Trash

I like it.

I used to believe that some people just had bad taste. Terrible art survived because an audience thought it was worthwhile. Now I’m older. I’m surrendering, a little. I’m getting soft. And some days, I just want to watch trash. I can’t watch some stirring documentary that’s going to challenge my intellect and touch my soul. I don’t want to feel my soul. It hurts. Leave it alone. My intellect doesn’t need challenging cause I’m not going to run American policy so it actually doesn’t matter if I have a nuanced opinion on resource extraction in the Congo or midwest corn subsidies. The last problem that made me want to run for office is those damn facial recognition cameras at the self-checkout potentially selling my face to Clearview AI. Then my state Senator, Jeff Merkely, just introduced a bill to at least stop TSA from tracking facial recognition data of citizens. Threat averted; return to the couch.

Aside: TSA actually tried to make me do a facial recognition check-in at security about a year ago, and I refused. They asked why I refused and I said cause the government doesn’t have the right to take my biometrics. They said, “that’s absolutely your right” and took me in to a waiting room to sit with the other nogoodniks until they could ask me a few questions and send me on my way. I never travel with checked bags, and I once declared a packet of hardware store Brazillian pepper seeds, so Customs already searches me every time I cross the border. I’m on a list. One flight, the check-in counter people knew who I was in advance and I felt nicely notorious. Actually I felt paranoid until I could confirm it.

Anyway, I get it. Sometimes you want trash. You just want to turn your brain off, like when I fought fire with frustrated squad bosses who had to manage helicopter contracts and would always drink light beers at the hotel after work, just to take the edge off. That’s all I need. A few spies shooting people, just to take the edge off.

Algorithms make self-deception a little harder, so I know I like spy shows. I’ve seen most of the promising ones Netflix has suggested, including some foreign ones, like Kleo and Babylon Berlin. I’m in a very odd place with TV. I’m still ignorant of a lot of pop culture from my college years, like an unfrozen caveman lawyer, and yet I’ve consumed so much since the pandemic—and since living with three guys who like tv—that I’m also deeply versed in corners of my algorithm. “Are you telling me you’ve watched every episode of Big Mouth and you’ve never seen Band of Brothers?” Seth asked me last week. (He’s wrong about the first part, but I’ll get there.) Mike’s been watching Fringe, an X-Files knock-off. I sit down and see the monsters creep among us.

Seth thinks I’m avoiding my own feelings lately. Watching TV is a way not to think about how I’ve spent the three years since quitting wildfires preparing for a structure fire job that may not pan out, and that I’m married to someone 6,000 miles away, so I have all of the future responsibilities but none of the reminders to anticipate that future. I could be drinking. At least The Recruit doesn’t leave me with a hangover.