070818 what they said: get the fuck out of the way. i’m walkin. what the fuck are you gonna do. get the fuck out of the way. what she said: i want you to follow the laws (basic premise: they’re “pea nutty”. “In Alaska, they’re generally drunk or stoned out of their mind. Here…” (as if that somehow makes them superior up there, or less threatening)) what I said: someone trying to exert some influence who is used to feeling powerless...? do i have more empathy? do I understand something better? Or have I just been told a different narrative and believed it? How does this story end? It goes to a scene of (a rehearsal of?) a SNL-type musical parody. The director is choosing which attractive token black person to use in the cast. He decides on one finally (based on what?). He tells her to go one place, and then changes his mind. There’s a whole song about how he’s going to “save her and put her down there!” Then as we’re walking away, we hear, over our shoulder, the scene continuing. It’s a public square. There’s cops around. The white lead character sneezes. People enthusiastically call out, “Bless you!” A beat later, a black guy sneezes, more loudly than the white guy did. The way he says “Achoo” makes the cops think he said “I’ll shoot!” and they open fire and kill him. Cut instantly to voice-under of continuous, mindless droning news talking head footage and chyrons. Some school kids arrive on a bus, returning from a field trip. They don’t realize it’s a parody. When the people on the TV in the fake news footage kneel down in a silent vigil, the school kids do too. We think about telling them it’s just a parody, but hell, what’s the point. How does this story end? Oh and I love how every time she tells this story she says, “I’m not going to say the race or sex of the people,” which is basically a way of saying it was black guys but I’m too classy to come right the fuck out and say so.