Hello and Right On! It’s been a minute (times a lot). Do you ever get sick of your dumb opinions and ways of doing things? I do get very sick of mine! Because what is legit heart of gold stuff and what is my anxiety taking flight, shape of a water dong? Ho boy.

You know what is real? General Store in San Francisco. It is a distillation of all things that are stupid about privilege and many whites. Did the show Last Man on Earth grow there between two $1200 zarapes? Or was it back in the $25 “VINTAGE” bandana stack? Stop it you YMCA camp handbook re-selling, crude shoe-sewing, essential oil over-pricing, wooden toy JERK-OFFS!

WAIT I CAN’T SEE THE SCREEN BECAUSE MY EYES ARE FILLED WITH DIARRHEA THAT IS EXPLODING FROM MY THIRD EYE BY WHICH I MEAN MY BUTT (not an original joke, I think that was in some performance art in the 90’s or something).

But you guys. As my beautiful writing partner reBETHa Lisick said, “I just can’t believe the last people on earth would be three white people in their 30’s.” Like for sure the least resourceful, poorly muscled and robustly educated chunk of people in the USA (if anyone has real intel on that please email it to dumb@shut-up.com) (or record yourself on VHS telling me why you have a VHS camera) (or mount a wall calendar above your desk and remind yourself to exist less every day).

I actually really enjoy many aspects of that show. But also it feels like a show with a guy at the center who gets to do lots of fun stuff like smashing cars and pooping in a swimming pool while the women around him are written for in a way that I can only say really facilitates the big bouncy house, rented pony, balloon-twisting clown, colorful ball pit, party time of the main character. BUMMER. They didn’t even indulge in the old, popular and wildly tired trope of casting all whites and one African-American actor. Maybe that’s coming down the road. I am biting my toenails to the quick!

Will TV get better with regard to race and casting? Reading Breyean Grayzher’s shock at the popularity of Empire was such a perfect picnic spread of Hollywood’s race problem (citation needed) (Chevy Citation, that is). There were exactly no comments that conveyed an awareness of the world as it exists for most humans outside wildly wealthy bullshit compounds in Los Feliz where you sign NDA’s at the gate.

But General Store. This is where people of all the different one kinds of people can pay $45 for one handcrafted coffee mug. IS IT that educated, upper-middle class people realized they didn’t want to be bankers or go into real estate and they realized they loved making things all by themselves (no machines) but could not handle the downgrade in pay so they charge prices commensurate with lawyer’s fees? My mom’s friends who make soaps and crafts in Wisconsin don’t price their handiwork like they deserve a fucking carved mountainside in a northern state for achieving greatness in mug-making. My friend Sabrina gave me the most beautiful mug in the world which she made in a pottery class (HER FIRST) in exchange for helping her with her garden. THAT is a legit economy to me. I still owe her that garden check. Am I ripping off artists? Ooooh, maybe one day!!

Wait do I need to say anything about why I went to General Store in the first place? Of course I went! It’s next to Trouble Coffee (which I like, and Giulietta is great, but seriously the way the people who work there model their eyes after Bassett Hounds is CRAZY. Why are their eye sockets so LOOSE. And also are they bored with life and do they like vibrant colors. And also I watched a lady who had already bought her coffee come inside to chat with the cashier while a line of people waited to order coffee and they just lobbed around a lot of How Are You I am Great Have You Been Surfing Have You Seen Roan Lately. It was STUNNING and for sure made me miss Target and manufacturing in general). Anyway I think friends of friends own GS. Or something. I thought it would be enjoyable on some level even if I couldn’t afford it and it just made me want to start a race war against the people who work and shop there.

Anyhoo I have work to do. Constantly. And I don’t mean on myself. Hope you’re doing well.