About Digital Cynic
(Short and Often Inaccurate)
Vital Stats
Given Name: Donald Wayne Porter
Age: 26
Hometown: Winnipeg, Manitoba (or Transcona, Manitoba for the old time purists)
Height: 5’10”
Weight: 170 lbs.
Occupation
None. I have a job, but not a career. I could say writer, but as of today I have made a grand total of $55, a crappy book, a crappy CD and a free pass to a wrestling show. Not exactly a living wage.
Interests
Reading, writing, politics, sports, bitching about pop culture, music, film and dissidence.
Music
Anything that hasn’t been stamped out of the record company cookie-cutter dripping with insincere sentiments of love, loneliness, sex, angst and/or partying produced only to suck money out of the wallets of impressionable youth. Which pretty much rules out anything produced in the last five or so years or music from any artist whose main focus of discussion is how they look instead of how good and/or relevant their music is. Some of the better artists:
- Tragically Hip
- Headstones
- Lisa Loeb (and Nine Stories)
- Public Enemy
- NWA*
- Eminem*
- Sex Pistols
- The Ramones
- The Clash
- Ani DiFranco
* To all the people out there who object to these artists for the content of their music are idiots. It never ceases to amaze me how liberal twits can defend “high art” against censorship and not cut these guys the same courtesy. I never took NWA’s music as a glorification of gangsta mentality or misogyny, but simply a slice of the environment they grew up in. Sure, there were a lot of copycat rappers who did just that but is that their fault? As far as Eminem goes, nobody is more brutally honest about the mentality of the twenty-something white male as Eminem. Perhaps opening the closet door is a wee bit too uncomfortable for some folks.
Books
Since there hasn’t been a significant literary movement in fifty years, and today’s “literature” seem to try to outdo each other in how boring and dreary they can possibly be, most books from the Beat and the Lost generations turn my crank. On the Road, Naked Lunch and A Catcher in the Rye are definite must-reads.
Film
It’s appalling how bad Hollywood has gotten. Every time I walk into a theatre, I’m thinking to myself: Does this movie fit my narrow, yet completely uniform demographic? Does it have an adequate hottie to nude scene ratio that meets my particular white male twenty-something constant hard-on needs? Which soft drink or cell phone is the hero carrying? Which is why I’ve lobbied that Hollywood should drop all pretenses and just make soft-core porn movies. Or soft-core porn music videos. Leave filmmaking to the countries that give a damn about making something worthwhile.
Politics
I believe in a curious combination between classic liberalism and stoicism. I used to be a far left liberal and then I believed in rugged individualism. Now I believe in a combination of the two. As far as the political process goes I believe in the old adage: “Any group of three or more people are inherently evil.”
Interview With the Cynic
Q: Let me get this straight… you’re interviewing yourself? What kind of pretentious jackass are you?
A: Up yours. You want to talk or not?
Q: To yourself?
A: Yeah. Get the idea?
Q: All right, let’s get this over with. How do you come up with your ideas?
A: Mostly I peruse the papers. Maybe it’s not the intention of the website. I think we’re supposed to write about things that bug us on a daily basis. I don’t know.
Q: You don’t know? God, you’re a moron. Anyway, you seem to talk a lot about smoking and smoker’s rights. What’s up with that?
A: It’s not specifically smoker’s rights. It’s about the broader subject of civil liberties. Ever since the Health Nazi Regime, people instinctively repeat “smoking is bad for you!” like some kind of deranged parrot. Nobody ever gives a thought to picketing the smelting plant in their backyard because without them polluting the air, we wouldn’t get our precious SUVs and cell phones.
Q: And cigarette lighters.
A: Yeah, you got it.
Q: Moving on, don’t you think the whole cynical, angst-ridden tortured artist thing is a little tiresome?
A: Probably. But it’s what I do best. I figure when I reach a certain age, I’ll completely recreate myself as some kind of self-confident, motivational speaking-type asshole.
Q: Kinda like how Britney Spears will reinvent herself as a haggard over-used porn star when her music career starts to sag.
A: Nice Britney Spears bash. Can’t be a cynic without slipping one of those in there. And her music career is sagging. I reckon she’ll just become a heroin addict.
Q: Screw you. To end this off, anything to say to the kids out there?
A: Yeah, your trends and your music sucks. I’m outta here.