The Weekend in Foolish Attention

Bits and bytes of the week

NEVER TOO OLD. Sunday Joe invited me to come see him an improv show. That day, Jonathon Pitts and I were getting together and his timeline was “any time before 7pm because I’m going to an improv show.” Serendipity. The show was by a group calling themselves Blunch and the cast was a crowd of men of a certain age. These were guys who were tops in the city back in the day and, at fifty-eight, I was among the youngest in the room. They killed it. Sure, there were a few rough spots but the timing, the energy, and the funny was all there. Joe was hysterical, biding his time and landing perfect zingers throughout. I had a blast and it was such a reminder that skill and mastery doesn’t fade. They have another show on April 14th. It’s freaking ten bucks in a city where you can’t have a donut and coffee for less than $15.00. Check them out.

“My retirement plan consists of a lottery ticket each week.” —Jerry Schulman

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL? The term ‘sociopath’ is bandied about with the same fervor as ‘narcissist’ and ‘gaslighter’—lots of labeling without a lot of understanding behind the terms. I’ve had my suspicions that the ex-wife is one and she agreed with me but it’s rare to read something that attempts any sort of deep dive into what it means to be a sociopath.

Here we go.

I Always Knew I Was Different. I Just Didn’t Know I Was a Sociopath.

Empathy, like remorse, never came naturally to me. I was raised in the Baptist church. I knew we were supposed to feel bad about committing sins. My teachers talked about “honor systems” and something called “shame,” which I understood intellectually, but it wasn’t something I felt. My inability to grasp core emotional skills made the process of making and keeping friends somewhat of a challenge. It wasn’t that I was mean or anything. I was simply different.

Now that I’m an adult, I can tell you why I behaved this way. I can point to research examining the relationship between anxiety and apathy, and how stress associated with inner conflict is believed to subconsciously compel people to behave destructively. I believe that my urge to act out was most likely my brain’s way of trying to jolt itself into some semblance of “normal.” But none of this information was easy to find. I had to hunt for it. I am still hunting.

As I’ve been saying for some time, it’s less important to know why you behave in irresponsible and potentially destructive ways than it is to recognize the behavior and simply stop doing it.

SO CONGRESS THINKS A TIKTOK OWNED BY AN AMERICAN COMPANY WOULD DO LESS HARM? I get it. TikTok is a locust horde devouring the minds and will of everyone in its path. It’s (not technically) owned by China—seriously, look it up—but the Neo Red Scare of Communist China is amping up the fear so instead of focusing on the effect the app has on our teenagers mental state or the complete and utter annihilation of traditional journalism, we zone in on the nasty Chinese officials (theoretically) hellbent on subverting democracy, one 30-second video of a young woman bouncing her tits at a time.

Better that the company, widely known to isolate children into silos of attention deficit, lonely, fame-seeking, nihilistic shitheads, be owned by an American interest? The quickest, cost-free solution is relatively simple: require the phones and tablets to block any social media use whatsoever for anyone under the age of eighteen and be done with the damage. We do the same for cigarettes, alcohol, and full responsibility for crime, why not the thing that threatens to eat the minds of the youth?

“I don’t believe it’s good to feed your children cheap fast food and it’s totally fine to say that, but if I run into a McDonald’s and scream at parents that they’re abusing their children, well, that’s me being an asshole.” —Nellie Bowles

LIKE A BRILLIANT SATIRE. Trump is now selling Bibles. BIBLES! It’s like someone is writing the most improbable novel of the griftiest grifter in grift history and they just keep trying to make it increasingly ludicrous. At least it’ll have cartoons in it because the man doesn’t read and needs the pictures to understand basic principles.

THE MISERABLE CURRENCY OF EXPERIENCE. Himmel is in the midst of his divorce and is dating. I got a little judge-y for a bit and then realized that this is his first divorce. I have the scars of three so I’m seeing red flags in all of his interactions that he misses. It’s just casual. Red Flag. She’s sending nude pics via text. Red Flag. She’s really funny and I like her brain. Red Flag.

It is also likely that, like someone coming back to America from a war zone, that I hear gunfire and explosions when it’s only a balloon popping or a car hitting a pothole. I know that when I was in the aftermath of the first two, no one could warn me and expect I’d heed it. The nature of each of us is that we need to figure out that the roller coaster than ends in a derailment and carnage on the midway cannot be stopped by belief or good intentions. We almost always need to survive devastation on our own and gain our own miserable currency.

THE CHANGES THAT COUNT. A few years ago, in Vegas, my silver Prius was victim of a catalytic converter theft and I lost my mind. Full on HULK rage. It took me two days to get my head back on I was so pissed and felt so violated. It’s the sort of crime that will never be solved, insurance never covers it without a $1,500 deductible, and is so common that the police mostly just take the info and shrug.

I’ve been telling myself (and others) that the past five years have provided some maturity and wisdom and when I went to drive the red Prius, casually parked on my new street, and saw the anti-theft plate I installed to thwart criminals from stealing yet another catalytic converter lying next to my car, the bolts obviously cut, I knew. It happened again. This time around, like the cops would, I shrugged. “Ah, fuck. Well, I guess I’m walking.” Being angry didn’t make the last converter magically appear and it didn’t make me feel better so what’s the point in that?

It’s just a problem to be solved and, in the meantime, I live in a city where the transit system can get me almost anywhere. It doesn’t affect the gig, still runs so I can move it around to avoid parking violations, and is really just a First World inconvenience. I look at this way—the move to Chicago has been practically seamless so this is Chicago’s very specific way of welcoming me back.

I think my reaction indicates a sliver more grown up perspective than the past so I’ll consider that a win.

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Thanks for reading and Happy Easter!