Currently reading Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser

The thesis of the book is basically that environmental pollution, particularly lead, might be the thing that caused so many serial killers to pop up during the period of the late '60s to the late '70s. Only half way through it so far, and not quite convinced by the theory yet. Although it’s indisputable that such pollution can damage brains to a severe degree, I’m just not sure how you get from “damaged” to “I’d better serial kill some women”. Random violence and anger management issues, sure. But the highly specific and MO-driven criminality of serials killers seems like something else entirely. We’ll see what evidence comes in later chapters!

EDIT: Finished. Yeah, sounds like complete bullshit to me. She was even attributing the existence of the Bloods and the Crips to smog, for fuck’s sake. It’s as though she’s genuinely unable to imagine any reason for any violence other than pollution-induced brain damage.

I think I blocked a couple of accounts years ago that were just reposting ancient memes from reddit in bot-like numbers. But it seems like the majority of content here falls under that category, so blocking seems futile. Can’t even use downvoting to correct the issue because our votes aren’t private/anonymous here and I don’t need a large account seeing that I downvote their content every time I come across it. It would have to feel personal at that point 😆

I don’t mind big accounts in principle, I just don’t want to see memes from 2018 being reposted every day with the same titles, and for there to be no other content from those accounts.

I had a hilarious dream just last night! Remember recently when Quentin Tarantino was talking shit about the acting skills of Paul Dano? I dreamt that Paul was in a new movie, and was acting hard, like, really giving it insane levels of energy, and after every line he delivered he’d glance at the camera with an expression of exasperation on his face, as if to say “is THAT good enough for you, ya cunt??” directly to Tarantino.

Some early shock/gore site discussion below, spoilered in case you don’t wanna read about such things.

When the internet was first introduced to me in around '97 or so, in IT class in high school, the only thing I really did was look for URLs on products around the class or in my pockets. For example, Pepsi had a website, Peperami had one too. I also created an email account on Hotmail.com, and I believe we did some chat room stuff in IRC or ICQ or one of those things.

One day during a lunch break at the same school, I looked up porn and actually found some, although I have no memory of what the site was called. I got scared though, and closed the browser as soon as I saw nudey ladies. I’m sure the teacher checked the browsing history (something I had no idea about back then) and saw what I was looking at, but he never said anything to me about it. Legend 🫡

I’m sure the obvious picks are already mentioned, so I’ll try to think of some stuff that might not be well-known:

Shane Meadows has produced 2 TV series worth watching. One is the This is England collection. It starts with This is England (2006), which is a film, then 3 miniseries (This is England '86, This is England '88 and This is England '90) that continue the story. All of it together is about as good as TV gets. Might wanna check for triggers before watching on something like doesthedogdie.com.

He made a second miniseries called The Virtues. It’s a difficult watch at times, but it’s a masterpiece. And it’s another one you might wanna look into before watching.

There’s a show that was very popular in the UK and Ireland back in the '90s called Cracker. It stars the late great Robbie Coltrane (you probably know him better as Hagrid from Harry Potter). He plays a psychologist who works with the police to find and interrogate various kinds of pathological killers and sex offenders. It’s really, really good. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s ever been released on anything but DVD, so you’ll be stuck with SD quality.

Say Nothing is a recent show that does a really nice job of dealing with ‘the troubles’ in N. Ireland. It’s based on real events, the most central of which is the abduction, murder and ‘disappearing’ of a widowed mother of 10 children by the IRA. Jean McConville is one of 17 people who were disappeared in this way, and is by far the most notorious given her circumstances. The story - based on the book by Patrick Radden Keef - follows Dolours Price, a female IRA member who was a significant figure in the conflict and who was involved in Jean McConville’s abduction. One of the better shows I’ve seen generally, and probably the best bit of media on the N. Irish troubles (there’s so much junk about this place, it’s refreshing to see something half-decent for once). If you need a palate cleanser after watching it, Derry Girls should do the trick!

I agree about Ricky Gervais. I actually liked him in The Office, but in everything else - before and after - he is just fucking awful. Talk shows, stand-up, speeches, podcasting, he is a desperate, strained and insecure performer. When he’s telling a joke, it’s like every word has had to be pressed out of a gland with a clenched fist before the next word can be milked free; it’s clear he’s just saying the words in the correct order, and not performing it. He is never present and ‘in the moment’, and seems to be in a perpetual state of panic about his own inadequacy. If he were actually a decent person instead of whatever the fuck he has become, I wouldn’t be saying this about him. But he’s a cunt, so, yeah. His imposter syndrome (which is entirely deserved in his case) makes the media he’s in unbearable to consume.

To see just how truly awful the man is, watch that Talking Funny documentary. It’s him, Jerry Seinfeld (the least-funny paedophile in the world), Chris Rock and Louie CK all in a room together talking about comedy. Ricky is obviously feeling the full force of his imposter syndrome throughout. It’s probably the most glaring example of what I’m talking about.

I simply don’t get his success. Like, I can understand the success of paedophile rings, but I can’t fathom how Ricky has made it so big. One of life’s great mysteries, I guess.

My girlfriend-at-the-time’s dirty, dirty ass. Thought it would be like in my fantasies, where it tastes like candyfloss and smells like a Yankee candle. Nope. Shit. Just shit.

If you’re curious, shit tastes exactly as it smells. I wish I didn’t know that. Although I’m happy that now you, too, know that.

And she had the nerve to dump me later. I deserve a Nobel peace prize for not recoiling in horror and instead just powering through in silence like a fucking GENTLEMAN.

On the bright side, it became a great way to ensure future partners were cognisant of the issue. I’d drop it into the usual “what was your ex like?” gossip sessions that come with new relationships. It’s like saying “please wash your various holes if I’m gonna go rooting around in them like an ant-fiending aardvark” without actually saying it. A cautionary fable from days of yore to guide the next generation.

P.S. I’m still pro-anilingus. Just… clean the fuckin’ thing first. I don’t need to be picking dingleberries from between my teeth, thanks.

Low hanging fruit, but “The next president of the United States is Donald J. Trump”. And I heard that shit twice. The second time was definitely the dumber of the two, but the drop off from 2nd to 3rd dumbest thing is about as wide as the known universe. It’s cartoonish in its absurdity.

But the dumbest thing I’ve heard personally from an individual is that unbaptised babies who die go straight to hell. I was told this by a woman who liked to preach Jesus’ eternal unconditional love in my town centre. I’m atheist, but by default. Like, I didn’t read my way into it or anything, I just completely lack any impulse to believe despite being made to go to Catholic mass every week for 17 years. All that’s to say that I don’t have particular animosity towards believers, but that kind of believer can suck a dirty dog dick.

Apart from it being insanely unfair to babies - roasting away like a rotisserie chicken without even the consciousness to know what’s going on - it’s also beyond evil to tell that to believers who’ve lost children soon after birth due to disease before they even leave the hospital, or have miscarried through no fault of their own, etc. Strangely, I never hear that argument from the anti-abortion religious fanatics. That is, “don’t abort the baby, or it’ll be sent straight into Satan’s Big Green Egg!”

Imagine being Satan, and having a daily influx of humans too young and unformed to even walk when prodded by a demon’s pitchfork. Even a supremely evil entity like he’s alleged to be would have to wonder just what the fuck is going on with heavenly bureaucracy for this to be the way things are done.

It’s me 😭

I use RSS Guard on my PC (works on Mac, Linux and Windows). Comes with powerful regex filtering, so I can really curate my feeds.

RSS seems kinda oldschool, but it’s still the best way I’ve found of keeping track of the things I care about. No fuss or social media bullshit, just information.

The first rule of the internet I ever encountered back in the mid-90s was “don’t feed the trolls”. We’ve lost that piece of philosophy along the way, and now we all actively engage with cunts instead of just blocking them and moving on. Oblivion is the ultimate tool for dealing with anonymous people who behave like fuckheads. It’s a win for them if you respond to their provocations, so just don’t. Don’t be posting shit like “I know you’re trolling, but…” just don’t even acknowledge them. Block/report/move on. It’s really that simple. The simplest remedy is also the most effective. How cool is that? We just have to tell our limbic systems, because the urge to engage is overwhelming sometimes. But take pleasure in sending these bastards into the abyss, enjoy hitting that block button and growing your blocklist. Look at your blocklist from time to time, and bask in the glory of it. Delight in how many people have been stopped dead in their tracks from ever bothering you again. Get excited when you see a new cunt emerge, and how much fun it will be to add them to the list.

As for ‘reply guys’ and general pissiness from curmudgeons (that is, people who are dickish but not actually harassing you) you can simply think of whatever anger or displeasure they’re expressing as being very much their problem. If they talk to you like you’re stupid, just know that they’re struggling with their own issues and that’s why they’re behaving like a stone in everyone’s shoe. Talk to them normally and without emotional language (if you need to talk to them at all), and keep in mind that anyone else who happens upon this interaction will see that you’re a reasonable and cool person and the other guy is a wanker.

If you knew the other person had a brain tumour that made them behave like a prick, you’d be much less bothered by them, but the thing is, that “brain tumour” exists in everyone. No one is really the master of their own behaviour, we’re all dragging millennia of other people’s genetic shittiness behind us, and our individual capacity to introspect and reflect on our shittiness and try to do better is also something we don’t create within ourselves, we’re all pretty much stuck with what we have, with our wiggle room for improvement being as preordained as our circulatory systems. So think of everyone as a tumour-riddled victim of circumstance and they won’t be able to hurt or annoy you anywhere near as much. Be happy that your particular tumours aren’t making you behave like a dickhead in public. It’s all about framing, just don’t let the other guy do the framing and you’re good.

It has always struck me as being the same impulse that makes hoarders do what they do. It’s just that, because the rich are hoarding wealth, which everyone sees as a desirable thing to hoard, they’re not treated like the fiending addict freaks that they are. I think it’s simply their warped personalities, rather than some Machiavellian master plan.

If you’ve ever met my dog, you’ll know why I cannot disagree with this theory 😆

Immediate suicide for me, I’m afraid.

Star Wars holds a place in my heart mainly for nostalgia reasons. Seeing those original films for the first time was formative back in the day when I was a wee cunt. But yeah, they’re pretty indefensible from a film criticism standpoint.

My takes:

1. Goodfellas is fine. It’s a’ight. It’s about 900% more beloved than it deserves. Casino was better, even though it was the same damn movie.
2. On Goodfellas: Ray Liotta is fucking awful in it. He gives me second-hand embarrassment watching him. He’s been great in other roles, but he just seemed so out of his depth trying to hold his own in amongst the De Niros and Pescis of the world. I also think the actor playing Big Paulie was fucking awful, but he doesn’t have much screen time so it’s easy to forget how shit he was.
3. Also - and lastly, I swear - on Goodfellas: the editing is less “fractured and frenetic like the rapidly-imploding mind of the main character” and more like “fractured and frenetic like the coked up Parkinson’s-suffering editor during a violent bowel movement”. Unnecessarily janky and rough around every single edge, to put it mildly.
4. Nic Cage should not be allowed to be in films, full stop. Not even a documentary about Nic Cage in which he agrees with me, personally, through the camera that he’s terrible.
5. The Godfather III was good. Yeah, not as good as I and II, and the downright offensively-bad acting from Andy Garcia (you thought I was about to complain about Sofia Coppola, didn’t ya? Andy was an order of magnitude worse) definitely knocks a few stars off my IMDb rating, but the film was fine.
6. I’ve posted about this in Unpopular Opinion before, but I think remakes and reboots are great, as long as the film-makers are trying to do their best and make an honest go of it. I especially love when a film is transported from one culture into another. For example, Unforgiven - the Clint Eastwood modern classic - was remade in Japan, except instead of the gunslinging Wild West it was the samurai-sword-swingin’ Meiji period. How cool is that shit? I love it. Now I have two awesome movies where before there was only one.

Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle is an interesting one. He’s pretty fucking despicable, but when I first watched the movie as a freshly-pubescent teen, I bought into his sick view of the world and took the film at face value. That is, I thought it was a story about a weird-but-well-meaning dude who decides to take on some baddies.

It’s from 1976, but if it were made today, Travis would 100% be a violent misogynist incel posting his manifesto to 4chan instead of writing it in his diary.

Homophobia was the norm where I grew up in the '80s and '90s. Took me until the late '90s to start questioning that, and probably a year or two more to become completely cleansed of it.

When I was a kid, there was a period during which I was convinced my dad was planning to kill me (or have me killed). I’d have regular nightmares about it.

I have one [non-dream] memory in particular where we were walking through Belfast on a sunny Sunday afternoon, it was pretty much empty except for us. We were walking along a path holding hands (I was like 6 or 7), and an alleyway opened to the right of me, and I thought “this is it…” and was expecting a masked gunman to come out, and for my dad to let go of my hand and step aside, his job now complete. Genuinely thought that was about to happen and almost had a panic attack. No idea why I thought that, or why I eventually stopped thinking it.

I was later diagnosed with all sorts of neuro/psych shenanigans, so I guess it was probably that. I still have intrusive thoughts, but I’ve had therapy so I’m a bit better able to manage them. CBT might do you some good if you have access to a shrink. You can even do most of it on your own, or with a bit of guidance from someone else who’s already done it.

I can’t do small talk or general chat, but I can do meta. I can talk about how awkward it is to talk to strangers, for example. That feels like information exchange, as opposed to a complex two-person dance where I don’t have rhythm or sufficiently-malleable limbs, which is what small talk feels like to me. The goal of small talk seems to be the process itself. If we’re instead ‘educating’ each other about something, and that information is the ultimate goal, I’m much more comfortable.

Sometimes you don’t know how good you have it until your “rock bottom” turns out to be an elevator which is now headed down a mineshaft 😭