Distracting myself from the end of the world, I do some gardening. Famous anti-semitic poets mentioned: T.S. Eliot. Apparently his anti-semitism is a matter of debate so I can no longer say for sure that it is so. Other subjects broached: Autism, rescue dogs, removing suckers from the pear tree, how long the 1918 pandemic lasted for, a rolling stone gathers no moss, dandelion pulling, up by the roots. Keep some to attract bees, not leaving cars sitting for long periods of time, gas prices, flying ants, Japanese knotweed, the dangers of raccoon poo to your health, smoke trees, hot tamales.
I may know some things about gardening, but all the same, fact check me.
Listen to the episode below (HotFRM 238 137mb 59m51s)
More depressing discussion about the end of the world. The beautiful people of Tik Tok. Boostagrams. Premptive Strikes. Abortion. Building love into robots. Deep talk about the consciousness of biological beings. Trying to simulate life on earth. The impossibility of humans to think in terms of deep time. Retirement. Overnight Chia.
Today I have another conversation with Madge Weinstein of Yeast Radio. The conversation will be cross-posted there. And will be slightly different so listen there too.
Birds Nest Fungi in Our Rock Garden at Summer’s End
Things don’t start well for me. I have numerous technical problems despite the fact that I tested my setup before the show was to begin. The problems started when I noticed that the battery was drained on the crappy computer I was going to use. Actually the computer isn’t that crappy. But the power cable is flaky. The laptop rebooted when I reconnected the power, delaying me further. I had to swap laptops and cables, and reset all my inputs, outputs and levels. But that’s amateur podcasting for you. Raw and real. You know like Prince coughing in his Raspberry Beret video or Lucy misting up when Desi kisses her on air. Even so, you might thank god for the fast forward button. There are a few other minor glitches you’ll hear, but we soldier on.
Also. Trigger warning. Our sometimes stream of consciousness conversation is guaranteed to offend everyone in some way. We mispronounce some names and we swear. I also get the bomb that is dropped on England, in the movie Threads wrong. The bomb goes off 20 miles from Sheffield, not in the South China Sea. The South China Sea one goes off in the TV series Years and Years.
Madge asks me to explain Andrew Gallimore’s concept of the Hypergrid which I fail at miserably. I think I need to have Gallimore on the show so he can explain it himself. Also we wonder how the plural of fungus is pronounced. I love the English language. Do you know it has the largest vocabulary of any language in the world. Why? I think because English speakers have absolutely no shame when it comes to just making up words as they go along. It’s a long tradition You know like quark and smog and snog and laser and google and irregardless. (Sorry about that last one. Speakers of a certain age will not accept irregardless as a word and will view you with much disdain if you use it around them). English speakers proudly steal from every other language, (French and German are favourites), and such words are promptly incorporated it into the lexicon. Other words can crop up without warning ,and suddenly, crowdfunding, deplatforming and whataboutism are things. Don’t even get me started on English spelling.
Madge and I cover a lot of ground. Listen to the show right here:
Today, I have a conversation with one of the bravest people I know. Buck Angel is a transman who began his transition from a woman to a man twenty-five years ago amid personal turmoil, against the tide of social convention, and during a time when little was understood about how to medically transition from female to male. He was a trailblazer in the pornography industry and became famous for his work in that space. He was then and still is an activist. Today, he considers himself the Tranpa and an elder of the transsexual/transgender community. He spends his energy working with the LGBTQ+ community, with youth, the homeless, and others. He has developed sexual and other wellness products exclusively for the transman community and has a cannabis business in California.
We talk about how he feels about this time in American history, possible ways to heal the divide, and what his fears and hopes are for the country and for the transgender community.
In this episode I talk with long-time friend and pod-colleague Madge Weinstein, of Yeast Radio, who happens to be my cousin about 30 times removed. After all, we are both descended from the same 350 people that may have originated from the middle east and settled in eastern Europe around the fourteenth century.
Keeping roses in cold water. Trump. Biden. Pence. Harris. Authoritarianism. Ancestry. Eudaimonia. The end of democracy. Lack of critical thinking skills. Yuval Noah Harari. Global Warming. Marvin the Depressed Android. 23 and Me. Being kicked out of the middle east because we ate with our mouths open. Shtetls. Audio tech. Genderqueerness. Stonewall. The fly on Pence’s head. Political theatrics. The narrative is what it is. Nonbinary should extend beyond gender. Don’t stay in your ideological bubble. Health Care Terrorism. Canadian Health Care that we pay for with our taxes which I completely omitted to say – so sorry to mislead. ObamaCare. Money talks. Activism. Direct action. The end of democracy. The Green New Deal. Did I say, the end of democracy?
Shelter In Place, Physical Distance, and Wash your Hands Unless Otherwise Instructed
Last week a friend sent me a link to a removed YouTube video and the question, “Censorship?” That sent me on a search for the video by Drs. Erickson and Massihi, two Californian physicians who want sheltering-in-place ended in their state. The doctors provide unsubstantiated claims about the virus SARS-COV-2 and one even goes as far as suggesting that there will be gun violence about this issue. This video is full of misinformation, pseudoscience, false hopes and fear-mongering. You are free to watch it, do your own research and make up your own mind, but I give you this rant in any case on a sunny cool spring day during my lockdown. Let me know what you think. (Have I ever said how much I love spring in Canada?)
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