I’m having more dreams lately. This last night, about a Fortnite mode where every elimination counted for 2. One game we clinched it with 40-something to 40-something, they were up by one, but we got up two to the goal. The night before I dreamt I had a baby. An infant, small but intelligent enough that I felt like communicating with it about why the cats around here might not like to be grabbed by him. Was it my baby? Whoever he was, it was nice to hold him, to have human contact.
Before that I dreamt I was on Twitter again. The wrapped-on-wrapped isolation “DO NOT DISTURB” session has gotten into my subconscious. Calm on the outside, but thinking all the time. Kumail Nanjiani tweeted something punctual and poignant. But it told me too much, inferred knowledge that I’d rather not be real. Thankfully a dream; I haven’t looked at Twitter for weeks. Before that I dreamt John Mulaney was hosting SNL again, so soon after his last stint - which I did watch - where the mission of this appearance was to “help heal” or some such shit. I’m kinda forgetting. Nice salmon suit, though, John. Again, I woke from it, not interested in that reality. Some dreams are pleasant places I don’t want to wake from, others I break my teeth or something, and I’m relieved when I awaken.
Still I dream of being out, in places I shouldn’t be these days; sometimes I realize I don’t have a mask on, and sometimes I do. Sometimes it bothers me more than other times. Last night, in fact, I was shopping or something, and surrounded by possible friends, the passing phantasms of dream city. When I noticed I should need a mask to be here, I realized I was in front of my own dresser of clothes. So I opened it up and, like chips from a grade school desk I snuck on a cloth mask, the color of shiny Electabuzz. ‘Sunburnt Peach’ or something...I recently looked over a bunch of Shiny Pokémon and tried to come up with labels for their colors, like a paint store does. I got about 30 if someone’s interested.
Back to the subject: It has been two full weeks since our votes had to be cast, one way or another. And I have in this duration avoided learning what happened, one way or another. I’ll try explaining why. Every single minute issue aside, the big binary of this decision should be obvious for two reasons:
d***** t****, pedophile rapist nazi racist white supremacist pathological liar bully asshole dick fucker bitch piss-baby child mentally unstable greedy solipsistic douchebag narcissist sociopath, needs to lose. And furthermore he needs to not be president anymore. Full stop no debate, this is a need four years overdue. He needed to not be president-elect but those fuckers with whatever power whoever needed to have it had, decided to rape me for a four year sentence instead. I use a shocking, inappropriate word because this needs to still shock you, reader. It’s shocking and inappropriate.
If d***** t****, pedophile rapist nazi racist white supremacist pathological liar bully asshole dick fucker bitch piss-baby child mentally unstable greedy solipsistic douchebag narcissist sociopath, stays president, I will die. We will all die. Before we would naturally I mean. Because our environment will reap what a few capitalist assholes have sown. It’s unfair. I want to live; I want you to live -- forbid you think me entirely selfish.
It is that simple.
Could it be any more obvious what needs to occur? But, I thought there was no way a good world with a good God would have allowed him to win in 2016. Against a woman, sure, a woman who didn’t campaign in the midwest’s asscrack: Wisconsin. Sure. But, there was no way. And I was confident that when I cast my vote in the morning that I had helped check a box next to “Symbolic gestures that don’t really do anything apparently according to most smart people” in the feminist column of history.
Long story short I had my hopes up. 'Up' being at middle ground. At the baseline, actually. A baseline at the root of a mountain: ground level. Basic. Decent. Fair. Fine. Okay. Average. But my hopes were still too high for this selfish stolen land. This world I didn’t ask to be born into. This world not made for me, but to which I demand a place to place my head. And because a landslide defeat of Pure Evil isn't even in the fucking question? I cannot sustain or entertain any hope. Hope you're all happy.
The world, karma, the universe, somebody decided early this year, to not let anybody have a 2020, to put everything on the back-burner. Like Niles in the smash/unintended hit film [and current #1 on my ranked list of shy-of-a-dozen movies on Letterboxd for this year] Palm Springs, where he was afraid to move forward from his repeated day, I am unwilling to move past pre-election 2020. November it was, but how different from January, other than more recent memories of warm walking weather? I was still mentally in April, you see. Or mid-March, when I started taking this seriously. And since this is where I may toot my own horn: ONE WEEK BEFORE THE NBA AND TOM HANKS MADE THE WORLD TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. Saint Patrick’s Day. Even with the week prior of taking off work, this is the date: Day 001 of this quarantine in which I am, as of writing, transitioning from Day 247 to Day 248 of.
It’s arrested development. Only not as funny. Because I’m in mid-March 2020, I’m in early November 2016, I’m in June 2011 for personal and filmmaking reasons. And I'm effectively in house arrest for good behavior, because good behavior. I’d like to appeal at least one parole hearing.
Anyway... Like Niles I want to spend a little more time in this time: before knowing anything. I would close myself off from what digital world I could still inhabit. After dropping most of my opinions on anything conceiving relatability to the subject in verse so hot it made Minnesota snow melt twice. I then left, I would watch movies and television and play video games. Those ones I hardly play, with big open worlds and rich (or at least complicated) narratives. Escapism at its peak.
So, two weeks and change onward, inward and downward. How am I doing?
Well, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey sits on my lower shelf instead of my higher one, encouraging me to put it into my Playstation, but I’ve yet to. However, I did finish another Odyssey first: Super Mario’s, which I’d left off in [MONTH X] of this year right before finishing. And yes, there’s plenty more to do after the Bowser is beat, but Mario deserves some rest on the lawn of Peach’s Castle, as I deserve some rest from the rest of the world. That big round rock which I cannot control but fucking fools with gold can.
Beyond that main mission there is no real mission statement. Nor exit strategy, but we’ll get to that later. I am simply involving my mental investment in other worlds...like Hitman. I’ve been playing a shitload of Hitman. I’d downloaded it digitally so it was already on my machine, and I’d started playing it last year anyhow. I also made a binge watch of Trailer Park Boys. Let’s focus on that for a ‘graph, eh?
I love the Sunnyvale Trailer Park. Life doesn’t seem so bad. Life is contained within the park and rarely outside influence. It revolves around the dollar and the inequality of inaccess, the crimes borne of necessity. But the dollar goes a long way. I loved escapism-ing here because I think, strangely, perhaps I would be happy living in such a condition, simply concerned with what is in front of me, keeping my head above water and in some place for sleep, taking care of my friends and family, and hanging out with buds all the time. Also, Canada. Not so bad. So far I’ve watched the first six seasons, then I looked up the release order of the films and subsequent seasons so I know where to go from here. I really wish Netflix would use its end-of-episode recommendations feature to bring people from a series to a movie if it’s in chronological order like this. It would be real swell. Anyway, I figured out the order but have yet to continue. I took a break to watch some movies on Netflix, and later Criterion Channel, bingeing the stuff that is collected in the category “Leaving November 30th.” Good stuff!
I have kept in touch with friends. Phone calls with certain close pals who know the score. I’ve been avoiding my roommates more than usual -- though it’s not like I haven’t already had days where all I eat is breakfast -- but they’re down with it. I even play Fortnite with my buddy with whom I've recently started a gaming channel YouTube channel for all our video game crap. So I’m still a little sociable. I do miss trawling Instagram, and of course my Slack group; I love those guys. But I’ve avoided having any cravings for information. I don’t even want an inclination: this is how serious I am.
I know I’m smart. Thinking all the time. I’ll piece together what little inflections I get and extrapolate or overthink if left undistracted. If I fall asleep not listening to episodes I’ve rewatched ad infinitum, prescriptively, every night since 2016: episodes of Welcome to the Basement or Best of the Worst, shows I love about movies from Madison and Milwaukee, respectively; the only redeemable things in Wisconsin.
I’m too smart and too kind for this world, and that’s not me tooting my horn, except maybe for some sympathy. So I wanted my mind shielded. No bad news: no good news: no news. No news of no news is in fact, good news. If the world doesn’t want to be bettered by me, why should I want to know what’s going on in it? I have no effect on it, why should it have an effect on me? I dropped off my ballot wearing a mask; this is out of my sanitized hands now! Why should I know about it? If I can't control it, why should it be aware to me?
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| Pictured: all I can do |
...In phone call with my friend on the first day, Wednesday the 4th I reckon, they said something I didn’t want to hear: “Just so you know, the world isn’t falling apart or anything.”
As if that was my fear? No! Don’t tell me that! I can infer things, horrible, inhumane, and horrendous things! Stop!
...I kept the phone away from my ear. I don’t care what happened in Portland. I spent the rest of the dark-roomed day upset, rationalizing around it: if I could overthink in one way, to one conclusion, then I could overthink to another way! Surely!
I tried to make it so, enough to believe this, which generated the mantra: “Do you know? No.” I went to bed around midnight, watched the Trailer Park Boys, and slept by 1:00am.
The next day my mom called me, and she reversed the charges, saying something I didn’t mind hearing: that they hadn’t finished counting the ballots. This un-did and forgave everything my friend said on the phone. I was technically in the clear!
Still did not go to social media at all. More Trailer Park Boys. Julian is the Straight Man, Ricky is the Id, and Bubbles is the Voice of Reason.
Then, a day, maybe six, maybe two, later...I was informed to certainly abstain, as there was a result. My throat clogs up just typing that. Nothing was inferred, but I needed to keep vigilant.
My friend says they identify most with Randy, and I wonder why that is. I will ask them sometime. I think I’m kind of a Bubbles, but truly I see aspects of my personality spread across the main trio. When this quarantine is over and I can do what I like with my facial hair again (the beard is a symbolic calendar -- I don’t usually grow it out) I think I will try to style it like Ricky’s, just to see if I can pull it off. What a bold look.
Fast forward through many trips downstairs whilst wearing bluetooth headphones playing iTunes, or the penultimate episode of the first arc of The Adventure Zone podcast (it’s been more than a year since I left off on the penultimate episode...I just can’t bring myself to listen to the finale unless I devote my entire attention to it. Maybe one of these days!) to avoid overhearing anything from anywhere. A few trips outside with modest glances merely for safety so as not to see too much in the way of lawns. (A few signs are still up, but I can’t let that mean anything: forked-conclusion thinking really jammed that one up well!) Just about everything Criterion Channel had directed by Cheryl Dunye later and here I am writing this. Because I could only write this as it is in this condition. Do I know? No.
Tomorrow some time I am to drive a great distance, to visit my sister’s new house (it will be empty and we will all wear masks the entire time and frankly I expect to be let in while they stay outside. We’ll see. This is merely an opportunity to see it before they move in, and before they’ve been moved in for many, many months. Who knows when I’ll visit it again.) Along the way, I will drop off a gift (wiped down and wrapped whilst wearing a mask, natch) to another friend’s porch for their birthday. Good odds they still live at that address, slightly-lower odds I remember what the house looks like.
I am writing this in case I am spoiled. To be honest, I talked with my therapist and I kinda decided that this would be a good time to know by, so I could comfortably go out into the world and maybe also schedule a flu shot for the same time (I have yet to schedule it, but I have the paperwork.)
I’m confident I can avoid being spoiled, but I must prepare for it. I was confident that a woman could be president, instead of a brain-dead rape-fart monkey dick child posing as a Hitler. Fuck me, right?
This goes back to the binary, the Niles, the very point: I am spending my escapist days, while I do focus on this or that, thinking about what life will be like out there. Recently I have been unofficially preparing, sorta? I wasn’t prepared, and so I had a complete nihilistic mental breakdown the last time. Didn’t eat for a week, went to work the next day to sit on the side of a room while older men filmed a key-making machine in a big cold room. Thinking about how I would have to become a vegetarian or a vegan sooner than I’d like, in order to live. Look, I wanna be, but [excuses of a primitive ape.]
So, my mind has wandered through two alleys during some of these days and nights. Sometimes the days are nights, if I sleep in long enough. One of these is really an alley, dark and cold and uncertain. The other is like a cloud that comes by on odd occasion, and temporarily lifts me aloft a few inches. The cloud: “Of course Biden wins, because the world is more good than bad, people have been voting since August, and everyone from Michael Keaton to Jim Gaffigan knows that racist drug addict needs to stop being president no matter what.” There is a cloud underfoot sometimes where this makes sense. The world feels like it’s on my side. I fit in it, a puzzle piece in peaceful placement. Then, naturally, there is the alleyway. This is where I make my preparation thoughts. Because if Biden wins, I can take a break. A vacation [within pandemic-minded reason.] A real one; as in, ‘I go and I come back.’ I will still fight for human rights and blah blah blah Fred Rogers Steve Rogers… But I can exhale. I can wake up on November 9th 2016 and let the clock tick forward. But if not. If we’re in the same arrested development as we were, now emboldened to a subsequent extension -- a further stint because why place one foot in the grave when you belong in the grave let’s get there faster eh!? ...Well, I need to think of a response. Because my original fallback position of “drive car into liquor store, smash something with baseball bat, possibly while wearing trench coat and yell ‘I WANT TO BECOME AN ALCOHOLIC’” wasn’t going to be something I could do comfortably during a global pandemic that my country couldn’t wait to catch. So what would I do? Suicide is out of the question -- I already said I want to live for a long time. Quoth Watsky:
“I’m in this for life. Like it or not. I'm not going anywhere. Anywhere. [..] You will have to drag me by the neck.”
So? Do I announce an intent to not pay taxes, or file a restraining order against a certain nazi bitch fuck twat psychopath, or sue said nazi bitch fuck twat psychopath for threatening/already-murdering many many lives? Citizen’s arrest? Go to law school and become a lawyer myself (How fucking great is Perry Mason on HBO? And Season 3 of Daredevil? Absolute peak comic book superhero adaptation. The biggest teeth in the game and the anger of a saint.) or a pastor perhaps and follow my Grandfather’s footsteps, but use it as a vessel for God’s Word to target and raze, confront the lowly and hateful pseudo-Christians that plague small towns and isolated communities of the White American Psychopathy? Or squirrel myself away, away from everyone. Swear off even my collaborative art form of choice and sit content with writings and drawings and whatever I can do, from a hut in the woods for the rest of my days because fuck you, you’ve rejected me world? Or all of the above, in various combinations? I started 2020 in my house and I have not much left it since, it’s not a bad gig if you can get it, motherfucker. Now I’ve got experience, so sign me up for a lighthouse or what have you. Five weeks? Two days? Help me, to recollect! What, nearby me, can I smash that I won’t instantly regret and get all sad about? I started 2020 breaking an old trash bin. What size dumpster do I need to get for the follow-up? I broke skin on my hand for that video, how much am I willing to spill to shut this year down with a bruiser? Do I snap completely, and accept that my life has an externally-abridged ticking clock; tell the girl you love her, whatever rejection or not find some down pussy to fuck and count the days til the old men cutting keys start to realize that coming in to work or credit card payments to Wells Fargo aren’t worth it anymore because the all has flooded? I just accept that we are doomed so I am going to do as I want while [and this is FUCKING IMPORTANT, AMERICA] respecting others, doing no harm and helping my fellow man have a slightly better day than before I entered it? Maybe giving of my body, my services whatever they are, from moving shit to laying dick whatever I can give to others to improve their mood let’s have at it, fuck it. You put an artificial lifespan on me like you would an American car, you capitalist waste filths? Fuck all you. Do I delve deeper into escapism, simply watch movies, TV, play video games, listen to music and occasionally yell along to the lyrics (RTJ4 is the truth.) The truth is I don’t know. I don’t have a romantic partner. I cannot see my friends in person. I cannot go to the liquor store and make a scene. I cann’t become a gregarious slut. I own no pet, just a plant to keep my room in better air. I have no strong link to grab on to from the moralled walls of the room, Spaceship Me. So what is my reaction to bad news to be? I refuse to compartmentalize “Oh well the house or senate got these seats to the good guys” or “Other countries are hoodie hoodie hoo environment without us” because I have no representation. A man nobody stopped represents every. single. thing. I. am. against. Embodies it. Embraces it. Clutches it because it’s an ultimate life preserver of an illusion: a trick of the eye for a destitute soul, a dried eroded mind, a victim of the god of greed. He’ll die without those adjectives which I value the precise opposite of. He deserves to die. But it goes against my usual moral values to say such things and truly, deeply mean them.
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Do not be too eager to deal out death and judgement.” - Gandalf the Grey, The Fellowship of The Ring
So what, I quote pop culture but I ain’t read the Bible, same philosophies. Good > evil.
Morals, that simple: Good > evil. And yet “It should have ended that day, but evil was allowed to endure.” because like I said, I have no representation. My senator will say good shit but then do nothing to prevent an unqualified fuck from a seat of rule over subjects foreign to their little minds and great corrupted ambitions. Sure, they only got one vote in the say, but they also got two fists and my fuckin’ vote. So put up your dukes, Ma’am. Throw shit, even. Bring back the cane.
Where was I...yeah. No representation. Evil allowed to flourish, etc., all that to which I am opposed (and I am in great company) was given power, “impeached” and nothing yet happens. Cowards, you all. History will write you down as villains of accomplice unless you allow history to end so your records look clean. Fucks.
So this is why I hide. It is not my world; it is not my concern. My concern is eating breakfast and then again when I am hungry. That’s what it is these days. Maybe if I can afford a real baby and some real cats we can talk about where my priorities lie. Where my links to something greater are, that bond that sustains others. My plans right now are mostly my dreams. And they, unfortunately, can die.
I just want to make movies.
So, one way or another I have gathered the mildest of information from a few non-confirming areas, and so I often fear that the worst has come. “Do you know? No.” I have to tell myself that these thoughts are okay to have as I need to think of some form of avenging reaction if the outcome is bad. “Do you know? No.” I don’t have to think about the cloud of fluff very much because I may fall through it after a few seconds like Wile E. Coyote. Don’t give me hope. “Do you know? No.” I just had a thought: 'if things are the same it won't be so bad.' and I was reviled at the mere thought that no change is comfortable in any way. How can I yell this any louder than Watsky in Border In My Heart:
THIS IS NOT NORMAL!
...And if the outcome is good, I allow my body the space to improvise. Whatever it wants to do, there are no limitations, no ritualistic rules in place. No expectations. Take five. Smoke if you got ‘em. “Do you know? No.” But I can’t anticipate that. I will not fall flat on my face. I will not break again. “Do you know? No.” If the outcome is bad it’s just like the election never happened, right? Oh that’s a lie you cannot tell yourself in good conscience. “Do you know? No.” Stupid way of responding, there. If it’s bad, you’re dead. “Do you know? No.” If it’s good, you’re good. Keep thinking you’ll film a movie next summer. Anticipate having the time to reformat it as a novel, or a short film perhaps to seek funding. Age up the characters for any actual production, much adaptation as that will cost, but it’ll be fine. You can write when you have time. Look at all this. “Do you know? No.”
I’ve lost the train of thought, but this is about as a-laid out as I can be. I must anticipate nothing. If I have expectations, they must be low. But for now I must exist in a neutral space. I must hope that if I step off the plank into the air there is a hand to catch me firm. If the cloud never was, I hope I can create the thing it was in the shape of. I hope I can make the world better, through my means. Through being a good man. ‘What you can control is enough’, it says, on my whiteboard above my computer. I have taken that to the extreme where what I can control is all that there is to me. But for an exit strategy, when I willingly ask for the end to this pre-world fantasy. I? I don’t know. I have no idea. “I’ll let people know” I say, knowing I know not when I will let. But it keeps the day the same for a bit longer. And if there’s anything this pandemic has allowed me to do it is steal time. Patience is one of my virtues. Sometimes I take it a little too far, but in this case I tell myself it is for a mental health. I’ll admit I am like Niles of Palm Springs, afraid. But I took that fear and made something creative of it. A wholly unique experience. I could come out of this to find everyone speaking Portuguese, or maybe Pogs have come back, in Alf form. I don’t give a shit. I have something that you, reader, do not have. I toot not my horn nor wag my tail at you with this; it’s not a brag really, it’s certainly not a boast. I’m not trying to hold this over you and I will not be looking at comments, unless they’re from my future self. I’m writing this to preserve an etching of this experience in amber. Only to look at, perhaps wonder what it was like.
My sleep schedule is not any more strictly regulated. My diet is shot. My laundry is less. My plant stays watered, and I even shower occasionally. I still make videos. I log the movies I watch. I think about all the bad in the world which I cannot smite, neither through my means nor by violent means I could never bring myself to equip. I think about all the good in the world, the inherent goodness in nature, the care we must foster with it. It is our neighbor. We must live with it. I’m playing a bit more Pokémon [Shield] these days and that’s my ideal escape. They get it: Pocket Monsters are a balancing act in and of themselves, a domestication and a wild animal, a partner and an arbiter: joining humanity and nature. A measure by which we can see how well we’re doing. Did you know, there are sanctuaries for Grimer and Muk, since de-polluting water and anti-littering efforts have reduced their natural, noxious habitats and food? Fancy that.
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| Sludgy boys |
The important thing, either side of this, is that I am doing okay. I’m doing okay in here. I could use a few thousand dollars a month, though, in case any bitches who work for me are reading this.
— David "The Pants" Hoh
The best bit of costuming in Trailer Park Boys is Bubbles’ glasses, obviously. The best prop is how Julian always has a glass of rum and coke with him at all times, even when doing manual labor that would be easier with two hands. A perfect joke. Best hair is Ricky’s. I’d say best costuming too ‘cause he has great shirts but Randy’s ritualistic lack of a shirt is more champ in that category. Runner-up for best prop is Ricky’s car. Best performance is hands-down Mister Lahey, RIP. I’ve taken more Snaps of John Dunsworth’s line deliveries than anyone else. What an amazing actor.
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