Some Grandmotherly Wisdom

And a question... okay, two.

I haven’t put up a piece here — apart from the end of the Warm Recollections — in a couple weeks. There’s a reason for that (several, actually, but one main one) and it relates to one of my maternal grandmother’s sayings.

She was talking about conversations between individuals, rather than Substacking or other public-facing utterances, but it works all the same. She used to say: “If you can’t think of something nice to say, don’t say anything at all”.

And right now, in all honestly, I find it very hard to find anything positive to say about the world — especially after yesterday’s shocking Oval Office shit-show. I have never in my life felt such long-term, simmering, bottomless fury. And this is not like me. I’m generally pretty chill, despite what you might think from the occasional vituperative rant on here. Right now… I’m just angry. Much of this is naturally directed at Trump, and Musk, and Vance, and all their enablers up to and very much including wanker billionaires like Bezos (instructive to see how the term’s resonance has shifted in such a short time from “person who’s excelled in business” to “greedy, selfish motherfucker”). But just as you can’t really hate a cat for catching birds, because that’s what cats do, it’s in some ways pointless to hate people like Trump and Musk for being *****, because they’re doing what ***** do.

What I’m struggling with most, in fact, is us.

Of course with the people who actually voted for Trump, but also those who withheld their votes or went third-party. It doesn’t matter whether or not Kamala had a chance in your state (and please, spare me any bullshit about her “running a bad campaign” — that’s simply not true). There was a chance to make an existential statement, to say which side of a brutally clear binary you stood on, and half the people in this country made what I regard as a horrible choice. They either said “Sure, let’s give this wannabe fascist and his shadowy anti-democratic Libertarian tech-autocrats the chance to steal the country” (I don’t accept any of these people are surprised at what’s happening now. Either they weren’t paying attention or they are simply too stupid to vote) — or they said: “Sure, I can see this is a choice between black and white, but I don’t like Kamala’s policy on straws, or it doesn’t really matter in my state… so I’ll vote taupe, because it’s my favorite color”.

I inherited from my father the belief that you don’t vote for who’s right for you, but who’s best for the majority of people in the country, most especially those worse off than you. That this in fact is the beating heart of Liberalism. I however know that some people who I like a great deal, and respect, and some of whom are doubtless smarter and better-informed than me, voted taupe or not at all — and I find it hard to process this because I don’t want to set myself against those I know to be decent people.

This is one of the ways authoritarianism works — by pitting us against each other rather than against the regime oppressing us all: control through internecine strife. It also works by undermining people’s faith in the law, and right and wrong. Mark my words: over the next years we’ll see a slow but continual uptick in minor crime, in people not bothering to do the recycling, in fudged tax returns. Why the hell not? If the government’s doing it, why shouldn’t we? I’m also pretty confident we’ll see some form of martial law declared (under a cool new name that obfuscates what’s really going on), and the US getting involved in a real war just before the next election, conveniently timed for Trump to argue he has to go straight to a third term.

But whether I’m right or not on those, quite apart from the appalling changes that are coming down the pipe domestically, yesterday we got to watch the disgusting sight of Trump and his little bully-boy Vance ganging up on the leader of Ukraine — surely one of the bravest men alive — while salivating about stealing their natural resources, and turning Gaza into a Trump theme park, and cutting US aid and support to countless programs around the world. All the name of “preventing waste”. Absolute horseshit. We know where that money’s going. To Trump, and Musk, and a gloating infrastructure of selfish, greedy, *****. And there’s apparently nothing we can do. Boycotting companies for a day is worse than useless — it just shows how much they’ve got us over a barrel.

I’ve tried all my life not to hate people, but right now I hate them all with a passion I simply can’t articulate. I’m also hating self-serving news media who don’t have the balls to call the administration out on its bullshit and name it for what it is. Foreign politicians nervously kissing Trump’s ring in case they’re next in line for the crackpot mobster’s ire. Self-proclaimed “resistance” grifters all over the web pulling in likes and subscriptions by pretending that “Diaper Don” is a funny clown, when he’s really not fucking funny any more — and when last year proved beyond reasonable doubt that social media echo chambers achieve nothing at all.

And maybe most of all myself, for being a self-righteous twat sitting here angrily typing about all this — rather than contributing anything of real value to the world.

See? Don’t have much nice to say. For the moment, anyway.

So instead…

I’d love to have some ideas from you about what to write about here, in order to start a conversation between us all. Specific subjects, topics, or questions you’d like answered — about the writing process, the entertainment industry, or anything else.

Go on, help a grumpy writer out. Give me something to think about and for us to talk about which might bring a little light into the world… because right now it feels like we’re holding up candles in front of very dark storm.

And also…

Let me know whether you’d value me opening up the chat function on my Substack, with the aim of providing a place for discussion about writing, or anything else.

Thank you. Is it time for a beer yet?