DotTeeVee: Liberal Protester screams in agony as Trump sworn in

What happens when the "everybody gets a trophy" set encounters something that the rest of us call "reality?" The short answer is, of course, hilarity. The marginally longer answer is a video that completely encapsulates the generation nothing experience in twenty-six amazing seconds. You didn't get your way, so now it's time to lose with dignity (dignity optional). It's time to literally shake, fail miserably to "even" and reenact a scene from George Lucas space film onanism.

Today's amazing video takes place at the inauguration of our 45th President. Yes, Donald Trump has been President for less than twenty-four hours and we're already getting human-shaped memes. In light of this, maybe it is actually possible to get tired of winning. The video opens with the historic announcement while a blob of progressive protoplasm responds by screaming "Nooooo!!!!" like this is an episode of Walker: Texas Ranger and you just witnessed your only child brutally murdered by Kung Fu using druggers. This primal yell is followed by the classic head drop. In five seconds of footage you've learned almost everything you need to know about modern America.

We drive on the right side of the road here. Now your education is complete.

The video isn't, of course, as there's another mournful howl from our androgynous millennial, followed by what looks like a pose Jimi Hendrix might do on stage while burning a guitar. It's really bizarre stuff, as both hands form devil horns and/or go Texas University gestures while the impotent howling continues. This is our nation's future.

  Metallica rules!

The camera awkwardly pans back to the row of protestors behind this performance artist and sadly they're much more sedate than the last line of resistance to American Fascism currently having a tantrum in front of them. On the other hand we do get to see an older True Believer with a "Try Trump for Treason" (???) sign. I wonder what goes through the mind of someone old enough to know better when they realize they've thrown in with emotionally incontinent and terminally ignorant youth. The most probable answer is "nothing at all," but I like to pretend something more is occurring, out of a bizarre sense of respecting my elders, no matter how comical their behavior.

Another person is holding a sign that says "Worst Swamp Ever," presumably meant to be read in a Comic Book Guy voice. I'm not even sure what that's supposed to mean in this context, but the meltdown is continuing and demands our returned attention.

Too much idiocy for one hand.

Another head drop, nearly a head plummet this time, and we're done. I guess we should just be happy you didn't break any windows. Best of luck when you return to student loan day care, you're going to need it.

Komment Korner  

My only wish in life is to fly a plane over these anti-Trump protests and air drop McDonald's applications.

Sergeant Toasty This is a Republic.

IN THE END, IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER

Reminds me of the 4 year olds you see in the candy aisle after their parents told them no.

Wow last time the democrats reacted like this is when the republicans freed there slaves

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.   

Why a “Kick Ass Idea” is Over-rated

I try my best to avoid them, but I still manage to run across those “Five ways to be a better writer and here’s a picture of an unrelated female torso” articles a lot more often than I’d like and sometimes even accidentally read a small amount by accident while desperately clicking the “back” button. The end result of this steady accumulation is acquiring at least a foggy awareness of what people whose only published fiction is the claim they’re an author think is important. I’m definitely worse off for it.
   
One suggestion that I came across that stuck with me was the importance of high concept and being way-too-clever, or as the colorful graphic put it, having a “kick ass idea.” I’m a metalhead. I watch and participate in death sports. I pick heavy objects up and put them down. I’m all for kicking ass. I don’t want you walking away from this thinking I’m against putting the shoe into it. By all means, kick ass. Just be aware that the place to put the foot into the metaphorical posterior is in the actual writing, rather than hoping some “great idea” that’s almost certainly derivative is going to carry you through even a dozen pages, let alone a few hundred.
   
Think about it. The “kick ass idea” in War and Peace is that there’s a war and, well, peace. Not exactly mind-blowing innovation, but in the right hands it’s unbelievably memorable. Contrast that to any randomly chosen lower tier sci-fi novel. You might find amazing originality and moments that almost approach “I seriously pondered a deep concept and I liked it,” but it all drowns under the tide of uninspired choice of language, flat imagery, forgettable characters, awful pacing and all those other little things that look so easy when someone else is doing them.

 Yup, it rocks.

  
Ideas have value, they are important, but in the grand scheme I think they get too much attention. “Where do you get your ideas?” people ask, when they should be asking “Where did you learn to use language like that?” or “What sort of drugs did you do before writing those descriptions?” Those are the good questions, but because the actual craft of writing is not something most readers notice when it’s actually done well, you get a fixation on one small part of the process.
   
Don’t let your originality end with the Big Idea. Let it start there and then grow like some sort of wonderful metastasis of the imagination. Yes, that means hard work. Yes, that means actually developing technical ability. Yes, that means failure, re-starts, crushing writer’s block, frustration, severe under-appreciation and possibly even learning a little about who you really are. It’s going to hurt, but it’s a good kind of pain. Like the exhaustion of a workout or being hooked up to a battery in a bedroom setting. That kind.
   
A wise man, or maybe a video game character I forget which, once said “Too clever is stupid.” That’s not a motto for us all. Don’t overreach. Start simple. Who knows where it might go, but don’t try to get there in one giant step.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.