Love in Corona times.

I had a socially distanced 'one-night stand'

We wore surgical gloves and she held my hand

She took me home threw me on the bed

went to the bathroom then she said

"I'll be in the bath, it's safer there"

"Now get on ZOOM and show me you care."

Get off and turn on.

 So now I have read all the books and ‘tips from Authors’ and all the internet can offer on writing- how to start, how to continue, writer's block, what sort of paper -ink or pencil to use… all I have to do now is write FFS, and make it a daily habit.

Like everything else the more you do it, the easier it becomes, not necessarily better, just easier.

One thing that Corona has taught me, I’m not as talented as I thought I was, as the absence of my first killer novel proves, the empty joke notebooks and half-finished projects in the house. I have this one thing and that is getting on stage and making people laugh through words I carefully select, that is it -end of talent roll call. 

So my only talent is impossible to perform at the moment,  I’m stuck in a sort of waiting room an entertainment purgatory between heaven and hell, just hanging around, trying to stay relevant by making podcasts that don’t go anywhere, doing live streams so people can see me and remember me as ‘that comedy guy’. 

All this shit we post on the internet through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and all the other platforms is so boring, there are the ‘look at my face’ people -every day a new photo of their face as if to say … well, remember my face… Pathetic little jokes on Facebook that would only work on stage and then only as a sort of ‘add on’ to a set that was already smashing it. Witty comments on Twitter. You would think that all this mountain of bullshit would have to crash one day, but the novelty doesn’t seem to be waning any time soon.

90% of everything we put on the ‘platforms’ of social media are just ‘forget me not’ reminders. 

There used to be a time that we were contented with just knowing the few people around us, as long as they liked us or put up with us we felt ok, the rest of the world was what we saw on television or film. Now we are continually disappointed with the number of likes and retweets and friend requests from people we do not know, or never will do. As far as I am concerned the ultimate art is the art of doing little and enjoying it. Not being addicted to the ‘like-machine’, today I wrote a poem that I really liked, I like it so much I’ll keep it to myself and won’t put it under social media scrutiny of those who I don’t know. That’s me, the world doesn’t have to know what I get up to every day, amongst the other billions on social network sites my tale is just one of the many - meaning so little to anyone except me. (This little text I’m writing here seems to be flowing well I might share it on social media later -after the re-write and spelling check, done for me by algorithms). 

I started realizing -during the lockdown- how empty our lives have become… and then I started doing d.i.y. stuff around the house,  the repairs that I haven’t had time for during my ‘on line importance’. It’s was such an energy boost, just to actually get stuff done, start a job and finish it (maybe not the best quality -but it’s mine), no being judged all day by strangers on the internet, freedom in ‘real-time’. A day without social media was the most invigorating thing I have done during the lockdown, ok it’s a long process to kick the addiction, but one day at a time and you will get there, it all means nothing after all. Nothing you or I say on Twitter, FB or any other platform carries any influence longer than the next tweet on somebody's timeline.