Dear diary,
Because we’re all trapped in our separate houses on account of this pandemic, we’re forced to find “virtual” ways to meet up socially. That word “virtual” means “annoying”, as in using computers and the Internet to transfer audiovisuals of [figure out a clearer way of stating this] instead of...
All I’m trying to say is that two nights ago my sweetheart and I learned how to use a phone app to talk to while beholding visually my brother and his own sweetheart — we each sat on our separate sofas in our separate houses and held our separate phones at arm’s length before our separate faces, one image per couple, and we had a conversation:
It was nice; but I have a problem with my own part of the talk: it’s the standard problem that I always have with my contribution to anything communal: I’m never satisfied with the way that I botch events. (I hope that we try this type of chatting again soon, so that I can get a second chance to make a first impression.) Now that it’s over, I keep mentally replaying all the things that I said, and I wish I had spoken differently:
There were no arguments or anything; on the contrary, the talk was pleasant and friendly — but I wish that I didn’t behave like such a smartypants; I wish I were more humble and accepting of my lack of control in this world, rather than prone to rant as if I have all the solutions. And I wish I did not complain so much. I wish that when people called to talk to me, it would feel to them like reading a poem by Wordsworth (I mean one of his good poems, not one of his many, many bad poems) instead of consulting a political manifesto.
It is for the reasons above that I suggest we change our universe’s official language to music.
Music is a fine medium, because, in it, there’s no way to state facts and provide citations from reliable sources to back them up. In music, you just draw a line of melody in the air, which forces other creatures to feel its feeling. I think that’s cool.
The songbirds have it right. Next time we engage in an audiovisual conference, we should all try the experiment of only communicating by warbling without words. Not like scat-singing in jazz: that’s a little too cool. I mean maybe just limiting ourselves to one syllable, such as “la”, and then trilling “la, la, la (etc.)” in various notes to represent our state of soul. And you could vary your rhythm as well. Fast or slow, or changing from fast to slow & back again. I myself prefer a constant, stately tempo. If it came to my own turn in the musical conversation, I’d go super slow and low, to scare everyone.
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But it’s kinda funny how, when there’s no imminent threat of death in the air, we all hate life and yearn for that day when we can finally lie down in our wood box and get earthbunkt (which coinage I define as “placed upon some sort of pulley contraption and hand-cranked into a hole in the ground, to sleep fitfully”; the grass is very green surrounding your grave plot). Yes, death seems attractive, as long as it’s scarce; but once death is right around the corner—like now, during plague-time—suddenly nobody wants to die anymore: it’s as if we all forgot how much life sux. We forgot how awful our day-jobs are; and how much we hate our parents; and how painful every day always proves to be; and how the market is evil, clutching your neck with its invisible hand...
!!!The cold touch of those fingers!!!
(That marks the first time I’ve ever used three exclamation points before AND after an ejaculation. I got this idea from looking at the title as it was printed on the record cover of the debut album by the Sonics, which was released in 1965: !!!Here Are The Sonics!!! — and, in case you go try to listen to it, please ignore the bonus songs that they added to the reissue; the album should have just twelve tracks total: it should begin with “The Witch” and end with “Good Golly Miss Molly”.)
The marketplace really is the most supreme evil ever fabricated. Seriously, think of it: Could YOU have fashioned a more thoroughly evil phenomenon? I don’t think even the Highest Satan himself coulda dreamt up the marketplace. No, to make something that bad requires a Benevolent Deity such as [unspeakable name censored]. And then the LORD always has all sorts of reasons why the creation of such a thing was supposedly necessary.
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& yet I remember when the United States of America was something that people believed in. But now it’s just like God — people try to believe, and they say things like “God is real, and he’s gentle and kind and beautiful,” but the Tyrant’s standing right before you, ugly as hell.
So back in the days, my parents & other dopes in our neighborhood would say things like “Foreigners hate us Americans because they’re jealous of our freedoms.” And whenever I heard this — which was daily, because I lived in the same house as my dad, who watched his corporate-funded news shows with wide-eyed credulity — I would think to myself “Had I been born anyplace other than here; would I really be looking at a map & pointing at the U.S. while muttering ‘Oh how I hate your people’s freedoms; beware, for someday I will sting you!’ as bees do when they’re huddled together & preparing for the coming day, during which you shall stumble into their hive while playing soccer?” And this hypothetical seemed to check out; so…
No, now the freedoms here in the U.S.A. are all wilted. You have the freedom to overwork. You have the freedom to give all the proceeds of your overwork to the banks. That is all. [!!!End of Freedomlist!!!]
Here I was going to suggest that you, my gentle reader, should start up a punk band and give it a certain catchy name, and then I should start up a punk band with an alternate catchy name, and we could release records that sorta answer each other: it would be like we’re having a big punk conversation in garbled lyrics and voodoo-esque noise; which would be better than the audiovisual exchanges that people engage in over the Internet nowadays, cuz those are limited to just singing “la-la-la” like a couple of fruitcakes; but then the names which I was going to suggest that we employ as titles for our groups would probably not even be legally available — that is to say: some other punks out there have most likely given their own groups the very same names that I was going to think up. So I didn’t even bother to think up any names. Everything’s always already taken.
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