My girlfriend saw her ex across the room and was insistent about talking to him alone. I could hear everything they were saying, and then I couldn’t. She was gone when I looked over again.
“She had to sort something out with him.” That was the waitress, a once lovely woman with too much mascara. “I hope you have a healthy relationship.”
“The lies of love and how this millennia-old myth has kept civilization barely afloat.” I finished both drinks and ordered again.
There was a graffitied phone booth in between the bathrooms, and the phone actually worked. She didn’t answer. But my mother did. She was disappointed in me and wanted to know where I was. Things just got worse from there.
Bullying is the avatar of these ill-tempered days. Whatever the argument – beliefs, politics or sport – the road to take is straight to hell. And while I know that this rage-baiting is all drivel, that people taunt because they’re scared and stupid, they remain an exhausting pain.
I was taunted throughout my high school days. Craig Nettie, Adam Moreland and Andrew McAlpine took turns mocking me for my bad skin, ill-fitting clothes and nerdy music, all of it just to make me feel bad. And it really pissed me off. Mike Czurfisz was a different sort, hair slanted perfectly over his forehead, laid back, incredibly so, posture so easy going, it didn’t seem practiced. He never got mad and got along with everyone.
Mike Czurfisz, St. Andrew’s College, 1977
Mike spoke to me a couple of times, once when there was an outbreak of swine flu at school – he taught us to press the thermometer against the radiator before giving it back to the nurse and get classes cancelled for a week – and then at the spring concert when I managed to dance with a girl until Stairway to Heaven got too fast. “You played that cool, man. She likes you.”
I’ve been thinking about what Mike Czirfusz is doing to handle this age of hate. Does he let it slide and wait for the next cool thing? Or does he bristle now because his daughters are out there and none of this is any good? Whatever it might be, it’s something better than I’m doing, because I’m ready to snap at the next yap. Come on, Mike, give me a hint. I need it.
Things that appear important one moment mean nothing the next. I flit wherever, getting hit, somehow surviving, capitalism outraging and comforting me all at once, not To strive and not to yield but How is the Dow right now?
Pam Bondi asks, “Why are you laughing?”
Is it all doom scrolling or just more fallout from this administration from hell? Am I stupider than I already was? All I know is that I’ll keep on betting, whether I’m on a streak or just trying to get some of it back. I’ve got Ice Age at +4200, and I feel good about that.
How noble in reason, How infinite in faculty…In apprehension, how like a god, The paragon of animals. As much as Hamlet’s self reflection glows at the outset, it slumps in the end. What is this quintessence of dust? No, man delights me not; no, nor woman neither.
Everyone, each and every one of us, disappoints in the end, not just our government lying and hoarding, but our family and friends not there, our nearest and dearest terribly sorry that they forgot, or worst of all, me and you, looking back at each other cow-eyed.
This isn’t so much the big things – the state-sponsored murders and collapse of world order – but more the moments that we hold tight, that made us realize the essential sham, for me, the Mad Hatter themed birthday party I went to when I was ten, the promise of food-fighting madness turning out to be being yelled at as our Redi-Whip sodden plates flopped to the ground, or visiting the CHUM radio station for my contest prize and being directed to pick out an LP from a discard box in the corner. This was victory.
Disappointments continue unabated not because I am a failing writer nor my failures in relationships nor even my success at getting fired but because of what this is, a demanding vortex that surrenders nothing but more days to witness everything go to hell. The good news is that, like the song says, The first cut is the deepest. More of the same is on the way. I would only say that it’s best to keep the curtain closed; if there’s anything back there, it’s a pestilent old man, and he wants to rape you.
10. The Times They Are A’Changing (Bob Dylan) He spoke through his cloak, most deep and distinguished/ And handed out strongly for penalty and repentance/ William Zanzinger with a six-month sentence
9. Animals (Pink Floyd) Have you heard the news?/ The dogs are dead/ You better stay home/ And do as you’re told/ Get out of the road if you want to grow old
8. Never Mind the Bollocks (Sex Pistols) Blind acceptance is a sign/ Of stupid fools who stand in line
7. Fear of a Black Planet (Public Enemy) Elvis was a hero to most/ But he never meant shit to me/ That sucker was/ Simple and plain/ Motherfuck him and John Wayne
6. Live Through This (Hole) Make me real, fuck you/ Make me sick, fuck you
5. Battle for Los Angeles (Rage Against the Machine) An army of pigs try to silence my style/ Off ’em all out that box/ It’s my radio dial
4. The Lonesome Crowded West (Modest Mouse) Drunk on the Amtrak/ Please shut up!/ Another rider/ He was a talker/ Talking about TV/ Please shut up!
3. The Fragile (NIN) Like you said, you and me make it through/ Didn’t quite, fell apart, where the fuck were you?
2. Let England Shake (PJ Harvey) I have seen and done things I want to forget/Soldiers fell like lumps of meat/ Blown and shot out beyond belief/ Arms and legs were in the trees
1. Rid of Me (PJ Harvey) I might as well be dead/ But I could kill you instead
Let’s be honest. The problem isn’t just in the bots making crazy posts, the tailgating Camaro, the halfwit half-brother or the dipshit daughter-in-law. It’s in all of us. As nice as it is to blame an unhinged president, or fentanyl and oil or lockdowns and raids, that’s missing the point. Why did we let it happen? What did we do? What about me and you?
I went to a Ratdog concert (with Bob Weir) at The Beacon Theater in 2006, introduced by none other than Donald Trump. It was a joke for most, many yelling out “You’re fired!” But how did he get there? Why did we let him on the stage? I mean, really, why did we do that?
Those bloody hats
That orange bloated monster is all of us, that fear and anger, that vainglorious stupidity that we’re better than we are, that we deserve more than we have. As much as we might hate to admit that we’re in a fat suit and our skin just isn’t right, we are that fucking guy.
The island where I was born has untold manifestations in my head. It is tiny and vast, empty and overbuilt, extensions from every building, every building gone, the path across hills and prairies, leading to a barren rocky point that never was.
I’ve circumnavigated the island many times, down from a steep ridge, the water choked with ice, a canoe at the ready. I need to go back for a paddle and watch everyone leave. There’s a menagerie of animals in the water, fish and seal, cats and birds, and a miniature sheep that fits in my pocket. Half asleep, I do the breast stroke to the bottom.
A message from my realtor comes through; someone wants to buy the island. I’ve already left. That’s what I text. I don’t intend to return. I get a question mark back and reply with a meme of the sheep in my pocket.
The shitty (tragic?) parts of my life have tended to poison things that I love, including favorite music. Low, a band I once saw in concert every year, has been off my playlist ever since Mimi Parker, a member of the duo, died suddenly of cancer. It’s been three years now. As much as I miss the music, I can’t listen. Not yet.
Alan and Mimi play Low music in Fargo (2010)
A similar grief hit when my friend Gord Downie, the lead singer of The Tragically Hip, died although I was more prepared for his death, given his prognosis. It wasn’t grief as much as mourning, as Joan Didion differentiated in The Year of Magical Thinking. I attended one of his final concerts, and then he died. As much as I miss him, his music provides comfort.
Gord singing and contorting at Fort Henry in the ’90s
The poisoning is more intense when it comes on a personal level. I very much enjoyed Modest Mouse until a student I associated the music with committed suicide. And then, as they sing on Polar Opposites, I’m trying to drink away the part of the day that I cannot sleep away.
I’ve had a couple of relationships turn terribly sour and drag the joy of the music with them. The death of an ex made The Red Hot Chili Peppers feel dark and awful, while Sufjan Stevens, once a great passion, was dragged into a quagmire of triggering memories. I’m working on getting his music back into my head.
Sufjan plays Christmas Unicorn at The Bowery Ballroom
In the end, this self-cleaning of music, loving it once and then not, allowing it to creep back in, knowing it again, almost feels like wisdom, or at least the closest I will ever get to a thing like that.
Phil plays one of his last shows at The Capital Theatre
I thought it was funny at first, this guy mimicking my every move. He was one of those fake plant people that popped out of nowhere and he got the nervous laugh.
I smiled as I walked away, but he wouldn’t stop, imitating my every step and gesture, every facial expression, always staring back. I wanted him to stop. I told him that. And he said it right back.
“No, I mean it.”
“No, I mean it.”
“I’m not fucking Pee Wee Herman.”
That drew a gasp, especially when he repeated that.
I pushed him, which he did back, and came after me. And so I punched him good and made him hurt. I was the villain and accepted that happily.
The Sacred Whore is a dark comic thriller that digs into the chronic ills of our spastically contradictory world. We care. But we don’t. What better way to address that malaise than through shootouts, car chases and furiously sexy women?
Sean Baker’s magnificent Tangerine, his first film to focus on sex workers
It begins with a tractor-trailer trip across the country during which one of the sex workers, Corinne, assaults a would-be rapist, altering the direction of their journey. Some of the women – led by Ave and Dorothy – decide upon an outrageous plan to kidnap a college basketball team at the Final Four Tournament and demand primetime coverage to air their views on the moral destitution in America.
Others, led by Corinne, Chantal and Savannah, leave for Las Vegas where they confront JP, the queen-pin in charge of the sex trafficking network. The original group, now named The New World Brigade, dress up as cheerleaders and successfully hijack the college team bus. In Las Vegas, after maiming JP and executing her security team, Corinne is badly wounded by a police counter attack.
Chantal and Savannah find themselves in a hostage-taking situation and reach out to The New World Brigade, hoping to obtain leverage. After tense negotiations with the authorities, The New World Brigade returns with the team to the arena where each of the women post video statements on the travails of sex work. Chantal kidnaps a FBI agent, leading to a car chase in which she and Savannah are both killed. Stunned by this tragic turn of events, Ave delivers an emotional speech on live television, the final scene revealing Corinne opening her eyes to watch the broadcast from her hospital bed.
The Sacred Whore empowers and celebrates sex workers as complex individuals, rather than the tropes and cartoonish figures we have become accustomed to seeing. Outrageous truth drives the spectacle.
