RICK CASTRO: DIARY-5/17/2020

So This Is How The World Will End: by Rick Castro 5/17/2020

I just received the most hideous check of my entire life. 

The infamous stimulus check with Trumpworld’s signature. I feel dirty, like I’m accepting a bribe. I came all the way back to LA to retrieve so I could pay my rent for June.  This is what Amerikkkan citizens have been driven to. So desperate we’re gleeful for a morsel of $ back from the billions paid into the Ponzi scheme called “the federal budget.” Only in Amerikkka can the president brag about being smart enough to not pay taxes, while people like me get audited by the IRS claiming I owned them $1000, (this was back in the 90s) so charge me $3000 in penalties and interest. 

I came back to LA to retrieve this token from a government who considers themselves generous. According to hoarder, I mean treasurer Steven Mnuchin, this is enough for people to get through the plague. Other Republikkkan’s will stand on the senate floor and have the nerve to say any further payments will make citizens lazy and not motivated to go back to work. Like somehow the entire population decided, you know what…. I don’t feel like working anymore, so I’ll create a virus so I don’t have to.

So here I am in my old apartment, just as I left it. The house plant is still alive. My kind upstairs neighbor watered my outside plants so they’re still thriving. Everything is familiar, yet foreign. Me bed is now very comfortable, because I brought back a foam padding me bro left at Bee’s cabin over six months ago. If he decides he wants it, he will have to contact me with more than “Al oha,” 
(his name is Al, he lives in Hawaii) .

My plan was to visit me mum Bee on her 97th birthday, but yesterday I had a splitting headache and muscle soreness like I felt from the last bout, so I decided to be on the safe side and wait until I’m tested. I would never forgive myself If I gave the plague to my parents. Their caregiver Remia texted me, “What time will you come over.” I had to tell her I could not. It was a drag because I know she ordered a cake.

Instead, I did Facebook video with Bee for her birthday. Remia lit the candles on her cake and we sang together Happy Birthday to Bee. She sang along with us and seemed to be enjoying herself. She is always sweet, perhaps the Alzheimer's haze is the best place for her in the harsh 2020s. There’s so much to contend with if you’re “lucid.” 

I also order WiFi from a company my cousin, Minguini, (not his real name) told me about, race.com. The price is great, twenty five buckaroos, but the turn-around time is ridiculous, five to seven weeks! I still ordered it since there are no options in the high desert, 
but they should change their name to losetherace.com.

Then I got on the horn and fought with my fave corporation to hate AT&T, who claimed I didn’t make last months payment and added a late fee. After debating, (arguing) with dispatcher Sandra for 15 minutes, she puts me on hold, then comes back and says, “Ok Mr. Castro, I have removed the late fee and removed the charge for last month”. She then said, “Is there anything else I can do for you?” After years of dealing with AT&T I know this is their way of saying, my supervisor was listening and has instructed me to do whatever you request so you don’t file a lawsuit. I didn’t push my luck, I just said, “Thank you for listening to me, and working with me.” 

I didn’t have the energy to do the same with Southern Ca Gas Co, so just paid the bill, but i’d like to point out it makes no sense I’m charged $30.32 when I haven’t been here for two months.

To cheer myself up, I decided to watch this cheesy monster flick from the 50s. I always loved black & white monster flicks when I was a kid, and I still do… Somehow I find them relaxing. Perhaps because the gore and scariness is so outdated, I still find them calming. 
I also find allot of fetish, repressed sexual overtones, and underlining religious insecurity. I wonder if present day conspiracy theories owe their origins from 1950s black & white monster flicks? You know the whole Atom bomb thing… maybe it all started  with cheesy monsters and has now ended up with cheesy, but relentless reality stars destroying everything.

So this is how the world will end.

copyright- rick castro- 5/2020

still from the monster of peidras blancas- 60 years before kathy griffin- 

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