March 10
Our bartender the other night was shit talking the Lakers. I hate it when people shit talk the Lakers.
March 23
My neighbor invited his girlfriend over today. I noticed because she has a cough. That’s what this is like - the paranoia is setting in.
News reports are of hospitals and state governments scrambling to prepare, securing ventilators and masks - you know the kind: N95 masks - a term forever scarred into our public conscience (and likely a pub trivia question in a decades time).
The government is passing Universal Basic Income, another foreign term made familiar. I went from not expecting any changes at work, to not working for two weeks, to not working indefinitely. I cashed my last Early Bird checks today just in case.
Saturday I went to Newport to meet up with some friends. Seemed harmless.
Two guys walked past our group, pizza and claws in hand. We joked about how expensive that must’ve been with the grocery stores currently raided, as people were preparing to ration supplies of food.
I was in way too relaxed a mood, it was Gino that noticed: ‘MAGA’ hats.
Maybe I was in the wrong place.
The news that weekend was busy showing scenes from across LA of pure ignorance: pickup games in Venice, beer pong in Manhattan, and packed beaches in Newport.
I met her aunt and uncle this weekend. Maybe I should amend that, I saw her aunt and uncle this weekend. They waved to us as they got in their car to go, we were smoking cigarettes by the curb, I was likely just some random neighbor.
They had stopped over because her grandma had passed recently. She was clearly affected, but what do you say to someone you’re only newly intimate with? The same for any other I suppose, I provided company and an escape - the company yours truly, the escape an eighth of mushrooms.
We went for a walk.
420
April 20, 2020 : 04/2020 AKA Eternally 420
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live. . . We look for the sermon in the SUICIDE, or the moral lesson in the murder of five. We live entirely. . . by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the ‘ideas’ with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.”
- Joan Didion, The White Album
Phantasmagoria:
a sequence of real or imaginary images like those seen in a dream.
The incoherence is the essence, that seems to me a fine way to encapsulate this collection.
These are the heroes of our revolution. They exude bravery as the World tries to crush them. They are tired of feeling misunderstood, unsure of how to express their feelings of anguish. They display hope in the face of police, with guns drawn. They call for peace when all they feel is anger.
Look at their anguish. What drove them to this? They’re treated inhumane by a system we all benefit from. That’s why we’re creating the discomfort - we’re here to force you to consider your implicit role in upholding it.
This is a revolution. The political system has been corrupted by money, the politicians elected no longer represent us. The laws produced are not just, and the police are tasked with upholding them regardless of morality. That’s why we protest the police - they are the barrier to our political system, they serve to protect the institutions in place, as agents against change. We no longer have faith that the changes necessary can be produced from within the system, to cry for patience is to be complicit in the effects of the system's continuation.
June 2020
I’ve made peace with my devils, and said my goodbyes to those who require one. With no explicit goal, I intend to wander the deserts for lack of anything else to do. It’s been an anxiety filled few days preparing to leave, but it bears remembering: discomfort is the point. In our discomfort we often learn new things about ourselves and our capabilities. I’m tired of sitting around, and as they say, action begets action.
We left early, and similar to trips in the past our ambitions seemed to bend reality. We somehow had given ourselves plenty of time, yet were running tight to make our hard 6pm check in time. The email said no exceptions. It also said not to ask for exceptions. We raced through the desert, pushing the Ranger to speeds I had previously said were off limits because of the age of the truck. St. George flew by, sorry Greg, and so did the small towns and red rock vistas. I packed another bowl, took another hit, passed another town, turned up the music, and raced into nowhere.
There’s something here to experience, even if that just means enduring the Utah heat. If it’s understanding the piercing silence, or crushing sense of isolation, we’re here to experience it. We’ve come away with beautiful vistas, great conversations, and saturated sunsets. What purpose those serve, we aren’t sure, but the experience has been beholden to the desert’s continuous cycle of pain and reward. This is a trip of endurance.
When Sofala told her dad about the idea for this trip his reply was, “That’s weird.” Our friends kept asking why and we couldn’t really ever formulate an answer. We don't know why, and maybe that’s the point. We’re chasing romantic ambitions, ideals set before us in culture that we want to see on our own. We’re Chasing Cowbois(?).
Cheers, to more frigid nights, scorching hikes, frightening heights, stunning sights, and desert flights. Onward, toward oblivion, chasing meaningless desires.
July 16
“Does he remember
When he asked me, ‘is it love,
Or just quarantine?’
I swallowed my tongue.
‘This is best for us,’
He said as if it's gospel
I swallowed my pride.
Today he told me
He broke our rule
I swallowed my tears”
Coryntined (Verb): To get fucked [over].
July 20
The sting of cigarette smoke to the eye and the burn of sucking down a flame while lighting a roach are sensations unique to the smoker. In their subtle ways they hint to us their danger, while remaining our tempting vices.
To submit to this emotion is similar to submitting to love, irrational and chaotic.
