I love listening to media improperly loud to try to fully understand the artists’ impact. No, I am not deaf (yet). In fact, it’s been documented that I hear shit nobody else hears, even when music is playing: “Grubhub has arrived; I heard an unfamiliar motorcar and a sedan door open”. I’m just a big fan of when the bassline or the kick drum or the ricochets flying through the surround sound sucks the air out of your lungs and you can’t help standing up and jumping around and pumping your fist in the air.
Media is anything that I can listen to: movies, music, TV, podcasts, YouTube favorites, TikTok and K-Pop Stan videos, Audible books, friends FB posts — anything I can put through my sound system and process by letting the whole neighborhood know that I am going through “this”. I think I have only been visited by the cops twice in five years, and both times, SDPD was pretty fucking impressed with two things: one, how good it sounds and two, how fast I can turn it down without turning it off. I actually have a neighbor or two that cares enough to ask me “if I am depressed” because I haven’t played concrete-slab-breaking loud music in a few weeks. That’s nice.
2020 is a Shitshow
The first time I lost my job it was easy; fall back on the Murdochs, my understanding adoptive parents that just celebrated their 54th wedding anniversary. As I grew older, I had to do it myself, sometimes with the help of those legally binding Chinese finger-traps called “wives”. Everyone who has any character whatsoever has opened the pantry door and been dismayed that you have to choose between (the equivalent of) your last box of Kraft Mac’n’Cheese, some Chef-Boy-R-Dee mini-ravioli, Rosarita refried beans, and something else with a Big Lots or Dollar Store label that you thought sounded good because you were shopping hungry to eat until tomorrow. The fridge is empty because you can’t afford gas unless you’re driving to or from an interview. You salivate thinking about the emergency can of Spam you fried up two days ago. You also have no job prospects. [ here ]
There are 40 million Americans out of work as I write this, and it is climbing; in San Diego, it is one out of 5 people I know, heading to 1 of 4.. That number is low; it isn’t accurate, and the multiple layers of opaque government has admitted as much. I have witnessed friends of mine lose 20+ years of their life’s work, investment, tender care, and passion. There’s also 125,000 dead American citizens so far this year including yet another Black man executed by local police for no fucking reason: George Floyd. 2020 is by any definition, a shitshow.
You are the Shitshow
Anyone knows me has heard me wax poetic about how I have engineered my life to ensure: no kids, no wives, no roommates, no alimony or child support, all the while keeping up my generous nature and my deeply intrusive health checks on y’all Squad members. I still have two out of three Godchildren left, and they don’t really need me anymore. I have a spectacular if energetic Neffew who I love dearly, but my brothers Kyle and Jon have that handfull handled. I have my Murdoch parents to manage and that’s why I moved back to San Diego with this ridiculous California sunshine tax that I can’t live without about two decades ago. I have three wonderful kitlets that actually care more for me than I care for them; the benevolent Tyrannosaurus does have opposable thumbs for working a wet-fud can opener. The Trailer Park Boys call this the “Shit Blizzard”.
Just accept that you are definitely part of the problem. Until that happens, nobody is going to be able to see eye-to-eye, no matter what your different opinions are. I am what is savaged as a a cis-het white ableist privileged human in America with a great job I have done from home for years. I am lucky, because I am thee Froggacuda. I have to share the love as best I can, even if it is sitting alone in my garage playing loud music.
Suck it up, Buttercup.
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