Bingis Worldwide
Like Jacobin, but better!
General News
I think it’s worth saying that it’s extremely unfair how many people had their airdrop unavailable in every airport that I went through when I wanted to airdrop this meme to strangers. They really hate to see a real one making moves! Elon is obviously pregnant with the child of Empire, with Daddy Trump ensuring that our only auto options are ugly trucks glued together like macaroni art. When are the empire’s fingers NOT in the tangles of the Middle East? God speed to our warriors, a.k.a the real human lives dying to protect and enforce Imperial Capitalism. Really crazy how far we’ve come. It’s almost as if…Marx was right? Or something. Idk I’ve never read Das Kapital, Vol. 1 by Karl Marx. Oh, wait! Just kidding! [Insert quote I’d like to include but I don’t have my copy of it with me because I won’t be home for a couple of more days.]
Allegedly, Sesame Street is woke. Remember when Comrade Elmo said, “Seize the means of production?” He is red, after all! “I was radicalized when Big Bird said that we need to abolish the consolidation of wealth in the hands of the one-percent and redistribute that wealth across social services for the greater good.” Everyone has been saying this since 1969…right? Instead of putting NPR’s feet to the flames over political bias, let’s talk about the history of Fox News? Can we please talk about Fox News and what they’ve done (and continue to do) to the minds of Americans? The population’s biggest threat is obviously Communism!
Hot Take: America’s real threat is Bobby Fucking Brain-Worms Kennedy Jr trying to overhaul the entire health administration in order to implement his own unhinged agenda of Making America Susceptible to Preventable Illnesses Again. We are truly living through the most exciting times in American history. Enjoy your anti-depressants, stimulants, and anti-psychotics while you can, folks. One day, you’ll find yourself strapped down to a table getting a lobotomy for Trump Derangement Syndrome by “medical personnel” whose only medical experience and licensing was acquired through the United States Military. I’m so stoked to lose my mind, aren’t you? I guess it’s a good thing that the Supreme Court doesn’t want everyday Americans running around with unregistered firearms at this time?
The ripple effects of the Orange Cumrag’s Destruction are rippling across Illinois. “Maybe Governor Pritzker will save us,” I said last week and also perhaps the week before and also…I really hate that I want a billionaire Democrat to fix the economic mess that we’re in. “Eat the rich,” but not Pritzker! I bet he’d taste good tho, all that fat…like pork, I’d imagine. Anyway, cannibal joke aside, perhaps he’d be down with the redistribution of wealth long-term? Is Governor Pritzker Our Path to a Social Democracy, Bingis at Jacobin reports. (I still think about that one I time I sent Jacobin an email to the editor back in 2021 about correcting a bad take on the Mayoral election in Somerville, Massachusetts, basically implying that she would be “good for socialists” when, in fact, that was completely not true at all. There is no correction or mention of it and I think that’s hilarious…not all heroes wear capes, etc.)
Back to Chicago though, the CPD is trying to enforce racist, sexist, and potentially homophobic dress-codes. Wow! Who is surprised? It’s not as if the police department and the military are one in the same. And here I was thinking that Illinois was narrowly immune to the Horrors. Love to be proven wrong, I guess. At least Dick Durbin isn’t being as lousy as he has been. Imagine being added to a war crimes group chat in the Bush Era, or just at all. Just the fact that it happened to someone and that someone being a reporter. Literally so crazy, we’re living in an absurd timeline.
Any good news floating around out there? Right before the 30th anniversary of Selena’s murder, the bitch that killed her was denied parole. Maybe the justice system is good for something. ACAB and all that, but goddamn that woman can rot. 1995 was such a crazy year. My mom tells me that I was gestating in her uterus for the duration of OJ Simpsons’ murder trial (literally born a couple weeks after it ended). Maybe that’s why I love the News so much. Let’s not forget my obsession with Vice President Dick Cheney’s Quail Hunting “Accident” when I was 11 years old.
Personal News
This week’s dispatch comes to your inbox from the “sunny” coast of Los Angeles. I feel extremely fortunate to have seized this opportunity to connect with my friends, family, and literary community at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ Annual Conference. Feeling connected to something larger is so goated when seeking a higher purpose is the vibe…or something. I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t warmer and sunnier while I was here, but I look forward to my next destination tomorrow before I’m back in the Windy City. Bingis on the move! My travel era is so back! I have so much PTO to burn through before I lose it all if that fucking DOGE maniac cuts HUD funding from HOPWA (Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS) programs. Lost one of my favorite jobs due to the 2020 Pandemic, might lose this really cool job as well through no fault of my own! I hear Illinois’ unemployment benefits are pretty good, though. At least there’s that.
New side hustle unlocked: walking through rich neighborhoods, taking beautiful pictures on my 35mm film camera, getting them under copy-write, then selling them to the realtors who are trying to sell the property. I haven’t done it yet, but I’m Laying the Groundwork. Making Moves in Silence. Etc. If anyone wants to hear me read a poem online, there’s a livestream tonight at 7PM EST/5PM CST/4PM PST with MoonStone Arts Center. I’ll be…somewhere. Not much to report in the Personal Bingis Realm. Spent way too much money in one of America’s most expensive theme parks–cities, I mean. I was tempted to visit the hospital that I was born in just north-west of LA, but the public transportation is…extremely mid-tier. At least it’s there providing services to people, but I, personally, would hate to take a subway anywhere near the San Andreas Fault (I did, I hated it). Deranged infrastructure choice.
Back to my birth story. I want to tell y’all something without basically disclosing the Details of my Birth Certificate. Two-ish weeks after OJ was found Not Guilty in the LA County Superior Court, my mom went into labor just north-west from there. When she arrived in the hospital, I was eagerly slipping out into the world. She birthed a 6-7 pound baby, who would grow up to enter every room with the same enthusiasm, determination, and curiosity. Every year on my birthday, I send her a text saying, “Thank you for this life.” 29 years after OJ Simpson was found Not Guilty and 19 years after 78-year old Texas attorney Harry Whittington was literally murdered by the Vice President of the United States, I find myself sitting where my life began thinking about power.
Who has power, how is power established and maintained, the proportions of power to justice (or how the two are weighed), and how do we move towards a Better World for All? As Comrade Benjamin Franklin Gates once said, “There’s thousands of years of world history down there and it belongs to the world and everybody in it.” Or, as Comrade Elmo put it, “Elmo thinks it’s important to be kind because if you’re kind to somebody, then they’ll be kind to somebody, and it goes on and on and on.” Or, as Comrade Marx wrote in The Communist Manifesto, “Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries unite!” The best things in life are “woke.” It’s almost as if…they’re teaching us empathy? What the hell do I know!
Poetry
Because I was in the City of Angles for the AWP Conference, I had the opportunity to check out a gorgeous and inspiring exhibition at the University of Southern California’s One Archive called “Portrait of a Publisher as a Political Project: 30 Years of Kaya Press.” If you’re in or around LA before April 26th, I highly recommend making a trip to the exhibition. This week’s poem comes to you from a hand-made zine that I assembled at the exhibition! It’s actually from Jenny Liou’s debut poetry collection Muscle Memory (Kaya Press, 2022). She is a Washington-based poet, English professor at Pierce College, and former cage-fighter. I could never be that cool. Anyway, just constantly thinking about archiving as a labor of love for humanity, history, culture, knowledge, and language. There’s something deeply intimate about preservation and collections. What we choose to preserve and collect is a reflection of our politics. May we find the means necessary to maintain queer and immigrant texts and art while the political machine forces us into ultranationalism.
P.S.
HAPPY TRANS DAY OF VISIBILITY! THERE WAS NEVER A WORLD WITHOUT TRANS PEOPLE AND THERE WILL NEVER BE ONE! WE WILL ALWAYS EXIST! WE ARE AN EXPRESSION OF THE BIOLOGICAL DESIRE TO FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT! FUCK FASCISM!
My head hurts from drinking too much last night lol.