PEACE: WRITE CLUB chapter 69, 4/21/2015

I wrote this for my debut performance in WRITE CLUB, a goddamn riotous and life-validating live lit show that singlehandedly makes Chicago a shining beacon in a burbling bog of doo-doo. This piece (about peace) won my bout and is reproduced here for posterity. Forgive the lost minute or so in the recording.

Few topics are as profoundly easy to argue as peace over war. It’s absurdly supportable to the point where argument approaches impossibility.

Do I even need seven minutes? It’s like arguing for naps versus the heat death of the universe. It’s like cookies versus watching your mother being slowly eaten by bears. It’s like handshakes versus the last flash of lucidity before you become wholly lost to Alzheimers and finally comprehend, horrified, the mindless husk you’ve become — really, at this point, just a loud corpse.

Do you honestly believe any of us hipster cowards who live slumped over the lip of a beer glass or slurping at Netflix’s sodden teat are yearning to beat the drums of war? I’m terrified of anything that might make my beautiful face feel pain, let alone someone killing me with a war.

And if I’m wrong? If you don’t prefer peace? You do know there already is a war, and if you wanna go, you can just…go. For free! Tryouts aren’t even hard, guys. Tryouts? Is it tryouts? Let’s go with auditions. Community theater has pickier auditions, if you get my meaning. And yet, you’re here. Very much immersed in non-war. Seems like the decision was made before I opened my mouth.

But I’ll keep going anyway, and I will make it clear beyond all reasonable doubt that peace ever triumphs over war. Let’s look to the stars, friends, and focus our attentions on a ship of war and ship of peace. I’m speaking of course, of the last refuge of the 12 Colonies of Kobol, the Battlestar Galactica, and the goddamn flagship of the United Federation of Planets under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the Galaxy Class NCC-1701-D, commonly known as the USS Enterprise. Peace, motherfuckers, come get some.

Let’s look first at the ship of war, the Battlestar Galactica. An ugly leaden cudgel, a lumbering metallic slug turgid with atomic fire, spewing one-man fighters piloted by desperate, paranoid people who hate each other and ache to cast their fetid souls into the sweet succor of death’s welcoming arms.

This is a world where an interstellar human empire was erased by nuclear holocaust in under an hour, where the entire remainder of our species is herded onto a creaking, ancient ship that holds fewer people than Wrigley Field and has almost as much hopeless dread hanging in its walls.

This is a ship hunted by murderous robots who, fun fact, look and act exactly like humans, so have a good time never being able to trust anyone again — that is, if you have time to spare from your addictions, terminal illnesses, murders, rape cults, and suicides.

For the Galactica to win a battle is to achieve nothing. Killing their enemy only sends their minds back to get plopped in a new robot body. Humanity is locked in a pointless forever war against an infinite horde of deathless, trapped in a crumbling ironclad whose dank halls are plastered with photos of the beloved dead — the lucky ones — their faces ever smiling back from the relative paradise of hell.

The Enterprise, though? The Enterprise is a ship of peace. Literally, its only purpose is to go find nice aliens and say nice things to them. We’re talking about a capital ship representing the full force of one of the galaxy’s major political powers where you can bring your kids to live with you on board and the bartender is Whoopi Goldberg tossing out old-world wisdom like candy at a parade and your boss is motherfucking Patrick Stewart and maybe one day he’ll see you in the halls and nod and remember your name and you’ll swoon like God intended.

This is a universe where Earth is a paradise free from crime, hatred, disease, and where money is just a silly memory — why would I deprive my fellow traveler for want of some gaudy token?

I mean, you know what they do on the Enterprise? I’m not talking about the anomalous conflicts that make up the plots of Star Trek episodes. I’m talking about day-to-day, the stuff they do before they get trapped in a time loop or whatever. They do science experiments and speak with unironic joy about all the new things they’re learning. They put on little plays and music recitals. They tell their friends they did a good job in the plays and music recitals. When one of them claims some weird, impossible, inexplicable thing they have no proof of happened to them, everyone believes them right away and tries to help. Succeeds to help! It’s like a miniature traveling city full of the goofiest nerds in space. And when it’s time to go on vacation, they go to Risa, the Fuck Planet where all you do is fuck!

Shit, they only ever fight when some dumb alien with a warboner is too dumb to accept the peace the Enterprise so cheerfully offers, because the dumb alien ship is too full of dumb aliens who’d rather shoot zappy beams and try to murder everyone than put on a little play — I daresay they wouldn’t tell their crewmates in the play they did a good job at all! They’d say their acting was stilted and the direction choppy! My god, they probably wouldn’t even enjoy a visit to Risa, the Fuck Planet where all you do is fuck!

But enough fluff and bluster. Honestly, I don’t really care about proving [my opponent] wrong or beating her or anything like that. I’m delighted even to be included in this amazing show with these absurdly talented people. Sure, I could pick the fibers of my enemy’s heart from between my teeth with her splintered bones, but I’d rather enjoy a night of great writing with good people.

Sun Tzu said “supreme excellence consists in victory without fighting.” That is to say: the supreme way to do war is to do not war and instead peace. And this motherfucker wrote the book on war. I’m not using that in the usual cliche way that he knows a lot about war, I mean the dude literally wrote the book on war. Go to the bookstore and say “I want the book on war” and you’ll see I’m right.

So let’s not worry about who beat whom.

Let’s not live like we’re on the Battlestar Galactica.

Let’s enjoy the night together.

Let’s live like we’re on the goddamn Enterprise. PEACE!