i suppose if there is a lesson to be learned it is not matt’s lesson. it is my lesson. do not shirk your family. family being whomever you choose to be your family, biological or not. eventually at some point in your life you will have a group of people that you consider your family, people you are close to and have shared experiences with. do not let them go, and when they’re in town, see them. talk to them. enjoy their existence because they will not exist forever. the problem is that i have not enjoyed my own existence for so long now that i’m like a darkness that can’t be penetrated, a darkness that sits in darkness and wallows in darkness, who comes home and starts to play a video game to drown out the numbness pervading my entire body. i don’t like being alive is the feeling deep in my gut, and god, who apparently is some perverse trickster god, makes me feel bad by giving me a relatively healthy body that i destroy with bad food and too much sugar. this is my punishment for hating myself. meanwhile my brother, a happy, healthy man with a beautiful family, is struck with colon cancer, the kind that would have continued unabated if it weren’t for fatigue and anemia, the kind that didn’t even hurt. to die at his age would be terrifying, but at least he can say that he lived a good life, had lots of friends and loved ones.

i … i have this theory, that if god exists, then a person’s death coincides with learning, say, enlightenment. the grand secret. whatever you want to call it. we spend our lives yearning for reason, to understand why we’re here. it’s always on the tip of our tongue why we’re here. always something swimming at the edges of our consciousness, and we strive every day to figure it out, either consciously or unconsciously. and i think some people figure it out, and that’s when they die. like, god speaks to them the secret of the universe which is what kills them. this is why buddha is so important, or people like buddha who have reached enlightenment, because they have learned it and have the strength of spirit to not die. maybe the secret is so mind-blowing that it actually kills you, you know what i mean?

people like my brother are just closer to finding out the secret than an asshole like me. but really i think matt is more like a buddha than any of us; i think he found the secret years ago and just happened to stave off death due to his unwavering spirit. that’s kind of a morbid way to think about that, but that’s what i think. he didn’t actively search for it, either. it just came to him and he’s lived with it ever since, unaware that he even contains it, and meanwhile i’ve been scrambling to figure out how to be more like him, which is, ironically perhaps, prolonging my own sad stupid life.

i don’t know where i’m going with this, other than that i just want my brother to be okay and for his cancer to have some kind of meaning, some purpose, and i think if there is a lesson to be learned, it’s that your time on earth is special because you have a self-aware consciousness that strives to find more to life than just sustenance and procreation. we are trying to fill a hole brought about by higher intelligence, by supreme wisdom, by language and culture and art. we think these things fill us but really they just keep us open and looking for more, looking for context, trying to find meaning and purpose in each of our lives. this wasn’t a wake up call for matt, it was a wake up call for all of us, and for me at least, a call to combat complacency. i won’t forget that. i can’t forget that. when other people sacrifice for you, you don’t let them down.

dear god.

i’m not praying to you because i like you, or because i even think you exist. i’m praying because i want answers and i want them now. i want you to tell me with no reservation and no bullshit why you decided to give my brother matt colon cancer. i don’t want burning bushes, i don’t want any magic or “signs,” i just want you to tell me straight up what your reasoning is. write it in a letter, have the pope deliver it to me, or make an angel descend from heaven. do what you must. i want to know why you can do something like this and get away with it, like an abusive parent who knows your kids won’t stop loving you even when you smack them around a little bit. i’m here as an ambassador to the human race giving you a chance to prove your reasoning behind your shitty behavior.

everyone here is so quick to make a lesson out of this. what lesson is there? what kind of vindictive god gives a lesson to a 43 year old man with a wife and four children? didn’t he already get a lesson when his youngest child was born premature and had to be stuck in an incubator for two months? but everyone wants to qualify cancer, they want to give it a reason for existing, it’s almost as if they want to forgive its existence and make it worth having. “well, cancer gave him a wake up call” or some bullshit like that. the last thing my brother needs is a wake up call. he’s is the most awake one of us all. he’s healthy, he exercises, he has a beautiful family, i’ve never seen him be angry in my entire life. there is no lesson that needs to be taught here, not by god, not by anyone. this is just genetics and bad luck. no one needs to “learn” from my brother’s mistakes. he had no mistake. the biggest mistake he made was marrying his second wife, but he learned from that and married a much better third wife. she and their son are the ones who will lose him if he dies. his family who all love him dearly will lose him if he dies. why would a benevolent god make this into a lesson? toying with human life like that.

everyone says “god works in mysterious ways.” well he shouldn’t. he’s a benevolent god, if anything he should be completely transparent about his doings, especially when it comes down to killing the people you love. don’t you think? or at least he should tell you the moral of the story once he’s done wrapping a malignant tumor around your brother’s colon. but no, instead we pray for his health. i’m all for the power of positive thinking, but praying to a god who is teaching *someone* a lesson with cancer sounds like a bad idea. sounds like you’re glorifying a killer.

so i’m not praying to you for that. i want your reasoning. no signs, no portents. you give to me as directly as possible, and then maybe i can forgive you.

i was walking down the waterfront and i think my brain broke. i mean, we all see people in a context, right? the context that we are humans and they are humans and we know what we want to see and what is normal to see in a human being. two eyes, nose, mouth, head, appendages, etc. all of those things are aspects of being a human, and also aspects of being other living beings that we identify with on a more fundamental level, like mammals for instance. well anyway i was walking down the waterfront and that contextual part of my brain just stopped, and i spent the next ten minutes or so realizing how weird being human is. that life’s billions of years of evolution brought us to this point, that our eyes are nothing more than these membranes with liquid in them, that our mouth is just a big chomping device necessary to get sustenance into our bodies. like, our torso is the most important part of us, functionally, and our arms, feet, and head are just things that help fuel our torso. isn’t that FUCKING WEIRD? we have these brains and these thoughts and all of this intelligence and shoes for our feet and gloves for our hands, all so we can protect our torso. i mean, the brain is important but it could be the size of a golf ball and we would still be able to function on a basic level. in a way our intelligence is a hindrance, it keeps us from fucking and eating, you know what i mean?

so that torso is like a big amoeba like thing with all the important stuff in it. the food digesters and the baby making machines. and then we grow legs and arms to move and catch or gather food, but for some reason we also grew this bulbous head where the food goes. why? why do we have this big dumb head? these gross liquidy eyes, this nose that constantly has gunk in it, floppy dumb ears, HAIR, why the fuck do we have hair? and some people have a lot and others don’t, what the, where, who decided this nonsense? and the weirdest part is that we love it, we’re totally into it, i see a chick on instagram with a full head of hair and big liquidy eyes and huge, baby feeding tits and i’m like “yeah, that woman is so hot,” but what makes that hot? why is that attractive?! you’re just a bulbous head with weird googly eyes and dead cells growing out of the back of your head! your tits are literally bags of fat, big fat milk bag that feel your baby, and look let’s not even get started on babies. holy fuck. a parasite that feeds on a woman for nine months and then gets pushed out of the same orifice i put my weird blood-engorged skin flap into. the blood-engorged skin flap doesn’t do anything unless i move it back and forth like a goddamn jackhammer, and then actual, physical goo shoots into an occasionally bloody cavern inside the woman, where it sticks and MAKES A BABY. what the fuck?! what the actual fuck?! everything humankind is is so goddamn weird and gross!

so anyway i tried to de-stress at the waterfront and instead now i’m looking at you like you’re this weird appendaged torso monster. sorry. i’ll get those reports to you by the end of the day. sorry.

i stared him straight in the eye. i knew he was coming into this with guns blazing, after all, he had days, weeks even, to trump up his problem in his head. he wants to come in and be the boss, he wants to show us all how we’re idiots, how we know nothing. that’s the trick though; he knows nothing, that’s why he’s got his hackles raised. he comes in with all these ideas and then once he’s here, i get to tell him the truth. i get to show him what’s really going on. that’s how it works, you just sit them down and say, “here’s what happening.” you don’t fight fire with fire, unless they get really testy, but 90% of the time they never do. occasionally you’ll get a woman who’s just had it, she’s had it and she wants to know what’s going on, she’s shouting in your office and you know she’s mad. most of the time even then i’ll just say, “you still have to give us documents.” just with a calm voice, just like that. if they still don’t get it, that’s when i lay into ’em. “i know it seems like most of the time places do this work for you, but not this time. this time you have to bring us your hardship, we’re not mind readers. we need evidence.” some people get it, some people don’t. but i’ve never been mad at them. how would they know? law is fucking hard, it’s convoluted and people spend their lives deciphering it for the laymen out there. not knowing what you’re getting into can be kind of scary. but i’m just saying, i don’t fall for that shit. you stare me in the eye and i stare right back. i’m like that abyss nietzsche always talked about. you don’t mess with me at the office.

well, what’d you guys think? pretty good? yeah? … i’m going to take your silence to mean you loved it. here’s the thing, when you’re a guy like me, six gold records, one platinum, three grammys, the music award from england whatever it’s called, guys like me know how to put out music. you know what i mean? i’m not talking some bullshit three minute pop song, any jerk off could write a song like that, and they do, every day. but to really pull off the masterpiece that was the last eleven minutes and thirty-five seconds of pure guitar jam, well, that’s something only me, jimmy sandoo, can do. hey. “jimmy sandoo, can do,” that’s nice, that’s got a nice ring to it. think i’m gonna make that my motto. but anyway i call that one “intrepid voyage into the eastern star of your mind, part 2.” why part two? well part one isn’t finished yet and part three requires a digital tambourine and two theremins built at 90 degree angles from each other, so i stick my hand in these two theremins and make a sound that only god can hear, you feel me? for the life of me i can’t find anyone willing to build it though. it doesn’t make any sense! i should go to them and just say, “hey, jimmy sandoo, can do.” or build it myself, i guess, though my hands have been insured for over four million dollars so maybe that’s out of the question.

so i’m assuming your continued silence is an indication of how much you loved it. don’t worry, i recorded this session and will be sending you each a cd just as soon as i get a hold of my IT guy, stefan. does anyone have any questions though? any thoughts? claire i see a little twinkle in your eye, if you’re interested in dinner tonight just let me know after the meeting, okay?

why aren’t you speaking to me? was it really that good? truly mind-blowing? or … wait. mind-blowing. oh my god, jimmy sandoo you’ve done it. you’ve literally blown their minds with the quality of their music. i see it now, they’re all braindead zombies, all of them! hello, claire? can you hear me? george, how many fingers am i holding up? trick question, my hand’s not even up. terry? tom? lindsay? are any of you alive? your eyes are open, but you’re just staring into space. holy crimony, i never thought this would happen. i have become so good at guitar. i am truly a guitar master.

betty, is it possible to turn down the lights a little bit? this front light is washing me out like crazy. i look like a little burlesque ghost, for chrissakes, twirling her little ghost pasties. this is a burlesque show not a sitcom. now, ella’s got the choreography for the aerial dance down pat, but she’s also chronically late, so the rest of us might only get a rehearsal-and-a-half in before showtime, so sally, put down the flask. lanie, carla, and patsy are also late. in fact … everyone’s late except for the three of us. great. this is what i get for recruiting via craigslist. you’d think there would be plenty of women who would love to join a burlesque troupe in portland, but it turns out they’re all making better money as waitresses in the pearl. and the ones that want to show off their tatas just work in vancouver as bikini baristas. i’m telling you, the burlesque market has really gone to shit lately. does no one want to see my strip with big feather fans and then read bukowski while i stick a lit sparkler in my ass? come on, people! this isn’t rocket science, it’s good old fashioned nudey times! carla’s got all the info on tickets sold so who knows if we’ll even have an audience. you know, fuck it, i say. even if it’s empty here we’ll have a good time. sally, stop drinking for a second, i need you to get the trapeze hooked up. i’ll grab the shawls. betty, i need the spotlight lenses cleaned. even if it’s just the three of us we’re going to put on the best goddamn burlesque show portland has to offer! let’s do this!

(spotlight comes on betty. she can’t see. she trips and falls into the audience with a crash.)

GOD DAMN IT. EVEN WITH A BROKEN LEG!

listen to me man. i’m a shitty friend. you can’t deny that. i left you here, i left, i went to do my own thing and now it’s been what, eight years? and i know texting isn’t enough, i know facebook isn’t enough. and, jesus, coming back now seems … callous. god. i’m sorry. just, just be glad i came back, okay? i swear i didn’t mean it out of some kind of guilt, or even if i did, it’s because you’ve never been far in my mind, you know what i mean? you’ve always been here (points to head).

i hope whatever they’ve got you on feels good. i hope you’re pain free. i wish you were awake but i’ll take you comatose and breathing too. i’ll take you alive. and … when i left, jason, it wasn’t out of malice, i just needed to leave. i couldn’t be here anymore. i couldn’t waste my life in this peaceful little town and watch all my days just scream on by, you know? i had to go. it’s my fault i didn’t come back, it’s my fault for not visiting. i want you to know that i love you and i want you to wake up. i want you to forgive me before you die, jason. that’s all i want. or, if you hate me and never want to see me again, at least have the strength to wake up so you can tell me to my face. i’ll take that too, buddy. i’ll take that.

i’ve deliberated on whether or not to tell you this ever since high school, but i’m gay. i’m sure you know already, or have at least suspected, considering my excessive love for musical theatre, but i thought i’d tell you just the same. i’m gay and i always have been. please let grandpa know this, make sure he gets it. i didn’t choose to be gay and believe me if i had a choice i would be straighter than an arrow. being gay is terrible in a lot of ways you’ll never understand. i mean, it’s great from a personal and romantic perspective, but from a political and cultural one … it’s tough, bordering on deadly sometimes. once some guys from school overheard me talking to a friend about being gay and after school they followed me home, and one of them told me to kill myself. to my face. they stopped me and surrounded me, three jocks surrounding a fifteen-year-old girl who barely weighed a hundred pounds at the time. said i was an abomination in the eyes of god, shit like that. i managed to talk my way out of it and once i wasn’t surrounded by i bolted for home. i ran through people’s backyards and cut through alleyways so they couldn’t chase after me. these guys were … well, if i told you who they were the sons of you wouldn’t believe me. anyway, i figured instead of keeping it bottled in while you continue to ask me once a month why i don’t have a boyfriend i would just rip the band-aid off and hope you don’t send me off to conversion therapy or something. i’m gay, i always have been, i probably always will be unless a heavy vase falls on my head and knocks me unconscious, and when i wake up i’ve found that i enjoy dick, and also speak with an english accent. so. i love you and i hope this doesn’t ruin everything, but i can’t keep looking at you with this in the back of my mind.