Monday March 23 2020
Slightly more thoughtful side of myself: So you’re going to get covid to suck your balls, is that it?
Me: Yeah.
Slightly more thoughtful side of myself (smtsm for short): And have you thought through how you’re going to do that?
Me: No. I mean. I’ve been talking about it and shouting it a bunch and just sort of doing it, like fuck you and…
smtsm: But how’s it going?
Me: Not so good, I mean it’s been sort of fun…but…
smtsm: not working.
Me: no.
smtsm: What exactly do you mean suck your balls?
Me: That’s what i mean, I mean him sucking my balls.
smtsm: but…you’re human, right, so if covid does suck your balls, won’t that lead to you catching him? Like becoming sick and maybe if you are one of the very unfortunate ones…possibly dying.
Me: Well, I mean…No, i mean because I’d be beating him, like saying fuck you, and moving on and like the green shores, you know…
Smtsm: No. What do the green shores have to do with it?
Me: he landed on our green pastoral shores…
SMTSM: oh I wasn’t aware the shores around western wa were still pastoral, I heard there has been a lot of development
m: It’s still green, it is…and that’s not the point..
Smtsm: yes, about that, what is exactly the point?
me: Him sucking my balls is the point.
Smtsm — but again, if a virus crawls down between your legs, i mean really, let’s just, since you brought it up, lets just visualize it. A virus crawls down between your legs, and as you say, starts sucking, I imagine that means it has attached itself to your balls and is sucking on the flesh?
Me– it’s more skin really.
smtsm — sure. but then won’t it go through holes…
me — I don’t have holes in my balls.
smtsm — tiny fissures and such, and infect you. and especially…isn’t suck my balls really slang for, pejorative for…getting a blow job, and that would definitely lead to…
me — look, i just want him to get the fuck out of here and for me and everyone to kick ass and keep kicking ass, all right?
smtsm — okay. now that i understand. So you want to help in that endeavor, you want to…
me — i want to DO IT. I want to kick his ass, see our green pastoral shores green, see life keep exploding, boom, play goof boom all the way, and then just keep rolling and you know stoke, just stoke it, and have him sucking my balls, like legs spread, stoked, you know, living stoked
smtsm — okay, i think i understand the gist of it
me — okay cool
smtsm — so how exactly do you do this?
Me — well you’re the thoughtful one.
smtsm — right, okay, well. let’s see here. Do you have any specific skills you could offer. Are you an epidemiologist?
Me — no. But I did take chemistry in college.
smtsm — I see. okay. well we can scratch that one off. There are already lots of experts working to understand the disease. Are you wealthy, could you invest in technologies or offer money and supplies…
Me — no. I don’t have hardly any money.
Smtsm — okay, no worries, let’s keep looking here. Um…do you have lots of friends or are you part of a community organization or…
me — no, not so much. I mean, you know, here and there but…
smtsm — okay, okay. so…hmm…
me — I mean there’s us. The two of us.
Smtsm — right. okay. well. huh. Shoot. I know wait, wait…
Suddenly a haze fills the air, things grow dim and in the swirl the conversation wafts away…because…
Click boom bust, a swing and a punch, I post this to facebook, the fight is on…
It started to hit around seven o’clock last night. Something had been nagging all day. Maybe I hadn’t drank enough coffee? Maybe I hadn’t slept enough this week? Maybe I just needed to reposition myself on the couch?
But as the girls were getting out the Catan board to play again, we’ve been playing a lot of settlers of catan this week (even splurged for the Pirates and Explorers edition when we heard about the closings), my body was like, buddy, we need to lay down. Now. It felt like someone was turning the power switch down to low. Or like the top of my head was a balloon and they were squealing all the air out of it, I was deflating, bit by bit, and then crawling over to a blanket, flopping right on the floor in front of the board, and not moving at all.
I was sick a lot as a kid. When you’re sick a lot, you become aware of the first signs of getting sick…it’s like having an abusive parent in the house…hey, there’s that car door slamming, first sign, better get ready. Getting ready for some sort of fun third grade thing to do (I don’t feel good today, at all…so you’re gonna have to make due with some vague writing here and there…m’kay?) nope here comes the aches and weird tension in the joints, sorry, no fun for you.
I crawl onto the floor and the girls are bantering about who gets to put what pieces where, my daughter loves catan and loves playing and so she’s humming while she’s chomping on pita chips and moving her body around doing some kind of catan dance and I am suddenly in a different place entirely. I need to close my eyes. I need to curl up under this blanket. I need things to be still right now. And quiet. There is something growing in my joints. My head is pounding in a way I have not felt it pound before. Yes, that is kind of a sore throat, yes that is kind of a cough — but it is not a cough or a sore throat I have ever felt before. This is something new. If this is coronavirus, I can see why it wigs some people’s bodies the fuck out. Totally brand new experience. This is not the flu again. It doesn’t quite match up. It’s like being drunk, but in a totally diferrent way. Hey, I’m getting drunk, why the hell does it feel like this? Hey I’m getting sick…wait a minute…this is not it. What the hell is this?
You start to feel a little bit like a crazy person. Dogs when they’re given weed they go nuts. The world and reality bends and they don’t understand why and they go crazy. It feels kind of like that. What is happening? What is this? I’m still sick and off as I write this the next morning. Maybe I just have a cold. Maybe my body is just breaking? I probably will never know what this is. I’m not going to be able to get tested. But whatever it is, it is fucking weird. And yes, if I was old, if I was weak, if I was a lot more rundown…well who knows, the journey is just starting on this one bud, so don’t get ahead of yourself…
I lay there and I feel crazy. And I also feel a little scared. I don’t have health insurance. We don’t have any extra income, really. But the real reason I feel scared is because it is so weird. It feels so wrong. And because I am not young. I’m 43. I should be okay. But the doctor in Italy was 57. Not that big of a difference, man. And haven’t all of those articles said that young people, middle-aged people can end up fucked to? And the girls are bantering and laughing still and I really want my kid to be quiet because my head feels so weird, I feel like I am in a scene from clockwork orange or eraserhead…yes this is a domestic little family but this is trippy and goddamn strange. The walls of my skull feel off, not like they ever have. I have no prior experience with this, this is an unknown land.
And in this land I am totally vulnerable. The mast has snapped, the engine won’t fire — you’re floating with the seas pal. Hopefully they’ll be kind. Well, I still have my nuts. I still have my hull. I still have myself!
Right!
I do not feel good, but I sit myself up, grab the orange pieces, start barking at them about wherever the hell am I supposed to put my pieces, I don’t remember these new rules, they show me and are being polite, and then I say well you took all the good places already…fucking covid I am pissed…and then we start to play and I ask my daughter to chew with her mouth closed (she laughs and says yeah she doesn’t have table manners) my wife is watching me wondering how big of a prick I am about to get, I see you, I see what you’re doing, well if you ask the question I guess someone needs to give an answer…hey rab, could you stop humming or hum just a bit less…) it’s fucking weird. I’m not trying to be a dick. I’m just trying to cut the noise, cut the weirdness, just a bit. If you could walk into eraser head and turn the lights up, wouldn’t you. If you could fix the camera angles in clockwork orange and cut the music, wouldn’t you? Well let’s cut the shit and get things back to normal, okay? Now they are both kind of quiet and play the game and somehow I win and I don’t even know how because I’m not paying attention.
I’m thinking about what if this is it. I’m thinking about if I am really going to get a full blown case of whatever this is, if this is really going to get a whole lot worse, if this is even coronavirus (I know I have never felt like this…) and then what? I do not feel good. There is something weird going on in my chest. Fuck. I’m sick. How sick?
And then a really heavy, smothering, suffocating sadness comes over me. Because in this moment, when you’re going, okay lets say I got it and it’s bad and let’s I got say five more days to live…you tally up what you have made, what’s around you, what you’ve done.
For four years I’ve worked to finish a series I shot in my house and backyard. It was to be the start of many other things. I say was, now, because after all, in this little moment where I am wigging the fuck out around a settlers of catan board (goddamit how did my wife get another boat…cheater) you don’t get to say is, or will be, or next week. Nope. Was.
So it was to be the start of many things. But now it just is what it is. And what is it? Something nobody watches. Like, even the people who are in it, they don’t watch it. The only people who have watched it are my wife and daughter. Yeah,whatever good that is. That’s no statement on what it is. That’s just a statement on how much I matter to them. And I must matter a lot. Which probably makes fred and marco even shittier. I mean if they are being this understanding to me while I bitch about wanting more gold coins and Rab, seeing I don’t feel well, makes me a really generous trade of three lumber cards…fuck…they love me a bunch, and probably used all that love to watch my stupid show that nobody cares about or even knows.
Not only do people not care about it, I say, keeping this train rolling, but in many corners it has been met with disgust, ridicule, shame. Yes, shame. While shooting scenes with actors I cast TO BE IN IT, I was met with shame. It was revealing when I asked people to give mock interviews with me where they made fun of me. I learned a lot about the people and their views on life, and me, based on how they chose to attack me. Some I sensed real love, real kindness, it was a true mockery, but one born of love and understanding. Others, well, it was like they were waiting for the chance to unload. One guy stated an opinion that I am sure is shared of others…”What, do you think you’re mel gibson or something?” Well…I did just shoot your ass in a scene I just wrote…so…I’m not just improvising, am I? It’s some fucked bullshit. Very much a sense of who the fuck do I think I am to do this.
I’m sitting there with my dumb cards around me and sad nobody watches my series or gives a fuck and even sadder to think of the people around me and with what kind of attitude it’s been met. And what is a series, what is it but putting yourself out there, just going for it really, a chance, an opportunity, to put your self out there? That’s it. To share your dreams, your passions, your joys, your love, your stoke. That’s all. To laugh and play and goof and build and have fun. That series is what it looks like for me. For other people, it looks like different things. It looks like being a great teacher, or building the perfect bridge, or making up new math flashcards. For me, it looked like that. It was me living my life as if I knew I only had one life to live and only had the moment I was in so I better fucking use it all the way, to go all the way. That’s what I told myself time and again making it, go where you can go all the way. Well okay. And how was it met? it wasn’t. Or if it was at all, with a scoff and derision.
It’s one thing to fail. It’s another for people to take the attitude of see…look at him, didn’t we know. Didn’t we tell you…who do you think you are…mel gibson? No…I think I’m someone with some balls who’s gonna get out living, duesch bag. That is the world of the asshole. Apparently, there are a few of them. That’s their world, and it’s not mine. still blows. Because in the end, no matter what, at some point, you’re out of time.
All of this is streaming through my brain as I am quite certain my daughter moves her boat twice (is she humming again?) and my head hurts in a weird way it never has before and I think to myself, doesn’t even matter pal. If you’re going, you’re going, and the bastards won.
The saddest feeling of all is the feeling of leaving a world knowing there is nothing more I can do about it to try to put myself out there, to try to build more playgrounds, to try to pass on more stoke and love, to try to open up, to give all i got, to make more opportunities for my daughter to go for it as I have. All of life is chaos, it is potential, it is the unknown, it is exactly what covid has brought to seattle, but headed in the opposite direction. Covid has brought chaos that ends in death. Life is chaos that ends…well…it ends…as far as you want to go.
As I’m writing this my wife and daughter come back from a bike ride. My wife’s training for a triathlon. My daughter didn’t want to ride today. She said she didn’t like bike riding anymore, which was weird, because she spent all last summer ripping around greenlake. She must have got scared on her last ride. So we’re like, no, get on your damn bike and ride. She throws a fit but then gets on and rides and has a blast. Comes back talking about doing skidouts and who knows what else.
Okay. I get you. So in this world, some people get on and ride. And some people don’t. And apparently some people stand on the sidelines and shake their heads like cunts and say pah, no, that’s not it at all.
Why all the criticism? Why all the shame? Why all the backbiting and finger pointing and cruelty toward others who would do things a different way? It’s so sad. And it’s the world, and if I am going to get really sick and if this is it, it’s the world I am leaving. And in this world…none of what I am saying or feeling matters one bit. We look at the unknown and all life has to offer and cling to whatever is nearby and say I’ll take this instead. Maybe this is where Covid belongs after all. Maybe all he is doing is coming home.
And then somehow I won the game. And I laid down and went to bed. On the floor. They brought me an extra mattress. Shit did not feel right in my brain. I bitched at them for trying to read together (just who do they think they are making whispering noises while the world tips upside down physically and I have an existential crisis…what is this, like some happy lovey home!)
In the darkness and the quiet I think about it. Really think about it. You gonna pity party your way out? Is that it? Come on. Let’s think here. What if I died from this. Where would I go?
For the first time since thinking about any of this, I smile, even chuckle a tad…
I’d be buried in Fall City in the local cemetery with a tombstone that read “Almost There”.
I’m laughing again as I write this. Yeah. That would be fun.
It’s ironic, it would grab people. People would stop and stare and wonder about what fucknut would put that on their tombstone. They would laugh, even though they know they are not supposed to. Like a good clown scene.
Almost There has a lot of meaning for me. If I survive this (I am being a little dramatic now…I will probably be fine), you’ll find out what it means if you are reading this and sign up for the website I was going to get out before covid landed and said fuck you all. Or it won’t get out at all and it will just mean something to me and my body rotting in the ground. that’s okay it’ll still be a good tombstone.
Now I’m smiling just a bit and thinking, that’s a good clown scene, a clown scene that just goes on and on and on and on. And wasn’t that the point? Isn’t that the feeling you felt when you first started doing this that you still feel now?
Fucking A.
And then I’m curled in a ball and my feet (my feet!) feel weird and I have this strange cough and I think about clowning.
I’m not going to try to explain it now. I’m just going to say that it is a throwing off of all the knowns to boldly, playfully, with joy head into the unknown. That’s how it is set up. And that is the intention you bring, when you come to it. To get in that place and go. Doesn’t mean you always kill. No. Of course not. How can you? Here there are no rules, and it is all discovery, there is always something more, that you don’t know, waiting to be found, and you are always building something new, you are always growing with the shows, and the turns, and the exercises, and each movement, and so how can you kill? But dammit, even in failure it is fun. Even in failure you still win. You’re on the road. Going into the unknown. You’re living. all of you. giving all you have. just because.
I don’t know. Those are just words to try to attach to the emotions I felt when I laid there and started thinking about clowning. Started feeling the life I had begun to live. The spirit it brought. The joy. The stoke. The long list and still growing list of projects and shows, of playgrounds to build in the world of things to make, of shit to grow…
And suddenly…
No shit.
Suddenly I had a real good idea how covid could suck my balls.
It just hit me. No. It was just there.
A voice shouts in my head, while I’m laying on the mattress:
Have covid suck your balls.
There’s an image attached to it. An image that works…and it goes like this…
I’m sick. I’m going to be sick for the next few days. Covid is in me. Or something like it. Maybe it’s not coronavirus maybe it is just the sickness of this time, the sickness of this lockdown, the sickness of this stress and weirdness, or maybe it is? I don’t know. I know I am going to be sick. I know I am not going to be going outside so there you go. It’s here. Covid is here. He is in me.
And I have balls. Here’s a picture.
I keep three clown noses in an old box that came with some very sweet pickups I once bought.
Two of them I have never used. I am going to take those two balls out and he is going to suck em. I’ll take those balls and I’ll put them on my head or chest or whatever hurts most and covid, whatever this covid is that is in me, can suck on that.
YES.
Suddenly another idea hits…
I have some clown turns I’ve been putting together, they were going to launch with my production company at the end of the month. They are just goofing around to goof around. Just having fun to have fun.
I’ll release them now. Every day I’m sick I’ll send one out. For anybody needing a laugh…
Here. Here is that open living playing happily chaotic place. Here. Here is the best i got. Here is the best I know. The best I see. The best. The most fun. The best thing. HEre. take it. Here. Here. Here is this place, I’m putting it out. Here.Take it. Here.
He says this is his world. The world says this is their world.
Yeah.
Well.
So what.
And fucking hell, if all of a sudden…
for the first time since this fight began, 11 rounds in…
BAM
I toss an uppercut
and he’s down.