TPM Video: Let's Start Anew

Years back I did a couple songs, mostly improvised, using just my battered twelve string and my vocal cords. "Let's Start Anew" was one of the better pieces from this project. I was going for a simple folk song, a la "Two of Us" by the Beatles. I'll let you decide whether or not I hit the mark.

Weightlifting: Ditillo Bench Program Results

I imagine this would be his Tinder profile pic today.

Six weeks ago I started an Anthony Ditillo bench program (click here for the details). It put fifteen pounds on my max bench, taking it from 300 to 315. Honestly, I'm a little embarrassed it took so long for me to bench 315 at 200 lbs, but hey, my arms hang down to my knees, and I had a shoulder injury that made benching uncomfortable for years. Excuses, excuses.

 

The sixth week of the program was pretty tough. On Saturday, I did 295 for five singles, followed by 270 for three sets of three, and finally 235 for three sets of five. Doing the five singles with 98 percent of my 1 rpm gave me plenty of confidence to max out at the conclusion of the program. For the light workout, I did 200 lbs for four sets of seven. The last workout was 255 for five sets of three. The program gives you the option of doing five to seven sets of three to five reps, and knowing that I was going to max out on Saturday, I choice the lighter option. For most the program, I tried to do as much volume as possible. I did a lot of assistance work, usually triceps/biceps/lats, in addition to 5/3/1 for my lower body. My bench press seems to require a lot of volume and intensity to progress, so the other lifts have to take a back seat. I think vanilla 5/3/1 is probably fine for the deadlift, but the squat needs more volume.

For maxing out, I did 135 for five, 185 for three, 225 for 2, 245 for one, and finally 275 for one. I went with 305 for my first attempt, since that would be a small five pound PR. It went up easily, so I continued with 315. I pressed it fine off my chest, but I hit a sticking point about a foot and a half up. Very slowly, I ground the bar up. Don't know if I have a triceps weakness; it's likely I just hit my true max. I'm going to have a deload week for bench press and then run the program again. I think I'll keep the rest of my training the same, except for adding a little more volume to my high bar squat day (I usually just do five sets of five). Anyways, if you're looking to add weight to your bench (and who isn't!) do this Ditillo program. I haven't hit a fifteen pound PR on the bench press in years.

I, for One, Would Happily Sacrifice Millions of Lives for the Sake of the Stock Market

Hello there, this is Dan Patrick, Lt. Governor of the great state of Texas, and I'd like ya'll to know that you can all die to save this great economy. Like my fellow Reptilians in the GOP, I believe that the most important thing right now in this pandemic is to make sure all the rich people don't lose any money. Money, as the Bible tells us, is the best thing in the world. You use it to buy things, and as Jesus taught us, you can take all the things that you buy with you into Heaven. Have I ever told you about Heaven? Heaven is a country club full of good ole' boys and pure, virginal women who are not allowed on the golf course. When you die you have to bribe Saint Peter in order to get the best caddy, who will make sure you shoot under par when you play against the great Christian leaders of the past, like Nixon and King Charlemagne. I tell ya'll, there'll be a special place in Heaven for President Trump, and I consider it the main ambition of my afterlife to live in whatever idyllic paradise the Good Lord has prepared for him. I figure it will be another country club similar to Mar-a-lago but with even less class and more opportunities for people to pleasure our great leader. Look at those Gary Busey-like chompers I got in the picture above. You think those teeth are pearly white now? Imagine what they'll look like after I've spent an eternity with my face in Donald Trump's asshole. Please give me that opportunity, Jesus.

But anyways, we need to buckle down and start letting people die unless we want to have a Great Depression. You know the Democrats are chompin' at the bit to blame all this death on President Trump. It is China's fault. They engineered this supervirus and released it on their own people. Or maybe they were just studying it and mixing it with AIDS and super cancer and it escaped. Or perhaps it's just a trumped up flu and people are totally overreacting. I dunno, but one of those theories is definitely right. The only thing I know for sure is that you can't trust experts. What do they know? Fancy book learning is one thing, but I get my information from vetted sources, by which I mean people who think exactly like me, only they put their scrambled egg thoughts down on paper much better. The so-called conspiracy nuts were right this one time, weren't they? That means we might as well chuck expertise out the window, along with all the people not healthy enough to survive coronavirus.

When I say that we need to take some losses to preserve our economy, I mean you, personally. You can die. You or your neighbor. Your grandma. Your parents. Everybody you know. They can all die for all that I care.

Hey, vote Republican in November! That is, if any of you are left alive.

The Consummate Politician Doesn't Apologize

Hello, America. In different times, I might be stepping up to give a press conference apologizing for my reckless spread of the coronavirus amongst my fellow senators. Thankfully, those times are long gone, and nobody apologizes for anything anymore. You can believe I did something wrong, but you, sir, are actually wrong because as a medical doctor and sasquatch enthusiast I know more than you, buddy. Which one of us is a United States Senator? Yeah, I thought so.

So what if I had myself tested for the coronavirus and didn't self-quarantine? I got myself a platinum healthcare plan and a wilful disregard for the safety of others. Do you really expect me not to work out in the Senate gym or swim in the Senate pool? What am I, a plebeian? Libertarians have no rules, motherfucker. Especially Kentucky libertarians. I was a goddamn ophthalmologist, for chrissakes. I might technically be a medical doctor, but Ben Carson was a brilliant brain surgeon, so obviously you can be sort of smart in one area and completely fucking stupid in another. Not that I did anything stupid, of course. Don't think I'm apologizing.

I think you people who are trying to hold me accountable for my reckless endangerment of our old-ass Senate should maybe just accept that I am an asshole and live with it. I am such an asshole that my neighbor attacked me while I was mowing the yard and broke several of my ribs, resulting in the partial removal of one of my lungs. Before you feel sorry for me, think of what sort of evil could cause a mild-mannered anesthesiologist to risk federal prison? Is it possible that the reoccurring sight of my person provokes such a violent response? I dunno, but the good people of Kentucky reelected me by a considerable margin in 2016, so ya'll can go fuck yourselves.

Did I actually say that? Wait, do we even care anymore what we say? The President doesn't, and I'm  a loyal member of Donnie Two-Scoops's Stable Genius band of sociopaths known as the Republican Party, so yeah, I said it. Fuck ya'll silly. I'd rather piles of people died than increase the federal deficit anymore, unless we're planning on cutting taxes for millionaires or screwing 9/11 first responders. I'm not up for reelection till 2022, and you bet your ass all the hillbillies in Kentucky will vote for me over a Democrat. Christ, Moscow Mitch is our other senator. Education pays, eh?

Alrighty, then. I guess this is over. Everybody get back to work and start this economy up. Your slave masters are losing money in the stock free fall. Oh, well some of them aren't. Why didn't anybody tell me to sell my stocks? Maybe everyone really does hate me.

Writer's Block: The Disease

The Disease

Empty streets

Empty store shelves

Hands lingering at sides

The spaces between grow six feet or more

The normal mindlessness is replaced

With a steep sick tightness that grasps the throat

And strangles while you read and read and read

About how it will all grow worse

The steady desolation stretching like taut skin

Spread over dry ribs

One blow to those meager structures

And it all comes crumbling apart

What is the future but anxiety?

What is hope but a vague blur?

The sense of living in a strange time

Seeps into every breath, every tense inhalation

And it is all you can do to find normalcy

In stupid everyday things

We like the puppet show

We want it to continue

Perhaps we clasp our hands together

And look toward the sky

Sending our better wishes to the heavens

While washing our hands

A neighbor is a potential sickness

A hand a harborer of ill-will

The modern condition taken to a ridiculous extreme

Hide in your house, troglodyte

Be as scared of people as they are of you

Let us not whither further

Though whither we must

The Diary of Mitch R. Singer

Out in the orchard, kneeling beneath the swelling blossoms 

I sit on my knees and dig at the trunks of peach trees with a screwdriver and a broken saw, flinging the gummy frass out into the awakening grass. Tunnels reveal themselves, twisted things carved through living tissue, their makers hidden in darkness. Sometimes I finding nothing but the discolored sap. Other times I find an invader, a white, fat grub writhing slowly in the daylight. When I find them, I place them in the palm of my gloved hand and consider their place in the circle of being. Blind, mindless, ceaselessly boring, moving through their own detritus like creatures of a liquid element. I watch and then I crush them with the point of my screwdriver, gently. Knees bend and blood rushes to the head. The sun is out; the sky is blue. I am some sort of archaic thing, performing a thankless task. All tasks are thankless. We all have the same purpose as a clown.


Looking out my window, across at the park

He stumbles up the road, a clumsy man clad in ill-fitting clothes, the hair disappearing from his head, his movements like a puppet jerked to and fro in a manic rhythm. Two fat women take point; I can see them laughing but I hear nothing. The discarded children cluster around the swing set, obscenities causally rolling from their lips. They glance at the man with interest; suddenly he veers toward them, saying something. They scatter from his presence like deer from a wolf; I lean my ears out and I can hear him telling them that he is diseased, that he has a knife, and that he wants to touch somebody. What can I do about this? I look at my phone on the table and pick it up. A black pickup truck clutters down the road, the man suddenly at the wheel. How did he get there? As they disappear, I am left with nothing but a sick feeling in my guts, and the realization that it will be there for a very long time.

In my yard, looking across the street

The trashcan purges itself of refuse, sending the rejected contents of its innards out into the street. There are paper cups, plastic bottles, Styrofoam takeout containers, wrappers of all sorts. It sits there and grows against the side of the apartment building, spreading like an epidemic. The children add to it and play with it; they are used to its ever-present sprawl. They have nothing to do now but eat each other. The club-footed child is sent away by the raining of blows upon his back, all the meanness of poor, young lives placed in each half-grown fist. A man comes out of the back of the apartment building and displays his bare chest, which is covered in grotesque tattoos. The children don't mind him, and he does not mind the children. All the pieces are clicking into place. There will be a beast on the horizon, a glum, gluttonous cloud, and it will blot out the sun, and only the small will survive.

The Hillsdale Paranormal Society's Guide to Proper Etiquette During A Pandemic

F all you motherfers

Gordy Weaver here taking time out from watching methheads from my bathroom window (RIP Aurora, IN) to inform you all about proper etiquette during a pandemic. I had to look up etiquette, and now that I know what it means, I'm going to throw it out causally in conversation as much as possible, so beware. Etiquette, for all you who don't know, means manners, more or less, and although people nowadays have about as much class as a teenage Marky-Mark standing around in his underwear, we don't all have to give up on being nicer human beings to each other just because our country is going to hell. I'm going to lay some ground rules that you all should abide when you're fighting amongst yourselves for the last bag of beef jerky in the Sam's Club parking lot. Keep in mind that the alien hive mind is judging you and you will not rewarded for negative conduct in this life.

Rule numero uno: Don't buy up all the toilet paper. For fuck's sake, peeps, why you buying all the toilet paper? You gonna eat all that shit when society collapses? You gonna make sure your corpse has a clean butthole? Morons are creating the very supply shortages that they are scared of. I guess when the fevered masses come for you, you'll have plenty of TP to build ramparts that a child could plow through. Also, don't fucking buy all the hand sanitizer and then try to resell it at inflated prices. If a national tragedy occurs and you see a business opportunity, then you should go jump off a fucking cliff or go play in traffic, because the human race doesn't need people like you.

Rule numero dos: Stop posting bullshit on the internet. Man, reddit doesn't need anymore threads about conspiracy theories. I guarantee you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, and your dumb uncle who heard that the Chinese engineered this virus by mixing a little AIDS with a little SARS is so stupid he should be beaten with reeds and forced to consume his own bullshit until he pukes some sense. We already know that about forty percent of the country is so irredeemably stupid that they can't tell the difference between information that sounds plausible and a story pieced together by monkeys slamming their knuckles on keyboards. Hell, I run a paranormal society and I know that 99 percent of the shit I write about is nonsense. Bigfoot may be real, but Trent didn't really see him, and every time I've encountered the bastard, I've been so fucking drunk that chupacabras were riding on his shoulders, and we all know that chupacabras don't like to be picked up, even by Bigfoot, so stop adding to the misinformation and keep your pie-hole shut, jabroni.

That's just a dead dog with mange, bro.

Rule numero tres: Keep your distance. Like, I understand that we can't all live forever like a teenager on a Warcraft binge chowing down on cheesy poofs, the stale reek of our dying farts our only company, but maybe you should if you can. I am not the most social of bears, but I get cabin fever cooped up (plus there are ghosts in my attic taking each other to pound town twenty-four seven, so that gets annoying). If you were thinking about going to see Bret Micheaels swing his sexy hips at the local casino, don't bother, since he's fat and he sucks, but also they might be closing soon, or so I hear. The experts say this will die out if we all just live like hermits for a while. As an expert in Reptilian lore, I confirm that this is correct.

Man I had some more rules but I'm all out now, and I think there's a squirrel trying to break into my beef jerky cache I made last night in the hoboshack, so I'm out. Stay safe, America. Gordy Weaver will be praying to the old gods for you.

Good Thing We Have A Competent Moron As President

Fat Turd.

As America braces itself for the coronovirus epidemic and the pyramid scheme known as the stock market tumbles into oblivion, let us all be thankful that we have a competent moron as President, as opposed to an incompetent moron. You see, a competent moron gets stuff done. An incompetent moron wouldn't have gutted the nation's pandemic response team, because incompetent morons are, well, incompetent. An incompetent moron wouldn't have contradicted his own administration and claimed that the coronovirus "may not get here." Our competent moron President refuses to self-quarantine, unlike an incompetent moron, because he knows best. After all, he gets stuff done. Does it really matter if said stuff is stupid?

I'd like to thank everyone who voted for the competent moron in 2016. A competent moron is exactly the type of person I'd like to have in charge of the nation during a pandemic in the internet era. Nobody sows disinformation like a competent moron, and nobody is as sure of themselves as some one who is incredibly stupid and oblivious to their own stupidity. While an incompetent moron might listen to people who are smarter than him, a competent moron doesn't listen to anybody. A competent moron is only interested in not being blamed for his incompetence.

Hey I'm glad you guys got those Supreme Court Justices. Was it worth it for the tax cut? Were enough brown skinned people deported to justify your choice? Was the swamp sufficiently cleared of competent, non-partisan people? Were the libs owned enough? And those of you who voted to watch the world burn, are you happy now? For all of our sakes, I hope our competent moron of a President musters just enough humility to see the nation through this crisis. Maybe it'll blow over in a month and we will all move on to the next pointless distraction. But if we're on a downward slope, and people die, and the economy crashes, and people lose their jobs and homes, then I hope you fucking dipshits gain enough sense not to vote for that orange sack of shit again in November.

Albums That Made Me: Nevermind

Nevermind is a great pop record, dressed in indie/punk stylings. Songs like Breed, Drain You, and Come As You Are have melodies so simple and catchy, my three year old can sing them note for note. Cobain's guitar's thick distortion gets much of the credit for Nirvana's heaviness, but David Grohl's drumming is the real secret ingredient. There's a reason why he played on albums by Queens of the Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails, and it's that he's the best drummer in all of alternative rock. Cobain's guitar prowess has been derided by shred-obsessed dolts, but he literally set the tone for an entire era of rock 'n' roll. The solo to Lithium is more memorable than anything Van Halen ever conjured up, and his rhythm work has just the right amount of roughness to it. Rock 'n' roll isn't supposed to be clean, folks, the irony here being that Nirvana cleaned up their sound for this album. There's no shame in that, especially not nowadays, when musicians are more than eager to license their tunes to commercials. Selling out is not a thing anymore, though it apparently mattered a lot to Cobain. I've found myself borrowing chord progressions or melodies unthinkingly from this album. Its impact was so significant that rock music never really recovered. Cobain is thought of as the last rock star, and the genre's decline gradually followed his passing. Regardless, I'll still pull up a video of a Nirvana concert every once in a while to watch with my son, and it's fun to watch him stare at man with a guitar on a stage, utterly transfixed. There's still power there, more than two generations removed. Maybe one day rock 'n' roll will live again.

Batman and Robin: Democratic Presidential Primary

The halls of Wayne Manor echo as Batman prowls, brooding in his dark manner. His phone is in his left hand; his right finger casually swipes every few seconds as the world's greatest detective browses the world wide web. He almost bumps into Robin, who has just returned from voting in the Democratic presidential primary.

"Holy fucking smokes," says Batman, the right corner of his mouth turning upward into a grimace. "Take care when you come around corners. There are people walking around here, you know."

"Sorry, Bruce," says Robin. "I'm going to go up to my room and rattle off a quick blog post..."

"Another political puff piece?" says Batman. "No doubt devoted to that loony communist, I assume?"

Robin stares coldly at Batman, futilely attempting to keep this brief conversation from devolving into another violent shouting match.

"I thought we agreed not to talk politics," he says finally. "I'm not going to convince you to change your opinions, and you also cannot convince to me to change mine. It's not healthy for our relationship to argue so."

"You voted for Sanders, didn't you? He doesn't have a snowball's chance anymore. The numbers are coming in. Biden's won in a landslide. Trump's going to expose his son's Ukraine corruption and the Dems are going to lose again like the America hating losers they are."

Batman's smile is so smug Robin can practically see the shit dripping from his grin. It takes all of his willpower not to cold cock his former mentor.

"Yes, I'm sure a guy who can't crack a 44 percent approval rating is a sure bet for reelection. Just keep living in your right wing news bubble, Bruce. Most of America hates Trump's guts. Sure, Joe Biden isn't a great candidate, but he's not an orange piece of human excrement like your hero. Keep in mind that your President's been accused of sexual assault by seventeen women. Six of his businesses have gone bankrupt. He's been involved in over thirty-five thousand lawsuits. Christ, just look at his Twitter feed. He possesses the brains of a school yard bully. And you're going to cast your vote for him this year, aren't you? How, Bruce? Fucking how?"

"What?" asks Bruce. He was staring down at his phone during Robin's outburst, and has just now realized that he's been asked a question.

"I bet you can't even define what a communist is," says Robin dismissively.

"A communist is somebody who wants a handout and a handjob without doing any work. He's the kind of person who spits on soldiers and throws babies in the dumpster. He's got glasses and noodle arms. He's probably a vegan and on the fence about his sexuality. His girlfriend hits him in the balls whenever she wants, and he apologizes."

"Where do you come up with these caricatures?" asked Robin. "You did not describe a real person. That's a goddamn cartoon character, Bruce."

"You're a goddamn cartoon character, Robin! Look at you in your slacks and sweater vest. You look like a goddamn political officer! Where's your armband? Where's the hammer and sickle?"

Batman makes a grab for Robin, but he is too slow. He stumbles into a suit of armor and roars. The halls echo with his senseless exclamations. Robin makes his exit and sighs. He has a couple of friends that need a roommate. Wayne Manor is no longer a welcoming place.

New Video: Sado

Sado is as though Urge Overkill and Queens of the Stone Age had a baby, which would be a little inbred thing, seeing how Queens took a lot from Urge Overkill. It's a dirty song, I guess, if you consider human sexuality to be a dirty thing, which it is. I did a little drawing of Bigfoot in chains for the video. Who doesn't like rock 'n' roll? The kids don't. Good thing I'm not a kid anymore.

The Esteemed Critic Reviews Once Upon A Time In Hollywood; Hereditary

The Critic has had a troubling relationship with Quentin Tarantino. As a teenager, he loved Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction; as a young adult he also enjoyed Jackie Brown and Kill Bill. Inglourious Basterds was uneven but had moments of brilliance, and the same could be said for Django Unchained. Tarantino's style was set, however; colorful dialogue, B movie plots, big name actors and myriad homages to classic cinema, with all of it ending in violence. If there's anything the Critic tires of, it is an artist that repeats himself. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is Tarantino's ode to sixties Hollywood, yet he can't help but be revisionist, of course. Just like how the Nazi leadership fell to machine guns and flames in Inglourious Basterds, the Manson family's murder of Sharon Tate, which people often mark as the moment the supposed idealism of the 1960 died, does not happen in Once Upon A Time. Margot Robbie plays the starlet as a bright, fun-loving embodiment of Hollywood fame. In contrast, DiCaprio plays Rick Dalton, a nearly washed up TV cowboy who happens to live next to Tate and Polanski. He has an interesting relationship with his stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), who has been blackballed by Hollywood for possibly getting away with murder. As Dalton carves out a niche in the changing Hollywood scene, Booth becomes acquainted with the Manson family, culminating in a climax that features a rampaging pit bull and an immolation by flamethrower. All of it is somehow believable. Those filthy, dirty hippies who destroyed the golden age of Hollywood (and America!) are annihilated by the very victims of their hedonism. Revisionist? Of course! Who cares? Not I! Tarantino lets actors sink their teeth into dialogue like no one else. I give Once Upon A Time In Hollywood four Reservoir Dogs.

Addendum) Once Upon A Time In Hollywood features a ridiculous amount of bare female feet. Tarantino's foot fetish is well-known, but never before has he been this unrestrained. Dirty feet, greasy feet, feet with weird toes--this film's got 'em all. If you have a phobia of feet, stay far, far away from this one.

Hereditary is a horror movie with a great twist. The Critic despises twists, but Hereditary's is so shocking and out of left field that even the Critic cannot complain about it. There is an ungodly (oh!) amount of tension in this movie, so thick you could cut it with a buzzsaw. Like Midsommar, director Ari Aster's subsequent film (review here), there are some incredibly disturbing scenes--a disembodied head covered in flies, for instance--but there are no jump scares or bad CGI. This is the kind of film that sticks with you and you find yourself thinking about at the wrong times of night. Demonic possession is just the worst, amirite? Especially when its perpetrated by your own family. On the Critic's personal horror movie scale, this one's slotted between Alien and Freddy Got Fingered. In other words, I recommend this movie.