nfl and groucho

andy pink, reno, nevada —

to care less — i must confess —

dear colleagues,

i feel very strongly that i could care less about the nfl debacle involving raymond rice and various other hooligans. one of the great contributions of feminism is the dictum: the personal is the political. what this essentially means is that the private is the public, the domestic is the social, and the individual is the world. it is because of feminism that domestic violence is no longer seen (for the most part) as a private matter, a tussle between husband and wife, with no need for the state, the public, and the police to enter the domestic sphere and right the wrong, or even call out the wrong. it is strange — whatever beyonce might have recently tried to retry — that feminism has such a negative reputation — a marketing problem that it shares with pedophilia — but feminism is no doubt responsible for the fact that we now take domestic violence seriously as a crime, ray rice to be persecuted and punished in the public.

that said, i could care less about all of the kerfuffle about this situation. i now dislike the commissioner of the nfl — but i would quite naturally dislike any commissioner, of virtually anything at all — and i especially despise footage of fans who have since cheered ray rice — with proper jerseys — despite his crimes. i often find that — as a general rule — i hate women more than men. but, the exception to such a misogynist rule — despite my pro-feminist introduction to this post — the exception is: gay men. i absolutely loathe gay men and i’ve only met a handful of such in my entire lifetime (i am one of the gay men that i like, there is also peter and trevor and a couple of my students) that i have actually liked.

when i was inpatient at the hospital in montreal for 7 months in 2007 the loathsome art therapist quickly — apparently upon a quick summation of my personhood — this monster told me that the old groucho marx line applied to me: “i wouldn’t want to be a member of a club that would want me as a member.” this is a very profound line — even if it is not at all funny — and in psychoanalysis (freud) it would be referred to as a kind of complex of “reaction formation.” this destructive art therapist at the hospital who felt the right to summarize me based on my coloring book — she likely was referring to my resistance to joining the “club” of the mentally ill, that the crazies would want me as a member but for some — reaction formation — reason that i don’t want to be a member of the club. later, now, i am perfectly happy being a member of the crazy club though i must admit that i find myself often repulsed by my fellow members, for a variety of reasons. this general anti-club issue is very common, of course, it applies to jews (who hate jews the most), gays (who hate gays the most; cf. me), women who hate women the most (this is such a true generalization that it need no further elaboration, women just tend not to like other women, and self-professed feminists are the most egregious perpetrators of such reaction formative misogyny). my point: we generally don’t want to be a member of our various clubs and we certainly don’t tend to like the other members of our club — both of us, ourselves and our loathed colleagues, none of whom want to be a member of ourselves. in short, we willfully dis-identify with ourselves, an almost schizophrenic move, except that it is utterly common. the other side of the groucho joke is that even if you don’t want to be a member of the club (crazy, gay, black, female, american, and so on) that wants you as a member — despite, you already are a member of the club. the resistance to membership is irrelevant, moot, and finally futile — you are already a member, for better or worse, so why battle against precisely yourself?

i am quite ecstatic and happy (“gay”) to be gay, and i am even utterly joyed and content to be crazy, yet i find that i simply do not like most of the other members of my clubs. what i am saying is:

i don’t like people like me. with the caveat: i do like me.

i recently discovered the possibility that i might like almond milk, but as of yet i have refused to give it a shot.

classes — the two philosophy sections — were awesome today, i was at the top of my game, one of my students wants to bring his friend just to sit in and learn, and i am quite possibly the best teacher in this little hole in the wall institution in casper, wyoming. i must say: being in wyoming only a couple of weeks — big game hunting is the kale and quinoa of casper. and if you are now thinking of the hipster — have you ever met a hipster that would own up to being a hipster? this is certainly not a club that anyone would want to be a member of — even as this sick hipster is already a member of the club of the trust fund and the politically indifferent.

i would like to say to you — if you must visit me in wyoming, please take along a triple-a trip-tik —

why? — because it is 1989.

good day, good luck, god bless, and fuck off, pink starz