Title

U.S. Authorities

prelude to a technological breakdown

Lots of comedians seem to be wounded people. Is there a lot of truth to that?

“For the most part, yes, but in a great way. That’s true of all great artists, or at least any artist who has ever touched me. You can have someone who’s overly sensitive and doesn’t have an interesting life, and they’re not going to be interesting. And you can have someone who has terrible things happen to them, but they’re not sensitive enough to realize it. And then there’s the perfect storm, which is the over-sensitive idiot who has horrible things happen to them, and they get out of the fetal position — at least for some amount of time — and escape it by externalizing it. It happens in music, and it can happen in comedy. That escape is the art. Comedy does not come out of a wacky, fun childhood.”

- David Mirkin, executive producer & showrunner on The Simpsons

Last night I turned a corner and saw a man pissing against the back of someone’s car.  He hunched over in fear when he saw me.  I guess he was taking revenge on someone.  Today as I was leaving the subway platform I saw an old lady who was struggling just to make it down the stairs with her bag.  I could have helped her, the train’s doors were still open and I could have gotten her onto the train, but I walked right past.  Tonight I emptied my bank account to pay rent, and now I don’t have very much money.  I keep remembering all the faces in the world that owe me money, but then I’m reminded that I’ll never ask any of them to pay me back.  There’s a woman on the train who’s covering her eyes with her left hand, and it looks like she had a bad day.  I hope she’s going home to someone nice.  I was tired all day today, but when night fell I might as well have become a new man.  Sometimes I listen to music on my ipod and try to navigate the streets with the same intensity as the sound in my ears.  I love to write on the train but I feel like certain people think I’m writing about them.  They’re probably right.  Every morning I wake up a few minutes after 8 am, feeling really sleepy.  After I move around a bit I never make it back to sleep.  I don’t try to, but I usually stay up until at least 3:30 am.  These are the hours in which my creative mind is on point.  Last night I rode my bike in the rain and thought about my friends from home.  Tonight I’ll do the same thing.

I’m finding that the world around me is a mixed bag, one with both joy and pain, with both spontaneity and regret.  I should have helped that woman down the subway stairs, but I didn’t.  Why didn’t I?  I’m not sure.