In lieu of Twitter part ghzd/fkjw

A doctor refusing to treat a patient who is unvaccinated and a police office shooting someone who is unarmed are doing the same thing.

Headlinez

 CNN today:

Democrats Unveil Impeachment Charge

Millions Left Without Paid Sick Leave After Congress Let Pandemic Benefit Expire

Priorities, huh?

What I Write Is Just Part Of All

If this pandemic is teaching me anything, it's just about how to do all the things I can do as opposed to the things I want to do. It's easy and it's not...

(baked fresh - first time I've made cookies from scratch since [probably] GWB's first term - next time I must cut the chocolate into smaller pieces)

40 + 1/365

I'm actually already feeling better. I'm tempted to take down yesterday's post. But.

Beyond the self-pity, though, I think there is something worthwhile about the incoherent rantings about: I really do think we are living in some of the most conformist times I have ever experienced.  And I do feel lost between it all, because it's all the same; artists are just real estate agents vying for a different type of real estate.

I would feel self-important but I think what I'm getting at is it's the other way around. I don't get exactly why other people are so enamored of themselves. Not because I can do better, just because better has already been done.

Anyways, though, maybe I'll try and play the game just a little bit in the next year, if only to gain sufficient authority to convince others to stop playing towards building a new game. Or maybe I won't. One way or the other, the near-term goals: love, travel, and a comfortable place to lay my head. 

(And yeah, fine, maybe time for a new career, or just some meaningful stability within the one I already have.)

PS Thanks for the birthday wishes. All the best to you and yours!

40

At least with the pandemic, the fact that I did nothing today will be seen by others as semi-reasonable I guess.

Not totally nothing; my roommates did chip in and buy me a bottle of Scotch. The first drink I have had since this whole thing started. It's been years since I've enjoyed drinking on a regular basis, but drinking in front of a computer screen, it's the worst, though I did do some good writing here under the influence a few times.

Anyways, I guess I just wanted to say "hi" to the handful of people who still show up here.

I've actually been writing a lot. I think the anger and frustration has made it difficult for me to keep my thoughts in order.

One of my heroes is a writer named Sherwood Anderson. I don't know much about him, really, only read Winesburg and nothing else, but I do recall coming across a quote, years ago, I think in the introduction to Winesburg, the old sky-blue-spined Penguin Contemporary edition that I got probably way back in 93 or 94, which is to say, when I was in middle school. The quote went something like: what we need now is a new breed of men who, at any physical cost to themselves and others, will agree to quit working, to loaf, to refuse to be hurried or try to get on in the world.

I think I'm still trying to grapple with all of the implications years later. Weirdly, I've both succeeded and failed. I certainly haven't gotten on in the world, though I don't know if I have loafed enough, that I have gained whatever one gains admiring whatever ponds or meadows happen to abut the track on which the rat race is run.

As an aside, really, because the preceding and the next paragraphs are meant to be read in sequence, before I move on though, I do want to say that what I really share in common with Mr. Anderson, besides, erm, maybe, squandered promise, is the fact that all of my best writing is done in one take, start to finish, light editing afterwards. Anderson was like this too, when he was writing Winesburg - story from start to finish in one setting, and if he stopped before completion, he'd have to scrap the whole thing and start over from scratch. I have a lot of paragraphs that I can't tie together.

It may be over soon, though. Though I don't see how. My friends, parents, are imploring, gently, thankfully, that I go back to school, but until there is additional stimulus, I don't have the money, and, even then, forgive me if I seem like I am procrastinating, but, even with the money, I don't want to spend it until  in-class tutelage is universal again.

The thing is, though, I have no idea whatsoever towards what end I would take classes again. Maybe that's the point of going back, though, some focus, some discipline, and some re-opening of possibility. Maybe because I have no idea what to do, that's why I need to do it.

Still, I can almost hear my parents now, though, hopefully not, friends. I mean that's how this goes, right? Go to school, find yourself, then when you elect to take, I dunno, a course in art history or philosophy, well, it's all about getting a job, not, you know, that. I'm being vague because I think you already know what I mean. At least it will be my money this time.

And really, at my age, should I even give a shit? It's my fault - I solicit advice, I don't want to hear it. I'm sorry. Actually.

You can infer my birth year from the title of this post and, although I tend to try and avoid trafficking in generational stereotypes, I tend to think of myself as a younger member of Gen X, not an older Millennial, although, in terms of getting absolutely crushed by the various economic downturns and the high cost of living that has characterized this century so far, I guess my life has followed a more Millenial path. That being said, and for all their posturing, I don't think Millenials understand this, what makes me Gen X is the last, expired dregs of the counterculture. I remember. It doesn't exist anymore. Underneath, I think, even the most superficially-rebellious acts of, sorry, rebellion, that I've seen over the last decade or so, is a desire for recognition within the system being rebelled against.

I think I'm digressing. You tell me.

The thing about the counterculture is, well, a lot of younger Marxists want to write it all off, I think, as just more rich kid posturing and just petit Bourg. reactionary blah blah, to see it through contemporary eyes and only by the end result, not what was attempted. It's a cliche to say that history is written by the victors, but it's worth noting that in this context. I mean, if there was someone born in '45 or '55 or '65 or whatever, who tried to stay true, all the way through, would you even know who they were? And whose failure would that be? And what failure would that be? 

It's funny. Every time I've tried to dip my toes back into trying to participate in the world of people who think and talk and write for a living, and, especially, really, especially, when it comes to those who self-describe as socialist or left or liberal or radical or whatever, I've really been struck by the tremendous normatively of it all. Nobody can think of any notion of success anymore that doesn't start and end with the individual. There are so many, I don't know, architects who have so much more knowledge and so many more credentials than anyone could have dreamed of a century ago and yet, all the building are ugly. And not in any sort of transcendent way. Insofar as the word "elite" can connote excellence, not just income or influence, I don't even know why we bother calling anyone by that word anymore. Is anyone really especially any good at anything? 

So it's all normative all around, but without object.

And I hear the word "loser" a lot, especially amongst those who claim to stand against the present. It's really silly, when you think about it: "the system sucks" and yet it's imperative to make someone feel bad if they aren't winning within it? 

Critique is just a brand. Anti-capitalism sells; it's the primary virtue of capitalism, actually.

So the thing about a counterculture, and maybe it's all bullshit in the end and this is always how it was all supposed to go, the thing about it, well there are two and I can't explain them.

First is that if you pledge allegiance to it then you no longer have to worry about being a "loser" because  why worry about failing to achieve something you don't even want anyways? And also, second, and I guess related, I was reading a book by a writer who took some time to write about another book by another writer who talked about culture as a form of protection. That's what can't exist anymore. What doesn't exist anymore. The protection. The notion that one could, amongst others, come up with a set of values to live by and then to live by them as opposed to being merely subject. Protection from the judgements borne of values the one doesn't subscribe to, from the raw vicissitudes.

I don't think it will happen again anytime soon.

The thing about nowadays is that the perspectives seem to multiply in inverse proportion to that which there is to have perspectives about.

Whatever the purpose, the legacy of the counterculture is that there is only antithesis, an ever-expanding world of pluralities in opposition to something that is not there.

I don't romanticize the Beats, but I do wonder, what would Kerouac think about a world where the coffee shops that feature patrons who have read his work are the most expensive coffee shops? It's a pretty dumb question.

And anyways, I'm running out of ideas.

I feel weird about where I am.

Honestly, I think I've avoided a lot of bullshit. But that's just antithesis, too.

The funny thing about being a server, or at least, I don't know what things will be like apres vaccine, is that, if you ever read me here and were thinking you were looking into some portal of how the other whatever lives, the thing it, it's all rich kids, too, ambitious, and if I end up getting out of restaurants, it'll be for the same reasons I got in.

Until then, I'll 

Infinite Circle

 The problems we face today are the successful realization of the solutions offered to solve them.

Democrats Suck

I'm being bombarded by ads on Youtube imploring me to donate money to the Democrats. 

Even if I wanted to, I can't. I'm still unemployed, and with the expiration of the Federal addition to unemployment benefits, I have no discretionary income. Given that both parties filled their bills meant to to extend Federal aid with additional, obviously-partisan bullshit meant to goad the each party into voting against the proposal of the other party, I can't help but feel that, ultimately, this expiration of Federal benefits was the desired result. As far as I know, neither party is willing to craft a bill that solely pertains to the extension of the previous benefits. I feel more than a little piqued when the people who are deliberately failing to provide assistance to me are now asking for me to provide assistance to them. 

Thankfully, I'm nowhere near the point where I will have to start selling off my possessions in order to eat, and if I get to that point, that money will surely go towards a plane ticket to any other country that will have me. If, on the other hand, Senator Schumer, say, has to start selling off his suit collection to finance a case or two of Chef Boyardee beef ravioli to keep himself alive, I do happen to have $0.62 in nickels, dimes and pennies sitting on top of my dresser that he is welcome to have should he really need the money.

But all of this is beside the point. Each of the fundraising ads that I have seen, some with Senator Schumer, others with Stacey Abrams, features a countdown clock and a little graphic in the righthand corner, a blinking box that encloses the words "LIVE NOW". I'm guessing that "live now" isn't some invocation to celebrate life and to not take it for granted, nor is that phrase meant to be a reminder to pursue dreams and to cherish the company of loved ones and to seek the new arrangements that will allow me, or anyone else, to realize our full capacities as human beings. I'm not meant to be increasingly assiduous when I pet cats. Ironically, the "live" of "live now" does not rhyme with "give" (neither in the sense of the word that would be an invocation towards the noblest and best attitude one human could have towards all other beings, nor as an apt summary of the theme of the advertisements in question). 

As far as I can tell, the countdown clock has no correlation to anything outside of the world of the advertisements themselves, is tied to no external referent. The clock is rather a callous attempt to instantiate a sense of urgency within the viewer, a sense of urgency that can't possibly survive repeated viewings of these advertisements, which have sometimes appeared twice, even three times, over the course of my watching one video. The clock always starts from the same place, and, I presume, ends at the same place as well. As for "LIVE NOW", am I really meant to think that there are a bevy of Senators sitting around in TV studios waiting for the right moment to break into whatever I am watching to talk directly to me? Or perhaps "LIVE NOW" is some new version of "operators are standing by", some attempt to assuage the anxiety of the clock by letting me know that yes, if I want to give money, there will be someone present to receive said money, as if there is actually some time of day or week or year when the Democratic Party would NOT accept a donation?

If the "live" of "live now" doesn't rhyme with "give', it does rhyme with another word, "jive". Amongst many meanings, "jive" is a synonym for deceitful, worthless.

Hello Again

I've been writing a lot, publishing virtually nothing.

Even now, I've just deleted five paragraphs from what you are now reading.

I tried to write something about masks. About restaurant work. About the "failures" of the negotiations around the extension of the additional unemployment benefits. Honestly, maybe one or two things I had to say were unique. The rest, not so much.

What's getting to me today is just weariness. Some of the worst days in terms of my mental well-being have been days where I actually forget the pandemic is happening.

Today is a day like that.

I don't know that I care for any season more than I care for the days aberrant to any season. The premonition and anticipation. Today is a day like that. It's not that I'm sick of summer. I really didn't even have one. It's just, well, it's seventy-five degrees I can smell autumn and it's the kind of night that seems to place me on the ecstatic cusp of something, somewhere and I find myself yearning and my heart reaching out of its chest and into a beyond that's always just out of grasp and I find myself sitting in a chair near a window and smelling and wondering and feeling and planning and imagining. I ask myself why I am just sitting when (everything) and then. Oh yeah. Keep waiting.

I can rationalize it all. The need for a mask, the having of roommates, the risk to my finances, to my health. It's just that it's too easy, too familiar. There was a time before the pandemic, am I'm not sure I really lived any differently then. So am I lying to myself now? Or just being responsible. Vaccine, please please please please please please please.

I want to live, but will I remember how?

Love.

;-)

A Funny Little Video

I keep trying to write some sort of something about this. As if everything needs comment.

The Youtube algorithm worked to my benefit and now I am sharing. That's about it. Hope it makes you laugh. Stay strong.

This Whole Pandemic Is Just An Excuse To Finally Toss Out Consumer Capitalism, Isn't It?

Edit: Obviously, the title of this post is meant to be a bit provocative, but I still stand by my sense that something is up...

I've been struggling to find the ulterior motive behind what's going on. I remember, years ago, when the Iraq war was starting to ebb, or at least American involvement, I started to see a lot of articles describing America's actions over there as failure, and it didn't make sense to me; because I never bought into the idea that the publicly-stated and privately-believed rationales for the war were consonant, the idea of assessing the war as a failure on those public terms seemed naive. At minimum, a lot of American businesses did quite well assisting the war effort and I'm sure there were some major renegotiations of oil contracts. The people who were meant to gain did not lose. So now I'm wondering about now.

It seems too pat to assume that this is all just Trump's incompetence, or the results of the ravings of various Governors trying to curry favor with the Libertarian segment of their bases. There have been plenty of mistakes made by all sides. It's just amazing to watch the statues come down (not that I always mind), the cases go up, the financial hardships increase, and there seems to be nothing happening. While I have been operating under the assumption that globalized capitalism, long accustomed to operating without American labor, may now operate just as smoothly without American consumers, the political elite still need, last time I checked, some of us to vote for some of them to stay in power. Whatever critiques I could levy at politicians, I assume most of them are reasonably savvy at politics, so I figure there must be something I/we don't know.

To skip over a long thought process, I'm wondering if the elite are so wealthy, and capitalism so dependent on the financial and rentier sectors, that it actually becomes necessary for the value of assets, even those of the wealthy, to be purposefully-depressed towards forcing other, less-wealthy people to sell their assets so that the wealthy can purchase them prior to re-inflating their value.

I wonder if it's also necessary, and if so, why, to lock more personal spending into recurring/rentier-based arrangements (everything from rent/mortgage down to Patreon subscriptions) and curtail discretionary spending.

It's worth noting that, while much commentary sympathetic to the plight of workers has noted that we are basically being left to fend for ourselves, it's not just us. Here in NYC, Hudson Yards and Fifth Avenue may become the latest casualties of the pandemic/depression. It may really be getting to the point that even, like, LVMH is considered a small fish ready to be devoured and restructured, though I don't think that's quite the case.

(I get the same feeling reading those articles as I did watching the looting three weeks ago - the expected schadenfreude never materialized and I'm still trying to figure out why given how much mental energy I have expended thinking about wealth inequality and the huge loss of vitality on the streets of pre-COVID NYC due to the overabundance of luxury retail and chain stores)

(I won't even mention the fact that maybe, just maybe, there is now such an excess of labor power that it is becoming impossible for the state to manage. We aren't being forced back to work to keep the retail/service sector alive.)

For the record, just in case it matters, and I won't be bothering to find links, NYC was already experiencing a retail and restaurant commercial rent crisis before the middle of March. Anecdotally, I've been back in NYC for less than four years, and I've already worked for four restaurants because two of them closed due to hight rent (and one of them treated me like shit - the owner recently made national news for being a total prick and I did feel a bit vindicated by that, at least). There were also two restaurants I had the opportunity to work for, but I declined, and both of those closed, one pre-pandemic, one due to the pandemic. All of the above restaurants were owned by well-known chefs, were part of successful restaurant groups, and were (except for one) the recipients of at least two or three stars from the New York Times.

Edit: Another restaurant I worked for has closed as of today; only one remains.

Heartbreaker

Eighteenth Street Lounge is closing.

I won't be able to say certain things without getting, um, too specific. 

Let's just say that this was one of the handful of places in the world where I felt like I belonged. It's the last one to close, the one spot I could depend on until today, even though it's been fifteen years since I last walked through the unmarked door and up the nearly-forty stairs to the Main Bar. I'm sure there are more places like it out there somewhere, and some will survive the pandemic, and maybe even some will open after the pandemic, and I may have one more year or one more month or just even one more night of joy. Until then. This hurts, a lot.

If there are any DC locals reading, who knew the reputation, maybe it's a surprise that I care about this place so much. I'm a disillusioned, melancholy and alienated lapsed Marxist pining for a place that was notorious for attracting, especially on the weekends, a crowd of international cosmopolitans (and some really dumb college kids) in the midst of the long slide from taste and erudition to branding and Instagram. Also, I didn't and don't do cocaine.

I shouldn't have fit in, at all. At best, I now have the social skills to not call attention to the fact that I don't have any social skills, but, back then, I didn't. Nor did I have the money for nice clothing, for expensive drinks, for all the accouterments of what nightlife has sadly become. And yet, I was up in (co-owner/operating partner/DJ) Farid's face all the time, "what's this record?", "what's that record?" and, somehow, that's what made me belong there without my having tried to fit in. For all of the other shit that surrounded that place, some invited, some tolerated, at the end of the day, it was about the music. It still is, and always will be.

Scary/Funny

The implications of the development of this kind of technology are not even fathomable, but, for now, just enjoy.

Nevermind

Pan-postlette

Two questions though.

Why is it that everyone in the world seems desperate to force every single new piece of information they receive into their preconceived notions so that no bit of new information could alter those notions?

Not quite unrelated, but different.

Why is it that almost every single journalist who has a question for President Trump seems to act under the pretense that they are the most courageous cast member in an episode (not my sic, theirs) of All The President's Men while simultaneously asking the dumbest, most-leading, and most-manipulative questions they can possibly come up with? 

So many of them come off like people who are trying to be bullies, who are failing at their attempt and who expect sympathy for their failure.

Every time one of those assholes raises their hand, I hear their interior monologue as "book deal, book deal, big advance".

They seem to be trying to bait him into saying something stupid or wrong for the sake of their own egos, all under the guise of public service, which is to say, they seem to have the same dedication to actual public service as he does, only with less self-awareness* or more mendacity. Tedious, tedious.

That's all for now. Hope all my reader(s) are staying safe and sane.

*Though this is wrong, the acting is obvious, bad, but they know what they are up to.

Oh, and more beautiful music for everyone!

There IS Another Side, Though

Exposure Therapy, NYC 2020

Quickish

Simply put, fuck everyone who has the audacity to complain about the bitter partisan and ideological divides in this country while actively working to undermine the political ambitions of anyone calling for universal social services.

Whatever the original intent, at this point, one has to assume that any means-tested program is specifically and deliberately meant to perpetuate the conditions it purports to solve. If you are a proponent of means-tested programs, and you don't desire to engender further inequality and polarization, you are not as smart as you think you are. Pick another axis for your self-regard.

Diary 6-?

Well. I thought I would be writing a lot. So far, not really.

It's just that there isn't much to comment on. I'm doing a lot of chores around the house to keep sane. Messing with music gear. Sort of reading. Playing a lot of video games at moments of high anxiety. I'm oscillating between seeing this state-subsidized free time as an opportunity and as something much darker.

It always gets me, after tragedy, during, "we are all X". It seems like blather. I guess if this wasn't happening everywhere, if it was just, say, NYC, there would be massive outpouring of reflexive empathy that would ring a little hollow. I never liked playing along. I won't now. I hear sirens, I barely leave the apartment, there's more than a bit of dread, difficulty focusing; the next Great American Novel won't be mine, even if I wanted to do such a thing, although the next Great American Album, well, maybe I'm inching closer. I'm experimenting, practicing, but not doing. Somehow, I feel like I can't quite let go.

The one thing I'm sure of is that I haven't been able to truly give a shit about politics since this started a little over three weeks ago. I've probably said this before, and I may say it again, but my general theory of it all, well. I think the notion of "horseshoe theory" is total bullshit, but there is one little grain of truth, which is that there are some people who want things to be different at the level of ontology. Most of these people do not agree in any way at all as to what, exactly, should be, should replace, what is. Of course, those who don't want things to change on any fundamental level, well, all of us seem to seem rather similar to them. I don't even know who us or them are, really. I just think it's funny that the people who will die obsessing, arguing with friends, rehashing and getting combative over minute, nearly-forgotten disagreements between Lenin and Trotsky, well, some idiots out there actually might think that this little coterie of rapidly-decaying septuagenarian Marxists might have something in common with, I dunno, Bolsonaro, Le Pen, blah blah. I really don't know what intelligence is sometimes; there's some sort of thing Nietzsche wrote about those of us (smarty-pants) flying high in the sky looking like little specs to those on the ground (dummies), but it works both ways, doesn't it?

As always, I lost my point somewhere up there.

Simply put, I bet most people who supported Sanders simply wanted to have some external help in the facilitation of gaining access to the exact same boring-ass life I'm certainly privileged to be living right now, one I would almost-certainly give up if it weren't for, well, the only adventure to be had until the pandemic recedes is what, exactly? Even if I was the kind of person who looted, I can't think of anywhere to steal from. So I guess I will take some small bit of pleasure in staring empty-headed out the window while waiting for other people to pack and ship and deliver bottles and cans and boxes of processed food, all of this set in motion by a few seconds of pointing and clicking, though not really. It's not really pleasurable at all, but it's an option, one I have, one many others don't.

So after Sanders, what? I wrote back in 2016 that I couldn't get excited about the whole thing, but, this time, well, maybe I, well, not excited, not even hopeful, but it seemed more urgent this time around, and not even because of Trump, but because, well, what's next?

As for everything else, whatever graft and greed is built into whatever bills have been and will be passed and signed, I don't know how to get excited about any of that. So much of the moral outrage presumes some sort of fair way to do all of this; like there's some better version of capitalism that could be occurring right now, which is precisely the ghost one has to give up. Regardless, things are moving so fast and in so many directions that I'll probably know more about the exact moment I am typing these words twenty years from now. Someone will write a book, won't they?

Maybe it's just different here in NYC. We have a lot of confirmed cases. I'm much more concerned about: when was the last time I poured some rubbing alcohol onto a paper towel and wiped the door handles? Maybe if I were elsewhere, I could watch someone scream on Youtube about something or other.

Speaking of, it really hit me how much I've lost to the Internet, now that I am totally dependent on it. I've watched a few good movies this past few weeks, and, well, if I consider one as an example (Rome, Open City), I probably saw it for the first time about seventeen years ago. I can't remember where I saw it first - was it at the National Gallery, on a massive screen, for free? Or did I, having read about it a few years before, rent it at Video Vault, possibly the best video store ever to have existed as far as I know? If I rented it at Video Vault, I likely found it in the Foreign section, not placed alphabetically, probably, but, rather, in the sub-section Rossellini, perhaps the first video in that section, because of chronology. 

It's not nostalgia, even though, all-in-all, my twenties do seem a lot better in retrospect than they were when I was experiencing them. It's something else. I'm worried about the future. Maybe video rental shops will never come back, and maybe, well, good riddance, but what of the texture of it all? It's not that I miss renting videos, although there was a lot more serendipity in that process than telling the computer what I want and having it, exactly what I want, what I already knew I wanted, coming back at me, no more, no less. It's more about - ok, so maybe I'm going to Video Vault seventeen years ago and - what is the weather, am I walking or getting a ride? What does it smell like outside? Is it Spring, did it just rain, is it twilight? Or darker, or lighter? Maybe the sun is up when I walk there, the sun is setting as I clutch a DVD case or two, walking briskly back home, in anticipation of seeing something I read about years before.

All of this worry was here pre-COVID, and it's been sort of obnoxious reading the preemptive laments for the NYC restaurant scene. The disappearance of video stores, the relegation of record stores to something obtuse, the way even the best-stocked bookstores never seem to have what I want, the way nobody except for a few counter-people at the various, dwindling in numbers, pizza places, even remembers who the hell I am, well, this is threatening to become a run-on sentence. I think, even before, living in New York, I don't feel like I am anywhere at all. The Internet replaces people. What's left, really, besides the clothing boutiques I can't afford, and, even then, when I can, who cares, really it's just the bars and restaurants. And, well, going back to the first sentence in this paragraph, well, these laments are rubbing me the wrong way because, look, where I was working before, and where I may work again, but, hopefully, not for long, after this is all over, well, you want, say, well, say it's midweek and you don't feel like cooking and you just want to pop in somewhere and grab a burger and two beers, well, at my place, which is decidedly not mine, that's probably about a $55 investment, more or less. These crying restauranteurs chose wealthy people as their clientele, and fuck them, honestly. It's true, the overpriced places where future-hedge-fund-managers can court their girlfriends in PR over future promises of the coordinated ownership of, I dunno, something in Manhattan plus something for the weekends or the summers or whatever, I guess they are better than the haute-fast-food places that were taking over, or corporate retail, or another ATM but.

It's true, I am petty, resentful, but there is a little, well-known, Italian restaurant downtown. It's expensive, but worth it, and I know the techniques I could use to be remembered, being, as I am, in the business, and yet I don't use then, not to avoid anything but just to not add to the complexity of it all, or maybe something else. The thing about this restaurant is that I have been there a few times. It's a treat I treat to myself. They don't remember me. I guess I don't go often enough, it's true, but, probably, I don't remember them. I won't.

I guess I write like I already assume you understand me to hide the fact that I don't understand me.

Rome, Open City was great, as it always was. Watching in on a computer, though. Emails come in, I check the news to see if maybe the pandemic is over. Maybe I grab a snack. The Internet rewards impulsiveness, abhors reflection, even when I am away from it, it's in my brain. Rome, Open City doesn't come with anything, that walk to Video Vault, and all the things that could happen along the way. It just comes.

More than anything, I just want to walk nowhere to do nothing. It's almost smelling like Spring.

5/6

This is going to get tedious real quickly. As far as I can tell, this is just going o be me coming on here and sayin' that I'm readin' and that's about it.

So this might be the last post for a minute until I can think of something.

Oh wait.

So, you are going to be reading a lot of articles, if you haven't already, about the damage done to the restaurant industry and while many of those writers will make some fine and salient points and all of that, the perspective will universally be one of loss and one of "if only you took us seriously" and all of that and I just want to state, for the "record" that things weren't better "back then", ie a week ago here in NYC.

Simply put, I have less anxiety thinking about - the pandemic and the possibility of friends, loved ones and myself getting sick, the economy and the possibility of a massive depression that throws millions of lives off course for a decade to come, and, of course, what will proabably be one of the shittiest and most-depressing elections of my lifetime (and I was alive in both 1980 and 2004) - than I do waiting tables. I actually feel better!

Except when I leave the house to get canned soup. That's a bit nerve-wracking. There is no social distance in a bodega, but at least there's only three or four people there. The grocery stores, from the outside, seem much worse. So, minestrone again.

For real, though...

I do feel a little ludicrous staying here, though I don't know what a better option would be. It does feel a bit as if some giant wave is about to crash and I'm sort of just waiting for it. Since we, as a nation, are not, as far as I can tell, testing for the virus at anywhere near the level we should be, I have no idea if things are objectively worse here in NYC. It could just be that we know more about what's going on here than in many other places, and it could be that we are just a bit ahead of the curve, and that by leaving, I'd just be somehow delaying the inevitable.

I hope everyone is doing as well as possible.

3/4 ish

Not much new to say, but, somehow, mentally, doing this is helping Almost halfway done with LBJV1 already.

Maybe I've said this before, but what has made me, at times, avoid reading history books is the sad feeling I get, upon reading them, that people have always, really, just been the same. I gotta face it.

I hear sirens all the time, but I'm not sure if there are more of them or if I'm just here to hear them now.

Last night, walking out for some groceries (trying to minimize trips to once every other day or so), there was someone selling hand sanitizer on the street, calling out to passersby like, I dunno, newspapers or vegetables or drugs at some other point in history.

Also, the sound of ice cream trucks. Optimism of the will.

I do feel some bitterness towards those out there still partying, oblivious, but, you know, when I saw this I had to laugh. So Providence.

So, where I'm at in The Path To Power, it's, huzzah, the Great Depression and, although there is a long list of instances of indifference when it comes to Hoover's time in office, I like this one on page 246...

"Asked why, then, so many unemployed men were selling apples on street corners, [the President] said: 'Many people have left their jobs for the more profitable one of selling apples'"