Yule

While my annual Yule celebration draws on many Scottish traditions, I must confess that I got a lot of these traditions from my mother, who was a paranoid schizophrenic. Since these traditions could have easily have come from her head as from her ethnicity, it's very possible that we are not having a Scottish Yule so much as a schizophrenic one.

"Saving Christmas" (director's cut)

I was disappointed.  I was expecting the worst movie ever made.  It was not.  I was expecting to laugh uproariously at fresh so-bad-it's-good hijinks.  I did not.  What I got was 80 minutes of hearing Kirk Cameron give an explanation of what Christmas really means that was so bizarre and so disassociated with anything approaching reality that more often than not I just wound up scratching my head and thinking "what?" 

That's not stupidity.  That's schizophrenia. 

My mother was a paranoid schizophrenic.  I know what it's like to try to have a reasonable conversation with them.  When you are in a confined space with someone who is giving you all the details of their particular delusion, you learned quickly to just nod your head a lot and agree with everything they say.  It's safer that way.  You know that they are all smiles and happy while they are confiding to you how the world REALLY works, but if they think for one moment that you don't believe them or are just humoring them, they will turn viscous and possibly violent.

The stuck-in-the-same-car victim in this case is Cameron's brother-in-law.  As he listens to Cameron explain that Christmas trees are little crosses in your house and that we decorate them with fruit so that Christ can replace the apple that Adam stole from the tree of life  (I'm not making this up,) we can just see Brother's discomfort.  We can see that he's thinking "get me out of here.  get me out of here."

At one point, he makes the mistake of questioning Cameron's view by asking, "but what about Santa?  That's not biblical."  Kirk responds by telling him the story of the REAL St. Nicklaus,  an angry man who responds to anyone disagreeing with his views by beating the living crap out of them.   Brother heeds this clear warning and shuts the hell up.

Brother-in-law eventually escapes from the car, breaks down the door to his own house, and looks at all his guests as though he is just relieved to still be alive.   The movie ends with everyone who ever feared for their lives after spending quality time with Crazy Uncle Kirk break dancing.   

Lessons learned

Things I've learned from 40 years of artistic endeavors:
1) Most people don't give a damn what you do.  Trying to get people to care just pisses them off. 
2) Of those that do give a damn, half want you to fail.
3) Half of those that want you to fail will do everything in their power to destroy your soul.
4) "Marketable Art" is an oxymoron. The vast majority of artists of any genre do not produce work that both speaks to their soul and resonates with the souls of non-artists.
5) Only artists with business minds make money at it.
6) Rules 4 and 5 do not apply to me. Therefore, I will never make money for any artistic endeavor I do.

The Once and never again friend

A friend recently posted a picture of women boxing and gave it the caption "Dyke Club." Others jumped on this thread to leave some of the most blatantly misogynistic and homophobic comments I have ever heard on Facebook. As usual, when I called them on their bullshit, suddenly *I* was the target of their posts. When I asked my friend to fix this situation, he said he didn't know that "dyke" was a slur and only removed the offensive replies. I accepted this compromise.

But the assholes continued to post their venom. Not only did my friend NOT delete these new comments, he actually called me a bitch for saying anything and demanding that he fix the situation.

This morning he asked me why I unfriended him. I explained that I will not accept being directly insulted for standing up to bigotry. I did tell him that if he apologized publicly (and no weasel apologies) I would refriend him. Rather than apologize, he said he didn't like being told what to do and removed his entire Facebook page.

Good riddance.

Apologies

Beware of an apology that starts with the word "if" (as in "if my words hurt anyone...") What they are actually saying is "I don't think I did anything wrong, but I will say something that sounds like an apology to the over-sensitive, butt-hurt pussies to shut them the hell up."