re: #494 ShanghaiEd

So, basically, Matthew Shepard suffered from enhanced inconvenience techniques?

Matthew Shepard did not in any way deserve to be attacked and left to die by those dirt-bags, but what he “suffered” from, among other things, were:

• Enhanced drooling over rough-trade meth-using “townies” at the bar;
• Enhanced drinking too much on the night he was attacked;
• Enhanced never taking any martial-arts lessons (Because, as the TV jingle went: “When you take Jhoon Rhee self-defense, nobody bothers me!” And that jingle is correct because, paradoxically, diligent martial arts practice can lower your odds of ever actually needing to use martial arts in real life.)
• Enhanced not getting a handgun permit, as any out gay man who’s very short, slender, and somewhat effeminate really ought to look into

Furthermore, the American gay male demographic as a whole suffers not only from the last three of those (and sometimes the first point), but also from:

• Enhanced blaming their self-caused problems on other people’s homophobia
• Enhanced inability to fucking get over their jocks vs. sissynerds personal traumas from way back in high school
• Enhanced unwillingness to be mean and judgmental about the non-stop glamorization of bareback buttfucking pr0n (or “mainstream” gay pr0n that tries its damnedest to create the appearance of barebacking, though on close inspection the guys are wearing condoms) oftentimes just six feet away from the “Use a Condom Every Time” poster on the pr0n-store wall.

And finally, in the wake of Matthew Shepard’s murder, my flawed but deeply beloved American nation suffered from:

• Enhanced transforming of a local tragedy into a big gloopy maudlin media circus — and I’m looking at YOU, Annie Proulx, you worthless liberal hack scribbler of softcore “bareback” pr0n with a pseudo-masculine tough cowboy veneer, you! (And at you, Peter Yarrow, and at you, Christina Ricci, and at every well-intentioned but D-U-M celeb who contributed their talents to all the many, many Matthew Shepard cash-ins besides Proulx’s New Yorker short story and the movie based on it.)

P.S. Have I ever mentioned how thoroughly I dislike that phony-baloney tripe Brokeback Mountain? Although the cinematography was, admittedly, gorgeous, and the two-shirts scene at the end was excellent.