/Creative

The sexuality of a police officer is cop.

The gender of a police officer is cop.

When you become the enforcer and protector of capital, you are making the deal to be slightly favored by the system over others like you, in exchange for being its servant. Your solidarity is with the system that you serve, even if it hates you.

Peninsula Supple Skink (Lygosoma penisulare), family Scincidae, Thailand

Each of the lyrics comes from an old-time hickory song for fiddles, and is a lyric from that corresponding song.

"Fire on the Mountain" --> "Fire on the Mountain, run boys run"

Fire On The Mountain - Fiddle Player POV

"The House of the Rising Sun" --> "The Devil's in the house of the rising sun"

House of the Rising Sun

"Ida Red" --> "Chicken in the bread pan peckin' out dough"

Ida Red - Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys

"Granny Will Your Dog Bite" --> "Granny does your dog bite? 'No child, no'."

FTC #149 Granny Will Your Dog Bite

And for your furthered education, The Mountain Whipporwill.

in a time before things like radios and record players, every time you heard music was because there was somebody in the room with you playing an instrument. and many, many, many social events involved dancing, which requires music. so, if you're planning any kind of gathering in the american south or appalachia, you need to find a fiddler. and the fiddler's job is to play music that everybody knows and likes and can dance to.

the mistake The Devil makes in his bet with Johnny is that he misinterprets the contest as being about technical ability, so he has this big flashy song. he plays fast and impressively with a band of demons playing unfamiliar instruments in unfamiliar rhythms. he's definitely more skilled at playing than Johnny, and thinks he has it in the bag.

You are at the grocery store. You pick up a nice, girthy zucchini. You head over to the oils and pick up a thing of olive oil. Then a packet of condoms.

Satisfied with your selections, you head to the cashier. As you place the items on the conveyor, a voice shouts: "DON'T SELL THOSE! THAT'S GOING UP A BUTT!"

And then for some reason, the cashier agrees. Then the guy who shouted, this fuckass guy in a suit, marches up to the counter and starts demanding that the store never sell any vegetables that could be put up a butt. He starts out pointing at the zucchinis and cucumbers and carrots, but you heard what he said: he's effectively banning every vegetable, just enforcing it selectively.

You ask the cashier if he's corporate or something. The cashier says no. The manager? No. He works here at least? No.

Who the fuck is he, then?

Well, the cashier explains, he's the bank manager from the next street over. He's taken up a moral crusade against vegetables that might go into rectums and if they don't obey him, he won't take anyone's paychecks or any money from any store that opposes him. And his bank is the only bank in the region, so it'd be a huge hassle for the business and the employees.

anyway i wanted a memento of my first pride, you know, and this one vendor was selling keyrings, and i liked it, so i bought one. do you remember those italian charm bracelets that were all the rage like 10-15 years ago? it was a keychain like that, and it had a rainbow rooster, a rainbow cat, and then just a rainbow, and so I bought it.

i run into my mom a couple of vendors over and she goes oh you bought something? what’d you get? so i showed her, and i was like, “I’m not sure why it’s a rooster and a cat. Seems kind of random. But I liked the rainbows.”

and my mom, who was some form of minister’s wife for most of my childhood and teenagerhood, stares at me like she thinks i’m joking.

“What?” i say.

…relic…