This article was initially posted on Medium*on April 29. It took the mainstream media about six months to catch up with the core ideas. Just saying.

The Uninhabitable Earth directly lays out the cost of doing nothing, which is better than doing something, if something is dredging up more fossil matter and its evil byproduct plastic.
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Apian and avian distress, great duress in the too hot to live equatorial band. We are trained by algorithms and factories with orders to deliver yesterday to participate in our own demise.

Nothing can convince someone who has nothing and wasn’t invited to participate, not to facilitate the great delivery spree that those who consume too much foist on them. Starve so I can live triple, quadruple, what is sustainable. Sustain me.

I fly, you fly, everyone needs to get into this or that bag and pull the zipper up to completely immerse in the tragedy of lack of biodiversity, which many associate with predictability and personal comfort. Four blank walls. Monoculture of great minds. Great when you can’t breathe.

It’s not hidden, it’s out in the open. We love bad things to death. That is how evolution works, as those who somehow avoid flying into the sticky tape, getting mind blown by the incandescent bulb, attest.
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We learn by paying cosmic consequence, which is no way of learning at all when you think of the stress that near death scenarios embody. We learn through playing the laughing bones, rolling the dice.

Paris accords of 2015, sheer hypocricy when there are no teeth. Teeth? Fascism, if we don’t change our ways when we tell others to pull the belt tighter, hang on for the ride, get off the planet. Gunboat diplomacy? No more sustainable than the rest.

50 year futures on coal, uranium, and competing minion power sources… how do we solve the unsolvable? How do we tell a cartel they backed the wrong horse?

Money launderers and insurance companies are already familiar with the concepts of planned equity depreciation, profitable loss. The loss can always be made up elsewhere, as long as there is a standard and a price point we all agree on. A pain point somewhere south of extinction.

Wanted: an entirely new system that does not do away with capitalism but brings it from the late 18th to the 21st century. That values the not-taking-out-of-the-resource (if not at a rate equal to the original investment, at more than pennies to the dollar). Wealth redistribution using the immense power of the Internet to inform, listen, curate, and reward. Call it fabric, Knowledge Infill (KI), call it what you will.

*Where good writing goes to die.

And now for something completely different:

[11/19 - Earning a prize (of sorts) at the Book Passage Mystery Writer’s Conference and gaining an agent for the novel Arisugawa Park [now A Beautiful Case of the Blues]  gave me the briefly held idea that I could be a mystery writer. Genres are fluid, I’ve always believed....

Speaking of which, the lesbian daughter angle was one suggested (as usual) by a conversation I had at a hostel in Miami Beach. I realize now it's beyond my abilities to sustain such a character over the course of an entire novel. I am no Rita Mae Brown, or even a Franzen, and I don't want to cheapen anything I don't own through personal experience. Call it "Fear of Getting Cancelled." 

What about the title? Besides the obvious Nick Drake reference, "bullets" is a term used when entering poker tournaments with rebuys––it’s how many more attempts you have at the glory. Or mere survival.* I still like the title, though I think I’ll change it to four bullets. That gives more of a fighting chance.

The protagonist was originally named Dagmar, but as my mom noted, that's a Viking woman's name. So Darknur... came to me recently in a dream.

As for the content? I have shaved a few sentences, tightened a few phrases, but it still stands as the fertile imagination of a confirmed dreamer––nothing more, nothing less. Definitely not based on anyone I have ever met. 

*As I put it at the time... "bullets are buy-ins in poker lingo - the inference being that our protagonist is running perilously short on life - money - mojo."

2/15 - What does a novel look like when first setting pen to paper?  This was penned in Playa, shortly before Tulum, where the fabric music project first came into focus.

Synopsis: 

"Two Bullets Left" will begin with a washed up poker pro semi-retired in Mayan Mexico, Honduras, or Belize. His old partner is killed at night on one of those transparent pedestrian overpasses on the Las Vegas Strip. His estranged (or never met) daughter has recently taken residence in Sin City and found a girlfriend. A high stakes poker team is formed that takes on a corrupt/ruthless poker conglomerate. Meanwhile, father-daughter relations are complex, to say the least. Action shifts to Macau after a big fizzle in the Vegas games. A billion dollar game is set up on a crocodile infested island in the Philippines. X––– (from Ari Park) shows up representing the anonymous, highly guarded Asian high rollers. He certainly appears evil... is he? 

CHAPTER ONE

Darknur had arranged the usual game at his property by the sea, a small neglected corner of Playa not far from the master-planned all inclusives, several worlds removed. This still had a character distinctly Yucatan, with hammocks and porch fans the predominate vibe.  The players were a “check your identity at the door” bunch; a retired mid-tier government official who financed his gambling habit through consulting ––an unofficial addendum to years of profits laundered through a Mexicali construction firm. Souvenir shop entrepreneurs who were actually high-level narco trafficantes. They had worked their way through the ranks and taken bullets so that they could retire on the beach in guarded  luxury by age 50. There were a few expats who had been in the community for years and become fixtures. Gutted businessmen with such a mixture of accents that it was not immediately clear from which country, or planet, they came.

Participants of the $50,000 minimum buy-in gathering enjoyed the camaraderie as much as anything, trusting that Darknur would keep everything running in a dependable manner. Collusion was not tolerated among the regulars, who had instinct honed over long years  when things were not exactly right––naturally, all gentleman's agreements were off in the feeding frenzy that ensued when the whales arrived, seasonal Playa residents with money to splurge on the "chic and cheap" Mayan Riviera ––the French import/exporter who wore wraparound sunglasses and smoked Gitanes with nervous fingers; the Argentinian fashion magnate with a predilection (so the bartender at El DIablo said) for those who exuded machismo—-

Darknur set the whisky in the rolling glass tumbler on the weathered porch and looked out to sea as the fan spun lazy circles, just enough with the aid of coastal breezes to keep the skin cool. Just warm enough to feel at moments––caught off guard––that you were in paradise. The sound of chips clacking brought him to the here and now. He glanced inside at the high roller who had just been taken down from $100,000 to $25,000 in 30 minutes. The regulars' voices amiable and pleasant, with the surgical precision of trained killers who had accomplished their hit and agreed––by unspoken signal––to give a little back. 

I. Beyond Ironic
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​In 2019, it is beyond ironic that the last gasp for method, setting-focused ensemble work on a cape-and-CG dominated cinematic stage is within the superhero tentpole. “Beyond” because irony barely has a pulse when the insidious meme has mulched thesis and antithesis into ADHD-riddled snark.*

As a musician (and come to think of it, writer) who carefully assembles improvised riffs and elements, I identify more than a little with the way that Joker, as a movie — as a character — creates narrative. Riff, rift, repeat.

“The last day of shooting we did a scene with seven wildly different takes. That was the last thing we shot. So [up until the end] we were still thinking of ideas, what could we do differently.”

2. Lean, Mean, and Non-CG

With many bloated exceptions, comedy is a form of entertainment that thrives within non-CG parameters — two ferns and a baby is stretching it. A lone microphone, the phantom smoke of unlit cigarette, proves ample stand-in for an apartment room, an airport waiting lounge, a food truck, a flute-haunted beach.

While not exactly low budget, the Joker is that rare film (I’m also thinking of another Joaquin Phoenix vehicle, the Master) in which the director spent the money on the types of things that matter. Props, actors with real lines, scenes with individuality and vernacular. No erasure of age through CG, whether for purposes of plot line, novelty, or stupid vanity.
In its assured narrative form, Joker hearkens back to what the Raging Bull renegades let loose in the old studio china shop, striking blows against artificiality through sheer purpose and stagecraft, at a time when there was a coherently informed audience (read: stoned?) to impress.

What strikes me is that — unlike many contemporary movies set in the pre-digital past, Joker is not afraid of its shadow, the specter of device and beat — the looming, unalterable presence of technology in the wings. Maybe this is because the director and actor have assumed responsibility, flame or fail — there is no burden of the “crossover” to nail it to a superhero cross.** The film’s makers, if not its funders, are not losing sleep over whether it will sell tickets in Bangor, Rio, Moscow, or Beijing.

And if it bombs? Cancel culture says it never happened. No crossover, no proba, brada.

“The reason why I choose movies is the filmmaker. I thought that Todd had a really unique understanding of this world and the character, and great sensibilities. I knew that he liked to work in a loose way at times, and there was also this really solid script.”

3. Joaquin “Charlie” Phoenix​

It helps that Joaquin Phoenix is the closest we get to a modern Chaplin, a kinetic actor whose commitment to becoming a meta/physical embodiment of the character, down to the smallest tics and yeah, brain patterns, transcends the superhero trap. The New York Times’ Gia Kourlas penned a whole article on Phoenix’ dance moves, and yes, that hemming and hawing, in apartment and up and down Insta-ready steps is kinetic. Moreover, it’s human.

Body armor as superhero suit speaks volumes to the era we live in. I don’t know about the average John Q, but I lost interest in the contemporary portrayal of Batman when he started wearing an armor body suit and speaking through a voice modulator.***

I’m pretty sure Batman represents corporate America at this point, if not the modern police state (see the oppressive uniforms on display in Hong Kong). Maybe more realistic than a caped vigilante in tights, but a lot less fun and, one suspects (like Ironman, who at least has the smirk going) on the wrong side of the critical dividing line of our times — the global warming “debate.” At the very least, Batman’s aped-up lambomobile cannot get more than 10 miles per gallon. And what about about the drone-propelled flamethrower and titanium ninja stars with soul trackers?

“You just start going down this road. I started applying the makeup on my own… (in the film, the great makeup artist Nicki Lederman did the makeup). I took pictures at different stages, there’s one that’s just the white paint. And there’s something vey haunting about that look. It seemed almost more scary than the full Joker makeup. And I sent that to Todd and we decided to use that look for a scene in the movie.”

4. The Madness of Great Comedy​

There is a madness angle to all great comedy, from Sophocles to Monty Python. When you take off the mask of the comedian you find the psycho within. This is not a bad thing. Lines may be crossed, feelings hurt, but the ability to vent is a vital safeguard against the ready-made safe spaces of incipient fascism.

If comedy is a mirror that social media has shunned and flamed — as the Hangover director found, when his honorable tradition of the gross-out fizzed among a woke crowd — there is only one place to go. The padded room.
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In parallel with Joker’s well-documented psychological maladies, director Todd Phillips undoubtedly channeled some of his own pent up comedic angst into the narrative — the inability to get yayas out. Blame the flatness of the feed, in which the terribly cute vies with the garish, the violent, the grouchy, and the debased. Quality is placed side by side with the fake plastic trees, and the algorithm doesn’t know the difference.**** How can you elicit laughs when the non-hacks are not only no longer paid, but forced to cohabit with the insane clown posse?

Then there’s the idea that those who seek to make others laugh are often the most sensitive and empathetic. They defuse the bomb in situations where laughter is a therapeutic alternative to scorn and misery, if not World War Three. The most eviscerating comedy thrives in an environment of free speech and thoughtful acceptance of various perspectives.

Within the context of Joker, hell hath no fury like a comedian scorned. Laughter (at, or with) is Arthur Fleck’s last line of defense. A joke that elicits jeers is at least as good as a joke that falls flat —and if you can’t get the audience to listen, shoot the talk show host.*****

Speaking of which, taxi drivers and comedians have more than a little in common. A “beyond ironic” twist is the way in which Robert DeNiro––whom most now associate with some crotchety uncle in some lame comedy–– embodies in Phillips’ vision the antitheses of Travis Bickle (Arthur Fleck’s spirit animal). Take home: an entire generation has become a parody of itself. A laying on of hands, a slathering of remix devotion, in a world where fame is an analog concept and 15 minutes of feed time is considered 14:45 too long. My take? Ok boomer/ok hipster (Generation X smirk).

Easy to say I know, but a shift has occurred, a hollowing out. Those who emerged in systems where reward was given for hard work, originality, skill, creativity, and other arbiters of worth, find being marginalized by bot n’ troll armies hard to swallow.

When the freedom to spread fake news takes the place of freedom of speech, there is no outlet and bitterness runs to its logical conclusion — fascism that wears new colors, empaths who empathetically turn their fears and phobias into dastardly deeds writ large on the streets. Whether dressed in clown masks or in Guy Fawkes garb, powder-keg vendetta meets the extreme leverage of the flash mob and the world grows more polarized by the nanosecond.******
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“In terms of how the audience reacts, everybody, including my family… the people I’ve talked with all have a different reaction to the character, whether they sympathize or not. That’s what I like about the movie, it’s not telling you precisely what you should feel or when, and I think that’s rare in movies. Probably the reason I ultimately said yes to the movie was because I wasn’t sure what I felt about him.”

5. Happiness as the Art of Fending off Reality

​At its heart, Joker is about the psychological underpinnings of the bastard, the mistake, the free lunch ticket that never came home. As mother Penny, heavily in denial, describes it, he was always such a happy boy. With a smile signifying, not a state of happiness, but an overcoming of fear through stoicism. But even the most stoic must let it out.

The Joker is a survivor of something that could easily have ended in death, whether in the fetus, or in the moment of abuse as a three-year-old — or later, in one of those moments of intense hopelessness felt by the adult-child who has suffered horrific abuse.

His mother’s story is a particular tragedy of the shell game system. In a traditional society, every member of society would simply consider hard work part and parcel of life, however brutish and short it might be. But when lavish extraneous luxury is not only a possibility but a sought-after goal, the ability to make do with less, to find inner strength in things other than money, is abandoned by all but the very wise and determined.

The schism between rich and poor — those who receive everything through relatively little effort and those who receive very little, though they struggle mightily every day, is at the core of the Joker origin.
Arthur’s mother I imagine, from her accent and deportment, was depression-hardened into a social striver, launched by destitute parents to latch onto wealth, gain some of that which the family felt it could never make through honest work alone. Hence the elocution lessons, the months and years of training in correct deportment that none of her dockyard brothers received, for that one shot at largesse afforded to the very rich. She took a job as maid in a time well before the “me too” era, when the debased rules of the money system were accepted because people actually had no choice.*******

The type of schizophrenia she experienced was forged through living between two social groupings, classes that no longer see eye to eye. Trying to bridge that which is in essence unbridgeable, the work of spies.

And there in the maelstrom a sensitive boy, unprotected by his mother against the predators who emerged when she was expelled from the gates of Eden — neither welcome at a home with already too many mouths to feed or at the Wayne manor.

And yet young Arthur Fleck was not completely helpless. Joker has the ruthless, driven Wayne genes — he was born to, if not rule, at least survive. He expended much of his life force trying to protect his mother, in a world that was stacked way way against. A world which he instinctively sensed he should have owned, instead of it constantly owning him.

Bottom line: don’t give someone like the Joker meds. Give him therapy, give him unconditional love and support. But if you do give him meds, whatever you do, don’t cut off his supply.
“One of the first things I started to research was the medications [Joker] was on and the side effects of those medications, which made [him] feel isolated from the world. And then on top of that [he] takes these medications and they [cause] these rapid changes in weight. There’s something very tragic about that.

I said we should go with that, we should really have him affected in his weight. I’m lazy, so I suggested we go the heavy route. Because I already was heavy [laughter]…. anyway, once I had lost that weight I was aware of my body in a way that I hadn’t been, I think that allowed me to move in ways that I hadn’t anticipated. [Joker is a] character who never feels satisfied, he’s always in this perpetual state of yearning, of need. And that was built in. I was in a state of hunger.”

6. Superheroes as Shakespearian Substitutes

As one New York Times critic put it, superhero movies are the Shakespearian dramas of the contemporary era, our obsessions writ large. From that perspective, maybe it makes sense that this serious-movie Joker inhabits the Batman tentpole…. To bring method acting to a comic book character is quite a feat. Heath Ledger burned himself out trying to get there and, whatever he was, he was never quite the Joker.
Victim though he may be at times, the Joker does not die through pills or lack of sleep — he finds ways to thrive from his obsessions. He knows all the angles, all the forms of abuse. He punishes those who through micro aggressions remind him of that which has kept him down. And who better to portray that than Joaquin Phoenix, who has clearly had his own experiences adapting to madness––from his family’s early immersion in cult, to his brother’s Viper Room flame out.
If Guy Fawkes is the contemporary archetype, the emblem of all who would rebel, ignite, then give Arthur his place in that firmament. As Joker emerges from the nervous, effeminate, loser into a vision of the shaman carving a smile on his face, he embodies an all-too-common phenomenon in today’s unequal, “winner take all” society. The mass-casualty mirror to our preoccupation with social media smiles and selfie deportment.
My only significant reservation is that Phillips makes the Joker’s transformation into one who “werewolfs in the streets” a little too sexy, the line between diagnosis and prescription becomes a little too blurred. Yet I agree with Joaquin Phoenix that this, if anything subtly introspective, portrayal of a homicidal misanthrope is much less likely to spark copycat actions than those types of mindlessly violent films that leave out the backstory, the consequences, and the regrets.********
“There was a vast increase in these particular types of crimes after 1963. That year was when they started an unprecedented amount of news coverage about these types of crimes. So people who commit these types of crimes, these personality types — they seek personal notoriety, they seek recognition, that is what they thrive on.
I understand the media feels they’re being the responsible ones, but I think that the evidence is to the contrary. So that’s why I’ve remained quiet about the subject (and now you’ve forced me to talk about it). I don’t think that movies influence people in that way, I don’t think they cause homicidal ideation, or thoughts. But the conversation around that can be dangerous.”

Notes:

*Whose not-so-distant cousin is fascism, because when the same memes, jokes, and feed elements are pounded into our collective psyches, mean sameness follows.

** Sidestepping long digression, this is not coincidentally the talking point of a lot of old directors, Scorcese et al. in recent days. Tying into why Once A Time in Hollywood will not play well in China, regardless of Bruce Lee flaps, while just about any Marvel movie will do nicely.

***Arguably, Joker became the most interesting character in the Batman cinematic pantheon with Heath Ledger, although some would argue this happened when Jack Nicholson briefly took the role. Within the context of the comics, Frank Miller’s Dark Knight was the birth of this vision, placing adult goggles on the kiddish amorality.

**** Re: AI––thank god, some would argue. Or as Neil Young put it: So the subtle face… is the loser… this time. Here we are in the years, where the showman shifts the gears, lives become careers, children cry in fear, let us out of here. (exit, ominous piano).

*****A variant of “kill your television.”

******Better hope your leader is sane, your demands measured, and your cause just. Is it better to act fast, in a state of hunger, than to pick battles?

*******Alternatives were grim: flagpole sitting, shoveling coal, come to mind.
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*******We need more introspection, less repression — if it hurts, shocks, and causes revulsion, at least this type of tragicomedy attempts to piece together a narrative forward from the bits left behind by so many men who, alienated and alone, kill to forget.

 This week I found time to upload a pair of distinct musical recordings and videos, and therein lies a story.


It’s a story about quality, virality, timestamps, and the inability of the Internet to signify much beyond noise and feed. What may seem a minor gripe to those who have yet to paint their masterpiece, becomes a major issue for artists who have created worthy art and choose not to promote themselves in a viral way––


Yea, art is its own reward. In many ways the very creation of the pieces I present on Utube is an honor. To have a drummer, a bassist, a violinist, a trumpeter, a singer I respect learning what is in my head, without my giving them anything but the equivalent of sign language and ESP.... We get it done. 


How is it that something that connects, when it comes to actual musicians, is lost in translation when it comes to the current medium of conveyance, Internet? (Hint: algorithms and fleet fingers.)


Over the last year I have put up more than a dozen videos, many with an hour’s worth of music, all of it meeting pretty high standards of originality and quality. This has netted:


º nine subscribers
º 2,885 views
º no money or monetization possibilities*


So why am I putting the stuff up? 

1. It’s nice to be able to point people to what I do quickly and efficiently
2. Timestamp

What is a timestamp? 


It is proof that I created and uploaded some original composition at a certain date, in case… and don’t laugh, it happens much more often than you think––someone takes the idea, song, etc., and monetizes it. It is my insurance policy in a world gone at least half mad.


Why is this important? Well, take this song that I recorded as a sketch in Manila, about a year before the hook was incorporated into a song by a boy band that is kind of the antithesis of what I am about. I actually spit out my coffee at the coffee shop when I heard it. The notes, the measures before the stutter refrain "where do we, where do we go" are virtually the same as Why Don't We & Macklemore's I Don't Belong In This Club.

I may have been an unconscious zeitgeist conjurer with my tune, but it seems unlikely. I came up with the song not thinking of pop at all, but of the style of 1960s Czech folk singer Karyl Kryl. Created at a time and place when the message in music mattered. It was definitely not about getting into a club populated by Ferrari-driving ballers before hair has sprouted on one's chin.

When an idea you have come up with on your own appears completely out of context, it's a pretty big wallop to the brain. (this is hardly the first time, but the provenance of wordy ideas is much harder to cookie crumb than music)

How could the song idea have been poached? Easy. Overheard at the hostel where I worked it out for a couple days? Very possible, devices are everywhere, shared in instants. Somehow leaked from the studio sessions where I adlibbed it as part of the usual jam? Also possible. Psychic spies from China try to steal your heart's elation? Bingo.

Sadly, incorporated into a highly infectious pop track, the solemn query as to where we as collective humanity go has become an earworm unpalatable to its creator. 

So that's wind in my sails, in putting original music up faster than my usual snail’s pace. Mona Lisa, Jamming Along is a prime example. Not finished, but finished enough to claim authorship. And original enough. My intuition: bluesy songs that are not simply a variation of what has been done before do not come along every day. Ditto intelligent lyrics. 


Note to myself and to any original artist, especially those who don't work in beats: get that shit timestamped (I have quite a queue, more than 100 song ideas in various stages of completion) and…. find someone with legal knowhow to help nail down song authorship and all the rest. A consultant. Pay them if you have to, a whole lot of free get you ... where we are today.

Back to that timestamp thing...  the voice memo audio recording I made has an iPhone timestamp of 5/16/18. Perhaps that alone is admissible in a court of law, it would depend on precedent and whether the technology forensic witness made a compelling case. Any way you slice it, a public streaming video timestamp seems more powerful. I imagine any claim of authorship woul   have been bolstered by having even a  WIP version up on public platforms well before the pop song  came out.

As an artist who makes nil from his art I shouldn’t have to mention this, but it’s not about greed. I want to share whatever money comes from the  creative process with the musicians who helped me get there, whether they were participating in a paid studio session or not. That is part of the fabric concept. Banish thy ego. Oh yeah, and fund that fabric platform that will (sustainably) rip a hole in Internull reality as we know it. 

​*Youtube does not allow an official channel to be created and monetized  (through more or less intrusive ads) until 1,000 subscribers and some unholy number of looped streaming hours occur. I am never going to vie for that particular  race-to-the-bottom.


**Here’s the little blurb I incorporate in the video: “This is a little fabric video that came about when I was at the Civet Cafe in Cebu and heard Why Don't We & Macklemore's "I Don't Belong in This Club."  Well the rhythm and melody of the chorus is pretty much the same as a fabric song I came up with at a hostel in Makati a year before, as timestamped on iPhone voice memos at the time.  Probably played a couple days, may have also recorded off-the-cuff as I am wont at Strawberry Jams studio session. So I got into a little debate with erstwhile fabric drummer Nils about whether it is possible that they took my song idea. He said he couldn’t identify anything in the song he hadn’t "heard a thousand times before walking past radios. "Well, that said, it was original enough to be marketed as a new song on YouTube and all the rest, which apparently got 16 million views without being identified as a Radiohead, Hollies, Lana Del Rey, Marvin Gaye, Robin Thicke, Led Zeppelin, or Randy California ripoff. 


So lets say it is original and I came up with the hook a year earlier... just saying.... where do we, where do we go? (fabric is a thing, it's powerful. :)”

He had almost forgotten the rule of dry bone and dust. On the Gold Coast Kyle’s primary fears had related to watery predation. Shark attacks on the upswing in recent months as sources of food were depleted offshore––the year-in, year-out reality of scorched earth trawling having its effect. The sense of danger that hit him paddling out, a feeling of elemental heave within heavy surf, of the bottom dropping off the coast. Odd that the bone dry landscape Kyle had found so comforting in his youth, eloquent in its emptiness, would turn out to be the most hungry. 


The sun crept now into easy embrace with the horizon, giving as yet faint hint of its role as cruel enforcer. Brushing the rocks with just a kiss of warmth, its rays would only intensify and lengthen, transforming myriad shades of red and orange into washed out desert. The hard surfaces becoming radiant forces of their own, trapping the sun's heat––earth turned into ovenware. 


Kyle gazed out onto the flat, the sun now steady above the horizon, unblinking. The few clouds that passed just wisps and fragments. What he needed was distance from the ridge, enough to gain daytime perspective of its contours––pick out Cowachunga, or a sun-protected traverse.

​Read the entire Cowachunga, a cloud novel, and others like it at DamonArvid.com. Below, the perfect fabric song for sunny daze.

EVEN 2.2 
Kombucha Heaven

What was his worth then? As perfect and pacific as it seemed, this had been arranged. He was not here by accident––he would have hazarded that the algorithm had let him in, but that was yesterday. As Xit described it, facial recognition was nothing without knowledge infill,  curation instead of culling. 

It was not his flute, that was too low key and off-the-grid for even the hippest to grasp. It was not his baby blue eyes, which contrasted intensely with a beard going grey. It was not even his semi-pure thoughts, as long as he unplugged from the insidiously debasing feed. How had John Bucket put it in "Slowly Learning?"

What would you tell me, you tell me
if I confessed that you were not my type
what would you sell me, you sell me
that algorithms make a like

chemistry drives evolution,
bots break that down to the level of vice––
institutions make bot-theft solutions,
theft of humanity through a device.

He took another sip of kombucha. Ah yes, it was that which he carried with him, the one brew he allowed himself in this traveling game. Layer and layer of teas, fruits, honey, coconut sugar, seeds even, nuts, built up over time, distilled, smoothed over, tasted, until what he got was often a sip of perfection––though it varied from day to day, hour to hour. 

​They wanted his kombucha. They said it was part of of the fabric. And who was to say it wasn't?

Art funds the creative projects. Avocado Sun is for sale here. 

I had a dream last night and a new chapter of EVEN came to me. With 3-4 novels ongoing (in my head, intermittently on paper) and not yet arranged on the new personal site, the start of chapter one EVEN 1.1 — The Writer Who Ignored the Feed can currently be accessed on Medium. 

EVEN 2.1 
​12 months earlier

Est sat at the wood cafe, bar, hangout, coffee shop––place that was about something other than making money––though they nominally did that on the side. It was not about drugs, as some trolls would certainly claim, two sentences into the chapter. Some of the people smoked weed and hell, he was not adverse to a little kind. 

Mary Jane was not legal here and he respected that. No high was worth police state paranoia and possible intervention. His thing was currently yoga, walks on the trail, and a bitter mixture of kratom and tea, once every three days. 
​
The six varieties of live beer on tap were bracing, but then so was the kombucha they had 15 varieties of. As the proprietor had explained, some were green tea base, some English breakfast, some genmai cha. Add whatever fruits were predominately available, a little every day, like a chef carefully pinching herbs and tasting. This one was predominately Darjeeling/papaya/mangosteen and would go head to head with any fine wine in everything but the alcohol category. There was no signage, no price list. By sitting down you contributed and if  you had not contributed enough, your time was up.

Mildly satisfied in a way that lasted, having reached some epiphany, he was not sure if he had that straight. But he was more sure that he had something now than he had ever been, since the dream of UC Santa Cruz and its state-enabled happy edifice came tumbling down upon the reality that all sojourns in the sun were temporary. 

In yesterday’s distractified world, ruled by a feed-informed dark hole of Internet algorithms and Insta-mobs (fundamental user flaw he had identified 20 years ago), he was kept never quite sure of anything. The way that years of work could be devalued to less than free. Trollable. It no longer mattered, at least in this little beta corner of reality that fabric had changed and, he was confident, would continue to alter in ways in line with what people, and the earth, could afford.