I had that shit happen all the time. I'm naturally skinny but athletic and stronger than I look.
But no, the miserable always wanna find something to bitch about. For a guy, it's even worse as machismo exists in both sexes. Why the obsession with looks? Cause murica!
(High school was the worst with that shit. I don't get how people reminisce about high school like it was great. No, it was bullshit from both ends. Teachers who worked us like dogs and students who had little to no empathy.)
My 'favorite' version of the Miserable are the nostalgia cultists.
They speak as if we regressed into barbarity and hell.
They talk like technology is making us dumb.
They are constantly pining FOR the collapse, so they can feel happy that they went off grid to live on a farm or in the third world.
They don't seem to remember that only a few decades ago, apartheid was ok and sexual harassment was just the boss being nice. Heck, that shit persisted into Clinton's presidency!
I heard that even in the 90s, neuroscience didn't care for the study of consciousness. Surprising and shocking....
But then this was before the economy went to shit and now one can make good money but still cannot afford a house or healthcare.
The previous generations were compliant in general because their lives had prosperity. If the predator class wanted to create an unaware society that follows orders, they just need to follow Brave New World. Keep em happy and they'll be loyal. But nah, the predators got away with using 1984 type dystopian tactics for so long that they forgot.... Plus they're cheap frakking bastards.
Thank you! This is fantastic. I saw the critique of the movie, and I just let out a sigh. WE'RE GETTING PUBLICITY FFS, but no...not good enough. I actually groan when I see Meghan, there are various reasons I find the whole idea of these shows annoying, but at least I have the sense to groan from the comfort of my own home. Doing it on the internet crosses into another term that you might find useful. "Mean spirited". It's a-political like "The Miserable", and it comes up way too often.
lol how is the person commenting on your weight the same as someone whose lost hope in the american system? you even separate them in your mind in your piece here but decide to lump them in with people who tell you to eat a sandwich anyway labeling them as “the miserable” in some sort of hope that’ll shame them into having hope? weird piece man, little out of touch, sounds like something the DNC would push. “i got a comment to eat a sandwich and it really opened my eyes to how even the people i agree with who may be struggling financially need to brighten up!” Renaming something instead of material change, a symbolic victory
It's not about the comment, it's about the system/way of life that normalizes a comment. Ka's not the first to get that said to them, but the way that her boyfriend was like "they just say that stuff" is like "why is this normal?"
There are different ways people demonstrate how miserable they are. There are certainly a lot of overlaps. I'm not sure what triggered you about this article but it definitely seems personal
Great article Ka, and thanks for the perspective! I personally think most people operate in a “dementor” mindset where they see someone doing something good and instantly try to ‘suck the life’ out of it. I’ve experienced this immensely on my own journey as a working class person trying to run as a Dem in a Republican county.
The problem isn’t that they lose, it’s that losing becomes the standard!! (And by virtue, new voices must be stomped out) As we grow up, we become more wise and less naive. But maybe shedding naivety doesn’t have to mean losing hope. Maybe it means we just have to fight smarter, harder, and refuse to accept losing as inevitable.
You talk about it being contagious... and I agree. I think The Miserable expressing misery is incredibly energetically costly... and those expressions inhibit ability to implement change. I know this from my own experience ... when I'm doom scrolling on current politics, it's nearly impossible to call my representatives. Same for when I chat in person with those folks that are always complaining about something.
I've done a fair amount of social-shifting in the last year. The folks I hang with are kinder now ... but they're also more likely to be stoked about something niche or small. It's nice.
I think it's a skill to be able to hold happiness in the moment while also understanding the immense doom that we're wandering into, and doing something to improve that direction. A skill needing daily practice, I think. Thanks for the piece! ❤️
I feel very fortunate the sick community—a place that could easily devolve into Miserablism (because dammit being sick IS miserable)—somehow remains a place of supporting each other in small joys and tiny wins.
"Society is like a stew, if you don't stir it up every once in a while, a layer of scum will rise to the top" Ed Abbey. The material harm done by DOGE will be unfathomable. The silver lining could be, that when we get a populist left leader in on the other swing of the pendulum, it will be time to reinvigorate the stew- aka rebuilding corrupt, dysfunctional federal programs, that can and in many cases do, serve great value to the poor and working class.
Thank you KA (Jessica) Burbank for making me less self-conscious about loving Garcia & The Grateful Dead's "Touch of Grey" from the first I heard it (on a high quality Community Radio free-form show) as an obscure and curious toe-tapper for the band better known for audiences full of more syncopatedly challenged dancers. I was not a long-time and certainly not uncritical fan of The Dead or of Garcia's various solo projects, although some of which I counted among my favorites of band-related performances & recordings. Timing and venue along with climate, cultural and meteor-o-logical or ill-o-gical as well as players' varying levels of in-spir-a-tion and house response always up to forces beyond any human control or manipulation.
However, I lived the 80's & 90's in Berkeley where I found myself with much more exposure to Garcia\Dead recordings and gigs with various long-running small club collaborations with muses of theirs, along with growing appreciation for their aural and musical experiments that I found worked or intrigued me enough to find somehow intuitively inspiring. I'm not formally educated in music, but I've taken wide interest and always did some research when covering such daring music that relied on improvisation for intermittent freelance articles I was writing and publishing in the alternative press and\or presenting on my own stints or outreach to those who were holding down free-form dj-producer-programming at community or college stations open to such genre-bending formatting and openness to improvisational and\or exploratory serendipity. (Hey some late-night recording or gigging artist: Use that name! Exploratory Serendipity if it'll fit onto an album or disc cover or gig ads billed by the letter.....
I also admired these artists', collaborators new & "broken in" with the combos', ensembles' even the juke joint's spirit of improvisation, more often than not highly disciplined as close listening over time could reveal.
My tastes had shifted by early college and creative writing years more to jazz and ethnic traditional forms of improv, such as but not limited to Muddle Eastern ethnic musics that share the feature of "taqsim" or improvised solos in regional modalities. Very big around clubs and folk dance studios in and around Berkeley along with the Bay Area's other such inter-ethnic "DETOURradio delights as the Ashkenaz Folk Dance Club, drawn up and built from the San Pablo Avenue, West Berkeley Bay-side founded by the late great David Nadel, Z"L of blessed memory (and tragic demise):
https://detourradio.com/ (WTMD Baltimore free-form weekly program and wide-ranging fount of regional muses' announcements & info).
Curated by former Dirty Linen Magazine editor Paul Hartman with PlayLists, week-long publicly posted audio netcast file and other info on a uniquely wide range of Globally Attuned Artists and live music venues such as the East Bay's own homey (see link above and here below) envisioned and built in the style of a old world deep woods and so wooden rural Eastern European shtetl or New World community center:
Groove music and interplay, which I am partial to, think the genre outlyers like that free-spirited wind that blew coastal from neighborly heart & soul based Tulsa like J.J. Cale and associated Tulsa Time sound artists have always held a special and not only enduring but growing fascination on me the more I got to feel comfortable with where such a core of an artist or group's sound could lead on any given day or night, any given mood or weather pattern....:
"JJ Cale - R.I.P. 1938-2013! - Live @ The Bottom Line, NYC 1992! (complete show)
The Rev. Bob Channel
8.13K subscribers
1.9K
293,584 views Jul 28, 2013
"We lost another great musician / performer / songwriter on Friday July 26th, 2013!"
"JJ Cale passed away this past Friday. Man, talk about hard hitting! I feel like I lost a family member! I grew up with this man and his music. I've spent many hours listening to his music over the last 35+ years and I have many good memories from times in my life that were influenced by his music. This guy had so many hits, you couldn't count them all using all your appendages. JJ, you will be greatly missed by the whole world! R.I.P. brother!"
"...So I dug through the archives yesterday as soon as I heard the disturbing news and found a nice show that I think will help preserve his memory and many great songs. I was up all night and had problems with the original conversion, then did a second conversion to You Tube HD format, then had some problems getting it to upload to You Tube. But it seems to be taking the upload, so here it is: JJ Cale Live @ The Bottom Line in NYC in 1992. This is the full show. The original broadcast was on Japanese TV. It seems to be fairly rare, I haven't seen it anywhere else and I don't think it got aired on US TV. This clip is being brought to you in the memory of a great American hero, Mr. JJ Cale, from The Rev. Bob Archives. Keep the memory alive and enjoy the show! Thanks for watching!"
"Go out and buy anything by JJ Cale today, then go home and play it for all your friends and make sure THEY KNOW this was the man who wrote After Midnight, Call Me The Breeze, Cocaine & Bringing It Back just to name a few. Spread the memory of JJ Cale...."
"...This was posted on the JJ Cale website....":
"JJ Cale Has Passed Away"
"JJ Cale passed away at 8:00 pm on Friday July 26
at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, CA."
"The legendary singer / songwriter had suffered a heart attack.
"Donations are not needed but he was a great lover of animals so, if you like,
you can remember him with a donation to your favorite local animal shelter..."
"The music and videos that I post on my channel are being offered free for the promotion of the artist that made the music and the enjoyment and education of fans of the music everywhere. No money is being asked for these performances. These are being posted for free. All credit will be fully given to any and all artist involved in the making of said video. These videos are being offered under the Fair Use And Free Trade Act for music lovers everywhere to enjoy and learn from. Special thank you's to any and all artist that made said video. You make the world a better place for all of us."
Silver is just a reflective version of the grey, if we really want to get into semantics and perception. And love and light alone will not save us, though this in no way justifies wallowing in feelings of ill will or misfortune unnecessarily. Great post.
Sorry for asswipes criticizing your weight.
I had that shit happen all the time. I'm naturally skinny but athletic and stronger than I look.
But no, the miserable always wanna find something to bitch about. For a guy, it's even worse as machismo exists in both sexes. Why the obsession with looks? Cause murica!
(High school was the worst with that shit. I don't get how people reminisce about high school like it was great. No, it was bullshit from both ends. Teachers who worked us like dogs and students who had little to no empathy.)
My 'favorite' version of the Miserable are the nostalgia cultists.
They speak as if we regressed into barbarity and hell.
They talk like technology is making us dumb.
They are constantly pining FOR the collapse, so they can feel happy that they went off grid to live on a farm or in the third world.
They don't seem to remember that only a few decades ago, apartheid was ok and sexual harassment was just the boss being nice. Heck, that shit persisted into Clinton's presidency!
I heard that even in the 90s, neuroscience didn't care for the study of consciousness. Surprising and shocking....
But then this was before the economy went to shit and now one can make good money but still cannot afford a house or healthcare.
The previous generations were compliant in general because their lives had prosperity. If the predator class wanted to create an unaware society that follows orders, they just need to follow Brave New World. Keep em happy and they'll be loyal. But nah, the predators got away with using 1984 type dystopian tactics for so long that they forgot.... Plus they're cheap frakking bastards.
Grateful to have found you on this app finally— my algorithm is figuring itself out finally here <3
Thank you! This is fantastic. I saw the critique of the movie, and I just let out a sigh. WE'RE GETTING PUBLICITY FFS, but no...not good enough. I actually groan when I see Meghan, there are various reasons I find the whole idea of these shows annoying, but at least I have the sense to groan from the comfort of my own home. Doing it on the internet crosses into another term that you might find useful. "Mean spirited". It's a-political like "The Miserable", and it comes up way too often.
lol how is the person commenting on your weight the same as someone whose lost hope in the american system? you even separate them in your mind in your piece here but decide to lump them in with people who tell you to eat a sandwich anyway labeling them as “the miserable” in some sort of hope that’ll shame them into having hope? weird piece man, little out of touch, sounds like something the DNC would push. “i got a comment to eat a sandwich and it really opened my eyes to how even the people i agree with who may be struggling financially need to brighten up!” Renaming something instead of material change, a symbolic victory
signed, someone who never comments at all
It's not about the comment, it's about the system/way of life that normalizes a comment. Ka's not the first to get that said to them, but the way that her boyfriend was like "they just say that stuff" is like "why is this normal?"
There are different ways people demonstrate how miserable they are. There are certainly a lot of overlaps. I'm not sure what triggered you about this article but it definitely seems personal
Great article Ka, and thanks for the perspective! I personally think most people operate in a “dementor” mindset where they see someone doing something good and instantly try to ‘suck the life’ out of it. I’ve experienced this immensely on my own journey as a working class person trying to run as a Dem in a Republican county.
The problem isn’t that they lose, it’s that losing becomes the standard!! (And by virtue, new voices must be stomped out) As we grow up, we become more wise and less naive. But maybe shedding naivety doesn’t have to mean losing hope. Maybe it means we just have to fight smarter, harder, and refuse to accept losing as inevitable.
You talk about it being contagious... and I agree. I think The Miserable expressing misery is incredibly energetically costly... and those expressions inhibit ability to implement change. I know this from my own experience ... when I'm doom scrolling on current politics, it's nearly impossible to call my representatives. Same for when I chat in person with those folks that are always complaining about something.
I've done a fair amount of social-shifting in the last year. The folks I hang with are kinder now ... but they're also more likely to be stoked about something niche or small. It's nice.
I think it's a skill to be able to hold happiness in the moment while also understanding the immense doom that we're wandering into, and doing something to improve that direction. A skill needing daily practice, I think. Thanks for the piece! ❤️
Your weight looks fine to me. Brains and looks. Very sexy. 😍
Your weight looks fine to me. Brains and looks. Very sexy. 😍
I feel very fortunate the sick community—a place that could easily devolve into Miserablism (because dammit being sick IS miserable)—somehow remains a place of supporting each other in small joys and tiny wins.
"Society is like a stew, if you don't stir it up every once in a while, a layer of scum will rise to the top" Ed Abbey. The material harm done by DOGE will be unfathomable. The silver lining could be, that when we get a populist left leader in on the other swing of the pendulum, it will be time to reinvigorate the stew- aka rebuilding corrupt, dysfunctional federal programs, that can and in many cases do, serve great value to the poor and working class.
I'd like to say fuck The Miserable, but that would be miserable of me wouldn't it?
Wow, they sound like the people who started emailing me by accident 15 yrs or so ago
They are called Stoolies
Thank you KA (Jessica) Burbank for making me less self-conscious about loving Garcia & The Grateful Dead's "Touch of Grey" from the first I heard it (on a high quality Community Radio free-form show) as an obscure and curious toe-tapper for the band better known for audiences full of more syncopatedly challenged dancers. I was not a long-time and certainly not uncritical fan of The Dead or of Garcia's various solo projects, although some of which I counted among my favorites of band-related performances & recordings. Timing and venue along with climate, cultural and meteor-o-logical or ill-o-gical as well as players' varying levels of in-spir-a-tion and house response always up to forces beyond any human control or manipulation.
However, I lived the 80's & 90's in Berkeley where I found myself with much more exposure to Garcia\Dead recordings and gigs with various long-running small club collaborations with muses of theirs, along with growing appreciation for their aural and musical experiments that I found worked or intrigued me enough to find somehow intuitively inspiring. I'm not formally educated in music, but I've taken wide interest and always did some research when covering such daring music that relied on improvisation for intermittent freelance articles I was writing and publishing in the alternative press and\or presenting on my own stints or outreach to those who were holding down free-form dj-producer-programming at community or college stations open to such genre-bending formatting and openness to improvisational and\or exploratory serendipity. (Hey some late-night recording or gigging artist: Use that name! Exploratory Serendipity if it'll fit onto an album or disc cover or gig ads billed by the letter.....
I also admired these artists', collaborators new & "broken in" with the combos', ensembles' even the juke joint's spirit of improvisation, more often than not highly disciplined as close listening over time could reveal.
My tastes had shifted by early college and creative writing years more to jazz and ethnic traditional forms of improv, such as but not limited to Muddle Eastern ethnic musics that share the feature of "taqsim" or improvised solos in regional modalities. Very big around clubs and folk dance studios in and around Berkeley along with the Bay Area's other such inter-ethnic "DETOURradio delights as the Ashkenaz Folk Dance Club, drawn up and built from the San Pablo Avenue, West Berkeley Bay-side founded by the late great David Nadel, Z"L of blessed memory (and tragic demise):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqsim
https://detourradio.com/ (WTMD Baltimore free-form weekly program and wide-ranging fount of regional muses' announcements & info).
Curated by former Dirty Linen Magazine editor Paul Hartman with PlayLists, week-long publicly posted audio netcast file and other info on a uniquely wide range of Globally Attuned Artists and live music venues such as the East Bay's own homey (see link above and here below) envisioned and built in the style of a old world deep woods and so wooden rural Eastern European shtetl or New World community center:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenaz_(music_venue)#:~:text=Ashkenaz%20opened%20in%201973%20and,spaces%20on%20San%20Pablo%20Avenue.
Groove music and interplay, which I am partial to, think the genre outlyers like that free-spirited wind that blew coastal from neighborly heart & soul based Tulsa like J.J. Cale and associated Tulsa Time sound artists have always held a special and not only enduring but growing fascination on me the more I got to feel comfortable with where such a core of an artist or group's sound could lead on any given day or night, any given mood or weather pattern....:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryzNaaYXCUo
"JJ Cale - R.I.P. 1938-2013! - Live @ The Bottom Line, NYC 1992! (complete show)
The Rev. Bob Channel
8.13K subscribers
1.9K
293,584 views Jul 28, 2013
"We lost another great musician / performer / songwriter on Friday July 26th, 2013!"
"JJ Cale passed away this past Friday. Man, talk about hard hitting! I feel like I lost a family member! I grew up with this man and his music. I've spent many hours listening to his music over the last 35+ years and I have many good memories from times in my life that were influenced by his music. This guy had so many hits, you couldn't count them all using all your appendages. JJ, you will be greatly missed by the whole world! R.I.P. brother!"
"...So I dug through the archives yesterday as soon as I heard the disturbing news and found a nice show that I think will help preserve his memory and many great songs. I was up all night and had problems with the original conversion, then did a second conversion to You Tube HD format, then had some problems getting it to upload to You Tube. But it seems to be taking the upload, so here it is: JJ Cale Live @ The Bottom Line in NYC in 1992. This is the full show. The original broadcast was on Japanese TV. It seems to be fairly rare, I haven't seen it anywhere else and I don't think it got aired on US TV. This clip is being brought to you in the memory of a great American hero, Mr. JJ Cale, from The Rev. Bob Archives. Keep the memory alive and enjoy the show! Thanks for watching!"
"Go out and buy anything by JJ Cale today, then go home and play it for all your friends and make sure THEY KNOW this was the man who wrote After Midnight, Call Me The Breeze, Cocaine & Bringing It Back just to name a few. Spread the memory of JJ Cale...."
"...This was posted on the JJ Cale website....":
"JJ Cale Has Passed Away"
"JJ Cale passed away at 8:00 pm on Friday July 26
at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, CA."
"The legendary singer / songwriter had suffered a heart attack.
There are no immediate plans for services.
His history is well documented at JJCale.com, rosebudus.com/cale,
and in the documentary, To Tulsa And Back. "
"Donations are not needed but he was a great lover of animals so, if you like,
you can remember him with a donation to your favorite local animal shelter..."
"The music and videos that I post on my channel are being offered free for the promotion of the artist that made the music and the enjoyment and education of fans of the music everywhere. No money is being asked for these performances. These are being posted for free. All credit will be fully given to any and all artist involved in the making of said video. These videos are being offered under the Fair Use And Free Trade Act for music lovers everywhere to enjoy and learn from. Special thank you's to any and all artist that made said video. You make the world a better place for all of us."
The Rev. Bob Channel
8.13K subscribers
Via Tio Mitchito
aka Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of Atonement Seekers)
Media Discussion List\Looksee
You’re a great writer. I encourage you also to check out Sarah Kenzior on Substack. You and her are like the new Hunter Thompsons.
I might have to come out as a Miserable now.
Wonderful positive kind analysis of The Miserable. They will probably not like this much… lol.
Btw, what were you doing in Iowa? Are you from here? That would explain the “Iowa Nice” vibe you always present.
Silver is just a reflective version of the grey, if we really want to get into semantics and perception. And love and light alone will not save us, though this in no way justifies wallowing in feelings of ill will or misfortune unnecessarily. Great post.