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Weak XXXIII

13 August 2020

No. 4,559 (cartoon)

You work hard at hurting people, don’t you?

It’s not work when you love what you do.

14 August 2020

Crappy Art

“You wanna know what I really like about Japanese art?” Noah asked.

“No, I really don’t,” I replied before politely adding, “It’s clean and tidy?”

“No, it’s honest,” he declared.

He showed me an ad for PooPaint toilet paper from Japan that promised, “Inspiration found in the bathroom stall.”

I had to admit that Noah made a good point.

I all but stopped going to galleries and museums decades ago because of all the crappy dreck on exhibit. I might reconsider if curators had the aesthetic integrity to call shitty art what it is.

Hai!

15 August 2020

My Monochrome Dinner with Alina

Alina’s a lovely friend, and she’s also such a great cook that I’d gladly accept her dinner invitations even if she was a nefarious scalawag. Tonight she served guacamole and spinach chips followed by pesto pasta, green beans with jalapeños, and roasted broccoli.

I was delighted when I saw the meal; she was not.

“What was I thinking?” she exclaimed. “Everything’s the same color!”

“What’s the problem?” I asked. “Even if you made rainbow salad, it’s all going to be the same color tomorrow.”

“David, we’re having dinner now!” she scolded.

I was intentionally gauche; that’s why she invited me. She’s so prim, proper, and perhaps even a bit repressed that she revels in having a friend who she thinks of as a bad boy, even though I’m neither.

She feeds me great meals, I amuse her with tales of my latest scandals (almost all of which are fictitious, alas). It’s a sustainable, symbiotic friendship; I’d be greedy to ask for more.

16 August 2020

The Rest of My Life This Afternoon

Jacob is whinging about how unfair the Coronarama quarantine is, seemingly oblivious to the fact that everyone on the planet has also been adversely affected by the pandemic.

“I’m not going to spend the rest of my life like this!” he declared, as if the virus might be paying attention to him.

“When you shuck right down to the cob, this minute is the rest of your life,” I replied.

“When did you get all philosophical?’ he asked. “And what’s shucking down a cob mean?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” I admitted. “I liked how it sounded so plagiarized it. I probably stole the second part too but I can’t remember.”

My argument that wasn’t really an argument at all worked. He stopped feeling sorry for himself, plied me with drinks, and asked me for my opinion of expensive cameras and lenses that he’ll never buy let alone use. Ah, retail therapy that’s neither.

And that’s how I spent the rest of my life this afternoon.

17 August 2020

Suicide Hotline to Nowhere

Nico told me that she was rather chuffed by my story about making the photograph, Rio Grande Gorge Bridge Overlook, Taos, New Mexico. She said I was right about it being a popular suicide spot, and asked me if I wanted to hear a dark tale. That was, of course, a rhetorical question; who wouldn’t?

Government workers installed suicide prevention hotline phones in the center of the bridge directly above the river hundreds of meters below. And now for the morbid part: the phones don’t work. Instead of talking with a therapist or counselor, the potential jumper hears a recording that begins with reassurances that life really is worth living and other empty platitudes, then gets down to logistics.

Most people who dive miss the narrow strip of water and wind up splattered on the rocks; do you really want your corpse to end up as a body bag full of putrefying flesh that responders need to scrape off the baking rocks? Don’t be selfish and make them deal with another rotting human carcass; there are many other tidy and considerate ways for you to consider including ... The recording concludes with suggestions for “no muss no fuss” ways to die.

Nico reports that the phones to nowhere have been remarkably effective; the number of bridge deaths has been halved since they were installed five years ago. No one knows if they’ve changed anyone’s mind about ending her or his life prematurely, but at least it’s been seven months since the recovery squad needed their spatulas to collect a suicide’s remains.

18 August 2020

Professional Courtesy

Josephine reported that lightning has started dozens of fires throughout California, and that the smoke in San Francisco is as thick as dense smoke that’s really, really, really thick. She said the air was so bad she took her daily bike ride in her car.

I asked her to explain the apparent oxymoron, so she did. For her, cycling isn’t about cycling; it’s about meditation. She’s been taking the same half-hour route every day for so long that there’s nothing new for her to see. Pedaling her bike prevents her from being distracted by her cats, her computer, her refrigerator, et cetera, so her mind becomes blank.

She said that driving the same quiet country roads repeatedly was almost as efficacious as cycling, but that she’ll get back on her bike as soon as the air clears because it’s cheaper.

That’s silly bordering on crazy—or perhaps the other way around—but I kept my mouth shut out of professional courtesy. After all, I don’t think she could describe any of my inane shenanigans and ridiculous escapades in such a relatively positive light.

19 August 2020

The Future Happens in California First

I hear things in California are grim and getting grimmer. You got your heatwave that broke the power grid, you got your runaway fires that are choking everyone the infernos didn’t immolate, and you got your out of control—by design, apparently—virus that’s hunting down everyone who’s left. At least the four horsemen of the apocalypse have yet to make a showing after starving homeless people killed and barbecued their mounts.

The governor, when asked about how he would deal with the simultaneous crises simultaneously, was philosophical: “The future happens here first.”

I think that’s fine: no one has a plan, so at least the governor came up with a good line, almost as if he was channeling Jerry Brown when he was first elected to that office and conducted business as Governor Moonbeam for a while.

But no; that’s the wrong parallel. William Gibson could have been talking about the current cluster crises when he noted in the previous millennium, “The future has arrived—it’s just not evenly distributed yet.”

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©2020 David Glenn Rinehart