The advice in the video struck me as realistic, practical, and fairly heartfelt. Maybe not a paragon of integrity or moral fiber, but at least not a pack of opportunistic lies.

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There are hundreds and probably thousands of such videos, and I do appreciate that this one, unlike most of them, was not solely about naked greed and how to indulge it at the expense of one’s soul.

But, still.

For the most part all of the experts are telling you the same thing, and it boils down to ‘Give the people what they want’, and do it with good lighting and combed hair, and promote the hell out of it in these six or twelve ways.

Left to my own devices, contrarian that I am, I will always naturally gravitate to wanting to tell you exactly and precisely what you don’t want to hear, and every time I start to promote it, I feel a little sleazy and gross.

The people I instinctively admire are the ones saying the quiet parts out loud. I want to respectfully shake the hand of Malcolm X. I want to awkwardly hug Glenn Greenwald and Chris Hedges. I used to say Jon Stewart, but nowadays he’s got one foot in the house and one in the field and it renders his takes choppy and uneven. The same is even true of people like Cornell West, but I can love him anyway because the words flowing out his mouth are natural poetry and reflect a soul that gets it, without letting it get him down.

I’m not on their level. I probably never will be. I’m gimped and wobbly. I let myself fear phantom consequences for too many years to stand as an example of bravery. I’m broke in more than one way.

It would do me no good to sell out, and try to work my way up to a mere thousand subscribers using the well-meant advice to be charismatic and upbeat, to shill the folks into believing in the sunny side of this crazy American life. Even the dullest intellect would be able to perceive my attempt at fakery and false cheer.

It’s not just that we’re fucked up and fucked over, around here. It’s that we’ve been that way for so many decades now that the Big Lie has become trans-generational, trans-racial, trans-gender and maybe even unknowable as a Lie for most people. Even the educated, even the gifted, even the nominally more thoughtful. Hello again, modern NPR.

Orwell tried inelegantly to wave us off. The Wachowski brothers, or whatever their pronouns are these days, tried to make us understand, about the Matrix. James Cameron gave us the Avatar parable–watch that one movie with your heart open, and then try to come back and tell me all about how proud you are, to fly the Empire’s flag on all the right holidays–how glad you are that you don’t live savage in some backwater shithole like the Na’vi on Pandora.

Lord knows I tried, to be a quietly academic sellout in what I hoped were inconsequential ways. I tried to stick to the dry facts, about Linux or Photoshop. Sometimes it worked better than others. In the end it was impossible for me to not talk about Edward Snowden or Julian Assange, or to mask my true feelings about my fellow house negroes, or ultimately my own self.

They didn’t gun me down for it. I wasn’t a real threat worthy of a bullet. They just chopped the hose that was my gravy train, and I faded back into the Desierto Pintado and disappeared from The Great Conversation, for a few long years.

And now I’m poking my nose up out of that gopher hole, in a prettier little town, with my ugly but healed scars and my eyes still trying to get used to the blinding light of day and civilized life. I’m seeking out a little more gravy, because I’ve got these plans like a junkie has the shakes.

But no matter the glory of the plans and no matter the burn of the craving, I’m not going to lie for gravy, no more. Not to him, or her, or you, or myself. It is close to literal truth to say I’d rather die first.

I’m not going to tell anyone just what they want to hear, for the sake of love or success or unobtainium or gravy.

The guy in the video did have one perfectly valid thing to say. He suggested asking one’s viewers, should they find themselves resonating with one’s content, to share it. On the social media platforms, et cetera. That made sense. So I’m asking. If you are one of the rare handful who sees these things, and feels them, then share them too, to the wider world.

I don’t care if you subscribe or click the like or decide to be one of the blessed souls that slip me Patreon every month. You don’t even have to log in, to YT/Google, to point people who like you to my better efforts with a link. Thanks in advance.

I have houseguests through the weekend and I’m planning to introduce you to one of them at the vidChannel tomorrow if I can. I may slip up and miss a post, or a shoot in this socializing time. But I’m here now for real, and not going anywhere. Viewed darkly, there’s nowhere else left to go.

Viewed brightly, I am where I belong now, already.