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The Difference Between
Input and Output

     ...we’re here, we do stuff,
        and then we’re gone.
              —Robert Downey, Jr.

It turns out to be about death
but “not in a morose way,” he
says shortly after his dad passes.
They’d been collaborating on a
documentary together, featuring
Sr., which the film is called: Sr.

when I watch movies or teevee
shows, streamers as the ones I
see seem to be collectively, at
this particular point in time, are
called, I come away from that
experience revivified. Often I

watch them intentionally – I
somehow manage to maintain
all of the networks (as we don’t
collectively call them anymore),
the subscription fees, even as
they keep going up and up, and

the ones one wants (the ones I
decide are important to have)
seem to multiply, to be cloned
and then divided, cloned again –
just because I want to feel better.
Otherwise, despite these channels

(another thing they’re not dubbed...
oops, is that the wrong word, too,
given the subject?) making up, by
far, most of the tiny monthly bud
get that I usually manage to get,
I tend to basically forget to watch

them, tend not to pick up the con
sole, turn on what to me, because
I’m not young, seems to be a
gargantuan teevee. So when I
do, I most often do it consciously,
as a move towards feeling better,

because these days I tend too
often to be in need of that. Of
that I do not need a reminder.
I’ve always had to deal with de
pression, ever since I can rem
ember, and this particular fix

has always been a go to. Oth
ers come and go – like going
literally to the cinema or taking
a walk through the streets and
up and down the concrete and
wooden stairs of the city in

which I live and love – but
these days it’s watching a
series, whichever one of
several I happen to be in
the middle of at the moment
(and unlike in the past, I now

actually finish them!) or, on
a rare occasion, watching an
entire movie, which was a
thing I used to do with such
regularity that I’d often see
five or six a week. Now, it’s

almost never. But I saw two
today. Both of which I loved.
One, an adaptation of the first
half of a book I read several
times as a too precocious child
(Dune) and Sr. And I even

caught a couple of episodes
of a couple of the series of
which I’m currently in the
middle or near the end.
The end. Death sat
vehemently at the fore

front of both of these
movies. But do I feel
worse than when I first
tuned in to each? Re

soundingly, I feel much
better. I believe I need 

to remind myself to do

this more often. Which
sounds like a joke,
but I promise it isn’t.
The only other thing
I can think of as an

almost sure-fire remedy
to being so entangled
within a bout of these
low-down blues is writing,
what I’m doing this very
moment. In my head,

and even “out loud” with

in plenty of the lines of 

these things I build with 

words, I will invariably

make a big production
out of whether or not

anyone is out there.
Whether or not there
is an audience. I have
ego. I want to be part
of a conversation. Of
course I do. And, man,

to anyone who might be

out there, my gratitude,
really. But even if this
just goes out into vapor,
and I’m its only audience,
what would be the problem

with that? At this moment,
and thank you, people of
the television, of the movies,
of whatever they’re called at
the moment, I say that if it’s
all just by me, for me, that’s

fine with me. And at this very
moment I really do mean that.
I do. But what life I get from
the tenacious creative actions
of others. They for sure exist. 

And thanks to them, so do I.