Jeff Johnson's Blog: Will Fight Evil 4 Food, page 9
March 30, 2020
Famous Last Words, Reconsidered
This is an interesting time to examine last words. The final shit you will say on this Earth… I was thinking about this all morning and I came up with four words that fit every scenario. “Either the drapes go or I do,” Oscar Wilde’s last words (what a cool dude), set the bar pretty high.
‘I fucked your mom.’ Think about before you freak out, dear reader, or panty pogo out into the wussrod high plains of better than thou. It works, at least for me, and if you read on you’ll realize it probably works for you.
Scene One, The Unlikely Hospital Bed- in this unfortunate scenario, I’d be surrounded by my wife and still hypothetical children. The kids would think it was funny, Sylvia would smile because I was thinking of her. Bam. Rockin’ good landing.
Scene Two, The Gun Battle With Crooked Cops In A Brazilian Whorehouse- I mean, totally works here too!
Scene Three, Car Wreck- what an insane thing to say to an EMT. One last story for him or her. ‘Guy looked right at me and said he fucked my mom. I mean, sweet Jesus.’
Scene Four, Swordfight- Douchebag says ‘En garde’ and I hit him with ‘I fucked your mom.’ Bingo in Toledo, baby.
And on and on. I can’t think of a single death where ‘I Fucked You Mom’ wouldn’t work. If you can think of one, dear reader, don’t tell me.
March 26, 2020
Fibonacci’s Pig Milk Yogurt
Yogurt made from pig milk is wrong but its hard to say exactly why. Tom Cruise has that one big front tooth right in the center of his mouth and that’s more off putting than it should be, but nobody knows exactly why that is. The Fibonacci Sequence in pine cones, pineapple in pastor tacos, the spleen- there are so many troubling things that are mystifying at the same time.
I’ve read a few articles on the ‘emotional’ side of this quarantine, and all they did was convince me again that psychology is a French science prosecuted by astrologer monkeys. Social media shows that fuses are short, but in many ways this is just a shitty new job and fuses are always short at the beginning of something you don’t like but have to do. What am I feeling? Can I better understand the people around me if I examine my own inner landscape? Maybe, but I don’t care to. You probably don’t either. So where does that leave us? Have I just wandered into an existential inner-outer mobius? Am I an onion seasoned with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics? If I wait will I unpeel through entropy? Will you? Do we make the pig milk yogurt now?
Ah! I know what I’m feeling! Togetherness in isolation! That- it doesn’t compute. But its not entirely terrible. Or is it?
March 25, 2020
A Solid Plan For Supernatural Immunity
I can’t die of the coronavirus. I already have a plan, dear reader, and it has nothing at all to do with this epidemic. Maybe give it a try yourself. How did I come up with such an exit plan? It wasn’t even my idea. One day I was sitting around in this tattoo shop I was working in and there were maybe three or four other artists buzzing, and just like that, how we all wanted to die came up. It quickly became a group discussion. One guy wanted to die in his sleep. Everyone agreed this was weak. Even bugs have a greater sense of glory. Some chick said thoughtfully that she wouldn’t mind choking to death on dick, but this had no appeal to the rest of us. I went with a plane crash, but of course I’d be the pilot and the plane would be stolen. This sounded okay to the group. Suicide by stolen muscle car was popular (after a terminal diagnosis). One guy wanted to jump out of an airplane and land on his bosses house, just tear through the roof and explode in the living room. Acceptable. And then the old guy came in. Grizzly, smelly, half insane. Someone tossed the question at him and he didn’t even think about it for a second. He already knew. “Gun battle with the cops in a whorehouse.”
Everyone agreed he was the winner, but with a few colorful modifications. Mine runs like this- a gun battle with crooked cops in a whorehouse. I envision myself as very old and frail, wearing a suit that looks two sizes too big. Drunk, of course. Two handguns that look like bazookas in my gnarled old hands. Screaming prostitutes all around me (I’m saving them) and it all takes place somewhere in Mexico or maybe Argentina. Old gothic buildings and bright blue sky outside the shattered windows, guns blazing, and the last terrified wave surges in and- wink.
That’s way too good. Bold, heroic even, and relatively clean. Plus my so so novels will get reprinted in the wake of such a magnificent death and my questionable paintings will double in value. My hypothetical heirs will be pleased and hipsters will have a new cafe conversation piece for the ages. I can hear it now- “You didn’t hear how that guy went out? (nervous giggle) Well, he didn’t whisper toodleoo and they had to cremate an entire building with him. See…”
A virus can’t touch that.
March 23, 2020
EVERY GOOD TATTOO SHOP ON EARTH IS CLOSED
It’s after 3:00 AM. I can’t sleep. I’m not a Fear guy, as in afraid of all the ridiculous shit the news tries to tell me to be afraid of. But I do hear a kind of distant gong sometimes, especially late a night. Just now, somewhere in Asia, the last good tattoo on Earth shop put their ‘CLOSED’ sign up, maybe with a note with a colorful dick on it squirting ‘Landmines Inside, Looters Will Be Fucked To Death.’
The badasses are all down.
If this isn’t a sign of something, well, I have no idea what else you’re waiting for. Que the gong. The last time I heard it was when I looked up and saw a string of Tesla satellites marching across the night sky. At first I had no idea what they were, then I thought it was peculiar, antlike aliens. And then I realized no, they were man made. It seemed like we entered a new era right then, at least to me. A new era.
A new era.
I have every confidence this is all going to work out, given time, and I’ll tell you why. The tattoo world is filled with people who defied the terrible vice of obedience, that laziest and most seductive of all sofas of the soul. But here they are, unified. Maybe that’s why I can’t sleep. Because I feel hopeful for our species. When was the last time you felt that? Think about it.
March 20, 2020
Tattoo World Silver Linings (and sketchy advice for small business owners everywhere)
Quarantine. The big bookstore here in the City of Roses just bit the curb ghetto style and one of my old favorite bars is graveyard toast, evidently having lived on the profit cusp (all abundance was translated into coke) and now with less in savings than the mailman who lives next door to me they will be selling ice cream from a truck this summer instead of booze. Cue sad clown tune. These stories are everywhere. So this morning I’ve turned my attention to the tattoo world, my landscape for more than thirty years, to consider the options and how they might translate to other small businesses. I’m just bored enough to do this- my dick hurts from too much fucking, I can’t bear the thought of cracking one of the harder cookbooks again, and Netflix is, evidently, just for teen girls. What a fucking time to realize that. Anyway, here we go-
THE HUSTLE-
If your tattoo shop is less than five year old, yep, you’re fucked. Every bit of energy you spend on it from this day forward, every penny, Euro, whatever, will not help. Enter The Hustle. How the fuck did you get to where you have keys in your hand? The same hustle will get you to a different landing zone. Today, old enemies are new friends. It’s high time to trim some trash out of this industry anyway. Here in Portland we have the ‘student shops’ and they’re all about to meet the toilet of the future. So hustle. Your backup plan is the new Plan A. Make the transition and make it hard.
GAME-
I just read this on social media ‘Oh my god we just put ten G’s into the new floor’. What? No dog. You get the Lazy Cretin Award. YOU are the one who puts in the new floor, princess jizz toilet or brobot McDouchebag. This is your wake up call- you will never have the kind of bank you need to outsource the shit you can do yourself. Ever. Worst case scenario you trade. But you never, ever pay for shit like this. Now you know why.
CONNECTION-
Your release forms. All signed by people. Your customers. Now is not the time to sell them anything. Now IS the time to reach out. You altered their bodies for life at one point. If you’re too cool to care, blow me. I hope you wind up at a Pizza Hut and I will personally kick you in the stomach when I see you in that uniform just to make it even worse. Reach out to those people and keep it alive. I’ve long speculated that the impulse behind getting a tattoo is to differentiate or claim personal space. In the Era of Herd, people want a symbol of individuality. You were a part of that moment. Keep it real. YOU care about Bob. YOU care about Jane. As individuals.
SIDE GIG-
You all have one. Even a crappy tattoo artist is often a master of creative problem solving. Pair this with your other great skill- the ability to creatively focus for lost periods of time, every day. Sic this shit on your side gig. Make it, for a time, your number one hustle. If you are one of the incredibly rare tattoo artists with no side? Get one. You should have had one all along.
CRAFT-
No side gig is gonna fill all the hours. You already did 40 to 50 hours a week and developed a side gig, so now the entire thing will happen in reverse. Craft. All this art started on paper. So make some flash. And don’t fucking do it using Photoshop. AND, don’t make flash in your old style. You were American Traditional? Wee bit of a loser already in my opinion. That’s the easiest shit of all. Do something harder. Stretch. Grow. You are totally out of excuses, my caveman or cavelady. New Skool lunatic? Try American Traditional but be creative. Are you one of those stick figure rookies that are so common these days? You’re the only ones who get to give up and apply at Costco. The rest of you get to it.
I don’t know how this will translate into anything useful for other businesses. But your horoscope is a blizzard of bullshit you see revealing patterns in it, so there you go. Shout out to Dakini and Hard Ink in Philly, Old Number 13 in LA and Eastside here in Portland.
March 19, 2020
Scenting the Psychosphere
The nonluminiferous aether. The smell of minds. Macro connectivity. We’re all linked together in strange ways, dear reader. Consider the new multi-field hypertelescope design pioneered by Professor Antoine Laberyie at the Collège de France and Observatoire de la Cote d’Azur. It could in theory see detail on the surface of exoplanets. It relies on multiple mirrors instead of one huge one. A flotilla positioned in space could form a mirror with a greater diameter than the Earth. That big. And it would see things we can only presently dream of. An interesting analogy for a sociological point- many object used to bring into focus something that would otherwise remain hidden. We the people might be the mirrors here, positioned to bring into focus the troubles of our time. But what? Income inequality? Is America really just a corporate prison now? Has social media and politics made us so divided that the human apparatus will no longer function as a vehicle of clarity, which was the great hope of our time as the decedents of The Enlightenment?
Hmm. Ever heard of mass psychogenic illness? I have, dear reader, and I’ve been watching subtle, sludgy tides of it ever since I read about St. John’s Dance. Thousands of people, swept up in jerking dances until they dropped and nobody knows why. It went on from the 7th century all the way up to the mid 17th century. Absolutely freakish. In Portugal in 2006, in what is called The Soap Opera Virus, several girls contracted an illness from a TV show called The Morangos com Açúcar (Strawberries and Sugar). More than 300 of them. The list goes on.
I see small swirls of madness in the world right now. Irrational, cowardly paranoia spreading like blooms of green slime of the surface of a still pond. But I also see muscular little ripples of cooperation and bright blooms of collective desire to comfort, to make, to create. So maybe, to close back with my metaphor borrowed from astronomy, this event, the hypertelescope of our day, may be how we see ourselves and how we function in society with great detail, rather than revealing something large that was previously hidden in society itself. It is a moment of small details, as small as me and you, dear reader. Are you a wussy? Hoarding beans and toilet paper and spreading fear? Or are you boldly aware, alive, with song and clear eyes, ready to help?
Now is the time. Pick.
March 16, 2020
Coronaviews #3 Interviews In The New Meat Cannery- Bingo Richey of The Mojave Lords
Mojave Lords album Unfuckwithable is a blistering masterpiece of high desert fuckhole rock, an ear peeling, psychic doomsday, burn a double wide in your underpants gem that reminds me of everything good in life. Now more than ever we need music, and I don’t mean fruit fly pop or smell my finger country. We need to be Unfuckwithable. In episode #3 of Covonaviews, Interviews In The New Meat Cannery, we e-chat with front man Bingo Richey.
JJ- Hey man! How are things in Joshua Tree?
BR- The tourism trade has been growing rapidly since the short-term vacation rental business model took hold, so there’s a lot more traffic and people. There are also some new businesses in the area, and a Saturday market in town. The National Parks closure in 2019 hit the local economy pretty hard, and allowed a lot of unsupervised park usage, which led to off-road vehicle damage, as well as massive amounts of garbage. The locals banded together to make dump runs and tried their best to help mitigate the damage being done. We’re still waiting to hear about Covid-19 related closures from National Park Service.
JJ- I’ve heard time and again that Rancho de La Luna is a fantastic place to record. Cancellations? Is this a golden window?
BR- Most typical sessions are fewer than ten people, so we could keep working. However, discretionary travel is discouraged at this time, so David has temporarily shut down operations until further notice. We generally like to keep working on our own projects when there aren’t any clients. David also has a strict maintenance schedule for all the gear, plus the odd malfunction that needs to be addressed, so there’s never any down-time per se.
JJ- Let’s talk apocalypse. You guys have plans? Tell me you’re going to get a giant SUV and weld pig iron on it and install a flame thrower.
BR- I don’t do apocalypse. Religion isn’t my bag. Our plans are to keep moving forward with our spirits company, media company, and other ancillary. Our first project for Rancho de La Luna Records / Media Company is The Sweet Relief Music Hour. In conjunction with some contributing co-sponsors, we are creating a live music performance show. Some of the producers of Chef’s Table are working on it with us. Our goal is to raise awareness and funds for musicians in need. Sweet Relief, and other aid organizations are vital to our communities, and we are happy to be able to assist them. A Mad Max truck sounds pretty fucking cool, though. Thanks for the great idea.
JJ- Joshua Tree. People freaking out?
BR- I don’t know. I keep my head down most of the time. I can tell you though, that relying on tips and steady shifts for survival leaves most hospitality and entertainment workers dangerously close to the edge. Being shut down for even a week can be the difference between making rent, or car payments, or child-support, or not making it. So there seems to be a lot of talk going round on how best to show support for our community. I saw a video of a guy watching his house burn to the ground out in Landers the other day. He was just standing there, cheering it on. “Burn Motherfucker!” Looked like he was freaked way past out.
JJ- Best thing you’ve seen in the last 48 hours, people wise. Go-
BR- People coming together to try and figure out ways that everyone can keep eating and keep roofs over their heads. It’s like Mister Rogers said:
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
JJ- Cool. Side projects? Tell us about Bingo’s tomorrow…
BR- Mojave Lords has a new album that is nearly completed. Our six-year hiatus is almost over! I don’t have many side-projects, but I have a shit-ton of projects going on: I’m CEO of a spirits company that’s blowing up; CEO of a new media company / record label that has got some awesome human beings involved; Mojave Lords is getting ready to release the some of the creepiest dad-rock ever made; and more stuff I can’t talk about just yet. All said, even with all the setbacks, disappointments, and challenges that can come along with trying to build new businesses, I feel inspired and ready to work every day. Working with my friends, and with people that I trust has been rewarding in many ways.
JJ- Right! The mezcal!
BR- Rancho de La Luna Mezcal. We’re currently in production with our next batch and preparing to launch in North America and Europe. It’s awesome as hell.
Check out the link below for more on Rancho de La Luna Mezcal. Thanks Bingo! And we look forward to that new record. What a cool guy.
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View this post on InstagramA post shared by Rancho De La Luna Mezcal (@ranchomezcal) on Oct 31, 2019 at 12:57pm PDT
March 15, 2020
Coronaviews #2, Interviews In The New Meat Cannery- New Orleans resident and Old Portland’s X-Ray Café freakazoan Benjamin Arthur Ellis.
Benjamin Arthur Ellis. Former Portland resident, former owner of the X-Ray Café from back in the day, a period now referred to as Old Portland, when for a brief window of time the dream machinery of the American collective unconscious manifested. Music was everywhere, our big bookstore was a marvel of cheap paperbacks, art flourished, and a food movement was born. It all went away because such things are impossible to sustain, and Benjamin Arthur Ellis is one of the things that went with it. But in his day, dear reader, Benjamin surfed the great creative wave with great dedication and skill. He was tied to that surge more closely than most, and the events of his life mirrored it in many ways. We had many adventures, me and Ben. For some years our acapella band The Lollipops, rounded out by Tres Shannon, opened gigs at Berbattis. One story to illustrate Ben’s surprising creative problem solving prowess- The night we opened for some big band, I forget who, and we had to wear suits. Ben’s was splendid, perfectly silver, even the shoes and tie. I wondered where he got the money for this finery and under the spotlights, as the suit began to melt, I discovered it was a Salvation Army ensemble. He’d spray painted the entire thing. Benjy fled to New Orleans when the lights dimmed and changed here in The City of Roses. Let’s check in with him and see what he’s got cooking here in episode two of Coronaviews, Interviews In The New Meat Cannery.
JJ- What up my dog mammal!
BE- In general, they’re trying to shut down this city. Up until about a week ago we had no documented cases in Nola at all. I think were up to 80 now, most of them right here. The response was fairly expedient. They had a press conference the other day with the governor and the mayor. We’re limiting shit. But we NOT BE LIMITING ACCESS TO ALCOHOL. A really weird declaration. It’s nice for them to comfort us in this time of need. So there’s that.
JJ- What are you cooking today? I have red beans on the stove for green chili enchilada pie.
BE- Cooking? I am not cooking today. I had a bunch of chili. I got some salad mix. Kathleen cook up a delicious focaccia bread so we got that. We got a big ole jug of whiskey. Sort of diminished at this point. Might have to deal with that. I’ve been sort of trying to make that a weekend thing but if we’re trapped we’ll see how that goes.
JJ- You have the immune system of a junkyard dog. I think you and Martinez have been sick once in the decades I’ve known you. Worried?
BE- Well, you know, that might be changing Jeffrey. They keep offering me a flu shot but I don’t care. But this year over the holidays I had the flue for like a month. That was the most difficult Christmas holiday. Since then I’ve been good, but I have a persistent cough, not good optics right now. Historically I’ve been immune to petty viruses. But I could die from the slightest breeze (laughs) I really have no idea!
JJ- The people of New Orleans. Tell us.
BE- Well I don’t know Jeff. I haven’t really left my house. They canceled some events, they canceled the St Patrick’s Day Parade and apparently people showed up anyway and they had to be dispersed by the police. Cops showed up. New Orleans is very attached to alcohol. This is a very red state, so FOX has been promoting that it’s all a libtard hoax. I’m almost in support of that, if republicans want to go of ignoring all precautions that’s probably fine with me. Panic might be worse.
JJ- Music? Is you band on hiatus? What creative things you doing?
BE- Not too much really. Haven’t had a regular band in some time. A few shows here and there. Trying to paint! But not too much of that. I retrieved an old high school sketch book from my parents, really great. My old teen angst was great for drawing. So I’m going in some new directions based on that. Doing a lot of carpentry and all that. Not so much art.
JJ- Last thoughts. Give us a pep talk.
BE- Uh. We’re all gonna die! Well you know, enjoy the time you have. Share quality time with your loved ones. But that’s pretty much my message to the American People. We’re all gonna die. Ain’t no big deal. People die all the time Jeffrey.
JJ- Groovy.
BE- Let me just say on a side note that when we get celebrity deaths, that’s when this is coming home. When Betty White goes under people are gonna lose their shit. Anyway. You guys still have toilet paper? Because as far as I can tell that’s the biggest problem so far.
One of my fav Ben ditties, Kiss You On The Moon, right here-
Ben Ellis- hero, scholar, frisbee champion, thinker and pottymouth
March 14, 2020
Coronaviews, Interviews In The New Meat Cannery #1- The enigmatic road mammal Tory Seller
I first met Seller is San Francisco when we were both working on a hippy commune television pilot wherein we spent our nights sleeping in the lobby of a recording studio, no shit the kind of thing that could only happen to me. Or so I thought. By night number two I realized that Tory was on a lifelong adventure as well. Let’s check in on him now and see what he’s up to, here in Coronaviews #1– Tory Seller
JJ- What up my dog mammal! Where are you?
TS- I’m ah, in Colorado Springs, pretty close to the Garden of the Gods. I’m in a weekly motel. Really nice view of Pike’s Peak. Check this out- I have a phone line in the motel. I might have a better connection. I never used it but hang on. (BEAT- phone rings) Okay. So I kinda have a suite. I met the owner on my book tour a few years ago. Thing is, he looks just like my step brother. So it’s a suite. Super peaceful. If things do get rough, I’m close to weed and good water. Personal use drugs aren’t a felony here anymore. If I’m gonna get quarantined, I mean, I got what I want. I’m a complete wax head. Clones are gonna be hard to keep alive. I mean, I think of myself as a modern day hunter gatherer anyway. This fits into my plan.
JJ- Very positive. Tell us a little bit about your emergency go bag/supply box. What’s in your survival kit?
TS_ Aw man no man. Mostly weed. Dabs. I can’t take it seriously enough yet but I’m gonna work on it. My dream is to eat brown trout in my little Honda Element. Fishing. I think maybe ibuprofen. Wax. Big bags of weed. I’m kinda in the moment. This has just made me even more in the moment. I work W-TH-FR. My plan is kinda the same as it was. Man, the Keto chocolate shake. That’s in there, until I learn to fish good enough (laughs) man that’s so fuckin stupid. This is gonna be a good year.
JJ- Gnarly. Getting’ any? Include hos.
TS- Well, okay, so I was seeing this married chick, I dunno, not good corona. Highest exposure. Tinder’s been dry, I haven’t put in the effort. Everybody is polly. Totally big now. But-
JJ- Creepy.
TS- That’s gonna be clamped down pretty hard. I moved out here to have some really big acid blow outs in the woods. It’s gonna be really good to just get healthy like that and minimize, you know?
JJ- Wicked do, homie. Okay then. What kind of ride?
TS- Hahah! The Honda Element! Its ready to go. Airbag sign is on but we all have problems.
JJ- Smooth. Plans for today?
TS-Oh man! You know, I may or may not have already microdosed. I talked to this bipolar friend in Holland. She’s in a little ‘place’ right now. Maybe play some piano. I eat a lot. Then do some fasting. I may go out to get something eat I don’t know. I’m a wild man.
JJ- Who else is hiding out at the motel?
TS- These lesbians. They park their car right in front of my place. That’s people. Gina next door. Knocked on my door at 3 AM. Gary- he has Asperger’s. Black dude, Gulf Storm kinda guy, he has a motorcycle. But I’m the crazy dude. I dressed up on day and shit, Carl borrowed two bucks never to be seen again. I wear a shirt or pants and Gina wants me to take her to the grocery store. I guess it’s time to go. But I like the stability. Now that I hear all this it’s kinda depressing, but I’m having a good time.
JJ- People freaking out in Colorado Springs?
TS- No man, but I feel the vibe. It’s what you don’t see. So many less people on the streets.
JJ- So the news. What news do you watch?
TS- I flip through. Mainly CNN. Its just entertaining. I don’t get too caught up in it. Hannity, Tucker Carlson, man, it’s so fuckin’ far out there. I mean… those dudes are outer limits.
Voices from the edge! Here below is the forward I wrote to Micro Novels, Tory’s fine book, available at many bookstores now and also on Amazon.
An Introduction to The Micro Novel, by Tory Seller
What is a micro novel, you ask? A poem? Another exercise in avante garde dipshittery?
nov·el1
ˈnävəl/
noun
a fictitious prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action with some degree of realism.
So a micro novel would be what?? Let’s turn to another word before we begin the exploration.
ko·an
ˈkōän/
noun
a paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provoke enlightenment.
Bob Seager, Zen Buddhism, The Easter Bunny, well, we’re still lost. Let’s take a look at the mind behind the micro novel. Without further adieu, an introduction to the enigmatic Tory Seller himself.
I met Tory in San Francisco a few years ago. I’d been invited down for an all expenses paid writing gig. A script was coming together for HBO about a hippy commune, and while it wasn’t exactly my genre, it was close enough. Tory was one of the other writers, a bearded, quiet, very stoned guy, but friendly enough. We got to work.
By day two it became apparent that this was not, in fact, an all expenses paid gig, nor was it going to HBO. Unfortunately, this coincided with other bad news. My agent at the time was an absolute cretin. He lost my new novel and I had to use Tory’s computer to rescue a copy from my sent email. I then had to use his computer to finish it a second time. The novel was Deadbomb Bingo Ray. I did this in Tory’s car as we rolled around late night San Francisco, working night after night in the halo of weed he surrounded himself with. He waxed on and on about the local hookers, parakeets, experimental music, Australia, glue, what have you, and we became friends. My then agent went on to misplace the publisher’s contract, so I was stranded for another week. It was then, while we were living off Tory’s food stamps and sleeping on couches in the lobby of a recording studio, that I was first introduced to the micro novel.
Each segment was crafted, and not in a pedantic, fussy way. Tory was not operating in the quiet of his home at night after he’d worked all day in a bookstore or an office. This was not engineered in a cafe workshop or his mother’s basement either. He was in motion, a strange hybrid of outlaw and surfer, with a generous helping of The Dude in his character profile. The snips, the condensed microsities, had been streamlined in a Beat fashion, shorn of verbiage, adjectives, dead weight, live action, conjecture, structure, all of it. They were encapsulations distilled by momentum, sculpted by roads, delivered through spiritual digestion.
Another week passed while my agent fumbled the money for the novel. I was stranded for one more week before I finally bypassed him with the help of the publisher and the accounting department at my agent’s agency. Amazing! In that week, I watched Tory create, and I’m glad I did. It was an amazingly involved process, and unique in my experience. A novelist sits. Thinks. Writes for hours. Repeats. A micro novelist does something very different, something magnificent.
Creating the micro novel, any of them, involved driving. Tory talks to himself, even when you’re in the car with him. He stops and stares at things. He writes on napkins. He takes notes on his phone. The micro novel is alive because of it.
Read these in the car. Read them on the toilet. Read them on a train. Mutter the words under your breath as you do, and consider them from various angles. Memorize your favorites and repeat them to people at awkward times. Leave your copy at the airport when you’re done, or give it to your boss for Christmas. Because that’s what this is. It’s a gift from a stranger to a stranger. Quickly now! Turn to the next page and-
Jeff Johnson
Portland, Oregon
Trapped! What the fuck to do now… Some unsolicited quarantine advice.
Here you all are, trapped in your houses. Welcome to my party. I work from home, doing word shit mostly, of late writing mini scripts for proof of concept tech presentations. Here is some hard won advice-
Fucking is better than drinking. In the short, medium, and long term. Once you’re at home all the time, a glass of wine in the afternoon will lead to half a bottle before lunch in a week’s time, and that leads whiskey in your first cup of morning coffee before you know it. I warned you.
Pants. Put some pants on, I mean Jesus you fucking shameless pig. And shave if you’re a dude. Don’t take this time to turn into a sweatpants hobo. Wear a suit. Wear a dress. Try to look good. It will make you feel good and feeling good will keep you healthy.
All that shit you were going to do when you had the time? Learn Portuguese? Make a better, more sane kind of fruitcake? Fix the lamp in the guest room? Fuck that shit. Don’t do any of it, that way lies madness. Invent new stuff, then execute. This is the time to hone your improv skills. Those new skills will serve you well in the future. FUN is what keeps you interested. Doing a shit ton of stuff you’ve been putting off because you don’t want to do it is a terrible idea.
Netflix isn’t your friend anymore. TV is more like a finger sniffing cousin at the best of times, but now it is the enemy. CNN is the rotten bastard you should have beaten the fuck out of when they lied to you the first time. Keep boundaries. Reuters and BBC World on your phone for ten minutes in the morning, Netflix from 9-Midnight. Books, you clubfoot sloth, are the way to roll. I just finished reading a book on the history of Chanel no5 and it was fascinating! A glorious tapestry of wads and jizz toilets. History is hilarious when it isn’t terrifying.
Cooking! Take the long way. American kitchen judo is suckdog. I know perfectly functional adult human beings who cannot cook any better than a French 13 year old. This, this is important Art of Life shit. You’re a patriot? Oh, that’s your excuse? Dumbass. Make a chili so profound, so transcendent, that it will make the lard asses at the Great Texas Chili Cookoff cry and scratch their faces like teen girls at a Beetles concert. You see, there’s no excuse, not even for you. Not one person should be eating ramen unless they made it from scratch. As in the noodles. The broth. The whole thing.
Dream of the future. This means doing nothing. It’s the Western version of meditation. Lay on the couch, close your eyes and let your mind wander. Do this once or twice a day. At first its nothing but chaos, but gradually patterns emerge. As they become high resolution, a new resolve comes into focus. This, I hope, is the take away. This is America. We work harder than anyone else in the developed world (look it up) and we do it for less (again, look it up, Evonomics.org is a good start) and when we aren’t working we’re… thinking about work. Seize this moment and nourish your inner weirdo. Do the Western meditation. Focus on the positive. Pupate.
To sum it up- today I’m wearing a suit. No underwear. Drinking tea. Working on a screenplay about an old rural cop gone bad. And I have to read EP 6 of Better Call Saul, homework. And I made chicken stock last night, a critical step in green chili stew, which will be on the stove by early afternoon. I’m going to walk barefoot in the snow in the backyard because I can and its fun. And when the stew is going, the dough is rising, and something is marinating, I’m going to dream a little. You can easily do all of these things. Because they’re all easy.
Will Fight Evil 4 Food
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