No Bad News

Years ago after watching Bowling For Columbine I decided to stop watching the news. During a scene where they went to where the L.A Riots started and you saw how much of a regular ass street it was I thought “How much news do I watch?” This was in 2002 before the internet was useful. I did not own a computer and did not talk about the news much with people unless it was something sensational that everyone was talking about. I was working in a porn shop and had been for a few years. My brother had passed away the year prior. I was single again after a four year relationship. My apartment was still new to me. Things were weird.

I sat and thought about the news that I was watching. Mostly Fox 11 back before Fox was FOX. What a weird word fox is. I would wake up and watch an hour and a half of news. When I got home it would be on in the background and it was what I would watch late at night. I calculated that I was watching at minimum three hours of news a day which was about 21 hours a week. That is almost a damned day worth of badness. Not all of it was badness. A lot of it was just nonsense. Stories about dogs that could yo-yo. Girls who could not stop hiccuping. How good chocolate was for you around Valentine's Day. But as the war in Iraq and wherever else we felt like getting oil and shit from continued the news changed and along with it the way people behaved.

I Care When I Want 2

Years ago I made the decision to stop watching the news. I know that a choice like that would make it seem like I am misinformed, stupid, or don't care about world issues. Well, that is mostly true. I try not to care about world issues because when I was younger my hair fell out from stressing about things that did not concern me or I couldn't change. Most of the stuff in the news are things I can't change or just horrible shit.

A few days ago I just left the TV on and the news started with a huge fire, then a murder, then another murder, then a missing teen, then a kidnapping, then a police standoff, then a protest about police doing terrible shit, then a dog was found, then a mountain lion got too close to humans, some robberies, and then some cat that could do a stupid trick. It was a roller coaster of nonsense. What does seeing all that shit do for me? Tell me how dangerous the world is? Yeah, there are riots in some country I'll never visit. Sucks to be there just like it sucks to be here for other reasons. I try not to get into who has it worse contests.

Dante & Camille Goofing Around

This is not a Rosscast. A long ass while ago Camille and I recorded some audio for a summer reading program. It had to be one minute long. We couldn't do that. We ended up singing, laughing, and jacking up the script. This was fun and eventually we ended up getting it right. I had so much fun doing this.

Fear Everything And Nothing

What is your greatest fear? Mine is heights. I confronted this fear by taking hiking classes and walking to the edge of cliffs and standing there cheering triumphantly. Watching the news will expose you to all sorts of new ways to know fear.

Don’t eat peanuts (and now pistachios). Don’t walk across the street because someone will hit you and toss you off the hood. Don’t hang out in anyone’s house that smokes since there is this new 5th hand smoke that can get you. North Korea now has a rocket that can hit the West coast. Don’t ski on bunny slopes without a helmet as you may get brain swell. Don’t drive because someone will t-bone you. What do you do in this dangerous ass world?

Nothing.

Keep doing what you do. It makes no sense walking around afraid of the world. The news is meant to not inform everyone about news in the world, but to make you dependent on fear. We live in a culture of fear that makes no sense to me. I remember hearing that humans are the only creatures that can make ourselves afraid. If Jesus fell from the sky right now and said, “Take my hand and you will live in peace forever…” we’d still be afraid and skeptic. “Can I bring my jacket with me?”

On the news tonight I cant remember there being one good thing mentioned unless you follow a sports team. Everything is just bad ass news. I want everyone to stop watching the news for a week and see how good you feel. I end up catching it on accident as background noise. But for the rest of the week I will shut it out. Let’s see how this goes.

Rockets.