I woke up one morning and knew it all. Isn’t that what our children think? Or our wives? After all, she calls me a know-it-all all the time. So she must be right. Right?
Well, yes, in some ways. And no in others. I married her, which proves I’m not entirely stupid. So at least I have that going for me.
Let me back up so you know what I’m actually talking about, because this has become a very boring and tedious morning. My real work, the paying kind, has just been pushed off another two days. Like the Secretary of Good Humor that I apparently am, I work at the pleasure of my clientele. And when they say “not today, will Friday work?” all I can do is say very loudly, under my breath: fudge. Then change the calendar.
When I went crazy, let’s see, that was late 2024, just after Trump won the election, I decided I would become a world-class graphic satirist that nobody would ever discover. I watched every move the Putz made. I made cartoons about every stupid thing he did. I couldn’t keep up. A hundred of me couldn’t have kept up.
Then I started writing short barbs to go with the visual absurdities. On and on. Day after day. And guess what, he kept doing things and I kept chasing the same diversions, the same outrage cycle, the same predictable parade of manufactured chaos.
Then the lightbulb. Probably an LED, so it was blue and cold. But I understood.
I was chasing. And it was predictable. I was getting to where I could do half a dozen cartoons a week before the events even happened, because I had figured out the pattern. Which led me to a certain conclusion about myself.
I was a GOD.
Well. Maybe it wasn’t me. Maybe it was just that he’s so damn predictable.
Here’s the thing. The only memes I make now are when I’ve genuinely had enough, and I let about nine ticks go by before that happens. So that leaves the writing. And I found something surprising: I love writing. What I also found was that I had been chasing the outrage just like everybody else. Sitting here with bated breath waiting for the next diversion, the same diversion I already knew was coming, on schedule, because I’d seen it the week before.
Refer back to the GOD comment.
When the dust settled I realized I do my best work when I stop caring about the noise. Others have the followers. Let them write about it when it happens. I still read their work and I get ideas from it. But if I have to wade through 3,000 words to find what could have been said in one paragraph, I’m lost. What I think I can do is take that one paragraph and make it interesting. Because I found it interesting. And maybe today isn’t even the right day for it. Maybe August is when it needs to land.
So here is my secret.
For every small article, video, or post of mine you read at any given moment, there are between thirty and forty more already written, recorded, and scheduled. Because I am not chasing the noise anymore. I am trying to educate myself. And if I pass some of what I’m learning along the way, then I am a success.
How can I do this besides being a GOD? Because the Putz is so damn predictable and MAGA’s playbook is an open book. Stop fixating on the daily noise or you’ll wake up and realize they did it to you again. Step back. It’s all right there, out in the open, if you’re willing to look at the whole picture instead of the piece they’re waving in your face.
I used to say I had one goal. I was wrong. I have two.
For both you and me to think for ourselves.
Wake up and smell the jasmine. I’ve found that roses, the ones everybody tells you to stop and smell, have thorns. And thorns can be dangerous if you’re not paying attention to where you’re putting your hands.
