THIS THING WE'RE LIVING IS NOT A LIMITED SERIES

As I was getting ready for  our morning walk, I turned on the news to see what is happening in Ukraine. I think we all do some variation of this throughout the day, usually several times. Mostly, I turn on to see if Zelensky is still alive. And as I was watching the coverage, I realized that in some weird way, a lot of the Ukraine invasion has become a sort of limited series we are all watching. Something we care about, but still can turn off whenever we need to so that we can go to our jobs, or go grab a pizza or whatever. And as I'm thinking about that, the newscaster announces "price of gas above $4 a gallon for first time in years". 

And I think, how fucking awful is it that while this network is streaming onto our screens images of people who are literally fighting for their lives that the same network felt it was worth mentioning that we might be paying more for gas. 

If the fact that gas prices go up is as important as an invasion that could very possibly set off World War Three, the time, as Hamlet said, is out of joint.

We need to all take a step back and consider what is important.

On a system wide basis. We have really got to find a better way to run this world we live in. It just feels like the current one, where corporate interests run by a small percentage of the population do everything they can solely to make money at the expense of everything else, does not lead us to a healthier lifestyle.

And of course, there's the added bonus of how we are killing the planet.

I would think that would cut into profits, not having anyone alive. But what do I know.

Anyhow, my main thought is that we have to remember, every day, that what is happening in the world is not a limited series on Netflix. It is not an overlong Tik Tok video. It is not a rant by Tucker Carlson or a song by Bob Dylan. 

Those are all reflections, impressions, sales pitches, and ways people express themselves.

But they are not that elusive truth we all seem to inherently want.

This blog is just my what I happen to think and typed three days a week. Nothing more or less. 

I am all for entertainment. For thoughts and ideas being expressed. 

But we have to also balance that with critical thinking. And Experiencing life in the moment, not filtered through the internet or television or a book or blog or poem or song. 

Those are things meant to augment our lives, not replace them. 

As David Mamet wrote in his adaptation of Uncle Vanya before he lost his frigging mind, "This thing we're living? It's our life!"

Watch the news. Read books and magazines and blogs. Especially this one. Listen to music. 

Fuck yes.

But also take a long walk. Meet a stranger and say hello. Go talk in person with someone you haven't talked to in person with for a long time.

Touch a flower. Feel the sun on your face. Tend to your garden. 

Yeah. Tend to your garden, like Voltaire said to do at the end of Candide.

Here's today's song. It's Make Our Garden Grow from Leonard Bernstein's Candide.

And in honor of the state of Florida, please, all of you, Glitter and Be Gay.

  

I AM A NUTJOB AND A LUNATIC AND A FREAK AND SO ARE ALL OF YOU

Started to watch the Tod Browning version of Dracula starring Bela Lugosi last night. I know for a lot of people, when they think of Dracula, they base it off of that movie. And I can see why. It's just creepy and weird and kind of awesome. And when it came out, it must have freaked people out. We all kind of expect to see vampires coming out of coffins, but we've all seen either that movie, or some knock off of it, or at least a variation of it on commercials around this time of year. But when that movie came out, I bet the first shot of a coffin sitting in that castle probably seemed shocking. And then to have it open and have Bela Lugosi, all decked out like a man about town in his funky Tux and cape outfit climb out of it must have been crazy. And then to have this three creepy wives, who I was never sure were real when I was little, dreamily walk up to him. It's bizarre. Like nightmare bizarre, where it gives me the creeps and I'm not sure why. 

I love stuff like that. Things that are dreamlike, ethereal but somehow familiar, speaking to some part of my soul that fears what I am being presented with is an accurate representation of the world. A world full of people who sleep in coffins, of lost souls wandering abandoned castles, of madness and sorrow wrapped up in expensive clothes. 

I think horror appeals to people who live in this world.

And I'm not alone. There's a great article in the NY Times about horror themed restaurants, and if you click HERE you can read it.

Horror films are by far the genre that gets produced the most. You want to get someone to listen to a pitch for a movie? Make it a thriller. Scare them. Excite them. And also give them a little bit to chew on, to reflect on as they lay in bed at three in the morning after being woken up by some car alarm, waiting to go back to sleep, seeing the shadows take shape, reflecting in various and ever changing manner the world they live in. Zombies, werewolves, ghosts. All things we see on a daily basis. I feel like a zombie as I trudge to work. I am a werewolf by night, howling at the moon with my pack. I am a ghost each time I look at a photo of someone from my life who has gone on to the next world, for in my mind they are the living and I am the one banished to this strange world where I can't be with them anymore. 

Happy Tuesday, folks. 

I have lots of things like that in my stories. My first play centered around a man haunted by the love of his life. My latest pilot has a small town taken over by malignant ghosts who bring out the worst in everyone. The script that is a Second Rounder at Austin Film Festival this year has the main character saved by the Ghostboy of Thunderbird Island. 

I'm kind of a nut. But as Ghandi said, "I am a nutjob and a lunatic and a freak, and so are all of you". 

Tomorrow, I head off to the Lone Star State. I wonder how many monsters I will see, how many ghosts? Will there be ghouls waiting at the airport to eat us up? Coffins in all the basements, where they sleep at night? What if the film festival turns out to be this secret cult of weridos? I hope so. I have to just leap, and pray that the net appears. 

Here's a song I found last night on a playlist of spooky songs. It's Haunted Heart by Christina Aquilera.

I HEAR THE PEOPLE SING

It might seem like we have lost our collective minds, but I think we have just been fed a lot of misinformation by a small group of nasty people who are so lost inside, so unable to connect to reality, so in need of love and compassion, that all they can do is try to make the world a petty, awful, sad place, where greed is good, might makes right, and winning is the only thing that counts. I reject all those precepts. I reject the constant denial of a reality that is so clear, it takes a huge effort to pretend things aren't the way they basically are. As many are saying of late, enough. We are in a global pandemic. People are dying. People are sick. Fact. We live in a country with institutionalized racism, where being a person of color is truly a danger to your life. Fact. We have a ruling class that wants the rest of us to fight, argue, riot, and kill each other. Either that, or they are just the stupidest bunch of assholes ever assembled. Fact.

Let me say this first. Killing people is bad. Killing people when you are a cop or soldier is worse. You have a sacred duty to serve and protect. Maybe that phrase should be extended out to "serve and protect your fellow citizens". Right now, it feels like the main thing these folks are serving and protecting is the powers that be. And it's getting worse. Having cops on horseback riding through the city streets, knocking people over, doesn't install confidence. It installs fear. We aren't supposed to fear the police. But we do. I know there are good cops. There are also bad cops. That's probably because they are human beings. But on top of that, there is this culture of never questioning authority, of acting like anyone who wears a uniform is instantly a saint. Which is madness. It gives these folks a feeling of autonomy, of not having to play by the rules, of being able to kneel of someone's neck until they are dead in front of a crowd. I never trust someone I am told to trust. I can't help it. Just because someone is a cop, or a boss, or a school principal, or a President of the United States does not mean they are smart, wise, good, kind, or sane. I base any sort of trust and/or respect on what that person actually does. Not on their demand of it from me just because they say so.

Also, can we please stop pretending that Fox News is a news show? That it's just the conservative version of CNN or MSNBC. They don't just present things from a right wing perspective. They play cheerleader. They spread misinformation. They have Tucker Carlson thinking the President, the guy who tear gassed people exercising their constitutional right to peacefully assemble to that he could hold a Bible up- rather stiffly and strangely, and pose for photos.- was too lenient on the protesters. What the fuck? Would Mister Carlson like to Mister Trump to do, exactly?

I am sick and tired of the phrase "main stream media" being used like it is code for "those lying bastards who work for George Soros." It's all smoke and mirrors, tricks from Sylvester McMonkey McBean designed to trick the Sneetches in to fighting with each other while he takes all their money. The powers that be would like to get rid of the free press, and since they haven't been able to yet, they just chip away at it, with phrases like that and false comparisons between their propaganda machine and actual journalism.  But that only works when things are relatively okay in the world. Right now, with a global pandemic, looming economic depression, and riots, the live feeds of people getting the shit beat out of them are pretty much undeniable. The mass graves on islands off NYC are hard to ignore. The lost jobs, with one in four in this country filing for unemployment, are something even Tucker Carlson can't banish. The shit has hit the fan, several times, and no amount of extra shit thrown at it by the folks on the right will make this better.

I am tired. I am angry. I have had enough. I am hopeful we can find a way through this. That we can all listen to our better angels and rise to the occasion. But if martial law is declared, if we keep having curfews, if the dragoons ride down my street, if Trump and his allies start filling the Bastille with rebels, then I am heading for the barricades.

Here's a song. It's Do You Hear the People Sing from Les Miserables.

 

RICH FOLKS: THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

We just have to stop being crazy. We have to stop. It is becoming very clear that a lot of people have lost their minds. I don't mean the people protesting last night. They were exercising their civil liberties. You remember civil liberties. It's what all those protesters who stormed state capitals with guns were yelling about. How we are all free to live our lives however we see fit. You do you, I'll do me. I mean the police who think killing black people is ok. I mean the nuts jobs who chased down and killed a man who jogged through their neighborhood. I mean the President, who was fine with the gun toting nut jobs when they were protesting the shut down, threatening to shoot people with his tweet "when the looting starts, the shooting starts." I don't think that is going to calm people down. We have a country full of angry, confused, lost people. I think a lot of the anger comes from economic disparity, from the feeling that a very small amount of people control most of the money and all of the power. From being told we live in the Land of the Free where if you do the right thing and work hard, you will succeed, but actually live in a country where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And it's been that way for a long time. Maybe forever. Certainly since the 1980s. I think, during the Great Depression, there were some things done that gave the working class a chance. Laws that made sense, that reined in out of control banks, set up social safety nets, and slightly evened the playing field. I think World War Two brought about even more equalization, wth things like the GI Bill, and a common feeling of everyone working for the same thing. The middle class grew, the super rich and the super poor shrunk. Things still weren't perfect. Lots of unjustice and racism and basic dickishness abounded. But there seemed to to a slow march towards progress. So the super rich organized, got some good speech writers, and some smart lawyers, and started taking over the government on all levels. We got fake stories about welfare mothers driving Cadillacs, and the lionization of quotes like "greed is good". We got the modern GOP, which seems to have been infected with avarice and assholes.

And what do you need, if you are taking peoples money, hopes, dreams, and world? A good scapegoat. Someone to blame who isn't you. And here in America, we have the black community. You know, the people we stole and enslaved? The ones who make folks uncomfortable because they remind them of a part of our history that doesn't jibe with the idea of American Exceptionalism. Subtly by some, overtly by others, a lot of people in powerful positions try to paint this picture of African Americans that is just a bunch of bullshit. Look at our movies and tv shows, the places where we tell our myths. How often is the bad guy, the criminal, the evil one, a person of color? It's a little better now than when I was a kid. But only a little. We have created this bizarre portrait of America that doesn't reflect reality. And a lot of people buy into it. Because it's easier to be mad at someone who lives near you than to be mad at rich folks up on the hill. I think maybe part of the reason that is so is because we have also made being poor and/or not rich feel like a sin, something to be ashamed of, and something that is completely your fault, not the result of a rigged system designed to keep people in their places by the few who have it good. So, instead of addressing that aching shame at something a lot of folks feel deep in their bones, we are fed a line of garbage in subtle and not so subtle ways that the culprit is other poor people! I think some people in power know this is a bunch of crap, and just don't care. I think the President buys into it because he is a fool with a weak mind, and feels his own personal shame at his iniquities, so he too needs a scapegoat.

Scapegoat. What a fucking awful thing. We have had them in each society, it seems. A subset of a culture that the masses blame for all their ills, while those who are the true cause of those ills sit in their mansions counting their money while the ghettos burn. And there have always been others who see that. I think of 1 Timothy 6:10, which is the one that goes "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows". 

So, you have a country with huge economic disparity. You have a police force filled with working class people, mostly white men, who have bought into the scapegoating, racist line of thinking. And you have a long, long, long list of innocent people getting killed by angry, stupid, and well-armed people who have lost all sense of their morality. 

Anyone who thinks we have gotten better with our racist myths needs to wake up. 

We need to throw those cops in jail. We need to change our system. We need to change.

Here's a song. It's Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday, which is as fucking pertinent now as when she recorded it years ago. 

THEY GET BAIL OUTS, WE GET COFFINS

That's what I saw written on the bathroom wall this morning at the grocery store. They get bail outs, we get coffins. First off, I can't remember the last time I saw graffiti on a bathroom wall outside of a bar or nightclub type of place. But there it was, in black Sharpee. And I have to say, it's a pretty damn good bit of phraseology. To the point, balanced, graphic, and immediate. I did not have my cell phone with me as, when we take our morning walk- which can and usually does take an hour or so- we leave our phones at home. It feels great. Freeing. So I will have to bring it tomorrow and take a photo. I hope it's still there. If it isn't, I think I will also take a black Sharpee pen with me and put it back up. Because I think it's true. I think a huge amount of stimulus money has gone to corporations, and a tiny bit has gone to some of the average working folk. Which makes no sense, and I don't think will help us. How many millions of us are now on unemployment? Do you really think giving banks and corporations is going to help them? I thought Trump was supposed to be a populist, there to fight for the little guy. Seems like he prefers fighting for the fat cats. In fact, it seems like he prefers to feed the little guy to the fat cats, one at a time.

Why have less than half of the small businesses who applied for emergency loans getting them? Why has there only been one stimulus check for the average citizen, for a whopping $1,200 per person, while we've all been shut down for months? Why has there been no mortgage/rent relief plan passed? There have been four, count 'em, four bills passed, with a price tag over three trillion dollars. In number, three trillion looks like this: 3,000,000,000,000. That's a lot of money. Of that gigantic amount, here is how much has been allocated to testing: $28,000,000,000. You remember testing?  The thing we need so we can safely reopen without causing a second, third, or fourth wave to come back and force us to shut down again and again and again?

We gave the airlines $58,000,000,000. The airlines. Thirty billion more dollars went to fucking United and Delta and all those other assholes who don't even give us a meal anymore when we fly home on Thanksgiving than went to testing.  How stupid is that?

And did you know that Mitch McConnell and his GOP pals want to pass a law to make businesses not be liable for any employees getting sick when we reopen. So, if you go back to work because $1,200 spread over three months doesn't really cover your bills and you don't want to get evicted because there are no laws to protect you from losing your home due to the virus, your boss will be fine, now worry about losing a damn thing, even if they do not provide a safe environment for to work in. Put another way, they are passing laws to protect your shitty boss, but not to protect you.

Put another way: They get bail outs, we get coffins.

I don't get it. Here is what I want congress to do: First, spend money of treatment and finding a vaccine. As much as it takes. Second, spend money on testing so we can go back to work and not have to worry about getting sick and dying. Third, pass a law to freeze all evictions to the end of the year. Fourth, stop giving money to the super rich and overly powerful dickheads who have been screwing the planet over for many years. Stop it. It's wrong. You know it. We know it. I bet even Trump knows it.

And for the love of God, stop using the great distraction of the virus to lift environmental regulations so those same corporate goons can go back to poisoning our air and water. We all like having clear skies and animals coming back to say hello and being able to see mountains in the distance. The world is beautiful, and that beauty is all or ours. So stop that right now.

We have passed over one hundred thousand dead here in the USA. Don't take my word for any of this. Google it. Look around. Get up and get busy and call your representatives and ask yourself what the hell is going on and what can you do to help make the world a better place. We are a good people, I think. We just have too many greedy folks in charge who care more about money than human beings.

They get bail outs, we get coffins.

Here's a song. It's Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth.