July 2, 2022
And just like that I feel rejuvenated. All it took was a new project and an overcast morning. I’m excited again for the first time in years. Probably, truthfully, since the beginning of the pandemic.
I’ve got coronavirus for the second time now. Apparently in animal studies the limit is something like 8-15 repeat infections before all the rats die. I’m not a rat though, so hopefully I have more than 6 more rounds of corona before my innards seep out of me. It would be a shame to die of corona several years after the pandemic ends, when you don’t even get the hero’s exit of a mocking tabloid story about your anti-medical convictions.
I usually despise the summer, but I think I’m finally reaching an age where even the seasonal mood shifts are imperceptible to me. The weather has changed but it’s been circumstantial; I haven’t seen winter or spring since the end of 2020. Now it’s all truly flying by. It’s just been the same rot for a year and a half. If I had to pick the most identifiable block of time with which to measure this mood I’d call it um, you know what, it’s been about the same amount of time it took my friend to die of brain cancer. It’s been 14 months or so, it’s been a slow death.
And it’s as simple as feeling stagnant. And the older you get and the faster time goes the quicker that feeling of stagnation compounds. I used to know when I did nothing in a day and it felt bad, and now I miss all those days, and I wake up and say Jesus Christ it’s already July.
But not anymore, and not today. And I have only the Bodega Bro to thank for that.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell if I’m a lucky guy or not. Often, I feel incredibly lucky, as if I’ve just Mister Magoo’d my way through a very dangerous world and the comfort I experience can’t just be chalked up to privilege alone. It’s like if I were born into wealth but then for some reason, I also just won the lottery every day. But I’m also just predisposed to whining and it’s difficult to maintain any kind of positive outlook on anything. If I were Mister Magoo, I’d get home after a long day of walking through construction sites and dangerous animal enclosures, take off my hat and say, man I wish I wasn’t fucking blind.
I’ve never really had to worry about “cancel culture” because it’s never really affected me. I don’t really have an opinion on it. I’ve been banned from a bunch of websites and lost jobs, but often that was either explicitly my goal prior to doing whatever it was I did that resulted in the termination, or in the long run the termination wound up being a benefit to me. And a lot of this cancel shit started reaching a fever pitch right around the time I was able to find work doing exactly the kind of things that would get people cancelled.
This Bodega Bro firing coinciding with the willing removal of whatever safety net I’ve had for the last couple of years from the podcast (and that’s not to say I will suddenly become destitute, but my future income is in question unless The Adam Friedland Show can become its own, unique thing that is also fun) made me realize for the first time that if my career as not only an entertainer but specifically one that occupies some kind of cancel-proof space (meaning, a troll) were to disappear, I likely could not do anything.
And I mean like nothing. I used to think I’d be able to at least go back to working retail or get a job at a Jiffy Lube or something, but I don’t even think you’re allowed to be poor anymore if you’ve said the wrong thing. I can’t operate in a world where “you’re not allowed to disrespect a type of convenience store,” is not only a rule by an implied rule. I had enough trouble smiling at customers and remembering to say Thank You.
And this is all good. That’s a good thing. For me, I mean, not for the world. RIP Bodega Bro, at least you have your youth. Now I know I must go back to being blind and wandering through constructions sites like an old oblivious dumbass.
Mister Magoo has one of his flappy old eyelids peeled back so he can see the I-beams nearly clipping his head, and he knows if at any point he had ducked or sidestepped, he wouldn’t have been so lucky. He should be happy to be blind.