We all battle ourselves.
Self-hate.
Vs. self-love.
Pride vs. self-respect.
A subtle distinction there.
Alcoholism vs. sobriety.
Destructive evil vs. creative good.
But evil itself is created.
Man vs. machine.
Man vs. computer.
Sentient computers.
This is a pretty good movie.
Which gets lazy at the end.
But it is well worth watching.
Because it is iconic.
Richard Pryor really makes this one tick.
Sure, some of the comedy is goofy.
But I also gotta hand it to Christopher Reeve.
He really tapped into an impressive DARKNESS here.
Reeve essentially plays three characters in the film:
-nerdy, clumsy Clark Kent (this is impressive because his portrayal of Clark is so consistent)
-noble, honorable Superman (a suave character who always does the right thing)
-pathetic, angry, bitter, spiteful Evil Superman (Superman’s own opposite–spawned by a sort of “splitting” of Superman’s being)
The new aspect in this film is, of course, this dark side to Reeve’s acting.
And he does it well.
In this film, Clark returns to his hometown of Smallville.
Which brings us to Allison Mack.
And the New York sex cult NXIVM.
Amazingly, Lois Lane doesn’t get abducted in the Bermuda Triangle.
Which brings us to East Palestine.
And a fictional substance called beltric acid.
Which brings us to the Chinese “Belt & Road Initiative”.
The pants in poor countries are always falling down.
Because too skinny.
Hence need belt.
Hey, you can talk shit about the People’s Republic of China, but I got one word for you: TikTok.
TikTok.
YouTube Music (owned by Google [aka Alphabet Inc.]) BANNED all of my music.
Me.
Pauly Deathwish.
They REMOVED about 700 of my original songs.
And have refused delivery of about 300 more.
It all started with my anti-vaccine song “Crimes Against Humanity”.
From there, YouTube banned every song I have ever put out under my stage name Pauly Deathwish.
That includes simple love songs (what could possibly be questionable about those?).
Where is YouTube/Google/Alphabet headquartered?
YouTube is an American company HQed in San Bruno, California.
Google is an American company HQed in Mountain View, California.
Alphabet is an American company HQed in Mountain View, California.
Google (now a subsidiary) and Alphabet (the parent company of Google) are located in the same building (known as Googleplex).
An American company (probably at the urging of the FBI, CDC, or some other federal agency) COMPLETELY stifled my speech.
I am betting that YouTube/Google was merely a proxy for the American government when it came to my music.
Which is a violation of my Constitutional rights.
Anyone wanna take up my case?
It would have to be pro bono as a MOTHERFUCKER.
Cause I don’t make a cent.
Anyway.
Google (the Americans) banned me.
TikTok (the communist, supposedly-authoritarian Chinese) merely removed ONE of my videos.
I was mad about that video being removed.
So mad that I left TikTok.
But I am back on TikTok (pdeathwish).
Why?
Well, let me tell you about the other companies which have banned me.
And before I do, take a wild guess as to where they are headquartered.
Next is Truth Social.
That’s right, Donald Trump’s social media company (to the best of my knowledge) BANNED me (and my 81-year-old U.S. Army-vet father) from their platform.
AFTER THREE DAYS!
Why?
My presumption is because I publicly questioned Trump about his vaccine stance.
Magically, after three days, my account stopped working.
My dad tried to make an account some time later.
I also presume that he was banned because we share an internet connection.
See how that works?
It appears Trump banned MY WHOLE FUCKING FAMILY because I dared to present some facts from the VAERS system on his precious platform.
Now, I should point out.
i SUPPORT Trump in his current legal battles.
I find the political persecution of Trump to be disgusting.
As a disclaimer, I would add that I want to vote for RFK Jr. in 2024.
Indeed, my intention at this point is to vote for Bobby Kennedy.
N.B. I voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020.
Where is Truth Social HQed?
Sarasota, Florida.
Truth Social is a subsidiary of Trump Media & Technology Group.
Where is TMTG headquartered?
Palm Beach, Florida.
If we count YouTube/Google/Alphabet as one company and TruthSocial/TMTG as another company, that makes TWO American companies that have banned me.
Meanwhile, the People’s Republic of China and their flagship app TikTok has not banned me.
Far from it!
N.B. No other major music streaming platform in the world (besides YouTube Music) has removed ANY of my material (to my knowledge).
Moving on.
The next company (guess where this one is from) to deplatfrom me was Elon Musk’s Twitter/X.
That’s right.
Even the dipshit assholes Jack Dorsey and Vijaya Gadde never permanently suspended me.
They did, however, suspend me “accidentally” (I have the email from them where they admit that as the reason) FOR FOUR MONTHS.
What happened during the time that Twitter suspended me for four months?
A. the 2020 U.S. Presidential election
B. the Biden inauguration
After Jack and Vijaya admitted they had mistakenly banned my account, I was back in business.
And I had high hopes when Elon took over.
But he banned me.
For “platform manipulation and/or spam”.
It was a very vague, Kafkaesque accusation.
The platform manipulation part is particularly funny to me.
If I was manipulating the platform, then I obviously wasn’t doing a very good job at it.
Why do I say that?
Because my PUBLIC (not set to private) profile [which I had had for five years] had TWO [sic] followers (even though I think I had made 100,000+ tweets).
My followers were:
A. Dr. Steve Pieczenik MD, PhD
B. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn
As for spam, don’t you think one of those two personages would have unfollowed me were I a spammer?
Where is X headquartered?
San Francisco, California.
And it appears to be a subsidiary of X. Corp. (which is also HQed in San Francisco, California).
Taken as one entity, that makes THREE A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N companies which have deplatformed me.
Meanwhile, the Chinese communists accept me.
Enough to let me post.
And my posts are seen.
Well, they get views (anyway).
The PRC has censored me.
But very little in comparison with these three American companies (which totally squashed me).
Why am I whining about this?
Because as an almost-unknown musician, I have very little way to tell the world about my music when major media companies (like YouTube and Twitter) ban me.
The further irony is this:
A. Trump’s company is called Truth Social. I came to him with sourced facts from VAERS, CDC, and BMJ. And my account magically thereafter stopped working. Permanently.
B. Musk calls himself a “free speech absolutist”. If you can’t see the irony of him then banning me for nebulous reasons, I can’t paint a more-clear picture for you
There is one last company I would like to mention.
Rumble.
The ostensible “conservative” competitor to YouTube.
Rumble did not ban me.
But they refused my advertising dollars.
For a very small campaign with which I was trying to promote my music.
Why did they refuse my money?
Because my website (the one you are reading) is not “age appropriate”.
Let me translate that for you–I think they meant “you are not conservative enough”.
Where is Rumble headquartered?
Toronto, Canada.
Ok, so we finally found another country where my music is hated (by a small company).
But is my music hated in communist China?
Not if my access to TikTok is any indication.
I should also point out that Facebook has mercilessly censored me for at least the past five years.
So much so that I gave up on that platform.
One of their subsidiaries, Instagram, has also recently given me trouble.
Not allowing me to do this. Not allowing me to do that.
But I haven’t had the same issue with TikTok.
Where, by the way, are Facebook and Instagram (subsidiaries of Meta Platforms) headquartered?
Facebook is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.
Instagram is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.
Meta Platforms is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.
Like YouTube/Google/Alphabet, it is essentially one big company.
So there’s another American company suppressing (probably at the urging of various government agencies) my free speech which should be protected from the hand-in-glove fascism of cozy government/corporate-proxy activity.
Who’s gonna take my case?
I’m not holding my breath.
Which brings us back to Evil Superman.
Who dies by strangulation.
Hell, Superman himself almost even suffocates in this movie.
He gets caught in the Wayne Coyne bubble and it gets a bit uncomfortable for a bit.
Bloke can’t breathe.
But fortunately he can shoot laser beams out of his eyes like Jimmy Page.
We get weather modification.
Weather weapons.
Man vs. weather.
Man vs. machine-controlled weather.
Science fiction?
If you don’t wanna be an evil son of a bitch, you gotta watch out for that low-tar kryptonite.
Pryor is great as a three-star general.
Superman hates himself.
Because he has become poisoned.
Something has come over him.
He changes.
For the worse.
Just a slump (says Ricky).
Coming up on an election year, this was roughly the middle of Reagan’s Presidency.
And it was the decade when computing really fell into the hands of plebes like me.
[though I was not a digital native and didn’t really start becoming computer literate until about 1995]
May 1980: Pac-Mac released in Japan
October 1980: development of MS-DOS begins in U.S.
January 1982: the 8-bit Commodore 64 debuts at an electronics show in Las Vegas
August 1982: Commodore 64, the best-selling computer model of all time, is released
October 1982: MIDI standard is published
June 1983: Superman III is released
October 1983: Microsoft Word is released
This movie really falls apart when Vera becomes a cyborg.
It is utterly-ridiculous.
I’m just an ole chunk of coal.
But I’m gonna be a diamond someday.
Annette O’Toole is the secret weapon of this movie.
-PD
paulydeathwish 