As I looked backward in time, further and further, I can feel myself beginning to walk, moving physically through all of the days I’ve lived and people I’ve been. You know I’m very old. My last walk went on for quite a while. During the sunrise, always a sunrise, I was stuck in the 1830s, riding stowaway on a tea ship, and whenever the sun rose during a blackout (I called them blackouts, “sleepwalking” doesn’t cut it; neither does “blackout,” but it’s closer), my claws would slow as if moving through molasses, and I’d spend entire days in single months. I didn’t enjoy being in the hot 19th-century Alabama sun for eight hours, but once night fell I ran back to the future and settled in 2025 for now. My Sensei was busy, preparing the wide release of his Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, and Mr. Fincher was, for once, not shooting, but negotiating some aspect of his contract for Squid Games: America. I’m sitting in my trailer thinking about the past.
In 1923, I had a root canal performed by a rabbit; it was exactly like one of those turn-of-the-century magical realist Alice in Wonderland style things, the kind of image you see in wallpaper all the time. It wasn’t dogs playing poker, but hares in bowties and straw hats. Now, I know it looks silly, and it is, but you should know that it’s real. That world’s real. Radiohead weren’t lying when they made the “There There” music video. Why do you think they’re getting so much shit now? Their reputation is in the drain. Well, the forest finally found out. It took 22 years, but they’re still (relatively) blissfully disconnected.
The hare-rabbit, a gentleman named Samuel Katis, was interested in the Titanic disaster. It was still sort of fresh, people weren’t making jokes. He wasn’t kidding though when he told me that the boat was taken down because it had every major politician and businessman opposed to the formation of the Federal Reserve on board. Once I saw Ari Aster’s Eddington this year, I got it. This guy was nuts. I thought maybe there’s something to this? But now that a movie has made fun of his theory, it’s easy for me to laugh and dismiss him as a kook. I may have had spiritual and emotional awakenings, but the barrage of everyday life continues, and my blinders remain up. If I’m contradicting myself, it’s just because I’m on the move, and I’m on the way, in my own way.
My Sensei told me he struggled to understand my process sometimes. “You get worked up like a Method Actor, suffering all that they do, but you don’t even learn the lines.” Homie, I told him, you didn’t give me any. “Okay, let’s do some Paddy Chayefsky.” I told him Paddy Chayefsky sucks, and he got really mad at me. “Working on a Paddy Chayefsky piece was FOR-MA-TIVE for me as a young man, Benny! You know you wrong on this!” I knew I wasn’t. Paddy Chayefsky sucks, has always sucked, and I don’t like his movies; whenever I was walking back in time, I made sure to skip the years 1976 and 1972. I don’t mind Marty.
I’m still getting used to this peculiar ability, and unsure whether or not I’m technically traveling through time or just dreaming. I’m going to steal some money and modern art from some choice Tribeca apartments in the 1990s and see what happens. Hopefully my bank account goes greeeen because I ain’t making any money making this movie.
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