Still pondering the new segment title, Post-Pandemic Radio and thinking it’s lacking something. It’s not quite accurate but it’s in the same spot no matter what you call it. It means the same.

It’s been a long time since I’ve so eagerly awaited an album drop the way I’ve been on the edge of my seat about the new CRYPTO ORDER. It’s kind of funny to be nearing 60 and going full stan on a musical act but there you go. It’s also been a long time since I’ve found an artist who so accurately captures the immediacy of any given time. He’s posted up the entire album as singles just prior to the drop, which I believe is July 26th. I may replace the video below if a full album post becomes available. For now we’ll have to make due with this.

This album, and several that precede it, is 2021. It’s also 2020. It’s what the world, as it revealed itself in recent years, sounds like. It’s a sonic version of the Hell panel of that famous Hieronymous Bosch triptych. It’s beautiful but terrifying.

My own life is piecing back together over these last several days. Things are still blurry. I can’t really recall exactly what I wrote or said yesterday. I can’t recall what I’ve already related in this space. Then again the memories themselves of the whole hospital incident are blurry. I was swinging hard between excruciating pain and painkiller haze. What do I remember?

I remember two weeks ago today when the pain and discomfort started to amplify and the realization set in that something serious was happening. I remember spending a good part of that Saturday thinking I could walk it off and be okay. My body has been pretty trustworthy so far, with the exception of a couple spells. Okay, let’s not call it trustworthy. Let’s say it is has been reliably resilient through cluster headaches, auto-immune issues, etc. It’s been consistent. I believed I could walk off whatever was happening. I remember every last minute of Saturday night and the pain and lying in the dark not sleeping. I remember making the decision that I’d be going to the emergency room right after I slept an hour and that sleep never came.

Beyond that, the next few days are a series of messy photo collages.

1. Arriving at Methodist Hospital and not knowing how to get into the building. Staggering around the building/block a few times to get directions. The very real fear that I would collapse on the sidewalk and what the fuck anyway because so many people collapse on the sidewalk in Brooklyn in the early Sunday morning hours. Some make it inside eventually. Others don’t. I just wanted to have enough agency to get in there and tell them that this isn’t a last call at the bar emergency.
2. The asshole security card who barely looked up and pointed when I asked about the ER. I was getting dangerously closer to the floor at that point and had I any energy at all I would have stabbed him in the neck with his pen when I passed. That was a very clear thought, now a memory and what happened instead is that I hit a wide corner and called him a cunt and kept moving. I don’t know if he reacted. I know I wanted to hurt him badly.
3. I remember texting a bunch of people. It was a decision to do the right thing by them rather than any sense of self-preservation. Like, if I were an old Inuit about to wander out on the ice floe to feed the polar bears, I should leave a note, right? People should know where I am. I remember this thought process and then acting on it. Let people in. Let people care. It’s the right thing.
4. Blinding pain. I remember blinding pain and halogen bulbs in the emergency room. I remember the pain increasing in shattering thunderclaps. I remember losing control and just screaming. Then maybe passing out? I don’t know.
5. to be continued