Keep Laughing!: Summer Vacation III• My sci-fi story• I'm sticking to it

August 27, 2020.

It was hot. The hotel was comfortable, and cheap and I wanted to sleep longer. I stayed an extra night at the Knights Inn at Page, Arizona. Good handmade, sanitized breakfast at the hotel. Good enough. Got high. Watched terrible cable tv movies. Went into hiding. Safely wasting away.

Swam in the briny water of Lake Powell. Actually it was more mineral than brine. Had the smell and taste of Lake Mead, as it should. They’re both man made bodies of water created in deserts. Swimming always seems like more trouble than it’s worth. It’s always a production. Something I try to avoid. And yet in almost every instance when I'm in the water I adore it. Enjoyed this swim for sure.

Continued to smoke weed, drink beer and eat shit in my room. Wrote more in my diary and promptly left said diary in the hotel as I departed the next morning. Hence the rewrite, which has been a satisfying exercise.

Throughout this trip I pondered making some kind of statement about social media. Not just a statement but an exit. Social media cheapens expression. Emboldens idiots. Levels the playing field in all the wrong ways. Even if I get a measure of satisfaction from social media it’s like the thrill you get from writing on a bathroom wall. And often enough someone is behind you writing over your bullshit. Often less clever than my original. It reeks of piss too.

As a platform it’s yet another capital swallowing monster among the many society has created. I don’t drink Coors for the same reason. I can’t deny the ultimate result of Coor's, Coke, or Facebook so I won’t be partying with it anymore. Can you deny it at this point? My exit would go unnoticed if not for the attention this trip foisted upon me. So now was the time to leave Facebook and perhaps bring friends and family with me to a different platform? Is it be possible? Is it worth the effort?

Here in Page I felt like I was the hero/victim of a nightmarish science fiction story from which I couldn't escape, no matter how fast or far I could drive myself. Perhaps this was the Kilgore Trout story I needed to write myself?

I cast myself as Moses reaching out to my loved ones, asking them to join me for a mass exodus away from darkness towards some semblance of light. A ballsy move. If someone else came up with the idea I’d scoff at their audacity. I could see in my own skepticism this would be the reaction from nearly everyone when they hear my plans sprouting from my ego. The idea was a lost cause almost immediately once it came into my head. Not unlike every ideal based in human compassion among the cruelty of today's "feeds."

I specialize in lost causes. That’s all I’ve ever hitched my wagon to.

How dare I? Sell absorbed? Confident to the point of suicidal. When I look back I see a pattern that springs from every enterprise in which I’ve ever been involved, at least the creative ones. Daily, I find it neccessary to destroy my ego and burn any feeling of shame on the pyre to allow me to be me. To allow me to share. Calling it art already casts me as pretentious. Which I accept, however the importance of remaining grounded is a staple of my art. Working class. Perpetually Realistic. A striving to be real, even if I’m unsure what real might be. That’s why I made a big deal about trying to document something as superfluous and ultimately ignorant as Las Vegas punk rock. But I experienced it. So I know it to be true. When so much out there in the world is devoid of truth. I want to create truth because it doesn’t seem to exist outside of me!

Standing up and sticking out is usually an embarrassment in the moment, but I've been outside and alone so long I really don't care anymore and barely cared enough in the past merely as a means to avoid getting beat up. I might feel like an asshole later. But I can't and won't shut up. What I have to say and who I am, is the art I create, it’s all selfishly for me to define and enjoy. It's sometimes all I feel I have control over. And since I'm obscure what kind of threat am I? Maybe becoming unemployed will make me become an artist again? I’ve come to find almost no one relates to me, and vice versa. I keep telling this same story over and over again. Will it end?

I can't relate and it's not for a lack of trying. As a result the opinions of others are low on my radar as to be be imperceptible. I can only hear me. If I live long enough I expect I’ll alienate everyone I know. It scares the fuck out of me. I once wrote a song called "I Haven't Got the Courage To Care." I thought it was a clever name but I wouldn't have conceived of it if there wasn't a part of me that felt that way. Although I think it's more an observation about society than an autobiography.

I live on tangents that reek of a philosophy class being taught by a lazy poet.

The evidence is clear how insidious and manipulative Facebook has become, as a business, as a so called service to society. It's concentrated evil of the kind found in the film Time Bandits. Collectively we have a hard time denying that and yet there’s a great deal of rationalization, like who am I hurting?

When I later brought up my ideas on Facebook one of my favorite teachers from Jr. High commented on how impossible it is to not contribute to the death machine that is America. And I agree. I’ve spent my whole adult life avoiding contributing to the fire as much as I can even if at best I’ve rationalized almost all my motivations.

Ditching Facebook is not a hard choice for me. I kicked cigarettes. Don’t tell me the draw of “likes” are on par with Marlboro Reds. Perhaps if you’ve never smoked cigs, Facebook is like crack? I understand the loneliness especially since the world is headed towards increasing isolation. However I've always been outside. Even when I've nestled myself among the misfits. I never fit in. Or felt the need to give a shit. I wish I could. Maybe I wouldn't be as concerned? Maybe I'd learn to relax? Maybe get a girlfriend? A dog? A crew of good friends? Maybe I'd be so bored death wouldn't seem bad.

I can’t be involved with that crap anymore. So fuck Facebook. And fuck you for not agreeing with me.

The story that formed in my mind as I raced through the desert went like so:

I went to the mountain and found the truth that was hidden in plain sight. Social media was indeed a subterfuge, a gateway to a new form of social control. From the road I would hand down an edict: let’s find another social media platform. Why does it have to be so hard? All we need is a small community of roughly 3 dozen people. We could grow this world together on Myspace Jr., or whatever platform that proved most adaptable. In unity and brotherhood we could build something new. We'd have to build something new. Everything from the ground up as Facebook owns the digital world and everything we created in all the years we were members were no longer ours. It wouldn’t be a easy. Just finding 2-4 people who could take the idea seriously would be hard, and awkward.

Instead of writing the idea out as a story I put it out there on Facebook.

A handful of people warmed to the idea, it’s an undeniable conceit. But it’s also a big commitment for something so inane (social media?) yet so front and center. It’s quite easy to get excited about the idea and even easier to talk yourself out of the idea. It lay out there, in the open air, with many nods and winks and “here, here’s” and it’s not practicals, and I’ll get around to it eventualities.

My bonafides as a messiah have never been more delusional. Not like it’s something I’ve been thinking about. Often. While I can and have been a leader at different times in life. It’s all fleeting. On more than one occasion I’ve try my hardest to suppress my ego for the sake of my community. It never comes off like that. No one wants to follow. Even a good idea. And the truth is I don’t really want to lead. I work with the assumption that everyone is smart enough to lead themselves. I’ve seen the folly of that assumption working in the stagehands union in Portland, Oregon. (Duh.)

And yet we, by we I mean Americans, are appalled by the idea that we are followers. We are masters of our individual destinies which rarely if ever intersect with the destiny of the hated herd! An idea that will benefit the individual and the community doesn’t mean shit unless it’s your (my) idea! Others have talked about ditching Facebook trying meekly to pull me onto other platforms but it never lasted longer than a day. Why would my “preaching” mean more than any other self righteous chump to the motivations of “friends” many of whom I barely know outside digital detritus. So after a few attempts at pulling at heart strings. I gave up. And not to bring out spoilers but after this trip ended, in fact the day after it ended I deactivated my Facebook account. It’s still out there in the ether. I can return if it suits me, but my stubbornness and my integrity are too headstrong to bend. Not sure how many people know if I made it home or not. Doubtful most any of them care. Let them think I’m still out in the void. That’s where I’d rather be anyway. Let them continue to dream that image of me battling windmills in the desert.

To return to this sci-fi story and how I eventually resolved it: I would preach and do my favorite rituals regarding TRUTH, as I know it. Then in a fit of righteousness I destroy/delete/nuke my Facebook account and go full bore onto another platform only to find the few people who followed me were all racist/nazi sympathizers who troll me endlessly on the new platform until I finally give up and smash my computer against the wall. Forever destined to be a luddite. Reading books, farming, and masterbating only to memories.

A terrible story. For terrible times. Also pretty derivative. Reads like a bad episode of the Twilight Zone. The refrain of “it will get worse” keeps getting louder but what can we do but wait? Since I’ve returned home I work towards emergency preparedness. It’s all I can think to do as I look at the horizon and see nothing but emergencies waiting to ambush us.

I should write out that story someday. I'd imagine just like everything else that hit the fan this year it would comes off like I'm plagarizing a 1970’s sci-fi film.