs morally okay now.â The existence of Lolita is not responsible for the existence of CSA.
Wes Cravenâs New Nightmare was pretty meta, but Freddy Krueger was still never real and never hurt any real kids, either. Heâs a story. None of those kids ever died, none of them ever got abused, and Fred Krueger never got burned to death, because theyâre all fake and never existed. Murder and CSA in the real world arenât Freddy Kruegerâs fault.
Jaime and Cersei Lannister are not real people. They are fake. They are words on paper, and actors on a screen. Lena Headey and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau are not siblings, and did not ever have real sex in the show. It was fake, simulated, not real sex. No siblings actually fucked. Nobody is watching/reading Game of Thrones and thinking, âoh, I can totally go fuck my sibling with no repercussions now!â The existence of Game of Thrones is not responsible for real-world incest.
Guillermo del Toroâs film Crimson Peak didnât kick off an epidemic of everyone deciding itâs okay to fuck their sister and kill their wife. William Faulknerâs âA Rose For Emilyâ isnât making people kill men and sleep with their corpses, and Emily never really killed Homer because neither of them actually exist in the first place.
Arcane didnât put grenade launchers in peopleâs hands and turn them into vigilante fighters juiced up on Super Drugsâand you know what, neither did any of the things the Batman franchise has churned out. The Joker and Scarecrow and Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn arenât out there terrorizing New York City, because theyâre fantasy supervillains who arenât real and canât hurt you.
The endless waves of bandits in Skyrim are pixels on a screen, and Iâm not killing real men when I cut them down. No real people got hurt when my Sims 4 house caught fire. Playing Super Smash Brothers hasnât gotten me into underground fighting rings, and neither did watching Fight Club.
Itâs all fiction.
None of it is real.
The characters are fake and do not exist.
Curate your own media experience and get your head out of your ass.
[ID: a comment left by tumblr user msexcelfractal, which reads âCool post OP, now do Birth of a Nation. End ID.]
Content warning: antiblackness, antisemitism, sinophobia, general discussion of bigotry and oppression
You really want to try and go there as if thatâs some kind of gotcha on the subject of dark fiction? Fine. Letâs go there. Iâve got sources and free time.
Birth of a Nation is a horrific hate crime of a film. It is flagrantly racist and was connected to a surge in KKK membership. Nobody should watch that film for enjoyment. Itâs horrific. Nobody should be forced to watch it, either. You donât have to watch the film, and I donât recommend you do, unless youâre actively involved in studying it for whatever reason. Itâs a bad, hateful movie.
I have not watched it in its entirety and I donât really ever intend to. There are Black scholars who have already broken it down and discussed it at length, and I donât feel Iâm going to get anything out of the film that they havenât already covered. If I need to study Birth of a Nation in more depth for whatever reason, Iâm going to defer to Black scholarship on the subject.
But if you tried to ban the film altogether? If you tried to erase it from existence? I would ask what the fuck is wrong with you. Banning Birth of a Nation does absolutely nothing to combat the racism that created it. It wouldnât stop racists from making racist art. It wouldnât erase the damage done by the film. It wouldnât go back in time and make it retroactively never made.
You know what banning it would do, though? It would strip film scholars of the ability to discuss it. It would prohibit people from talking about exactly why it was bad. It would inhibit honest conversations about what the film was and who it affected.
You know what you do with horrific bigoted art like Birth of a Nation? You have content warnings, like the one I put at the beginning of this reply. You donât spring it on people who donât want to discuss it. You donât put it on for people to watch without warning. You donât tell everyone you know to go and watch it and give it money.
âThese animated shorts are products of their time. Some of them may depict some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that were commonplace in American society. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. While the following does not represent the Warner Bros. view of todayâs society, these animated shorts are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.âÂ
You damn sure donât erase it from history and pretend that ignoring it will solve bigotry. Censorship is not the answer, because censorship is always enforced harder on marginalized artists. You ban racism in film, you ban films by Black artists who are exploring the topic from their own perspective.
When the Hays Code banned "offense to other nations,â you know what happened? It didnât stop racism in film, thatâs for damn sure. It instead gave bigoted censors a perfectly legal and easy way to shut down art by marginalized people, which they did gladly.
The rise of the Nazi Party in Germany resulted in the Reichsfilmkammer demanding the removal of all Jewish workers from Hollywoodâs European locations. American films began receiving heavy censorship and bans in Germany, and so American studios complied with the Reichsfilmkammerâs demands in order to avoid legal trouble in Germany.
Despite the Nazi partyâs outright hostility toward Hollywood, the MPPDA office discouraged any negative depiction of Germany or the Nazi party. Germany had been such a huge market for American cinema that the Reichsfilmkammerâs censorship codes for German films began impacting American-made cinema. Jewish representation in cinema all but disappeared overnight. Joseph Breen, the head of the censor board, was an open antisemite, going on open tirades against Jewish people. His censorship policies were flagrantly bigoted and only served to reinforce that bigotry on a systemic level.
In 1933, Herman J. Mankiewicz and Sam Jaffe tried and failed to make an anti-Hitler film titled âThe Mad Dog of Europe.â The Hays Code was used to deny the filmâs production. On July 17, 1933, Will Hays himself ordered the filmmakers to cease and desist, all in the name of ânot offending Germany.â
Said Joseph Breen, âIt is to be remembered that there is strong pro-German and anti-Semitic feeling in this country, and, while those who are likely to approve of an anti-Hitler picture may think well of such an enterprise, they should keep in mind that millions of Americans might think otherwise.â
Variety said about the subject, âAmerican attitude on the matter is that American companies cannot afford to lose the German market no matter what the inconvenience of personnel shifts.â
Anna May Wong, a Chinese-American actress, lost out on a leading role in the film âThe Good Earth,â due to the Codeâs explicit ban on interracial relationships. The leading man had already been cast with a white man wearing yellowface, meaning that Wong was unable to be cast as the leading lady and love interest, even though the characters were supposed to both be Chinese. The role instead went to a German-American actress wearing yellowface, who went on to win an Oscar for the role.
Censorship doesnât help anyone. Censorship does not protect anyone. Censorship does not prevent bigotry, and in fact only serves to reinforce it.
Anyone who read this far and learned something: being an independent media censorship researcher doesnât exactly pay the bills, so check out my Ko-Fi or Patreon if you learned something and feel generous.
My main sources for this post are:
Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934, by Thomas Doherty
The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code, by Leonard J. Leff and Jerold L. Simmons
The Encyclopedia of Censorship, by Jonathon Green & Nicholas J. Karolides
Morality and Entertainment: The Origins of the Motion Picture Production Code - Stephen Vaughn
Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood, by Mark A. Vieira
Forbidden Hollywood: The Pre-Code Era (1930-1934), When Sin Ruled the Movies, by Mark A. Vieira
Hollywoodâs Censor: Joseph I. Breen & the Production Code Administration, by Thomas Doherty
And since you made me talk about Birth of a fucking Nation, here are some additional resources for people who are actually interested in Black media history:
Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation, by Nicholas Sammond
Archival Rediscovery and the Production of History: Solving the Mystery of Something Good - Negro Kiss (1898), by Allyson Nadia Field
Humor and Ethnic Stereotypes in Vaudeville and Burlesque, by Lawrence E. Mintz
The Original Blues: The Emergence of the blues in African American Vaudeville, by Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff
Waltzing in the Dark: African American Vaudeville and Race Politics in the Swing Era, by Brenda Dixon Gottschild
Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop, by Yuval Taylor and Jake Austen
Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, by Eric Lott
The Prettiest Girl on Stage is a Man: Race and Gender Benders in American Vaudeville, by Prof. Kathleen B. Casey
Dancing Down the Barricades: Sammy Davis, Jr. And the Long Civil Rights Era, by Matthew Frye Jacobson
Blackface, Whiteface, Insult and Imitation in American Popular Culture, by John Strausbaugh
A Change in the Weather: Modernist Imagination, African American Imaginary, by Geoffrey Jacques
Hollywood Black: The Stars, The Films, The Filmmakers by Donald Bogle
The Blackface Minstrel Show in Mass Media: 20th Century Performances on Radio, Records, Film, and Television, by Tim Brooks
Oscar Micheaux and His Circle: African-American Filmmaking and Race Cinema of the Silent Era, by Pearl Bowser, Jane Gaines, and Charles Musser
America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality at the Movies, by Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin
White: Essays on Race and culture, by Richard Dyer
Black American Cinema, edited by Manthia Diawara
Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World, by Wil Haygood
Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film, by Ed Guerrero
Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, by Donald Bogle
White Screens, Black Images: Hollywood From the Dark Side, by James Snead
Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism, by Nancy Wang Yuen
The Hollywood Jim Crow: the Racial Politics of the Movie Industry, by Maryann Erigha
The kids on TikTok think that just because he was a classic country singer, Johnny Cash was conservative??? My babies he covered a Nine Inch Nails song in his seventies.
Classic country singers (the majority of which came from poor roots) were always talking about how much The Man sucked because they were taking money from poor rural folk. Youâre gonna tell me thatâs conservative?? Get outta here.
And somehow on the opposite side of the scale with the same exact opinion the conservative kids say âI like the old country music, because thereâs no politics to itâ Woodie Guthrieâs got a âthis machine kills fascistsâ sticker on his guitar? You think thereâs no politics in 9 to 5 or Folsom Prison Blues?!
For anyone confused there was a sudden and dramatic shift in the country music genre. It used to be a genre fixated on the experiences of people. Lived or common experiences that resonated with the common people. It was music that you listened to and it thrummed in tune to your soul because you had lived it yourself. And a lot of that was about ordinary people getting ground up in the gears of society.
The hyper patriotism, beer, and trucks chimera we have now didnât show up until after 9/11 and the world is lesser for it
Allow me to post the entire lyrics to the Johnny Cash song âMan in Blackâ, released in nineteen goddamn seventy-one and written about why he always wore black onstage:
Well, you wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colors on my back
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone
Well, thereâs a reason for the things that I have on
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livinâ in the hopeless, hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime
But is there because heâs a victim of the times
I wear the black for those whoâve never read
Or listened to the words that Jesus said
About the road to happiness through love and charity
Why, youâd think Heâs talking straight to you and me
Well, weâre doinâ mighty fine, I do suppose
In our streak of lightninâ cars and fancy clothes
But just so weâre reminded of the ones who are held back
Up front there ought to be a man in black
I wear it for the sick and lonely old
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold
I wear the black in mourninâ for the lives that could have been
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men
And I wear it for the thousands who have died
Believinâ that the Lord was on their side
I wear it for another hundred-thousand who have died
Believinâ that we all were on their side
Well, thereâs things that never will be right, I know
And things need changinâ everywhere you go
But âtil we start to make a move to make a few things right
Youâll never see me wear a suit of white
Ah, Iâd love to wear a rainbow every day
And tell the world that everythingâs okay
But Iâll try to carry off a little darkness on my back
'Til things are brighter, Iâm the man in black
That right there is an anti-war, anti-bigot, anti-mass-incarceration, anti-war-on-drugs (Cash was an addict in various stages of recovery who was pissed as hell about how this country treats people with substance issues), eat-the-rich protest song. And it was arguably his signature song, his personal manifesto. Notice that even the Jesus reference, which today would be a signal that the song is about to drop some racist dogwhistles, segues immediately into a line about âthe road to happiness through love and charityâ. As in âMotherfucker, our shared god said love thy neighbor and care for the poor and the outsider, and we both know he didnât fucking stutter.â Heâs throwing shade at self-described Christians who use his religion as a cudgel to beat people with.
Johnny Cash wasnât a conservative. Iâm pretty sure if he were alive and in reasonably good health today, heâd knock Jason Aldeanâs teeth out (or, failing that, write a song so devastatingly memetic about how much Aldean sucks that Aldean would never work in music again).
Johnny Cash was punk rock. He just happened to be punk rock in the body of a country singer.
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