Vid Shot

My fiancé and I took an Uber to the Meadowlands Racetrack in New Jersey to get our first Covid vaccine shot.

When we got there I knew we had walked into a dystopian movie. I think any time a sports facility is repurposed you’re in a dystopian movie. When there’s army men. When you don’t know what anyone looks like and nobody knows what you look like. When you have tinnitus and everyone is wearing a mask and you can’t hear what anyone is saying. And there’s slogans everywhere. We have walked into a dystopian movie.

I decided to watch as they injected my fiance. I’m glad I went first. The needle is about an inch long. They shove that whole thing in. After two open heart surgeries, I did not know that the whole metal part was shoved in your arm. It’s not like an IV that travels parallel to your skin’s surface. It goes straight in. Perpendicular.

By evening my shoulder was sore as hell. I was not able to avoid the side effects, and now, once I get the second shot, I am sure I will be all feverish and weak, as others have described. Inescapable reality.

After the shot we went to the 15 minute self monitoring area. We couldn’t find seats next to each other. They were playing “People are Strange,” on the radio. I thought “Strange days.” They really are.

“Dancing Days” came on next. Are they here again?
The only upside to this mess is that the Mask (Uppercase Mask) interferes with government facial recognition. But we probably have that chip in us now. It’s hard to feel good about any of this. I read a report that somebody got

Covid the day after getting the vax. Everything about this situation seems mixed up and confused. There’s pro government people screaming, “Wear a fucking mask,” and “Stay the fuck home!” There’s anti government people, who I tend to agree with, who still seem suspect. Again, it’s hard to feel good about anything these days.

Your Onanism

 

So I get an email from this guy Rodel Needham. (Please see picture.) I don’t know who he is. His email address is kiliplacadab1985yahoo.com. Cool.

He proceeds to tell me that my device has been infected with his “Badware.” What? Malware? I guess that’s what he was going for.

Then there’s this gobbledygook about going through his message to the incontrovertible after-effects. Not too sure what this means even now. More gobbledygook about my domestic hobby, and some kind of vague threat that I will need my valuable time.

Now we get to the heart of the matter. He has recored my onanism using my camera. Okay. Who uses the word onanism, other than David Foster Wallace, who’s dead? So he recorded me jerking off? What camera did he use? My Instax? My Minolta? My Polaroid? The webcam on my computer? I would have noticed the green light.

He says he has blackmail material, exciting blackmail material. See his file below. Nope. Didn’t open the file.

I blocked this clown.

That was the end of that.

And so what if he shows my parents a video of me jerking off? I’m pretty

sure that ten or 20 years ago I accidentally sent a porno clip to my father called Asian Bra Busters. He never said anything about it. I’m sure that’s how we would deal with any other unpleasant material going forward.

Fuck you Rodel!

Desolation Angels

This year I wanted to read lesser known books by authors who seem to be famous for mainly one book. For example, Jack Kerouac is known primarily for On The Road. The decision to read Desolations Angels, came to me when I was riding my bike in a desolate industrial zone in New Jersey, (maybe all of New Jersey is a desolate industrial zone . . . . ) and the I kept thinking, “Man, this is desolate.” And then the title, Desolation Angels, popped into my head.

Desolation Angels has a different feel than on the road. It covers the the time around the publication of On The Road, but it was written later in Kerouac’s life and close to the time of his death. It is a book by an older Keroak, looking back on his life with some regret and a lot of melancholy.

The first “Desolation” chapters about Kerouac’s stay on Desolation Peak were impressionistic and maybe difficult to follow. How do you write about being by yourself for weeks on end? The book takes on a more standard narrative as it progresses through America and beyond. There are a lot of locations and many of the usual characters. If you can get through the first chapters, it gets easier.

I read On The Road in my late teens. While I didn’t hop in a car and go for a cross country drive, I did think it was cool. Now having read Desolation Angels, I am middle aged, older than Kerouac was when he died, and find myself also looking back, wondering what the hell it all means.

Metal Squares

  I may be just writing this to test out the compile function

of Scrivener.

     I have been stuck on my review of Desolation Angels for

weeks, so here is something.

    There are many sub genres of Metal Music; Death, Black, Heavy, Speed . . . the list goes on. In order to simply things, I have determined, based on my lengthy observations, that there are different kinds of Metal music which can be visualized by the Metal Square. A Metal Square has four squares inside it.  So like a box with a cross in it.

The first kind of metal is Understandable Metal. A great example is Iron Maiden. You can understand everything the singer, Bruce Dickinson or Paul Di'Anno, is saying. This square is in the upper left hand corner.

In the upper right hand corner, is Not Understandable Metal. Early Eyehategod is a good example. You know Mike Williams is singing, but you don't know what he is singing. The next two squares deal with the bass guitar. On the

lower left hand corner is Metal in which the bass guitar is discernible. For a fantastic example, we once again look to Iron Maiden. Every note Steve Harris plays is completely clear.

On the lower left, we have Bass Guitar that we would notice if it was removed from the mix, but you can't really hear it as a separate and distinct instrument. Listen to Slayer for this one. There are minor exceptions, but for the most part when the band is going full on, you can't make out separate and distinct bass notes.

In conclusion, All metal bands inhabit two of the Metal Squares. Iron Maiden would be Understandable Metal, and Articulated Bass Metal. Slayer would be Understandable Metal, Unarticulated Bass Metal. The next time listen to a Metal song, see for yourself, which of the Metal Squares it inhabits.

As an additional note, Scrivner may not be the preferred tool for this sort of writing.