SHARK BITE

What happens when your friends and loved ones die when they also happen to be even slightly “known” or even marginally “famous?” I’m talking specifically about musicians here but it could be lot’s of people. Obviously, it’s crushing and confusing and awful. Obviously. Personally, I feel like I have a shark bite taken out of my body somewhere that I cannot locate. I’m confused and clumsy. I wake up having wrestled the pillow case off my pillow after falling asleep so worried about my friends’families and significant others that I can’t really sleep. I’ve lost four people I love this last month, it’s been a doozy. I received mostly kind words and sad tidings from people on social media, and I felt some kinship with strangers making their own sweet tributes with memories and photos and shared love of our light-giving friends. But occasionally (more often than you would think), I receive this…

This is an actual email shat into my inbox from a writer at a popular-ish media outlet (that I have edited, quite heavy-handedly, to protect the stupid and the innocent), which came less than 24 hours after my friend’s death was announced: 

Hello publicist and manager,

My name is _______and I'm a writer with_______. I'm doing a __plucky name of  ambulance-chasing article series for name of media outlet who should know better__, where I collect tributes from __first name of the deceased’s (casually, as if on a first-name basis)__ closest friends, family and collaborators. The stories can be funny, sad, scary, touching, but celebratory. The __irritating plucky series name again__ is a column I started at __online media platform’s name__, and it's proven insanely popular, despite the tragic nature of the circumstances. My __stupid series__ for __another poor human being who died way too young__ got promoted to print in __Important Magazine!__ (Ooooooh.)

I'd love to chat with Ms. Case about __her freshly dead friend__ (Oh, MISTER Case will indeed chat with you…) if there's interest and availability. Thanks so much for the consideration! 

Best,

-________

Artists planned for __pluck, pluck, plucky series__: 

(Here is where I omitted all the names of the poor humans who were about to be ambushed with this)

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Neko Case

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Callous subtext: “I can’t be bothered to do a careful, empathetic job at this so can you spin this to your client to make it seem like something important for her to do??? Gimme, gimme, gimme. You’re welcome! Love, Shithook.”

Yes, it hurts. I hurt for my friend. It’s so very slimy and lukewarm. So self-aggrandizing and clueless. It distills my friend's life and death and personhood down to an assumed turnip off a truck who is gonna do some hard work on spec and say “Thank you, sir!” to some idiot kid for getting to do it. 

What the fuck, people? I’ve seen some truly abhorrent behavior surrounding death, and yet I’m still shocked by it. When will I stop being shocked though? That’s what I’m scared of. What about what we constantly saturate ourselves with? What about the news? It’s horrible. All of it. All of the time. All outlets, all the spin. It’s just social media now? Not that it wasn’t some form of it before, but now it’s just something to discuss at a distance with vehemence or feigned worldliness? Our boundaries are just us fighting about our boundaries? It’s the background wallpaper in our homes, or an invasive alert system we pay more attention to than our loved ones over breakfast? There must be a way out. We are just pouring Roundup into our open sharkbite numbness. It is not “worldly” to be numb. It is not “educated” to be numb, and it is the furthest from being “above it all” that you can be, for we are actually saturated and mentally ill. Turn it off. I’m not saying don’t educate yourself or “tune out”. I’m saying actively and purposefully grow our hearts and our real compassion back. It’s an emergency. No more “thoughts and prayers”. The practiced compassion is cheap and the off-gassing is curtling our humanity. We escape the current wars and our responsibility to stop them by lowering ourselves into the steamy little reeking hottub of a totally different war. And our friends still die.