What’s up, Folks?
How’s it going. I’m okay. I’m in Chicago. I love Chicago. Gritty people here who give zero fucks about their health, it seems. I like that though. It’s commitment.
I just took a walk along the water and there is some kind of massive air show going on. This was the second day of it. When I got here I went up to my room at the hotel, eighteen floors up, and saw a profoundly menacing jet rocketing along the edge of the lake, way too low. Sadly, my first assumption wasn’t ‘air show.’ It was ‘uh oh.’ I guess I operate at that level of fear and panic that some kind of military action could just unleash at any moment. And, sadly again, I would assume that it would be our own military attacking our own city. I know, crazy, right? Could never happen. Right? I was thinking this is how the president is showing his dissatisfaction with the Chicago police. Strafing the South Side. Crazy, though. Right?
It was interesting to see the thousands of people lakeside watching planes and jets do tricks. All kinds of people. It seemed like every ethnicity was represented. Every size and shape of human showed up. All types of food were being grilled on many types of grilling apparatus. People brought chairs and tents. It was messy, gritty, half-nude and sweaty. Just relaxing and watching the gutted menace of jets with no agenda other than to entertain. I jogged past all these people of all kinds half giving a shit about the planes, out for a day in the sun on the beach. I wondered what the contrast would be between this crowd and whoever would show up at the military parade that the president wanted but couldn’t have just yet. Because what I was jogging past, in all its sweaty diverse beauty, was what America looks like. I can’t imagine that an audience for a military parade assembled by this president would look like what America looks like. I assume it would look like a nationalistic aspiration of intolerance and dominance by a narrow ideological swath of a minority of this country. Angry monsters who failed the test of tolerance out of a core fear of the other and submersion in paranoiac mythology.
Anyway, it’s nice here in Chicago. Weather is great.
I’m not entirely out from under my own reading of the eschatological signs that I make up. The water creeping up. The skies full of smoke. The land burning. The bees dying. The explosion of ticks and lizards. Coyotes out during the day. The new nature. Just the scary things will remain. I talked to my mother the other day and she got off the phone by saying, ‘I have to go feed my Iguanas.’ It wasn’t code. My mother doesn’t own iguanas. My mother is not losing it. After a little research I found the there is a massive Iguana problem in South Florida and I guess my mother is just helping it along. It’s my favorite end times tableau to date. My weird mother out in back of her house feeding dinosaurs. Hail Satan.
Today I talk to the eclectic and country Shooter Jennings about experimenting with music, country western and his dad Waylon. Also, a little chat with Rob Riggle today. On Thursday Belly’s Tanya Donelly and I catch up after 30 or so years. We worked at a restaurant in Boston together back in the day. The new Belly album is great. Also a little bit of Jason Bateman on Thursday too. Good talks!
Enjoy!
Boomer lives!
Love,
Maron