Jeremiah Liend For Everything

 

Jeremiah Liend For Everything

 

By

 

Jeremiah TS Liend

 

 

 

Scene:

 

The Office of Jeremiah Liend

 

 

 

Character:

 

Jeremiah Liend (Late 30s, balding, fat, sassy)

 

 

 

Time:

 

July 27th, 2019

 

 

 

 Jeremiah. Hello, I’m Jeremiah Liend. Welcome to my one person show. I first decided I wanted to

write a one person show when I realized how much money I could save. Later, it also seemed like a

reasonable means of projecting a clarified artistic vision. I started working on the script in the Spring

of 2018. I wrote a book called Jeremiah Liend For Everything that contained an esoteric combination of

my research, personal reflections, and lunatic plans. Reading it is probably the literary equivalent of

taking drugs in the wrong setting. Like doing LSD at a truck stop. Shooting smack at Christmas. To

be clear, I don’t ask for forgiveness for my art. It is what it is, in this a place and a time far weirder

than one could have ever speculated. This is a charity production, and all proceeds will be donated

to the International Rescue Committee who provides direct aid to victims of humanitarian crises.

Founded at the call of Albert Einstein in 1933, the IRC is rated over 90% on Charity Navigator and

I encourage you to support them beyond this production as I also hope to do. I am going to do my

level best to guide the tiller of this play away from the craggy rocks of artistic masturbation and

towards the far shores of communal enlightenment, but no matter what the end result, we are all at

least helping children struggling as victims of our global failures. With all of that in mind, the first

thing I want to talk about is family, and how you are all my family. Consider then, our long history

on this Earth. I am a scientist, but also a pantheist, and also a lunatic, and so there are many things

to consider in evaluating the history of our people. Of all the creation stories, I prefer science the

best, because it is the most miraculous of all. One of the more popular creation stories suggests that

the universe was created in six days. Hell, I can’t create a reasonable sandwich without less than two

weeks. People like to make excuses for this timeframe, explaining that God weeks work differently,

but they are just that. Excuses. We are life clinging to a spinning ball of space rock, people. You can

rationalize it with whatever voodoo or hoodoo you need to cling to, but it’s more than likely that

every living thing on this planet evolved from a chemical partnership undertaken in the tidal pools

of primordial ooze. It could very well be that we are all deviant mutations from a single, impossible

cell that made itself, and continued to do so. Against all odds. Beyond all reason. One cell from

which was created the house cat and the tiger shark. David Bowie and long horned cattle. We

humans consider ourselves the only sentient, intelligent life on the planet, but this is largely an

excuse to be able to eat it. To be fair, everything would be getting eaten, without our intervention.

But there again, we eat some weird stuff, kids. Weird, awful stuff. We, you, and me, and everyone

who could or would ever hear or see this are all a family. We began as a single population in east

Africa and spread out from there. We know this because we are all 99% genetically identical.

 Jeremiah. The Toba eruption destroyed human life down from millions to as little as 2,000, some

scientists have suggested even less. Possibly as few as 700. The genetic bottleneck. Think about

being in a room with 700 people. It’s like a slow rodeo. Even 2,000 is still a college graduation

crowd. From these hundreds of people, scattered over Africa, Europe, and Asia we are all related.

Everyone who has existed since, from these survivors. This family. Humanity is a civilization, but it

is also the biggest, most F-ed up family conceivable. Even so, we are related. It doesn’t matter if you

live in China or Bemidji, we’re all made of the same stuff. The only reason we happen to look a

certain way while being from a certain place is due to geographic isolation. There is no magical racial

division. Race was conceived by bad scientists, trying to please their slave owning benefactors. Well,

I’m done playing that game. There is no time left, to spend dividing us. We are all spinning out of

control on a burning marble. We are all pooping brass on the Titanic. We are all eating more

Mercury than a 17th century hatter and getting crazier by the hour. We are unwilling participants in

the greatest age of technology and discovery. You are pioneers into the age of global

communication, whether you want to be or not. Welcome to the future. As the sun sets on this side

of the planet, it rises on the other, where other humans are clocking in to make our phones and

space craft. If and when they rest, we will take over once again. It’s tiring, but it is what it is. A while

ago, I wrote the first third of this play in an entirely different way. For one thing, I gave myself a lot

of breaks to drink water and walk around my desk. Also, it was probably much better? Maybe not.

How can one speculate on one’s self? Truly? But, while keeping in this same sort of absurdist

humanist cosmopolitan theme, it was probably the single greatest piece of drama ever crafted. My

daughter Victoria Elizabeth Liend Baker deleted that third of a play. Technically, she moved it to the

recycle bin without me noticing. So, it is gone forever. An attempt at recovery yielded a corrupt file.

Such is life, in the 21st century. Shoulda coulda woulda used the cloud. In the game of life, in reals

life save points are few, and with this IRL save I met with critical failure. Alas. Alack. What is a

dramatist to do, but to start over? Here we are. Building tragicomedy again, in a vain but inevitably

hilarious commentary on the ultimate meaning of life, art, and faith. Throw some poop humor in

there. Try not to get pink eye. Ruth says that I write in fragments, and she’s right. But, I also think in

fragments. So, what is an artist to do? Writing is hard, under the best of circumstances. The 21st

century is in no way the best of circumstances. For reals, though. Writing is super hard. Virtually

impossible, for most people. If everyone could write compelling literature for a lucrative living, they

would of course do that. But, hardly anyone can write anything compelling, and those that do

generally struggle to achieve financial success. Oh, Stephen King, sure.

 Jeremiah. But for every Stephen King there are 1,000 Jeremiah Liends, bleeding over the keyboard

for decades for little more than kind feedback. That’s really all a writer should want, or expect, by

putting pen to paper, or electron to screen. The feedback doesn’t even have to be good, to be kind.

“It really wasn’t something I liked, but it was certainly long.” Bingo. All net, three points. But, what

normally happens is the existential equivalent to getting kicked by a horse in the face. The sort of

wanton mental havoc that comes from sudden impacts, followed by months of recuperation. The $6

annual check, for your book sales. At least it isn’t enough to report. No tax impact, there. Further

frustrating matters have occurred, recently. Notably the rise of Qanon, a loose confederacy of

internet dunces, desperate for structure in our churning chaos. They follow the encrypted

predictions of an internet entity known as Q. Which would all be great, had I not firmly established

my own alter ego secret agent superhero of the same name, some time ago. Q, who is Quaddle, who

is Quetzoquaddle, who swallowed Quetzalcoatl, is not Qanon. No, we have entered an age of false

Qs, to be certain. There I was, a comfortable distance away from the relevance of James Bond and

Star Trek the Next Generation, placesetting a Q of my own in literature by publishing The Book of

Q September 11th, 2011. It isn’t a perfect novel, certainly. It was written over the course of several

years, incorporating a perpetual alternative universe. Among the weird shit that happens, Trump gets

nuked by Guy ManCock, Lizardpeople save Seattle, and all life on Earth is almost entirely eradicated

by, among other things, a fascist space force, Tom Cruise, and an undead robot. These are the things

that are supposed to happen 300 or so years, from now. It was an is a work of art centered in

futurism, sociopolitical sustainability, and lasers. It was a work of psychic therapy, that purged my

impotent rage and loss, turning it into hope and promise. The promise I made then, and try to

continue every day, is to save this world. It is not easy work, nor rewarding. If I succeed, then we

will survive the inevitable collapse of society, economy, and environment. If I fail, then we are all

relegated to the fossil record. Let the cockroach people enjoy what we could not. Let the creatures

that don’t like or need oxygen inherit the Earth and let this swan song echo into eternity. Let it be

known we did not go quiet, into that dark night. I fight to save the planet in the most boring

possible way, these days. I work for a wonderful solar company as an operations support specialist

responsible for interconnection. Every day I connect clients to the electrical grid with the power of

paperwork. We offset an average of 50 annual tons of carbon a day, virtually every day of the week. I

work remotely, from my home office, which is nice in many ways and difficult in others. I would

rather be using theater to save the world, which is what we are doing here. In the later half of

graduate school I took classes in Project Management and didn’t do very well in them.

 Jeremiah. But I learned a lot from them. Right off the bat I learned about the difference between

operations and projects. A project has a specific timeline and sequence of events that carry it from

beginning to end. Operations are the unchanging daily tasks that are needed to run a business. When

I read about it I said, probably out loud: That sounds awful, I would hate that. What I’ve learned is

that the universe listens to us, sometimes. It doesn’t listen to our prayers. It doesn’t listen to our

pleas. But, sometimes it listens to our proclamations, and seeks to cause us pain because of them.

Sometimes it hears something you say, in a moment of desperation as a cruel joke, and the universe

will take that joke seriously. Very seriously. So, I’ve taken to avoiding saying things on a casual basis.

That is also while we’re here. I’m going to dump all of this nonsense into the universe, and then

crawl into a bunker for the rest of the year. I feel very lucky to have my job. The work is mundane,

but I get to work every day with Andrew Clemons, who is a gorgeous sex God. Always has been. So,

we do it. To it. The solar. We orchestrate the grand interconnection and curse the utilities for their

shenanigans. Clemons lives in Ohio with his amazing family and we both know how our work is

important to trying to save the planet. I’m going to tell you all about how we are probably going to

die. There are a lot of factors, and models, and science. The ocean is getting warmer and more

acidic, and at some point when it becomes warm and acid enough zoo and phytoplankton will go

extinct. The water will make them unable to create the shells they require to survive, and first the

ocean will lose oxygen and die, and then the atmosphere will lose oxygen, and die. Oh, not

everything will die. Plants will be fine. Better than fine, with all the carbon flying around. We will not

be. Humans as well as every land animal that requires oxygen will perish in an extinction level event

not seen since the dinosaur extinction. It will be as if the nitrogen got turned up at the dentist, I

hope. With less oxygen in it, there will still be air. It simply will not have what it needs to keep us

alive. We will get confused, and stupid, and sleepy, and die in the billions. I have worked out a few

ways to survive, but I’m only going to share at the very end, so you better just get comfortable. I will

take some time, after this spiel, to let you stretch your legs and fiddle with your candy. Did I

mention there isn’t an intermission? Because there isn’t. My goal is a tight hour and a half, and if you

will all just sit there, silently and obediently, we might even clear an hour twenty. Why? You ask.

Well, good question. Basically it’s about ensuring this piece is a qualified full length while also

nestling into the niche of Hollywood timelines that have trained us all to enjoy pieces an hour and a

half in length. The human mind only has so much time, to focus on any one thing. And if there are a

lot of things, all confusing and scary? Well. Let’s just shoot for the hour and a half. We don’t want to

let those Pulitzer swine off too easy.

 Jeremiah. I’ve developed what some may consider a toxic fixation on the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

For one thing, everything is toxic. A person can kill themselves by drinking too much water. With

that said, Joseph Pulitzer sucks poops in hell, and I don’t care who knows it. I thought you were

going to drag me into hell ONCE Joe. ONCE. But it was only a train!!! A train, after all!? Well. Your

drama contest sucks, they don’t even send you a 100-word feedback form. Thank you email. No,

don’t use electrons on that trash, we’ve got to keep saving for Lin Manuel Miranda’s next opus! You

want to know when Miranda is going to write something better than Hamilton? The 21st of Never.

Put it on your calendars, kids. It’s right next to where you can put my win. No no, I pay the $50 to

register for it, and I produce a DVD for it, and I mail 6 scripts to the office at Columbia, and they

don’t even consistently confirm they received it. They probably put on gloves, to carry it to the

trash. I bet they don’t even open it, most times. My postage coming from anywhere but Broadway

puts it towards the bottom of the “Incinerate With Extreme Prejudice” pile. The board does a

bunch of blow and everyone talks about Hamilton, and then then give it to whoever has the money

to get on Broadway. At least Portland is getting into the game. Keeping the game weird enough to

risk doing a one night only global premier in Turtle River just to stay in the game. It’s only $150 or

so in registration, printing, envelopes, and postage. Oh, then there’s the thousands of dollars I lose

putting ON the plays, but fuck that, you know? Fuck that noise. Say it again for the kids in the back.

I often wonder about the greatest artists, and where they were in life when they were creating things.

Like, did Leonardo da Vinci step back from the Mona Lisa and go “Bullshit!” and throw his brush

to the ground and cry? Or is that just me? Surely not. Many far more talented writers have killed

themselves, or are otherwise already dead. Then there are the millions of artists currently living. But,

then you have to consider that actual dramatists are a dying profession of extinct creative training in

a fragmented marketplace, and then you have to consider that continuing to invest yourself into this

collapsing star may generate negative impacts. Ongoing negative impacts. So, we par it down.

Reduce costs. When you look at the entire realm of production possibilities, a one night only one

person show that receives at least one press announcement is the absolute minimum requirement.

So to you, dear reader, not you the audience in attendance, if you happen to be on the board for the

Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2020, I have your entire family trapped in a storage container under water.

Just… give me the prize, and I will give you the location and where to find the keys to the padlock.

We will forgive, and forget these past grudges, and I will start trying to beat Eugene O’Neill. Old,

dead Eugene O’Neill who would have gotten more than four, if not for the chronic alcoholism.

Albee was your ringer, but that crusty fuck took his eyes off the prize. Well. Enjoy. If you can.

 Jeremiah. I wrote a book called Jeremiah Liend For Everything, and if I were lazy I would just read it to you. But. We would be here for a while. Probably a lot longer than an hour and a half. The thing is,

that would also probably be super boring? Because I write things differently for people to read, then

for people to see or hear. Then there is the consideration of the formatting, and the transmission of

information. With any luck I’ll have copies here. If I get my ducks in rows. To murder and eat them.

That’s what getting ducks in rows means. To execute them and eat them. Or maybe to herd them to

places they eat bugs? I could look it up, but I’m not going to. See, isn’t this so much better than me

reading a boring book? Rather, I would like to think of this piece as something of an apology for the

book, and also a shameless plug for it. Because Stephen King I’m not, but there is and has only ever

been one Jeremiah Liend. Lots of Kings, in the phonebook. Bible, too, but we have Jeremiah

coverage there, as well. I went this long time not knowing what happened to the prophet Jeremiah,

and then I read he was stoned to death by his own people in Egypt. So. If I can avoid that, I’m

already more successful than the nearest Judeo-Christian cultural icon. Some of you may be thinking

about Jeremiah Johnson, who killed people and ate their livers. But don’t. Unless it’s that film with

Robert Redford. Then you are allowed, but just during this time it takes to drink some water. I’m

not even going to waste time on the stage direction for that. This is going to be one of the densest

scripts in known history, if nothing else. High school kids doing monologues in schools you can say

fuck in are going to have a field day. I kid, I kid. No one will ever do this play. That’s the other great

relief in this model of production, because I know it’s not being butchered by some repertory in

Alabama or something. I’m not against pole barn theater, in general, but there is a specific brand of

unsustainable non-professional performance art that I am against. I speak of course of the Grand

Old Oprey. We are picking all sorts of pointless fights with this piece. We are calling that, now. Hee

Haw, we come for you. If you want to watch a show where the boy meets the girl, but things are

challenging in the world and they can’t be together, but unlikely circumstances allow them to come

together and be happy forever watch some Disney. I’m not here to spoon feed, I am here to

awaken. I am here to revive. I am here to inspire your courage and bolster your spirit. I cannot give

you massages, they took my license away. Those monsters. My friend Jesse Whiting once famously

said, “I’m a monster with player levels.” And I believed it. I believe it still. That man is a total

monster. If you’re a pizza. A lot of you probably don’t know who Jesse Whiting is, and that’s sad.

His distant uncle Frank M. Whiting was an accomplished professor of theater at the University of

Minnesota who launched a showboat summer program that eventually transitioned into the

Centennial Showboat, that eventually transitioned into us attempting to manage the showboat.

 Jeremiah. That is an entire section of Jeremiah Liend For Everything, but I’m not going to go into it,

except to say that we still don’t have command of a showboat. It was a damned fine plan, too.

Worked in tandem to the semi-secret unicellular arts shadow organization, who knows? You could

save the planet with theater, but it would be just so hard. I did my masters research on how to do it,

and that is another thing in the book, The Liend Arts Sustainability Scale. It’s a table of production

factors that can be applied to establish a sustainability score than can be set as a goal and improved

upon with planning. It breaks down 20 factors into environmental, social, and economic

considerations, with a perfect score being a 60 and the worst possible score a -60. After creating the

scale, and applying it to a production I can say that it isn’t as easy as I thought it would be to get a

perfect score. You basically need to produce a flawlessly sustainable original ballet. So, I’m working

on that, but it is very hard. This show will get a pretty great score in some ways, and fail

spectacularly in others. Ideally a person could not only save the planet making theater, but also pay

their bills, all while bettering society. That is the brass ring on our flaming carousel. But, at this place

in history I am just holding on very tightly, while working my angle of attack. The Liend Arts

Sustainability Score is called the LASS, and if your production lasts more than a year you rescore

every year to produce a LASSY. Because acronyms are meant to be sassy. None of this can be

considered research. I am riffing on the research. But the actual research is sound. I have read many

things, considered many factors, developed a structure and method. If people were to buy into it, it

could revolutionize the way we produce and share theater. But also I may be more interested in

creating a pressurized home in the event of mass apoxia. Unfortunately my education is in this

bullshit. So, let’s all do what we can, you know? Do what you’re good at, do it for something good,

and maybe we can synergize our way out of disaster. Because I truly feel we are just a few years away

from functional immortality. That probably sounds crazy, but a scientist recently claimed the human

lifespan will soon be 1,000. They didn’t understand why that was so hard to believe, and without

looking to deeply into it, I don’t see why it’s so unbelievable either? Print universally compatible

organs and just keep replacing the bad ones. Things get real bad we have a universal donor body, we

just zing your head off, attach it to that bad Larry and you are good to go for another 100. Side

effects may include total insanity. I’m keeping an eye on a doctor named Canavero, who is arranging

for the first human head transplant. He had a candidate lined up, but that fell through, so now he is

working in China, I heard. He believes that the sharpness of the knife was the primary factor

preventing spinal tissue interconnection. I think it’s probably going to take some graphene latticing,

or something. But, whatever the solution is, we are close to being unafraid of death and/or disease.

 Jeremiah. There are already cures for cancer. There is not a universal cure for cancer, yet, but I

know several people who have undergone treatment resulting in total remission and/or elimination

of the cancer. It is miraculous, but for the terrible monetary cost associated with it. The people who

can afford the treatment survive, and those who cannot do not. Survival based on crowdfunding.

What a dystopian nightmare to so casually wander into our lives. Make no mistake, the social

contract is a fantasy woven by social scientists to enslave you. There is no contract. Capitalism

consumes for profit, until there is no more profit to be had. The apex predator in capitalist systems

are the corporations. They represent the structures of wealth owned and managed by 1% of our

population to the tune of $280 trillion dollars. In addition to inserting themselves into every possible

moment of our waking lives, they are responsible for 70% of total carbon emissions. Recycle all you

want, but unless we raze every corporate structure to the ground tomorrow, probably we have until

2050 before we are beyond the point of total extinction. Right now I am wagering on the crazy

mysticism of barely understood Mesoamerican consumer Gods. Because according to all scientific

estimates we are doomed and a half. Meanwhile we could and should stop using fossil fuels

tomorrow. Localize electric bus and vehicle factory garages. Create a functional electric flying car. Us

a clean grid to remove and convert atmospheric carbon into fuel with inert byproduct. Create a

genetic ark. Get off this planet. Just in case we do everything right, and then Wyoming explodes. We

are not prepared for Wyoming exploding. Nor are we prepared for a magnetic solar event. There

was an incident, where the sun threw some flares and magnetism at Earth, and at the time telegraph

wires exploded into flame, and boxes exploded. It destroyed every electrical circuit in existence,

when these circuits were built to withstand a lot. Whatever side of the planet that gets exposed to a

subsequent event is going to be thrown back into the technological dark ages. It is the

electromagnetic pulse from an atomic attack, without any of the rapidly expanding hydrogen. Your

phone, your car, your television. Fried into nothingness. An emergency assessment claimed that

responding to such an event it would be at least four months to restore basic functions of the

electrical grid. We are not prepared for that event, or Wyoming exploding, or a massive space object

striking us at insane speeds. Dinosaured. All because we have not been given the tools to provide for

ourselves. We are all the victims of mass piracy. The smartest thing pirates ever did was create

governments. Why spend all that time looting and burying booting on the high seas, when you can

just declare yourself sole ruler of a continent inhabited by people for the previous 20,000 years or

so? You don’t even need a boat, just a building with a flag over it, and the ability to defend this area

with violence up to and including genocide. Perhaps Wyoming should explode. But no. Please don’t.

 Jeremiah. Let me tell you about Jeremiah Liend For Everything. At first it was a crazy political theory. I  have a lot of crazy political theories, and I’ve experimented with a few to varying degrees of success.

One that I never deployed was the idea of running as a write in for every eligible office in the nation.

Residency would perhaps negate those results, but then a campaign promise would be to move to

wherever asked for Jeremiah Liend most. Maybe it’s a distressed farming community in Idaho, in

desperate need of some swashbuckling musical skills? Maybe it’s a rough and tumble coastal town in

Louisiana, recovering from the worst oil spill in recorded history, in desperate need of security?

Maybe it’s a town that needs a mayor, or a sheriff, or a judge that isn’t beholden to corporate

interests, and willing to go to where they are asked for most, forever searching for the election that

would bring him home. Compelling episodic television, perhaps, but the reality of moving around

the country based on a vote is chaotic at best. Also residency restrictions make me ineligible for all

but a handful of legitimate offices. Also I’ve committed myself never to spend any money, trying to

be elected. This is because I believe our current political system has been poisoned by the love of

money above all else. I also don’t have very much money. On the books I’m probably in the hole,

quite a bit. So I’m not going to spend money losing elections. I don’t think a person has to spend

money, to get their ideas out there. The concept if information virility is both familiar and yet

undefined, but isn’t always the product of an intention. It can come from anywhere, and be any

media, but some element of it allows it to spread through the zeitgeist of our age. Gather enough

momentum, and any mold could be our planets undoing. Heed these words, simple mindslaves.

Later, the idea of Jeremiah Liend For Everything came to me as the ultimate advocacy. Unilateral,

universal, unitardinal advocacy. What do you do for a living? Sell batteries? Good for you. What do

you do, for work? You assemble circuit boards? Amazing! What do you do? You make tacos and

taco salads for people? Fantastic! Let me eat those foods, when are you open? What do you like to

do for fun? Eat mushrooms and read comics? What comics? What was it like growing up? You were

blind for the first five years of your life? Tell me about that. What do you think this crazy thing

called life is all about? 42? I read that book. Jeremiah Liend For Everything means that everything is

for you. It’s all done for and by and to communicate with you, whoever you are. Whoever you weird

fucking people are, out there. With your cell phones and mints. Watching or reading this, where ever

you are. All dozen or so, between all these possible people. Christ on Crack Cocaine I wish I would

have focused more on math when I was in school. What a dumb regret. Here I am using cursive and

simple math, just wishing I could have gotten enough XPs to build my solar dirigible. The arts. The

fine arts, even. Liberal fine arts. There is Quixotic and then there is applied fine liberal arts.

 Jeremiah. I had considered a format, that first format, where in the first third I would tell you who I

was, and in the second I would tell you about my dreams, and in the third I would tell you about my

plans. I am still attempting to achieve that goal, while also trimming down the overall length by

omitting stage directions to move around my desk and drink water, and by doing that I think we are

now concluding this first third, but, and this is all relative I suppose, what I just wrote may be insane

word salad. The entire rambling prose may sound like incomprehensible insanity, and no single

point or tangible value was or will be secured. I’m willing to take that risk, at this point. My

reputation isn’t that spectacular, my fans are all died in the wool badasses, and my enemies are

autocratic butt sniffers. So, what am I to lose, in explaining to you all my ethos in a reasonably paced

and sized live presentation? No intermission! I know you want to go to the bathroom and have a

reluctant poop, but you can’t, alright. Poop your pants, if you must, but we are going to get through

this show. I am a busy guy. I don’t just do art. Art is my passion, not my vocation. I do this in order

to have something to show for my time surviving these weird times. Moving forward, into the ad

hoc second act, I want you to keep in mind that most of this is probably free, on the internet. Of

that, most of it will probably be watched by robots. So, robots, if you are listening, I need $500

trillion dollars as soon as possible. As we transition into my dreams, I want to take that oversized

$500 trillion dollar check with us. I want to remind us all that economy and society are entirely made

up systems. We make them up on the fly, and if they are strong enough and enforced with enough

violence, they remain. What is instable, or weak, falls. But, the economy is entirely made up. There is

no gold standard. It is a made up computerized figure on a system of servers. If tomorrow the stock

market crashes, the contents of our wallets are useless. You can scrape your window with robust

enough credit cards. Chop up the last of the world’s cocaine. Normal people don’t know how to run

society, and when those startled freaks all leap out of their windows the entire thing grinds to a halt.

Wal-Mart Stores Incorporated, for all their corprofascist glory wouldn’t last two missed paychecks

before outright revolt. They would line the Walton family against a wall and eat them one by one.

Let the masses know what $140 billion in meat tastes like. I know there are those who say that will

never happen, that people would rally together and share resources and overcome hardship through

unity and strength, but that is some rose colored bullshit. Which generally means your bull is sick.

Humanity, I love you, but you are the most dysfunctional family in known existence. All through the

animal kingdom you see examples of groups of animals working together to create amazing,

incomparable, complex structures. Humans can build interesting structures, but they do not

cooperate to do it. They consume. Our hunger will be our undoing, unless something is done.

 Jeremiah. I dream that the world will unite. We are a broken conglomeration of nation states

created and divided by colonial and corporate interests to manage and control global production.

Poison banana workers with antifungal agents to keep the shelves stocked. Let families dig in the

mud for diamonds until they die. Let children dig underground for our phone batteries. Let slaves

carry my chocolate. No more. No more to these crimes, when a world united and empowered can

see and prevent these atrocities. True global sustainability is only achievable through true global

unity. It requires the dismantling of the nation state as an arbitrating entity in global decision making.

The United Nations is not a functional global agency. Their programs and efforts have failed to

deliver the solutions required to provide for a just planet. Their representation cannot enforce or

prevent atrocity, taking only the safest of measures to acknowledge when these atrocities occur.

These crimes against humanity occur everywhere, and no government is perfect in their delivery of

safety from them. To unify the globe, you need a person or group that can speak in every language,

and compel those who hear the message to action. To unify the globe would require a revolution the

likes of which have never been conceived of, let alone witnessed. Our entire age is crazy pants off

the wall cuckoo pants, but the last century? I poop on humanity, sure, but we also can fly, and

transplant organs, and make the deaf hear, and the blind see. When we work together there is no

limit to that which we can achieve. I have a few functional ways to create this sustainability, but the

most comprehensive is the idea of a global union. A union in the traditional sense, a collective

bargaining body into which any person can be a member, provided they are willing to support and

adhere to the will of the union. This union would recognize itself before any nation, corporation, or

individual. Such a union, supported and globalized, could functionally retaliate against corporations

that use inhumane and unsustainable practices. Through the power of boycott, protest, and walk out

any corporation could be brought to it’s knees within weeks. The courts have no incentive to punish

corporations, their tax dollars pay them. They have no motivation to quickly distribute justice

because at best they are salaried. It’s called nursing, as if from a teat. But that teat is poison, friends.

That teat has enslaved us to the forty hour week, even while throwing us under the bus. It is a

system that allows children to be slaves to chocolate, lithium, and sex. It is a system that still puts

people underground to find materials we don’t really need. We just want it. Most of the things we

own we don’t need, we want them. Which is fair, considering our entire lives are build on the idea of

producing lifetime consumers. The system is built to kill us, and make money every step along the

process, but we can kill this system back. We could, if we wanted to, tear down these failed power

structures, and build new ones. Better societies, with better rules and more just enforcement.

 Jeremiah. I wish there was a better format than theater to express my ideas. Virtually any other fine

art would be an easier medium to transmit my ideas, and I include dance in that list. I wish I was a

better dancer, but all I have are two years of theater training in classic and modern dance. What use

is that, you ask? Well, some day you might have to waltz. Some day you may have to jazz square

your way through some train wreck of a musical. Really, it’s more that I wish theater education was

better. Which is not to say that I have not learned from great minds, but those minds were framed in

the parameters of an educational system doomed to failure. If I had my own theater department, it

would necessarily be interdisciplinary, and it would be studied in conjunction with another major

that also utilizes a student’s talent and focus. So, if you are studying to be a nurse, and also a theater

artist, it is my belief that studying theater makes you a better nurse. You could engage a curriculum

that included and focused on how medicine was represented in theater, or use the important things

learned from working intensely with a partner or group to translate into patient and group

relationships. Or if you’re studying to be a police officer, you can learn about the traditions of

investigative and forensic technique through active participation in musical murder dinner theater.

But if I could have any one interdisciplinary partner with theater, it would be business. I think that

college does a great disservice to students by not requiring at least one business class that at the very

least explains how to do your taxes, create a budget, and plan for insurance and retirement. Oh, it

would be quite the popular class, certainly. But I was forced to take a class that forced us to pay

tuition dollars to make up a way to be healthier, journal the process, and submit the end results. I

was told, and believe, that a student submitted walking to a Chinese Restaurant every day. I went to

the place. It was not worth walking to. I did my project on drinking more water. I created a water

intake journal. I cited the reasons that drinking water was good for you, and how so much of the

world either doesn’t have access to safe water or doesn’t drink enough of it even if they do. I hated

that class and mailed in every hated ounce of attention to it. I got a C, and that stupid grade took

away my Cum Lauda. Those fucks. Sorry. Not sorry. Those fuckers. Those wild assholes, that would

make such a dumb class mandatory, and then not make one mandatory that explains the best way to

file our taxes and afford to pay our massive loans. It didn’t used to be a zero-sum game, because

college wasn’t a make or break proposition. In theory you could get a useful degree, find a career in

that field, and pay back your loans without having to pay an endless amount of interest. But now

there is no margin for error, because you are starting your career $30,000 in the hole. You can try to

work in parallel to college, but you are going to fail classes because you cannot work and keep up

and sleep, so that is going to push your four year degree into 5 or 6. Then study art?

 Jeremiah. I hope that we can figure out new ways of understanding the world and living inside of it.

The way we understand the world, and explain it to one another, is a construction that has

developed at least over hundreds of thousands of years. Civilization, as a whole, is a geologically

infinitesimal blip on our planetary record. It seems long and boring to us out here, in the field, but

our lives are but hummingbird farts in the wind. Cross stitch that on a pillow. Society is just an idea

we are constantly creating and recreating based on popular ideas. We say that we have authority to

be places merely because we can arrive at them. We lay claim to natural resources that were gifts to

all people, now turned into profits for very few. Who owns the land, and why they do it, is an

inconsistent and sprawling milieu of nation states and neo-monarchic. Sure, Great Britain has a

parliament. It also has a royal family and house of lords that are in power because they were born

into power. Whatever cultural value that may provide, the global habit of paying a small group of

people who inherit their wealth is a stupefying consistent. I may be tossing word salad around the

problem, but you get it. Kings? Really? We are still going with the idea that God or whatever,

bestowed inherited value in a person, and their family? Because from where I’m standing it’s all

meat. We are all just mobile meat, getting scary skeletoned around. And you’re going to come at me

with the idea that you are a King? And you are only that because you were born, once? Well, poops

to that, dudeface. Poops on that. Say what you will for our failed pirate democracy, at least our

fascists have terms. Some of them, anyhow. The others will die, soon enough. I was just reading

about Harriet Tubman the today, and apparently for an entire month she prayed that her master

would stop trying to sell her and thus take her away from her family. She prayed to God that he turn

his heart away from that idea, and let her remain with her family. And at the end of that month,

when he still sought to sell her, she said she changed her prayer to say, if he cannot be turned away

from selling me, then kill him and get him out of the way, and within the week he was dead. She said

she regretted that, but it at least proves a valuable point. That it is easier for God to kill a person

than change their heart. That is a unique and beautiful gift, I think. It defies the existence of an all

powerful being, to say that no matter what their power, our heart is our own. It is ours, and it

represents our will. The drumbeat to which we wage our daily wars. Whether Harriet Tubman killed

her master with God magic remains to be seen. What I do know is that we should put her on some

sort of money. That’s the best way to remember her. But no. We need to end slavery one of these

days. I saw a picture of a child hauling a massive burlap sack full of coco in an article that explained

most chocolate employs slave and child labor to harvest the necessary amount of beans. I love it, but

I would never eat it again, if we could stop that awful shit from going on. End slave chocolate.

 Jeremiah. A lot of my ideas seem pretty crazy and you would never consider investing in them, let

alone invest the time it takes for me to explain them to you, but as luck would have it you are a

captive audience so let me tell you about the solar airship. We are moving away from the term solar

dirigible, because of the connotations that surround dirigible, vis a vie zee nazis. But that is my

whole goal, of creating an airship larger than the Hindenburg. Because that’s a lot more effective

than punching them. Punch a nazi on TV, OK. Beat a nazi record, fantastico. But, the solar airship

is already being theorized and planned, including a proposed manned mission to Venus. NASA

created a proposal called HAVOC that envisioned a spacecraft that would travel to Venus, then

detach a drop ship that would dive into the atmosphere of Venus before inflating a solar airship that

would keep the craft above the clouds of crushing acid for a month long mission, and then they

would rocket off of the airship back to their orbiting ride home, and then they come back to Earth.

NASA has a snappy video of it if you search HAVOC NASA. Why? You ask. Well, lots of reasons, I

guess. You could stay up there forever, I guess would be the plan, and what I would try to do at

least, would be to seed clouds with spores and bacteria that would make the planet habitable. There

have been some proposals to inhabit Venus, but currently cloud cities are winning out. Me? I want

to poop into the clouds. Turn that acid basic and precipitate the atmosphere into delicious non-

melting me water. Oh, that water would have bacteria in it, sure. But I wouldn’t care, because I too

would have that bacteria. That bacteria and I would be pals. If bacteria wouldn’t do it, I bet spores

would. Get some tardigrades to move everything around. This all sounds crazy, but what is really

crazy is thinking you’re not going to be mole people on Mars. I don’t want to be in a space helmet

forever. I want to know that the long-term function of my efforts is another habitable planet in our

solar system. Because too much atmosphere is a much better problem to have than none at all. If I

have to be honest with you all, and I must, I think that Elon Musk is creating a long-range plan to

kill thousands of rich people. At least I hope that’s his plan. Because he’s not doing great, with the

electric car revolution. We’re all still sucking petroleum dick, to get to and fro. Like plebes. Oh sure,

I’d love a Tesla, how much does that run for? And how long will it last in sub zero temperatures? I

see. Well, no. No, I’m not going to pay that. Come to think of it, who are you? Get out of here! Get

out while you still can!!! Good stuff. I think if you put carbon collecting solar airships into the upper

atmosphere, we could undo some pretty significant damage. It would help to transition from fossil

fuel-based air travel. Last year we dumped 859 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. You can

understand why offsetting 50 tons a day becomes laughable, when you consider just how much

fucking carbon we need, to get places. My solar airship is carbon negative. Travels slower, maybe.

 Jeremiah. My greatest wish is to own a theater. A theater of my very own, to do weird theater in. It

wouldn’t have to be huge. I’ve designed reasonably sized ones. But it is hard, apparently. You need

millions of dollars, most of the time. Consistent audiences. A frothing and churning chaos of

producing one of the more difficult art forms on a nightly basis. But mine and managed by me. Not

by a committee of wealthy people with loads of free time. Not by a faceless corporation trying to

make money hand over fist. Not by a visionless artistic director who couldn’t find inspiration with

both hands and fantastic drugs. I’ve even gone to the trouble of outlining a Pulitzer/Shakespeare

retrospective rotating non-original season. Wedged some shameless plugs in there. But, it’s all about

grants. It’s about writing a compelling cover letter. It’s about doing your level best not to be a

complete and total lunatic, on paper. Never give them a paper trail, kids. That’s free advice that

could save your life. Every theater program should have a mandatory grant writing class. Every one

that doesn’t is throwing their graduates naked into the streets. Sink, or swim, the choice is yours. If I

could go back to 1998 with the knowledge of hindsight, I would have made some better educational

choices. I would have majored in theater and business, and crucially, I would actually go to all the

classes. For anyone considering going back to college, let me tell you how I finally did it, after a

sprawling 17 year brawl with higher education. I went to class, I read the assignments, I completed

and turned in my work and tests. That’s it. There is no secret, to succeeding in higher education.

People will tell you how they take notes, or schedule their days, or frame their study, but that is all

unnecessary gilding of a pristine lily. Go to your classes, read/review the assigned materials,

complete the work and tests. Repeat. Repeat until a doctor, then the program becomes go to your

classes, assign reading and review materials, assign and grade work and tests. Repeat. We may not

need no thought control, but everyone should get an education. I don’t like jumping through the

hoops of college, and that is why I failed so often, until I realized once again that I really enjoyed

learning. To be able to learn something new is to expand not only ones knowledge, but their

window of possibilities. If you think you’ve learned everything you need to know, you are wrong. I

don’t know anything. That’s supposed to be the secret password to access infinite wisdom. The

ability to admit that in the grand realm of the multiverse, what we can know at any give time is

virtually fuck all. Pulled back to the distance of total knowledge and mastery, any one persons efforts

are meaningless. You cured Polio? Ha ha. No you didn’t. You only thought you cured Polio, but in

reality you just delayed it by a century or so. Anything you can imagine doing is probably going to be

contained to what has been accurately called a light blue mote of dust in an infinite canvas of black.

Yet here we are. Desperate for an intermission that will never come. There will be no intermission.

 Jeremiah. I would be remiss in my job, as the star of a one person show about myself, not to

mention my work. Because you may not be familiar with it? I could be a total stranger to you, and

you’ve somehow pirated this script or footage, and you’ve somehow committed yourself to make it

this far, and you have no clue who Jeremiah Liend is. I feel sorry for you, and let me explain. You

see, I was going to spend a whole lot of time explaining myself to you, but if everything works how

it’s supposed to, I can tell you about my work, and that will explain who I am. In theory. When I

first approached theater, I did it as a performer. Theater is tailored to entice performers, who in my

experience perform for a myriad of reasons. Maybe it’s the not enough money? Maybe it’s the total

anonymity? Maybe it’s the soul crushing self-loathing? For whatever reason, theater people are often

actors. Acting and learning about stagecraft are the tandem skills that guide most theater

departments and schools. Beyond a theater program it’s been my experience that relatively few

graduates actually perform for a living. Sometimes they do something else entirely? Sell insurance.

Work a desk job. Teach. Whatever they do, I can tell you that they rely on their experience in theater

to succeed. The whole of college is attempting a ham fisted move towards group work, what with

the need for every person to work with a group of some size. But the whole of college is failing in

that effort, because just because you group people doesn’t mean you teach them to work together.

Far from it. The majority of groups I’ve been a part of are a conglomerate of slacker jack off fuck

ups. But I’ve loved 99% of every production cast and crew I’ve been a part of. Oh, there is that 1%,

which takes 90% of your tolerance in order to work with. Sure. But for the most part people who do

theater do it because they love it, and a sense of shared love tends to guide even the most mediocre

of productions to opening night and beyond. The thing is, even a mediocre production should be

considered an outstanding success. These are not professionals, these are students, learning. Going

to a college production is paying to attend homework. You have to trust in the skill and talent of the

professors, to ensure you are not committing yourself to some nonsense hour and a half one person

show where they don’t even have a Godsdamned intermission. Probably should have put it on the

posters, but who prints posters these days, you know? Why? Why do that, except to put up in my

office somewhere? Wait, that’s why. Came around to the answer pretty fast on that one. In terms of

my work, I generally consider myself an absurdist postmodernist with hints of futurism and

tradicomedy, while also considering myself quite boring. If this all falls apart on the one and only

night I do this then it will be because I don’t have the energy to write this stuff down, let alone edit

for hours on end. No no. Mozart did not edit the Marriage of Figaro. He just farted it out of his

brain as a single glorious piece that he wrote down and then idiots performed in it. Those idiots.

 Jeremiah. It occurs to me that I will never be able to remember any of this. Probably. Jesus, how

does someone write a one person show? Without boring everyone to tears? You have to be pretty

on your game, to pull something like that off without a prompter or wig mic or something. Pulling a

Brando. Did you know Marlon Brando never bothered to learn his lines? In the early part of his

career all of his lines were put on cue cards. Later he would get a wig mic, which is a virtually

invisible ear piece into which an assistant would feed Brando all of his lines. That’s one way to

weasel out of memorizing lines, certainly. Out here in the field, that sort of task has got to be

impossible. Just to let you in on the process a little, we are somewhere around page 17 of the total

work, and depending on how the timing works out we’re closing in on the end of my ideas section. I

think we’ve covered some really important topics, and I hope you agree. Don’t get lazy, though, I’m

going to really wow you with these last few ideas, because everything so far has been pretty above

the board and to some people probably obvious. But, there’s a lot going on in my mind, on a minute

by minute and day by day basis. The problem is never writing, when you can just open up the sluice

into the mind-dump. They call it the flow. I don’t seek out the flow, I prefer to think of writing as a

constant uphill climb to the top of a volcano into which you are throwing yourself. Hey, let me just

take this moment to break whatever fourth wall might be still standing and really thank you for

making it this far, you know? No matter the format, that is a commitment, to keep tabs on whatever

the hell is going on for such a long, arduous, boring time. Look, I’m not going to lie to you, I’m

picking up on this piece within the 30 day performance window, and I have no idea what sort of

crazy shit I’ve been rambling about so far. I’ll never be able to memorize any of it, but I’m fairly

certain I can record it and project it, with the ultimate failure being to read the entire thing

completely invisible to the audience in a lead lined box. In reality, lead is very bad for you. Don’t eat

it. If you have a choice in the matter. This is the sort of practical advice I hope will carry the bulk of

this rambling pile of artsy farts. But I mean, even Victor Hugo went three years late on his

manuscript for that hunchback book. I think. Is how that all went down. If the internet is to be

believed. I guess it has to be, at this point. I am no Mozart. I’ll give you that, critics. I am no

Thompson, or Emerson, or Lake, or Palmer, or Whoever. I am Jeremiah Liend For Everything. I

am for you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and everyone

that you all knew and everyone that they all knew, and everyone who has come before us, and since.

We are the all singing, all dancing meat of the universe. Take humanity at our worst, and we are

monsters, but at our best, and in our hearts, I think there lurks a greater being. Something with

courage, and resolve, and righteous fury.

 Jeremiah. This will be my final live performance. Such as it is. I can’t perform in front of people any

more, it gives me anxiety. I don’t have time. It’s not what I want to do. I have done four plays in five

glorious years. It has been the perfect run, and if we keep it going it will be with the many wonderful

performers that populate this area. But, performing sucks poops. At best you get to learn some craft

and create some happiness, but also you can accidentally look like total jackasses. I have done that,

sure, what director hasn’t? Had a vision of something that wasn’t executed, and so you are left with

something flawed but functional from which to move forward. If I had a theater, we would be open

every night, offering free popcorn and water, absurdly expensive candy. It would be a performance

center, so there would be a focus on music, theater, dance, but not above including film particularly

as it relates to interdisciplinary media studies. What a wild ride though, right? My first stage role was

as a pornographer. What a weird thing theater is. MacBeth Did It. Just say MacBeth as much as you

can, kids. That won’t come to bite you on your ass over a sprawling impoverished career in the fine

arts. No no. Carry on. I don’t need to perform on stage anymore, I’m so wildly successful in virtually

every other way. It’s sad, somewhat, that my most legendary performances are not recorded because

of absurd property laws, and because they would probably most be on VHS. The kids don’t know

how to transfer the VHS, before they demagnetize it with their awful fields. Sally Fields. See

normally you would make a pile of brain salad, and then mix it into somewhat cogent parts, and then

create several drafts, but I don’t think there’s time for that nonsense. Not if we want to clear the

tight hour and a half, no intermission. Maybe an hour 20? Have we set those parameters yet? Those

hopes and dreams? I dream of winning the Pulitzer Prize in Drama, but that just involves writing a

play and having it produced. It does not mean you have to perform in it, and in fact very rarely have

performing playwrights succeeded, except of course the immortal Tyler Perry. Not going to google

that, if the joke lands it lands. Bury it where it lands. I tried to avoid being morbid, for this entire

thing, but I think we need to address it. I think we need to do something very real, and very

unpleasant, and all feel just awful about it, and then we just release it into the universe. As all things,

a certain amount of energy can be absorbed, and then we are left to determine, where that energy

goes. So instead of this rambling unedited brain salad I am going to plumb the absolute depths of

the awful, horrible, sad things I know, and it is going to just be awful, and we will be awful together,

and then we are going to let it go into the universe forever, and it will be OK. We are all going to be

OK, shall be our rallying cry. For even the dead are OK, since they could be otherwise eaten by

dinosaurs, if the tables had been turned on that asteroid. If those dumb fucking lizards had

developed a space program. Millions of years down there, eating plants and one another. For what?

 Jeremiah. I worked for Kevin Cease as a mortician’s assistant for six years. The possibility of

working for the Cease Family Funeral Home came up during a production of “Of Mice and Men” in

which Cease was Lenny and I was George. Lenny gets shot in the end. Spoiler alert. In the end

rather than risk Lenny going to prison or being lynched by a posse, George does the humane thing

and gets Lenny’s hopes up about going to live on the rabbit farm of their dreams before shooting

him in the back of the head (where the spine meets the brain). For the performance I used a prop

pistol with blanks and on opening night it did not go off. I attempted to rack another blank into the

chamber, but to no effect. So, I left. Rather than do something like yell “BLAMO! Deadsky!” or

pistol whip Lenny to death, I just exited. Stage off. Lenny followed, of course. That was the night

that Lenny got away. Frankly I liked our version better. Soon after I would start working for Cease

primarily as a driver delivering the dead. My relationship with death truly began at age 6 with the

Challenger disaster. That live television messed me up. A lot of people my age retain vivid memories

of our teachers trying to explain what horrifying thing had just happened. I couldn’t sleep for a few

months. To get myself to sleep at night my thoughts of death would eventually turn to a solution to

end death. I believed, based on the advancements of science and medicine, that eventually we would

receive an injection that would make us vaccinated against death. Such an idea has been conceived,

but not developed. I wish we would get on that. It is the best way to put Cease out of business. I

would think of the Challenger often over the course of my life and the more I learned the more

horrified I was. Experts that have studied the disaster believe that the crew survived the break up.

The disaster is inaccurately called an explosion; the craft actually experienced catastrophic

disintegration. The crew cabin survived the break up and would have experienced a 3-minute ride on

a parabolic arc, unable to control anything, before impacting the Pacific Ocean at terminal velocity,

being drilled to the floor of the Pacific at over 300 miles per hour. I can imagine more horrible

deaths, but it isn’t fun. Mortician’s Assistant is a title that I gave myself, like most titles that exist as a

driver for Cease. The hours were flexible, the pay was respectable, and for six years I drove bodies

thousands of miles. At first I called myself a Freelance Body Deliveryman but that was problematic

for several reasons. It should be the gender-neutral Freelance Body Deliveryperson. It looks crazy

on a résumé. It was inaccurate, after I was put on the payroll. It was around then that I began to

refer to myself as a Mortician’s Assistant. Whatever the made-up title, the snappy nametag is

everything. It makes it more legitimate, when the police pull you over with a body in back.

 Jeremiah. Thankfully, I was never pulled over by the police. I drive very safely. What is the incentive

to speed when being paid by the hour? I never hit a deer. I had one terrifying flat tire. I was passed

by Dale Earnheart Jr. once. He got lucky. One time I delivered more than one body at a time. I only

drove a hearse once and I hated it; 50% of the vehicle is a blind spot. It’s like driving a low riding pill

box. Every other time I drove a minivan. In fact, before trying it I didn’t know that I had the ability

to move dead people around. The first time I saw a deceased stranger it was my job to pick up their

dead body with help from a mortician and put it on a zipper gurney before returning to the funeral

home. I remember seeing my first dead stranger and feeling reality pull up behind my eyelids and

language turned into a Charlie Brown talking to adults “wah waah wah” and then I snapped back to

reality. I was asked if I was OK and I said yes. I am fine. As a bizarre confession, I will admit that

during the drive I was tempted to take a bite out of the body. A surprising urgre, probably prompted

by the surreal nature of things? But, eating an embalmed corpse is both strictly against the rules and

a horrible idea. It was the only time I had that idea and later I unpacked it, patted it on the head, and

sent it back to the subconscious with the rest of the insanity. I don’t know how many people I

delivered, exactly. Certainly more than dozens, probably not more than 100. When you are born

someone delivers you and when you die you are also delivered. The dead come from Minneapolis

Saint Paul. They come from the Fargo airport. They come from hospitals and funeral homes in far

away places and somone needs to go to those places and bring those dead folks home. Maybe you

are lucky enough to die at home? Even then, there are those who will come to you, and carry you

where you need to go. Much of being human is avoiding thoughts of death. Death has always been a

weird subject and we have always made up weird stuff to cope with it. Many of you may call me

crazy, or mistaken, but one night I saw a ghost, and that drastically altered how I see death. I

witnessed a phenomenon that cannot be explained by a rational understanding of science and reality.

No matter if you believe me or not, I believe there’s some sort of afterlife. I don’t know if that’s a

relief to me, but I share it with you in case you were worried. A lot of people claim to know what

happens when you die. I have little to no clue, but you can maybe become a ghost? Physically, when

I die I’m going to be cremated and my ashes spread on Lake Bemidji. I want to pollute that water

and force people to drink me. If our dog Leroy is dead then, we will be spread together. Heck,

whoever’s dead can come. Big old pile of ashes.

 Jeremiah. We really are just spinning dirt. Compress and spin space dirt over a long enough time

and you get the house cat. If you take anything away from this, and as a mercy to those you leave

behind, write a will, plan your funeral, and get your affairs in order. There’s a thing called Swedish

death cleaning, but there is also just practically and mercifully unburdening those you leave behind.

Don’t leave your loved ones without a set of instructions. Clear wishes. Fond farewells. They are

going to have enough to deal with, what with you being dead. As disco. It may be that moving dead

people around has permanently altered my understanding and perception of life. For the sake of

time and decency I’ve left out the unpleasant parts. But, there was unpleasantness. Experiences no

sane person would walk away from untouched. If that is the price I pay, to understand the stakes of

the game, to remain somewhat woke, then I paid it gladly. My minivan is full of life now. The

universe gives us death, but we have the power to create and nurture life. We have the power even

to laugh in the face of death. That’s how we win. That’s how we find the cure to death. We keep

spinning this space dirt into doctors and scientists and caregivers until we defeat it. That is our

constant battle and we are all in it together. I want to share some unpleasantness, now. There was a

picture that haunted me, and haunts me still. A black and white picture of naked Polish women

clutching their babies, being herded to ditches to be shot by nazis. I see that image, and I want to be

able to design and build the timecraft, to travel back and save them. To be the savior their God

failed to be. Because in a world that was at all just, or sane, people wouldn’t be able to shoot people

and roll them into mass graves. But there are still the images. The gassed children of Syria, the red

line that was crossed and ignored. We decided to commit our own war crimes, and from the

facedown baby on the Mediterranean, we see a different baby stuffed into a shirt yearning to breathe

free. I would be lying if I have not been game theorying out liberating child concentration camps.

Because we say never again, or don’t look away, or never forget to always remember, but those are

just words. Words don’t unkill babies. Only actions can do that. Words are the unfortunate victims

of fascism. We found the character limit to human attention, and it is now 250 characters. Surely a

capable group of timeclones could liberate Aushwitz? Our tent camps aren’t Aushwitz, but with

hindsight we can forestall that eventuality. What is the endgame to these destroyed and genocided

people? How are we to turn our swords into plowshares before we murder everyone with

unsustainable consumption? How can I get a timecraft, a laser gun, and a kill team to vaporize some

nazi scum and halt some crimes against humanity? Can’t it be both? Can’t we cooperate, and

collaborate, and tear down the edifices of power before they murder us all wholesale to make a few

trillion? If you loaned me one trillion tomorrow, I would gladly pay you two trillion on Tuesday.

 Jeremiah. One thing you need to know about me is my tenacious commitment to getting elected to

office. I ran for Mayor of Bemidji in 2004 and 2008, and was a registered write-in candidate in the

2018 mid-term. I am examining the options for 2020. One reason I’m so bad at politics is that I have

little to no money. I’ve accepted, probably lifetime, less than $300 over those three campaigns.

Doesn’t buy signs. Doesn’t buy airtime. Doesn’t buy print. These are the things campaigns spend

money on, to win. Someone once told me that politics was a popularity contest, as if that was

supposed to be some grand revelation. Yes, it is quite literally a popularity contest, where the

wealthiest people get to spend virtually unlimited amounts of their money, buying popularity. In the

trenches all we have is crap art and the power of the press release. Throw a news conference on

Wednesday and crap on the floor of a McDonald’s Thursday. See what level of traction you will get,

with either event. Spend all your time getting money to produce snappy videos to be fast forwarded

through on DVRs at home. By all means. Do that. What is the point of any of these games, in a

world where money is speech? I get it, Citizens United. Their argument is awful, and destructive, and

logical. Rich people don’t have the time to campaign for their candidates, they are too busy making

money, so why can’t they spend their money on candidates they support? Otherwise you are

infringing on the rights of people. Those poor, delicious rich people. So supple. So digestible. I feel

so bad for them, unable to take the time to campaign, let alone disclose their donations to a legal

body. No no. Let’s make those unlimited donations secret, too. Or people might be discouraged to

donate, and who wants that? See First Amendment Rights v. Rich People. So yeah, of course in a

world where money is speech Donald Trump is president. Of course. This is a president only money

could buy, and those who threw money at the wild card got their investment back. Oh yes, they got

their islands in the sky. Meanwhile, we get mercury fish sandwiches. Eat that, plebes. With politics,

as with all things in my life, the true failure is to quit. I watched footage of Hunter S. Thompson

after he lost his run for sheriff, and he was crushed to the process. He was defeated and decided to

focus his energies elsewhere, and threw away all of those sweet experiences into the dirt. I have

learned 1,000 times more from my failures as I ever have from any success. Success is just an

intangible world that existentially aligns itself with whatever your intention was, in creating or doing

a thing. You work as a reporter? Fantastic, are you successful? Oh? You suck the barrel chrome off

of a pearl-handled .38 revolver everynight while listening to Goodbye Horses and crying yourself to

sleep? Well. You shouldn’t do that, it’s bad for the barrel, especially the muzzle. Next thing is, maybe

you should consider doing and/or being something/somebody else? Consider that if you are

miserable in life, that you are doing it wrong, and that this very moment could be the turning point.

 Jeremiah. I think this is right around our tight hour 20. Let me thank some people. I have a lot of

people worthy of thanking, and I will surely miss some with only a paragraph remaining on this

page. I want to thank my mother Donna Liend née Stenerson, without whom I would not exist. I

was only able to complete these works with the support of my partner in crime, love, and art, Ruth

Baker. My plays may never rise to the level of greatness, but our children remain our most fantastic

productions. The title of best friend is very divisive, because it makes you single out one of many in

a very arbitrary and exclusionary selection of a person. So, if I had to list my best friends in order of

appearance they would be Zak Holmes, Jesse Whiting, and Andrew Clemons. These men are the

finest artists I have ever known and the best friends anyone could ever ask for. Each have

contributed, supported, and sacrificed in their own ways to make not only this fine art, but also help

me remain a capable, sane, and somewhat functioning member of society. I would deeply and

gratefully like to thank the cast and crews for these productions. You don’t get to submit for the PP

for D without raising a curtain and that curtain would not rise without you. I would like to thank my

stage manager, right hand, and brother, Jared Liend. In the best-case scenario stage managing is a

thankless, underpaid, and loathsome position. Our shows are never the best-case scenario. Spoiler

alert. Bless you all. +1. The author would like to acknowledge the many pop culture references as

both dated and boring. Please don’t sue me. Or at least if you do, wait I get the $500 trillion check. I

being poor have only my crap plays. I have laid my crap plays beneath your feet. Tread

softly/carefully, for you tread on my crap. As long as we are acknowledging things, and perhaps this

should have gone in earlier thanks, but no, let’s acknowledge: higher education in the fine arts. Many

people of my generation and beyond poo poo the liberal and fine arts as a useless waste of time and

money. But those people probably listen to music at some point in their miserable lives? Maybe even

try to dance, however unsuccessfully? Although statistically few attend the theater anymore, those

who do must enjoy it? For some dumb reason. The author is grateful to have read those many plays,

texts, and articles that supported and advanced understanding of a wide range of interdisciplinary

subjects. Finally, the author would once again like to acknowledge that the planet is on fire and

dying. For reals, kids, we must start doing something. I used to think we could recycle our way out

of this, but the numbers are not looking good. I don’t know what it’s going to take? I thought

maybe if theater was produced more sustainably, but as it turns out 70% of the carbon emissions on

our planet are created by only 100 or so companies. So, and let me clarify we should not do this

ever, (wink wink), but someone should maybe just evacuate and then burn those companies to the

ground? Extreme, perhaps?

 Jeremiah. But, with that sweet insurance money you could certainly build more sustainable ventures.

Recycled solar panel factories? Carbon negative hydrocarbon production facilities? Hydroponic

produce growing centers? Really anything but a factory that burns our garbage into the upper

atmosphere. Even if it isn’t climate change it could be a meteorite, or supervolcano, or doomsday

virus? You know. I know you know. I acknowledge you know. Go now. Sweet mindslaves. Go tell it

on the mountain.

 

The end.

 

[End.]