Deniable Plausibility

 ...count your blessings that you don't have to buy them at ridiculous prices from a  cartel  supermarket in Australia. $1.50 for a single fucking lemon! Get rekt, dickheads.

  Attention studio bosses! Would you like to   make a shit TV show or movie sink an existing franchise lose a metric fuckton of money, your audience, your credibility, and have everyone giggle at your expense?    You would? Great! All you need to do is follow contemporary Hollywood's tried-and-tested formula: STEP 1 Create and air a show that leans HARD into identity politics, gender-swapped and/or race-swapped characters, and girlboss feminist bullshit. Bonus points if it's in a genre with a predominantly male audience i.e. sci-fi, fantasy, action. Regardless, make sure your white male characters are villains, comic relief, and/or weak and ineffectual STEP 2 When your audience baulks at your show's dumb content, immediately denounce  them as toxic woman-hating bigots. Ignore the fact that they're paying customers STEP 3 Claim that your show is a massive hit. Recruit media shills to help sell this obvious lie - spin, spin, spin! STEP 4 Renew your attacks on anyone who

This story takes place at my grandparents’ house at Christmas in the early 1980s. I was about 5 or 6 years old. My aunt was spending time with my cousin, letting her choose something from her collection of costume jewellery. I wandered over to look. I wasn’t particularly interested in what they were doing, but my aunt must have assumed that I was envious of the attention my cousin was getting. “Don’t worry,” said my aunt, “it’s boys’ turn next time.” It was at that point that I became excited. Boys' turn! Oh man, surely that was something to look forward to! And so I waited patiently for weeks, months - and then years - but boys' turn never came. I didn't say anything because I thought my aunt was as good as her word. But she wasn't, and I lost respect for her. I get that people have a lot going on in their lives and maybe forget things, but she made me feel that I wasn't important to her. What's the moral of this story? YOU might forget the promises you

When I was 3 or 4 years old, I lived next door to a girl called Rachel. We were the same age. She used to come over to play from time to time, and I remember having a bath with her once at her house. Our fathers were friends; Rachel's dad was a graphic artist and they used to work on oil paintings in a garage studio.  Rachel played rough with my toys. She often broke them, and in particular she used to grind the belly of my Fisher-Price aeroplane into the concrete walkway in our backyard. It made me mad. Our place was enclosed by a wall-of-splinters fence about 2 metres high with a gate set in it. It was all painted mission brown because 1970s. One day Rachel came to the side of the house where I was playing and asked me to open the gate. To spare my remaining toys from destruction, I said no. She ignored me and began climbing over the fence, but not before she asked me to hold her Vegemite sandwich. The sandwich was a single slice of bread that was buttered and Vegemited on on

Once upon a time in a land far away, I worked for a recruiter. They were based in another city and I didn’t work for them directly, but they paid my salary. The job was a pretty standard ESL teaching gig, the sort of thing a normal person tolerates for a year or two before finding something better. Naturally, I stayed in the role for four years. About the only good thing you could say about the recruiter was that they paid on time. Otherwise they were dogshit. There was no career path, and they offered no bonuses for performance or incentives of any kind. No raises, either, including adjustments for inflation! They were also very difficult to contact, especially if you needed them for anything. As soon as they got on you on board, they more or less ignored you. A year or two into my contract, the recruiter sent me an email. They need me to give them Document X. I delete the email. I figure that if they don’t respond when I need stuff, why should I be any different? Being considerate is

My last post got me thinking about how anyone can write mediocre poetry. People do it all the time without really trying. On the other hand, it's much more difficult to deliberately write something that is truly awful. So I thought I’d have a go. Have I succeeded? Waste of a Vagina Why can't you be a normal bitch with half a mind to suck my dick? Instead you are a grating vegan, witchy, gay, eschewing penii.

NB This happened in high school. I was standing in line outside the classroom, waiting for our English teacher while chatting with  my best pal, Steve. Me: How’d you go with the assignment? Steve: Huh? What assignment? Me: Er, you know… the assignment? We had to write a sonnet? Steve: (looking panicked) Shit! Was that for today?! Yes, the sonnet assignment was due today. And as I looked on, Steve took out an exercise book, scribbled down something on a page, and tore it out. Just like that, he wrote his poem and finished the assignment. The entire process took a couple of minutes at the very most. On the other hand, I had spent hours working meticulously on my sonnet. It was: heartfelt about enduring love super romantic in iambic pentameter. In short, it had the traditional content in the traditional format. It was everything a sonnet is supposed to be. I was very proud of it and confident that our teacher would reward my efforts. About a week passed. I didn’t know what