ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ian McGaughran was born in 2002 into the Salad Bowl of the World, where he was raised by the merging spirit of confused Catholics and maladjusted Mormons. As a child, Ian dreamt of becoming a spy, an abstract artist, a financial analyst, and a Casanova, though, none of these came to fruition. Currently, Ian works as a useful idiot, and spends his free time obsessing over arts.
I wake up to two practically untouched books, well, untouched within my use, lying on the left side of my bed along with two onetime used RCA cables. My phone is on the floor but still plugged in and I never took my glasses off. I’m only wearing Ethika underwear and I haven’t showered in three days. My name is Darren Bleck. That’s what people call me when I tell them that’s my name, you know. Also, I’m twenty years old and live in Sacramento, CA. Here’s a list of things I like to do: go on 4Chan, go on Discord, go on Twitter, go on Instagram, go on Substack, go to coffee shops, go to the kava bar, go on said websites at the kava bar and coffee shops, go to church, listen to music, smoke weed, smoke cigarettes, drink coffee and kava, go to art galleries, go to the bay area, make beats, read, and that’s pretty much it. I look to my makeshift bookshelf and list off the titles: Cyberfeminism Index, The Freud Reader, Aping Language, Thus Spake Zarathusra, Ecrits, The Penal Colony, The Anarchist Handbook, Love You Forever, Flowers For Algernon, Poetry July/August 2023, The Tibetan Yogas Of Dream And Sleep, Finding Meaning, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, E.S.P. and your Super Conscious, How To Be A 3% Man, The Nazi Conspiracy, The Complete Guide To Astrology, Core Performance Essentials, Men’s Health Big Book Of Exercises, Modern Art, The Photographer’s Guide To Using Light, Palace Magazine Vol. Three, Palace Magazine Vol. Two, and The Men’s Fashion Book. I’ve read parts of Cyberfeminism Index, Ecrits, Thus Spake Zarathusra, The Freud Reader, and The Complete Guide To Astrology and that’s it.
I roll onto my side and look out the half partitioned blinds. The sun is overcast in a way of which the humidity protrudes into my room and hangs over me. It is not a cloud-like depression, it’s something else symbolizing annoying ambivalence. I pull my hips back to sit up and look to the grass. A golden field with twigs and a stolid black cat meandering around, hopping at insects. I stare at the cat. Though I can’t see the insects, I assume the cat hasn’t caught a single one. The cat looks like an old cat I had. Her name was Netty, named after the internet. Did you know the first photo of Earth can be traced back to MK Ultra? This can be found on Stewart Brand’s Wikipedia page, though this assumes one already knows Ken Kesey’s connection to MK Ultra. Did you know Donald Trump wrote about Steve Reich? I found this on Pitchfork, but you could find it in Think Like A Champion too. Did you know Sesame Street was probably created by the government in a mesh of an anti-communist CIA group, the Carnegie Foundation, the army’s psychological warfare department, the OSS, MK Ultra again, and big pharma? I don’t remember how I found it and you wouldn’t get it, anyway.
I love the internet. I love love love love love love love it so so so so so so much!! I reach over to my phone in a manner that’s comparable to taking the first joint hit of the day. I go on my phone and open up Instagram. I’m dealt the hand of a woman pouring Hennessy in ramen, a spider chihuahua in a parallel universe, a man struggling to sing a Lil Peep cover, and a photo of a childhood favorite artist of mine: George Rodrigue. The blue dog’s eyes branch between melancholic, surprised, content, overjoyed, and drunk, though my feed ends here with a supplement of a spinning circle. I am trapped at the end of the internet. The circle spins into the Nietzsche quote of time being a flat circle, and I think he was right. At least now. But I don’t like Nietzsche and that’s why I only have one book of his and haven’t read it. At least now. But I like Nick Land and Mishima and maybe Fisher a little (but don’t tell the Stalinists I said that.) I like lurking on right wing sites, but I’ll never vote conservative because I never have. Everyone lies. Everyone lies on the internet.
I open Twitter and find a list of tweets. The list of tweets includes, but isn’t limited to, but isn’t long regardless: a Bladee quote (“It’s fine but it’s true/I find a way to sabotage everything between me and you”), “R.I.P STEVE ALBINI” by Yung Gud, and “nice she/her gf dude. is this 2008 lol” by somebody unnotable. But that’s it. I’d die to scroll just a little bit longer. Maybe I’d see a tweet from a niche e-celebrity whose voice I’ve probably never heard. Maybe I’d reply to them. We’re all friends. Reply guys are their own community, oftentimes forming a community outside of the original poster they were even replying to.
I raise myself back to the window and glance at the cat. It has now become mildly rhythmic in its motions, and I imagine FL Studio’s metronome beating as it goes. I become enthralled until a PCF button catches my eye. In France, I was similarly stuck with poor connection, using expensive e-sims to allow me to look up directions to places. And here, I’m faced with limitless connection, well, limitless except for now for some reason. I am teetering between different types of boredom until I pick up the PCF button and prick my finger with its pin. I’ve never been to a DSA meeting. I tote the card like it will pacify my actions, but I’ve never been to a single meeting or organized or anything. That’s not good of me. I look at the cat one more time and tap on the glass before pulling out my phone to open Instagram again. And its issues are still unresolved.
www.isitdownrightnow.com is a friend. It is there to help whenever you need. But it doesn’t always give you the answer you want. I say this because, according to this website, both Instagram and Twitter are up and running. I don’t know what to do. I can refresh and refresh and refresh or…something. What is there to do? Go to the bay area, smoke weed, cigarettes, go to an art gallery, a museum, make beats? I could read. I could prop open the bilingual version of Federico Garcia Lorca’s Collected Poems and go to town. I could reach over and read Interfictions 2 until my eyes turned bloody. Or I could try to make beats. I reach over to pull my annoyingly sticker ridden laptop out of my decaying Stussy x Herschel backpack. Largely displayed on it is a Drain Gang 2022 sticker which is stuck over a frantically decaying Ice Cream sticker. I gently open the laptop to find it dead, flashing a battery symbol in my face. I charge it and am stuck with nothing to do. Nothing except reading. I grab Lorca’s stupid book and yank it open. As I’m reading a poem titled Sonnet of the Sweet Complaint, I am overcome with thoughts of what is happening online. There is a whole ecosystem that is ever changing and growing and shrinking and living and laughing, and here I am trying to make myself learn Spanish in bed with a book I bought for $9.50.
The cat’s gone. I should get up. I haven’t even checked the time at all today. It’s a Friday, no, Wednesday. It’s 10:38 AM. I should get up. I should shower. But I should go on the internet too and that’s not working, so what’s the point? But at the very least, I should shower. So I get up and grab a pair of Pro Club shorts on my way to the restroom. I have bad piss anxiety, even when alone, and often find that scrolling my phone is the most reliable solution. But it's not working. Or is it now? I grab my phone off of the counter and manically click my way into Instagram. Hennessy, Chihuahua, Peep, all the classics, but it ends. It ends like everything else in the world but it doesn’t, but it is now, so I don’t know what to do. I can’t pee. I’m flicking my you know what trying to raise some sort of stream, stable or not. I realize I now have to sit down to pee. Without my phone, my precious internet, I am no longer masculine; I realize. I nearly wipe after I pee.
I open my phone and go to Spotify. I attempt to search Humans Are Such Easy Prey by Pertubator and find out that this too has been infected with near uselessness. I’m forced to listen to a downloaded playlist, one entitled upper middle class melancholic white guy, featuring hits from Crywank, Aerial M, Gastr Del Sol, The Residents, Star Fucking Hipsters, my little pony is jesus god is me :3, Carissa’s Wierd, The Postal Service, Codeine, Red House Painters, and a long list of other generic male manipulator music. When I click shuffle, there is a latency in its loading, but just as desired, it plays a slightly less desired song: Fortress by Pinback. I don’t think I see any sign of fortress either. There is no fortress without my internet. “Nobody move.” I can’t anyway. Where would I go? I need a homepage. I slide into the shower with Cut Your Ribbons by Sparta playing. “There’s no running.” What does it mean to cut your ribbon? Is that what I need to do? “Cut [my] ribbon?” Does that mean getting rid of tech? Should I explode my ribbons with mail bombs? I wash my face while the song changes to something I don’t remember the name of.
As I get dressed, I enter into an indecisive rut about how to portray myself today, and in a way, how I will live for a day. On the one hand, I could wear a “Yeah…No” t-shirt I had bought for $6.99 from Walmart in an ironic sense, something I’d feel comfortable in, or I could wear a Vineyard Vines Gingham Shirt in a New Sincerity kinda way, something I would feel out of place in. I flip a coin, landing on heads two out of three times, then realize I hadn’t declared what each side represented. I decide that heads is “Yeah…No” and tails is the whale shirt, and I now land on tails two out of three times. I look in the mirror and feel uncomfortable with the fact that I look normal and presentable. I put on a neutral pair of washed black jeans and now realize I don’t know what I will do for the rest of the day. I was just thinking about this, wasn’t I? I grab my phone and open Instagram again. Fucking Henny. Scroll scroll scroll. No. No there’s nothing more.
I grab my acoustic and sprawl across my couch to play New Slang and attempt its solo. I set it down after two wrong notes, though it’s really the indentations on my fingertips it makes that really makes me really dislike playing it. I go to open Ultimate Guitar Tabs on my phone, to again find an endless circle. Spinning and spinning. The circle reminds me of Nietzsche again, but also wheels now. Wheels represent movement, change, a different place. But here, it displays a stagnation, an empty movement. A literal circle. It is doing what a circle does. I am doing what a circle does. I should be doing what a wheel does. Where will a wheel take me? I could go to Capitol Park. I could go to the coffee shop. I could go to a museum. I could drink kava. Its too early for kava. I should go to a coffee shop. But choosing brings on another level of decisions. If I go to The Roast it will suck because The Roast sucks but then I will be around a lot of people which makes me feel like I’m living life. If I go to The Lounge, I will feel odd because of the stuff I’ve heard about the owners. If I go to Good Old Days, I will feel normal but uncomfortably normal. There is no escape. My only escape is the internet. God damn thee.
I put on my shoes and think about the SpongeBob Timberland derivatives I had. I would wear them with any outfit: my fedora, my Robert Geller jacket thing, my fake Bape jeans, my short sleeve zip-up hoodie. But now there’s no point. Who would see them? The people on the street? The people I don’t care about? I care about my followers and my followers are my friends. We’re all friends. If I said that on Twitter I bet one of my friends would say something funny back. But I put on my Vans. I put on my Vans and leave.
In my car I attempt to pull my phone out to search This Hurts by Mindless Self Indulgence, but alas, nothing. Nothing but the stupid white people playlist and melancholy and angst, which, while I do love it, I need options. But nothing. I could listen to the radio, I think. I could flip through what I assume is a conglomerate of classical music, Christian rock, ads in languages I don’t know, and top songs with equal parts TikTok virality and safe marketability. I just start clicking buttons. I don’t really know what AM radio is. I click it and open a floodgate of soft spokeness. I click another button. Jesus and Hitler by The Robot Ate Me plays louder than I thought the song was. I can listen to this or Thor & Friends. I used to buy so many CDs. What happened? I used to be a music aficionado in a largely natural sense, as long as somebody else’s decision of what should be discounted is natural. That’s how I found out about Grandaddy, Kimya Dawson, Internet Money, and now I rely on an algorithm. I rely on it and tout it around like a trophy. “Let me put you on.” I should be put on. I should be taught something. I should go to the record store. I won’t. I drive to the intersection of walkability for each coffee shop.
I walk left, then right, then left, and then I just go wherever people aren’t going. My indecision will decide for me, I decide. I walk towards an open lot with nobody there. I figure I should be a block or two from Good Old Days. That’s what God wants, I guess. I head down 23rd to get there. I think that’s where it is. I walk and I pass a group of homeless men pouring milk on each other’s heads. I pass a woman with the confederate flag on her shirt. That would be funny, maybe, if I saw it on 4chan. But it's real life, it’s in front of me, and I don’t like it. On the internet I don’t have to worry about it. Somebody has already clocked its idiocy, and that’s why it's on the internet; We’re laughing at them. But now, what do I do? I can laugh and snicker, but what do I do? I can’t do anything. I’m weak. I just want to be on the internet. Why can’t it work? Why can’t it work!?
I realize I’ve been walking for 9 minutes. I should’ve been at GOD by now. I should’ve met God by now. Where is it? It has to be here. I pull my phone out. I should have the Sacramento maps downloaded, Midtown at least. No. No. No nothing no. No maps. No nothing. I’m on 23rd now, right? I don’t remember where I parked. I always screenshot it on Google Maps. Where was I? God dammit. No. No, it's okay. Where did I park? Should I find GOD or my car first? Maybe I can drive closer if I go to my car first. Ok. Ok, I’ll go to my car first. Then I can rethink if I even want to go there. But where did I park? Up 23rd, yes, and then…left, then right, then left…then it’s there? I think. I walk back. But where are the homeless? Where the hell did that woman go? Where is everyone? For a moment, they were my friends. But now I’m alone. All alone again and again all the time. Where are my real friends? On the internet, that’s where.
I turn where I think I should; I walk as straight as I can as I think I should. I look around when I think I should, and I even get excited when I think I should, and I do it all for nothing. Where is it? It is almost as if I am searching for the meaning of life. It is almost as if I’m searching for God themself. But no, I am searching for a shitty 2008 Lexus ES 350 that I’m surprised is still running. Why could my day not go better? Why couldn’t my fucking phone just work? Why can’t it go my way just for a day? Why do I care? Why am I so dependent? Why am I so reliant? I wanna smoke weed. I should smoke weed. The weed’s in my car. Of course it’s in my car. Of course it’s in my car and my phone isn’t working and I can’t find Good Old fucking Days. What street am I on? Where the fuck is the street sign? Where is anything? Ok, I am far from Good Old Days, or I should be, but I should be close to my car, yes? Yes I should be. Yes I should be but where is it?
It’s all a circle. It’s all a circle because I’ve been walking in circles. I’m on 23rd and I don’t know if I’m walking in the right direction or not or even if there is such a thing as a good direction. I’m walking in circles. How do you break a circle? Parallel lines converge at some point, right? The opposite should exist too, right? Constant convergence should slip into parallelity, at least for a brief moment. What am I thinking about? This won’t help me. Fucking stupid pseudo bullshit that sounds cool in my head. Do I have a right to whine? Do I have a right to moan and bitch? I should, right? Where IS IT!? Fuck this phone, fuck this fucking fucking phone! I want to be home. At least I’d have more then the contents of my backpack. Maybe I should go to Verizon. Go to Verizon when I can’t even go to my car. I can’t do that. Where even is Verizon? I am the wheel. I am the wheel and the loading screen. I am moving nowhere fast. I am the circle. Are these emotions natural? I learned in BioPsych about duality and monism. Maybe it's that. Maybe it's something.
I find my car. M & 15th. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know what turn it was that led me here. Every movement was a shot in the dark. Every step was hope. And here I am. My phone still isn’t working. Good. It’s good isn’t it. Maybe that’s what I need. When I was 9, my great-grandfather bet me $100 that I couldn’t use my phone for 24 hours. Little did he know, I was in love with the daily funnies; Squid Row, Family Circus, Archie, Garfield, Dilbert, that one that’s about a patriotic dentist or something. I can entertain myself for hours from a Reader’s Digest. Well, maybe not anymore. All my friends are online. I can’t just abandon them. At least not on my own volition. I won that bet. I got 10 $10s in an envelope the next day.
I drive home having to listen to The Robot Ate Me’s ambient stuff. The existence of sound but such a minimal nearly non existing sound almost sounds more quiet than silence. I wish I could listen to some Xiu Xiu or some Skrilla or some Piccioni or some Max Richter or even some C.C.C.C. I wish I had freedom. But then again, I did find On Vacation at The Cave on my own volition and impulse. Most of these bands I found through Spotify “songs like this” or 2020 Weezer-hating meme pages. What is freedom? I won’t know it until it kills me. Maybe it's all relative, maybe it's all subjective, maybe there is no freedom at all, maybe there never was.
I’m arriving back home and it's all still worthless. As I walk past my neighbor’s house, I hear a flurry of speaker-produced music and tv-created dialogue. I assume it's a JBL speaker and a Roku TV. I haven’t even attempted to use my bluetooth today, I realize. It wasn’t worth it. It doesn’t matter. It will all fail. Everything. The more I try the more I will lose. But I made it out alright today, didn’t I? Should I celebrate that? I’d celebrate it with an obscene amount of screen time if I could. But what can I celebrate with now? I’m already home. I have a TV and can watch a movie and that’s about it. I can smoke weed. I can steal my dad’s liquor. I can do anything except what I want. Who cares? Not me. Can’t you tell I don’t care? I’m fine. I don’t have an issue.