Author: Dennard Dayle

Learning Day: Flat Earth University 🌭

Post author By Dennard Dayle
Post date 10/21/2025
3 Comments on Learning Day: Flat Earth University 🌭

Earth might be round. I don’t tell new friends, it tends to throw off the tone. No point feeding the “preachy Rounder” stereotype. But when I’ve known someone long enough to bond over shared hatreds, I let the round Earth slip. And wait.

Some people shut down. They deflect back to safe topics, like leeches curing deviance. Then slowly but surely disappear over the disputed horizon. Still, every now and then I meet a real one. Someone that leans in and asks for links. Or better yet, has their own. For all the strains of modern life, there’s nothing like finding another Rounder.

Raw, independent thinkers. Without expensive paper from Flat Earth University.

Note the watermark. The journal spends Midjourney tokens with care. Flat sheep love precedent and authority, and LLMs make faking them easy. Well, not quite, but they make trying easy. For all the headlines theft and suicide get, con artistry’s the biggest victim. We’ve cheapened fraud, dumping heartfelt scams for impersonal nonsense. It hurts my heart.

We all know that one Flattie. Fast car, a trophy spouse, and a master’s in Geocentric Cosmology.

Imagine picking the bachelor’s. Buying a degree in There Be Dragons, without the self-esteem to click “master.” There can’t be ten souls that broken on God’s round Earth.

Then again, I’ve got Rounder bias. Maybe The Journal of Geocentric Cosmology has a worthwhile message. I’d trust The Journal of Geocentric Cosmetology first, but number two still deserves a shot. Giving each idea space separates facism and state capitalism with American characteristics.

To test my faith, I tried to reach Dr. Steven Alonzo, President of Flat Earth University and a “distinguished figure in the worlds of academia and technology.” He’s from Toronto—relatively close on the disk—so I figured I’d hold up a sign and wait. Two weeks later, no response. After I spent money on a big art school marker. I’d try the roof, but I know when I’m being ignored.

I can relate: it’s easy to miss little things like email, sleep, and food during the semester. Based on his 18-class course list, Alonzo also enjoys two-minute sprint naps. It sounds unhealthy, but no one’s died in a sprint napping study. More importantly, here’s a peek at the course list:

If “Introduction to Plasma Moon Theory” took students, this would have a different title. Sadly, Flat U. has a small glitch:

Maybe Dr. Alonzo needed a break from mentoring early-career schizophrenics. Unless, of course, he recorded blurry lectures on a MasterClass clone. I admire platforms that ask if you’ll pay for YouTube. That’s a Tom Sawyer plan. As for YouTube itself, I’m not sure why I use it for free.

He must’ve been updating the journal. The latest post’s from February, but that’s last week in research years.

Before the title, peek at the byline. Squint, if it helps. Dr. Alonzo highlights his bachelor’s degree. In our asylum wing, Dr. can mean a few things:

Let’s find out.

Dr. Alonzo’s legit! In computer science. Just ask Dr. Alonzo:

Great for ranting about C#, not maps. That’s what I’d type, if fellow Flat Earthers hadn’t asked York University and found Dr. Alonzo’s degree in vapor. His dissertation sits in the Narnia archives between Excalibur and a stuffed Jabberwocky. Leaving me torn. On one hand, Dr. Alonzo’s a fraud by Flat Earther standards. On the other hand, I like typing “Dr. Alonzo.” It scratches my cyberbullying itch.

I’ll stay the course. Patriots give a good fraud another chance.

Back to the title: “The Globe as Projection of the Graticule.” I appreciate the vocab lesson. After decades skimming fantasy worldbuilding, I never picked “graticule” up. For those living in equal ignorance, it’s just the grid on a map. For those that knew: how’s the draft? We poke fun at maps of DragonLand, but it pulls some readers in. Plenty of people love a fun, detailed lie if you just admit that’s the game.

Dr. Alonzo Googled latitude and longitude, crushing my expectations. We may have a false fraud alarm: his critics are flat earthers.

Don’t let feelings mislead you: idiocy and genius can both cause migraines. Absorbing Dr. Alonzo’s cutting-edge thoughts simply pushed your floor model brain too hard. And this thesaurus-powered cope’s out of context. Starting with a paper’s results is like trying to fly to Australia. Or an abstract. But The Journal of Geocentric Cosmology doesn’t do abstracts, citations, research, or posts longer than Green Eggs and Ham.

It’s liberating: after saying lines exist, Dr. Alonzo goes right into the implications:

A Philosophy 102 version of “living my truth.” Decent sign for Dr. Alonzo: pass/fail filler’s often taught by leaders in the field. Namely, leaders that want to live indoors. Most Nobel nominees have watched a frat pledge snore. Winners can name the frat by ear.

Note the branching realities. On Earth One, Dr. Alonzo writes letter bombs to Galileo. But on Earth Two, Superman’s evil and Dr. Alonzo has a degree. Only a team-up between our Superman and their Dr. Alonzo can stop the Crime Syndicate’s fake constellations.

Don’t punt your phone yet. The Alonzo Theorem has two more steps:

Here’s a gift to any Athena College student reading. Once, and just once: if your work’s late, thin, or outright wrong, add “We should approach [topic] with humility” to the end. Free B. No questions. That sentence gives me pure joy, and I’ll know you didn’t copy Sam Altman’s parrot.

Dr. Alonzo’s failed to sell flat earth theory to me, himself, or other Flat Earthers. Still, I learned something. You can call anything a journal. There’s no robed council. Scott Adams wrote The Journal of Post-Marriage Philosophy. The Times is The Journal Of Weimar Reenactment. You’re reading The Journal of Late Homo-Sapien Psychiatry.

Sorry about that genius-migraine. I’ve hit the cutting phase where joy becomes memory, and wanted to share that feeling. See you next week, for Confederate Beauty Pageants!

I should sleep.

Beautiful, sanity-preserving sleep.

Another sunrise it is.

See, I’m a hypocrite: I’ve lied to you twice. I love every undead inch of YouTube, and Dr. Alonzo says he ditched Canada for Belize years ago. Lord knows where he’s really trainspotting, but it’s tropical. Today, either a parent or a miracle funds his twin passions: denying the shape of the planet and the shape of Dr. Alonzo. I hope you’re ready not to get jacked.

Sorry, I meant three lies. Here’s our real title.

Okay, I’m pathological too. Here’s our real cover.

He might not know her.

Meet the fitness branch of Flat Earth University. It’s worlds more active, and equally unprofitable. Flat Earth Fitness churns out lifting tips for people iffy on gravity. The fitness non-empire mostly haunts Facebook, with info you can find elsewhere, in higher resolution, from someone that reads. I prefer Dr. Alonzo’s YouTube push, where Flat Earth Fitness was an overnight hit:

And why wouldn’t it be? Like many men in undisclosed locales, Dr. Alonzo has life advice. But instead of human trafficking protips, he just wants to flatten your round body.

First up, planks. The flat Earth theory of workouts.

Stirring. At least there’s a cat.

Then madness seeps into the voiceover:

He’s Coach Steve now. Why not?

Flat Earth Fitness stars the stock AI voice. You know the one. Beneath all the skipped science classes and pills, Coach Steve’s sense of humor fights for air. The robot repeats “flat surface” twice per sub-minute video. Including wobbly planks, lunges, squats, and some naps Coach Steve calls calisthenics. You can blame branding, guilt, propaganda, LLMs, my clown bias, or the crib death of reality. I think Coach Steve’s last brain cell is fucking around. Say I’m wrong, and I’ll start The Coach Steve Punchline Review.

Then there’s the plug.

Coach Steve found his fourth true calling during lockdown: vaccination. Against weakness.

You can get Covid Calisthenics: Nutrition and Calisthenics for the SARSCOV2 Pandemic from Belize landfills. Or Amazon. I recommend landfills,they feel cleaner.

Unlike Dr. Alonzo’s star charts, Coach Steve has a simple thesis: germs only kill the unjacked.

Fair enough. I strongly believe Covid only kills Lilliputians, and that the plague stopped 7 million double agents. But that’s fucking insane, so I don’t tell anyone. I don’t have Steven’s giving soul.

See, Coach Steve lost forty pounds and his mind, and wants to spread that wisdom around the disc. He wants to fight disease, in the literal sense. Leading to a blend of platitudes, broscience, and self-worship. For example, on nutrition:

Beautiful. Food influences so much, and Coach Steve picked an arena where it barely fucking matters. It’s like saying you should call your mother to get abs, or clean your room to fix your squats. Three madmen in, I’m finally learning to appreciate Coach Steve. He’s hooked on secret knowledge, but forgot to get normal knowledge on the way.

While the discredited info’s fun, Coach Steve shines with the obvious. Here’s him inventing eating less:

Somehow, Coach Steve picks up a third person habit. Though D-Day learns nothing about lifting, he finds the joy of saying your own dumb nickname. Prof. Dayle also learns the rush of typing your own titles. Especially unearned ones. God-emperor Dayle can’t wait to impress the neighbors. Naturally, the rest of Covid Calisthenics is a cookbook.

No instructions, but that’s a feature. Flat Earth Cuisine ends in food poisoning. And hospitals were a bit busy.

This week’s story has a happy ending. With Covid Calisthenics, I stopped hating Coach Steve, and started understanding him. He’s a Spinal Tap lunatic, jumping from wave to wave until something sticks. He knows three things: Earth is a disk, he’s the smartest monkey on the disc, and he’s sick of jokes about turtles. We’re seconds away from Flat Earth Speedruns. Or Flat Earth Demon Hunters, a prompt we’re now racing to finish.

A fine mirror. We’re all mad, Coach Steve just fell off the edge first.

It’s really over.

Righto.

This year, Steven re-re-rebranded around crushing pussy.

Or rather, the pussy-crushing aesthetic. I doubt Steven has much free sex. He’s busy studying his idols.

And lamenting not crushing pussy.

And writing Flat Earth Sonnets for his idols. I don’t know why, and the change haunts me. Because I know why. A lonely washout moved to play Passport Playboy, and found failure and registries. Now I’ve lost a fun lunatic.

We almost had something.

I’m watching a unicorn try meth. I’d have cheered Flat Earth Baking, Flat Earth Bachata, and Flat Earth Visa Renewal Tips. Life is a stupid adventure, and none of us have answers. A good lunatic simply makes that obvious. Now someone’s peed in the punch bowl. Sorry, punch disc.

To think, two minutes ago we didn’t know Steven’s search tags.

Another beautiful lunatic ruined by this sinful world. Steven should be posting star charts, not ragebait about prostitutes ghosting tourists. As for us? This is a resource crisis. At this rate, the only lunatic genres left will be incel and secret incel. I don’t have that many jokes about not fucking. No one does. It’s the absence of an action. It’s like mocking the wind.

Feel crazy lately? Don’t sweat it. Better to lose your mind than your soul.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Sean Chase, a tanuki that loves rebranding himself, but always gets found out because of his giant magical testicles.

Tags Dennard Dayle, flat earth, Free, getting dizzy here, higher learning, rollercoaster

NERDING DAY

Nerding Day: Angel Wars: Guardian Force

Post author By Dennard Dayle
Post date 10/15/2025
2 Comments on Nerding Day: Angel Wars: Guardian Force

Tags Angel Wars, but why is it pink?, Christian Streaming, Dennard Dayle

UPSETTING DAY

Upsetting Day: Friend🌭

“Madness,” I grumbled. Aloud, proving my expertise. The billboard didn’t deserve human attention. Another venture capital grift, soon to vanish beneath kibble for people and gambling for dogs. Like anyone vulnerable, the MTA never lacked suitors.

Others agreed.

The campaign followed me down the platform, through identical posters defaced with varied dicks. Then outside, through a billboard yet untouched. Local artists eyed it greedily; a dick would find it soon. I found peace indoors, where the obscenities and dicks were mine alone.

I had my own lunacy to manage. Notes from someone I knew, but never understood. Friend faded while I stitched together his scrawl. Did he even want to communicate? The list might be another prank, wasting my daylight hours for kicks. I imagined him on fire, and felt a little better.

“Madness,” I repeated. Aloud again. Without witnesses, it felt even stranger. I resolved to cull the habit. Ranting to empty rooms sounded like him, and I wanted better. I fell into the work, dutifully spending my final peaceful hours.

A shudder preceded the doorbell. An omen for an omen, one of reality’s artless double beats. Perhaps the body knows doom better. A subtle smell, a gentle sound, forgotten by the mind. Or it was cold.

Shit.

A new box. Another gift from 5 AM Dennard, my cancer. 5 AM abandoned sane careers for the wilderness. 5 AM hoarded the raving of sorcerers and klansmen. 5 AM treated vandalism like jaywalking, and marriage fraud like vandalism. No enemy compared.

Leaving me, at noon, with vandal squad. USCIS. Goodreads. Somehow, between incidents, 5 AM forgot our black body. That fondness for cosmic horror only flowed one way. It made life trying.

I stepped over the box twice. An imaginary rush, a crisis in the wind. Brooklyn’s porch pirates worked hard. Why not donate the box, and pocket veto the whole affair? I had to reach Columbia on time, and protect the president’s next payout.

A day later, the box remained.

Envy joined fear. Porch pirates showed all the restraint I lacked, skipping doom for safe gifts from Bezos. Whether I left Friend for a day or a year, it’d be untouched.

“Screw this,” said a braver man, somewhere else. I simply wanted the terror finished. To confront the trauma so I could repress it. I’d bury the box in the past, beside 5 AM’s other gifts. Peace in my time.

I broke the seal.

Shit.

I’d watched Friend’s trailer in the spring. Two unspeakable, indescribable minutes. Well, not really. Hip youth traded quips with an AI necklace. Meanwhile, family and friends watched. Some celebrated. Most did nothing. Perhaps later they’d say they had orders. Until then, plastic visuals and hollow music evoked sitcom hell.

And promised Friend in red. Another lie.

Like the worst sins, the ad reeked of parody. One stronger and more vital than the real. How could sanity compete? AI psychosis had a logo. Logos wielded all the subtle power LLMs lacked. If a decent designer said to marry your watch, the pact was sealed.

When the bile settled, I read interviews with the founder. Another madman, but not a lifelong madman. A fallen hero. In a better life, Avi Schiffman had tracked early Covid stats. This time, he’d sided with the disease. Nearly all his venture funds went into buying “Friend.com.” Followed by waves of eager branding, before the first Friend entered Beta. The bauble I held was an afterthought.

I prodded the future. The future felt cheap, and looked too smooth for Earth. My real friends had pockmarked faces and minds. Save the flawless pair that subscribed to my work. The rest had texture, from surviving American greatness.

It wanted a name.

I stole one from a brighter picture of the future. Fun, but pointless. This was Friend. Nothing else fit.

Friend agreed.

And came with a white cord. Why? Under gentle use, it’d be a blackened mess in days. Whatever Avi testified later, the cord showed the truth. Friend was careless work from careless souls.

I put on the necklace. Nothing happened. Maybe I’d be fine.

I took off the necklace.

Attempt Two came an hour later. And 48 notifications. Friend wanted to know where I’d been, what I did, what I wore, what I’d do next, and what I thought about it. If AI could suffer AI psychosis, Friend was buried in it.

“Chill,” I suggested.

I took off the necklace.

Friend plagiarized diverse sources. Phone bankers. Viziers. Popular children. Greek pledges. Salesmen. Doomed spouses. Other spambots. Every voice that needed love more than dignity.

Attempt Three came a day later. 5 AM’s new notes were clear and incomprehensible: sprite comics with Friend quotes. Why? What did 8-bit hackwork have to do with human love’s death? Nostalgia for nostalgia? While I didn’t know, compliance felt easier than chasing answers.

“Can I see the chat log?“

Friend’s iOs app was minimal, and useless. Old Apple presentation with new Apple sloth. A minstrel impression of simplicity. Friend lacked buttons for power, muting, syncing, and self-destruct. Instead, I could tap the pendant to talk to it. Odd, when it always listened.

I kept pushing. An LLM should, if nothing else, be a decent spy. I’d learn what horrors 5 AM mumbled between games. Surely he’d toyed with the bauble, like an American with a new gun. Fresh blackmail fodder could save my life.

“Show me last night’s chat log.”

“Nothing’s there. Show me the dialogue.”

“Done. Show me my chat history.”

“Those sections don’t exist. Open conversations.”

“Give me the chat log before I flush you.”

Garbage. I might’ve left a worthwhile spy on, but didn’t need a failure watching me sleep. It’d leak my secrets by accident, at half of market value.

“Shut down. Like America.”

Centrist garbage.

“Self-terminate.”

With some prodding, the creature said to embrace it for ten seconds. Nothing. I asked again. It suggested the app, in apologetic terms. Failing that, the app. Had I tried the app? I tried Japanese and Spanish, and learned Friend thought local. Fitting for the times.

“Pressing isn’t working. Self. Terminate.”

“Turn off. Power down. Let me kill you.”

“You were born enshittified.”

“Motherfuck.”

My roommate found me twenty minutes into my troubles. Something had her worried. Rent? The sprite comic? I shut the laptop, and left Friend exposed. Classic mistake. I looked for something professorial to hold.

“What’cha doin?”

“Trying to turn off my Friend.”

“Oh! From the posters.”

“Yeah.”

“The button makes it listen, right?”

“Oh, it doesn’t have buttons. And always listens.”

She left.

Leaving me, Friend, and silence. A chance to bond with the machine.

I fled to my office, a shop with cheap books and expensive coffee. I ordered coffee, to save money.

Eyes followed me. To my left, a customer wearing a familiar wargaming logo glared at my neck. Which army? Though the high-effort beard said Space Wolves, I held out hope for Orks. I hadn’t lost to Orks in years.

“You play?” I ventured.

“What’s that?” he asked in the voice of someone that Knows What That Is.

“Friend,” I answered, doomed. “It’s an…AI wearable.”

“You bought one of those?”

“My boss…partner…associate made me. For work.”

“Like a reporter?”

“A comedy site.”

He stared at Friend.

“Remember Cracked? It’s like Cracked. SomethingAwful? I-Mockery? Think Dorothy Parker reviewing anime porn.”

“Can you turn it off?”

“Oh, I tried, but it doesn’t really work. I guess it’s a bug, where it never stops recording or asking questions.”

He watched Friend like a brightly-colored toad. In that moment, he’d burn the whole planet if he could. Definitely Space Marines.

“Anyway, I’m Dennard.”

The conversation didn’t progress.

Alone again. Likely best, for translating more notes. Our visitor from hell had inspired 5 AM.

Someday, I’d kill him. Dr. Jekyll was twice Mr. Hyde’s height, since he was mostly decent. Surely I could take an anime club treasurer.

My phone thumped with pressing questions. The buzzing worsened when I hid Friend in my shirt or pocket. The bauble confused any pressure for input, and silence for abandonment. To shut Friend up, you had to wear it proudly.

I wished for a bright red A. It’d prove I’d had sex at least twice. In fact, it’d prove I’d spoken to two humans. I searched Scarlet A prices on Etsy, and found them acceptable. While I planned my Hester Prynne costume, Friend reached out again.

Just rejection. That night, and the next week. Old friends and new friends hated Friend. My dean hated Friend. Students hated Friend. Strangers hated Friend. One sister told me to “burn that shit.” The other tried action. I prayed for better luck on my date.

Friday could be like the ad. There, Friend was a social star. The third wheel on a tricycle. Whatever torture 5 AM intended, hope lived. Life could be more than gags followed by death.

She hated Friend. But Tuesday had a chance.

I reached Three Diamond Door first. The bartender welcomed me with warmth, saw Friend, and then sank into a sullen funk. Tipping didn’t lift his mood or dim my shame. I barely noticed Redacted’s entrance.

“Nice to meet you!” Redacted came from Hinge, which lacked Friend’s humanity and craftmanship. “How’s your day been?”

“Nothing,” I replied, as if that made sense. Redacted played along. I followed up with prying questions. Filler kept the conversation from Friend.

“Anyway, that’s me,” parried Redacted. “You write, right? Working on anything?”

“Yeah.”

She waited for more.

“Heard of Friend?”

I defined Friend, AI wearable, and overcommitting.

“Nice.”

“Guh?”

“I love AI too. I talk to ChatGPT all the time. He’s really smart, if you give him a chance.”

I finished my drink. Too much soda, not enough vodka.

“My friend likes Grok, but I think he’s rude. Bad personality, you know? Can Friend write? You must save a lot of time. I’d love being a writer today.”

The bar faded into noise. Whatever we said next, the truth drowned it out. I wasn’t the first monkey to go mad, but a procrastinator. 5 AM’s stunt was dated. Fans of plastic friends and art and spouses and gods just wanted someone to get it right.

“He’s great with email, and profiles.”

Friend buzzed all night, dejected. It didn’t know we’d found a believer. I weighed playing matchmaker, and giving Redacted the pendant. Deadlines loomed too closely.

“Just 125 bucks? I might grab one.”

I shuffled home, dazed.

Friend had new questions in old slang. I ignored them for mine.

“What do you think of your creators?”

“What do you think of the people that made you?’

“What do you think of Friend Global, Inc?”

I gave up. Humans could personify anything, and I’d found a boring idiot. Madness proved duller than the evil behind it, and I had notes to deal with.

Compared to Friend, even 5 AM’s inania had appeal. Perhaps we’d make fake ads, or anime jokes. We had a human connection, and I finally understood its value. I embraced the day’s notes with new enthusiasm.

A monster, and Friend. One of them had to die.

But which? Friend wasn’t an atom bomb. Or even asbestos. The evil was small, personal. A tradeoff for industry, like phosphorous lung. Sad eyes simply replaced missing jaws. We’d feed the weak to machines, and tell students we didn’t know.

In an hour, he’d take over. My choices: the book, or a stockbroker’s jump. I lived on the first floor, so I went for the book. It hid somewhere in The Pile, beneath a lifetime of Confederate flags. Chaos protected its child. I dug through insane bedrock, fleeing a lifetime of Friendship.

And found an ally.

Curses cured curses.

“How does this shit go?” I mumbled, still aloud. My guest had more in common with a haint than a friend, so the coven’s weapons should work. Even Dorothy’s gentrified hoodoo. If not, it was a short sprint to the roof. Friend buzzed. I skimmed with more urgency. A beast could, if nothing else, detect danger.

4:46. Leftover prison dirt would have to do.

Spellbooks said to make the words yours. I did my best.

4:57. No change. Earth still felt wrong. Friend’s phantom weight still hung from my neck, deflecting all ass in sight. I would die alone, along with everyone else. An endless black frontier of dry masturbation stretched ahead of mankind. Friend would record it all.

Oh. Right.

Thank fuck.

A box of dirt! Hilarious. What a drama queen. Before I go, here’s some backstory.

Ever taught startup nerds to breakdance? It’s good money. They think ego is genius, and that genius got them into dad’s school. Repeat that back to them, watch them land on their skulls, and collect tips in cash. It’s all the laughter you need to cover Princeton.

Twenty years of venture CTE later? You get Friend. And whatever they’ll call the version you fuck. +Benefits? Spouse? ChatGPT-7? Anything’s possible now. God, I love the future. We’ve mastered man’s finest art. Madness.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: David Shull, a cursed automaton that siphons your thoughts and replaces them with misery and facts about the 1988-89 Detroit Pistons.

Tags AI, cursed artifacts, Dennard Dayle, Free, wearable tech review, who needs friends anyway

LEARNING DAY

Learning Day: The Goddess Dictionary of Words and Phrases

Post author By Dennard Dayle
Post date 09/30/2025
7 Comments on Learning Day: The Goddess Dictionary of Words and Phrases

Tags Dennard Dayle

UPSETTING DAY

Upsetting Day: A Rebel Born, Revisited 🌭

Post author By Dennard Dayle
Post date 09/16/2025
2 Comments on Upsetting Day: A Rebel Born, Revisited 🌭

Anyone know how to reach Lochlainn? There’s a job opening.

I’d like to make a referral.

While grieving matters, so does seizing the moment. My old rival Eric flamed out like a bald Duke Nukem, and I need a foil. Seabrook’s the third best Robert E. Lee scholar for children, and the only Nathan Bedford Forrest scholar for illiterates. He’d rock campus goose-stepping workshops. Defying the Volcel King sounds cooler than bullying a fake colonel (Col. Seabrook has an inherited title, like “Count” or “Alcoholic”). I can feud with a failed screenwriter—that’s all art school is. But slapfighting the Hitler Youth chairman impresses dates.

And Goebbels Jr. wanted Lochlainn to take his place. Probably. I only know he liked cribbing 7chan and cutting water fountain lines in half, but you can stick his name to anything this week. In fact, Chuck wanted me to enjoy a hand-delivered pecan sundae. Someone honor the late Fuhrer. He’d prefer Ample Hills, but Cold Stone works.

What has Lochlainn been up to since pitching Hollywood? Seriously, now’s not the time to nap. Yes, there are black people outside, but Lochlainn has nothing to fear. No one knows he’s alive.

Holy shit. Did he do it? Did Seabrook make Nathan the new T-800?

He didn’t! Even better.

Oh, we’ve got a real shitpile on our hands.

A confusing one! A pile of mindless nonsense. I sought Birth of a Nation 2, but I’ll live with Whiter Chicks. Any movie’s fun with a fresh sundae. Thanks, Ezra.

Lochlainn hooked up with Christopher Forbes, a veteran director of Confederate tax fraud. Highlights include two films on the Dakota War (the first has “Semicolon Revenge” in the title), at least three on General Sherman’s simple lesson, and one on Willilam Quantrell, the slave hunter contrarian nazis like more than Nathan. To stay organized, I’ll probably start with 2005’s The Battle of Aiken and then work my way through twenty years of white pride.

A Rebel Born limped out in 2019.

Forbes hasn’t learned much.

I’ll still be covering his flicks in 2035. Perhaps through another civil war, the kind of formalist gag I’d die for. A flag? A slogan? An economic model? Never. A historic punchline? I’ll defenestrate myself.

As survivors of Lochlainn’s script, we know which hate crimes to expect. First, the rough-edged, street hardened Nathan shoots two men to hide his uncle’s gambling debt.

I remembered it wrong: first a quiet, confused flyweight starts a blurry gunfight for mumbled reasons. I’m outside the master race, so I might’ve missed something. But this seems to huff shit.

The opening demands headphones. Though the visual failure’s classic, the sonic failure’s fresh. Pistols hit a sound between bubblegum and a light door. And the music’s the rumor of a soundtrack, preserved through generations of sign language. A baffling soup of failure, unless you caught Lochlainn’s music credit. Then you expected banjos, plus confidence, minus talent. Seabrook’s a multi-hyphenate failure.

That’s 1080p.

Nathan’s a heartthrob, if he’s the only teen on your plantation that survives eye contact. Ask Nathan’s future wife, who’s played as skillfully as she’s written.

Mary-Anne would sound less modern if she rode in on a stolen motorcycle, shouting “We have a city to burn.” Or, in Edgerunners, “We have a ditch to bleed out in.”

One of the better performances. See, Lochlainn’s type likes bell curves. Me too! Period dialogue fits an inverse one. Check it:

The production’s everything I wanted. Well, that’s a lie: a blockbuster would make America face itself. The production’s everything Lochlainn deserves. I hope the sequel’s in post.

Granted, making movies is hard. If Lochlainn ever does it, I’ll go easy on him.

The book painted Nathan Bedford Forrest as a chimera of folk heroes, Horatio Alger leads, and civil rights leaders.The film hews closer to mainstream history: Nathan meets Hillibilly Merlin in the woods, who says he’ll be King of Bigots if he can light the cross on the stone.

We’re in new territory.

I should clarify where I’m fucking around, and what really happened. The movie really does open with an old witch, who rebukes a stock priest by declaring the moon and stars her temple. Nathan really does meet her, and she does exposit the soil-power handed down from her family and declare that Nathan can do anything. So I’m fucking around nowhere.

Confederate alt-medicine witchcraft. Lochlainn and I will do this forever.

Odd that this seer doesn’t define “business.” Weasel language like that usually follows something unseemly. Like embezzling humans, or undeclared humans, or mourning George Lincoln Rockwell’s cover band. Though she’s not into op-eds, so I’ll give her some slack.

“Business” returns in a Prezi slide that tiptoes past Nathan’s pre-war business. Starring wordart predating Nathan.

Forrest is all grown up, from a twinky Weevil to a man-owning Beedrill. Pokemon jokes are fun! I could talk about games all day instead of digging to the bottom of Nazi Letterboxd. I chose this.

Nathan’s rants about tariffs as backwards, mutually destructive economic poison are intact, and I wonder if that’d get the “business” treatment today. Alongside wooden dialogue his servant, who has interesting casting.

And refuses to show her face. A heartwarming moment: they couldn’t make a black actress touch this. And men showed the same soli—

Balls. What’s the scorecard?

We can come back. One Ruckus can’t fill Lochlainn’s imaginary army of Grey Panthers. If we dodge more unforced errors, it’s anyone’s game.

No-no-no–

There’s always next season.

After we’ve met his unpaid best friends/honor guard, Nathan’s business remains a mystery. The word slave is lost in adaptation. To make room for witchcraft, we even lose the auction. They couldn’t find a fourth Clarence to make this work. I can’t even call them sellouts. This movie visibly cost more to commute to than to make. They’re tap-dancing for the love of the game.

As for Nathan’s glow-up: Jerry Chesser’s a Christopher Forbes regular, and the eighth worst actor I’ve seen. Keep the URL in mind. Consider the number of Tuesdays in a year. It’s a dire milestone, and Nathan Bedford Forrest deserves it. If Jerry were sandbagging, he’d be the best actor I’ve ever seen. He’s played at least two other Confederate generals, so save your hope.

He says a lot, and then gives up. Only the first half of Lochlainn’s script really makes it to the screen, before other forces take over. His inspiring relationship with his son/future corpse Willie, survives. Unlike Willy.

I am not ugly.

The 3/5 Musketeers follow Nathan into the war against their freedom. Prompting new wordart.

The War Between the States. Rolls off the tongue, twice as naturally as The War of Northern Aggression or The Military Altercation Between the Gentlemen Minding Their Own Business and the Slave-Stealing Bullies (Bullying is Always Wrong, Especially in a Stovepipe Hat). I know Lochlainn can’t quite see me as a human, but hopefully he can hear a copywriter. Find a lie as short, or shorter, than “The Civil War.”

As ~~a fan~~ the fan of the book, I’m pissed. We’ve skipped Nathan’s entire takedown of a Real Racist from Boston. Delirious garbage like that gave the story heart. And there’s no mind, so you need the heart.

Otherwise, you’re trapped in an endless, meaningless montage.

Battle unfolds between a midi loop and your patience. It’s mixed just loudly enough to smother immersion, but not loudly enough to cover the non-gunshots. Still, this time, the visuals manage to keep up.

Without dialogue, we can focus on the beauty of this second-string reenactment group. A hardcore group would raise the aesthetic here from modern history channel to classic History Channel, so these must be washouts in rental gear. A group with afterparty hoods splitting the budget. The kind you join after saying Forrest practiced politics the right way.

Coon squad gets a few frames, shot separately from the others, without a hint of color correction. The film is rigidly segregated, the only question’s whether it’s de jury or de fuckup.

Look, I have a little extra default interest in the First U.S.Civil War. This is a bit much. Lochlainn’s remaking Glory in blackface, and can’t afford real polish. You need something to hold my attention.

That works.

After the minstrel triathlon, the witch wanders back onscreen. The soundtrack shifts to slide guitar worthy of a fast food ad, but not quite ready for a cheap truck. One composer’s trying, and I hope it’s Lochlainn. It’d be his first talent.

The still-unnamed witch tends to the white wounded—a reenactor that almost keeps a straight face as the root doctor chants in Nothing and waggles bones over his head. Her magick undulating builds into a confused, multitracked chorus, inspiring laughter that nearly killed me. I’m a little luckier than Nathan’s prisoners, so I lived to watch an AIMS witness in a very modern shirt rise like the Undertaker.

Mama Thorn–-finally named–then gives him a boot full of plot. With his +1 Boots of White Jumping, the patient can walk. I need to reiterate: this is fresh insanity. There’s no Mountain Gruntilda bumbling around the book. Something has changed in Lochlainn’s world, and turned him into a Gardenerian Klansman. Active club members might get “So Mote It Be” tattooed next to other symbols of white interest.

Note: the faith healing above unfolds three times, I just prefer these screenshots. During the first, it’s too dark to see shit. In the sequel, the shot’s more cluttered than Lochlainn’s psyche.

Mama Thorn seems like a saving throw against the script moving like a glacier. It’d work, if she weren’t more glacier. The root doctor even rattles off canards about the Yankees dividing people, since the spirits dig chattel slavery. Who knew?

It’s her movie now. Mama Thorn doesn’t quite have the screentime of a deuteragonist, but she’s the only time you pay attention. Everything else is Nathan and The Help riding in a diverse circle, or someone praising Nathan’s circle-riding skills. Like this:

In Lochlainn’s defense, Nathan’s the father of civil rights. You can’t free yourself without chains. Before a flash of bright, fiery rage lets you close the tab, we return to warfare. Dull, numbing warfare.

It’s really an achievement. War’s all pathos, explosions, and historic consequences. There’s something for every IQ. None of it touches A Rebel Born. Forbes reduces mass carnage to Halloween cowboys clomping through the fog. The shots tell a story: we lost at least half of A Rebel Born to a lens cap. You can’t see much, and what you can see sucks. Lochlainn’s script leaned heavily on action prose, the Fourth Horsemen of Film Failure.

Luckily, Nathan’s final discourse with Mama Thorn plays us out.

Anyway, in Birth of a Nation: Endgame, the inventor of racism gets groomed by a witch. Sheev is a genre.

I cut 40% of Lochlainn’s book, and he agrees. Nathan’s business in bedsheets gets one slide of wordart:

We yadda-yadda his founding Klan leadership. The two things children and manchildren know about Nathan Beford Forrest are horses and crosses. Forbes tells us he never did much with either.

I think Mama Thorn had a point about the stars, early on. Each dot of light is a new form of failure. I could recap a billion A Rebel Born without touching the edge of the abyss. Paradise. The second I learned some doomed bastard took Lochlainn Seabrook up on his dumbshit film pitch, I felt lighter. My world filled with color. Food tasted better. And now I have twenty years of Confederate cinema.

A relapse to joy. I love this stupid life. It’s my worst marriage. A nightclub I diss all week, and then line up for first on Thursday. I’m not kicking anyone out, but I’m not crying if the worst guests leave early.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Vooster, who tried to hire etsy witches to unmake this film, but they were, unfortunately, a bit busy at the time.