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Show 4, hello, show 4?
Okay, let’s get right into it:
Whatever you call a chunk of text after a colon, that’s what this is. And it’s going to be a big one.
Where to begin?
I am now going to attempt something and I invite all of you to watch and enjoy it. I am going to attempt to do something that is very difficult:
Ha-ha! Another one.
Another colon, in case that was too obscure. And it may well have been. It seemed obvious to me.
Anyway, meanwhile, in an alien nightclub, I am your intrepid host, Captain Blank. Welcome, welcome, welcome.
And welcome to all my rageaholics. My FELLOW Rageaholics, I should say; I should clarify, as I am one, too. Like you, those of you who is one — are one? were one? —, I am a Rageaholic. Drunk on the rage. Drunk on the rage. It’s so bad. It’s so, so bad for us. And it’s so dumb, too, if you really think about it.
Take a moment right now and think back to the last time you were in a rage. Like, really, really pissed off. Fucking. Pisssed Off. Pissed with 3 S’s, apparently. I guess I’m a snake now. Hitting the long, drawn out S sound: ssssssssss. It’s called a sibilant, apparently. I am not a linguist, nor am I a Linguist, with a capital L on Linguist. A capital fuckin L, because they EARNED that capital L. They went to school for a long time and studied some really obscure shit, which to them was fascinating. So much so that they decided to make it their major. They made it their focus. The number-one thing they are studying. Like for me it was English Lit. With a Minor in Film Studies because part of me likes movies more. I’ve always thought that I should’ve gone to film school instead of studying English literature. Because most of that stuff bored the hell out of me and for some reason simply was not interesting to me. I don’t know why. I had no in. I didn’t know any of the writers or any of their books before I got there. I think that was the mistake. I didn’t really belong there. Because I didn’t grow up reading the classics of Great Literature, exploring the canon, as they call it. The first time I heard that word, canon, was in the English department at my school. (And, parenthetically, I thought they were talking about the big metal thing that shoots out cannon balls.)
My school. Like I own it.
The school I attended. It was hella old, too. Founded in 1868 or 1834 or something. Some super smart super wealthy East Coasters went out to California and built a sweet-ass university. It’s ivy league as all get-out. Huge, huge old trees everywhere. It’s like a forest. Redwoods and pine trees or whatever out the ass. At least, that’s how it was on the area of campus where I lived.
Um, I want to tell you this but I need to get to the Stupid Human Trick before it becomes impossible.
Here’s the trick:
Oh, boy; another one!
Here’s the trick:
Ha-ha! Did it again.
Okay, seriously, here’s the trick–
Okay, I don’t know how to end that sentence. Don’t want to put another colon. But it’s the most correct for this usage. Usage. That’s a bullshit linguistical grammarian four-dollar word. Usage. It sounds all technical and professional and whatnot.
The trick is this: to recall everything I wrote during my pre-show warm-up. Because that whole process is done in my head. Usually in the shower.
How can you write anything down or type it out when you’re in the shower?
I guess I’m at the point where I need a little wax-based white board that divers use when they go SCUBA diving. I’ve actually seen one in use. Underwater. In the ocean. The woman wearing it wrote a message to the instructor while all 10 of us were kneeling on the ocean floor together in a circle. Christ, I wish I’d been high.
Imagine SCUBA diving high.
That just now occurred to me.
For those of you who do that, what is it like?
And for those of you who are like, “What the eff are you talking about? You can’t SCUBA dive while you’re HIGH! You’ll die! You’ll mess something up and drown. For sure. You idiot.”
Really?
You really, really think so?
I’m not so sure. I would say try it but do so the way special forces operators would do, which is by doing it in a team and always practicing a strict adherence to procedure. The procedure has been refined to a diamond-tipped drill bit by this point in time. So if you stick to the procedure, you’ll almost definitely be fine. Stuff will still come up. Unexpected stuff. And you have to deal with it. And if it’s in a dangerous, perhaps even life-and-death situation, failure is a distinct possibility. Which is why you adhere to procedure. Because the more everyone adheres to procedure, the more likely it is we all get home safely together. We complete our mission and then we get the fuck out of there. Wherever there is.
So go diving with friends you know well and trust, not some dude you met in the parking lot who was having trouble putting his regulator on his tank in the trunk of his car. And he hadn’t put the tank in the B.C. yet. Those are the actions of a newb or of someone who doesn’t really understand what they’re doing.
Kinda like me and motorcycle racing. I really had no idea what I was doing. And I crashed both times I attempted to ride my motorcycle as fast as possible on a race track, surrounded by a few dozen other people on motorcycles all attempting to do the same thing.
Now, in my defense, I didn’t crash right away. Well, the second time, I actually did. I think it was the second or third lap of the very first session, which was in the morning, maybe an hour or two after we got there and got our bikes and gear unloaded. So that sucked. I think my tires were cold. It was so stupid, too. The crash itself and the cause of it. I don’t even know what I did wrong. It was a low-speed 90-degree left turn. I went around it like I always had, not that fast. Definitely under control. I admit I had a tendency to ride faster than I should have ridden. Of riding beyond my skill level. Because I had a bone to pick with certain people who thought I was kind of lame on a motorcycle and had no idea what I was doing and shouldn’t probably have even been there, at a race track, riding in circles, as my brother would say, and doing it as fast as possible. That’s a recipe for disaster.
So, back to SCUBA diving while stoned, that would be awesome. Go with some friends you always dive with and go to an easy dive location that you all know well and have dived — doven? — before. And go on a calm day when it’s not windy and visibility is really, really good. And hopefully it’s not crowded. But if it’s ideal conditions, everyone one else who dives will probably be out diving, too. So that part may be harder to mitigate.
Anyway, here’s how you do it:
Shit, another colon.
Okay. The way to do it is to set up your gear the way you always do, with buddy checks and the whole shebang. And maybe even go into the water, everyone stone-cold sober. Except maybe for caffeine. And you do a warm-up dive. You actually physically investigate the dive spot with your own eyes. And you go down and see for yourselves that the visibility is so good, it’s bananas.
And then, exit the water, take your gear off, sit down, have a snack or a sip of water, and talk it through. That’s called a debrief. It’s just a conversation in which every person gives a 30-second analysis of what just happened and how well it did or did not go and whether or not they are comfortable proceeding with Operation High Dive.
Operation High Dive.
That’s hilarious. It sounds like a Disney movie, maybe an old one, perhaps from the ‘70s. When someone has to learn to dive off of really high places.
Diving is crazy. It’s something I love to watch but am pretty sure I don’t want to do it.
Actually, I do want to do it. I love jumping off of high stuff. I was on the swim team as a kid and the local high school’s pool was our training field. Our training pool. So I spent a lot of time in that pool. And it had three diving boards. Two regular, bouncy, long, thin, droopy boards that are super springy and will throw you up in the air like a cat’s little pink tongue as it flicks a white drop of milk into the air because they lifted their head out of the bowl while their tongue was still working. Probably to swallow the milk in their mouth. And also one high-dive. Which I jumped off of but never went head-first.
It also reminds me of Dumbo. Operation Dumbo Drop. Which I don’t think I ever saw. But I have ridden the Dumbo ride at Magic Kingdom. It was awesome. I wish I’d been high. I can totally understand adult Disney kids, especially — especially — if you’re high. Being there, surrounded by that fantasy reality, would make everything SO real if you were baked. And the way the Earth is today, of course people seek escape.
Speaking of baked, back to Operation High Dive. You dive, you debrief. At the end of the debrief, after everyone has had their say and been heard and everyone has confirmed that they’ve heard and understood what has been said, then you proceed. And the way you do that is to make every single person in the circle say what has been said but not verbatim; they should do it in their own words. Because repeating words is not the same as understanding the words. And you absofuckinglutely must understand in order for us all to move forward safely.
And then you finish with a go/no-go. You do a simple poll. A poll, not a pole. Yes or no. Go or no-go. Go or stay. And if even one person says “No-go.”, you don’t do it. Simple as that. You postpone. That’s all. You postpone.
But if everyone says yes, if everyone says “Go!”, then it’s party time. You break out the weed. The bong, the pipe, the joint, the vape…device. Whatever. Lite up. Smoke up.
And then everyone sits there calmly, observing you as the THC kicks in.
And if everything is fine and you’re having a good experience, we get into the water. Either off the boat, whether it be the side like on a small boat or off the back like it is on a bigger boat, or even off the beach where you walk into the water and start swimming and you go under…
And you have a buddy or two, or perhaps the entire group watches you the whole time. And they confirm your regulators are working and your air is on and you spit in your mask so it won’t fog up, and all the other little things you need to do in order to properly go SCUBA diving.
Saliva works better than anti-fog drops, by the way, in my experience.
But imagine it all works. Everything works out and you’re underwater, in the ocean, high as fuck. Especially if you can peak about 45 minutes to an hour into the dive. Or maybe it’ll only be 30 minutes if it’s a quick one. That’s okay, too.
You’ll feel like Aquaman. Aquawoman. Aquakid. An aquatic person. And it would be incredible. You’d be like, Oh, this is what Aquaman and all his fellow people see and feel like. Except even better for them because it’s their preferred environment. It’s like playing basketball versus playing hockey. Which one has better footing? Which one allows you to make faster movements and move around more easily? Basketball. Obviously. Because your shoe is on the court. And the shoes and the court are actually pretty sticky if the court and your shoes are clean. So you can run around and cut and move and jump really well. It feels good to have that kind of footing.
And that’s how Aquaman feels. And Aquawoman. Is there an Aquawoman? I think I’ve only seen one of those movies. Not sure why. I wanted to see them. Still do. Just haven’t. Jason Momoa said when they were shooting a scene where he had his shirt off and needed to look really nice and muscular, he and his trainer couldn’t get him a good pump. So finally he asked for a couple of Guinness beers. He pounded two beers and got jacked.
So, the point of talking about SCUBA diving is to illustrate the handiness of the little white board. I saw it used, as I said. I think she wrote “Hi!” And we all had a laugh underwater. Think about that. A group of people, all of whom either took the time to learn how to SCUBA dive or are literally in the process of learning, and we’re all underwater with our gear on, swimming around with a big silver, very heavy aluminum tank filled with air. And the whole thing is pretty expensive, too. It’s not cheap. You need a wetsuit, gloves, booties, fins, a mask, a weight belt, probably a knife you can strap around your calf so you can cut your own leg off like what’s his name in 127 Hours. Remember the young guy who was hiking and he fell into a crevasse and a boulder fell in with him and pinned his right arm to the wall of the crevasse and he couldn’t move? And he was stuck there by himself for 127 hours before he freed himself and got out. That’s basically 5 days.
5 days!
In a crevasse.
Alone.
It’s crazy. It’s so awesome that he survived. He wrote a book about it called A Rock and a Hard Place. They made a movie about it, too. And I saw a news special he did with Dan Rather, I think, and they actually went out there and took cameras down into the crevasse and he showed the place where he stood for 5 days, trapped and thinking he was going to die. He had his video camera with him so he even made movies for his family to see of him saying goodbye.
So after I saw that, I didn’t feel the need to watch the movie. It seemed like it would probably be good but I guess I thought it would ring hollow after hearing Travis give the actual account. I think his name is Travis.
Point being that you should have a knife. And a compass. Definitely need a compass. And you need to be able to read it. I had to lead the whole group underwater from wherever we were back to the beach where we had entered the water. And I had no idea where it was, in which direction to swim. And I had 8 or 9 other people following me. And we had to get out of the water before we ran out of air. Otherwise we’d all be swimming on the surface and that would be kinda dangerous. Better to swim under the water. So I had to swim and keep the arrow pointed at the correct number printed on the edge of the compass’s circle. It was a watch on my wrist, by the way. Army Green if I recall.
So the white board is cool but it’s entirely impractical for one reason. It’s too small.
Although, these days, you could probably get a piece of that material that’s twelve by fourteen and put it in your shower. Maybe just a little bigger than a piece of printer paper. Or like a small whiteboard.
But the trick is to remember all the stuff I couldn’t write down.
It was something about sex.
As usual.
Something about your significant other grabbing your dick and beginning to stroke it and saying, “Do you want me to jerk you off, baby?”
How hot is that?
“I won’t just jerk you off. I’ll do all kinds of kinky stuff to you. And you can do all kinds of kinky stuff to me. I want to kiss you. I want to kiss you all over. Attack you with my mouth. Rape you with my mouth.”
Rape is probably too harsh of a word. Even in this context. But it does convey the hunger, which is what you want. Remember that movie? The Hunger?
Point being that you’re asking permission. You’re conveying to the other person what you would like to do and confirming with them that they want you to do it and want to reciprocate. That’s called consent. And it’s far better, in my opinion, than kissing and slowly taking each other’s clothes off for the first time with no fucking idea of how far we’re going with this. Are we going to do it? Or are we going to stop at heavy petting and mutual masturbation?
And those things aren’t bad, by the way. They’re great. And they’re a fun thing to explore. Especially in the beginning. So each time you’re naked together, you go a little further. But you take your time having actual penetrative intercourse. Save that for down the road a little way. Maybe a month or two. Just let it happen naturally. Take your time. Don’t see someone in a loud, crowded nightclub and go immediately into a bathroom toilet stall with them and begin putting things inside each other.
Or maybe I’m totally wrong and the charge you get from being SO attracted to a person that you have to have sexual relations with them within seconds of laying eyes on them is SO good that it trumps everything else.
So, get consent. Don’t just grab ‘em by the pussy.
The fact that we even have to say that is so fucked.
Like…what year is it?
I can’t believe we’re still dealing with something this dumb. Like, fuckin checking with someone before you initiate sex with them. Before you touch them in a sexual way.
I’m uncomfortable unclasping a bra unless I know 100%, without a doubt, that she wants me to take it off. In that case, it’s tempting to take it off as soon as possible. Pretty much right now. But it’s also fun to do stuff to her while she’s still dressed. It’s also fun to undress your partner and then you make love to them slash fuck the shit out of them while you still have your clothes on.
Try it sometime if you never have.
When you’re both naked, it’s obvious what’s happening and you’re both vulnerable. But when you’re having sex and you’re the only one who’s naked, it’s a different experience. It’s definitely hot. Being that vulnerable and knowing you can trust them to do you the way you like and not say or do anything hurtful or demeaning or whatever. Unless you’re into that. And some people are. I’m not, but to each their own.
But yeah, consent. Spend some time together talking about the sex you’re about to have before you actually have it. That is so hot.
So many people are super embarrassed by talking about sex. Even with the person they’re about to do it with.
What is up with that?
And I’m not talking about the slightly silly, often very graphic dirty talk that you do when you’re in the middle of it. I’m talking about just sitting and talking about what you like. What you like to do, what you like to have done to you. And you compare notes. So you’re on the same page. That’s when you can actually relax and really enjoy it. Putting in that time is what makes the sex good. It makes it a shared experience, not just you using this person to get your rocks off.
That’s a funny expression. Get your rocks off.
I think there’s a song from the ‘70s and that might be the title. They certainly do say those words. I think it’s a rock band with guys in it, and there might be female backup singers doing the chorus and that’s part of it, getting your rocks off.
So she says do you want me to jerk you off, baby? And you say something like, Yes, I do, darlin’. And hit the N on the end of darlin’. I’ve always found it to be sexy and endearing and comedically self aware all at the same time.
And you can say let’s get naked and do things to each other that will entwine our souls forever.
Because that’s what actually happens. When you have sex with someone, your souls are being entwined.
Inexorably. Which means they can’t be separated. Ever. It’s an undoable act. Just like it’s unknowable to know what show this is. My fellow rageaholics.
So take heed of whom you choose to sleep with.
Which is a funny term because so many people never sleep. They have sex with the person and then they pretty much run away. They get out of bed or off the sofa or whatever, depending on where it went down, and they gather up their stuff and leave. And the whole time they’re saying some shit about how they just realized they need to go or whatever.
Doesn’t matter, it’s all lies.
They’re just obeying their intense need to get out of there, to get away from you, because they just had sex with you and they feel weird about it now so they have to flee.
Fight or flight.
In this case, flight. Big time.
And the reason they feel the urge to flee is because they knew they shouldn’t have had sex with you.
They don’t feel THAT way about you.
And they know they shouldn’t have entwined their soul with yours. Or more accurately, they now regret having entwined YOUR soul to theirs. They want to forget this ever happened. They slummed it with you or whatever and now that the sex hormones have been temporarily sated, their rational mind that knows the truth is back behind the wheel, flying the plane, reading the chart, and not, definitely NOT, running out of gas. Or doing CFIT, which is the other major cause of plane crashes but we’ll talk about that later.
It’s like Avatar. What do they do? What do the blue people do? They wrap the tip of their tail around the tip of someone else’s tail. Or a tree. Or those banshees they ride on.
How high was James Cameron when he wrote that? Jim, were you baked when you came up with all this? It’s really incredible. Good job! The asshole humans coming to steal the natives’ cheddar was a bit perhaps not as fresh of a concept as I think some people would’ve liked. That was pretty much the only complaint I heard about it.
The interesting thing is that the first time I saw that, it wasn’t in 3D. It was just regular 2D. No glasses. So we really got to enjoy the story. Then we saw it again but in 3D. So we knew the story and got to relive the whole adventure while savoring the visuals. And we rode the Flight of the Banshee ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It was incredible. It was very real. It was an absolute vomit factory. That’s for sure. I took Dramamine before we rode it. And the whole time we were in line, which was for probably 30 minutes, which is short, by the way, but the whole time we were in line, I was basically just thinking about and wondering if I was going to puke.
And I almost did.
But I didn’t.
I survived. I got a little hot and tingly but I took deep breaths and calmed myself down and that helped. As did the Dramamine. I 100% would’ve puked if I hadn’t taken it.
But at many points while you’re in line, they show you little movies that make you think you’re actually ON Pandora, where everything is poisonous, even the air, and there are these big blue people who live there and they do NOT want you there.
If that was real, you’d be like, Fuck this; let’s get out of here. Let’s go to Subway and get a footlong. Forget that.
Point being, what do the big blue people do? They wrap the tips of their tails together. With each other, with the plants, and with the animals. And then they’re entwined. Their tails are literally entwined.
I see you.
Like, I SEE you.
The way you should see someone when they’re naked and doing stuff with you. Really try to SEE them. Don’t just look at their body or certain parts of their body. Look at their soul. That’s what they’re allowing you to see if you have the eyes to look.
That’s what it’s supposed to be, anyway. Not strangers in a nightclub bathroom, raw-doggin’ it, contracting God knows what.
How can you even relax enough to do it under those circumstances?
I have never understood this. It’s too nervewracking. Not knowing this person much or even at all, not knowing if they have passengers, invasive, icky passengers, whether they be microscopic in their blood and other bodily fluids and secretions, or whether they be big enough to see with the naked eye, crawling around in the pubic hair, tiny little creatures you can never unsee once you’ve seen them, especially when you find yourself very itchy down there, unusually itchy, and you go into the bathroom and turn on the light and have a look and sure enough, there they are, crawling around in your pubic hair, these tiny little white specks that could be dandruff or tiny bits of cotton or toilet paper, except that they’re moving. And they look like teenie, tiny crabs like you see on the beach. Or at the supermarket. And they’re living on you.
How hard up would we have to be to start eating our own crabs? Like apes and monkeys do when they groom each other.
Why don’t we do that? After we entwine our souls together irrevocably and forever, we either run away, as we discussed earlier, or we hang around, either because we want to run away but we feel too guilty to actually do it, or because we actually want to stay.
Actually wanting to stay is what you want. You want to want to stay. That’s when the real magic happens. Because that’s when you guys get to know each other and get excited and want to do it again.
And then it’s even better than it was the first time.
That’s also something the one-night-stand crowd either doesn’t understand or simply doesn’t care about. Most likely the latter. Especially if they’re a bit older and have been around a bit. Maybe even in a relationship or two in the past, which allowed them to experience all those good things. But if they’re young, probably teens or early 20s, maybe they haven’t had a serious relationship yet, for them it is often about getting their rocks off.
But even when we stay and we lie in bed together for hours, both of us completely naked, completely exposed, and we talk and laugh and cuddle and fall in love, fall more deeply in love, we don’t pick each other’s nits and eat them. She’s not going through my hair, looking for bugs, which she eats whenever she finds one.
Popping pimples is probably the human equivalent. When someone wants to pop one of your pimples so you let them, and they actually do it. And they enjoy it. That’s bananas. For sure.
I don’t know if they have them here on this ship, but back on Earth, a lot of people eat bugs. They eat insects. It’s a multibillion-dollar industry now. Big companies are taking insects and turning them into food. For humans. Like protein bars and whatnot. And humans are going to the store and buying them and taking them home and eating them.
I haven’t done it. Not knowingly. They say there’s a certain amount of animal matter in all commercially-prepared food products. Like a certain amount of mouse hair is allowed into the big vat of spaghetti sauce before it gets put into all the jars that we buy at the supermarket. A certain number of spiders specified by weight, is allowed to be in the mayonnaise or the ketchup. A certain amount of pigeons in your bread, I assume. I saw a video of a live camera feed from inside the very top of a grain silo. It’s like a giant tube 50 or 60 feet high, and it’s filled with grain. And it was slowly being drained at the bottom because the people working there were taking it out to put it on a truck so it can be made into bread at a bakery. Or maybe the bakery was on-site. Doesn’t matter. The point is that the pigeons were getting sucked down into the grain. It was like watching them get swallowed up by quicksand. One after another they landed on the grain, thinking they were going to stand there and peck it and eat it. But instead they got sucked under. And by the time they figured out they were in deep shit and tried to fly away, it was too late. They flapped their wings once or twice but they couldn’t get them down once they’d put them up, so they all got sucked under with their wingtips being the last things to disappear into the grain. It was so so horrific and tragic and sad. Their little grey wingtips, slowly disappearing into the white grain. And then your mind immediately goes to what’s next. What is next for that bird? It obviously is going to suffocate. Will it’s body be removed from the grain at some point or is it going to get ground up and baked into the bread? Have we all been eating pigeon bread this whole time? I guess it doesn’t matter. We’re all still here. Pigeon bread didn’t kill us. They eat pigeons in other countries, like France, where there’s less land to raise larger animals for their meat, like cows.
How do you cure crabs? I think you have to get an ointment or shampoo from the pharmacy, a special shampoo. That’s what we did when we were kids and we got lice. That was disgusting. My mom washed our hair with the special shampoo to kill the bugs and then she had to comb through our hair very carefully, looking for eggs. And she had to extract each individual egg with a special silver comb. Otherwise the egg would hatch and the new little baby louse would come out and start feasting on your dead skin cells and pooping all over your head.
Which also happens on our eyelashes, by the way. Little bugs live on our eyelashes and they eat our skin cells and oil and whatever and then they poop in our eyes. And it makes our eyes red and makes them sting. And then we go to the eye doctor to see what the problem is.
Get it?
To SEE what the problem is.
And the eye doctor tells us we have blepharitis. Which is localized inflammation. And the eye doctor may or may not tell you that it’s caused by tiny bugs pooping in your eyes. But it is. And to get rid of them, you have to wash your eyes. Use a very gentle soap or shampoo, such as baby shampoo. And get a little plastic bottle and fill it with water so it’s almost full. And then carefully put a tablespoon or two of baby shampoo into the bottle and turn it upside down a bunch of times to mix it. If you do the shampoo first and then add the water, it foams up and makes a huge mess and the whole process is much more difficult. So water first, then shampoo.
And then wash your eyes and your eyelids and your eyelashes every day. At least once a day. I do it in the shower. When I’m conjuring up show notes without a means of capturing them.
How did we go from that to bugs shitting in our eyes?
Sort of scraping the bottom of the barrel.
But then that’s obviously the case if I’m up here. Like, how the fuck did I get up here? Me? Seriously, me?
But oh well. I’m here now.
So what else?
That by the way, is the conclusion of the trick.
I was able to repeat back to you everything conjured in the shower. Don’t grab ‘em by the pussy. Entwine your souls forever. What am I doing up here?
That was pretty much everything. There was a bit about rapists and them going to jail, like to actual prison, where they would be raped by a bunch of hard dudes. So they could see what it’s like to have your bodily agency stolen from you. To have one or more people hold you down and have sex with you against your will.
Like, what the fuck?
How could anyone even do that?
And if it’s like in American Me, a movie about gangs, the rape is actually a hit. And the guy gets raped with a 12-inch Bowie knife.
Is it Bowie or Booey?
I always thought it was Bowie. Like a David Bowie knife. Not a booey knife. That sounds stupid. A buoy is a thing that floats in the ocean or a lake. Usually a big plastic thing. Or maybe they’re metal and concrete like in the opening scene of Jaws. Bowie knife sounds better.
Imagine that going up your ass. A great big Rambo First Blood serrated Bowie knife. That’s sharp as fuck, too, because people who have knives like that appreciate knives. So they keep them sharp. Either by taking them to a shop and having them sharpened by a professional or by doing it themselves, in which case they’re super into knives.
They say dull knives are actually more dangerous because the blade won’t cut as easily, which means you have to exert more pressure which makes it more likely that the blade will cut through the thing all of a sudden, like through the tomato or the orange or whatever, and it’ll hit your finger and cut you. Perhaps badly. And then you have to stop what you’re doing and get in the car and go find someone to sew you up, either an emergency room or a private care place.
And then when you get home like 3 or 4 hours later, there’s blood everywhere. You’re back at the scene of the crime, where you did crime on yourself and assaulted yourself with a deadly weapon. Can you prosecute yourself? Imagine a movie where Ed Norton plays a guy with split-personality disorder, and two of his personalities are lawyers, attorneys at law, and so they make these highly-compelling arguments. And if he’s not a lawyer himself in his real life, that would probably make it even better. Because then we’re all wondering how these two guys are able to argue so forcefully yet so eloquently while citing actual case law, actual precedents, if the guy whose body they’re in isn’t a lawyer in real life.
And maybe it could be a super-meta piece where Ed Norton plays himself. And it’s a documentary. And it’s following him as he is making a new movie. Something unrelated, like a racecar movie or something. And it could be called “Palindrome.” Because “racecar” is spelled the same forwards and backwards. Which is what is known as a palindrome. And the Palindrome can be a palace where people race. Maybe it’s in Dubai. So it’s this huge, exotic place surrounded by sand. Maybe Saudi Arabia where the Line is, that long, vertical city covered completely in silver. And it’s a deadly race. And it’s a documentary about Ed Norton, the real Ed Norton, going to this place that actually exists and learning how to be a racecar driver. A real one. And there’s all these other drivers there, guys from Formula 1, NASCAR, you name it. Fuckin Ricky Bobby is probably there. That would be hilarious. If Will and John would reprise their roles.
And along the way, Ed Norton starts to act kinda weird. Like maybe the first time he gets into a racecar, maybe a special, slightly detuned Formula 1 car, he goes out and turns in this absolutely insane lap time. He’s SO fast. So fast that there’s no way he can be that fast. But he is. And when he gets out, he talks like someone who’s been racing for decades, one of the best in the world. And then later that night, he knows nothing about it. He barely remembers doing it.
And over time, we see him start to shift, and different personalities come out. And the camera starts showing the producers of the documentary conversing amongst themselves, and talking with the director and writers and producers of the actual racecar movie that is being filmed, and they don’t know what to do. So they bring in shrinks and Ed Norton talks to them and suddenly he knows everything there is to know about psychology and psychiatry and he’s talking circles around the shrinks and physicians, telling them what their legal boundaries are, et cetera.
That would be a good movie. That’s a three-percenter for sure. Take it and run with it. I’ll see you at the premier. Be sure to send me an invitation, too. I’d like to see that picture and will certainly keep the invitation and cherish it forever.
But yeah, that’s pretty much the gist of it. I left the prison sex part out because it was distasteful. To say the least.
So, anyway, Show 4?
Hello, hello, hello!
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
Did you guys even leave? Or do you live here?
I had a good night's sleep last night. Had a good day today. I'll tell you about it if you like. If you're interested in the experiences and interpretations of one man roaming the halls of a friggin spaceship. Wild. Still can't believe I'm here.
Anyway, show 4? Is that what this is?
You know what would be great? If we had a window in here. Maybe back there, behind you guys, so I can see where we are. Or maybe all around us?
Or maybe it’s better to not have any. That way, we're all focused on our experience in here together.
Went for a walk this morning. Saw some crazy stuff. Not sure what to say. Still processing. Still very much processing. Like Chandler and Joey aka Joseph the Processing Guy, who Chandler hated. Point being that something happened and I got angry. Like really angry. Maybe as angry as I've ever been.
And in that moment I had an epiphany.
NOT Epiphone like the guitar, either.
A breakthrough. A new insight. And it's this: I'm a rageaholic. And I never realized it. I'm addicted to rage. I get mad all the time.
In England, mad means crazy. Nuts. Loco. Meshuga'at. I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about anger. Rage. Like The Incredible Hulk. He was a victim of rage, right? What did Bill Bixby say in the opening credits of the original Hulk TV show? He said "Mr. McGee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
And while that may be true, it's also complete bullshit. Because it's wrong. It's placing the responsibility on someone else.
David Banner was responsible for himself.
In truth, he had no excuse for hulking out. He was abdicating his own agency. He was giving away his own power. He was letting other people steal his wind.
But, actually, it is his job to stay calm. It is each of our jobs to stay calm. Don't let other people control you. They're manipulating you with their words and actions. And they succeed only because you allow them to manipulate you. Be your own Boss Baby. Either you run the day or the day runs you.
And you don't need to succumb to your own rage.
That's the secret.
That's the insight.
The epiphany. Which comes from an ancient Greek word for apparition, by the way. Like a ghost. That appears.
And the really crazy part is that it's so obvious.
So if you're a fellow rageaholic, welcome.
Welcome, my fellow rageaholics, to our alien night club. I feel uncomfortable calling it an alien strip club. Even though I see poles in here. But just know that if people start stripping and dancing and a bunch of sexy aliens get up on the poles, we're gonna have to call it like it is.
So welcome, my fellow rageaholics. I am your intrepid host, Captain Blank.
Let's all take a humility pill. Swallow that. Get it down. So we can all start fresh. Remember, you don't bring the day's bullshit into the dojo. Not sure what color the pill is. It’s definitely not red or blue or orange. Those are cult pills. Stay away from those. Those will inoculate you with isms. All kinds of fuckin isms. Stay away from those.
I don't believe in isms, I just believe in me.
Remember who said that?
I saw Airwolf this morning on my walk. Not the actual Airwolf from the show but the same type of helicopter. At least, it looked like a helicopter.
I saw a lot of military-looking vehicles, too. Flying things. With weapons. No flags, though. But definitely felt dangerous.
And it got me thinking about helicopter parents. Don't fly cover for your kids for every little problem. Let them fight their own battles. Unless it's something major, of course. But don't deprive them the opportunity to learn the critical life skill of knowing how to solve their own problems.
Just a little side note there which occurred to me as I was out walking. Sort of the first really good bit of exercise I’ve done since I’ve been here.
Back on Earth, when I wasn’t almost drowning in spaghetti, I actually worked out a lot. Almost every day. I really enjoy it. I like the way I look and feel when I do it and I dislike the way I look and feel when I don’t do it. So therefore I do it. I work my ass off, too, and I still don’t look that great. I definitely put myself in the Do You Even Lift, Bro? camp. I’m sorry to say. I watch what I eat, too. I eat mostly protein shakes and protein bars and fruits and vegetables. And I’m still fat as fuck.
If it jiggles, it’s fat.
And each time I get close to making that final push to get the last bit of fat off, things change and I have to stop. It’s like you’re doing an ultramarathon and you’re taking a moment to rehydrate before you make the last, final push up the very last ascent, which you know is going to be hard. So you take a second.
And then you get in the car and go home.
And then three months later you start training again. And it takes you a month to get back into the same shape you were in when you got in the car and went home. And you’re able to push and make progress once more in preparation for that final ascent.
And then the same thing happens.
And it happens every year. Something always gets in the way.
Just before you make the last final push to reach your goal and get to a place where you FINALLY feel like you’re really truly starting to win in life, your circumstances change. You change locations, everything changes.
And you wind up on an alien spaceship, hurtling through the cosmos. Which we would be able to see if we had windows. Or would it just be black out there? Because everything is so far away? Or would it just be lots of tiny white dots like the old Windows screensaver Flying Through Space?
I don’t know.
If there was a window, I could tell you.
Do you guys have windows in your rooms? In your quarters? Your staterooms?
Mine is definitely not a stateroom. It’s not big enough. It’s decent. It feels like a cute little studio apartment. The bed is comfortable, the shower is great, the kitchen has a food conjuring machine that looks kind of like an oven. And you can conjure anything you want. Today I had a hot fudge sundae. It was the best hot fudge sundae I’ve ever had. And then I had spaghetti with fried onions and mushrooms. And pretzels. And chocolate fudge cookies. And blueberry tea. And yes I ate the hot fudge sundae before I ate the spaghetti.
And it was scrumptious.
That subatomic ecosystem knows what it’s doing.
I am going to get so fat living here.
Anyone here have a daisy as your avatar? A little daisy avatar. That’s a great title: Little Daisy Avatar. Has a nice ring to it.
Not sure what it’s about. Let me ponder it a bit.
Maybe it’s about a little robot girl named Daisy. Daisy Avatar. And everyone calls her Little Daisy Avatar.
It would be a great name for a band, too. Maybe a bit like Mazzy Star or The Sundaes. The Hot Fudge Sundaes. That sounds like a group of all Black guys. I imagine them being big. Really big. Ex-NFL linemen big. And they play everything as a quartet or quintet: cello, bass, violin. Maybe two cellos and two violins, with one base.
Imagine Jimmy Fallon introducing them.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, the Hot Fudge Sundaes!
And the curtain goes up, the fuzzy Baby Blue Johnny Carson curtain, and there they are. Five huge dudes, dressed all in black, probably wearing sunglasses, because the lights on stage are so bright, and maybe black berets, too. Like if 5 Black Panthers went to Julliard.
And then formed a string quintet and proceeded to take over the world with their powerful music, melody, and the meaning behind it.
The copy for the docuseries writes itself.
Their documentary, How to Eat a Hot Fudge Sundae, could go up against Edward Norton’s documentary Palindrome at all the festivals, Cannes, Venice, South By Southwest. And then Little Daisy Avatar comes along and blows them both out of the water.
Little Daisy Avatar.
No, she didn’t have a car.
Everywhere she went, she had to walk.
Which made it hard because she couldn’t talk.
She didn’t cry, she didn’t pout.
She didn’t scream, she didn’t shout.
She walked and walked, all day long.
And everyone said it would make her strong.
So she didn’t cry and didn’t pout
When her daddy took his dick out.
The End.
So apparently Little Daisy Avatar is about a robot girl who’s being raped by the man who bought her. But because she’s a robot, and she’s property, no one gives a shit.
I can see why that might usurp Ed Norton and the sundae quintet at the festivals and awards shows.
I picture her in a blue dress. The same blue as Johnny’s curtains.
Thank you, everybody! Good night!
Remember to tip your waitress.