(G)libslop miasma and the criticism boom

This is a shorter episode about libslop, glibslop, the criticism boom, and not much more. <3

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello! Welcome back, party people! Alright, I got some fearless listener feedback that I need an intro song, so I should sing maybe now the intro song. I don't like this. I don't my heart's not in it. My heart is not in it. Let's take a breath. Let's get our hearts into a jingle. Let's get our hearts into a branding exercise. I don't like this. I don't like this. I don't like this. Podcast. There we go. There we go. Hearts and branding. My heart, I carry my heart in branding. And I carry branding in my heart. On a Friday. It's Friday. It's the end of the week. According to whatever construct has been given to us. It's just another day. It's just another day in Glamour City. And here we find ourselves. Well, I don't know where you find yourself, because I don't know when I'm gonna upload this. This is the thing. This is an occasional podcast. I strive for regularity, I strive for structure. Just naturally. I guess that's the I don't know. I don't know what astrologically that is. Where is where's my Pluto? Or Jupiter? What would govern that? Do you hear that? ADR. That is my laundry bag. I drop off my laundry, picked it up, and here we're together. I figured it's Friday. It's been a long week for me, I'm not gonna lie. I hope it hasn't been so bad. Well, it hasn't been bad for me. Let's not say it's been bad. It's actually been really great. I was upstate, I was with friends in the Adirondacks. It was lovely. It was lovely. There was a lot of hiking, there's a lot of cooking, there's a lot of general frivolity, there's a lot of cat's eye, there's a lot of Battle of the Fates, that Korean reality show. I think my friend saw um Jeremy Harris mention it in New York magazine and we watched it. Not on the Jeremy Harris recommendation. She sort of hid that or didn't remember that's where it came from. No offense to Jeremy Harris, but I don't know that I would have glommed onto it the way we did. It was very fun. It was very fun. I'm team Sisan Lee, I think, is her name. Oh, but also the one. Also the one who's kind of giving non-binary tease or there's kind of, I don't know, like I suppose trans is he's a shaman. There are a lot of shamans on the show. I'm team shaman. Team shaman overall. And um he's he's 18, but he wears a woman's he wears a woman's clothing. But it might just be his granny spirit. There's a lot of granny spirits around. And it might be his granny spirit that he's the that is really wearing that clothing. It's you know, it's not clear. The world is full of genders and different genders and different genders expressions. Genders expressions. Gender expressions. I'm gonna blow my nose. Gender makes my nose runny. Um and yeah, that show this beautiful demonstration of it. Uh yeah, so all good. All good there. That's roses. Thorn is my staph infection came back. Yeah that's a big thorn. Wasn't sure what it was. For those who were not longtime jackheads. Where do I begin with this? I got a staph infection that okay, yeah. Well, at the time I wasn't sure that it was a staph infection. In fact, my doctor first said it was syphilis. Yes. We've all been there, right? Hmm. Hope you not. I had not been there before. It's a shock to the system. It's a real shock to the system. I thought it was poison ivy. I thought I'd gotten poison ivy somehow in my other regions from the country. But but no, it was it was it was told to me that this was syphilis. And then on the follow-up, the doctor was like, maybe that was just a staph infection. Or not jest, but maybe that was a staph infection. And now it's come back. That was all a few months ago. Now it's come back, and at first I was like, whoa! And really, you know, it's upsetting. It's upsetting to see something happening in that area. And this was on the on the penis. Upsetting to see something happening in that area. But then I Googled, and apparently it's pretty common, relatively common, for staph infections to come back. So I think it's just staph infection, so I can treat it, which is a win. You know, secondary syphilis, not a win. Some other mystery infection, which I was like, oh dish. If it wasn't treated, because syphilis is easily treated, and if it wasn't treated, who knows? It's super bugs. But I mean, staph infection, no, I'm still seeing the doctor, still getting it treated. Don't worry, calm down. We're all good. We're all good. But yeah, for a while I was concerned about what was going on, and now it's like, okay, I get what this is. And I have very sensitive skin. That's something to know about me. That's some of my lore. Is I have sensitive skin. I get things like poison ivy. I got chicken pox twice. Never forget. Never forget I got chicken pox twice. Once as a tiny little baby, and another time as a 13-year-old, which was weird. It was weird. And you know, I just got a lot of skin things. Something's going on with my skin. Very active membrane with the world, right? Ugh, get that right, trigger. Gotta start saying wrong. Wrong? Um, and how did I get a staph infection of my penis, you ask? Well, there's a story there. There's a story there, and it's this is, I guess, maybe fast forward. If you're not interested in hearing about my body. I'm sure I won't dwell on it for long. We don't like to dwell on my body for that long. So I have a small foreskin. It didn't say small penis. Though we love small penises. I have a small foreskin, and if it gets like yanked back, or it has a tendency to get sort of yanked back in sex if someone's really not sure what they're doing, and it will cause some like chafing feeling, where like the foreskin meets the rest of the skin. There's so it sort of gets stretched at that point. So it can get a little not like raw usually. Though in this case, it did, I think, get a little raw. And it got, I think, a staph infection because it was inside someone's body. And you know, there's a lot of bacteria and butts. So I think, you know, if there's somewhere you're gonna get a staph infection, it's in someone's rectum colon. I'm not sure which which, I guess, I'm not just not sure which. I'm not sure which. Look it up. Look it up and tell me. And that's what happened. And it's come back, and now it's just my lymph node is swollen next to it, and I just was feeling kind of like uh a little bit sick and kind of I can tell something's off down there, because I just feel kind of like bloated, bloated down there. If you're listening to this and you're like a doctor and you are hearing warning signs of it's something else, let me know. Get in contact, DM me somewhere. Don't DM me, I'm really bad at DMs. No, DM me, it's always fun to see them. But I'm really bad at getting back. So, uh, I don't know, figure it out. Figure out the best way to alert me. Like the property brother, you know that story about the property brother? He was on TV and like his goiter was enlarged, I guess because of cancer, and a nurse was watching TV and saw it and said, got in contact with him and said, I think you should get screened for cancer. And sure enough, he had cancer. So TV, reality TV, save the property brother's life. Go figure. Go figure, ain't that a story? Write that in your book. I didn't. I think there's another reality TV person who that happened to. The same exact thing, actually. But I'm forgetting who it was. I don't know. I don't know at all, guys. Peoples. Babies. I don't know. You can look it up. You can look it up and DM me. What are we What are we talking about? What are we feeling? What are we feeling today? You know what I'm thinking about. Something, I guess, a lib slop. Lib slop to. I don't know if that's coining a phrase, but that's really what's on my mind. Liberal media. And why is it on my mind? So I'm gonna I got I got outreach from a reporter, writer, editor, I guess, editor at the at the New York War crimes to give comment about something. I won't say what. Obviously, part of me is like, whoa! Great career opportunity. Go for it, kiddo, get on there, give them quips. Give them quips. Not that they'll use it. But you know what? We're still doing the boycott. We're still doing the boycott of the war crimes, of the New York war crimes. So I have to decline. I have to politely decline. Politely and respectfully, and with gratitude for thinking of me. Laundry. With gratitude, I will say no. I will say no. Will it make a difference in the world? Who's to say? Who's to say? Who's to say? I'm not gonna say probably not. Because it could. It could. I don't know. I don't know. I think it's just I don't know. I just gotta draw the line somewhere, you know. I just don't think I could live with myself. I don't think I could really feel good about myself, especially when I have a friend visiting from Lebanon, from Beirut. Now, and just meeting up with him and talking with him, and just those friends, you know, people really living that day-to-day reality of the consequences of United States imperial power, you know. You know, not to be too heavy, but it really does drive home, as it were. It was so funny talking to him because he had never been to the US before, much less New York City, and he remarked about how you can really feel the empire. You can really feel the empire, you could really feel the imperial city in New York. And it's funny because it's it's like, you know, so much of when I talk with friends about New York City is like, oh, do you want to stay here? Do you not, oh, there's pros and cons, oh it's cheaper elsewhere, blah, blah, blah. You become obviously detached from everything that is funded and emanating, that like real, very real destruction and violence that is emanating out from New York City. And you just I just become a little I don't know, not glib about it, but you just I guess it gets normalized. You sort of forget, I don't know. I don't know. I mean you live we l I live in a little bubble. I'm a little bubble person. I'm a little soapish. And I don't know, we just gotta draw the line somewhere. We gotta really just wake up. Wake it up. We're sleeping. I'm sleeping. I shouldn't say everybody, I'm sure there's people out there doing all kinds of things. There's people who are wide awake. 24-7. You know, not me. Not me, I'm a little sleepy head, especially with this staph infection. I am tired. I should be out and about. I should be out and about. I had been going out and about though quite a bit. Post all my book activities. I was trying to do everything and be everywhere and talk to everyone. I think that's why the staph infection came back. Because I think I exhausted myself a little bit. All good stuff, but I think I gotta slow down. Slow down and record a podcast about the New York war crimes. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's got me thinking also just a bit about, yeah, the lib slop of it all. I think this is Jack on Jack. This is welcome back to Jack on Jack. We're gonna do a little Jack on Jack. It's funny thinking about this podcast and just thinking about podcasts in general, cultural commentary podcasts in general. And so much of it is just like content creation, right? And using pop culture, cultural criticism. We're gonna come back to that criticism, criticism as a jumping off point for creating content. Criticism slop, crit slop. When did criticism become such a huge culture slop driver? Because you know, there was there was like the comedy boom in the 2010s. Remember when everybody was taking improv classes and it was impossible. What was it? Up UBC, upright UCB, UCB. UCB. Everybody was trying to do it. I never partook of that, but you know, it was expensive and everyone was doing that. And then, you know, comedian boom, and we're I think we're s we see the effects of it. We see people like Boeing Yang and that whole gay guy comedian cohort, I think, came out of that time. I remember when all those all those people were in New York City and uh, you know, doing shows. Who did I see? I saw Julio Torres and O'Mary. Who's the O'Mary person? Cola Scola. And Cola Scola. I remember seeing them do a show somewhere at some weird Brooklyn space. I remember seeing John Early do something at Arsnova. All those people came out of that comedy boom. And then what else? What were the other booms? Podcast boom, hello. Look in the mirror, Jack. There's a podcast boom. And then I feel like there was a criticism boom. And I I understand where partially where I think it's coming from, which is criticism was getting cut at media companies. Critics were getting fired, critics of all kinds, budgets were getting cut back for criticism, and there was a lot of just like hot takes happening on social media. And you know, I'm really restraining myself from saying right, and I'm really proud of that. But but but but to get back on point, hot takes happening on social media, and so I think people became more invested. People, people who, I don't know, media people became invested in the idea of criticism. We're gonna rally around criticism. We're gonna rally around criticism. There's like now there's like the New Yorker has a critics podcast, New York magazine has a critics podcast, and suddenly everybody's a critic. And not in the not in that um, not in that phrase, the idiom, or whatever, but not in that expression, everybody's a critic kind of way, but but it really feels like everybody is not just a writer now, but everybody's you know, New York Review of Architecture, the Whitney review, all these reviews, the whatever, you know, it's become a sort of meme almost finance review, blah blah blah. Everybody is doing criticism, criticism and reviews. It's become, I don't know if it's chic. I don't think it's chic. I don't think it's chic. I don't think it's chic. It's just become a current. It's become the thing to do is to be a critic and do criticism. And I feel like it's not really this boom isn't really resuscitating a sort of I don't know, highbrow intellectualism, whatever, whatever the whatever the imagined role of criticism was, is, I don't know that it is that, and now it just seems like there's a lot of lib slop. You know, there's just a lot of rich, wealthy, relatively rich people just reviewing and criticizing things, and it's like, okay. Okay, to what end? To what end?

unknown 18:55

To what end?

SPEAKER_01 18:57

There's good stuff out there, and you you know the New York Review of Architecture, I know is a strong political stance, which I think is good. I I support strong political. I support just being upfront about your political position because everybody has a political position, right? We all know that now. And you can't pretend that you don't, you can't pretend to be some sort of 1950s imagination of a news organization that's unbiased, like the war crimes. You know, we're we're seeing through that now. So I think it if you're gonna write, I think it's good to be upfront about your political position and engage with that and take it on in some way, address it. You don't have to be writing propaganda for your whatever, but I think it's helpful to be aware of what your political position is so that you can intelligently engage with it, so that you can see where others with the same political position, what they've tried to do before, where they failed, where they've succeeded, there's a tradition that you can build on, there's things that you can learn from, you can just be smarter. You can be smarter about it, as opposed to just pretending to be whatever. And I think very few of these libslop criticism outlets are really doing that, and I think they just make lib slop, where they're just how many times can I say lib slop? It's just like what's the point? Like, sure we were just going back and forth about like, oh well, the trend cycle.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Oh wow. What's up with movies these days?

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Oh well, I don't know. Who cares? I mean, I care, obviously, because I'm doing this podcast, that's why this is a Jack on Jackson. I care, I'm doing those kinds of things, but I do struggle with like uh how to not fall into that glib glib slop. Glibslop puddle. Because it's a puddle. Not even a puddle now, it's like a morass. The glib slop morass. You saw something on Twitter about some Gen Z writer complaining about millennials just inventing phrases. Inventing phrases as a as a stand-in for actual criticism and critique. Now everybody just wants to coin a phrase. I'm coining phrases left and right, honey, and no one's picking them up. So that's how you know I'm not just doing it for the X or whatever. For the substack. I'm just doing it for the love of the game. For the love of words. Yeah? You hear that, David Foster Wallace? For the love of words, I'm just making up things. Glib slot morale. Yeah, that's right. I set it. That's right. Where are my shorts? Um. Yeah, I don't want to fall in there. I don't want to fall in there. I don't want to be part of it. And I guess just setting that intention. Setting that intention is good. I guess, yeah, not um talking to the war crimes. And not talking to the war crimes. I guess that is kind of executing on it. Yeah? I was supposed to take you all around town. I still haven't done that. And we're gonna blame the staph infection. Not to excuse things or blame. But we're gonna blame the staff infection. I'm trying to lay low. It's Friday, and I'm just gonna stay in tonight. I've been out and about. I went to Baltimore yesterday. I'm doing things. I was in the Adirondacks just two, three days ago. I don't know. Trying to take it easy. I think we all have to take it easy a little bit. I have a question. I have a I just uh off topic, just out there. And again, engage. I think I think in general, I would love listener submissions. So maybe we can get on that. If you know my phone number, send me a voice note. Or I guess you don't need to you can send voice notes any kind of way. So just send me a voice note, please. Send me a voice note about something you like, you don't like. I don't care. It's just something. We just need something to fill up time. Um, because we're making content. Okay? We're making glib slot morass content. But did everybody know that song? It's like, baby, where the hell is my husband? It's been so long. I always assumed that that song was like, Where's my husband? Because he's out and about in a sort of destiny's child's mode. Like, where's my man? Um, you know, if there's only if there's four of you eating out, why there are only two of you on this credit card receipt kind of thing. You know? Turns out no. Turns out no. I was informed by Straight Woman that that song is about like, where is my husband? How come I haven't met him yet? Where is he in the world? I'm waiting for waiting to meet my husband. I guess I just don't live in that position of yearning, huh? I don't know. Maybe I'm just I I was informed it's sort of a it's a common straight woman trope. Or like thing. Like, we're gonna go out tonight and meet our husbands. It seems kind of sad. Not to be judgmental. Love and light, love and light to everybody. That's a rule of this podcast is love and light. I don't know. That seems kind of a bummer. Going out to meet your husband? Is your husband out there?

SPEAKER_00 25:23

I don't know. I don't know if your husband's out there, but I support it.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

I support it. What am I watching? Vanderpump Villa. I've taken to dabbling in Vanderpump Villa, and there's a gay guy on there. There's a gay guy on there. Alert, alert, alert! There's a gay guy on there for the ages. His name is Hagen, I think, or Fagan. I don't know. You know what I can't do names. I can't do name recall. But he's giving what needs to be given in a very gay way that I support. He's kind of given something that I don't think I've really seen before on television, a sort of gosh, I don't even know. I haven't really thought about how, like, what is he actually doing? But it's something. It's something, like, it's very like offhand. He like barely delivers lines. He's not like exuding outgoing charisma or something. He's just kind of rolling his eyes at you know, the energy is those old episodes of next, the gay guys on old episodes of next, where it's like, yeah, I don't really know if I want to do this anymore, and you just walk off camera and you're kind of done. He's kind of giving that, it's like bitchy, it's it's good. It's good. It's good. We'll circle back to it in the future when I actually watch more than two episodes. The first episode of the third season has a dancing butler who has a panic attack on camera, locks himself into the bathroom, and then walks off the show. I'm just saying. Consider it. Consider it! Um, I'm just looking at my notes. Everyone is eating like a gay guy. Protein and fiber. Everyone is kind of eating like a gay guy. Protein and fiber. Oof. Okay, okay, the eye bag surgery gay guys older used to get. You see where my mind goes. Do you remember? Do you remember that surgery? Does anybody remember that surgery? There was guys who were like 50-ish. This was maybe like 10, 15 years ago in my youthful days. Just have a strong memory of many gay guys who got it. I think is it David Geffen who who got it? And you can see, it's like they get the the fat pouches, the under-eye fat pouches removed. So their eyes sort of like are like little stars. Little like stars bursting out. I don't think people get that surgery anymore. I don't think people get that surgery anymore. But what happened to that surgery? Where did it go? I haven't seen it in a while. I do think David Geffen is is the the the picture that comes to mind. Would love a deep dive. If someone could surface that. I don't know. Maybe it's a light episode this week. Glib slop. That eye surgery. Everybody wants to be millennials. I'm still on this. I haven't gotten off this. Everybody wants to be a millennial now. Did I already talk about this? I don't remember what I've already talked about. Everybody wants to be a millennial. I talked to somebody who was like 25 who's like, I'm kind of a millennial. I'm like, no. It used to be all about being Gen Z. Now Gen Z is like, what, like brain rot, scared to talk to people and like voting for Hitler and stuff. So I think people are no longer excited about Gen Z. They seem enfeebled. Gen X? Gen X? We've already talked about that. Neolib slop. No one's into Gen X. The worst generation. The lost generation. Good riddance. And everybody just wants to be a millennial now. Everyone's claiming millennial. Everyone from like 25 to 45. I don't think that works. Everybody used to rag on millennials. With our side parts. I don't know if they are. And skinny jeans. Now it's like that's all you got, Gen Z, is your middle part. That's all you got. You never did anything. Lost in the slop. No, no, no, no. Love and light. We love our Gen Z listeners. So many voicemails. So many voicemails. I don't know. I don't have too much. I haven't I haven't been reading. I've been writing. Writing is going okay. Writing is going okay. And there's like the first opening. I'm not gonna call it scene, but the opening. Is that chapter? I mean I guess it is just one chapter. The opening chapter. But it's long. My book. It's like gonna be like 8,000 words, which is very long. So it's like, and it's not just a scene, it's like you know, the whole opening thing. You know it's about drone pilots, right? So it's about the opening. These two op these two drone pilots, they're fucking. They're fucking each other. Shooting things. It's dystopic. It's not good. It's not good. I don't know. It's really tricky. It's really challenging to write fiction. Partially because yeah, I don't want to be libslop there too. And I feel like there's so much lib slop fiction. I feel like there's so much lib slop fiction, and I don't want to fall into that trap. But then also, yeah, like super didactic political fiction. You know, we've talked about this. Trying to do persuasive. There's a lot of things. There's a lot of things jumbling up in there, but it's just hard because I haven't written fiction in a long time. It's been years. It's been years since I have, and I'm just feeling like a baby gazelle. Like I don't know what to do anymore. I just wrote a book and in some ways feel confident about my writing. My non-fiction writing, I feel decently confident with, but the fiction. Fiction, I don't know! I'm just out there vulnerable, bearing my soul. Editors buy it. I don't know. I don't know that they will. I don't know that they will. People do love to buy stuff. People be buying. Maybe that's it for now. I'm gonna try to do an interview with somebody. Trying I gotta take you on the street. Big plans. Big things coming. Big, big things coming. For all my little beautiful jackheads. I love my jackheads. Each and every one of you. You all deserve great things. You all deserve beauty. Well, I assume that all the jackheads deserve blue beauty. I you know. I think so. Just search in your heart. Search in your heart and let me know. Do you deserve beauty? Do you deserve love and grace? And a a better world. A better world. A different world. Let me know. Call in. Leave me a voice memo. Leave me truly do actually though. Send me some voice memo. What do you like? What do you like? What do you not like? It's all good. Or not. Some good's bad. Lib slot my asthma. Lib slot my ass. We're gonna do better. I don't like this. I don't like this. I don't like this podcast.