Bring Back the Doritos

I scanned past all the headlines screaming about the latest stupid thing Cheeto has done until my eyes landed on the word Robert De Niro. He had a new movie coming out, perhaps? No, he (and I guess RFK, Jr.) was/is offering $100,000 bucks to anyone who can provide evidence vaccines are safe and useful.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

Pardon the swearing, but I just—is there a disease going through America that is thoroughly sucking out the last dregs of common sense, critical thinking and empathy from everyone? In any sane world, De Niro would be out that cash in seconds, but in this world of alt facts where reality is what each individual decides it is in that particular moment, damn anything else like facts or evidence, I suppose he’ll never have to pay up. (De Niro strikes me as a welsher anyway. Would you trust a Goodfella to keep his words? Mafia codes are fiction. Excuse me, “alternative facts.”) Fuck you De Niro. I’d like my kids and my family to not have to get sick because your head is so far up your own ass it’ll never see daylight. I am So. Fucking. Tired. Of. Willful. Ignorance.

How on earth do you write horror stories in this mess? Reality is a Philip K. Dick novel without any of the fun. A Cheeto Darkly. I start to write and it feels either a) trivial—is escapism dangerous right now? or b) completely out of step—small stories about matters of the heart and connection don’t matter much when there’s a riot in the house. I haven’t stopped writing by any means, but something feels off right now. And yet—how’s this for a contradiction?—it feels more important than ever right now to create. I will not let Cheeto or any of his sycophants, cronies and puppetmasters take the act of creating away from me. It would be handing them a victory. I fight until the end.

How are you coping? I’m all over the place. Got this lovely family. I’ve spent a lot of hours in January and February playing video games, not a pastime I normally indulge in so extensively. I periodically binge watch air disaster specials. Seriously, I’m obsessed with how investigators recreate a crash and figure out what caused it. One of these things I can’t explain but I could, and do, watch them for hours. What else? Writing, if not enough. I read a history of ancient Rome, an excellent novel (Ready Player One) and now I’m re-reading A Scanner Darkly (I suspect I will be revisiting PKD more this year. Dude called this shit years ago.) I limit my social media and my news reading, making sure I keep informed but not drowning in the swamp, which would only render me ineffectual. I’m learning about where activism is for me and what it means. I listen to a lot of Mark Lanegan/Screaming Trees, Metallica and bedroom black metal (but let’s face it, that’s par for the course.) I’m going to get my bike working again and start cycling the Burke. Fresh air, wipe that Cheeto smell away. Cheetos always kinda sucked, Doritos are where it is at.

I had a thoughtful post swirling in my head about how those with no curiosity should never be in leadership roles. If you aren’t curious, you can’t learn, and if you can’t learn, you can’t lead. But I couldn’t bring it together because…I mean, what’s the point of even writing it? It won’t change anything. Won’t make the world better or help me sleep at night. It’s all in the work…the work and the coping. Stay strong and put all the love into the world you can. We all need it. We gotta bring the Doritos back to the shelves.