Day 70 of 1456

Day 70 of 1456 in trump's America.

We're in the closing days. In less than 72 hours, donald trump will be sworn in as the President of the United States of America.

Ten weeks of typing and I can still barely imagine it. Will the Bible burn his hands? Could lightning strike? I wrote on the internet a couple weeks ago about imagining a scene of a thousand bald eagles descending on the podium to mangle him limb from limb, vicious racist orange blood spewing in fountains in every direction, a black cloud to blot out the sun as they kept coming, secret service powerless to do anything, not that they'd honestly try very hard to stop it, probably.

A process got him there, which means that process is vile. That's the evil tautology.

One of the "plans" I've heard mentioned relates to TV ratings. "Don't watch the inauguration!", they say, "Don't give him the attention!" "Watch something else!", they say. Turn your channel to anything else, to show that your cable works, you're just not giving him the satisfaction. "It'll definitely hurt his feelings if we ignore him really hard. That'll help." I honestly don't know which is worse: that Watching Television The Right Way actually counts as political activism, or that we're going to have a president that plan actually works on. How depressing is it that his poor ratings might actually make him sad, and also he's in charge of every civil service for the next four years? Fuck you, your revolution sucks.

We need to establish a distinction between Actions & Words Really Hard. I'm fairly certain that's the only way we're going to get out of this alive.

There's a quote from Kurt Vonnegut – who I personally put on my list of one of the top 5 smartest human beings the universe has ever known – that I've always had trouble understanding, and unfortunately I feel like I understand it now.

"When it became obvious what a dumb and cruel and spiritually and financially and militarily ruinous mistake our war in Vietnam was, every artist worth a damn in this country, every serious writer, painter, stand-up comedian, musician, actor and actress, you name it, came out against the thing. We formed what might be described as a laser beam of protest, with everybody aimed in the same direction, focused and intense. This weapon proved to have the power of a banana-cream pie three feet in diameter when dropped from a stepladder five-feet high."

I never bought in to that. I always believed – naively, in retrospect – that artistic effort could do some good. But the truth of the matter is that it depends on someone listening. Those two last words in that sentence should let you know what a futile exercise that would be right now.

I can't speak for a lot of people, but I can say that the possibility that Someone Important Is Listening has crumbled for me. What could anything we do convince anyone in charge to do anything better? They've already gutted healthcare, vaginas, abortions, the intelligence community, conflicts of interests, minorities, sexual consent, nuclear safety, religious tolerance, marriage eqaulity, and the right of the supreme court, and he's not even actually sworn in yet. You got a poem to fix this shit? Something for them to See The Light? Lick my balls.

I have to admit, I'm finding this post a bit harder to write than any other one so far. I am a bad writer, we've established that. But I also feel like there's a lot of things I wish I didn't have to admit. These are teeth I'm pulling.

Like the fact that one of the last things it seems art might be capable of is communicating with people who already agree with it. And I am not usually a fan of circle-jerking jack-off parties. But we've established that Art Pointed At Fixing doesn't actually do anything. I'm not willing to throw out the entire premise absolutely, but I know it doesn't work as well as I thought it did 71 days ago.

But Art cannot march. Art cannot sign petitions. Art Does Nothing. We've established that. Art may be Words Really Hard, but it is not Action. And I've had to come to grips with that.

Or, one of the last things it seems art might be capable of is communicating For people who already agree with it.

Putting into flat words and sounds all the things we know already. And that would be preaching to the choir, which I've always hated and still believe is the problem that got us here in the first place. And now as I write that sentence, I'm back to out of ideas again.

It seems like there's no escape. Is it just good for ignoring problems? That's absurd. That's like telling people the chefs only have crackers. I know better. I've felt better. I've been taken places by things other people have made. Not done. Made. Actions versus words. I know that's a fact. My life and understanding is better for it.

And yet here we are again in the ugly circle. Swirling down a racist black drain. Does the issue stem from people not knowing When they're creating art? Because if you're writing, you're creating art. That might be a clutch solution. What if we saw every long status and yelling as a work of art? If we reminded ourselves that we're not Actually Doing Anything.

I might have to try that. Play the game in my head. Try parsing a long screed – even one I agree with on the tenets – as a work of art. And then try to decipher whether or not they've done a cogent job of explaining themselves. Or an artistic one. If we take away the opinions and stand on its merits of talent, or lack thereof. But whatever you do, we cannot reward them as if they were being proactive or productive. We've established that doesn't work. You don't get a cookie for yelling. You win by doing.

If we start looking at our Yelling as Art instead of Function, we'll realize that there are a lot of really shitty artists out there. No patience or subtlety. No command of the facts or pacing. Most of them can't even manage paragraph breaks, on both sides of the aisle.

Communication got us here. Overestimating communication got us here. We can't keep doing that shit. We can't hurt these people with our TVs from our living room. Guitars won't do it. Pens won't do it. Cameras won't do it. Microphones won't do it. All that's good for is the troops. It's got an amazing reach into the hearts and minds of people who feel the way you do. Or people who might feel the way you do, I'm even willing to go that far. But you also need to know who's too far gone. Those are the ones that need to be beaten with muscle.

Have music and art and writing and poems and sounds and laughter at the rallies. Have them at the tents. Have them on the stages, with the lights and fire. But you can't take it with you. It doesn't count. It's not enough.

We need to establish a distinction between Actions & Words Really Hard. That's the only way we get out of this alive.