Personal | The Rabbit that Roared

Wow, so how about that worldwide epoch, huh?

It has been a long time since the past time I’ve made a Personal entry on this blog. Part of that is because I don’t really want to be a a celebrity anymore, rather that I’d rather be known for my work, not for my individual personage. Over the last decade, I’ve watched so many people ruin their own lives by trying to become DIY celebrities that it’s scared me away from wanting to become a public figure. Still though, I should try and make a Personal entry on here every once in a while; The Gonzo Brigadoon was conceptualized as an online zine, so I should try indulging the more personal side of zines. I just need to remember to keep myself limited edition.

The other reason is that it’s just not fun being online anymore. Ever since the emergence of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the internet has become a place that most people need to be on for one reason or another. Many must be on it for hours at a time. It has become a second world where I have things to check, chores to do, names and faces to watch out for, et cetera. Fuck, this really is the future, isn’t it? Years ago, I heard a joke along the lines of, “Somewhere deep in the future, someone is tiredly going to say, “I have to go to the moon today.” Well, I guess I’m that bored sucker heading back up to the moon.

Where are we now, as a species? Well, we lived through the “fuck around”, now we’re in the “find out”. People like me have been crowing warnings for years now about so many political and environmental issues that are finally coming to culmination. The bitcoin scene is doomed, oil and coal power are redundant and need to be replaced with something sustainable, Alex Jones is a slimeball con man; I could go on. Sometimes it feels like I’m living in some sort of horrible modernized version of the Victorian Era…there’s a moral panic over sex & violence in media and reproductive rights, while every other publication contains ads for dangerous pseudoscience products. Some wackadoo could start selling Electropathic Belts again any day now and it would fit right in with all the other dangerous quackery.

Not since the days of serfdom has there been such a gap between people in power and commonfolk when it comes to common ideals, wants, and desires. A few months ago, actual climate scientists around the world tried to organize a peaceful protest against government and industrial inaction, and most of them were forcefully dragged away by armed cops. You can already hear the most annoying voice you know parroting a certain old phrase: the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. I think I hate it because I’ve heard it parroted by downtrodden people who have already given up on trying to survive the system; just hearing the phrase fills me with that same sense of dread and tragedy.

Instead, I think the poor get smarter. And angrier. It’s been sad seeing a lot of people become nihilistic towards our future on this planet, but so many more people have been working towards changing it. People like working, but they want to be treated like human beings. We want a better, happier world to live in. The sun may explode in several billion years, but that doesn’t mean we have to resign ourselves to that same fate in fast-forward. I don’t want to give up on the future. Call me stupid, but I still believe in the good nature of others.

Easily one of my favourite days of this year was the evening of April 9, when I saw Sonic the Hedgehog 2. It was the first time in two years that I’d seen a film in the theatre. I was worried I wouldn’t get as much out of it, having gone alone, since my brother dropped out of the screening due to an illness. I didn’t think anyone would ask me why I was going alone, but I was ready to say I was a movie reviewer on assignment. Fortunately, nobody did; that screening for Sonic 2 would soon turn out to be one of the most fun, most animated film experiences I’ve ever had.

Our audience was a packed house with a wide range of ages, from the fan close to my age with an Eggman Empire logo shirt to the little boy two rows ahead of me who, before the movie started, confidently told his brother and friend, “Sonic, is gonna save the day.” Hell yeah he is, little dude. And Sonic certainly did; the room was electric that night, united by whoops and cheers throughout the latter half of the film, and it felt great to be part of a crowd again. Nobody seemed to get COVID that night, either.

Against my better judgment, I still believe good things are coming. We’ve seen a lot of stupid things happen over the last few years, but I’ve noticed that over time, less people are tolerating it. Maybe we had to go through The Stupid Ages in order to realize our actual priorities: taking care of each other and the planet.

Or, hell, maybe things are going to get worse before they get better. I’d like to hope not. Regardless of where the world goes from here, I’ll be writing all through it.