The Long Lives of Losers
I have very strong opinions about my very strong opinions
Colorado’s Poet Laureate Andrea Gibson has died. They leave behind so many messages of love, hope, and acceptance that I feel I’m betraying them in some way right now. But I can’t help how I feel, no matter how uncomfortable that makes me or others. And I believe they would get that, too. Because that’s how they rolled.
Here’s what’s true. Here’s what’s true.
I hate that Andrea Gibson died but Donald Trump is still alive. That Benjamin Netanyahu is still alive. That Vladimir Putin, Boris Johnson, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Peter Thiel, and so many other rancid losers are still alive. Okay, Norman Tebbitt just died. “A wise career move”, as Gore Vidal called Truman Capote’s death. But he lived way more years than his withered soul deserved, more than twice as many as those allotted to Andrea Gibson. Not all those people I’ve listed – oh and baby there are so many more – are old, but they are all older than Andrea Gibson will ever now be.
It’s just not fucking right.
My thoughts when I see photos of Nigel Farage’s plane crash experience in 2010 all run in one direction. I’ll turn to the words of Anne Lamott in her (excellent) book on writing, Bird By Bird, as they’re far nicer and more rational than mine.
“If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
Why is David Lynch dead but ‘Dr’ David Cartland is whining away on Twitter? There’s just no way there’s a god.
I wasn’t always like this. Even into my mid-50s, despite having been treated like shit at least a regular amount, not least having grown up in close proximity to Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I was somehow remarkably naive, trusting, and positive most of the time. Sure, I had a caustic side, but mostly just for fun.
These last five years or so have changed me. Haven’t they changed you?
I see now, much more clearly, what a sham democracy is. How many more people are careless and selfish than I’d realised. How little genuine hope there can be for an equitable planet with a stable climate and few extinctions when so many stupid, venal, perverted humans live on it.
My despairing, bitter rage is as bad as it’s ever been now – daily seeing footage of headless babies, burnt husks of parents, shards of what were small children lying in the rubble of their homes, while ‘my’ government attacks those who attack that but otherwise stays silent. Mealy-mouthed at best, complicit at worst.
I will speak ill of the dead if I want to, just as these obituary-writers spoke their truths. Screw convention. And I’ll mourn the widely unmourned innocent. I can’t mourn everyone or believe that we all are, in the end, all them – sorry, Andrea.
I made this five years ago. I can now really believe it for only a few days each month. It already seems like Sagan lived in simpler times. Or maybe I just need to get off Twitter more.
As to speaking ill of the living? Can I live of natural causes, like kindness and caring, as Andrea Gibson suggested?
Maybe over on my other Substacks, where I extol creativity and the beautiful potential of ageing, or share the glimmers of joy I come across. Places where I’m still brave enough to be a decent, hopeful person communicating with hopeful, thoughtful people. Where I can be the person I mostly was until around 2020. Sort of.
(Not that you aren’t hopeful and thoughtful. But you’re surely not here for those parts of you? Mind you, I do see sarcastic, savage fury as a kind of hope. It’s apathy that’s truly deadly).
But here? Here’s what’s true. There are people I wish were still alive and people I wish weren’t. There seems no sense or justice in it at all.
But I’m powerless to do more than meme. It’s a smidge of therapy, I guess.
Oh, and I can swear in podcasts. Many thanks to Don and Sal for having me on the latest episode of No Holds Barred, featuring more of my chins than I’d realised existed. Cringe. But it feels like my natural home, that podcast. The Bite version of me, anyway.