It’s Columbus Day or Indigenous People’s Day or American Genocide Day (I like to cover all the bases), so it seems like a good time to drop some quick and dirty thoughts I’m currently having. Haven’t done this in a while.
1. In a dark world, my daughter’s generation gives me hope. M. and I discussed Columbus Day a couple of days ago. She asked me to tell her all the bad things Columbus did to the Native Americans he encountered when he got here. I thought it was question, but it was actually a test. She wanted to see if I would tell her all the horrible things that Columbus did, which she already knew about because she just learned it in her social studies class. I listed a few of the things I remembered: slavery, murder, and his “gifting” of blankets and clothing infected with smallpox, one of the first instances of biological warfare in history, none of which I learned in school myself. She nodded sagely in response, seemingly pleased that I hadn’t left anything out. There’s no whitewashing history in her generation, at least not in my wonderful blue state, and that’s a beautiful thing. You’re not going to improve society and develop more astute citizens in the future by pretending that bad things didn’t happen in the past, or by framing history in a way that ignores or rationalizes slavery, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. That said, I made sure she understood that while we have to recognize and condemn the horrible things Columbus and his successors did, one must also analyze them within the context of history and remember that we’re retroactively applying today’s moral and ethical standards to his conduct, which happened centuries ago, in the Middle Ages. This in no way justifies or “explains” anything Columbus did to Native Americans, but it took an insane amount of courage to embark into the unknown at a time when maps were only suggestions, and death was a real possibility. That’s something we should acknowledge and appreciate while deploring the appalling things he did. Also, the only way to explore the world at that time was to have a wealthy colonialist power fund it. They didn’t do it for charity; they were looking to profit from their investment, so they had certain requirements in order to facilitate their theft of land and natural resources from the “New World.” Slavery and the genocide of Native Americans arose from this greed.
She understood all this but still thinks Columbus was an asshole. This is progress, my friends.
2. It’s pretty wild what we get used to, isn’t it? The human mind is so resilient. In many ways this is a blessing, as it allows us to get over the death of loved ones, the aches and pains of getting older, and adapting to a new job or school, among many other things. But it’s also a curse. Resilience to eating a shit sandwich every day is a net negative in life, not a net positive. Cognitive dissonance is such a powerful drug. You see it everywhere if you pay attention.
Case in point. As the United States embarks on a fast march towards martial law, it’s stunning to look around and see what so many people in the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave” have willingly accepted without so much as a whimper in protest. The first lesson in Timothy Snyder’s book, On Tyranny is “Do not obey in advance.” But this is exactly what’s happened in the past 10 months. People are obeying a tyrant in advance. Everyone from those self-interested eunuchs in Congress, to 90% of the voting population, to law firms, universities, and even the Supreme Court, which has chosen to issue decisions that give American presidents sweeping powers, something that is not required by the U.S. Constitution. This is a choice, not a necessity. Any Supreme Court Justice can craft a cogent argument and legal justification to reach a preferred result. It clearly is choice because all of these decisions were hotly contested by other Justices who wrote powerful dissents. This SCOTUS, which contains at least two Justices–Thomas and Alito–who are bought and sold by powerful interests, has not risen to this fascist moment at all. It’s chosen not to look past its nose to the true impact of its myopic and blatantly partisan decisions when it comes to the presidency. We are all paying the price for it because the fascist they’ve enabled is in the process of committing the most abusive, illegal, and corrupt presidential power grab in American history.
Most Americans are obeying that fascist in advance. People have gotten used to the fact that an immoral, unethical pig and wannabe mafia king currently holds the levers of power. Public expectations for this particular person–who just admitted on live television that he has zero chance of getting into heaven, which is definitely the most self-aware and honest thing he’s ever said–are located 1000 miles beneath the earth’s crust. People expect him to be a corrupt criminal. Rather than resist his unconstitutional power grab and the public way he’s lining his own pockets, they’re capitulating by doing whatever he demands of them without a fight. Law firms cut deals with him within weeks of his presidency because he threatened to block their access to lucrative government contracts and clients. Universities cut deals with him because he threatened to cut their federal funding if they didn’t bring the hammer down on pro-Palestinian activist students and end DEI and “progressive” policies. As for the average American, we expect nothing from him at all. On the contrary, we expect him to be corrupt, to lie and to steal. And here I’m talking about his opponents. His supporters are so fucking deluded, they’ve convinced themselves that he’s honest and everything he’s doing is totally legal and great for all of us. Some of them think this country NEEDS a dictator! This is how far we’ve sunk. So it fazes no one when he does something new that’s totally illegal and would get any other President impeached, if not arrested and jailed.
I mean this guy is a PEDOPHILE who was best friends with Jeffrey Epstein for more than a decade for fuck’s sake! We’ve gotten used to the fact that the same people who promised to release all of the Epstein files are now blocking their release because they include photos–and more likely, videos–of Trump with the young girls he raped year after year before Epstein went to jail. “Jail.” Pam Bondi and Kash Patel who swore they’d release all the files before the election are now cosplaying clowns who blatantly lie to Congress while trolling representatives like third-graders. If there’s any justice in this world, both of them will eventually see perjury and obstruction counts and hopefully real jail time.
So to sum up, we’ve all been groomed by a pedophile, and to make matters worse, our Pedo-In-Chief is in the process of sending federal troops to blue cities like Chicago, Portland, and Los Angeles on a pretext so it will be that much easier to fuck with elections next year. And what are the American people and all of our institutions, with the exception of MIT, a few law firms, a sprinkling of governors, and some very brave federal judges saying and doing in response to all of this fascism?
We’re asking our Pedo-In-Chief where he would like to touch us next.
3. In case you’re stupid enough to ask me why I’m still complaining about the Israeli regime’s genocide when there’s been a “ceasefire” and Palestine is now supposedly “free,” here’s my answer:
There’s no “ceasefire.” The Israeli regime doesn’t do ceasefires. It just kills fewer people while expecting no casualties on its own side, lest the full-scale bombing and starvation begin anew. That’s not a ceasefire, and Palestine is not remotely close to being “free.” It’s still an open-air concentration camp under total domination by a sadistic oppressor that has no intention of ever leaving.
I’m only happy about one thing. By now allowing hundreds of aid trucks into Gaza, which should have happened during the first “ceasefire” last January, the Israeli regime finally admitted, implicitly, if not overtly, that it’s been intentionally starving civilians for most of this year, which is a clear war crime. Yes, I’m happy that Palestinians are joyous and will finally be getting the basic nutrition that the Israeli regime, their 80-year old prison guard, is temporarily allowing to reach them. But I don’t think this “ceasefire” will last very long. Why? Because the biggest war criminal Nazis in the Israeli regime–Ben-Gvir and Smotrich–haven’t resigned from the government. That’s a huge tell. If those Nazis aren’t leaving in protest like they threatened to do with the last “ceasefire,” they clearly know that this “ceasefire” is just another rope-a-dope, much like the current “ceasefire” in Lebanon, where the Israeli regime has been killing Lebanese civilians since that fake “ceasefire” started earlier this year.
I’ll be happy if I’m wrong and this ceasefire actually sticks, contrary to history and all evidence. The regime has destroyed 90% of Gaza with more megatonnage than was used on Dresden and Hiroshima combined during World War II. Virtually the entire population has been displaced and is starving. These people need a break from the regime’s holocaust. Gaza needs to be rebuilt, and I hope it happens as quickly as possible. I hope all of the hospitals, universities, apartment buildings, mosques, and homes that these modern-day Nazis destroyed will be rebuilt in record time, and I hope more countries recognize a Palestinian State.
But all the innocent people the regime senselessly murdered, including 20,000 children–with tens of thousands more maimed and orphaned–won’t be coming back. So I won’t be happy until Palestine is truly free, and I don’t see that happening any time soon. For me there’s nothing to celebrate right now, other than the fact that Gazans will finally be nourished to some extent and most of the world now hates the Israeli regime, as well it should. This agreement could have happened two years ago because the same deal was on the table then. So many lives could have been saved. But the Israeli regime refused, for purely political reasons, so here we are.
4. On a lighter note, I recently made one of my dreams come true: I finally saw Chappell Roan in concert. For the past few months, she’s been doing these pop-up shows in small venues, a final round of concerts before she begins writing songs for a new album. Tickets were expensive and really hard to get given the small venues, but she did this really cool thing where she reserved a certain number of tickets at face value prices for an online lottery that you had to sign up for to qualify. I registered for all three of her shows in Forest Hills, and I miraculously got accepted for one of the lotteries. I logged on at the set time and managed to grab two tickets for myself and M. They went super fast, and I had no clue where I’d be sitting because the seating chart was crude and I had to hurry, but I got them. I couldn’t believe it. M. was over the moon when I told her.
We went and had the best time. Chappell Roan is so damn good live. She has her ballads of course, but she also has this hard rock edge that I think will manifest even more in her next album. She ripped a Barracuda cover almost as well as Heart did. The crowd was also a spectacle in itself, with all the pink hats, drag queens, and costumed fans.
Here are a few pics I took:
I even bought a hat as an homage to one of my favorite Chappell songs:
There were definitely a few awkward moments, like when she was gyrating on stage, and the lyrics to ‘Casual’ and ‘Naked In Manhattan’ aren’t exactly kid-friendly, especially with a daughter who pays acute attention to song lyrics. But we had a blast. Hopefully it’s another life experience memory with her father that M. will carry with her long after I’m gone.
5. Single life = a more creative life. Someone said this on TikTok the other day. Single people are much more creative than people in relationships are. On the surface, it sounds like a bitter stereotype. Nothing is ever universally true, and there are exceptions to everything, of course, but after I saw this, I concluded that this is definitely true of me and my own life. I’ve always been more creative when I’ve been single.
(And not just in bed. I kid! I kid!)
I’m not sure why this is, but I think it has something to do with having more time, emotion, and attention available to devote to something other than another person. As wonderful relationships are, they require a lot of energy if you want the relationship to work. When you’re single, you retain all of that time, emotion, and energy in reserve within yourself, so you’re able to invest them in other things, whether it’s art, the gym, travel and experiencing a new place, or 100 other things. Yes, you can do these things in a relationship too, but it’s not as easy, and it requires more planning. You’re also constantly having to factor in how someone else feels about the time you’re spending on yourself and your interests and worrying about potential resentment. That mental process can be taxing. Relationships can cap one’s creativity and limit what one can do and when, especially if you have a job and a kid to raise, which further limits your time. Everything’s a tradeoff, obviously, and a good relationship makes it worthwhile to cut into one’s creativity and try to strike the right balance. But it’s interesting how some people who glorify relationships and treat them as this necessary goal in life, as if you’re winning a race or achieving some higher human station, sometimes fail to recognize the costs associated with them, like the limitations they sometimes impose on one’s creativity and self-expression.
6. Speaking of single life, the strangest thing happened to me a few weeks ago. Last year at this time I went out with someone I met on Bumble who lived in NJ, about a half-hour drive from me. We had dinner and then went to this cool Edgar Allan Poe reading in an old, landmarked 1800s house that was located right next to the Hudson River, where hosts dress in old-fashioned garb and read Poe’s poems and short stories in the dark while you sit at an old wooden table with candles and this incredible fireplace in the back, drink homemade cider, and eat apple donuts (also homemade).
We had a good time, and there was decent attraction between us, so we made plans to see each other again. We were texting about our plans a few days later and finalized a day to meet. About two hours after we picked a day to get together again, she texted me and told me that she’d thought about it and wasn’t interested in a second date. No explanation, just ‘sorry for any confusion, thanks for a nice night, vaya con dios.’
Now, as I’ve previously discussed, rejection is a big part of dating today, and it’s a two-way highway I’ve driven on plenty of times. But this one surprised me because we’d had a decent connection, or so I thought, and her 180 came out of nowhere because we’d been making plans right before she sent this text. So I was like, uhh… okay, but could you give me more of an explanation for your change of heart? She responded that she wasn’t really interested in doing an exit interview, which is funny as fuck in retrospect, but it annoyed me at the time because it was kind of a dickish response. I wished her well, and we went our separate ways, no hard feelings. I never expected to hear from this person again, nor did I particularly care to.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I woke up on a Saturday morning, picked up my phone, and there appeared a text from her from out of nowhere. She said that she’d been thinking about me and our date last year and what a good time we had, and she’d like to see me again if I’m interested. No pressure otherwise, no worries.
I know I’m an acquired taste for many (most?) women but a fucking year later? I was pretty surprised, and to say I felt validated would be an understatement. The funny thing is, she’d popped into my head a few days before, just in passing, and I wondered how she was doing. I swear I’m clairvoyant, if only I could maximize these powers.
While I was thinking about whether or not to respond, she sent me another text asking if I would be interested in going hiking that day. That day?? I hadn’t even responded yet. For all she knew, I had a girlfriend. I mean…. What the fuck?
I wrote back telling her that I appreciated her texts but I’m really big on consistency, honesty, and directness these days, and she made me feel like a jackass by responding in the cavalier way she did a year ago. I needed more of an explanation about what happened last time before I could agree to see her again. She responded that she was sorry about what happened, that she’d been overwhelmed with work and a kid going off to college soon, and she’d decided that dating was just too much for her at the time.
Sidenote: So why not just say that then? Why is it so hard for some people to just spit facts instead of treating people like disposable napkins? I didn’t say that last part, but it’s something I constantly wonder. Why is it so hard to just be honest and straight with people? You save them time and allow them to move forward and find someone who actually deserves them, instead of leaving them wondering and questioning themselves. Instead of being direct, people lie, dissemble, or ghost because they’re incapable of having an uncomfortable conversation or sending an explanatory text. It’s really not that fucking hard.
Anyway, long story short, we exchanged a few more messages, and she was sufficiently authentic that I decided to see her again.
We met for dinner that same night. Who says Virgos aren’t spontaneous?
To my surprise–I’m jaded as fuck once I get burned by someone, and they’re definitely on a ‘prove it’ contract afterwards–we had a really great time. Better than our first date, actually. Dinner followed by drinks at a place nearby that had live music, I got a good buzz on, and we capped it off with a nice, romantic walk down to a pier that had an amazing view of the Cuomo Bridge.
Yadda yadda yadda.
We agreed to see each other again (again). I joked that I was giving her a two-week window to change her mind this time. I was kidding, but not really. That I’m a fool for love is well-documented here, but I rarely get fooled twice. We didn’t know each other well, she certainly didn’t have the best track record, and I’ve learned to expect anything from people, especially early on. Emotional investments have to be earned now.
We stayed in contact and were making plans to get together again for a hike the next weekend we were both free (conveniently two weeks away). Sure enough, a couple of days later she sends me a text saying something along the lines of ‘I’m very attracted to you, but I need an emotional connection before physical intimacy, and I’m not feeling an emotional connection, so let’s not keep making plans. Thank you for a great night the other night. I wish you the best!’
At least I wasn’t blindsided this time. My response was something along the lines of ‘Ummm… okay, I understand. I enjoyed my time with you too, but in my experience, emotional connections require more than a couple of dates. Regardless, your rapid 180s really aren’t working for me. You’re a lovely person, and I wish you the best.’
Thank you again, therapy. You’re worth your weight in gold.
The strange thing is, after our ‘I wish you the bests,’ I thought we’d go our separate ways wookin’ pa nub in all da wong pwaces, but she texted me a day later regarding something innocuous that we’d talked about on our date, and then followed it up with some parenting book recommendations relating to something else we’d talked about regarding M. I thanked her but was quite confused to say the least, wondering what she wanted from me going forward because I really thought we were done communicating. I was pretty detached at this point, but I’ve found that when I don’t have an emotional investment in someone and don’t expect anything from them and vice-versa, my boundaries can be a little more flexible. She’s interesting, really smart, has a great voice, and is quirky as hell. I’m rarely surprised by people, so I guess a demented part of me enjoys her curveballs. Plus I really am looking for someone to hike with around here.
A few texts later, after I left things alone for a few days, she wrote to ask me if I’d be fine with a friendship. I responded that I appreciated the clarity and would be fine with a friendship. Life is short, and it’s been a while since I made a new friend. It’s been easygoing and fun between us ever since. As my dear, departed father used to say when he had no answer to something: “We’ll see what happens.”
7. I’m actually enjoying dating right now, for the first time in years. One would think the above would have soured me on dating, or made me jaded or whatever, but it’s the opposite. I’m actually enjoying myself now because I’m not taking anything too seriously until I have to. I’ve had a nice run of great dates with people with whom I have a lot in common and see real potential. It’s all about having the right mentality. Looking forward, not backwards. Being focused on the future, not the past. Being truly present with someone and giving them a real chance when we’re together, and not needing something to work out. Cutting ties when I’m not feeling it, and not getting too down when she isn’t feeling it. Recognizing that dry spells don’t mean anything, and they always end. Investing in myself during those periods and enjoying my passions. But most of all, not depending on anyone to define my value or supply my needs. I look at some of my old posts sometimes and cringe about where I used to be on some of this. Jesus. It’s my journey though, and what a journey it’s been.
The funny thing is, the more I embrace this mentality, the more unexpected connections I’m finding without even trying. It’s a self-fulling prophecy, and they take many forms. I was sitting on the train the other night, coming home late from the city after a fun date with someone new who I think I really like, and this guy around my age with a white beard walks by my seat and starts talking to me. I had my headphones on, so I couldn’t hear him. I took them off, and he goes: “You’re an old-timer like me. You look great, man. You’ve really got it together, all dressed up, looking great, looking cool, still doing it. You’ve still got it – keep it up, man.” HAHAHAHAHA. I thanked him sincerely, and he proceeded down the aisle. It was so unexpected and surreal, as if my guardian angel was telling me I was on the right track and to keep on keeping on.
He was drunk off his ass, but still. It might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me at 1:00 a.m.
8. I heard this theory of time and space the other day that I can’t stop thinking about. It goes like this. Our lives are like books or movies where we’re the main character in the story. The book or movie is already a finished product. It’s already scripted in its entirety. It exists and is totally complete. But our current experience in the story depends entirely on what page we’re on in the book, or how far into the movie we are. We already know what previously happened in the story, and we know what page we’re on or what scene we’re in, because we’re living it second by second, minute by minute, but we don’t know what awaits in the next sentence or paragraph of the book, or next few seconds and minutes of the movie because we haven’t gotten that far yet. And we won’t know the ending of the book or movie until they happen with our death.
Time is an illusion. There is no past, present, or future because as stated, the book/movie of our lives are already written. They’re already finished products. It’s only our subjective experience of them in the “present” that we know and feel. So time is a trick of the mind that allows us to experience our lives second by second in order to satisfy the true purpose of our existence, whatever it is, evolution, spiritual development, etc. Our perception of our subjective reality in this existence is also an illusion. The illusion falls away when we die, and then we see the whole book or movie for what it was, and how it fits in to our life’s purpose.
This makes my head spin, but it resonates as true for me. Which begs a few questions. Does this mean that time travel is actually possible? Maybe at the correct vibration? If time doesn’t actually exist, it theoretically should be possible for us to flip back to a different chapter in our book, or rewind our movie to relive a scene or see people or relive moments we miss, shouldn’t it? Can we change the course of our future lives in the book/movie by making different choices in the present, or is it all pre-scripted and thus preordained? If we can make different choices and change our own future, would this happen in our current reality/book/movie, or would it simply mean we’ve just shifted to a different timeline/book/movie due to that choice, one of the infinite timelines/books/movies that are available to us as human being avatars? Maybe those books and movies are organic, living things in and of themselves, or maybe they’re just an impossibly sophisticated program created by an AI that took everything over in the year 5420?
Maybe the “God” that so many people believe in is actually a highly evolved AI that we created ourselves? Maybe we’re just living out what that AI created? Maybe we created our own reality by creating that AI?
Now I need a drink. Or an edible.
9. Next stop: Budapest and Vienna in November. I’m going to visit my brilliant niece who’s studying in Vienna for the semester. Yes, there’s some redundancy with my trip to Prague, but fuck it, I’m looking forward to it.
10. Wrapping this up with a few lyrics from songs I currently have on heavy rotation. I’m feeling Lola Young and Sombr big-time right now. Recommend.
Do you see the man on the screen
Just a puppet but you never see the strings
Calling it a war n not a genocide
Telling us it isn’t what it seems
Man that’s a different kind of greed
Love me now
Hold me down
And the government
Staying on heavy foot
And they tried to keep us all down
— Heavy Foot, Mon Rovia
I’ve never felt anything
Like the love from my final days
Why’d you wait
To show me you could do it this way?
Whoa, I’ll never look at you, look at you the same
We met in a Paris café
I said, “Can I sit with you? Comment ça se fait?”
My mistake
If I’d known that it would happen this way
I’d never looked at you, looked in the first place
Was it always in your plan to leave eventually?
Because to me, there’s no one else that could make sense to me
The last and final puzzle piece
In a room full of people, I look for you
Would you avoid me or would you look for me too?
Tell me, is our story through? (Through)
Or do our hearts still beat in tune?
— 12 to 12, Sombr
Here we are, back again
Fightin’ what’s in front of me
There’s so much to unpack again
But if I come to Italy
We could be nice to each other
Nice to each other
Wrong for each other, right for each other
And rise to each other
Rise to each other, mm-mm-mm
I don’t know where the switches are
Or where you keep the cutlery
And I’ll probably crash your stupid car
And make your life a misery
But we could be nice to each other
Nice to each other
Wrong for each other, right for each other
And rise to each other
Rise to each other, mm-mm-mm
‘Cause, you know, I’ve done all the classic stuff
And it never works, you know it
So can we say we’ll never say the classic stuff?
To show it
Now and know it
Now, now-now-now
— Nice to Each Other, Olivia Dean
Cold night, strange dreams
Memory stuck like glue
Her face, her voice
Sail across the seas with you
Can you hear all the angels?
When you feel like you’re out there on your own
Know there is someone watching over you
When out at sea, feels love can let go
Oh sailor, we will blow the wind right
But if you die out there, tearing you into two
I hope you know that you could sail right on
I hope you know you got the ocean blue.
— Oh Sailor, Mr. Little Jeans
I was a sad little bitch but if I’m honest, shit, I’ve barely damn changed
I’ve just got a little bit older and a little bit closer to death’s gates, yeah
I like a dopamine hit more than a fat kid loves cake
And I can’t say that I’m happy, yeah, but least now I’m heading the right way, not the highway
And it goes on and on and on and on
And now I’m locked out, got nowhere to go
And my phone got stolen and my balance is low
But if I look on the bright side, at least I’m not fucking myself anymore, not anymore
And I got a little kick out of declining your call
I guess that means I don’t need your dick at all
And so I’m fucking myself, but not like that anymore
— Not Like That Anymore, Lola Young
