I’ve been a dabbler in the internet and writing for a while, but usually under a pseudonym for reasons that made sense at the time. Now? Makes more sense to be under my own name in my little corner of whatever the internet is now. www.dansmock.com/welcome-t…
Welcome to the blog, on Ghost
Friday, December 20, 2024
In the spirit of the tumult that is this time of year, and to get a running start into 2025, I’ve moved the blog to Ghost. If you signed up for this on Substack or micro.blog, you’re getting this as an email from the blog on Ghost. And if you’re fine with that, have a festive holiday season, and as always, thanks for reading! If you’re not, feel free to unsubscribe.
Tinfoil Nation
Friday, December 20, 2024
In the beginning was a Dane Cook special. This was 2005 Dane Cook, bestride the world of comedy long enough to give us a movie with Jessica Simpson, years before we had to do uncomfortable math about when he first started dating his current girlfriend, and the first known reference to a Karen. Cook’s theory was that every friend group had one, and “she is always a bag of douche”. A year before that, there was Mean Girls and the line, “Oh my God, Karen—you can’t just ask people why they’re white”.
Tiptoe Through The Tombstones
Thursday, December 19, 2024
It’s that time of year, when we all try to guess what we’re supposed to get each other for Christmas, and we all pretend to be thrilled with whatever it is that our loved(ish) one(s) picked out for/made for/regifted us as we sit around lit by the Netflix Yule log, with Spotify blaring your uncle’s playlist, the one who’s “down with the kids” and way too comfortable singing all the lyrics to “M.
Chicken Farm
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
The coverage of the killing of Brian Thompson assumes Stalinesque proportions when we think about how many front line healthcare workers have been punched, spat on, and cursed out when people find out the insurance they’ve been paying for instead of taking the kids on vacation or getting a new refrigerator won’t cover the care those kids need. Because it’s not a tragedy until it’s a CEO at the other end.
Josh Shapiro, Ghostbuster
Tuesday, December 17, 2024
In 1989 Alan More convinced me that class war was inevitable, but I’d probably have to move to the UK for it, which given their predilection for beans as breakfast wasn’t in the cards. Then in 2005 V for Vendetta brought More’s graphic novel to life, and while I kept expecting Hugo Weaving to introduce Mr. Anderson, the masked man was a worthy protagonist and figurehead for doing what needed to be done to those elites seeking to oppress everyone who wasn’t them.
Curiouser and curiouser
Monday, December 16, 2024
Idioms are the bane of a literal mind, and if you’re anywhere on the spectrum, you know the pain of being told you take things too literally. It’s not that we autistics can’t get idioms, it’s that we’re likely to ask questions about their meaning, their origins, and if there’s one thing neurotypicals don’t like, it’s a lot of neurodiverse questions. I don’t know why that is, but I have a two-part theory:
Fogged In
Saturday, December 14, 2024
Fog’s a funny thing, floating low altitude clouds, sullied cotton candy, but it has enormous power, enough to get its own verb to describe what it can do. If we’re fogged in we can’t go anywhere: planes can’t fly, cars can’t drive, cruise ships can’t export soft colonialism to countries that wouldn’t survive without the influx of tourists hell bent on making everywhere in the world look the same in an unceasing drive for continuous comfort.
Trump Finds A Buddy
Friday, December 13, 2024
In a sure sign that we’re all on the naughty list, this year’s Christmas must-have is more Satan than Santa, more Krampus than Kringle, and more Operation: FAFO than Operation: Christmas Drop. And it’s just what everyone who voted for a misogynistic racist felon deserves to have under their tree: their very own neurodivergent oligarch who is officially the wealthiest individual in history. You know him, you love him, you loathe him: the guy who brought you the Tesla, missions to Mars, and brain implants so we can control things like phones and he can make us forget about the Cybertruck.
Israel Uber Alles
Thursday, December 12, 2024
If you’re a small (maybe) nuclear-capable country known for a religion founded by a genocidal deity who’s had to fend off your neighbors for decades and you’re already at war with Hamas and Hezbollah, when one of your adversaries tumbles from power faster than the value of the Hawk memecoin, why not take advantage of the situation to bomb that country back to the Stone Age? As someone raised in a religious tradition that made it clear that the Jews were the Chosen People but because they didn’t believe in Jesus they’d end up in a different not-quite-as-good Heaven as the rest of us in the death cult[1] and so we saw them as people we should respect, but in the most condescending way possible, I too have supported Israel against all comers.
A Thousand Miles
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Heard this once from a friend working with the SF in Afghanistan: about to board a C-130, and during the safety brief, they were told in the event of a crash, find a hole big enough to walk through, and then run until you felt stupid. Want to walk 1,000 miles? Start with a single step. Works for me, or it has, at least the concept, that I just need to take whatever it is I’m doing one step at a time.
Family Man, 2024 Edition
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Are we really so divided, so used to dehumanizing one another, that people are out here openly celebrating the cold-blooded murder of a hardworking family man?That’s The New Yorker and their take on the killing of Brian Thompson by a criminal mastermind whose one mistake was being seen at a McDonald’s because the NYPD, with a budget larger than the militaries of not a few countries, needed the assistance of someone who took a break from the abject misery of asking someone if they wanted fries with that for a non-living wage long enough to dime out a guy who thought Ted Kaczynski had some four star ideas.
Comfort Zones
Monday, December 9, 2024
Feeling good after sleeping in, blowing off the morning’s writing, reducing the daily workout to its bare minimum, and telling myself that I needed the rest, clearly, because why else would I wake up so much later than planned? There’s a place for that, where pulling the covers back up and giving myself the grace to be something like lazy for a beat is for my own good. Where that’s less helpful is when that beat becomes hours, days, weeks of idling somewhere comfortable, because while that feels confining and limiting, it’s what I know.
In defense of donuts
Sunday, December 8, 2024
Made the weekly sugar coma run to one of six donut shops within easy driving distance, all of which are run by Koreans, half of them next to a nail salon, and half of those next to a sushi “restaurant”. Or it used to be, and it’s in quotes for a reason, because the sushi was more than acceptable, it was the restaurant part that was suspect. Not in a “it’s authentic” kind of way, more in a “we pay more attention to the donut machines” kind of way.
Why So Vulnerable
Sunday, December 1, 2024
It’s been five years since someone else’s therapist and a close personal friend pointed out that while I’m not counting toothpicks or wearing hearing protection to fast casual restaurants, I’m definitely on the spectrum. Took another couple of years for me to figure out what that meant, and while there isn’t an official diagnosis in the paperwork, when I’m at my most unmasked and I take one of those quizzes, I end up anywhere between “Yup” and “Autistic AF”.
Asking For It
Saturday, November 30, 2024
In my continuing quest for filthy lucre, inspired by both my love of shelter and my bank’s insistence that they, too, would like me to keep sending them money, I regularly send out documents that indicate to people who have money they would like to distribute in exchange for services rendered that I am indeed capable of executing those services in such a way that they would willingly part with those funds and entrust them to my care.
He Is Risen
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
I went to bed early last night, hopeful. As a A Man Of A Certain Age, that’s not terribly unusual, and with the time change, I’m following the majority of voters in this country into the 19th century, except I’m just ready to go to sleep when the sun goes down, and they’re ready it to be 1859, or whenever they think this country was last great. My own Wayback Machine is taking me to 2016 and another November in a country where the isolationist policies of the last Trump administration led directly to its precipitous downfall, albeit with extensive help from every other American president that fomented the multi-decade debacle that was Afghanistan.
The system didn't fail Brendan Depa
Monday, May 6, 2024
We hear it all the time. The system doesn’t work right. The system’s broken. The system failed. Those are comforting words. Words designed to instill belief that something is in place. That if we just tweak it enough, it will save us. The problem is that systems don’t break. They don’t fail. They work right. All the time. Because systems are designed, as it’s been explained to me, “to depress, oppress, and repress”.
I, Lazarus
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Hi. Lazarus here. Of Bethany? Yeah, that Lazarus. Had a couple of sisters, Mary and Martha. Fun fact: I’m the only one mentioned by name in a parable. So that’s cool. Not sure why Jesus cast me as a beggar, but you know, He is the Son of God, so. I guess He gets to do that. Figured it was time to clear up some things about what happened. I mean, I died.
I, Lazarus
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Hi. Lazarus here. Of Bethany? Yeah, that Lazarus. Had a couple of sisters, Mary and Martha. Fun fact: I’m the only one mentioned by name in a parable. So that’s cool. Not sure why Jesus cast me as a beggar, but you know, He is the Son of God, so. I guess He gets to do that. Figured it was time to clear up some things about what happened. I mean, I died.