It was so hot last night that I actually slept with my fan. No, not like that, like this:

I had just done laundry earlier in the evening, so I didn’t even bother putting sheets on the bed. I figured the bare mattress would be a bit cooler, and it was. All things considered, I give last night a 6 out of 10.

The Limited Edition contest (previous entry) ends TODAY at 11:59:59pm CDT!

Below, a continuation of the short story I started writing a while ago… if it sucks, let me know and I’ll stop.

Legend has it that the planet entered a state of instant, permanent peace when the news broke. All forms of struggle just ceased. Two of the biggest factors in human history, money and religion, became obsolete overnight. We had finally buried God.

One of the big, collective fears the human race shared as we approached the milestone of infinite life (people saw it coming for some time) was that it would be available only to the super-rich, people who could afford a stake in eternity. Essentially, the worry was that nothing would change: if everyone gets to live forever, clearly the planet would be overcrowded in no time, so they must be planning on regulating it or making it monstrously expensive or something. Hell, the place was already overflowing long before they discovered the treatment. I’m not too clear on the specifics, but I guess the Global Assembly of Superiors was one step ahead of us all — they rolled it out smoothly, and everyone got their forever injections.

I finished getting dressed, swallowed my breakfast, and carefully descended the stairs from my apartment down to the street. It was one of those summer days that instantly negates your hygienic routine upon your first step outside. It didn’t help that every nerve on my body was tense, but I’m certain the humidity would have had no problem working alone — my clothes clung to my damp skin as if they were just as scared as I was to go anywhere.

The sole regulation imposed by the GAS was that all citizens must reach age 30 before eligibility, and they must receive the treatment on their official day of birth. And, as I said, it was my 30th birthday, so just like everyone else I was scheduled to claim my reward for making it that far.

I watched my fellow citizens as I strode up the hill toward the medical center and was reminded why I was so frightened. These people were all so, very bland. The immortality treatment successfully rid us of death by old age and terminal illness. No more heart attacks, strokes, cancer, peaceful goings-in-the-night. People still died, though, “naturally” — no injection’s going to stop you from getting flattened by a bus or choking on your own vomit. The result? Our entire planet is covered with the most boring, play-it-safe people who have ever lived.

I’m writing this story as it comes to me, and posting it here, so it’s probably not going to be very polished. Fun experiment though.

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Birthdays never meant much to me. Well, that’s not entirely true. I am sort of an only child, so I got great presents and lots of attention back when I was a kid. Lately, though, I haven’t had much to be excited about. I’d say the past 5 years or so have passed me by without the slightest hint of circumstance. Today I turned 30.

I counted spots on the ceiling as my alarm clock nagged me to my senses. I think I had been dreaming about the end of the world. What a relief. I had an early appointment with the immortality people. It’s not really my style to wake up before noon but I wanted to make sure I could get in and out of there before … I don’t know. Maybe I had hoped I’d still be groggy and wouldn’t pay attention to what was actually happening. I don’t like to think about it very much. Naturally, it’s been on my mind constantly. Anyway, I had some serious, pathetic self destruction to tend to later on in the day… “Let’s get this over with,” I said to nobody.

I know how ridiculous that must sound, but let me assure you that people used to do that. I’ve read lots of old books and listened to lots of old music. I even found some old cookbooks. I’m sort of an authority on stupid, reckless behavior. Relatively speaking, of course. As far as I can tell, the human propensity for risk taking was all but obliterated when they figured out this treatment. I had to work pretty hard to learn what I have; it’s as if learning stuff is dangerous in itself.

Obviously, the world we know today is vastly different from the one left behind by our past, mortal selves. And it’s been that way for a while. But as I stared myself down in the mirror, I still couldn’t wrap my head around what I was about to do. Weird notions wafted through my skull like that weird, pleasant stench coming from my sink. (I could never figure out what that was.) I pushed everything aside and thought about the future. “Tonight,” I said to myself. I found a guy who could get me anything I need: speakers with no volume limits, a trampoline, beer, even pizza. Yes. “Tonight I’m going to fucking party.”

I was riding my bike home this afternoon — this picturesque Chicago summer afternoon — and I almost died, sort of. It was the standard cyclist experience of some asshole driving carelessly and endangering the lives of others. (I know there are plenty of morons on bikes who fuck shit up too, so don’t think I’m getting all high-and-mighty on my velocipede or anything. Remember, I love my car a whole lot. In fact, I will be talking about that thing in a little bit…)  These “conflicts of interest” (them, in a hurry vs. you, hoping to stay not dead) are pretty easy to avoid if you’re paying attention while you ride, but today my brakes were finally too loose for comfort. They’d been gradually loosening over the 9 months I’ve had the bike, and today was when it almost came to a head. Rather, today was when someone’s vehicle almost came to my head.

This guy ran a red light as I was crossing an intersection and I saw him coming but my brakes were sluggish. I swerved with mere inches between his car and my front tire. So I survived and everything’s fine, and I tightened my brakes when I got home. Then I bought some groceries. Some climax. I mean, my brain didn’t end up splattered on the pavement, nothing funny happened, and nobody’s getting married or having a baby (wait, maybe that’s why the guy ran the red light?)…

However, had I died, I wouldn’t be able to go on with my life, which is like the most climactic thing of all. Know what I’m sayin’? Living, man. It’s pretty exciting. I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be privileged. It started back in college when all my art was about suburban rebellion. Angry kids with nothing to complain about except their lack of things to complain about. Since then, I’ve sort of expanded my focus to more general things like space travel, robots, and pizza. Working on the Limited Edition prints, it’s all starting to come together in my head.

The whole process of collecting the dust and purifying it and turning it into ink was one of both chance and directed intent. Despite my best efforts to save every puny speck of paint dust that came from the car’s finish, of course there was lots of waste. On the ground, in my clothes, in the air, in my lungs. When sifting it, plenty of good dust got thrown out with the debris, still clinging to the hairs and rocks that had been swept into my jar. I lamented my inability to perform these tasks in a vacuum (like space!), but I appreciate the, shall we say, poetry of the situation.

I am having a hard time describing it in words — that’s why I made the art, I guess — but I think it’s interesting to zoom out from the dust and consider chance, privilege, destiny, fate, luck, intent…

-Some dust becomes prints, some dust becomes garbage.
-Some prints go to people (news on that soon enough), some prints sit in my garage forever.
-Some single-celled organisms evolve into complex living creatures, some don’t and go extinct.
-Some of us get hit by cars, some do not.
-One planet is the right distance from its star to sustain life, many others are not.

So drive safe, you fuckers!

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Title of  entry lifted from the latest full-length LP by Get Rad, a life-affirming 12 inches of hardcore. How can something so happy sound so angry? I like to think they’re just as pissed as I am that they actually can NOT always live. They make life feel like the most fun bummer ever at least. “Drug of Choice” is about pizza. Ten thumbs up!

We make things
We want to preserve our lives by using things
We die
Our things live on and we preserve them
We live on through our things
(But we’re still dead)
Dust to Dust

Since we last spoke, various things have occurred, none too thrilling. I have some new pants, a new cellular phone, a few new records to enjoy, and $600 in Delta Airlines travel vouchers. (Delta made me 17 hours late and in return gave me all that cabbage as well as a first-class ride from Minneapolis to SFO last week.)

So I’m here in California. Last night Matt and I went bowling. In three games I bowled, in order: 135, 121, and 91. Chicago bowling league, here I come! We got cornered by a drunk old-timer as soon as we entered the bar. He talked our heads off but he bought me three beers. I guess it was worth it. He once spent ten years in San Quentin.

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It’s almost 2010, and everywhere I turn here on the internet, lists and retrospectives clamor to compile and capsulize this year and this past decade. Top movies, records, photos, people, etc. Bo-ring! and I say it with authority. Did we learn nothing from this monumental period of change for all of mankind? It is the time to look forward, not backward. Upward, not forward. And so on. So I present here my top ten list for the following decade:

1) Flying cars (2018)
2) MASSIVE INDIFFERENCE recording debut + summer tour (2010)
3) MFA graduation (2011)
4) Rehab (2012)
5) Terminator 5 (2012)
6) Terminator 6 (2014)
7) Terminator 7 (2016)
8 ) Round Table Pizza lunch buffet in San Diego (next week)
9) Flying cell phones (2015)
10) E-WASTE regular blog updates / unemployment (2012)

It’s going to be a good decade! See you in my 30′s!