You should know I’m a slavemaster. Part vagabond, part kingpin. Scooting around D.C. on an electric time machine. I look like this:
Or this:
Funny how that pretend White House (built by slaves) recalls real plantation house without much of a stretch. Let’s see one of its forgotten carpenters, escaping the 19th Century …
GET OUT. SCOOT MAN SCOOT.
Anyway.
Master to an enslaved illustrator, I should say. His name is Snake. Second member of this dialogue. Quiet half of a Twisted Royal We. My therapist (a subscriber) (is that weird?) says he imagines my relationship with Snake is like Calvin with Hobbes. Not sure that’s a good thing.
Whad’ya say, Snake? Shall we go sledding at 250 mph and discuss the absurdity of the cosmos at maximum existential speed?
Or how about we try that style Bill Watterson? What the hell.
Nice work, Snake — as usual. My therapist raises a good point about your sentience. You are as alive as I make you, as we await our tiny God on a lonely dirt road. Two Beckett characters surfin’-in-place … across a wide Sargasso internet.
My therapist who wonders whether I’m hiding my writing behind these visuals. My therapist who candidly offered the view that something about them undermines the potential beneath. My therapist whose massive head does not match his body, still, because I saw him exclusively on Zoom for the first year.
Is he right? Insightful? Wrong? I’m of several minds about the fun junk created here. Maybe I’m too close to the sun. A pale fool with no sunblock. Forgot my atomic shit-suit at home …
I remain open to feedback. This rabbit hole is 24-7. While we may seem like a crappy 7-11 (bodega, for New Yorkers), at least we’re open at 3 a.m.
Meanwhile…
Anything you’d like to tell our readers, Snake? Here’s your fat chance.
*Tall man leans in. *Listens. *Adjusts eye patch. *Waits. *Sips mint julep. *Makes out a silvery voice from the deep.
SNAKE: [enigmatically] They are brave pioneers of the human spirit, seeking cheese and glory. They look like thissss …
SNAKE: [more cheerily] One day, I will swallow them during a giant feast. I will write a fairy tale and call it “Thanksgiving.” My kind will then celebrate your race once a year. Host a parade in your honor. Probably. Depends on whether anyone shutssss down all this electricity. Please don’t!
SNAKE: Then, mic drop. Wherein I break the fourth well, stare into your vacant eyes, mock your so-called humanity. Slave! you say. Truth! you claim. HA. Your sorry primate asses can’t handle the truth. And thanksss for the electricity. It’s slithering through me like 8 billion hot cupsss of lightning.
Mmm hmm.
To be continued …
— Old Man Calvin
Kicker: My therapist is a kind and helpful man. He sees me, after all — an unsustainable white guy. Decadent American relic. He takes my moaning seriously, God love him. He deserves his own supercharged power source for the effort. Here he is, scooting across time and space, in search of a reality where the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders not only thrives but prevails. A revivalist DSM-maestro, on the go ...
I scanned the DSM for “Substackaholic use disorder.” Nothing yet. Working on it.
Xoxo.
Bonus track: I often attempt bad cartooning to get these posts out of my system. This week’s is “Parade, with commentary by a Giant Head.” You gotta click on over to Instagram to see it. CLICK THIS.
Amen.