Benjamin Franklin: America’s Most Famous Catfish

Editorials, Writing
No, not a LITERAL Catfish named Benjamin Franklin (it’s not even a clever gag…)

If it is not a whiskered lake fish then what type of catfish am I talking about?

Usually I would hypertext you a link towards the Urban Dictionary website but according to MERRIAM-WEBSTER themselves the second definition of a catfish goes as follows:

a person who sets up a false personal profile on a social networking site for fraudulent or deceptive purposes

I know what you must be thinking, “Mike, you silly little dingleberry, there wasn’t any internet in the 18th century. Let alone having a well respected American icon be a fraudster. Did you get this information from your aunt’s Facebook shares?”

First of all Facebook is lame (sorry anyone who have kids older than 15). Secondly, I’m pretty sure savage monk Martin Luther didn’t need a Twitter account to make his call-out thread cancelling the whole Holy Roman Catholic Church!

“This shit is gonna get so many retweets fr fr”

Low-hanging Millennial/Gen Z jokes aside, I believe that a lot of the things that the internet supposedly invented existed as a less evolved version. If you wanted to share a particularly controversial opinion like, say, dissolving your loyalty from the British monarchy in colonial North America then you can send a strongly worded letter to the local newspaper forum. Of course colonial newspapers at the time were more Chinese government than free speech entitled toxic political twitter, so any sort of bad-mouthing or constructive criticism would get you jailed for a fairly long time.

However, just because the colonial powers were violating now basic human rights doesn’t mean that you can’t have a little fun. That’s where little Benjamin Franklin comes in. Benjamin was one of those kids that really got writing. If Benjamin Franklin were to Dungeon Master a D&D campaign you could bet your bottom dollar he would find a way to spin your boring generic elf character into a Shakespearian tragic figure with more pages of emotional layers than a Scooby Doo ham sandwich. A 16-year old with such an affinity for the written word would surely like to prove himself somehow. His best bet was his brother, James Franklin, who ran a local Boston newspaper called the Courant. James, sadly, decided not to publish any of his letters towards his prestigious newspaper, despite the talent of the young boy.

But instead of sticking his nose down to finish his apprenticeship on his brother’s news press, he thought of something genius. Ben would think of a pen name so unlike him there would be no reason to suspect that the letters ever came from a 16 year old ambitious little brother. He would write as a widow named Silence Dogood, a poetic and witty lady with three children, who would charm readers to the point of getting romantic letters commending her wit and lamenting her sad backstory. Some even wrote to “Mrs. Dogood” to request her hand in marriage. That’s right, famous diplomat and American icon Benjamin Franklin catfished Boston as a 16-year old boy!

The smile of an absolute mad man

It went on for 14 letters, and Franklin feeling chuffed about getting a ton of attention and praise for his letters came clean towards James about the real identity of Ms. Dogood. Of course James responded with a nice friendly pat on th- just kidding James berated Benjamin and emotionally abused him for lying to him and breaking his trust to the point that the poor young Ben had to flee to Philly to escape the toxicity of his brother.

For those of you booing at James for this extreme reaction I would like to see you react towards THIS situation. Imagine running a highly acclaimed web forum/news site and hiring a sexy, smart, flirtatious content writer for your editorial section. Her opinions are concise, agreeable and outrageously funny; she responds to haters in the comments with enough playful wit to envy a Twitter account with a corporate brand name. I imagine you might think, “damn, too bad she’s anonymous… if I just knew who she was I could ask her out,” only to figure out that your snotty little brother who isn’t even old enough to finish high school made her all up.

I would be pretty damn pissed too.

Well as technology progresses more will stay the same, as evidenced by this story. Trolls will keep on trolling, haters will keep on hating, and people will still fake being women to dupe some poor sod.

Sloppy Bloggy Pump and Dump #1: Creativity

Editorials, Pump And Dump, Writing

I have a terrible tendency to start writing up a good draft, polish it a little to make it presentable, then dropping the whole thing because it doesn’t meet my perfectionist standards. When I say perfectionist I do not mean the type that allows the great creators to do stuff like the Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel. I mean the type that makes me go, “hmm this feels incomplete/wrong somehow so I will just never finish it because I’m bored now.” How disappointing is that!

So today I’m gonna do something that I will call a pump and dump, it is the writing equivalent of frantically jerking off in your friend’s bathroom while you’re having a sleepover at 8 pm before the whole family decides to wake up. Sometimes you get bored of looking through porn videos trying to find the perfect one to finally blow your load on, sometimes just a quick tug will do to appease yourself. In a less confusing and gross manner of speaking, I will begin to write garbage with minimal amount of editing in order to get content out there– in which I am not being paid for, by the way (ahem, you’re welcomed)

Anyways, it is time to set the theme for this first Pump and Dump. The theme will be about uuuhhh hmm…

Well screw it I’ll just RNG it- erm I mean, consult my big brain for a suitable topic to discuss

Alright, so my uh big brain tells me to discuss creativity and how I manage to be creative. Well big brain you’re sure feeling catty today considering I’ve been creating fuckall this past month or so. I haven’t even written a single word on my short story in like 3 or 4 weeks! And despite that I still call myself a writer somehow…

But here’s my pump and dump on creative inspiration, it is the girl that ghosts you and keeps leaving you on read until she gets bored and starts texting you in a way that drives you absolutely wild. You love her and you hate her at the same time, and you can never find a way to let go of her completely. The passion is just too strong, even though you’re convinced you don’t feel an iota of care towards her she can still bring you back down on her whim. Even so you will love every minute of it

In a way, I am lucky that my blog isn’t a thing that I do for work; the pressure of coming up with suitable content that you’re both proud of and grabs attention of a money giving audience would be a lot to bear. Or you could also call that unlucky because that pressure might be what I need to get my butt off the lazy chair and start developing as an artist.

Either way, I feel like my brand of creativity wouldn’t fetch a huge audience. Most of my fellow writers are 30 something with kids and a nice blonde wife or bearded husband, and I’m just a bisexual guy in his early 20s who writes about weird stuff.

So how do I find a way to be creative? Well in fiction I just write how I’m feeling and use that feeling to create a different story. If I’m struggling with social media addiction my character will struggle with alcohol, if I’m struggling in a relationship my character will struggle with a close friendship. It is not a very reliable creative process but it’s the only process I’ve known.

Perhaps the reason why I’ve written less might be due to my unwillingness to step out of my bubble and start living more out there. Hmm, there’s a thought…

That makes this week’s pump and dump, next week I’m going to the astral world to have an interview with Sir Sigmund Freud about my sexual identity. See you then!

Where are the poems, you charlatan!

Writing
“I get to write reviews and vent while also gaining an audience without the risk of people making fun of my art. This is will be almost as profitable as my homeopathic medicine business venture!”

If you glance at the top of my blog page you will see ” SHORT STORIES, POEMS, and misc. junk”. So far I’ve only really given you more misc. junk and less art made by yours truly, so I guess it is time for the…

Vulnerability Hour 🎉🎉🎉

To preface this whole sharing of my poem, I must insist that I am not a career type poet. I don’t regularly sit beside a tree contemplating how to colorfully describe the sunny day nor I am a methodical and tortured soul trying to paint a gloomy feeling using iambic pentameter. I don’t read poems by the late greats nor the rising stars, I can barely remind myself to read the biography of my favorite president. I am, however, a writer and writers must at least try poetry because for me poetry is just a minimalist version of a story. Stories are a recount of people’s feelings and poems are those feelings distilled to its very essence — its soul.

“I am not a poet” – Mike, tortured poet blogger of the 21st century (not pictured, image courtesy of internet image search for “poet holding skull”)

So prepare your Green Day records and black eyeliner, people, because this poem has a bit of a sad vibe going on. Here we go.

I freeze my bridges
Make the slippery
Make them dangerous
Make them unapproachable

It feels lonely
Having my bridge be desolate
Having your bridge be treated as dangerous

Scorching heat give easier way
But nobody wants to cross
Because now I’m just a
Very Ill-maintained
Very boring
Very sad

Formerly iced bridge

Now only ghosts inhabit my bridge
They silently whisper around the pillars
They gently stroke my ropes
Softly caress the grass growing in my pavement
Kind ghosts
Neglectful ghosts

I miss them

Crimson leaves now fall into the cold water with a ripple
My weeds and grass are drying
Dying
Everything is getting colder
So beware, the sign in front says

Bridge May Ice

Bridge May Ice, Written by me around April-ish
also notice the first three paragraphs looks like a suspended bridge heeheeheeee~ thanks Red Wheel Barrow for the idea

Now I won’t be explaining the nuances of the poems; I’m the really chill English teacher that wants you to gather your own meaning of the text, only using biographical information as a supplement (for those who don’t believe in killing the author). The next paragraph I’m gonna give you some of that biographical background about my own life leading up to that poem, so if you want to shoot me and drag my rotting corpse away from my work then skip the next paragraph.

This poem I wrote in a very wistful sort of mood. See I’ve moved from one state to another: with a broken heart over a breakup, losing all of my co-worker friends in real life (foolishly not keeping up with them over insecure fears) and losing online friendships over changes in personality that comes from me maturing past mean spirited jokes and opinions. It made me reflect on how my childhood I was a very introverted and lone wolf type of boy. I was literally the kid sitting in the parking lot listening on his MP3 player and waiting for recess to be over. Although I wasn’t completely alone for most of my school days, I never really kept a friend for more than 5 years, which is a shame and a terrible habit on my part. I’ve spent all my current life burning bridges, intentionally or not, because of a fear of losing people.

Maybe in a few years time I will look on this poem and wince at the sheer whiny angst and scoff at the audacity of me writing a weepy poem with such poor craftsmanship, harumph! For now, though, I am proud of it; proud enough to share it with people I might never even meet. Even if you or I think my poem is a waste of valuable server space then who cares, at least past me had the courage to express himself. The tragedy of human nature is that we often want to express ourselves, even our most ugliest sad selves, but are too afraid to take that action. But I say phooey, life is too short to care for such trivialities — let you be you

And in the most masterful, artisan, purple prose way I can state this: Fuck the haters.

Drue Langlois? More like DRUG Langlois haha drugs are funneee

Review, Writing

(Hey man, coming up with clever blog titles is hard. Not every one of them are gonna be zingers)

Whoa, what’s this? Actual blog content??

Inhaling the positive gas in his little happy apocalypse

Y’know, there really isn’t much variety in your day to day apocalypse. Everything seems to be mutant/zombie/psychopathic bandits infested survival with big guns and Mad Maxian high octane, high adrenaline rusty car death-races (neon colors sold seperately). Boooooring.

Now, have an apocalypse about a lone man running a TV show in a futile attempt to communicate with a long dead civilization as poorly disguised celebrity robots actively try to sabotage his show with jeers, insults, and negative thinking . You got me on the damn phone, Mr. Operator!

Drue Langlois’ YouTube channel has that quintessential “staying up late at night while your parents are asleep and discovering a weird ass show at 4 or 5 am in your sleepy stupor” experience. What makes his animation so unique is his use of rotoscope, a method used by animators where they essentially trace over video recordings with the goal of fluid and realistic movement.

Look at that ghost GO

Now some may ask, “how do you rotoscope anything that isn’t dancing or gesturing in one spot”. The reasonable answer would be, duh, use a treadmill. Drue Langlois’ answer? Well…

  • INTENSE

Now to be fair, it’s not rotoscope 100% of the time (I imagine that’s what hell must be like to all the sinful animators or people who pay artists in exposure) but that style is very notable in his work. I am a huge fan of this type of oddly unorthodox method of animation, each fall and fumble gives it a Charlie Chaplin-style slapstick that’s lost in more simplistic forms of cartoon animation.

Also if that earlier .GIF doesn’t convince you to check out Drue Langlois’ YouTube channel then I’m not even sure we share the same universe. In which case hello GribGu,nk;N’ubNob, I hope the Gorbulon Rebellion is going well for you. Now Grib ol’ pal, put your rebel laser revolver down for a sec let me explain to you why you should give this guy a shot (not a literal one!)

What I like about this guy

Going through every single one of his vids including his work for the Minute Hour YouTube channel would be overkill for any blog post, so I’ve narrowed my attention to two of his animations. First his surreal series called Staying Positive in the Apocalypse and secondly his awesomely goofy one-episode short Dudes in Hazmat. A Hyperlink will be provided for thou in the title of the headings, if thou so choosest.

Staying Positive in the Apocalypse, with your host Plague Roach

Everybody welcome the REAL Stan Lee. The real deal, totally not a robot trying to depress a lonely, sad, pathetic human being making a TV show that no one will ever watch let alone be ABLE to watch. Oh shoot, my r̵͙͉͔̔͝ǔ̶̲̈́̉̂̌b̶̡͍̲̄͂̈́͐̔b̴̧̨̪̹̬͛͂̕͘ë̵͎́͛̓̑̈́r̴̖̎͠ ̵͇̟͙͙̲̿͋͝ḿ̵̡̮̮̥̮̀͝ã̷̫͙̬̞͝s̸͈͔͆k̴̡̰̑̃̓̀ ̸̼͇̍͆̌̒̒ị̵̡̗̻͙̋̀̄̏s̵̙̳̤̞͊̄̔ ̴̝͚͍̠̓͗͑̿͘m̵̟͓̭̤̒͋̽ḙ̷̻̟̙͑l̵̯̯̯̜͉̽̕t̷̢̗͔̞̖́͋̾͘i̴͔͍̦͙̹̋n̴̨̥͉̘͌͋̊g̸̺̾͌̎̀͑

I find this 4-episode series to be one of his more intriguing works. The pilot starts off really zany, with the dialogue showing its potential to be a dumb non-sequitir comedy ala Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast. It shows Stan Lee babbling about creating Joan of Arc and Seinfeld, as well as having Plague Roach —the main character —teaching you a survival tip by rubbing a tin can of soup on a slab of concrete for 20 seconds.

The pilot does a very good job explaining the concept of a lone survivor trying to make the best out of a hopeless post-apocalyptic environment, even though the tone is kind of out-of-wack. Sometimes I’m not sure if I should laugh at Plague Roach’s hopeless situation (my default response considering the absurdity of the premise), feel sad for his hopeless situation, or root for him to overcome his hopeless situation. Thankfully these minor issues kind of get resolved in later episodes, where the comedy peaks at the second episode with its meta commentary on the pilot and the tragedy and mystery being introduced in the later episodes gradually.

I could go on about the how genuinely enjoyable these five minute episodic shorts are but I would do a disservice just explaining it to you, especially with Drue’s unique animation style adding a ton to the comedy and the great delivery of the voice actors.

Hazmat Suit Musical: Dudes in Hazmat

How the hell do I even caption this? “When both of you are high as fuck and decide to look up videos on LiveLeak”? Nah, some things are best left uncaptioned

Dudes in Hazmat is one of those rare gems that the YouTube algorithm graciously gives you in the spur of the moment, like seeing a cool ass T-shirt on a dingy thrift store full of grubby shirts with oddly specific events in their design (Montana Dirt Bike Race 1985, Go Team Jacob!) and floral patterned XXL woman’s blouses. What I am saying is that when it hit my home page the thumbnail and title hit a certain synchronicity with me. I just KNEW clicking this video would not disappoint me, it was almost destiny.

You know how in Ratatouille when the harsh critic ate something and it transported him into his happy childhood where his mother graciously gave him the same dish which most likely inspired his career as a food critic? Well that was me looking at his thumbnail, except I was some grubby 12 year old kid being scared poopless by Robot Chicken’s intro and laughing at a talking buttcheek with a gun

This vid is my first exposure to Drue Langlois’ work and I say it is the best vid to watch to dive into the “bonkers fruit candy” world of his animations. Despite what the cover might suggest, the premise of the short itself is pretty tame in the sense that you won’t be seeing exploding robot celebrities. But the dialogue and the gorgeously animated slapstick is straight up DELICIOUS, they’re is dumb in a special kind of way that’s dear in my heart.

Can’t forget about the music in this short —the intro music and the “can of whoop ass” musical number — which complements the brilliance of his animation style. Drue really is in his best when his work is accompanied by some kickass music, from the dread filled soundtrack of Staying Positive in the Apocalypse to his mindscrew music video made for his musician friend.

So to compound this in an equation:
Rotoscoped fumbling * Funny dialogue + that freaking musical number = Go watch it now

It really is a shame that this is only relegated to a one episode short so far, with the proper support I bet that this series would get a hefty following. It sure as hell got at least one fan, considering I’m blogging about it with some praise. Although I severely doubt my blog will ever get to a high enough place where I can give people a bajillion subscribers with one shout-out, I can at least clap alone in the sidelines while pointing my beer at him with a smile that says, “you’re doing OK, man!”

L O

Journal Stuff, Writing,

(Pssst, title is a reference to the first internet message ever received, in case you’re confused)

Let it be known that in April, 08th of 2019 — I have decided to make the gargantuan, impossible, inconceivably genius act of… starting a blog on the internet. To be totally honest, I’m not sure if making a blog will help me accomplish my goal of becoming a recognized author. However, I find making and updating a blog will help me learn a bit about content creation, at the very least.

I hope that the theme I’ve picked up isn’t too much of a gaudy retro-70’s nightmare, but all the other themes were too “business suit professional” which really isn’t my style. I’ll most likely hire a professional web designer if I decide to upgrade my WordPress so that I can pick a more suitable domain name and style.

Oh lord…

Anyways, what I mostly want to accomplish with this blog is to sort of crystallize my thoughts and provide updates on my projects. In other words, I’m making this blog to have an embarrassing diary so that people can come and laugh at it a sort of publication that shows proof of my proficient writing skills and dashing personality.

Poetry, short story drafts, weird shower thoughts that nobody but me cares about, editorials, reviews, weird stuff that has happened in my life, all these things and more are gonna come to this blog (preferably on a timely schedule). So without further ado…

WELCOME TO THY SHOPPE