If Nothing Else: A Semi-Manifesto

“So why did you do it at all?” he asks.

I never expected it to work in the first place, is what I’ve just got done saying to him.  That’s why he asked me the question.  And now I don’t know what to say.

I didn’t have any hope for it.  I think the last time I had hope, back then and before back then, even growing up, hope about anything at all, was . . . no.  I’m not sure I ever had any.  I don’t remember it if I did.  But I don’t say that out loud.

It’s thirty years on, now.  2037.  I’m sixty-six years old — not an old man but hardly a young one.  You’d think I’d have an answer to this question my friend has just asked me.

Why did I join the blogosphere?

We’re sitting around a porch, some of us, some of us who survived this long.  We toasted our fallen bretheren at nine o’clock and passed the weed at nine-plus-two-minutes, and now it’s, I dunno, eleven, I guess. 

Just say no
to family values,
and don’t quit
your day job.

Drugs
are sacred
substances,
and some drugs
are very sacred substances,
please praise them
for somewhat liberating
the mind.

Tobacco
is a sacred substance
to some,
and even though you’ve
stopped smoking,
show a little respect.

Alcohol
is totally great,
let us celebrate
the glorious qualities
of booze,
and I had
a good time being with you.
—
We don’t have to say No
to family values,
cause we never
think about them;

just
do it,
just make
love
and compassion.

— from “Just Say No to Family Values”, John Giorno

History hasn’t moved in years, decades, is what I want to say to him.  It’s congealed; the scum on a bowl of pea soup.  I guess it started with Carter.  But it doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter who the President was and certainly doesn’t matter who the President is, people stopped caring about that in 2011, thereabouts.  I remember that year ’cause that was the year Julia Louise Dreyfus finally found another TV series that worked for her.  Lasted ’til 2019.  She played a tree surgeon.

Somewhere in there — it’s hard to explain — Washington sealed itself off completely, rhetorically, actually, not quite literally, though some politicians tried to seal Washington off literally.  They might as well have.  Watching the Sunday shows just became a joke.  Like watching a closed circut TV monitor showing an image of another closed circuit TV monitor.  It’s not like life stopped, or anything.  We still vote.

I want to tell him that I joined the blogosphere because back then, back in the first decade of the 21st century, it felt like we were in the sound booth and we were in record.

And
what I really want to know is: Are things getting better
or are they getting
worse? Can we start all over again?
Stop. Pause. We’re in record. Good
morning. Good night.
Now I in you without a body move.
And in our hearts
we fly. Standby.

— from “Same Time Tomorrow”, Laurie Anderson

So, why, for example, march?  Why blog at all?  As cliche as it is, because I wanted to be able to look in the mirror.  Because someday, someday, you’re gonna have to pick up a phone and call someone, and you’re gonna have to tell them where you’re calling from, and you don’t want it to be a very unclean place.

But it isn’t fair, I say, I claim, it isn’t fair to say that the American people failed America.  Although some say that, and although sometimes I have been one of the some who say that, who thought in the 2020s that everyone was at their most rigorously brain-dead, it really wasn’t true.  Look, you never expected this to fucking work, did you?  Did you think we lived in a democracy?

But I don’t say that either.

Come a little bit closer
Hear what I have to say
Just like children sleepin
We could dream this night away.

But theres a full moon risin
Lets go dancin in the light
We know where the musics playin
Lets go out and feel the night.

Because Im still in love with you
I want to see you dance again
Because Im still in love with you
On this harvest moon.

— from Harvest Moon, Neil Young

It’s 2037 and every moon is a harvest moon.  Every sky is orange and burnt.  Did you think it would not come to this?

We didn’t save the United States but we saved a part of America.  We were left on our own and so we did something on our own.  And now we don’t live in the United States anymore, we live somewhere else, though we have the same drivers’ licenses.  In the face of a dark age coming like a tidal wave, an age of ignorance and fear, we didn’t, it’s true, manage to do much.  How could we.

But we built a city of light, for awhile there.

People come, people go,
Some grow young, some grow cold
I woke up in between
A memory and a dream

So lets get to the point, lets roll another joint
Lets head on down the road
Theres somewhere I gotta go
And you dont know how it feels
You dont know how it feels to be me

— from “You Don’t Know How It Feels”, Tom Petty

In the 2016 elections, 604,318 people wrote in “Ralph Wiggum”.  We did that.

I dont believe in
I dont believe in
In your sanctity
You privacy
I dont believe in
I dont believe in
Sanctity
A hypocrisy
Could everyone agree that
No one should be left alone
Could everyoone agree that
They should not be left alone yeah
And I feel like a newborn
And I feel like a newborn
Kicking and screaming

— from Take a Picture, Filter

We didn’t do what we set out to do but in the meantime we did something else.  We built a city of light.  We don’t live there any more, either, but we did for awhile.  We conversed and argued and dreampt and considered and we gamed-out and story-boarded and talked.  And we saved something from the darkness. 

If that’s all we did, it will have to have been enough.

Why did I join the blogosphere?  “Why did you do it at all?”  Well, I might as well try to sum it all up.

“I just wanted someone to talk to,” I say.