Don't forget nouns!

Previously superb and award-winning local alt weeklies now featuring lists of random topics and meaningless buzzwords strung together under a vague umbrella term.

Maybe art, but neither writing nor an editorial.

See now, this is how you do filler.

Show this to Mudede the next time you catch him wasting an entire afternoon on paper bag handles or a raccoon carcass.

“The job, the family, the fucking big television. The washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electric tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisure wear, luggage, three piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing gutters, getting by, looking ahead, the day you die.”

Welsh did it better, I’m afraid.

@5

Context does a hell of a lot of work there, doesn't it?

the zeitgeist he is conjuring, me thinks,,,,

1976 NETWORK, by Paddy Chayefsky,,,,

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth. Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be.
We know things are bad — worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is: 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.'
Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get MAD! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot — I don't want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. [shouting] You've got to say: 'I'm a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!'
So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell: I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!
I want you to get up right now. Sit up. Go to your windows. Open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!...You've got to say, I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE! Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first, get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

@7

You should probably find another '70s film to quote, that one's showing signs of exhaustion.

TL;DR

@8, thank you for your thoughtful insight. Me? Literature don't age out....the "70's film" holds out quite well, but the timeless, superb writing captures the American Citizen/Consumer state of affairs quite nicely. American technology has changed, but not much else, ethos and pathos wise. Today, it would be, "I'm Mad as Hell,,,so I'm voting Trump.MAGA." And of course here we are now....Gawd help us each and every one,,,

#8, Network makes even more sense today than it did when originally released.

The kids! The doorbell! Calgon, take me away!!!

Oh my God. Don't refuse to be happy, people. If you have enough to eat and a warm place to live, you have so much more than most people throughout history. If in addition to that you have family and friends that love you, you have practically everything worth wanting. Our current challenges are real, and they suck. But this is the only life you get (that we know of) and it would be a tragic waste to ignore all the good things out there.

Hey, we didn't start the fire.

That was fun David Ross. Thanks

I see that Masters in English from UW has really paid off. Next up: The Great American Novel? Elementary School Teaching? I believe what most people forget and most should remember remember is that happiness comes in many forms. For Seattleites- if The Stranger is to be believed - it pretty much stops at the bong and orgasm. For myself, happiness is publicly poking fun at the long list of things aforementioned that make people unhappy in the most profoundly blunt way possible and not care one iota how people regard it because really, a millennia from now, no one will give a rats furry anyway. It really is the paradox of happiness. One persons subjective misery, is another persons pun and parody.

BRING BACK JEN GRAVES