The Coquette

I'm so happy to live in an age full of these amazingly gifted writers and thinkers who have access to a platform because of blogging. When I first signed up for my beloved Tumblr, I stumbled across Coke Talk. Her sharpness and blunt advice immediately caught my attention. After reading (and laughing) for quite some time, I also grew to love her wisdom, her rationality, her intelligence, and her penchant for forgiveness.

I watched as she added features and changed her name, all things she did with grace and perfect timing. I even ordered a "Cunt" necklace from her Boutique and got a shout-out from the anonymous lady herself, a moment of true Tumblr glory and geekery that I will forever cherish.

The real reason I wax poetic about Coquette is because she is such a good source of truth in a world full of bullshit. She wants her readers to question everything, even her. She wants us to grow up, let go, and find peace. And even when she cracks that whip of a tongue at one of her advisees, she does it with the best of intentions. Some may say she's a bitch, but I don't see that. I see an unrelentingly kind and evolved soul.

Nine times out of ten, I agree with Coquette. The other 10 percent of me that dissents her opinions still respects the shit out of them. In fact, I even marinate on what's rubbed me the wrong way, sometimes for days, wondering if she was actually right. She makes me a better advocate for myself and for the issues I believe in.

So here they are, some of the columns and random snippets that have meant the most to me from Our Lady Coquette. Thanks for helping one girl on the opposite coast come to terms with life and its myriad of intricacies.

On cheating, identity, and the golden rule.

On church and state.
On bedtime death panic.
On seizing the day.

On what to say.
On laziness.

SOPA Ain't Cool, Yo.

As a person who uses the Internet as their sole outlet for publicly utilizing my First Amendment rights, SOPA is insulting. If you want to read the bill, you can do so here. It's actually not all that hard to understand, which is why I'm even more peeved that Congress thinks we don't comprehend that this bill gives them overreaching power to destroy our blogs, our social media, our entire Internet experience as we know it.

If you don't have the time to read the bill, watch this video or Google the many articles on the subject. If that's still too time consuming, you could just stay here and watch as I illustrate the potential disaster this bill could bring, just to my little blog. Especially to my little blog.

I often post photos on my entries that are quite obviously not mine. Most of them are screen captures of movies or TV shows. I don't credit them to anyone because I link them from a URL, which was probably linked from another URL. You know, like this:

All I'm trying to do here is exhibit my lady wood for both Ron Swanson and Han Solo. I'm not trying to take credit for creating either character, nor the compounded image itself. I'm not trying to claim that a character created far before I was born and one far after are actually one person. I'm not trying to make money off of this image (more on that later), but if SOPA passes, I will be treated like that's precisely what I'm trying to do.

According to H.R.3261, if I post something like this image and the right person sees it, my and your Internet Service Providers can block my site from our computers. That means that even though you all know that I didn't write, direct, or participate in the Star Wars franchise in any way, you can't continue to read my blog because Hollywood thinks I'm trying to steal an idea that's over 30 years old.

Oh, and despite the fact that I make a meager amount of money with this blog using AdSense, I don't make it because of Hollywood's images. I make it because I have friends, near and far, who for some reason want to read what I have to say. The images are just a treat for sitting down long enough to read in an age where it's pretty hard to concentrate enough to do that. If I had never used any of these images, I have full faith that I would have the exact same amount of revenue in my AdSense account I do today. However, because I profit (barely - I haven't even made enough to give Google my tax info, yet) from this blog, all that would have to happen is some lowly Hollywood assistant informing his boss about my using their production company's image before I received a notice that I could be shut down.

It doesn't matter that these images are available to the general public because the general public saw them the moment the film was released, the episode aired. It doesn't matter that you could Google the term "Ron Swanson," even without my blog, and come up with millions of sources. Why? Because SOPA will try to censor Google and other search engines, too.

If this doesn't freak you out, you are probably the last person on earth who doesn't use the term Google as a verb. Google is an amazing tool that we have at the tips of our fingers. It is completely free. We can use it to find out anything we want. Do you remember what it was like trying to remember who sang a song before search engines came along? It was fucking torture, man.

The point is, if there are links to infringing sites on any search engine, the search engine will be asked to take it off. If they don't comply, they could be shut down in the same manner my blog could. You know who else could be shut down? Social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, and God forbid, TUMBLR! They would be held accountable for any posting of copyrighted material on our profiles, channels, and blogs. We would have to stop sharing things with each other because some assholes in Hollywood have their panties in a twist.

I don't want to live in a world where I can't watch a cute British girl sing "Super Bass," even though Nicki Minaj herself loved the video, because some dick in a suit at Nicki's record company wants to ensure that the mini songbird doesn't steal his revenue. Because really, cute children never help boost the sales of anything, right?

At the end of the day, there is gonna be some piracy. While I truly believe everyone should get credit for their ideas, and people should be able to make a living out of their art, how can you shut down a website for LINKING to a video they FREELY ADMITTED they didn't create? Doesn't Hollywood's billion dollar industry have enough? Is putting the extra money in Hollywood's pocket really worth destroying the rest of us, trying to create art that is just as good, if not better than what Tinsel Town is churning out?

People like Joseph Gordon-Levitt have been trying to break this idea that art and ideas can't be shared to be made better. I've felt this way for a really long time, and the opportunity has been made easier, better by the widespread reach of the Internet.

SOPA began to stop piracy, but the evolution and the wording of the bill would be perilous to all of us little guys, just trying to do what we love and share cool shit with our friends. SOPA is trying to tell me that trying to EXPAND the fan base for "Parks and Rec" is wrong, which is kind of weird.

Hollywood and Congress are very obviously out of touch with the people, so tell them that we're not down with this. We're not okay with being blocked from sites we love. We're not okay with not being able to cover pop songs and post them on our YouTube channels. We're not okay with being banned from sharing funny links with our friends across the country. We're not okay with the government trying to change our entire new-age way of life for a bunch of dicks who already have millions to billions of dollars. Write Congress. There's already a form filled out for you. It takes two seconds. If you don't, there's a good chance that censorship bar on my blog could become a reality, not just a gimmick to get your attention. You really don't want your Internet experience to look like this, do you?

Go forth into the night, my friends. Don't let our free speech be dictated by others.

May the force be with you.

© George Lucas

HB: Rumours

Rumors look cool when they're spelled like the Fleetwood Mac album title, but in reality, they are unattractive, annoying, and childish. I thought I'd left the days of hearing and being the center of rumors behind in high school, but they rear their heads now and then. Really, you'd think they'd get the hint that I'm not into them anymore. Rumors and I, we broke up a long time ago, and not even a big bouquet of sunflowers can redeem them for me.

When we were a certain age, these kind of funny stories and vicious lies were a way of life. Maybe that is a misconception on my part, but I know in my small-town high school, this was absolutely true. We bonded and broke because of gossip that may or may not have been true. We entertained ourselves with the facts and fallacies of people's lives because we didn't know any better.

There came a time, maybe in late high school, probably in college, possibly after nabbing that Bachelors, when we all grew up and found ideas more fascinating than whether or not our friend actually got drunk enough to hook up with this stupid guy we kissed once, five years ago. That kinda thing just lost its bite when we all grew up into better and brighter people.

The fact remains that even these more intelligent creatures we've evolved into still love a juicy rumor. It's human nature, but it's just not socially or morally acceptable to be a rumor-spreading asshole after your skin has cleared and you have seen a bit of the world. It's for that precise reason why we created an industry for celebrity gossip rags. We get to indulge in scandal without having a guilt trip with Ben and Jerry on the couch later.

We also enjoy a good celeb rumor because we're so far removed that we can never be burned by it. We all want to be in the know, but none of us want to be the center of a scandalous (or not so) topic of conversation. We enjoy it from a bird's eye view, but things change when the camera angle zooms tight around our own faces.

For the most part, a little gossip in social circles never hurts anyone, despite it being a social faux pas. However, there's a line between appropriate, healthy chit-chat and completely insane lies. Whether we're talking about our friends or they're talking about us, it's just not cool to falsify information for whatever reason. The right rumor has the power to destroy lives if it's released to the right people at the right time. (Haven't any of you seen the movie "Gossip!?")

The sad thing is, we're supposed to like our friends. We're supposed to be supportive. We're supposed to be happy for them when they're happy, and sad with them when they're sad. We're not supposed to attack each other like rabid dogs simply because we're unhappy, jealous, or bored.

Recently, the rumor mill around me has been on fire. While it doesn't actually injure me because I am strong enough in my own gait to continue down my own life path, it does piss me the hell off.

It angers me that petty envy can make people try to infect my happiness simply because they don't have their own kind. It riles me up to know that people I trust are out there breaking that faith for their own entertainment. It's disheartening to know these faceless gossipers are choosing to weaken our friendship rather than strengthen it. And for what? Less boredom? The debatably tasty morsel of a rumor on the tongue for maybe 30 seconds? What a sad way to treat your pals.

We all talk a little talk, but the difference between talking about Mary's latest Saturday night and her maybe-that's what I heard-no way!-STD is the motive. The former is out of natural curiosity, while the latter is vindictive, disrespectful, and inappropriate behavior for a trusted friend. Enough is enough, y'all. Let's all - old and young, guilty and innocent, me and you - grow up a bit.

We're not The Plastics, ya know?