Clap Backs & Commentary, Part 1

Political Punk, Ken Follett, and Enshittification

Welcome to the first of a new regular feature that I’m probably calling Clap Backs & Commentary. I say probably because who fucking knows if I’ll keep that name? When I made my first ever “shit went down” post on April 18, 2020, it was not titled On This Day in History Shit Went Down. Rather, I called it “Today in Fucked Up History.” Then a couple of days later I changed it to “On This Day in Motherfucking History.” It was the seventh post, on April 24, in a story about Annie Oakley, that I finally settled on the right title.

Anyway, muthafuckin’ clap backs n’ shit.

Yesterday was my big announcement about dropping my Facebook posting by about 90% and focusing instead on this place because people actually read these emails (my open rate is more than double the industry standard) and there are no worries about algorithmic Facebook fuckery. (There is also a Substack app you can get notified on and even silence the emails if that is more to your liking.)

The campaign is going swimmingly. It will take a good week for the ad to reach all my Facebook followers, but just in the first 24 hours there are 5,000 new subscribers here. Welcome!

Let’s talk punk.

Green Day welcomed the New Year with a performance on ABC’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest Because Dick Died in 2012. That last part I added myself. Anyfuckingway, the band played their 2004 hit “American Idiot,” a protest song about President Dubya’s war on terror bullshit, and tweaked the lyrics to apply to the modern state of American political fuckassery.

Instead of “I’m not part of a redneck agenda,” frontman Billie Joe Armstrong sang, “I’m not part of a MAGA agenda.” And in true MAGAt fashion, the Trumpanzees misplaced all of their excrement. Fascist Twitter, of course, was especially vexed, and presented me with this opportunity for some fun:

Note that Steffi totally got ratioed. I just checked the latest numbers, and she has 6,100 replies to only 1,300 likes. And yeah, she and her husband are fucking Nazis. Of course, she’s holding a gun in her profile pic.

Stupid Nazis at that. I think I’ll write a history post about how punk has always been highly political. Not just punk, but a lot of other genres of music. Hell, read my May 4 story about the Kent State Massacre and how Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young wrote the song “Ohio” about it.

A brief technical aside: I am a fucking Luddite, and only learned this a few years ago and it’s been a game changer. Substack does not allow me to program in links opening in a new tab. So, if you want to read that link or any others that I put in here without losing your place on this post, right click the link and the top menu thingy should say “Open Link in New Tab,” allowing you to finish the story you’re reading and save other tabs for later. I only have eight tabs open right now. That’s low for me.

On a related note, “God” on Facebook, whose page I like commenting on because he tees up lots of opportunities for me to be a smartass, commented on the Green Day story and so I had some fun with it. Yes, that’s a real translation. I screen capped it myself.

Speaking of God, here’s another post he made in the last couple of days that I commented on, stealing an old joke from the one and only Robin Williams.

Most of you know I’m Canadian, and the fact is I love both the U.S. and a lot its people. It’s why I’m so upset that the nation is infiltrated by so many Nazis. And we’ve got our problems up here as well. The reason why I complain about the meth lab is that it inspired our own northern fascists to be just as shitty. There are plenty of Trump fans in Canada. Ugh.

In other news, I just finished reading an older Ken Follett book, A Dangerous Fortune. I’ve read over a dozen of his books and have concluded that his formula is “love triangle some time in the past.” The true loves are always thwarted in being together until the very end, but love eventually finds a way.

I’ve read all of his Kingsbridge series, except the most recent one. I have it on my e-reader but am currently reading John Scalzi’s latest, Starter Villain, before reading the most recent Kingsbridge book The Armour of Light.

Ken made a post recently where he used AI to generate images of characters in that book. I admire him and his writing, but couldn’t resist making a wee joke:

And finally, a couple of updates. One is that I am now officially an award-winning author. Well, way back in 1998 I won the “Canadian Council of the Americas Essay Prize” during my MBA for a mini thesis I wrote on cross cultural business behaviors between North and South America, but that’s it. I’ve never won shit for my writing since then, until now.

For 2023, I am one of the winners for the books category of The Tucker Award for Excellence in Swearing. It’s interesting to note that, what with my tirade yesterday about Facebook going to shit, that the winner for best new swear word was Cory Doctorow with “enshittification” to describe in detail how many social media platforms, Facebook included, have gone to shit.

And finally, a Wikipedia editor decided I was a notable enough person to create a page for me. I posted about it on Facebook, lamenting that these Wikipedia profiles “usually have a dorky as fuck photo included,” and that my profile was no exception. In the comments, one person provided some hearsay evidence to back up my suspicions.

And the choosing of dorky photos was confirmed by an actual editor:

Fuck my life.

That’s it for now. If you want to go paid there is a new post for those folks coming soon:

And if you don’t have a copy yet don’t forget to buy On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down. It sold out over the holidays and has just gone into its second printing. That’s a career milestone for me.

Story about a badass pirate queen coming soon.