Life is hard enough without interrupting Sally Jessy Raphael
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I remember the day of the Columbine massacre because it interrupted my afternoon TV viewing. I would come home from school and turn on trash talk shows, the whole slate: Maury, Montel, Ricki Lake, Jenny Jones, Sally Jessy Raphael. But that day, I couldn’t watch any of them because every station was showing aerial footage of a Colorado high school.
It wasn’t until kids talked about it at school the next day that I realized it was a shared Thing everyone would be talking about. All I knew was it interrupted my Sally and that I felt a mixture of annoyance and guilt for my annoyance.
That distance was my default for processing big national news through college. Some combination of these thoughts:
How does this affect me?
Do I HAVE to care about this?
Why won’t this go away?
I care about news now, especially local news and especially since this summer’s uprisings reawakened my egalitarian punk rock spirit. But that default disconnect is still a part of me.
So when I saw the fucks storming the castle last week after prepping for pretty much that exact thing, it was hard for me to engage in the hand-wringing shock I saw on social media. Instead, I summoned these mature, measured responses:
I’m grateful I have a political/organizing home now, so I’m not just getting frustrated and checking out like I did for too much of my adult life. This past week, I sent emails and made calls to state senators to support Chicago getting an elected school board because that feels immediate and within my sphere to partially influence. As I see it now, I can’t change the ruling class performing “unity” to tolerate evil.
But I’m here to do nothing if not admit the dark parts of myself, and right now, that means saying all this feels like a massive inconvenience, a bottomless pit to pour and never fill with psychic energy.
Am I supposed to say some bullshit about the Q shaman guy demanding organic food behind bars when I’ve got a wave of clinical depression to surf or struggle against? Do I need to learn the ins and outs of impeachment vs. 25th Amendment vs. you-know-they’re-not-really-gonna-do-shit when I can’t even schlep my ass outside for a walk every day?
I thought about prefacing that last paragraph with an awareness of my privilege. And I have a great deal. But I actually don’t think these are privileged thoughts. I think they’re average-American thoughts. People are trying hard enough to live their lives, period, much less during a pandemic. We don’t have the extra miles of nervous system to process the overthrow of a government that’s fucked most of us anyway.
So yes, protest if you can. Sign the petitions, make the calls, do the work that feels good and right to you. I’m not suggesting we plunge our heads into the sand. But life isn’t lived in the abstract.
Corporations aren’t people. Neither are countries, nor ideas. When you go about your day, you’re not doing Democracy. You’re making a sandwich, taking a piss, or repositioning in the big chair to use your laptop without killing your back. If that’s the arena where you’re struggling (it is for me), I don’t think you have to learn who Josh Hawley is right now.
Democracies don’t survive without the people in them staying alive. Sally’s been canceled, but we don’t have to stay glued to the news.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
For me, it’s a depression flare-up. Where’s your head at, other than this fucking coup? Or am I being too dismissive of the only thing we all should be thinking about? Let me know in the comments below, and we’ll keep talking.
This Week’s This Is Your Afterlife
Al Church is, like Bill Stern, one of my comrades-in-arms in making art with a commitment to quality, independence, and direct fan interaction. He also released one of my favorite albums of 2018, Night Games. I dare you to take 15 minutes to listen to the first four tracks and not walk away with at least one stuck in your head.
The coolest parts of this conversation come at the end, when Al talks about a comment a neighbor’s older sister made to him that still serves as a touchstone for how he lives his life. It’s wild the way moments can be transformative even more in hindsight than they are at the time they happen.
Patreon is the place to hear the full episode—“Don’t Ever Quit with Al Church”—with Al’s “Funeral Planning,” “Kill 1 Thing,” and “Relive 1 Memory” segments, plus an extended version of the intro.
The transcripts of both episodes (main feed & full ep) are on Podscribe.
Also, check out Al’s Song Rainbows project on Patreon, where people create their own version of his songs like musical legos.
Wamp Wamp (What to Do)
Donate to Feed the People - Omaha, a mutual aid organization that helps people get access to basic needs. Why Omaha this week? Well, Nebraska’s governor just announced that only documented workers in meatpacking plants will get the COVID vaccine, which is a fucking problem for all of us. I couldn’t find an org that helps undocumented workers primarily, but FTP reposted this message in solidarity with the workers, so we’re doing them!
You can donate directly at PayPal.me/FTPOMA.
I donated $25. Reply with what you donate, and I’ll report our total next week.
Celebrate! Last week, we donated $60 to the Trans Self-Defense Fund Chicago to give free safety kits to Black and Brown trans folks.
Read these. I guess I could have posted them in lieu of this week’s essay and gotten the same point across.
May I Play You a Sound?
“Ubomi Abumanga” is my New Year’s song and a balm for the day-to-day struggles I touched on earlier. I want to play it every morning as a dancing meditation.
I don’t know much about it except Sun-EL Musician is apparently a pretty popular South African DJ, and my partner Hope found the song in a yoga teacher’s video where a bunch of people asked her about it playing in the background and she basically said it’s her New Year’s song too.
Read the lyrics, and you’ll get it. I’d say, “They’re corny, but I like them,” but I actually don’t think they’re corny at all, just sincere in a way a lot of us (even earnest-ass existential comedians) feel embarrassed to be.
Ubomi Abumanga (Life Hasn’t Stopped)
You have been having aspirations for so long
Cross the bridge and come over
It’s been a while since you are having those goals
Cross the bridge and come over
We grew up together
Dreaming of heavens
Sun gazing (sun gazing)
Come let me remind you
Life hasn’t stopped
There will never be no one like you
Like you, they will never be
There will never be one like you
There is no one like you
Open your eyes and look
Even though it is not easy
The birds are awake
Life does not stop
Your skills
And your talents
They are not perfect
Life does not stop
They will light up your way
the Sun will rise
Sunrise (sunrise)
Let me remind you
Life does not stop
There will never be anyone like you
Like you, they will never be
There will never be one like you
There is no one like you
There will never be anyone like you
Like you, they will never be
There will never be another one like you
There is no one like you
I’m posting the full version here, but if you want the edited one without the minute-long house intro (how dare you), you can watch the pleasantly subversive music video featuring Black people relaxing in the sun, full of joy.
They are not perfect,
DM