Meme of the Week - RIP Pepe?

Image by Matt Furie (all rights reserved)
The creator of Pepe the Frog (born 2005) which became a popular internet meme in the years following has officially declared Pepe dead as of earlier this month. This is in response to Trumpistic Alt-Right netizens of the chan-worlds appropriating the formerly laid-back "Feels good man"-exclaiming party frog (2008). 

"Feels good man" metamorphosed into a more existentialist Pepe with the subsequent incarnation exclaiming "Feels bad man" (2009).

 More recently, Pepe metamorphosed into a smugly-smiling frog known as Smug Pepe (below).

 Many more incarnations (some referred to as "Rare Pepes") followed in subsequent years such as the one below referring to the Dirty War in Argentina but also being a variant of Smug Pepe.

 Pepe's most recent evolutionary form has been that of an yellow or orange-haired amphibian champion of Trump (or amphibian representation of same) starting in late 2015 (below is a Trump Tweet) and enduring throughout all of last year during the U.S. Presidential election campaign season as well as since then in 2017.

However, I would argue Pepe is already evolving beyond and past Trump. I would even argue Pepe was many other things during the campaign season but only the Trumpistic versions of him got noticed by the hysterical Liberal mainstream media and political hacks. However, some hyper-sensitive SJW hypochondriacs of politically-correct virtue insist Pepe is now permanently corrupted and to some is even an anti-Semitic symbol of hate.... as if one use of such a widely popular symbol represents all such uses or at least "trumps" all other uses of the meme. That is the sort of broad-stroke-painting that Liberals/Progressives are so eager to condemn when others do it.

Of course, things never die on the Internet. Pepe is still alive and well and continues to rapidly evolve as often as somebody needs him to communicate their ideas, whoever they are, whatever those ideas be. The latest Pepe incarnation I have noticed is "Comfy NEET Pepe"(below) which seems to have appeared in just recent months.

A more recent (as in just weeks old) variation of Comfy NEET Pepe above is his smug-in-the-apocalypse NEET Pepe (below). BTW, NEET stands for Not in Education, Employment, or Training and comes from Great Britain and refers to "losers" to use a Trumpian turn of phrase.

Perhaps the most significant development of all regarding to Pepe the Frog is the ironic/satirical tongue-in-cheek religious cult called the Cult of Kek that has formed around the character based on an oddly cool sequence of coincidences starting in late 2015.

Extraordinary Ordinary World

I first heard the 2000 Aurora trance cover of Duran Duran's 1993 rock gem "Ordinary World" featuring the haunting vocals of the incomparable Naimee Coleman in one of the many electronica mix compilation CDs I picked up in the early 2000s, many of which feature this original track featured above or the Above & Beyond progressive trance remix of it featured below, both of which are utterly amazing and take me back to the Golden Age of trance in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I had the privilege of discovering this genre of electronica in early 2001 in a now-defunct Wherehouse in Atascadero as I previously shared HERE.

Covfefe Coverage

Enough already with this covfefe thing.... I can't stand the guy either, but for chrissakes haven't we all mistyped before? Hell, I'm as bad a pedant as there is on earth and even I sometimes send something out across social networks that my fingers or finger-brain connection garbles. There is plenty to mock about this guy without nitpicking nits. This kind of autistic fuckery on the part of the smug and snarky "progressive" Left is how Trump came to power in the first place.... please don't help him remain in power by seeming to validate the decision by Trump voters to be Trump voters. 

*Note: I have made a few snarky posts here and there myself on social networks about "covfefe", but that did not last long and I do that regarding just about anything containing any humor value.

Picture of the Day - Always a Guard, Never a Groom

Today/tonight, I once again worked a beautiful and romantic wedding, this time at Four Sisters Winery, northeast of Paso Robles. For some reason tonight I found myself thinking about my continued solitary journey through this life and wondering if this is merely temporary or the shape of things to come. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Picture of the Day - Dead Deodar

This 90-year-old Deodar Cedar is the oldest tree in the Atascadero Sunken Gardens. According to THIS article the City of Atascadero notes it is in decline and plans to fell it. Today, while I visited the Atascadero Farmers Market, it sure seemed the tree was more than merely in "decline", but rather entirely dead, as in kaput. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Ali's Well Scene All Right

Today I played this "Ali's Well" segment from the 1962 cinema classic Lawrence of Arabia to show my students both the tribalism of the period as well as the first rumblings of Arab Nationalism as well as the physical climate and geography of that part of the world as well as the cinematic portrayal of British involvement in Arabia (and subsequently Palestine) in World War One in the context of the current Middle East Conflict unit for my tenth grade world history student teaching placement at Atascadero High School. This is undoubtedly one of the best movie scenes of all time.

Explosively Good Landing

Earlier this month in Mukilteo, Washington, this dramatic small plane crash at a busy intersection was captured on a passenger vehicle's dashcam. It shows the single-engine Piper PA32 careen over the intersection and one of its fuel cells rupture and ignite as it leaves the field of view. Amazingly, the plane did not burn and the pilot and passenger walked away from the crash-landing with no serious injuries and no people on the ground were injured. The old saying, "Any lan