I’m back!!!
Last week I joined Berkeley Community Media, which is like a public access deal, and I’ll be god darned if they didn’t just approve my membership. As a Berkeley resident I pay $60 a year to use their studios and equipment and prop room (!). Man! That right there is a capital “D” Deal. I think I have to take some classes before I’m allowed to touch what is most certainly tens of thousands of dollars worth of professional video equipment, though hey, after that I’m free to create beautiful poison with my friends.
I have written so much trash. Trash like you wouldn’t believe. I am very excited to make this trash, because in all honestly I have absolutely no idea what else I should be doing in these dire times. The world is ending. Haven’t you heard? May as well do this thing rather than the other thing, which is to wait around to die.
Last year around this time, when I was destitute in Portland and wanting to be free from the tyranny of personality and higher thought and three-dimensional livin, I had this thought that I wished I had some sort of mundane way to occupy my time . . . some sort of Dad Habit-Ritual. When I was a kid, my own father would go to Home Depot on Saturday morning and PICK UP A FEW THINGS so that he could clean the outside of our house, or plant flowers and vegetables, or lay mulch, or some such thing. It seemed to bring him peace. He was a police officer and saw god only knows what during his 50-hour workweek, so I imagine it was nice to just be alone and make something he cared about look nicer on his days off. That simplicity is alluring to me!! I want it. I need it!
I will make this Community Media membership my weekend Home Depot run. I’m going to book those studios several nights a week and just pump out screaming nonsense. Truth be told, I don’t actually really get any enjoyment out of making videos or writing stuff, or whatever. I do it out of desperation and to stop my brain from thinking about everything else for a little while. The ACT OF CREATION, in other words, is a crucial diversion I require to keep myself from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. (Hmmmm . . . . . . maybe I’m 100% serious!)
I’ve . . . made trash you people wouldn’t believe. I’m gonna make more. I have no choice. It’s either this or lurch gloomily into the end of all things, at least for Ryan Starsailor. Oh boy.
And what if I told you I got two of my Good Buddies involved, and we’ve all got memberships and a deathwish we’re looking to delay? Maybe this is the worst thing that’s ever happened. Well, what the hell, man. It’s like the fella said: You’ve got to do something. This is all I can come up with.
