Trick with a Knife

Letter to HTMLGIANT

May 08

P. H. Madoreweb blake butler, HTMLGiant, jereme dean, jimmy chen, roxane gay 14 Comments

I am an angry person.

It’s taken me years to put myself together.

It’s taken more years to realize that I’m angry.

I’m working on it.

In the meantime, read between the lines. If I’m wrong, tell me why. If I’m not wrong, then pipe up and help the underdog. Probably at least a dozen douchers reading this have favors past due. You fucks need to look into some mirrors, man, that karma shit is crazy real.

To bitch is to express displeasure; to discuss is to work toward a better outcome; to use exactly the same method in exactly the same circumstances and expect different results (or different reactions from the various pricks of the world, myself foremost among them) is, as we all know, insane. Stop shaking your head and focus on something for a second. Now see if you can improve it. Wait, first pull your head out of your ass. Now focus on something wrong with the world. Try to improve it. If you live this way too long, I believe, you eventually become an extremely negative person without even knowing it. Continued failure can wear on anyone–especially when it feels like no one is listening. Worse than that is when someone has success and sees no reason to alter their methods. Their growth is stunted. The founders of Google foresaw such complacency and built a corporate atmosphere which discouraged it.

Shouldn’t everything be as temporary as the world around us? Isn’t it okay to just do a magazine on the odd years? Or just do it when you’re really into it?

If this is the last thing I write to you, I want to be clear: Jimmy Chen has been right about a lot of things, but I’ve always taken his attitude as snotty and it’s always pissed me off too much to agree with him while maintaining dignity. A few weeks later I find myself considering his view more and more, as the sting of his sarcasm fades. Jereme Dean is sometimes right but he takes basic truths of life and acts as if he’s just discovered them and is thus some sort of badass psychological pioneer. Now that’s tiresome. Blake Butler’s a shock jock in an age of them. Whether or not he’ll carve out a legacy is TBD. We’re all mostly still young and clawing away at each other–some of us do it outdoors, most of you do it behind closed doors. Stop lying! Fuckin’ shit dude, nobody really actually cares when they fade into their lover’s arms tonight, do they? So let’s stay honest during the day, at least, so as to go there in a cleaner state. Roxane Gay was addressed in the previous paragraph, and it would do us all well to remember what this place was like before she came around–more importantly, she herself could do well to examine from an outer viewpoint and see how she’s painting herself into a corner as the “token black chick” in such a variety of things. This is not to disregard her obvious talent or drive, but it is to call into question the posturing of her seemingly endless array of best friends for life.

Well, we all know I’m open to suggestion. I’ll be goddamned if a single person spends five minutes to think anything through.

There is no prestige in being published in HTMLGIANT.

In case you haven’t noticed, this country is on the verge of revolution.

Everyone just wants to be happy.

I’m thinking about becoming a buddhist.

I wish I could eat some girl scout cookies, but it’s really not worth it. I’m in such a good way.

Take care,
PHM