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A YAYA Mega-Rant by Mercer Creed

I don't know why, but I've got cacti needles up my urethra today. Not just those big, 20-gauge, scare-the-piss-out-of-you needle types, but also those infuriating microscopic little ones you can't see to pull out but burn your skin every time you brush up against something. I've got a double-barrel full of Fuckshot and I'm going to find some asses to fill with it today.

First of all, fuck you Peter Jackson. 

I remember back when people were first talking about the Hobbit being made into a movie. "Peter Jackson HAS to do it" they cried. "He HAS toooooo" the whining whiners whined. Why? What the fuck has Peter Jackson ever done but ride the coat-tails of Tolkien's greatness? 

Look what the Hack-master did to the LOTR: surfing Barbie-doll-looking elves, Scooby-doo ghosts saving the day, NO Tom Bombadil, endless closing sequences, Sauron as a giant eye...A GIANT MOTHERFUCKING EYE! It doesnt even make the first bit of sense! Oh, if only the giant fucktarded eye could turn slightly to the right...he could have seen it coming...I dont even....

No he's fucked up the Hobbit and everyone knows it. It looks like a God-damned cartoon with no sense of internal logic or understanding of physics or gravity. How can one person suck that hard? 

He had to do it? Fuck you. Just because he looks like a hobbit doesnt mean he gets to call dibs on everything Tolkien ever bothered to jot down on the back of a napkin. I'd love to shove the Two Trees of Valinor up us ass and feed him to a pit of randy orc prisoners. 

An actual shot from pre-production. Bow removed during post-production when the crew distracted Jackson with a closet full of a Twinkies.

Oh, what are you laughing at Gorge Arrrgh Fartin'? You took some of the best fantasy novels I've ever read and turned them into the Endless Song of Shite and Ire. Did anyone bother to read your last book before it was sent to press? Fucking heroin-head Cheryl Strayed had fewer grammatical errors in her Giant Book of Lies memoir. I dont care about everyone's eye color, hair style, or how many ways you can mull wine or incorporate figs into dinner. You stopped telling a story years ago. Fuck you and your fucking gravy train. Live your fucking 15 minutes of fame because once your done laying this arse-muffin people are going to have the same reaction to it as Lost: "What the fuck was that you chodey dick-weasel?" At the very least you could bother yourself to finish your own fucking story! "I don't write anywhere but at home." Really? Fuck you. I hope you shove some rotten calimari down that swollen gullet and you die alone in the shower in a pool of your own vomit and diarrhea.

Yeah, I said it. Lost was a giant bumblefucking waste of my time. Hey "writers", learn how to TELL A STORY. Lost is the result of a generation of "writers" who have never bothered to read a book, but grew up cockstrangling themselves to Morgan Webb, Jeri Ryan, and stacks of quasi-legal manga comics. Nothing is fucking lower than a fanboi who thinks because he can fill a screen with words that makes him a "writer."  You are NOT storytellers! Look up "plot" in a dictionary. Fucking Google it if you can use a computer for anything other than finding erotic Harry Potter fan-fiction. 

Were you getting lonely Kanye? Well, I have some for  you too. Thanks for fucking up the SNL 40 year tribute show. What the hell was that douchbaggery? Music? I could bounce xylophones off the heads of cats or hand out kazoos to special needs 5th graders and record better music than you.  Tell me you're a genius one more time. I dare you...ONE MORE TIME! You're a genius in the same we tell my slow cousin he's a genius when he manages to smear some peanut butter on a mangled piece of bread. Fuck you and your whore wife. Oh, did I go to far? The last time she said anything worth listening to she was making gagging noises with the encouragement of Ray J. Congrats genius, you married a porn star. 

Fucking SNL. I barely get to see Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Tracy Morgan, or Chris Farley, but I have to suffer through an endless autotuned Kanye West "song?" Is this performance art? Is it good because it's so ironically bad? Could be, this is a world where people think Sarah Silveman is funny. 

Don't even let me catch the bat-guano smoking, clueless teenagers who wrote the Rolling Stone's "SNL: All Cast Members Ranked" article on the street. I swear to God I will fist you in the middle of Times Square. Rachel Dratch is #16? Did you just pull names out of a hat and list them in random order? If there is justice in the world you'll be prison-bitched by a herd of rabid stallions. 

No, you're not.

Sweet merciful Mary, that felt good. 

You know I actually thought Miley Cyrus did a great job on the Paul Simon cover. If she can reign in the Instagram shenanigans, I just might be a fan.

 

Wild: A Truly TALL Tale

This post isn't about one of the many lies inconsistencies found in Wild so much as it is pointing out one of the many ways Strayed simply fails as a writer. 

The very first words one is treated to in this Brilliant, Inspirational, and Brutally Honest "memoir" are: 

"The trees were tall, but I was taller," 

it makes my pudendum ache

Strayed, you were NOT taller than the trees, you were HIGHER than the trees. You were higher than a fucking kite probably on chewable heroin or bubble gum meth or whatever the hell you're claiming you "battled" back in the day. (not beer though, you never even drank a whole beer right?) How the sweet Faulkner could you start your book with a sentence that doesn't make literal sense? 

Oh, here might be a reason, one of the lesser used definitions of the word, tall:

high-flown; grandiloquent:

He engages in so much tall talk, one never really knows what he's saying.

Yeah, tall alright. Taller than the trees, taller than the other PCT hikers, taller than all the bulls and the bears and llamas and the frogs. Taller than them all!

"Oh Mercer, don't you think you're being a bit petty, or dare I say, small?"

Yeah, probably. But here' the thing...this person is constantly being told how "brilliant" of a writer she is. BRILLIANT THEY SAY! 

She is NOT brilliant. Her writing makes JK Rowling seem like Hemingway in comparison. This is the woman who wrote: "...and sometimes he told her no in a voice as soft as his penis in his pants." Stab me with a soft, knowing dagger already. 

Check out this mess of words describing her boot loss: "...and the left one had fallen into those trees, first catapulting into the air...then skittering across the graveling trail and flying over the edge. It bounced...before disappearing into the forest canopy below..." What? It didn't also sing & dance before it profoundly shattered onto the ground? How about "...the boot flew over the side of the outcropping, disappearing into the trees below." DONE. Easy peasy. That's what they call TIGHT PROSE. Learn it, love it, live it.

Strayed being "taller than the trees" is also a hint of how her mind works. She really is bigger than everyone; she is better than everyone, she is so much stronger and smarter than everyone and everything around her. 

Don't believe her? Just ask her. "I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me." She is taller than the trees. She's a regular God damned Paul Bunyan. In fact, in her book, she is Jesus and she suffered for your sins. She even get's her feet washed! (Luke 7:38) Because she forgave herself and absolved herself of ANY RESPONSIBILITY for her actions, you, gentle reader, don't have to feel bad, ashamed, or guilty about any of the shit you did that hurt other people. All those times you were childish and selfish? It's OKAY! You don't need to learn from your mistakes because THAT'S HOW YOU ARE! God made you beautiful and special. Fuck everyone else around you, YOU are the bestest! 

Wild: Do you know what "bugs" me...

....the complete lack of bugs and insects in Wild. 

Strayed mentions the word "mosquitoes" only three times in Wild and only once while she was on the PCT near the end. Oh, and one of those 3 times was when she was singing the Nirvana song to ward off bears and lions or whatever. 

The word "tick" was never used once. 

Really? A story about California hiking and Strayed never once commented on ticks? I get this is a story about her "supposed" transformation, which comes deus ex machina at the end while she eats an ice cream cone, but cmon! That's like Fox News going a full day without mentioning Obama. 

People, it just doesn't make sense.

I just started reading The Cactus Eaters and already there are so many similarities....including calling their over-stuffed backpacks "monsters."

Wild: "Greg" outs Cheryl

Roger Carpenter, the real life version of "Greg" from Cheryl Strayed's "Wild," just inadvertently discredited Strayed's own account of her actions.

I feel kind of bad for the guy. He certainly is taking great pride in being associated with Strayed and her book and is enjoying a certain level of notoriety because of it. I think he honestly likes Cheryl a lot and is eager to help her in any way he can. Sadly, he seems to have unwittingly given us the smoking gun that proves a good part of Strayed's story was at minimum, embellished and at most, fabricated.

Read his story on the PCTA website. Carpenter talks about coming across Strayed on the trail near Spanish Needle Creek. He states "Cheryl had a huge, heavy backpack, the now famous “Monster,” and was taking down a spacious dome tent." Now he didn't have to say anything about the tent, but he was very clear as it must have made an impression on him.

Go and Google "spacious dome tent," "dome tent," and "north face dome tent."

Now compare those images with the photo of the tent Strayed says she used:

Cheryl asserts this is the tent she used and that this is a photo of her on the trail. She has the Bob Marley t-shirt she supposedly received and lost while on the trail. She says she still has the tent. So why isnt this a "spacious dome tent?" Does that look like a "spacious dome tent?" Would anyone describe that as a "spacious dome tent?" The answer is "no" in case you weren't sure.

BTW, who took this photo? She could not have gotten framing like this if she had used her "tiny tripod" and set her camera's timer, you would be able to see more ground. This was handheld by someone. To me it appears that the bottom half may have even been cropped out. Why? was someone else's gear lying there? Why are some of her photos from the trail in color and some in black & white? Why is she wearing sandals and not flip-flops like she described? Does that backpack look like a Monster to you? Why are there so few photos from her trip? Why are there so many questions about something so simple?

The reason?

Because the photo above was not taken during the brief period Strayed was actually on the trail. I think Strayed did hike and backpack for awhile and did indeed meet Greg where she says she did, but this photo was NOT taken during that time. It's my belief this was taken by a boyfriend, or maybe even Paul, while Strayed was camping sometime either before or after the period she claims to have been hiking. This was one of the only photos she has of her at a campsite, so she had to weave it into the story and of course that shirt had to disappear while she was on the trail, as it belonged to whoever she was camping with.

In fact, I will go so far as to say I think EVERY photo of Strayed posted by her of her, was taken by either Paul or another beau on camping trips BEFORE she set out on the PCT. This also explains why she's continues to contradict herself in how much backpacking experience she had before the PCT hike. I think she and Paul DID go backpacking and camping, but she couldn't say that in the book, because that would contravene her narrative of being hapless and helpless when she started. She needed to "overcome" her weaknesses and grow stronger on the trail. She couldn't do that if she was already out there running around with a backpack on. Real-life Cheryl had a rough idea of what she was doing, fictional Cheryl did not. Strayed is now confusing the two and doesn't understand why everyone else is just as confused.

Were these photos "selfies" taken with a tiny tripod? FYI, all color photos seem to show the "Starved" necklace while none of the B&Ws do. 

Well, to me almost nothing more needs to be said. Someone isn't telling the truth. Oh don't worry, I'll continue to document these little slip-ups and inconsistencies and soon I'll start making my way back through the book. 

See you soon! 

-Mercer

Kanye West: Why Aren't You Ashamed?

Kanye West, Why Aren't You Ashamed?

Seriously, what the hell is your malfunction? Are you are drugs? Should you be on drugs? Do you need your ass kicked? 

You definitely need to be spanked, because you behave like a spoiled little baby who cries and whines when he doesn't get his way. 

You've won 21 Grammys and you have the nerve to say that the process is somehow racist? Hey buddy, you are NOT A GENIUS. I've tried to listen to your "music." OMG that crap is awful. I have no clue as to why people like you or Radiohead for that matter. Modern music is all complete detritus and you little rich babies run around bellyaching because your piece of shit album wasn't deemed to be marginally better than someone else's acoustic refuse. 

Wanna know a secret, moron? Children buy your shit because you use dirty words and talk about sex. That's it. You are not an artist. You appeal to giggling teenagers who want to hear someone talk about their sex organs. 

Can you even play an instrument? I sure as shit didn't hear any guitar in the midst of the sewage you call songs. Can you read music? Can you even read? You sound like an illiterate hillbilly. I wonder how you'd sound if Beck slammed you in the mouth with his Grammy and knocked out your teeth. That I'd like to see. 

I've listened to a few Beyonce songs. She actually has talent. Other people must agree, because here is a vast list of awards she's won. Beck is an extremely talented music artist. You probably don't realize that because he's white and you are the biggest motherfucking racist I've ever seen. You can't begrudge him an award? Did I mention you're a talentless hack?

Kanye, you should be ashamed. You won't be because you don't have the common sense or decency God gave to cucumbers. 

You should keep your mouth shut. You won't because, like a child or someone with mental issues, you don't realize when your acting against your own best interests. 

You should apologize. You won't because you're a human septic tank that produces nothing but shit. 

You should no longer continue to participate in our society. You will because you've made millions being an asshat, so why change now?  You'll die someday though, we all do, and America will be just a little bit better because of it. 

F-you Kanye.

Wild: Strayed Deletes Own Epic Diatribe

In a move which is sure to arch some eyebrows, Cheryl Strayed has deleted an epic diatribe she posted to her Facebook page on February 1st. 

The post created quite a stir when it appeared without warning late last Sunday, generating hundreds of comments both positive and negative.In fact, the post was the impetus behind my starting this blog was the subject of my first post. 

In her free-from, often rambling composition, Strayed appeared to be lashing out at unnamed critics of her tale who suggested she was ill-prepared for her now famous Pacific Crest Trail hike. Strayed countered this notion with confusing statements about what she truly knew about hiking/backpacking and went on to compare herself to Muir and Thoreau; implying that any criticism against her is based in misogyny and not on actual facts. The real target(s) of Strayed's post remains a mystery. 

The post created quite a stir, as the only person known to have written about Strayed's lack of preparation and experience was Strayed herself. As such, she appears to be calling out her own work as "wildy overstated;" a notion many of us have been putting forth recently. 

Why she chose to delete the post also remains clouded in mystery. 

Was she compelled to do it by sponsors? Recently she's begun promoting her new podcast, which revives her controversial "Sugar" persona providing advice to those with relationship problems. During her time at the Rumpus, where she wrote as "Sugar," Strayed often had to defend herself against allegations she was manufacturing the questions she was answering. Her Facebook rant probably looks to some as uncharacteristic of Strayed's alternate personality.

Was she tired of monitoring the post? Strayed obsessively reviews her Facebook account throughout the day and selectively deletes posts which raise any questions about her statements or otherwise contradict the narrative she strives to convey. The post in particular certainly required hourly monitoring; so perhaps editing it just got to be too much of a hassle. 

We'll probably never know. We'll have to file this away as just another oddity in the story of Strayed's PCT misadventures.