Everything is just a little bit worse than it should be. You can feel them trying to save just a little bit more or squeeze just a little more. Every moment of the day you are aware there is just one less slice of bred than there used to be, or things just cost a few cents more. It's hard sometimes to know what is real and what you are imagining but every moment you can feel the pressure of everything gnawing away

Ruined my fucking life.

Took a trip to Europe recently. One thing that I noticed that we're deprived of in the US is simple artistic decorations. All our construction here has little to no artistic embellishments or flourishes where a skilled trades person can demonstrate their prowess and beautiful spaces. Any fancy construction that goes on here is just a cheap facade that's been sloppily put together as fast as possible for maximum return.

In Europe there's beautiful glazed tiles used for the siding of houses, real wooden inlays in tables and staircases, coats of arms chiseled from granite at the corner of half the buildings, cobblestone roadways and sidewalks were they'll make swirling patterns with them, many walls in public spaces have real art from local artists on them, there's actual color used in architecture, pubic parks that are actually kept up on, street lights that have style.

This isn't every square inch of the EU and I've seen some shitty areas too, but so many places are actually beautiful there. I got a sense that when people build things, they actually care about what they're doing. And so much of what I described is actually maintained too! Here in Burgeritaville things are so bland. Only a few historical areas in the US have ever given me that vibe.

A very minor and petty thing that still pisses me off that capitalism does is that it keeps regurgitating the same old shit over and over again instead of letting artists try something new while actually still having a livelihood while taking risks as art ought to be about.

Nope, it's "copy the thing that seemed successful until it's run into the ground" each and very time. Whether it's "gritty reboots" of ancient franchises or the decades-long flood of zombie apocalypse cliches or the Gambo-chasing P R E S T I G E T V trend or quippy MCU-style slop, it sucks especially when it wears out whatever welcome it initially had.

I've been pitching movies and albums to various people in hollywood for 50 years but have never once gotten my ideas greenlighted.

You know terminator 2? I came up with that in the 60's. I said what if we did a movie about a grown man named Kevin McCallister who gets separated from his family at an airport during Christmas. The only way to get back to his family and avoid the two robbers that were after him is if he lets a man live in his ass. The robbers are magical Mr. Mistoffelees who is a large cat and Doctor Manhattan who is blue and you can see his penis.

They have been pushing me out of the film industry for decades now.

All that neoliberal privatization shit they pushed on us for decades saying "oh it will be cheaper and more efficient if the MARKET provides rail travel, health insurance, energy, telcoms and water..."

And now all of these things are more expensive and shittier than ever before, and nobody thinks it's weird. If anything people I lay this out to say "oh it's because they haven't fully privatized this service, obviously! It's these damn lefties holding us back!" Absolutely insane.