"Good Boy"

Rant: Sometimes I really miss having to wait for news. Like how 95% of breaking news don’t make any bit of difference to me right now today… plus I like letting reliable, trusted sources sort through everything. How trained we’ve become for instant gratification, and unfortunately the faster things travel the more they become distorted. And what with the underlying pandemic, war, politics, general toxicity etc. etc. it is steadily eroding - and spilling over into the studio - my sanity sometimes.

And for sure not a damn bit of news should ever be found out about on Facebook – this headline story being a perfect example. For hours as it happened in real time, I sat and watched my feed spin off the wheel with people posting about a mass casualty event/mass shooting/three people confirmed dead/no wait two people/okay only one/nobody hurt/ fifty emergency response vehicles + helicopters etc. etc. Here’s the thing: all these virtual interactions don’t actually have any connection with reality. As in, if it happens online it doesn’t actually mean anything really happened. Maybe it's because I'm entirely comfortable with not knowing everything all the damn time, nor have all the answers, that I'm also never in much of any hurry, for bad news in particular. Doesn't mean I revel in ignorance - that's how we collectively got into such a mess.

Putting it down on paper and having it printed though somehow begins establishing legitimacy, or realness. That would be one reason I run on down to the corner store every Sunday morning like a kid on his way to the Christmas tree on Xmas morning. I might have stared at the cartoon for hours, weeks, months on the computer, but it isn't actually birthed into existence until I open up the pages of the newspaper and see it, smell it, hold it in my hands with inky fingers. Kinda like words... this was the original caption before my internal editor (and with help of my actual one in meatspace) cleaned it up a bit for the purposes of wholesome family entertainment.