Nurse the Hate: The GoFundMe Idea

 

At the risk of sounding like a heartless bastard (a descriptor, not a member of the Cincinnati based band), I almost never give money to GoFundMe requests.  The issue is mostly that these causes are well beyond the scope of reason.  Musician John Doe (here used as an anonymous name and not the bass player/singer of the band X) is hit with a horrific disease.  John will run up hospital bills roughly the GNP of Peru in his doomed battle against this disease.  A well intentioned friend will create a GoFundMe page hoping to raise $5,000, a grain of sand against the bills.  This money is a glass of water poured into the ocean of hospital debt, a symbolic gesture at best.  I feel like it is when I recycle an aluminum can as I stand next to a steel mill.  Sure, I feel like I am doing my part as I perch on the moral high ground, but logic dictates this effort is only symbolic as I watch 10,000 cubic tons of poison come out of the smoke stacks of the plant.

It’s like in The Olden Times when a small punk club would do a benefit for a member of the underground clique.  Old punk rocker Jimmy Razor gets ebola and is hanging by a thread at Our Sister of Mercy.  Jimmy Razor, a 62 year old man without insurance, owes $2.1 million dollars to Our Lady of Mercy.  More candidly, the “estate” of Jimmy Razor owes $2.1 million to Our Sister of Mercy.  Nine bands play a show in a venue with a capacity of 70 people.  At $10 a person this event is expected to raise $700, but of course with nine bands, 36 of those people are band members standing around for free.  Now the event has raised $340 with the 36 band members and entire club staff all spending at least 6 hours each (8p-2a) for 216 man hours in exchange for $340 (or $1.57 an hour).  It makes all the participants feel good, like they exhibited some control against an event which is out of their control, but has almost no impact.  It would be much more effective for every band member just to send $20 via Venmo direct to whoever is left holding the bag on the medical bills for $720 and save everyone six hours of work.

It’s time to create a GoFundMe project with some vision.  An idea hit me like a lightning bolt this morning as I strolled along with the bassets.  My associate, The Land Sailor, has been taking pilot’s lessons.  It’s an excellent use of time during covid to fly a cranky one engine prop plane over Montreal.  As we slowly move from “pandemic” to “endemic”, it will be good to have skills for The Revolution which is slowly creeping over the horizon.  At a certain point, “the rest of us” are going to have to defend ourselves against the Fools, Facists, and Wal Mart Shoppers that drive from Burger King to Burger King in their enormous pick up trucks spreading misinformation and disease.  This is where the GoFundMe kicks in.   

I discovered a vintage German Stuka, a dive bomber from the Second World War, was recovered in Greece.  This is just a shell, a husk of the plane, like finding a rusty 1945 Mercury chassis in a barn.  Yet the fact remains, we can put in a new engine, parts, etc exactly to specifications and be ready to terrorize the skies of Montreal in no time.  Will it take money?  Yes.  Will it take effort?  Yes.  Can it be done?  Of course.

Now I hear what you are saying, that perhaps putting a slightly unhinged German behind the stick of a reconditioned Luftwaffe dive bomber might be a bad idea.  And though I don’t think he would even refer to himself as an “expert pilot”, I would have to think he has as much training as those lads in 1943.   I think I will be a fantastic radio operator/tail gunner, though once again, the idea of a civilian having an MG-15 machine gun might be unsettling to some.  The good news is soon enough, if we can just get some traction behind the GoFundMe, we can be enjoying screaming 15,000 foot dives down on the heads of the populations of the general area.  The Stuka was best known for having “Jericho’s Trumpet”, a wind driven siren, attached to the nose.  I can’t think of a better way to spend the summer than doing a 6G dive down at 615am Sunday onto residential areas in our crowd funded Stuka.  Sure, I might pass out doing a 6G dive, but hopefully the Land Sailor doesn’t and we don’t explode on someone’s roof.  I think he works out and shit. 

I’m looking at this as a way for a couple of guys to have great adventures, really get to see Canada, and of course, terrorize the skies.  We will need leather helmets, goggles, and some sort of Mad Max post-apocalypse flight suits.  I’m also thinking that we might want to scrub off any of those Nazi emblems that are still on the plane as it will likely unsettle folks at the various airports regardless of the historical accuracy.  Let me be clear.  We are not becoming some sort of new age fascist goons, but rather “chaotic freedom warriors”.  Clearly, we will need to get some good PR going prior to going on dry dive bombing runs in Montreal.   I think we might face some blowback from the locals. 

Now if I can figure out how to get to Greece, load that plane onto a ship, get it over here, find some guys to completely rebuild it, sneak the Land Sailor across the Canadian border, and then fly across with him to Montreal to rule the skies, I will really have something.  I don’t know.  Maybe I should just do a GoFundMe “Pandemic Recovery Concert” live on Facebook instead.  Maybe it will help.