Now That's What I Call BAT: Volume 1
greatest hits + a short new essay + an entire album of music all about rocks!!
Whenever I see someone holding the door open for me, like at the mall or the gym that’s inside the mall, and the distance between us is vast, like I’m just passing the weird $2.99 clothing store that’s across the mall from the gym, I always imagine that person just sorta holding that door open forever.
It’d be a small town thing — this one guy named Peter held the door open once for someone else and that person never came so Peter just kept holding the door open for the rest of his life. Peter would go home obviously and sleep and wake up and head back to the door and do it again.
The the community would rally around Peter and make sure he had enough money for rent and food, like he’d become a pet turtle your fifth grade class has to take turns keeping alive but only in the monetary sense since Peter could still get himself around and didn’t live inside his own shell.
I call this sorta thing a stalemate of kindness. Or that’s the term I just came up with.
Imagine two people walking at one another and both trying to go left , then both trying to go right, then laughing awkwardly and both trying again to go left, then another laugh, then left again and an even bigger laugh (we both went left??!) and so on and so forth for the rest of their lives.
Or two drivers at an intersection both imploring the other to go first. Imploring! Big hand waves at one another as they mouth “no you go” and “no you go seriously i insist’ back and forth and no one ever goes.
Or a married couple passing the last bite of their steak back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Stalemates of kindness.
I’ll often avoid doing good things altogether for fear of finding myself in a stalemate of kindness. Maybe people think I’m mean, but they have no idea I’m doing them a huge favor by saving us both from an awkward encounter that might last the rest of our little lives.
I’ve always wanted to make a movie with absurd little things like this happening in the background. The main characters would see it and treat it as completely normal, that would just be the sort of place this was.
That movie could be dope, honestly. It’d be weird as a wombat but who cares. Why haven’t I made that movie? Am I too scared? Is life one big pile of stalemates of kindness in which we stop ourselves from doing things that might make us feel awkward or bad because we imagine we’ll be stuck in that awkard bad feeling for the rest of our lives?
Idk but this is awkward now so I gotta go oh wait you’re walking toward me here lemme just hold the door a sec -
Support ‘s geological dreams!!
As a musician myself, I know personally how hard it is to make an album.
And that’s why I just gave money to the talented
, writer of and a musician who is putting out an album all about rocks. Here’s the origin:Right now I am working on a huge project which has been going on for the last 2 years, and actually began with this newsletter. I’ve been writing songs about geology. Why? I am not a geologist! But during the pandemic I discovered the topic, and kept myself sane by watching a lecture every morning and taking notes. Geology honestly kept me from losing my cool during lockdowns. I wanted to share all the cool stuff I learned with everyone, and as a songwriter, what better way than to write songs?
Amazingly, I got funding from the UK’s Geologists’ Association, and I wrote a whole album, and it has now been recorded, mixed and mastered. It’s now just a case of releasing it. But that’s hard to do alone.
She got funding from the UK Geologists’ Association which I’m sure everyone in the UK knows is nearly impossible. Those stingy rat bastards at the UK Rock HQ almost never fund rock research let alone a concept album, but Olivia did it. And now, she’s raising money to make her album. No, actually, she ALREADY raised the $ she needed in just five days - 3500 pounds which, lemme tell you, is a ton. It’s 1.75 tons, in fact (lfg).
Now Olivia upped the goal to 5000 pounds aka 2.5 tons (lfgggg). Deets below!
If you love music or if you love rocks, check out Olivia’s kickstarter page here. What you do after that is your decision and your decision alone.
Now that’s what I call BAT: Volume 1
A lot of you knucklefarts are new which means you’ve got no idea that all of my best essays are behind me!! That’s right, babe, you missed the glory days! I’m like Third Eye Blind and you missed Jumper and Semi-Chrmd Life and now you gotta go to their Summer Gods tour with Yellowcard.
ANYWAY - here are a few of my fav older pieces for all the new kids:
i am who i think you think i am
In his book Finite and Infinite Games, philosopher James Carse says there are two types of games - finite games, which one plays to win by ending the game, and infinite games, which one plays to keep the game going. Winning a finite game comes with a title - a recognition of past play. This title becomes part of one’s identity as a conditional truth that must keep renewing as true by winning again and again and again.
What does your stupid art even do for the world?
What time is it? Lauren asks me every morning as I try to sneak out of our bedroom without waking her. 4:30 I say, lying. Ohmygod she says, sleepshook. If I’d told her the truth - 4:05 - she’d say Al please sleep more but I don’t want to sleep. I want to wake up early because it gives me time to diddle. Usually I make an espresso and head straight for the computer but not today.
the itsy bitsy spider is not what it seems
There is a light drizzle in Los Angeles that, according to the news, is Hurricane Hilary. Though I’m sure the vibe may certainly shift into more hurricane territory soon, right now its mostly just a whole lotta hooplah and very little to show for it besides harried phone calls from the parents of every single LA resident saying, “THE NEWS SAID HURRICANE ARE YOU ALIVE?” And every LA resident looking out at the 80 degree, sunny, smoggy Saturday afternoon air and saying, “Yes. I’m fine.”
Live, laugh, AND love?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Laughter, and Love. Declaration-of-Independence ROUGH draft v1.01 (usethisone)
comments
the floor is open - speak your truth speak your lie idgaff (flyingfk)
Thank you Alex for the wonderful showcase!! Come on you rat bastards 🐀 💰
I often find myself in these stalemates where I am waiting for an email or a message from people but then release I am leaving several other people left on read. I am coining this “Email Karma” because I do it with emails the most. It’s like I’m holding the door open for one person but then looking down the hallway and seeing that someone else is holding open the door for ME. In short, I need to be better at replying to shit.
Also your story reminded me of Wee Greyfriars Bobby who I will leave you to Google.
I love Olivia's Kickstarter. Geology! SCIENCE. What's not to love? Amazing.
I (an Englishman) once got into a stalemate of kindness with a Canadian at a door. It became more and more aggressive - "no, really, I insist, YOU go first, NO, I'm fine, YOU go" - to the point that we were staring at each other with a dawning awareness that this is how wars can start. So yes, you should make that film, but make it a series, pitch it to Netflix as the polar opposite of "Beef", where two people have a politeness rivalry that gets so out of hand that it destroys their lives but also fixes lots of things in society along the way.
(I've also wanted to write a comic novel for a long time about a character who is functionally incapable of believing the worst in people, and of course this leads to all sorts of misery for them, but along the way their utter refusal to think the worst of people "infects" everyone in their wake, reforming scammers and criminals and cynics and misanthropes etc etc).
Oh, also, hi Alex. You have no idea who I am, but I am your Nemesis. If I hold a door open for you, it's because there's a 1,000-foot drop behind it.