Dispatch From The Mundane 028
You got a new friend, well I got homies, but in the end it’s still so lonely
Hi Loners,
It’s been a while as always.
Tonight I leave you with an excerpt from a larger work called “Starstruck.” It’s alternatively known as “the kanye poem” which was created in a series of live gigs, in a live studio audience before I ever wrote it down.
Enjoy.
I am dead asleep when I get a call from Kanye. He is heading to the Trump Hotel to sleep after a fight with Kimberly. He likes the soap in the bathroom and the scratch of the linen. He says he sleeps on some NASA thread count at home, like these sheets that are thermodynamic or something and this bed feels cheap. I ask why not go to Chateau Marmont or The Four Seasons and sleep in a forklift and he says “I am not a Coppola art thot or a meme. I’m autonomous, a visionary.” Why did I pick up the phone? What was I doing before this? Just watching Bear Gryllis explain how to escape quicksand and calling it therapy.
Kanye calls me about once or twice a year to ask my opinion. Getting off these tweets for the last decade has made me something of an expert on life and many celebrities hit me up now. Last year he said he identified as a creator, and I said, like an influencer, and he said no, like biblically. God wants us to like and subscribe and hit the little bell for notifications. He tells me that he’s being audited, and it’s unfair for all that he gives back to the community.
I tell him I have to pay a lot of money in taxes, and he asks what are my community contributions, what do I do for others? Kanye doesn’t get it when I tell him I was essential without hazard pay, and he says, “you let the state determine your meaning? It couldn’t be me.”
“What have you done for the community? I sigh. “Ye, I’m tired.” What did Bear say about the quicksand again? He’s quiet.
“So you’re saying you are afraid of being great again?”
I’m sinking.
Kanye calls me before midnight. "I've been reading about eugenics," he says, and now I'm unsure why I picked it up. I guess it's why I always pick up. I love phone calls. I think of Kanye and I as similar people. We are like black holes in that way where we suck a lot now but used to be the brightest kids on the block. I wonder if black holes tell people they used to be gifted and talented, handpicked for alienating exceptionalism.
"It's a beautiful word. Like just as a word, a concept I'm going to tell everyone."
"Is this about the surrogacy stuff?
He says, "Surrogacy would look good on some fitted caps or in my sermons.
"Sermons? You mean raps or verses?" I'm staring at the clock.
"I no longer call my raps verses— I'm writing sermons now." Kanye says.
"Didn't you call your rap discourses last summer? Now it's a freestyle on prosperity." I am now in the kitchen, pouring myself a glass of water. "Ye, a lot of people are reading Wikipedia pages on global atrocities for the first time and making typefaces and tote bags from the pain—"
"They and I aren't the same. I'm a conjurer; I raise spirits, the dead— others run trying to catch a strong wind but can't even raise their kite. Maybe eugenics chain-stitched into the next pair of Yeezys. Like Black Skinhead. It’ll shake ‘em. It’ll rattle. Maybe a chartreuse shirt with the word Nuremberg in Times New Roman. It's the future; it's right now."
"The future is fear and natural selection? Besides the shoes are expensive."
"You don't seem like a believer."
"Yeah, I'm broke."
I am on the greyhound when I decide to try to give Kanye a call. He picks up on the third ring and says “I’m at a flea market in Bogota and the pickings are hot, you should come through.” I can hear the bustling sounds of a different world through the receiver. “Ye, I told you I’m on a bus to another life, the one after this right now.” I hear him pause. “Are you being heavy or light right now, I can’t tell if you’re joking— you know I hate that.”
“I never feel small unless my feelings can’t fit inside of my body,” I reply, staring out the window. I actually wish I could afford to go anywhere else but here but I’m tethered to whatever forever. I think we all are.
“If you’re not here, who am I gonna call?”
“Call your ex. Call all the homies. Call a therapist. You don’t need me anymore, Ye. I will be reincarnated as a word that doesn’t rhyme so you can’t use me in any raps.”
Ye is silent and I know that he took it as a challenge.
“I call raps sermons now but for whatever it’s worth. You should be around tomorrow. As an orange. I’ll make time. I’ll find a rhyme. Stay on the line, I’m getting another call—”
There’s a bright light, the bus is in a tunnel but I don’t hang up.
I keep the phone close. This would be a good time to hang up. I swear, I want to but.
I stay on hold.
In 2030 Kanye will surprise Kim with a hologram of all the frontline workers who made her birthday special in 2020. There are a few glitches in this hologram— each person giving a testimony of how spectacular it was to serve the Kardashians. One woman says, “I would give my life to do it all again.”
There’s no business like hospitality. A man who suffered a dental abscess during their stay on the island said he “barely recalled the pain as he was starstruck.” Kim will remark on TwitTok, a new and never heard social app. It was uncanny and delightful that even the hospitality staff who couldn’t see their families for fear of contaminating the rich people remarked that Yeezy was a genius. She recalls the unwaxed brow lines of each staff member who wore a mask so she could feel normal.
“I couldn’t believe it at first, but it takes a village,” she says with tears.
Godspeed Loners,
Kx
alone in my room is a weekly dispatch sometimes written by a ficus that wishes it was a peony. there’s loads of fucked up shit going on and throw your dollars where you can but also wrap your arms around your loved ones and say how tight it is to love them in this hell space. be the smile you’d want to see on the day where you’ve got a loose grip and don’t know if you can hang on. cheers.