A REFUTATION, AND SOME MUSINGS

But not in that order. Musings are easier because they require less coherence, and coherence, I’m finding, is not a side effect of vicodin.

The main thing that separates, in my mind, a Party Bolshevik from a party proletariat is self-awareness. Be it a blessing or a curse—or as is always the case with binary definitions in the real world, both—it is our responsibility take a good hard look at the practice of partying because we are fairly uniquely well situated to do so. I see here a rare confluence of intellect, affability, the willingness to write recreationally and the inexorable need to party; it seems irresponsible to let this go to waste.

Now I’m fully aware that this entire endeavor is couple of dudes and chicks writing some bullshit so that we and maybe 8 other people can read it. And I’m also fully aware that it’s far easier to make grandiose plans than to even begin to follow through with them. But part of Bolshevism, and in fact the most important part, is that the REAL Bolsheviks were one of hundreds or thousands of “revolutionary circles” in Russia and Europe, all of whom spent all their time talking bullshit about how they were gonna overthrow the government and institute a worker’s paradise—BUT THE BOLSHEVIKS DID WORK, SON.

So call me Old Major if you like, but what the fuck else are any of y’all doing with your time? It is just a fact that writing is the best thing you can do to improve yourself intellectually and make yourself more marketable for any profession not involving steroids, and if writing about bullshit is the impetus I need to write anything, then so be it.

But so what I’m calling for is an increased dedication in the form of more essays (yeah let’s call them essays) but maybe even more importantly, an improved discourse about what we write. As it is, it seems like we’re talking past each other, and that needs to change if we’re to improve. We all have things to learn from each other stylistically, grammatically and thematically, and I assume we’re sufficiently adult to give and receive criticism rationally.

On a related note, I’d like to propose a rather large project, one that could give our outfit a more solid framework for how we do business: I’d like to define “party” by deconstructing the elements which make it up. By isolating the integral aspects of the Party, my hope is that we can purify our methods and thus move closer to the Party in its ideal form.

I anticipate an objection to this plan because its one I would have made as recently as this summer—that by analyzing “fun” we make it impossible to truly enjoy ourselves earnestly, Beyond [to bastardize Nietzsche] Irony and Post-Irony. That’s terribly naïve. We are all self-conscious, and to pretend that we can be selectively self-conscious is a childish conceit.

Vicodin’s wearing off so I’m done. Look for a refutation in the near future—here’s a hint it’s about Keystone Light.

-Old Major