No One's Home

It's fair to say I consume quite a bit of media. My job often features design work and that work means I can put in my ear buds and listen to podcasts. Today's offerings included the lauded "This American Life" and the oft-fantastic "On The Media." I'm studying to be a really impassioned wonk, apparently.

"OTM" was first and featured a story about a man writing a book about the final moments of executions in Texas. One story he related concerned a condemned man who started singing "Silent Night" upon the administering of the lethal injection. He started to sputter and choke about the time he hit "mother and child," effectively ruining in the song for the author.

Then comes "TAM" where they did a story about a person whose job it is to track down relatives of people who die alone. Two things I learned from the story: 1) bodies with no family and no money for burial are cremated by the state, the ashes held for five years. After that time the ashes are mixed with the ashes of all the other unclaimed bodies in a mass grave and given a funeral, which is attended by only a sparse few social workers. 2)Things like voice mail never disappear. This last point led to a moment in the broadcast where they play a woman's voice mail message, after she died alone and was buried in a mass, state-sponsored grave. Her voice is appropriately haunting.

"This is a message phone.
No name
No number
No message
No answer"

I don't know what it means but it was like hearing a ghost story as a kid. The stomach bottoms out, the tingles go through you. You feel legitimately scared at something. It was almost like a David Lynch scene.

THEN, I saw "Charlie Wilson's War" tonight. I'll write up a review in the next few days, but it's 2/3rds light, frothy political fun reminiscent of the best of the West Wing, and 1/3 depressing-as-hell "American foreign policy destroys women and children and we deserve what we get" kind of message.

Last thing, promise. My girls are away for the next few days, so I'm fending for myself. No big deal, I have a fridge full of food and a Christmas' worth of movies to keep me company.

But here's the thing - after listening and watching some of the most depressing fare in the world back-to-back-to-back, I don't feel depressed. It's a general...funkiness that's more akin to fear than it is to depression. I figure, with depression, you feel bad about something wrong with you. With this, it's something wrong with the world.

I remember once in college getting three or four pieces of bad news in a row about classmates - one had been raped, one was anorexic, one guy had hit his girlfriend, I think - and going on this tear in the middle of the night in an abandoned student lounge about how messed up the world is and how something had to be done. It's awfully naive, but at the time I don't think I believed anything in my life more than I believe something needed to change in my community and people needed to hear what I had heard and feel like I felt.

Of course, that's bullshit but I remember starting in a group that worked against underage drinking, which is funny because now alcohol and I have a very nice, cordial relationship. But the zeal wore off and I didn't change a damn thing. And the world is still messed up. Imagine that.

No message, no answer. Aint that the truth.