Death By Content: Episode 5 — It’s 5 O’clock Everywhere

It’s only half past noon and I’m already thinking about cracking open a beer. I don’t even know what day it is, and to be honest, even what month it is feels irrelevant. As we all try to proceed with life as if everything were normal, time is the one thing that is just constantly staring at me and going, “You know this is fucked, right?” 

I’m someone who appreciates the finer things in life. Things such as order, a well executed haircut, 18 year old Scotch, and punctuality. A well kept schedule is a signifier of those who are chosen to do nothing but THE most important of tasks. Those that respect the sanctity of Kronos, the god of time, are often the most responsible of souls. I am fascinated with time. Is it cyclical or linear? Is it static or dynamic? Is it, like all measurements, an entity that does not represent itself honestly to the senses? 

People say things like “Is it really July?”

Or

“I can’t believe it’s been 5 years?!” 

What time IS and HOW we perceive it to be are not always aligned. Time is like that shitty person your friend dates. They see one thing…you see another. 

Which brings me to present day. That shitty person your friend met this time is the Corona Virus. And guess what…They’re getting MARRRRRIIIEEEED.

Goodbye schedules and routine. That “shitty person,” just got given the keys to the kingdom. Oh. My. GOD. The whole “measurement element,” is just out the window. 

What time is it? 

I just scratched “a flat circle” into my citizen with a safety razor!!! Who gives a shit.

“What day is it?” 

ANOTHER FUCKING SAND GRAIN THROUGH THE HOURGLASS IN THIS FUCKING QUICKSAND DESERT THAT WE CALL LIFE. 

“Do you have any plans this weekend?”

Plans? Suuuureee. Tons of them. I’m going to go to the mall with some friends, maybe get a facial. Then I’m going to go to that hot new re…WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK MORON? PLANS? YEAH – I’M GONNA SIT IN MY HOUSE AND WATCH SUNSET AFTER SUNSET TAUNTING ME AS I TURN INTO DUST AND MY BRAIN REDUCES TO MUSH. Salvador dali painted melting clocks, and then painted an image of a roman god devouring his son as madness overtook him. (In other news…SCHOOL IS CLOSED FOREVER!!!!!)

Before you make a phone call to the police. Just know that I’m okay. Really. Okay…sort of. All I’m trying to say is that before the Coronavirus, time meant one thing. Now, it means another. 

While work and school still try to function like a person devolving into the later stages of paralytic dementia caused by a neurotoxin extracted from a poison arrow frog, you can see us all still clinging to the concept of time we all held pre-covid. Just CLINGING to it and the NORMALCY it represents. HOPING that if we wish and HOPE and keep marching on, that one day we’ll wake up and this will all have been nothing more than a bad dream. 

I think it’s safe to say this: Things will never be the same. We could sit and mope. Shit…I’ve been doing it. But there’s no going back. It’s a new world. 

A new world needs changes. It needs a new way in which we chronicle and understand time. So…it is without further ado, that I present the CORONA-CLOCK. A clock for a new, mid- and post-corona world.  A reinvention of how we think about time. We currently rely on things such as “the sun” and “The Gregorian Calendar.” That calendar was introduced in 1582. Can you imagine if we still used the medicine from those eras? The clock needs a makeover people! Let’s give it what it deserves.

In the world built on computers and binary decision making…I propose the Binary clock. It goes like this:

TIME 1: ON O’clock

Work, school, working while teaching school to your 5 year old, chores, errands, and all in all, things that suck ass. Basically – if being alive is painful, disappointing, depressing, miserable, etc…..IT’S ON O’CLOCK! 

TIME 2: OFF O’clock

Drinking, eating, sleeping, “Other recreational activities” (THIS IS A FAMILY BLOG ALRIGHT). Basically – if being alive is tolerable, or perhaps even enjoyable….IT’S OFF O’CLOCK! 

You either are “ON” working while homeschooling and trying not to lose your shit, or you’re OFF living (if you can even call this living). That’s it. What day is it? Who gives a shit? It doesn’t matter. NOTHING MATTERS IN THIS BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY DALIAN NIGHTMARE. BOOSH GALLY MOOSH CAN YOU DO A FANDANGO (I don’t give a shit if those aren’t the words. They aren’t real words to begin with. Fuck off). 

What time is it ? Oh, it’s Off O’clock. I’ll have a beer!

“Are you drinking?! It’s barely noon…” 

Yes I am, but it’s not noon for me. It’s Off O’clock. I’ll see your Virus-Corona, and raise you a case of Beer-Corona (just kidding, I don’t really drink that clear bottled piss water (just kidding again…I’ll drink pretty much anything)). 

If I’m being honest, this situation taught me both the value and absurdity of time. As a commodity, it’s the most valuable thing we have. Time is equated with life. Invincibility or extension of existence is something that everyone has long desired, explored, and chased after. It’s where words like “legacy” come from. It’s how to live forever, and even after you’re gone, how to be remembered and kept alive. Just ask Indiana Jones and his inexplicably British father in the last crusade. 

As a measurement system — it’s complicated. Yes we can measure it, but the measurement isn’t in any way close tied to the perception.

We often, in an effort to fortify the legacy element, waste much of the actual experience of the present. One could say that we devalue the currency of the current. I learned that recently. When the world stopped spinning. The trains stopped running. The windows all shuttered closed and we all held our breath waiting for the god of death to walk up to our door and knock three times. Slowly and ominously. It wouldn’t even be a knock. The god of death WRAPS at the door. And you get up and you go “Hello.” And they go “Can you sign for this package.” And you go “PACKAGE?!!”  And they go “Package” and you go “ GET THE FUCK OFF MY PORCH.” And then they go “It’s DOORDASH from BevMo for a Mr. Mo The Hun,” and I go “WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY SO. COME IN FRIEND. HAVE A DRINK!” *cough cough* 

And then you look at your fancy new corona clock, and see it’s “OFF o’clock” so you break into that BevMo order and start doing your best to forget about time as it used to be, and start accepting life for what it is. The past is gone. The future is terrifying. The present is monotonous uncertainty dipped in fear like a piece of cheese at a fondue fountain at the shittiest party life has ever thrown. But whiskey is still whiskey. Family is still family. And instead of rolling over and dying or rolling over and going back to sleep, I flip my Corona Clock to ON and say FUCK YOU COVID. And then I roll over, flip the corona clock to off again, pour a drink, and go back to bed.