At this point (Ian write the fucking column!), it’s old news that Desus & Mero have broken-up. Sundered not just their business ventures, but also their friendship. Both said sunderings caught people by surprise, but I think it’s the latter that struck us in the asshole with the jagged-edges of a bolt from Mount Olympus. I think the announcement shocked us most not because D&M’s creative endeavors were done, but rather what their parting writ large on all our naïve foreheads. Permanent marker. Poorly scrawled.

Things get tricky when involving bros and brands.

Somewhat apropos, the news dropped the same week as Jordan Peele’s new (dope) horror movie, Nope. Peele was a member of another verdant comedy two-piece, that of Key & Peele. But while Desus & Mero’s falling out involved shitty subtweets, rumors, beefs, All-Caps Fuckdowns (that’s when you fucking smack someone down, it’s a corny word I just made up, but I’m a corny white dude), and general messiness, the splitting up of Key and Peele felt more like a conscious uncoupling.

Still.

Things get tricky when involving bros and brands.

I found it hard not to think about these two famous pairs going their own ways and not reflect upon my own bullshit here on the Space-Ship Omega. All the friends I’ve worked with, and subsequently watched drift away, find their own pursuits, and empty out their compartments aboard OL. I mean, that’s what we all do, right? Suffer from Main Character Syndrome these days. Some Main Characters are intelligent, some are quirky. This Main Character plays thousands of hours of Dead Cells, consumes enough caffeine to kill a Goliath, and eats shit on the regular mountain biking.

OL has gone from the Brothers Omega, to the Gathering of the Juggalos-levels of madness, to me sitting upon upon the MindPerch controlling the Destinatron of the Space-Ship. But that’s life.

You know?

Things get tricky when involving bros and brands.

But I think it’s only problematic when the growth ain’t embraced. It’s one thing to evolve and grow apart. In a lot of ways, duos, gangs, and gaggles of fuckfaces should encourage one another to grow. Most of the time that’s healthy as fuck, even if it means splitting up the Gang.

(Except in the case of RATM devolving into Audioslave, that shit is both gross and unacceptable.)

For one’s self to not grow is worse. To not encourage those you care about to develop because you’re satisfied with who they are now is selfish. To cling to a status quo or an ossified endeavor (how many seasons of Key & Peele did we really need?) instead of chasing that next piece of your development ain’t the right move.

The emotional catastrophe strikes when these changes breed resentment. We ain’t crying cause Key & Peele broke up, though we may be sad that the show ended. We ain’t crying because Desus and Mero are no longer are sitting across from one another. We’re crying because we bought into their friendship and we have seen that torn apart. It ain’t their show ending that’s a bummer, it’s what it represents.

A relationship caved in under the pressure of success, a lack of respect for one another’s evolution, and the sundry things that emerge when friendships meet bottom lines. When friendships meet workloads. When friendships meet deadlines. And (I’ve never had this problem) when friendships meet profit margins, contract talks, and cold hard cash.

Things get tricky when involving bros and brands.

That said, at the end of the day I’d rather be the lone steward here of the Space-Ship than have those I care about unwillingly chained to the uranium-pits in the reactor room feeding the Engine, because that was the way things where when we were thriving. In my personal life, I want to see my friends evolve, grow, and find peace. However, it is a lot easier to wish for that when it doesn’t materially impact a shared creation.

Such a realization is born out of my own growth, though. An acknowledgement that despite being the Main Character in the Hellscape that is modernity, I’m actually not the Main Character. I’m just another actor in the throat of a large actor-network and to encourage is to promote, and to cling is to cleave.

I genuinely don’t know what the fuck I’m going on about. Friendships, failed relationships, and the Space-Ship Omega.

This is Monday Morning Commute.

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Lucy’s been sleeping a lot more in her dirt holes this summer. Outside, conked out, oblivious to the dirt she’s covered in. Oblivious to the inexorable march of time that has her sleeping more. Oblivious to a lot of things.

It’s adorable, her sleeping in the dirt holes. I don’t have a problem with her doing so, even if she tracks dirt, dust, and the random errant branch into the house.

It’s what it portends.

I’ve been staring a lot more in the mirror lately trying to understand the face looking back. My nose is sharper. My eyes a bit more wearied. Not the face that I picture when I close my eyes. I told my wife that I was concerned I was aging. Bad news, she said. We’re all aging. I clarified that I was concerned I was aging poorly. No, she said. She told me she enjoyed the chin of my beard going gray. I suppose I don’t mind it the grays themselves.

It’s what it portends.

Last week the head of my department called me up. Asked me if I’d be willing to teach a different course, for my fourth course of the semester. You see, the sections of my usual course weren’t filling up. It’s all a numbers game. Hell yeah, I told him. I’d be happy to. In fact, the course he proposed was something I was interested in teaching in the Fall. It isn’t really the switch of the course that concerns me.

It’s what it portends.

Last week, I had to go to my therapy session equipped with the answer to her question from the prior one. She wanted to know what life would be like if I woke up one day “completely healed” of my mental maladies. She called it the magical serum question. I spent a good amount of the week leading up to the session thinking about her homework assignment.

The truth is, I don’t think I really had a good answer. But I told her I want to be able to live in the moment more. To be present. It’s not a particularly stunning revelation, not a particularly eye-opening wish, especially for someone with anxiety. But as the week passed, and I found myself saddened at my dog’s life winding down, or at my own face in the mirror, or at my potential course load down the line, I realized I was tired. Tired of always asking myself.

What does it portend?

This is Monday Morning Commute.

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