Speaker A:
Hello, I’m your host, Anne McNairn, and this is Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, a monthly podcast of anarchic literature where we take our monthly zine, turn it into an audio feature, and then interview the author. We’re looking for content that doesn’t know where it fits in, for people that don’t know where they fit in. You can get a copy of the monthly zine by signing up for our Patreon at patreon.com/strangersinentangledwilderness, or you can read along for free at tangledwilderness.org. This month we have Diva Down by Io Ascarium, and it’s a short story about the revolutionary potential of a gay guy with 2 grenades. After the piece, we have an interview with Io, and it’s Just delightful. But before we get to all that, we are a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts, and here’s a jingle from another show on the network. Do do do do do do.
Speaker B:
Hell oh! This is an ad for the spectacle. It’s kind of a cultural analysis podcast, but also an anarchist podcast. But it’s listed into the comedy section of Apple Podcasts, so everything we say counts as parody. Nice try, J. Edgar Hoover. It’s for people who like low art and hate cops. Just a bunch of nasty freaks talking movies and shit. ‘Cause it’s a really grim time to be a radical. We just wanted to make something stupid. I’m on that Arm Joy shit. If I can’t do bits, it’s not my revolution. It’s fun! So come on by every so often and listen to The Spectacle, the only podcast that—
Speaker C:
it’s the—
Speaker B:
it’s the only podcast. There’s none left. There’s none left. There was an accident and this is the only one now. The Spectacle from Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness on Channel Zero.
Speaker A:
Mm.
Speaker C:
Diva Down, written by Io Asunder, narrated by Realy, and published by Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. Diva Down is a story about the revolutionary potential of a gay guy with 2 grenades. About the author: Io Asunder is God’s favorite mistake. If you must find them, They can be found at bum.long. We’re gonna shred you, faggot. Oh, a homophobic mercenary. How original. This was all Pierce could think of to spit back before the door slammed, and it was just him and the idling engine. Great fucking figures. One misplaced foot and you’re dead. What was that fanny pack even there for? It was thoroughfare. He’d never been in that part of the base before, let alone at a full sprint. Corny fucking scumfucks just leave their tactical fanny packs just laying around, just out for anyone to trip on? Pierce wasn’t sure that’s what did it. In all the excitement, he may have tripped over his own legs. He was flying down that lane, and the nerves crowded out the feeling of the ground beneath him. Some earth-toned pack that had fallen into the road was fate enough to blame. He wouldn’t go through this blaming himself. They can’t take this from him too. He would meet his end thinking he was a man. He was determined. Well, they fucking got me now, I guess, he said sing-songingly aloud in the sealed cab, waiting for them to take him from here to somewhere else and put him through one of the worst deaths they could deal up. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh, fuck, shit, fuck. No, no, no, no. The Dropout was so close. He could see the boat. He was almost there. Little cigarette boat bobbing there in the water, midnight blue little thing like the one he was driving on his first deployment. He knew just where to put his hands. If he could aim his ass mid-air just right, he could land in the seat and just zoom. Whoever was arranging escapes left the engine running for him. He could just make out the tremolo purr of its shaking gullyworks, Right before it all went dark. He thinks he tripped over one of those tactical fanny packs some submental jarhead left out like a snare and lobbed his head into a big box of beans. It actually had beans stenciled on the side of it. Beans, he read as he began to untangle himself as a sea of rough hands washed over him, and it cracked up a part that was far away now. He would not know that part again. When he first got drafted, he parlayed his experience on a fan boat in the Gulf and volunteered to ferry VIPs hither and yon across the strait. He and the other draftees had a lot of fun with the strait puns. Back then, you still had the wherewithal to do bits, actually try to keep your spirits up. Trapped in a complicity he could handle.
Speaker A:
Boat boy.
Speaker C:
He was born to be a boat boy out there in the sunshine. And when he had dropped off his chic or jaw-clenching general on the dock, he had to get the boat back across all alone. Then he could really tear shit up. It is fun to drive a boat fast. I don’t care who you are. But these last few months, it was a different phase. He had to fight the actual war. Like, send you in places and shoot people who threaten you and not make a huge fuss if your teammates shoot people who don’t kind of war. Pierce missed his old life. When he could ride his bike to the graveyard at dusk and boof drugs in bathroom stalls and not be constantly aware that greedy cowards who loved violence from afar ran the world. He had never used a grenade before today. He had 2. He thought he would look sick as fuck, double-fisting frags all knock knock or something. He was definitely gonna say something cool like that before he realized he didn’t have the dexterity to throw 2 at once. Fumbling the other one into his vest, he lifted the tent curtain, lobbed it. He simply squealed, D.Va down! As it kaboomed, and he sprinted towards capture. Pierce can’t remember whether they confirmed if Honeycutt was actually dead, but as the tent flap fell, Pierce saw the grenade spinning in its last resting place beneath his chair. That turns anyone to soup. He got out of there so quick, he ran right into the bean box. It’s all but certain. And all the radio chatter he got ears on was a wild den. Lots of people were dead is all he could pick out of the staticky squawks. A whole campaign of fraggings took place across the region, all at once. Fragging, Val called it. Val explained it was something they did a lot in one of the First Republic’s wars. People would just kill their superior officers because war sucks and fuck them. Val told him a story of some Black GI blasting a visiting general and escaping into the jungle to found a new dynasty of super communists who lived in ancient ziggurats and jungle temples and stuff. Sounded cool, but he wondered why he had never heard of this. Neoliberal media robbed you of your history, Val told him.
Speaker A:
Oh.
Speaker C:
Val was about Pierce’s height and had eyes like a swamp in bloom. He was Southern but didn’t have an accent because they ran out of them. He was kind of funny and kind of insane, and it was hard to tell which one you were getting sometimes. Val and Pierce knew each other’s real names. He was in some kind of inter-army revolutionary cell that managed to go undetected so far. They had some tedious names like People’s Fire, something uninspired and forgettable that didn’t really say what We can get this done, or so Pierce assumed. Even when he volunteered for this job, he didn’t actually think it would make a dent. But damn, he was eating crow now. The mad lads really kneecapped the whole army. It was a long walk to the transit van, and the radios were alive and screaming as these rough-and-ready hungry holes for HGH frog-marched his skinny ass to the van to probably take him to a soundstage. They didn’t even beat him too bad in the meantime. Everyone nervous, heads swiveling like a broken sprinkler, glued to the radio, abuzz with the sounds of a culling of the top brass. It had spread across the whole region. Sounded like a few people got ahold of mobile missile stations in the chaos. Did he hear that right? He didn’t know they had those now. What is People’s Revolutionary Fire or whatever gonna do with those? Haha, you nuts. Val was a conduit for this plan. Val and Pierce were sharing much by now, so he folded him in. He asked 5 nights ago under a moon so thin it pinned up the sky. Something’s going to happen soon, and I won’t see you for a while. These fucking apes don’t revere fire. They worship ashes. We will show ’em ashes. Val talked like that sometimes. pontificating toward the tent ceiling, using a lot of hand motions. Pierce got distracted when he got like this. He rubbed his chin in a luxurious arch from his belly button to the sharp edge of his hip like a cat leaving its scent. Val taught him what OPSEC was, and he knew he was doing it badly. If you’re going to implicate me through hints, you might as well accessorize me through the full plan. Val was drafted in the first phase of the war. Back when they were only gang pressing those they had some sort of leverage over. He got picked up for shooting digital billboards. He was an artist. The second the bullet whizzed through those screens, a sort of glowing green-purple-yellow puddle of static formed around the hole, tagging his oily ripple across these garish glowing pools that littered every American highway. He saw himself as above, the representative narcissism of graffiti. and a vandal worthy of those hardcover coffee table books middle-class people who are sort of alternative will display in their homes. He told me when he was young, he used a high-powered bug sprayer to drench abortion billboards in gas, then shoot flaming arrows at them. He had a thing against ads and tech and civilization writ large, pretty much. When he got picked up, it was for something less overtly political. Think they got him for ventilating some fake law firm’s electronic signage on a road trip through the Southwest. The charge was just property destruction, carrying an unregistered firearm, vandalism, and antisocial behavior. They didn’t see anything revolutionary in this crime, or the army wouldn’t have been an option. But oh boy, did he consider himself a revolutionary and like to yap on about it. But Pierce liked to watch his mouth move when he was heated, so they had an accord going. And you know what? He was a revolutionary. This thing had a lot of moving parts, and he was a big wheel in it. He had bided his time, playing the good corporal till now. They met exactly 7 months ago and had been fucking for also exactly 7 months, but that was enough time to trust he was the real deal. That wasn’t a huge concern, though. Pierce was in from the jump. If Val was leaving, there was nothing that would color his days but blood. He didn’t know what goes into all this, and he didn’t need to. He hated these violence-loving psychos with every piece of him still worth holding on to. He would be a revolutionary too, and at this point, he would follow good dick on bloody stumps across a snow-covered minefield. Pierce had been thinking about blowing off Corneal Honeycutt’s dome anyway. Not super seriously, more of a fantasy. This tacky fascist creep. How you like me now? Blauw! Stupid goddamn mustache, wears a pith helmet in portraits, preening ugly bitch. Love your country? Get a life, fucking pussy-ass death-worshipping psycho. Presented with a chance to not only turn his boss into blood but escape this conscripted fucking nightmare with Val and his pals was a no-brainer. Val said something about safe passage across the border. Sounds cool if true. Something about tunnels? Something about meeting up with a group whose name was just a bunch of letters? I don’t even really know about this whole find a big hole in the desert and build the whole commune plan Val kept mentioning. But that would be a little more down the line after this. A nice dream. All this planning had given him something to dream of. This violent act completed gave him something else back. Wish I could kill his ass again. Take me from my cool life to ruin someone else’s country? Fuck you, he muttered into the lightless back cab of the armored car. My life was just getting started, he whimpered to no one. That’s my part. Done. Dusted, he said in a lower register, head bowed, blood dripping freely from his nose. Tried my absolute hardest. Think I earned my place on this planet. This wonderful world full of oak trees and ceramics and oral sex and beers in the park and big silly dogs and terrible dance music and foggy sunrises over the Delta. This world they want to make into ashes to sit atop, and I won’t see if they do because of one misplaced goddamn crisis masculinity-ass fanny pack put there by some sewer beast submental jarhead. I hope they get killed! Who leaves a fanny pack in the middle of a fucking thoroughfare? A fucking fanny pack! It’s got the word fanny in it and it killed me! He was screaming now. Outside there were voices. They were scared and confused. It was cold comfort considering he was surrounded on all sides by like 8 inches of steel and at the mercy of an evil man. He thought of Val. Number one good boy doing stunts as he escaped. They truly may win this thing, whatever winning means anymore. Not me, I’m dead. They’re probably gonna cut my fucking head off, and I’m probably gonna go to hell. Oh, I bet the devil’s just laughing his ass off about it. I’d have been killed on sight if they didn’t have me dead to rights in the bean pile. He would probably get taken to the closest HD camera. They need the propaganda. Live beheadings get lots of engagement lately, but with more pomp and pageantry than the jihadist beheading videos the hardened fascists in this army grew up watching. And it would be the hard nationalists he’d be dealing with from here on out. The harder you adopted the ideological underpinning of this life they trapped us in, the higher you went. Honor the rigors of your putrid nature and rise through the ranks. Promotions relied on outstanding service and a sweaty demand to show overwhelming pride in getting to be on the winning team. They’ll regret counting out the underdog, big dog. He heard Val’s imperceptible drawl somewhere behind his eyes. Woof woof woof woof woof woof. He barked out in slurring yelps that degraded to sad limp moans. He barked there in the dark for a while. Then the truck shook just a little bit. Someone stepping into the cab, but feels like they took a run at it. Must be excited. Oh boy, we get to kill a guy! These guys were all one note. Murder, rape, exerting force, propped power over others. Don’t they have a real hobby? There was the sound of the stick shift crunching into first, then a loud boom not far. The van started rolling the jerk to a halt, jostling Pierce very which way. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom! This is a lot of booms. More booms per average than usual. Gravel thwacks metallically across the flank on his box truck. He forgot to ask what to do if he was captured. What would happen to this place after he escaped? It was all just, gimme, gimme, gimme those frag grenades, daddy-o. A whole choir of explosions sang to him through those dark steel walls. Screams. Confusion. The truck felt like it got up on 2 wheels there for a second. It thumped to earth to nod a bit, back and forth. Something with weight to it thunked against his ribs, then nothing. It felt like a long second till he thinks, I guess they have been shelling us more recently? He heard debris crunching underfoot as feet from far away marched toward the van in rhythm he could almost hear.
Speaker D:
Thanks so much for coming on the show today, and thanks so much for your utterly absurd story Diva Down that we just listened to. Welcome, welcome, God’s Favorite Mistake. How are you today? I’m doing great.
Speaker B:
Oh, I’m fucking so, so nice. How you doing?
Speaker D:
I’m tired, but that’s just life. And I also just found out about this absurd thing that I cannot help but somehow try to relate to the story that we’re going to talk about today. And I think I’m going to relate it successfully. So that’s fun. They do have a big thing in common. But could you introduce yourself, actually? I realize that a lot of listeners might not intuitively know who God’s Favorite Mistake is, and so I’m wondering if you could tell us your name, pronouns, and just a little bit about who you are and what you do in the world.
Speaker B:
Well, it’s me, God’s Favorite Mistake. I’m Ayo. I wrote the story. I wrote Diva Down. I do writing. I do a lot of printmaking. I do stuff with Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. I do the Spectacle podcast. There’s more to my CV, but good luck getting it out of me.
Speaker D:
You— it is the one form of torture that’s going to happen to Pierce, is that they’re gonna— is that they’re gonna make him write a CV.
Speaker B:
They’re go— yeah, they’re—
Speaker C:
yeah.
Speaker B:
And, and he’s just gonna be like, mm, uh, I guess I— I guess I did more ketamine than anyone else, um, at, at, at Berghain one time, one night. And, um, yeah, I What I love about Pierce is he is so— he’s so unambitious.
Speaker D:
So unambitious. But before we talk about Pierce, could you just tell us, even though we just listened to it, in your own words, what is Diva Down about? What the fuck did we just listen to? It’s a little nonlinear, and I love it.
Speaker B:
Yeah, I— well, I, um, you know, that’s, that’s my style. It’s not that I refuse to learn any professional skills in writing. I just have a, I just have a style of nonlinearity. And I got very stoned one night after reading pretty much all day. It was, I don’t know, one of the fucking phases of, of the Iran War, which is a horror show front to back. I’ll just front-load that before I make light of it in that, wow, what a way to really put a cap on just that America is like a burning circus tent, or more like an actively on-fire casino that some people are still at the tables of. That the neocons wanted this so bad for so long, and every single projection of how wrong it would go has gone that wrong. And we have people in the military who are the most, like, it’s really quite incredible, and enough ink has been spilled about it by smarter people than me, but like, these people who think that war isn’t this complex, like, you know, you have to do statecraft and like spycraft and, and, uh, and some amount of diplomacy. You can’t just renege on every deal. And overall just be like, we’re gonna give our soldiers gear. We’re gonna give that— we’re gonna give them tea because giving guys high doses of tea works out in the long run. Everyone knows this. And they do seem to think of war as like, whoever, whoever can blow the most stuff up is gonna win. And I was just thinking about— because like, Iran is obviously winning this war and is finally like ushering, ushering in the American century of humiliation. But to imagine that they are I love to see it.
Speaker D:
I love to see America get fucking humiliated.
Speaker B:
Yeah, I do recommend, you know, you know, I know that a lot, a lot of people— it’s not 2015 anymore. Nihilism is not cool. I recommend graduating to absurdism, um, because then you can look at this and just go, huh, you gotta laugh. And then it helps with the horror show of it all. Yeah, what was I, what was I saying?
Speaker A:
So—
Speaker D:
What’s the story about? What is it? What’s, what’s it, what’s going on?
Speaker B:
I imagined what it would be like in 3 years, because no one’s really giving up. This— like, obviously Iran’s not going to give up. It doesn’t seem like there’s going to be like a— I feel like Trump wants to get out of this, Rubio wants to get out of it, everyone wants to get out of it, but there’s just no way to get out without a total surrender, which, like, they’re not going to do that. Not unless they can really gussy it up.
Speaker D:
Yeah, I feel like the whole world is fucking around with, like, what modern war looks like, and being like, oh. Oh.
Speaker B:
Oh no, it doesn’t— there’s more to it. There’s more to it than expending all your missiles and being like, why didn’t they give up? Can’t they see we blew some stuff up?
Speaker D:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
Yeah, just, if, as we go down this route, if we really, like, you know, the full, like, Trollification, not in the internet sense, but like big, carry a big club, Lord of the Rings style. If we’re just going to get trolls in the— in our, in our, you know, brave fighting men, um, who are getting sent over there, we reimpose a draft, we kind of get some sort of control over the strait. Like, what’s going to happen to all the people who are drafted? Like, who’s going to start an inter-army revolutionary cell? to kind of fight the, like, weird return-to-tradition, pith helmet, neo-fascist confused, um, synthesization of, like, fascist history that we’re trying to, like, do in the Middle East. Like, the return to the Crusades is gonna be so embarrassing. I bet if you were there at the time, it was probably embarrassing too.
Speaker D:
I think a lot of the Crusades were pretty embarrassing.
Speaker B:
Yeah, I can’t—
Speaker D:
For Westerners, you know?
Speaker B:
Yeah, they, they couldn’t have— they couldn’t have had swag.
Speaker D:
No, they definitely— they tried. They tried.
Speaker B:
They tried their best. And say what you want about the Catholics, but they had some swag, so it’s really— it’s pretty disappointing to look back on that. But yeah, I don’t know. I was just imagining, like, a near future where a draft is reimposed, and, like, you don’t rise in the ranks through knowing your stuff, being a good soldier, but just kind of, like, commitment to the bit of, like, A new colonialism.
Speaker D:
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker B:
Oh, and I wanted a gay boy who doesn’t give a fuck about revolution joining a revolutionary cell just because he loves fucking a guy. Yeah. Yeah. He’s finally getting the kind of sex that he missed back when he was a party boy.
Speaker D:
Hell yeah. Yeah. Pierce kind of reminds me of— I’m so sorry to make this comparison, or it’s a great honor. I don’t know. Have you read Trouble on Triton?
Speaker B:
No.
Speaker D:
You’ve never read Trouble on Triton? Wow. Okay, this is going to be a harder comparison. You should read it, and everyone else who’s listening should read it if you haven’t. It’s this book by Samuel Delany that imagines this intergalactic war between a moon of Jupiter, I want to say, and—
Speaker B:
Interesting. A moon of Jupiter, you say?
Speaker D:
Yeah, and the Moon Triton is sort of like a socialist utopia. Delany wrote it to troll Ursula Le Guin after he hated The Dispossessed.
Speaker B:
Wow. Wow, Sam.
Speaker D:
Yeah. But the main character, Bronn, is kind of just this eventually non-gendered fuckboy who is just kind of plodding around in this war sort of accidentally. Um, and is a lot less likable than Pierce. Pierce is delightful. Um, Bronn is a little contemptible, but that’s what I thought 13 years ago when I read it. So maybe if I read it again, I would be like, nah, Bronn’s awesome. Hell yeah.
Speaker B:
I might, I might give that a try. I’m about to, I’m about to be finishing, finishing me book. So I’ll need another fiction. to pop into. But, um, yeah, I wanted, I wanted a lovable— I wouldn’t even call Pierce a fuckboy. Um, he’s just—
Speaker D:
No, Pierce is not a fuckboy. He’s just D-driven, you know? Like, we talk about war, we talk about that D-Day, you know?
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker D:
And no one talks about the D of the D-Day. I’m making light of a horrifying tragedy, and I’m so sorry.
Speaker B:
No, that’s fine. I’ll make light of it too. Pierce heard D-Day and said, oh, uh, sign, sign me up. Check, please. Yeah, let’s get, let’s get over to those, to those beautiful beaches, the beautiful French beaches.
Speaker D:
Your story does do this interesting thing with, uh, with conscription, which it’s like, I don’t know, I, I actually think a lot about conscription, uh, because we’re watching it sort of play out in real time, um, in Russia and in Ukraine.
Speaker C:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker D:
And it’s a terrifying concept to think about right now, especially as like, I feel like the military and like, the state is becoming far less popular in the United States right now.
Speaker C:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker D:
And I feel like a lot of the fervor that people sort of had like, in like, the ’90s, you know, to like, join the military has like— or, and I guess like early 2000s has kind of worn off because people are like, people are just far too politically aware to be like, no, I’m sorry, you’re like, your fucking bait and switch of this thing in the news is like not gonna get me to like join the military anymore.
Speaker B:
Too politically aware. I think that the poverty draft has kind of just lost its luster. They’ve really taken a lot of benefits away from— and also just a— they used to at least kind of make a play about respecting the troops, loving the troops, wanting to kiss all the troops. And now, at the time we’re recording, and probably when most people are going to hear this, all those guys on the aircraft carrier are highly— are just trying to kill themselves. Near Oman, the Lincoln, I guess. And like—
Speaker D:
Can you talk about that? I— Inman doesn’t actually know about what’s going on with that.
Speaker B:
Um, there is—
Speaker D:
So maybe a listener doesn’t either.
Speaker B:
There’s an aircraft carrier where no one is talking. Uh, it’s, it’s now coming to light that because they just haven’t resupplied for a while. Um, it’s fucking moldy. It’s nasty. The plumbing doesn’t work. Um, and a lot of the people are trying to just jump off the aircraft carrier, which would definitely kill you graveyard dead. I don’t know how you stop somebody from jumping off the side of an aircraft carrier, but many attempted suicides, probably some successful ones that we’re not hearing about, because they’ve just been out there for— I think it’s the longest deployment. And you talk to any officials and they’re just like, that’s bullshit. That’s fake news. These guys are pussies. They’re—
Speaker D:
Totally.
Speaker B:
They’re, you know, they wouldn’t last a day out at the Battle of the Bulge. They can’t handle what what real war is, which is eating MrBeast Feastables that we airdrop in. And they haven’t been resupplied because Iran destroyed the base that they usually get resupplied from. So the fact that we’re just kind of putting people through that and full-on just kind of like, these guys are fucking cowards, these guys aren’t real soldiers, I don’t know, the shine has come off. You know, respecting troops. Troops have agency. They chose to, you know, defend this country. It’s just like, what do you think? You aren’t into going out there and killing people in a different land? You fucking schmucks. You cowards. And yeah, the idea of starting to conscript people because no one wants— why would you join the military? What could possess you? besides being a terminal loser to join the military? Poverty for sure, but that even, you know, it’s been a long time since we had those cool commercials. You can’t really blame people playing too much Call of Duty and going like, I bet this is cool. People are, you know, you have to live under a rock to not really know what you’re getting into.
Speaker D:
I think that playing too much Call of Duty and shit like that is kind of doing a different thing right now.
Speaker B:
It’s doing a different thing, a more domestic thing, I would say.
Speaker D:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
Yeah, but the idea of conscription, because this also is just an— like, I wanted to write this story just because people were talking about fragging. That was coming up a lot, just, you know, in a lot of people’s talk. I talked a little bit with somebody who kind of helps people become conscientious objectors after they had already joined the military as a military reserve, now that we’re in In this war, it was the topic on everyone’s lips for a while of, you know, blowing up your commanding officer because war sucks. Why would I want to do war? I was just trying to get money for college. And the idea of like an organized fragging campaign, an organized mutiny taking place because we’re at the, like, most— the least amount of benefits versus the most disrespect I’ve seen in modern times now that like America is in its kind of terminal decline. Um, it was very interesting to me to think about that and to think about— I can’t, I can’t remember what I named the other guy. It’s been a while since I read it. Sorry, I should have read it before we came, we came on.
Speaker D:
Val.
Speaker B:
Val, of course, named after our beautiful, our beautiful new bar. I just wanted the idea of like, because you ever met a— you ever met like a former military wingnut? Like a lefty.
Speaker D:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
And God bless them. I love them. It’s all love here. But that’s some of the craziest people I meet. I love them to death. So I wanted to like, yeah, we’re going to take out the top military brass. We’re going to go over the border and we’re going to build the whole commune. We’re going to find a hole in the desert and we’re going to live there, which is also what the Manson family wanted to do. But this time I think Val’s going to really pull it off.
Speaker D:
Yeah, I don’t know. Well, it’s like, I think there’s this interesting thing that conscription does. And listeners, this is not me being pro-conscription at all.
Speaker A:
I know.
Speaker D:
But it pushes— I think it obviously pushes people to, like, act or not act on their convictions, you know? Because it’s like, if we think about, like, the way things are going now where it’s like, I don’t know. Yeah, I have little anxiety spirals about like World War III like officially starting and the United States getting fucking like everyone just being like, nah, we’re fucking done. We’re fucking done with y’all. And there being some huge draft or conscription because there’s no one, because no one wants to like fight in these forever wars anymore.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker D:
And It’s this thing that obviously pushes you to actually have to not sit on your hands and actually do something, which is conscientiously object, fucking run off, you know?
Speaker C:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker D:
Or you get conscripted and then you’re like, well, what the fuck do I do now? Or for people who maybe don’t think about it, which I think is probably Pierce, someone who didn’t really Wasn’t really thinking too hard about it, got conscripted, and was like, well, this fucking sucks. What do I do now?
Speaker B:
Yeah. Or Val, who was arrested for destroying billboards.
Speaker D:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
And was like, okay, well, I could go to jail, or I could get some arms training in the military, which, you know, I won’t knock that decision. Not that hard, at least.
Speaker C:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
And I think a lot of people aren’t— I don’t know, it’s hard to predict because it’s like the only way we could start making a dent in Iran is if we got troops on the ground, which I feel like has been— there would be nothing more unpopular. But I don’t think really popularity plays into a lot of things. I think we’re in, we’re in a, like, I’ll take the world down if I don’t, if I, if we can’t make it the way that we want to, rightward lurch that hopefully trips over its own dick into a, into a big pit. But we’ll see about that. And if they brought back some sort of conscription service, like, I don’t know, I want to say Americans would not put up with it, but you can never really, like, underestimate certain Americans’ perceived lack of agency and cowardice, and also some’s extreme bravery in the face of something fucking with their way of life. So it would be interesting to see, and I hope I never do.
Speaker D:
Yeah. This is a weird lens, but I kind of think that a culture of extreme comfort and convenience that we’ve sort of like leaned into in the last decade would absolutely be a huge factor in people not putting up with it.
Speaker B:
Totally.
Speaker D:
And there’s something deeply funny to me about that.
Speaker B:
Yeah, you see these guys— I imagine a lot of, you know, a lot of Korean War ‘Nam vets, or, you know, people who are no longer in the service who want to complain about the younger generation are just like, sign me up! Put me in there! And it’s like, this guy who’s not who has not even ordered from a restaurant without using an app for the last 7 years is— yeah, it’s gonna get out there and it’s gonna really fucking, you know, show the new Supreme Leader who’s boss. Gonna fight against the glorious might of the IRGC for sure. Mark.
Speaker D:
Mark.
Speaker B:
Mark. Mark from Utah.
Speaker D:
Yeah. Um, it’s funny, this interview— I feel like interviews always go in like funny directions that I don’t expect, but Diva Down is so absurd and silly and funny that I did not expect to quite have a serious, super serious conversation about what anyone might do when faced with conscription sort of thing. But here we are having a serious talk.
Speaker B:
Well, you know what I say, ain’t it a laugh?
Speaker A:
Ain’t it a laugh?
Speaker B:
It’s all a bit of a laugh, isn’t it?
Speaker D:
It is. Um, I also, I do love to talk about like the story a little more. It’s like, I do love the framing of it as like, um, I think it took me the second time reading through to really like realize, uh, kind of the, the, the actual narrative framing of it is, um, Pierce has just thrown grenades into a command tent. Right.
Speaker B:
I was a little, I was a little worried that I didn’t really hit that. Hit that hard enough, but, you know, I’m glad you got, got it.
Speaker D:
Yeah. And then was running away to the rendezvous point and tripped over a fanny pack, which is what got him captured.
Speaker B:
Yes.
Speaker D:
Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Speaker B:
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker D:
Yeah. Great, great.
Speaker B:
Story is, got, got in, has been fucking a guy for a few months, and was like, hey, what if you blew up your commanding officer? Said, said, bet, that sounds great. I would have wanted to blow that guy up already. Through it, shouted, Diva down! For lack of a better thing, tripped over, tripped over some, uh, tripped over a fanny pack and was just waiting to be, uh, to be tortured and murdered.
Speaker D:
Yeah, yeah. But there’s something really beautiful about, uh, Pierce yelling, Diva down! Because it’s this, like, it’s not that it— like, inarticulate is not the right word. Um, incoherent is maybe a closer word.
Speaker B:
So yeah, so cavalier, so just like— and I don’t know, uh, listeners, I don’t know how much time you spend around, around gay guys, but they speak in nonsense all the time. Um, and the most inappropriate things, they’ll just, you know, sit somewhere swirling in, in their, in their brain. It’s just like, oh, not, not you showing up for late To brunch late, honey. They’ll— and I love that. I think it’s such a beautiful way to use language. As somebody who falls into catchphrasism meself, I think it’s beautiful. Originally, I was just going to have him shout a slur because they also love to do that. But I think I started the story with one of the bad slurs. So yeah, I have reached my slur quota.
Speaker D:
Yeah. Well, it’s like, okay, the thing that I liked about its kind of debatable coherence is that it’s like, I think it draws on this thing that I see a lot in the world right now, which is that it’s like, I feel like there’s this version of the left that got very intellectual like 10 years ago or something, you know?
Speaker A:
Mm-hmm.
Speaker D:
I think it was actually like 14 or 15 years ago. Wow, I’m old.
Speaker B:
There’s always been annoying academics. Sorry, go on.
Speaker D:
Yeah, but then there’s this kind of like the pendulum always swings in funny directions. And I feel like stuff has finally settled in a place where I like, which is that it’s not anti-intellectual, but it is like, oh, maybe extreme intellectualism wasn’t the right revolutionary vibe.
Speaker B:
Yeah, there’s no longer a push for everyone to prove how intellectual they are, and if somebody’s doing that, they’re annoying.
Speaker D:
Yeah. And you don’t need to have an extremely articulate political or theoretical point to be fucking pissed about the things that are happening to you and to do something about it, which I may be giving Piers a little too much credit, but like, I don’t— like, yeah, Pierce is motivated by the D, but like, is Pierce fucking pissed about what’s happening to him?
Speaker B:
Oh yeah.
Speaker D:
Absolutely.
Speaker B:
Totally.
Speaker D:
Yeah. Is Pierce looking for anything to do about it? Yes.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker D:
Does Pierce need an extremely articulate, like, response to yell to people as they die? People who are responsible for, like, people that he knows, people that he cares about’s deaths, people that he doesn’t know but like doesn’t want to be dead, and like eventually his death. Yeah, he can just be fucking pissed and inarticulate.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker D:
We don’t need to like pander to some like idea that we need like art, like, uh, intellectual recognition or like, um, affirmation for like why we’re fucking pissed about the world being like it is.
Speaker B:
Yeah. And, you know, not to get too, uh, Khmer Rouge about it, but I think the intellectuals are kind of— I don’t know, I very rarely meet somebody who loves to pontificate and loves to, you know, hear, hear the sound of their own voice as they talk about, you know, something that they read in a fucking book, and I can trust that person’s ever swung a hammer or gotten their hands dirty.
Speaker D:
Um, with—
Speaker B:
in, in whatever way you want to, um, put that. I think that a lot of people mistake learning a bunch of things and having opinions for, like, political action. And I think that the people that I’ve met who are the most hardcore and, uh— or not even the most hardcore, but the people who, like, are ready to act— don’t— are, um— they have a— they have a lust for life more than, like, a lust for, um, you know, being seen a certain way. And I think, hey, I don’t want to blame the internet on everything, but it is the Great Satan, second only to the United States. But we get a big echo chamber. Everyone’s trying to fucking suck their own dick about what this take about Maoism, this take about, you know, Afro-anarchism is actually can’t work in, in the Pacific Northwest, and here’s— but here’s why it actually could work if this, X, Y, and the other thing. And it’s like, you just built— you’ve just built an intellectual prison, and you are the warden and the fucking— and the inmate. Come on, like, get— shut up. Go have— go kick a ball around. Go, go ride a skateboard with your friends. Go, go dance and do drugs in a bathroom stall. Fucking get some life experience.
Speaker D:
You’ve—
Speaker C:
you—
Speaker B:
Absolute— absolute— I wanted to call them nonces, but I don’t actually know. I think that’s a British term for a pedophile, and that’s not what I wanted to call them. It just sounded right in the moment. Listener, you put your own insult in. This is a choose-your-own-adventure podcast, just not nonces. Yeah, I am just so— I’m so sick of getting cornered at a party and somebody wanting to have everyone hear how intelligent they are. I want I want people who are well-informed and care about these things, but it is not their driving instinct to just learn these things, just have opinions. People mistake having opinions for the work.
Speaker D:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
And you don’t really need to be doing the work. We’re all in this together. You don’t need to really be smart to know that you’re getting fucked over and do something about it.
Speaker C:
Yeah.
Speaker D:
I don’t know. I feel like that’s what I think about when the person who was accused of burning down the toilet paper factory or something in Cali— What is this? Do you remember this? It was like a series of warehouse arsons, of which this person was only accused of doing one of them, but wrote somewhere very publicly, I think, like, all you had to do was pay us. A living witch.
Speaker B:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker D:
I was like, yeah, that’s a, that’s a fucking articulate point if I ever heard one. Is there— does it need anything more? No.
Speaker B:
Yeah, I’d say they did, they did more, um, for, um, you know, the workers’ struggle than, than a million think pieces have ever done.
Speaker D:
Yeah, yeah. Well, what, uh, what kind of media are you consuming right now?
Speaker B:
Oh, what am I— what am I doing? I just, I just started Elden Ring over. Um, having a great time.
Speaker D:
I really wish I liked video games.
Speaker B:
You got— yeah, gotta, you gotta try it. Do you like, uh, being frustrated and dying a lot? Have I got the game for you.
Speaker D:
No, no, I, I, I think I learned recently that I, after my 5th attempt to like force myself to like Baldur’s Gate 3, that I just don’t care about video games.
Speaker B:
That’s a, that’s a crying shame.
Speaker D:
I know.
Speaker B:
But yeah, I, uh, I was do— I was doing that, but it was like my friend, my friend was visiting and I don’t know if I’ll, I’ll get back on it. Oh, Godland. You heard of Godland?
Speaker D:
No, what’s that?
Speaker B:
Ooh, it’s, uh, a Christian missionary goes to Iceland, um, and is confronted with things. If you want 3 hours of the most beautiful movie you’ve ever seen, Godland. Run, Don’t Walk.
Speaker D:
Great. Hell yeah, that sounds fun.
Speaker B:
Oh, and I’m reading— I’m almost done with Babel.
Speaker D:
Oh, I’ve heard good things about that.
Speaker B:
You’ve heard right, it’s great. Some of the best sci-fi I’ve read in probably a decade.
Speaker D:
Hell yeah. Are you working on any other fiction, any other thingies? That’s what I’m gonna say. What are you working on?
Speaker B:
I’ve got 2 comics in the works. I’ve got like 4 different short stories that will probably be out wintertime-y, but we’ll see. I don’t like to work and I’m not on a schedule. But the only thing is I promised people on my Patreon I would mail them new stories and new prints. So those are the only real— obligations I’ve got.
Speaker D:
Hell yeah.
Speaker B:
Yeah, probably a new comic by SPX, which is in less than a month in Bethesda, Maryland.
Speaker D:
What is SPX?
Speaker B:
SPX is the Small Press Expo, and I think it is the best comics, like the indie comics convergence in North America. I really like it. There’s a lot of really cool people. It’s very queer-leaning. Quite radical leaning as well. The Ignatz, or like the award ceremony, and ABO Comics, which is a collective that I helped start, is nominated for best anthology this year. And see, I’m gonna see who I can bribe so we finally, finally win a fucking Ignatz, because that’ll look great on the mantelpiece. We’ll actually probably like break it up and send it to— I really respected that the Nib Rest in Peace, a really good comics journal, won Ignatz’s and just smashed— Ignatz is just a brick. That is the trophy, is just a brick they got from Home Depot.
Speaker A:
Oh, man.
Speaker B:
And ABO’s is an anthology of queer comics from people who are incarcerated right now. So any of the people who have since gotten out, it would be nice I think to break it up and just send it, send it to everybody. But yeah, a new, a new comic about some, about some comics drama that I won’t get into right now. Um, but yeah, that’ll be done by SPX, maybe.
Speaker D:
Cool. Any, uh, any, any little sneak peeks into any quippy new shirts?
Speaker B:
Quippy new shirts. Um, what do I, what do I got? I mean, right now, um, Thank God I didn’t wind up a one-hit wonder when everyone else made more money off of Be Gay, Do Crime than I did. The stuff that’s kind of paying the rent right now is all Dune-related. I think Frankie Herb’s writing an event in the Dune universe where everyone destroys computers, and the Dune movie’s coming out while everyone is so fucking sick of AI.
Speaker D:
Um, Butlerian Jihad now.
Speaker B:
The Butlerian Jihad now. Yeah. Everybody loves that shit. Um, yeah, I’ll, I’m kind of just like churning those, churning those bad boys out, um, in the, in the lead up for, for Dune 3.
Speaker D:
Cool. I’ve been seeing a lot of your, uh, Ursula shirts around.
Speaker A:
Oh yeah.
Speaker B:
That, um, that I’m really glad that worked out because that was just kind of like I was like, ooh, I own the means of production. I can make my own shirts. And I wanted an Ursula K. Le Guin shirt, and I’m really glad that everybody else liked it as well. I like doing knotwork. Knotwork is so— you have to have such a mathematical brain for knotwork that I just don’t. But I finally knocked one out well enough to put on the Ursula shirt, and I’m really pleased with how it came out.
Speaker D:
You were saying K-N-O-T, not not work, I’m like, yeah, fuck work.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
We all love not work.
Speaker B:
I love to not work, but I love not work a little bit more than that.
Speaker D:
Cool.
Speaker A:
Hell yeah.
Speaker D:
Um, well, that’s about all we got time for today. Anything else that you want to say to folks about anything or your story? Um, and is there any place, or where can people find you in the places where you would like to be found? And what’s one secret clue to a place where they can find you where you don’t want to be found?
Speaker B:
Where I don’t want to be found? Oh, well, if you— for those in the know, like the crooked tree near the Tesco.
Speaker D:
Sane floor.
Speaker B:
Yeah, just follow that until you find a will-o’-the-wisp. But you can find me not in person On Instagram @bumlung. Uh, what is it? B-U-M dot L-U-N-G. I’m also on Bluesky. And, um, I got a store. I got a Patreon where I’m putting a lot, a lot more stories if you liked this one, and mailing people prints and postcards and bullshit like that.
Speaker D:
Hell yeah. Well, this diva is done.
Speaker B:
This diva is done.
Speaker D:
Because we’re at the end of The interview.
Speaker B:
Diva done!
Speaker D:
I don’t really know if I stand by that, but that’s what happened.
Speaker B:
Yeah. Well, I identify as a diva, so I’ll second.
Speaker D:
Great, great. I do not. I was getting cold feet because I don’t identify as a diva, but you do and you’re done. Yeah.
Speaker B:
Oh, I think you can get there with hard work and determination.
Speaker D:
I don’t know if I have the grit. Well, I’m just too soft.
Speaker B:
I see that for you. But, um, thanks so much, Diva. Thanks for the interview.
Speaker D:
Yeah, thanks for a ridiculous story about the revolutionary potential of a gay guy with 2 grenades.
Speaker B:
Yeah, anytime. There’s more where that came from.
Speaker A:
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, then And, um, I don’t know, think grimly and darkly about the shifting future that we’re all trapped in. Also, if you liked it, you can tell people about the show, you can rate and review and like and subscribe, or whatever the algorithm calls for. Feed it like a hungry god. A god that wants you to get some good D.
Speaker D:
You heard it here, that’s what it wants.
Speaker A:
However, if you want to support the show in other sillier ways that doesn’t involve feeding a nameless and mysterious entity, then consider supporting the show financially by becoming a Patreon subscriber. If you subscribe at $10 a month, we will mail you a zine version of the pieces that you hear here every month anywhere in the world. You can also get access to an archive of old Strangers content as well as discounts on things like t-shirts and books we publish. Find us at patreon.com/strangers. in a tangled wilderness. There’s even this new Friends of Strangers tier where you can sign up and we’ll just send you everything that we publish, like once every, I think, 3 or 4 months. But before we go, we would like to shout out some of our patrons as part of our Patreon Acknowledgement tier, which you also have access to with the Friends of Strangers tier. If you would like us to thank you, someone you love, a rad organization, a theoretical or fictional concept, an animal, or just a funny word that you want me to say, then subscribe to our Patreon at $20 a month and I will thank whatever you ask me to. Unless it’s the Empire. I’m not thanking them. Thank you: Please Fight Anti-Fatness, Arizona Sunsets, Bunny Bionics, Bike Smut Film and Performance, Patrick Harnett Marshall, rest in power, All wiener dogs everywhere, The first 2 chapters of The Eden Project by James Hollis. The Kiwanis Socialists. The Athens People’s Assembly of Athens, Georgia. Mr. Kraft, your Canadian friend.
Speaker D:
Tiny Nonsense.
Speaker A:
A Future for Abby. The Canadian Socialist Rifle Association. Max. Lancaster Chooses Love. The Astoria Food Pantry. Enchanted Rats of Turtle Island. Feral in West Virginia.
Speaker D:
Blink Cat.
Speaker A:
The Massachusetts chapter of the Socialist Rifle Association. Jenny and Phoebe the Cat, Jason, Aiden and Yuki the Dog, Alexander Gopal, Sunshine, Opticuna, Portland’s Hedron Hackerspace, Julia, Appalachian Liberation Library, Lord Harken, Baby A Cab and Her 3 Great Pups, Ephemeral, Princess Miranda, Janice and Odell, Boldfield, Allie, Papa Runa, Milica, Theo, SJ Page, the Pocono Pink Pistols, Nicole and Tick for the Dog, David, Towser’s Love of Bumblebees, Carson, Dana, Chelsea, Amber, Marjorie. The truth that we will outlive them. Kirk. Micaiah.
Speaker D:
Chris.
Speaker A:
The incredible Rennerai. Micah. And the immortal, the diva that will never go down, Haas the dog. Thanks so much for your support. It means so much to us and has allowed us to get so much done as a collective. And lastly, a lot of the features on the podcast come from listeners like you. So if you feel like a stranger that would like to find their story a home in this tangled wilderness, Consider submitting it, and I don’t know, maybe it will generate some good D. I don’t stand by this joke. Stay well.
Speaker D:
We hope you come back.