00:03:07Now, I'll reiterate here that this article is from this week, and this week did occur in the year 2026. We have not entered a time warp that sent us barreling back to 2021. So this is a firestorm over a relaxed mask mandate in the current year AD.
00:03:25So already we have a situation that's obviously quite funny, but it gets so much better or so much worse, depending on whether you're cynical enough to find the collapse of Western civilization somewhat amusing, as I do.
00:03:38I fear that if I try to summarize the article, you'll be deprived of the Alice in Wonderland journey that those of us who read the entire thing experienced.
00:03:46And so we're going to go through this piece by piece.
00:04:51Of course, if you're really serious about public health, then another option is to have your lungs surgically removed so that you aren't expelling or breathing in any infected air at all.
00:05:01And those are all perfectly valid points, but let's stay on task.
00:07:12Note, too, how the person who makes the firebomb threat isn't even trying to justify it using any kind of, like, tortured self-defense argument.
00:07:20Instead, they wish a fiery death on everybody associated with the bar for interfering with, quote, their Saturday plans.
00:07:27I mean, at least the other angry commenters have the decency to pretend that the bar is actively eradicating the entire disabled population or whatever.0.99
00:07:36This one, on the other hand, is just casually saying that anyone who causes them to have to like shift around their weekend schedule deserves to burn alive.
00:07:44Your bed has one job, which is to provide a comfortable place for you to remain unconscious for several hours.
00:07:50Nowadays, there are sleep trackers and apps and supplements and elaborate nighttime routines.
00:07:54people are monitoring 17 different metrics to determine whether they successfully went
00:07:59unconscious for eight hours maybe all that has some value but before you redesign your entire
00:08:04life around sleeping you might want to consider the thing you're actually lying in every night
00:08:08which is your bedding that's why i like partnering with bowl and branch their bedding makes your bed
00:08:13noticeably better without requiring you to develop a new lifestyle around it their sheets are made
00:08:18from 100 organic cotton and woven specifically for airflow there's no synthetic cooling technology
00:08:59to unlock 15% off. Exclusions apply. Now, the saving grace for the bar is that this commenter
00:09:05is we can assume a woman who is, we can assume, morbidly obese and who we can assume wouldn't0.83
00:09:10know how to make or deploy a firebomb, even if she had an IKEA instruction manual, and we can0.62
00:09:15assume would probably just blow herself up in the process accidentally anyway. So that's the good
00:09:20news. Continuing, two days later, Last Ditch posted an apology. We're sorry for our passive
00:09:26and dismissive tone of our change to the norms and schedule impacting the most intersectional
00:09:30among us. Management wrote on Instagram, we understand everyone faces different intersections
00:09:36and we are always working to consider all needs fully. Instead of diffusing the situation,
00:09:41the apology seemed to make things worse. The bar had aired. It posted an Instagram card without
00:09:46providing alt text for the visually impaired. This set off a fresh round of accusations of
00:09:51ableism. This is not an accessible post, wrote one user. It indicates the lack of care or interest
00:09:56in disability intersectionality. Now, I don't want to break up the momentum here right as we
00:10:02get into the second act, but I'll just clarify a couple of things. First, in case you aren't up
00:10:07on the lingo, okay, the phrase everyone faces different intersections is not, as far as I know,
00:10:15a reference to a city with a confusing and chaotic street layout. She's not talking about
00:10:21Boston or Washington, D.C. Intersections here refers to the places where all of your personal
00:10:26victimhood identities meet. And the goal, if you're on the left, is to have an intersection
00:10:32that is as busy and frantic and poorly marked and congested and convoluted as possible.
00:10:38So your personal victimhood intersection should resemble like a traffic intersection in Nairobi. No traffic lights, no signs, 12 different roads converging at once, pedestrians wandering into the road and getting flattened one after another. That's how you win on the left.
00:10:57Now, meanwhile, as a straight white male, my intersection doesn't exist. It's just one straight, well-maintained, well-lit road, everything humming along smoothly. And so in the leftist view, I lose. They all point and laugh at me and say, you're normal and functional and not in a state of constant crippling self-obsession, loser.0.71
00:11:19Second, and related, if you're wondering what alt text is, it's a written description of an image which makes the content more accessible for blind people.0.79
00:11:30Now, you might be slightly confused by this because you're thinking, or at least I was thinking, if blind people can't see the image, then how can they see the written description of the image?
00:11:40Well, the answer to that question is to begin with, how dare you ask for any explanations about the lived experience of disabled folks?0.99
00:11:47They don't have to explain themselves to you, you disgusting bigot.1.00
00:11:51You should be stabbed in the stomach and thrown into a pit of scorpions.1.00
00:11:56Also, the answer is that blind people use screen reading technology that can read the image description.0.99
00:12:02Now, if you're next going to ask why the screen reader can't itself just describe the image, well, then I refer you back to the pit of scorpions.0.83
00:12:09Now, of course, even if the last-ditch lesbian bar had included alt text, that may have been more accessible for the blind, but it would have done nothing for the Helen Keller-style blind and deaf community.0.61
00:12:23Indeed, the alt text just assumes that those who are visually impaired aren't also intersectionally hearing impaired, which itself is an ableist and bigoted and colonialist assumption that is morally tantamount to genocide, if you ask me.
00:12:37I mean, at the very least, the bar could have provided the alt text, but then also mailed a description of the text in Braille to everybody in the community.
00:12:48Is that so much to ask? That seems like a logical compromise.
00:12:51Although that even that raises its own intersectional problems, because what about disabled people who are blind and deaf and also have no arms or legs?
00:13:01How are they supposed to hear the text description or feel the Braille?1.00
00:13:05what do you want them to do smack their head against the braille dragging their forehead1.00
00:13:11across it is that what you want do you think it's funny to imagine a blind and deaf lesbian with no1.00
00:13:18arms or legs flailing her head against a piece of braille in order to understand the new masking0.98
00:13:23guidelines at the local lesbian bar would you like that okay would that be amusing to you fascist1.00
00:13:28this is again why you should be killed with all due respect anyway let's jump forward a few1.00
00:13:34paragraphs and continue. Quote, nevertheless, Last Ditch, which opened last year as a bar for0.98
00:13:40dykes, transsexuals, gender freaks, workers, and their friends, is struggling. Three housemates1.00
00:13:46in their mid-20s opened it together, hoping to fill the void left by two local queer bars that1.00
00:13:51had shuddered. One of the trio, Asa Rosario, a drag performer who uses it, its pronouns,
00:13:57envisioned a venue where it and its friends could perform. Quick time out here just to say that
00:14:03although I'm very firmly on the record as someone who doesn't care about your personal pronouns,
00:14:09it is one personal pronoun that I might actually respect. I never thought I'd say that. But if you
00:14:16want me to call you it or that or that thing or my God, what is that monstrosity? Then you know
00:14:24what? I'm on board. I can do that. I am willing to do that. Continuing, quote, the three were
00:14:31intentional about the kinds of values they wanted to bring to the Divey Basement Bar,
00:14:36which they decorated with discoveries from Facebook Marketplace and pieces from local
00:14:39artists. No one would be turned away from the space for lack of funds. Poor and unhoused people
00:14:45are welcome in the space. The police were not. Our mission is to create systems of care and action0.99
00:14:50and aid, says Jackie Mattelian, one of the founders. When it first opened, Last Ditch did
00:14:55fairly well. Customers fondly remember a raucous opening night with a clothed simulation of a
00:15:01lesbian sex act, masks in place, on the dance floor. But over time, foot traffic to the bar
00:15:09slowed. More and more visitors said they didn't have the cover fee. The bar let them in anyway.
00:15:13The owners fell behind on bills and couldn't pay themselves or the people who worked there.
00:15:17So after consulting with the Massachusetts LGBT Chamber of Commerce, they came up with a plan
00:15:21to bend one of their rules and hopefully attract more customers.
00:15:25But by the time of Last Ditch's monthly community meeting on September 11th,
00:15:28only one of the original founders, Mattelian, is still involved.
00:15:33The two others step back from the daily operation months before, Mattelian says,
00:15:37citing various pressures and health issues, one had enrolled in clown school.
00:15:42Now, there's obviously quite a lot going on in these couple of paragraphs.
00:15:45I am particularly fascinated by that last sentence.
00:15:49And the article doesn't dwell on it or tell us anything else
00:15:53It just tells us, oh yeah, they went off to clown school
00:17:06In fact, you can go to the website Clowns Without Borders, which is, again, real,
00:17:12and find a list of dozens of clown schools all across the country and even the world.
00:17:20When's the last time anyone's even seen a clown? There's like thousands of clown schools. I mean,
00:17:25we're just churning out millions of clowns. I haven't seen a clown in 35 years.0.94
00:17:32Where are all these clowns? That's my question. I've never been one to be, oh, clowns are scary,0.93
00:17:37But the fact that we're creating so many clowns and we and no one knows where they are, where they are, that's kind of terrifying.
00:17:46What are what are they all doing? Where did they go?
00:17:49Now, one of the more prestigious institutions appears to be the Northeast Clown Institute, whose website offers many academic resources for clowns and prospective clowns, including the 2026 Northeast Clown Institute course schedule, which covers topics such as the business of clowning, kids shows, juggling for fun, and where to hide the bodies.
00:18:12That last one is not really a listed topic, but I assume they covered it at some point.
00:18:15I should also note that the Northeast Clown Institute has a board.
00:18:22It has a board of directors with 20, 20 members on their board of directors,
00:18:28all with names like Woohoo, Boohoo, Beeboo, Rascal, and Disco.
00:18:34Now, helpfully, Disco the Clown also has a video linked on the website
00:18:37where he provides a brief lecture on the legal issues of clowning.
00:18:41I am here to tell you that clowning is not all fun and games or laughs and giggles.
00:18:45Apparently, Disco the Clown is a lawyer. He's been in the practice for 40 years serving clients who either don't know he's a clown or were specifically looking for legal representation that knows how to make a poodle out of a balloon. I don't know.
00:18:58I watched his lecture, because I have no life, and I discovered that some of the legal pitfalls clowns face, according to Disco, are the possibility that a balloon breaks and a child chokes on it, or that a child might develop a skin infection from face paint, or that the clown might be accused of, quote, unwanted touching.
00:19:20Disco notes that this latter issue may not be covered by insurance.
00:19:24Anyway, none of this is directly relevant to the matter at hand,
00:19:26but if you were wondering about the intricacies of clown higher education,
00:19:29or if you were not wondering at all, now you know.
00:19:32We move now to the climactic scene in this saga.
00:19:37I mean, the saga of the lesbian bar, not the clown school.
00:23:52Instead, all that was learned, apparently, is that the woman who owns the place0.93
00:23:56not only wants to murder the entire disabled community, but is also, of course, racist.
00:24:01We're told that Mattelian tried to engender some sympathy from the group by pointing out that the business is going under and she's in debt and she's doing whatever she needs to do to keep her head above water, keep the doors open.
00:24:12But as the article reports, her critics were, quote, unmoved.
00:24:16They chastised her for centering her feelings and spilling her white tears and forcing black heroes like Noir to, quote, do emotional and physical labor.
00:24:27Now, Noir never explains how exactly attending a Zoom call involves physical labor.
00:24:34Maybe he or she or whatever has an internet connection that can only be powered by physically running on a wheel like a giant hamster.
00:28:19You know, we've both lost something through all of this.1.00
00:28:21She lost her dreams of having a bustling lesbian bar filled with vibrant and strange and unsightly creatures resembling the Star Wars cantina scene.1.00
00:28:30And I lost my dream of ever being able to mock these people more hilariously or effectively than they already mock themselves.1.00