A Radical And Highly Experimental Undertaking: Things I like (For the Masses)
“All people are insane. They will do anything at any time, and God help anybody who looks for reasons.”
This is a truncated version of a longer entry that’s for paying subscribers. If you’re already a paying subscriber, there’s nothing here that you won’t find in the longer version, entitled Things I Like (for the Plutocracy). If you dig what you’re reading, please consider subscribing. Thanks!
What’s up, my Dogs of War? Welcome to yet another edition of Bad Sandwich Chronicles Beyond Thunderdome. I hope these aren’t becoming too much for y’all. The last thing I want to do is overwhelm you guys. I appreciate your support more than I can easily express and I want to give each and every one of you your money’s worth and I’m aware that too much of these in your inbox can quickly become more annoying than cool. BUT, I’m also bored as shit in this lockdown and writing is providing me with a modicum of sanity and a mental escape from being trapped in this house with my family. It’s no actually going outside or anything, but it’s what I got at the moment. So If this is too much, let me know. Otherwise, uh…the show, as it were, will go on as planned.
One thing this time locked up has really put into stark relief is how much I’ve realized how much I like and hate certain things that I didn’t think I had an opinion about at all, and also how many things I thought I liked or hated I just don’t actually care about at all. For example:
Touching things: Ah, touching things. This never, ever bothered me. For those of you who don’t know, I started touring in punk bands when I was sixteen. I’m currently 43. No bands I was part of got even remotely popular til about 10 years ago, and things didn’t get comfortable til about six years ago. Therefore, I’ve touched some shit, man. I’ve stayed in a house where everyone crapped into a mop bucket because the water was shut off and then they went ahead and put out their cigarettes in the bucket of turds. I can say with some assurance that if anyone is used to having to touch things that are uncool, I’m one of those people (and no…I did not touch said turds nor said cigarette butts, I’m proving a general point. I’m a reasonable man).
I’ve slept on parking lot asphalt and I’ve shared a twin bed in Nashville with 2 300 pound dudes who both had dreadlocks and scabies. I don’t LOVE those memories at all, but I bring them up to prove a point. I’ve NEVER been squeamish about anything, but today I went to the grocery store and the idea of touching the shopping cart or putting in my pin number made my skin crawl. It’s weird. I’ve been in situations that are way more disgusting and dangerous than a terrible potentially deadly flu, but this lockdown…it’ll get to you fast, right? I don’t want to even roll the windows of my car down these days. It’s weird. I feel like this is pumping an evolutionary gland that frankly we should have developed a long time ago. And I say this as one of the dirty ones. I always prided myself on not being afraid of germs. That’s just a stupid attitude now. When we CAN go back outside, that’s gonna be weird. It’s gonna make for some odd situations. For example:
Being at specific places:I’ve said for a while that the best part of being in a band isn’t being able to share your art with people or play to stoked fans or to be able to do what you love and get paid, it’s to be able to walk into a show through the back door, have your own room to piss in and couch to sit on, your own booze to drink, your own zone where you can talk to your friends at a reasonable volume and then be able to leave when you want to. That’s the kind of thing that 3 weeks ago would have sounded like just the height of privileged bullshit, or at the very least, super boring, right? But now, tell me that wouldn’t be the sweetest part of being in a band?
Shit’s weird. I used to like going to bars, the grimier the better. I miss dirty bars. Do I want to go to one right now? No. I don’t. I went to the vet today (my dog has a sprained wrist [which is the proper name for the joint above her front foot, because I displayed the same ‘uhhhh, what?’ that you’re kinda doing now]) and it was refreshingly cool to be there specifically because they wouldn’t let me inside. This is not my usual indicator of if I like going to a place. Traditionally, places that won’t let me in, I don’t like going there. But something about the way this vet cared if everyone lived or died kinda sold me on the velvet rope policy they had going on.
The idea of eating off weird plates and utensils…that’s gonna take some getting used to again, so restaurants are gonna be weird for a bit. Going down to suck off strangers in the park, once my most disease free leisure activity, likewise, gonna have to think about how to get that going again once this coronavirus clears up. Speaking of:
Seeing different people: this one is weird bc it goes both ways like a motherfucker. Some of you, I never wanted to see in the first place. Most of you, I’m totally cool with and a few of you, I’ll take on your germs as though they’re my own if it means a good hang.
This one hasn’t really changed. No germs on this or any other planet are gonna make me okay with hanging out with some people or keep me away from others. For the rest of you, let’s just fist bump for now. Someday soon we can do the analingus 69 greeting again in the tradition of our forefathers.
Mama June: Being in quarantine has forced me to finally click on a link about Mama June. Here’s the verdict: Hate her. Always hated her. I find it reductive to call her “what’s wrong with America.” It’s like calling the toxic waste in the water underneath the pollution belching factory “what’s wrong with the environment,” as opposed to pointing your finger at the factory itself.
The fact is, if it weren’t for the gross reality that Mama June was whelped in, she wouldn’t exist as she does. I find her absolutely abhorrent. I mean, she dates a child molester with her kids around. That’s so fucked up it borders on art. But she’s not what’s wrong with America. She’s the results of what’s wrong with America. People that demonize the poor, people that gut human service policy in service of avarice, and people who gleefully watch her freak circus as some sort of salve to have someone to feel superior to are what’s wrong with America.
If you want to see what’s wrong with America in a clean, easy analogy, watch Survivor. Everyone is there to backstab the shit out of everyone. You’re rewarded by voting the smartest and most talented people out of your tribe and lying and manipulating your way into a position where your skills are secondary to your prowess at hoarding things and making shaky alliances that you WILL by definition betray. Mama June is just a fat lady with terrible taste in men. People say “don’t let your kids watch Friday the 13th or Buttfuck Sluts Go Nuts 10” or whatever, but I don’t see either of those kinds of situations really happening very often in the real world. Survivor, on the other hand, uh…look around. Look at what’s happened to Bernie, and by extension, the rest of us. Talk to any career politician or reputable journalist. The Survivor template produces a country that can’t handle a bad flu or give a woman a day off the day she’s having a baby. Because the evil mediocre dipshits voted off the smart and principled ones years ago. That is the straight up evil shit, man.
Unfinished things (sentences, for example): You know what I can’t stand. It’s when….
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