Do we need the sadness? Do I need this big stomach? What does it matter what I need, when it’s what I got?
Today I’ve had a banana and a parmesan cheese crisp. And a big cup of Richard and Tricia Gibbs’s Extra Strong Coffee. I used to be a writer. I used to be an actor. This is what I keep thinking.
I am still a director. I just like doing the other things too.
Depression in my stomach is trying to gnaw its way out. Upstairs at the dinner table, gaping and screaming, flopping over backwards, clutching my gut, something presses through my sternum, bones crack, and a little creature with sharp teeth bites its way out of my body. Around me splatters of blood and grimaces and screams. It’s my depression. It scuttles off into the corner to wreak havoc.
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. The frogs of war. Fighting in the bogs of war. Warren Manwarren.
War.
War.
War.
War.
War.
Pitchfork hates the Eels. I like them. This album, admittedly, sucks. I also like it.
Writing with my sunglasses on. Feeling cool. Being cool. That’s me. The Cool Guy.
Trucks clunk, something struggles its way up the hill, back doors thrown open, men and women in SWAT suits leaping out and running for the gate of the family estate, trying to knock it down, but they’re not strong enough. The truck has to ram the gate, breaking it open, motors squeal, and metal breaks, and the truck trundles up the hill.
My depression.
My sherona.
I really want to not think I want to write to the rhythm of this Eels song and I want to cry and I want to sleep and I want to lie under a Eucalyptus tree and watch the leaves shaking above me in the wind, revealing and hiding the bright strips of sunlight, until the sky falls like confetti onto my head.
Images.
My depression.
Clenching my jaw.
And what is it I’m supposed to do?
It’s almost time for me to live here it’s almost time for our Save the Dates to go out it’s almost time to do The Blood rehearsal it’s almost time to go to Double Edge it’s almost time to see the world entering the world hello world it’s almost time to speed through the world it’s almost time to eat the world.
The world splicer couldn’t quite deal with the weight of his own story. Morty’s still asleep. There’s a girl walking through the postapocalypticapocalypse fighting giant machine beasts. And after her, Morty again?, on a clocktower while the invisible monsters make their way through the quad below and he grips his sniper rifle. And don’t forget about Alan Wakeman who fell into a world of his own rejecting, and the fields of Speng! The Fabulous Fields of Speng! bouncing him down into his depression. And —- and —- and —-and
These are stories I have written.
What’s his name in the Temp? He’s still flying from place to place, bomb in hand, tendrils of tech snaking through his poor nubile brain. Happy idiot.
Let’s not forget whoever that guy is in the Acolyte. He’s drinking a Starbucks Unicorn Frappilatte and planning to have his eyes surgically removed by Keith Raniere.
Why not?
All these men and women I used to know. I used to write them. I used to write the right write. I used to post on Facebook, remember that? I used to think it made a difference. I used to look at the sunshine with more appreciation, an innocent. I used to sleep in this room happy and alone. I used to date little girls. I was a little boy at the time. Don’t get me wrong. I used to date only the ones who were bad for me.
I used to do a lot of things.
I need some stability some structure because I might fall screaming into the sandpit below my feet and I don’t want to do that and I’m screaming screaming screaming on the inside. And why shouldn’t I be? Who are you to say so? My muscles are bunched up I’m typing furiously I don’t like who I’ve become and I like the Eels and I’m not stopping to think not stopping to be in the present moment I’m just writing to the Eels rhythm and enjoying their simplistic depressing style. I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I want euphoria. I like it. I like it. I like it. eupeoiqwfoiqf[o[css[asvknovsnojkavnoasvnojasf;ojkabsnvjoba[oc[oajbv[[ofwf
Dddddddddddddddddx
P
.
Dp. No Dp. Dp not that kind no no no I don’t know no no no I don’t know no no no I don’t know no no noi
I once had an Australian girlfriend.
Here is that story:
She took me to Australia. We had a great time. I knew it wouldn’t work out. My stomach ate itself out. We went to New Zealand. I met her whole family so I could betray them.
She moved to New York City I thought we should give it the old college try make it work. It didn’t work. I got the B’s and D’s: bedbugs and disease and breakups and I was doing a play, Cymbeline, and man mama was I ever confused. I was confuzzled. I was confuzzled. I am confuzzled! I am confuzzled!
I don’t want to go back there again.
But there’s no other choice, says Lenny, clapping him on the shoulder.
There’s bugs in there.
Go in, go in, it’s the only way out the only way out is through.
Lenny champs on his eternal cigar.
“get in there, recruit! Shoot some bugs to shit!”
Morty walks into the cavern on an alien planet and realizes he’s all been here before. In the light of his gun flashlight he sees his bed, his cork board, his old posters – dear God, his childhood bedroom? The roof cracks open and three mandibles reach down. It looks like a giant green praying mantis that has ripped the roof off his bedroom shell and pulls him screaming up into the sky. NO! NOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
My depression.
Your sherona.
Drink it up, it’s not gonna kill you.
Not yet.
Not yet.
Not yet.
Thanks, Eels.
Blue Notes 