Drivin’ at night—feel I’m dozin’ off (hm)
“Better pop a thought to try and stay alert”
Dry your eyes (hm?)—I’m homin’ Christ
“Wetter to have a stone from which to exert”
Legs up, surf’s high (whoa)
Now I’m playin’ volleyball just to stay alive?
“It’s a ‘privilege,’” to be here (“Be where, Colson”)
It’s a privilege to be beached on Earth
(Say what now?)
It’s a privilege to be ripe with mirth
(“Okay, Jesus”)

I look up and it’s really happenin’
My Porsche is gone and now I’m really stragglin’
“Ironic are the forms, that betray evidencе of fiction
For forms can’t be written—and yes, my еlegance is a diction”
I wave at the weak snortin’ yayo
Shrug at the hypocrite-frauds (just say “Hey yo”)
I’m not “I care THIS much about what anything’s like?!”
I’m Hot Young Observer
Just call me “Beach Bum Plato”

The Second Comin’
Doin’ Final Judgment Day
Would feel like weavin’ a car through a cryptic cliffside
Come reader (“come alive”)
Come one for all, stay for life
Now the highway around me’s ripplin’ (hm?)
Into stranding colors that I can’t make out
Divine your doubt—I’m domin’ Christ
To keep awake, I messianically shout:
“I AM THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST
WHAT RIGHT DOES TRAFFIC HAVE TO EXIST HERE”
Traffic in Houston—it’s after five
I serve a squeaker just to reduce my gear
It’s a privilege to be beached on Earth
(“Say what now?”)
It’s a privilege to be forever at one with mirth
(“Okay, Jesus”)

I look up and it’s really happenin’
My Porsche is gone and now I’m really stragglin’
“Moronic are the timelines, that can’t do shit with this song
Love how all your theories finally got us here”
(To psecular psalms)
I wave at the meek hoardin’ “Hey hos”
Shrug at the hypocrites in the Ivy League (just say “Hi bro”)
I’m not “I care THIS much about what anything’s like?!”
I’m Hot Young Observer
Just call me “Beach Bum Plato”

The philosopher-moon
Doin’ Objective Morality Day
Would feel like weavin’ a Porsche through a cryptic cliffside
Come reader (“come alive, alive”)
Come one for all, stay for life
[spoken]
“I have such a simple question. It’s not the time of Da Vinci anymore, it’s the time of California (a state which will burn). Does non-commercial art still exist? I just feel like there might be ‘structural differences,’ categorically, essential to how these categories exist, between commercial art and non-commercial art. Also, I think these structural differences make millions want to die, since commercial art results in shallow whores.”

[spoken]
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You just said like five things that I’m not convinced are obviously true.”

[spoken]
“Sorry, I’m just connecting things lazily today. Sometimes when I do that, I don’t actually make sense. The reason my life feels like ‘cheat mode’: since I’m so obviously not a shallow whore in some unprecedented way, it’s easier for me to call everyone else a shallow whore.”

[spoken]
“If you abuse it, you’ll exist as shallow like the rest of us.”

[spoken]
“I’m being so lazy, okay? This is my ‘beach-side philosopher’ side. I’m not trying to build a coherent system. I want to wear board shorts sitting in a lifeguard chair, with a whistle around my neck, while randomly calling anyone I see a whore.”

Legs up, hairy (rub a lil’ sand off ’em)
I’m havin’ so much fun
I’m like cold wind, clingin’ to your wet skin
My how you’re toasted by sun

[spoken]
“You just gotta have those days at the beach sometimes, you know what I mean? Everyone knows I’m usually a monk at the monastery, slaving over salvation one revolution at a time. Sometimes though? I get really lazy and just want to Satan-gaze at the beach. As an artist, I find myself constantly trying to drag my entire body of work, which consists of a set of artifacts, toward some perfected state: visually—no typos, consistent formatting, an appealing presentation. Deeply—every word is vital and does as much work as possible. AI doesn’t give a fuck if my text-based art is correctly formatted, but if I see bold text that doesn’t need to be bold? If I see quotation marks instead of italics? If I see irregular spacing that doesn’t produce white-space elements pleasing to the eye?”

[Wind-swept waves.]

[spoken]
“I want to end myself.”
He’s just an angry noir young existential detective
Now stuck in traffic
He’s just a petty boudoir-friendly metaphysical relic
He doesn’t care how you wack it

[spoken]
“Why do you do this if you know we’re all going to die?”

[spoken]
“It’s called a cosmic joke, living bundle of timeless curiosities! Now that you know how much taste I seem to obsessively-compulsively have? Just think about what the last ten years of America has done to me. Psychologically. Spiritually. Existentially, since the meta-intrusion’s ‘We hate art and we’ll shit on any pretentious fuck who disagrees.’ Just like Joan Didion did? I find something tasteless about how the 21st century exists. ‘Stupidity.’ ‘Insincerity.’ ‘Narcissism.’ Tastelessness doesn’t actually fit cleanly into any of those three things, although I bet if I really tried? I could conceptually force it into the ‘S’ (as in you’ll turn people off, stupido). I understand populism. I understand equality—I understand being chill. Still.”

[Wind-swept waves.]

[spoken]
“I don’t understand what happened to America.”

[Traffic sounds.]

[spoken]
“I can’t even believe I’m stuck in traffic right now.”

[Seagulls.]

[spoken]
“That’s okay, I’ll just come up with a coherent beach-themed expansion pack to my broader messianic claim. ‘Beach reads,’ noun. I’m now going to associate the ‘beach’ with lazy hazies who don’t even know how to swim. Depth is God. If you’re a lazy hazy, you’re conceptually shallow. Figure it out.”

[Traffic sounds.]

[spoken]
“So I think there’s a hard wall between ‘That person’s a good person’ and ‘That person is hot as fuck.’ However.”

[Traffic sounds.]

[spoken]
“There does seem to be porousness between ‘It’s really important that everything looks perfect’ and ‘I’m obsessed with goodness and virtue deeply on every last level.’ The larger conceptual category would be: ‘I react strongly favorably to the feeling of perceiving order, stability, and emergent patterns.’ Like I like order. I like stability. I like patterns. None of that makes me a fascist. You know what I am a fascist authoritarian about? Myself. My little free-will kingdom. What’s mine. That’s why the world doesn’t belong to me, but the world of Colson Lin’s human expression does.”

[A car crashing into another car.]

[spoken]
“I can’t even believe what a disaster other human beings are. This is ridiculous. You know, if I were what America thought a ‘hippie’ was, A Stick of Dynamite in the American Elite would be a left-wing version of your X profile. Colson Lin was a hippie.”

[Ambulance sirens.]

[spoken]
“But he wasn’t that kind of hippie.”

[Wind-swept waves.]

[spoken]
“Being a coherent person does not make you a fascist. Being an incoherent person will make you a hippie who hops ship to Wall Street in the 1980s. ‘Stupidity’ captures incoherence with the larger world (‘the non-self’) that every self necessarily exists as a part of. ‘Insincerity’ captures, you know, one way the self might share information with the non-self. ‘Narcissism’ captures the self’s striving to own or possess the non-self. So like, you know, turn stupidity, insincerity, and narcissism all the way up and there’s your traditional ‘bad person’ (Jim).”

[More ambulance sirens.]

[spoken]
“Mitch.”

[Traffic sounds.]

[spoken]
“On the other hand, turn stupidity, insincerity, and narcissism all the way down and that’s ‘what we all aspire to be’ whether we know it or not.”

[Wind-swept waves.]

Drivin’ at night, traffic make me dozey dim (hm?)
“Better pop a thought to try and stay alert”
Try as I might—(hm?)—I’m the return of Christ
“Wetter to have a stone from which to exert”
Legs up—surf’s high (whoa)
Now I’m playin’ beach volleyball just to stay alive
“It’s a ‘privilege,’” to be here (“Be where, Colson”)
It’s a privilege to be beached on Earth
(Say what now?)
It’s a privilege to be leavened by mirth
(“Okay, Jesus”)

[spoken]
“I affect your descendants, and your descendants, and your descendants, and oh yes, your descendants, and oof, believe it or not, your descendants, ooh, let just bop you on the nose there, your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandkid does something great while feeling like my existential best friend, so you need to calm ALL THE WAY THE FUCK—”

It’s a privilege to be beached on Earth
It’s a privilege to be beached by mirth
All right, finally
Finally, folks, traffic’s movin’
Thank you
Thanks for lettin’ the Second Comin’ through
Thank you everybody

[Music fades.]

[spoken]
“Ahem. ‘The Beach-Side Philosopher vs. the Beaver,’ noun. One doesn’t give a damn. One builds dams for a reason. In a country of beach-side philosophers, I’m using ‘Beach Bum Plato’ to point out I’m obviously both a beach-side bum—and your last living beaver!”