2020: dumpster fire, unprecedented times, new normal, blah blah blah, yeah, we get it.

I’m sure I stared at screens more last year than in the previous several combined. A lot of this was streaming shows and movies about dystopian/post-apocalyptic/dumpster fire stories: The Walking Dead (zombies), The Man in the High Castle (Nazis), The Boys (evil corporation/superheroes), American Horror Story (Satan), etc. Apparently watching fictional people suffer (and often die) made it easier to absorb the fact that—in the real world—nearly 400,000 Americans died from a (horribly mismanaged) pandemic.

The Handmaid’s Tale (the patriarchy) was another series I watched and enjoyed (at the expense of the fictional characters). The words “treason and coconuts” from one of the more witty lines stuck in my head: They immediately conjured an image of 45 wasting away alone on a desert island, his skin more of a blistered red than a burnt orange. I started a crappy song about it last summer and finally finished it this week by making it a little less crappy. It’s my parting gift to one of the worst leaders in the history of the world.

(For what it’s worth, I read a lot last year, too; some stuff in the same vein as what I watched: State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda, 1984, Station Eleven, The Dog Stars, the Oryx and Crake trilogy, Everything is Fucked: A Book About Hope. I’ll still enjoy this kind of darkness even after things get better.)

Treason & Coconuts