I've been watching "Hack" on netflix. It's a cop show about a guy who isn't a cop anymore, now he's a cabbie, but still does hero cop type stuff.

I dug it at first, but I am currently watching its very clear slide downhilll to cancellation.

Start of season two, they gave it a hip, jazzy intro music that had DICK to do with the tone of the show.

Then halfway through season 2, they started doing all sorts of culturally relevant stuff, about drugs, and PTSD, and gun control laws. I'm pretty sure there was never a season 3.

Now I'm watching one where they're doing a riff on film-noir and their voiceovers, that opens w/ maindude reading "The Big Sleep" in his cab. It's over-the-top to the point of absurdity. Even with the intentionally cheesy music.

This is officially horrible! And yet I keep watching. . . .




I've got some heavy shit I feel like talking about, but feel like it's not "professional" to put it up on facebook, and its too much of a downer for us good friends here. (It doesn't affect me personally any way other than emotionally -- it's not a personal health crisis or anything like that, no worries).

We've been watching Theater Class which is a youtube show - I didn't know that's a thing. It's kind of like the office, obviously it's amateur etc. and there are some pretty bad moments, but we watched all the way to the most recent episode. It does hava some good moments though.

I've got Community waiting for me at the library - we'll see how that goes.

I've got a ton to do and not much motivation to do it.

Friends are there usually also for downers. At least I would like to think so.

True enough.

A guy I used to know just killed four people (including a kid) and then himself.

So, first off. Anything where a little kid gets killed is tragic.

Then, back when I knew the guy, he was a little goofy, but nice enough. Bit of a right-wing nut, but no more so than half my relatives.

Over the years he got into republican politics, and then weird stuff like the vigilante border guards in Arizona, even marched in white-pride rallies. He ran for office a couple times (never came anywhere close to winning) and those of us who knew him when, were happy to laugh him off as a jackass and a harmless buffoon.

And now, "harmless." You couldn't pick a word that was more wrong.

I don't feel guilt like I should have stopped him. It's been too many years since I saw him, and I never had any influence over him.

But, am I, are we, prone to laugh people off when we should censure them? Even that doesn't sit with me. PLENTY of people yelled at this dude, I'm sure.

I guess I'm just left with "Shit like this shouldn't happen."

Argh.

I'm sorry to hear that. Were the victims random people or related to him?

I think that for such a thing to happen something just has to snap and most of the time there is no way to foresee it? You can't (and shouldn't ? ) base it on the fact that they're right wing or left wing. Maybe if they get into extreme, but how do you define how extreme is dangerous? (I guess "extreme" has lost some of it's meaning, since you can probably call the Tea Party extreme).

Anyway, that sucks.

The victims were his girlfriend and her family.

Reading what I wrote, it sounds like I'm saying that being republican is the slippery slope that leads to being a mass murderer -- which isn't what I meant to say at all, you'll just have to forgive me for not presenting a cogent argument. Rather that he went from a little weirdly outspoken right wing (on the quirky side of socially acceptable normal), to eventually winding up with serious extremes like neo-nazi stuff and racial purity crap (to really, really far from socially acceptable normal).

But he'd stand up for neo-nazi crap, and we laughed at him for being an idiot, rather than denounced him for being a bad human being.

I don't know, man. I don't know what the hell I'm trying to say. That I'm trying to make sense and failing sums up how my brain is coping with the events. Trying to make sense and failing.

I didn't understand it that way. I was just thinking, that I guess once you start going to any extreme (in the old sense of the word) like neo-nazi or heavy duty anarchist (for left wing since that happens as well probably) your slope gets more slippery ?

I know guys that are (somehow jokingly? ) into nazi paraphernalia and into airsoft guns. I would never consider them dangerous. I hope, I'm never proven wrong.

That... wow. Holy shit. Things like that are not easy to make sense of. All I can say that's remotely relevant is that that fellow had a whole lot of bad things going down in his life, way under the surface, and the neo-Nazi garbage is a symptom, not the cause. Extreme politics alone don't lead people to mass murder.

Would calling him out on the crap he spouted have prevented something like this? I seriously doubt it. (The propriety of calling people out on things like this is only tangentially related here.) There were deeper issues that drove him to murder and suicide, and only serious professional help could have kept him back from the brink. Of course the politics of hate and fear he espoused in trying to figure out why the fuck his life was such a mess in the first place probably fed into the paranoia so he wouldn't have sought help at gunpoint.

It's a mess. And I feel for you, wondering what - if anything - you could have done to prevent it even back then. My advice: Don't. The problem here is bigger than any one of us, and dragging yourself down the "what if?" spiral won't yield any productive results. Mourn the loss, allow yourself the luxury of being angry at your former friend for doing such a thing, and then if you want some outside perspective in helping to try to make sense of it later on, drop me a line. (I will warn you it'll be political, but I honestly think it will help.)

thanks, gents.

Sorry to hear about this Jason, this seems so unreal…
But like everyone i don't think there's anything you could've done.
Jeff an Andrzej spoke wisely, not much to add.

Wow. That's crappy to hear . I've had family, friends and old acquaintances make the bad news every once in a while (but never as serious as murder) and it's always tough. As hard as I try not to, I end up playing the 'what if?' game a little. But some things there just is no stopping. Stay strong man and be thankful for all that you have.