COVID39

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Reckoning of the Goddess

Breakfast With The Goddess - 4 Sitar by CalifKen of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

The final episode. As usual, thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters who continue to risk their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thank you to the volunteers at vaccination sites across the country getting needles into arms. Thank you to the messengers within communities acting as public health advocates. Thank you MBK. Thank you It’s All Love. Thank you moms. Thank you Knight. Thank you Sage. Halle, from the bottom of my heart, this wasn’t covered in our vows, but you showed up when you were exhausted, when you were hungry and when the last thing either of us wanted to do was wedge ourselves in that tiny closet. Thank you baby. You the best music. Dedicated to the memory of father.

#covid39 #covid19 #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #flattenthecurve #stayathome #atlanta #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #newpodcast #audiostories #amplifymelanatedvoices #amplifyblackvoices #shareblackstories #tiktok #afrofuturism #blackaudiodrama #bipoc #stopasianhate #blm #blacklivesmatter #backgroundchecks #guncontrol

COVID39: Chapter 38

Sun, 28 Mar 2021 22:28:07 +0000

Shane is in danger and Randi can no longer help him

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

Emmeret Ko Olubajo Sonubi

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Unholstered Gun

revolver_holster_02.wav by Fewes of freesound.org

Music

Betrayal

The Open Casket by Planetjazzbass of looperman.com

Party Letter

Simple Drum Party 2 by metabear of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters risking their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thanks dad. You can see from the header that this letter is pretty special. It’s Game Night, and we’re all here. We are hoping that this tradition is still going strong in the future. All of us are contributing to this, but it’s Desmond doing the typing. The work never stops. Anyway, we just all learned from you kids a mystery that has been percolating in our households for a few years now and we just wanted to share the moment it all came together for the sake of posterity. We were playing Taboo and Shane was giving the clues to Randi, because of course you two were on the same team. He kept yelling Randi! Randi! And she was like, what? Say something! Give a clue! And Shane said I am! It’s your name! And she said I know my name! That’s not a clue! Now, you have no idea how entertaining it was to watch you two get so frustrated with one another, but finally the sand runs out and Jude, gleefully, presses the buzzer next to Shane’s ear. After we pulled the two of you apart we finally get to look at the card that started all of this. It was Marathon. One of the words on the card was “run”. Which got us all to thinking, where did that come from? One day that’s just what Shane called Randi and what Randi answered to and none of us had ever gotten around to asking where it came from? As you read this now, lord knows when, do you remember? Well, this is what you told us. One day Shane and Jude were having a discussion about nicknames and how they were’nt eligible. Because each of their names was one syllable and you don’t get to get a nickname if your name is one syllable, unless of course you just go by the first letter of your name. But Shane thought “S” just didn’t sound right and Jude thought “J” was cool, but always really liked Jude, and since it took the same amount of time to say, what was the point? Harrison chimed in with his disdain for Harry and offered that Randi didn’t get a nickname because she was a girl. This didn’t sit well with Shane. So you all started troubleshooting it. Eventually Harrison and Jude got bored and went off to break something valuable, as is their way. So the two of you, Randi and Shane, approached it “logically”. Shane thought the simplest route was to shorten Randi to Ran, but neither of you was convinced. Randi liked Dee, but Shane thought it was too girly. Randi didn’t like the sound of that, but Shane explained that it needed to sound like a boss, because, Randi was the boss. She disagreed, and thought girly and boss could be the same thing, but Shane didn’t want to belabor the point. Randi kept ticking off prototypes when she realized Shane hadn’t said anything in a while. When she looked up he was smiling. He said, Run. Randi needed convincing, so Shane explained. “Run” is “ran” but like now, instead of before. It’s in the present. It makes it sound like you’re fast. She was coming around, but she needed a nudge, and Shane provided one. He said, plus it’s like that rap group. Run DMC. Walk This Way he said. My Adidas he said. And then two things happened. One, Randi lit up because she liked the sound of that. She had just been staring down at the pair of Adidas on her feet and it all felt right, plus she loved those songs, and although she didn’t say it at the time, it meant a lot to her that Shane thought so long and hard about a nickname that was worthy of her. But the second thing that happened, and this is the most important, is that we, as your parents, realized we have been raising you right! Run DMC? We didn’t even know you’d been put on! The pride we feel in this moment, as your family, you have no idea. No matter where you are kids, know that we love you and we are so proud of you and now we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you will be okay, because your taste is impeccable, especially when it comes to one another.

The Fullest Look Yet at the Racial Inequity of Coronavirus

COVID39: Chapter 37

Sun, 28 Mar 2021 05:48:57 +0000

The Tall Man Cometh

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

Emmeret Ko Olubajo Sonubi

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

The Q

Angelic Vibes 8 Abelouis by abelouis of looperman.com

Desmond’s Letter Theme

Violin Funeral Of A Viking by Genamusic of looperman.com

Betrayal

The Open Casket by Planetjazzbass of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed, and Produced by Mark Millien

Glossary

funnel: the term, interchangeable with correspondence variable, Emmeret Ko uses for the letters. The specific sequencing of words when read in their entirety comprise magnitudes of additional data that funnels into a prepared mind for assimilation.

Desmond’s Letter

John Lewis died yesterday. What an odd thing to have happened. I say odd because it’s insulation I think against the pain. He was arrested more than 40 times, beaten almost to death, outlived King, his friend, and saw the first Black president swear an oath to the Constitution on King’s worn travel bible on the day we celebrate his birth. And underneath that Bible, was Lincoln’s. He was more than a witness to history; he was an author of it. He was there when the Voting Rights Act was passed and also there to see it gutted. He marched for his life and saw the world march in solidarity in what would be his final summer, for all of the things he had dedicated his life too. I wonder, deep down, if he was joyous to see how far we had come or saddened to see how little had changed. People are never just anyone thing, so I’m sure it was a combination of both, but in what proportion? I can’t imagine. C.T. Vivian, another civil rights leader and the greatest preacher ever to preach, according to King, also died yesterday. Dr. King believed in heaven and if there is such a thing, I hope their reunion was full of charming half lies and full funny truths. The Fourth of July was a couple of weeks ago and, like so many things this year, it was just so strange. The president held two speeches. One at Mt. Rushmore, a place he expects to add his profile at some point in the future. I wish you could reach back and tell me if that has happened, but I imagine his aspiration will fizzle along with the other walls or towers he has failed to construct. He compared the democratic party to Nazis, at the White House, on the Fourth of July. It’s a common refrain these days but I was shocked and in no way surprised. He barely mentioned the virus but scientists from around the world are petitioning the World Health Organization to amend their findings on whether it is airborne, as the science suggests, but the WHO stubbornly refuses to state conclusively. The New York Times sued the CDC for demographic information regarding infection and death rates. It found that Blacks and Latinos, across all environments and age groups, are three times as likely to contract the virus and twice as likely to die from it. According to reports the president is trying to make sure that money for testing and contact tracing dries up so that the numbers won’t continue to increase in the press, as if that’s a thing, while continuing to suggest that’s it’s all going to just disappear. The protests, and the abuse, continue. Three cops were fired for re-enacting the death of Elijah McClain. There’s a hearing on Monday for a girl from Michigan, they call her Grace, but that isn’t her real name. She was sent to prison back in May by a judge for not finishing online assignments. There is a Strike for Black Lives event scheduled the same day. Thousands and thousands walking out on the job all across the country to demand corporations back up their support of black people in more than just slogans, tweets, and superficial performative activism. There has also been some encouraging news. Justice Ginsburg’s cancer has returned but she says she’s fully able to remain on the court despite the chemotherapy. The Pentagon has banned the Confederate flag on all U.S. bases, despite the president’s objections, and all the charges against a group of protesters who congregated in front of the Louisville D.A.’s home, calling for a real investigation and justice for Breonna Taylor, were dropped by the prosecutor. But there is something that happened recently that I really want you to know about. It’s called the Wall of Moms. In Portland, there are vans of unidentified federal officers kidnapping protesters. They just pull up, jump out of a vehicle, restrain someone, and flee the scene. They don’t arrest them or read them their rights or charge them with anything. A news organization came across an internal memo from Customs and Border Protection that said these agents would be deployed in perpetuity and in secret. So, a group of mothers, many of whom are vulnerable to the virus, have positioned themselves along the perimeters of demonstrating peaceful protesters to help keep them safe. They are putting themselves in harm’s way to protect their children and the children of others. I want you to remember this because this is my last letter to you boys. Before they come and take you away from me, I am going to make sure that you are taken care of. There is a policy in my name wherein the two of you and Harrison and Randi are the only beneficiaries. If the insurance company saw this, they would deny your claim, so I’ve hidden it in this time capsule so that by the time you read this, the money will have been paid out, and you four won’t have to ever worry about money. Just make sure you don’t share this with anyone other than yourselves, so they don’t come after it. I know I’m taking a risk by writing this down, but I couldn’t accept the idea that I would disappear from your lives and you would always have questions. I don’t want any part of your memory of me to be a puzzle you need to solve. The only other person I’ve told is Eve. I shouldn’t have, but I love her and was too selfish to die without her knowing just how much. You are both with her now, as I write this. When the time comes, and you want to know all there is to know about me, she’s who you should go to. You two said goodbye to Randi yesterday. I took her to this Institute that is willing to pay a stipend to tutor her. The administrator there has determined from some tests she took last year that she is extremely gifted, and they’ve given her a scholarship. I’ve mentioned him before. He’s so different from anyone I’ve ever met he doesn’t seem real, like a shadow you can’t hide from who is pretending to be a person but can see right through you. I’ve never let him come around when you two were here since that first day, but he just seems to show up when I think of him, answering questions I haven’t asked. It was Randi who convinced me. She said she wanted to go with him, that he had a lot to teach her. I didn’t trust it at first. I was worried that maybe he’d been in contact with her somehow and had coerced for some other reasons. But she looked at me and all of a sudden, she was so much older, so confident. She told me that she loved me and that I had nothing to worry about and thanked me for loving her. She told me not to feel hurt that she wanted to go, that it wasn’t because I wasn’t family, but because she knew that her education would help us all one day. Her certainty reminded me of him. The foster agency said they would monitor him over the coming months and his background checked out. You were sad but not as sad as I expected. I hope that as you are reading this the four of you are all together, maybe with your own families, hopefully not judging me too harshly. If you see this as weakness, that’s okay. I love you. If you see this as strength, that’s very generous, and I love you. I was present in every moment I spent with you and wouldn’t trade any of them. What happened is boringly simple. I realized that I am better to you, can offer you more, dead than alive. I’m not scared, but I’m sorry I didn’t figure out a way to be both. Provide for you in the way you deserve while loving you. I like to drive, and when they find me, know that your father was thinking of you and all the moonlit skies teeming with stars, that are your celestial birthright, my princes. My boys.

#covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #newpodcast #audiostories #amplifymelanatedvoices #amplifyblackvoices #shareblackstories #tiktok #afrofuturism #blackaudiodrama

Elijah McClain Vigil: Part I

COVID39: Chapter 36

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 05:56:11 +0000

Randi and Shane find what they have been searching for.

Tyler Gerth

Elijah McClain Vigil: Part II

Stonewall

Three N.C. Officers Fired

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Eve’s Letter Theme

Prayer Guitar Loop by itsrighter of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Glossary

The Blue Fall: a three year period where police officers connected to the killings of unarmed black men and women died under mysterious and unrelated circumstances.

Raguel: the angel of vengeance among the Abrahamic tradition.

Eve’s Letter

Jude and Shane, I’ve spent days trying to write this letter. I don’t think I’ve figured out how to do what I was asked to do, but if I put it off any longer I’ll lose my courage. Your dad’s instructions are specific and I will do my best to abide by them. I’m supposed to tell you what’s happening in the world. It’s been a hard time for everyone, but for you two, it’s been particularly cruel. I want to tell you that everything will be okay but when you read this, you’ll know better than me. Can you find me then, and let me know if I was right? I hope by the time you read this we’ve seen each other many times since your mother’s funeral. I didn’t visit as often as I wanted before the world shut down and now I wish I’d used every red cent on a flight to be with the people I love. If any of us had known, we would’ve been crisscrossing the skies like locusts. I’m stalling. First, what’s happening. Connecticut and Rhode Island are the only two states that saw a decline in new cases this week. I’ve never been to either, but it sounds like they may have a modicum of their shit together. It’s almost July. Friday saw the largest single day number of cases since this all began. We have one quarter of the world’s cases and deaths and 4% of the population. As bad as things are, no one is as upset as they should be at the things they should be upset about. No one seems to really sit with how badly we’ve mismanaged this. Maybe because it wouldn’t help to dwell on it, but I think it’s because we are isolated from one another and the devastation hasn’t hit home for so many of us in a way that makes the numbers make sense. At least, for most of us. The Florida and Texas governors won’t issue mask mandates. The Vice President was just in Dallas, getting serenaded by an unmasked choir of more than a hundred pious fools from a pew right up front. Over the weekend there were reports that the administration removed thousands of social distancing signs at the Tulsa rally. I wonder, at this age, what you think of cops? Has it changed since you were children? Do they even exist in the same capacity? Some of them are being exposed for being the vile terrorists they are. In California, Alabama, North Carolina. A cop there was caught on tape saying he “can’t wait to start slaughtering” Black people. It’s been 108 days since Breonna Taylor was killed and still no arrests. A man fired more than a dozen shots into a crowd of protesters demanding justice for her, or at least a shred of accountability, and killed a young photographer who supported the demonstration. Riot police broke up a peaceful violin vigil for Elijah McClain with pepper spray and batons. After the Minneapolis city council voted to defund their police department, we’re seeing protesters in New York and Seattle laying siege to City Hall and the private residence of the mayor while thousands marched in solidarity for the 51st anniversary of the Stonewall riots. People hate the word incremental. The quick translation is “draggin your feet”, but it feels like this is different. It feels like maybe this is lasting. Maybe you’ll remember the marches as an icon of liberty that you didn’t have to inherit, a relic of your childhood that shocks you into appreciation for what you have. Facebook had to change its policies by labeling important posts and deleting anything that incites violence after a hundred companies boycotted spending advertising dollars on their platform. That couldn’t have happened without everyday people using their voice, making themselves heard, and refusing to be mollified into going back to the way things were. Mississippi abolished their state flag. Mississippi. Georgia was one of four states who still didn’t have any hate crime laws on the books, but Governor Kemp, who stole an election from Stacey Abrams, signed one into law on Friday. There’s no appetite to rejoice with everything still so dark, but maybe there’s some light leaking in. Any splinter of sunlight has to make it past the storm cloud that is 45. The Russian government offered bounties for American troops serving in Afghanistan, and while it’s not clear right now what he knew and what he didn’t it is clear that he’s incompetent and unfit, so does it matter? Second, I’m supposed to tell you about your father. I think he wants me to absolve him. I can’t do that. I won’t do that. He’s told me that he has made a plan. I can only tell you this. He is certain. He is certain that this is the only way to care for the two of you in the way that you will need. I hate that he told me. I hate that him for loving him, but boys, I can tell you that he is convinced in a way that is hard to put into words. He was calm and casual and still so full of love for the both of you. He warned me that if I told anyone that people would take you away, and that that would be worse. And for better or for worse I believed him. He told me that I was the only one he trusted, the only one left, to leave you with what he couldn’t. Answers. And certainty. That he did what he did for you no matter how selfish or insane that may sound. It has been a terrible burden to live with but I am no victim. I was a willing participant in keeping this from you and for that I can’t even begin to ask for your forgiveness. I can’t even ask for your understanding. Instead, any hate you may still carry for your father, I ask that you carry it for me instead. He was weak and I should have been stronger. Lastly, he wanted me to tell you two something that makes no sense to me but I’m hoping will provide closure or meaning to the two of you. Your father was never religious before but perhaps we all find God at the end. He told me to tell you “He saved us once, he saved us twice, but when he rises, we must save ourselves.” I’ve looked it up but if it’s scripture Google doesn’t know it. If it’s a prayer between a father and his sons, I pray it is heard and answered. Sweet boys, you deserved better. I will love you until the end of my days.

#covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #newpodcast #audiostories #amplifymelanatedvoices #amplifyblackvoices #shareblackstories #tiktok #dad

COVID39: Chapter 35

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 08:24:36 +0000

Shane is concerned about what Randi is becoming.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Desmond’s Letter Theme

Trap Guitar Ballad by Katace

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Glossary

Desmond’s Letter

I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I’m asking for it anyway. My glass of Maker’s Mark isn’t absolving me or providing penance, each prayer just burns my throat. I’m not going to make excuses, but I need you both to understand. You see, the first thing the pandemic taught me is that the world doesn’t need me. I have no value. My hand isn’t out for anyone’s pity. It’s just an understanding the Universe and I have come to. I don’t create or manage wealth. I pour celebrations you can sip, or fogs where you can hide, or fuel for your rage, misery, and loneliness. I used to think of myself as a middle man to an experience. I’m a good listener, a good servant. I smile and people feel at ease even if they don’t really see me. Now? There is nothing to celebrate, no need to hide, and liquor stores might as well be pharmacies. On my best days, my very best weeks, my most outstanding months, my contributions to our home were meager, almost counter productive. I raised you boys and I love you with all of me, but I didn’t raise you because I love you. I raised you because it was my only path to being useful. My only mitigation for being a parasite. Child Services were there at your mother’s funeral. It took me a while to understand what they were saying when they started talking. Your mom was in earshot, just a few feet away, separated only by a gleaming platinum coffin and a fresh dug hole. There were only ten people allowed to be there, but there they were. A man and a woman, tired looking predators, like lazy vultures circling on stolen wind. I kept wondering, how’d they get there so quick. Was my name on a file somewhere, tied to a string? When she died, did the string get cut? Did my file pop up like bread from a toaster and drop in some social worker’s outstretched hand? There they were, with questions and concerns as empty as thoughts and prayers. Each of us played our part, but we all knew how it would turn out. At least I thought I did. I was wrong. It’s important that you understand what today looks like, so you can decide for yourselves who I was, given some context. The pandemic has killed almost half a million people across the world. Here in Texas cases have risen 100% over the last 30 days. In California it’s now against the law to go outside without a mask. It was Juneteenth this weekend, and the president took credit for making it famous. He organized a large rally in Tulsa. Oklahoma has broken a record for cases every day this week. Health officials were “concerned” but he refused to cancel it, though he did make those attending sign a waiver, in the event someone gets sick later, or worse, and he did move the date back a day after people protested. Prominent black supporters were there to offset the outrage like Black Voices for Trump Advisory Board members and Herman Cain. A black woman in the administration resigned over how the president has reacted to the protests. She was the Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs, instrumental in securing conservative judges and Justices, the ones who will levy the rope for the men and women the Supremacist in Chief serves up on a rhetorical platter. A federal prosecutor refused to resign after the Attorney General fired him. He’s been looking into the president and his associates but it feels like more false Mueller hope. In Atlanta, the officers who shot Rayshard Brooks turned themselves in. He was asleep at the wheel at a Wendy’s drive thru. After a lengthy conversation and sobriety tests they attempted to arrest him, but he resisted. Wrestled a taser away somehow, then ran. One of them shot him in the back. A bunch of cops called out in protest or said they would only answer emergency calls involving other cops. Amy Klobuchar removed herself from consideration as Candidate Biden’s VP, paving the way for a woman of color, which is what I’m sure she’s always wanted. I shouldn’t judge. I guess we are all trying to meet the moment the best that we can. Ha. The best we can. 45 million people have filed for unemployment since March, but Bezos and Zuckerberg have added $76 billion dollars between them to their own personal wealth. It’s hard to imagine money like that, even for people who have lots of money. Millionaires don’t quite understand it themselves until they are given a framework they can wrap their minds around. Like this one. One million seconds is equivalent to 11 and a half days. One billion seconds is 31 and a half years. I’ll never see 11 days worth of seconds in my bank account, but if it was missing from theirs its hard to imagine they would notice. How easy is it to forget 11 days if you’ve lived 6,000 years. That’s how many seconds of money Jeff Bezos has personally, today. He’s on pace to become the world’s first trillionaire by 2026. By the time you read this, he will be truly immortal, worth more than all of humanity put together, Emperor of Eternity. What am I to that? What are any of us? I am talking about Lord Amazon but I’m thinking, as I write these words, of someone else. A being that makes Bezos seem scant, like Jupiter in the sun’s shadow. I am only a man and this is no longer the time of men. It is the time of Gods.

Bonus Pod

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 05:18:24 +0000

COVID39: Chapter 34

Mon, 07 Sep 2020 02:14:25 +0000

Randi confronts a stranger she knows. Cast Randi Halle Millien Shane Mark Millien Victor Coyotito Kelly / Mark Millien SFX and Music Contributors SFX Q Tone [Query] Tone 4.wav by patchen of freesound.org Q Tone [Response] Tone 3.wav by patchen of freesound.org Victor Drop thud2.wav by Topschool of freesound.org The L FOLEY - BODY FALL IMPACT.wav by cjosephwalker of freesound.org Music Marcus’ Letter Theme Twilight Zone by MelodicMoe of looperman.com Created by Mark and Halle Millien Cover Art by Halle Millien Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien Thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters risking their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thanks dad. To Mitch, who I originally wanted to for the role of Victor, I dedicate this to your wellness and freedom. Glossary ECCO: multinational corporation specializing in deep fake and catfish tech. modulator: a voice synthesizer that mimics real voices from high quality samples. #covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #newpodcast #audiostories #amplifymelanatedvoices #amplifyblackvoices #shareblackstories #tiktok #dad Marcus’ Letter: When your folks sent out the email for this project I was like cool, I dig time capsules. But then I was like, shit, that means I gotta type an email. I know that I could’ve left a video or audio joint, but I felt like with everything going on, I wanted to type something that I could edit and get right. That I could look at and read through, and if I read it out loud it would’ve felt like a performance, and given the moment we’re living through, I wanted to do it justice. And so it took me awhile to get it together and send this out. Your dad’s are my oldest friends, so this is humbling, I take this very personally. You aren’t too young to understand what’s going on. You’re all smart kids. I think about y’all a lot, wondering what the world will be like when you’re my age. What you’ll remember about this time we’re all surviving. I know people who have lost someone recently. Some because of COVID, some just because they were unlucky enough to die during a pandemic. I’ve heard about the awkward Zoom ceremonies. Old people not knowing to mute their feed or unaware that any noise they make centers the video away from whomever is speaking. Rambling. And the typical inappropriate speeches that go on that seem more cringey because you’re wearing a bathrobe while giving it. Today was George Floyd’s memorial. Al Sharpton was there, of course. He beseeched those in earshot, America in this case, to get your knees off our necks. I wonder what America will do with that advice. She’s always been a stubborn kind of kid, convinced of her own nobility despite evidence to the contrary. They set bail for the officers, the other three that were there when Floyd died, at $750,000. Seems like a lot, but the police unions have fairly deep pockets. Police unions. Who knew there were ANY unions left with power, much less ones holding cities hostage. We’ve learned a lot about cops lately. We, US, we always knew but now everyone is getting glimpses. Like how often and to what degree the police will blatantly lie. There was this protester in Buffalo who the police pushed over as they went to close off the area. Pushed him to the ground and left him to spasm and bleed on the pavement. He was a 75 year old white man. They said he tripped and fell when there’s clear video evidence that he was pushed. White people are getting a front row seat to how they manipulate the narrative unfairly, triggering fresh distrust in communities with calcified police resentment. It’s also an opportunity for people with no interest in the truth to tell you how they really feel. It’s...so crazy. These people think we don’t like the police because they stop us from being the criminals we were born to be. Dogwhistles are gone. Now they just say it. Honestly, I’m thankful for it, because it reconciles so many things I never really understood before. How they absentmindedly strip us of our humanity. How the tears of white women super-cede the lives of black women. It’s because they really think we foster a culture of crime that comes to us naturally, genetically. Like we’re the human version of pit bulls, prone to aggression and a physiological yearning for rigid discipline. Some of them know the history and dismiss it. How cops were always the enforcers of legal inequalities. The word systemic scares them so much that they’ve forgotten that Jim Crow refers to a set of laws, not strongly held opinions or cultural norms. Forgotten is my way of being generous. Separate but equal was always a spoonful of sugar in a barrel of poison and they knew it then and they know it now. They’ve always been talented at telling digestible lies designed to hide inconvenient truths. We want to close abortion clinics to protect the health of women. We want to support ID and signature laws to protect the integrity of elections, even though there is zero evidence of widespread voter fraud. Climate change is a hoax. Dogmatic individualism, except when it comes to a woman’s body. Guns rights, unless the cold dead hands holding them are black or brown. And on and on and on. I wonder what stories the right wing will make up about this old man. His age won’t save him, not from their machine. There’s evidence that Travis McMichael, the white man that shot Ahmaud Arbery, called him a fucking nigger, as he lay there dying. Dying because Travis shot him. I wonder how long it will be before they stand before a judge, him, his father, and their neighbor, and claim that they aren’t guilty of anything, that they did nothing wrong and that he was armed with the concrete of the road, like Trayvon’s lawyer argured. Given the tumultuous times, the president decided he wasn’t safe enough behind the walls of the White House or the men and women of the Secret Service or his military attaches and what not, so he built a wall around it, the White House, so that the protesters can’t get him. I wonder if it’ll still be up as some kind of odd monument somewhere when you hear this. Tattooed in black lives matter iconography. I look around at a lot of things and wonder if they’ll be in a museum someday. So much about now seems destined for archives and study and discussion. How did we get here? Are these the last days of the last empire? Will we be mourned? What will be left for the meek to inherit? Ex soldiers are making their way into the protests, inciting violence, a group called Boogaloo. Semi-automatic rifles and Hawaiian shirts. The feds just charged three of them as conspirators to terrorism, while Rand Paul is holding up anti-lynching legislation in the Senate. Reporters are no longer safe. They’ve been shot, beaten, sprayed, arrested, and intimidated. International Journalistic integrity organizations have expressed concerns, like we’re Saudi Arabia or something. Newspapers are having their own reckoning with the moment, the movement. On Thursday the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a headline that said “Buildings Matter Too”. A couple dozen reporters called in sick. The New York Times published an op-ed written by Tom Cotton titled “Send in the Troops.” 800 staff members signed a letter in protest. No one is prepared for this. No one has the answers. Everyone is flailing, but we are still showing up. We are fighting. Right now it doesn’t feel like enough. How did they do it? Turn the other cheek? How did Dr. King have that kind of discipline for so long? But he was wrong about some things too, the preacher and the activist. At least, I don’t think it can work today. If you two are to inherit anything, my suggestion is, abandon meekness. These people are incapable of shame and there’s no longer any such thing as shared truth. The movement then was capable of persuading hearts and minds is dead. Don’t trust these allies, they are fairweather. Bored. Resentful of confinement. Trust yourselves, your family, and that America has not been subtle about her intentions.

COVID39: Chapter 33

Wed, 02 Sep 2020 05:42:31 +0000

Shane begins to trusts Randi’s inexplicable instincts. Sean Monterrosa James Scurlock David McAtee Breonna Taylor Dallas Protests June 2, 2020 Weathering Cast Randi Halle Millien Shane Mark Millien Mara La SFX and Music Contributors SFX Q Tone [Query] Tone 4.wav by patchen of freesound.org Q Tone [Response] Tone 3.wav by patchen of freesound.org Gunshot Heathers Gunshot Effect2.wav by okieactor of freesound.org Music Mara’s Letter Theme My Heart Sets In The West by Planetjazzbass of looperman.com Created by Mark and Halle Millien Cover Art by Halle Millien Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien Thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters risking their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thanks dad. Dedicated to my brother Mitchel and the future of our family. Mara’s Letter: I’ve had a hard time figuring out what I am supposed to be doing right now. People are feeling “called” to things, to do things in this moment. To show up. “Where and when” is how you’re supposed to respond. “Sign me up.” Less than that, and you’re not sufficiently woke. And people tend to react strongly to accusations of being complicit to the institutions of white supremacy. Your father, he doesn’t think I react strongly to anything. He’s out now. At a protest. They’ve made their way over the bridge, apparently, complying with the downtown curfew. Like everything else in this city, even the agitators are milquetoast. The crowds at the White House yesterday were gassed, right next to the famous church at Lafayette Park. One minute he’s in the Rose Garden giving a speech, evading questions, or answering them in the most selfishly convoluted ways possible. You could hear it like ambient noise as the backdrop to his rhetoric, people screaming and unnamed soldiers pressing. He called them terrorists. He said that he would call in the military if governors didn’t have the stomach to declare war on their citizens. Then he left the dais and strolled across the park, to take a picture with a bible, one he couldn’t claim as his own, and held it up like a hostage with a proof of life document, while the cameras clicked. Afterward, the Arlington police chief removed his detachment, seemingly disgusted that they’d been used to remove the protestors so that the Commander in Chief could dip his toe in militant evangelical propaganda. I’m trying to keep a grip on all the loose threads that keep slipping from my fingers and somehow I’m not doing enough, but I am exhausted. Everyday. By the time I’ve made dinner or cleaned up dinner or wrangled the mulish children towards their bedtime rituals, after a day of redundant meetings, hosted by an employer that is laying off people every few weeks, cutting the pay of those they decide to keep, and trying to solve EVERYTHING for everyone, I have nothing left. Nothing. I’m angry that I feel guilty. I’m hurt that I feel lazy. I’m frustrated that I feel frustrated. I’m anxious that I’m excited by nothing. This carousel is killing me. It’s just too much. Should I be reading more or less? Should I be speaking up at my job that is making expendable decisions or applaud any minimal effort they muster In Black life appeasement? I can’t organize a virtual walkout! I don’t work at Facebook! Am I supposed to memorize all the names? Breonna Taylor’s killers still haven’t been arrested. Sean Monterrosa is a new one. A peaceful protester who put his hands up and kneeled right before a police officer shot him five times through the windshield of his unmarked car, because of the gun he saw in his pant’s pocket that turned out to be a hammer. I should have a better handle on this, three months in. I should have adapted to this new shitty normal. I should be sponsoring teachers or composing the new black anthem or finding a cure to common idiocy. I should be finding inspiration in the “movement”. But I’m not. I don’t. It’s been a week since the protests started. The EU has weighed in, calling out American cops for appalling abuses of power. The world is watching and they’re siding with us, but you think that’s stopped them? Twenty-three states have called in the National Guard, thousands have been arrested, and they keep beating us, maiming us, killing us, while the world is watching. And not just us. Old. Young. Black. White. Asian. But mostly poor. There are wildfires in Siberia. Right now. It’s 20 degrees hotter there than on average. Siberia. We are broke. We have no savings. Where would I find another job, in this climate? Where is my hope supposed to come from? What I won’t do is put that on you two. You are coming of age in all of this. You’ll grow up suspicious of the air you breathe and the company it keeps. A white supremacist, more obvious than most, sits in the White House. I’m supposed to look to our children to save us? Am I wrong to feel like we don’t deserve to be saved? That we owed you more than this? The marching has lasted longer than I thought it would this time, I don’t know what makes it different, but am I supposed to think it will last or that it will change anything? Why am I not enough? To provide for our family? To teach you? To raise you in strength? To keep you safe? The maternal mortality rate in America is absurdly high for a first world country. Most of it is due to the rate of death from black women who are pregnant. All of the research suggests that it is not physiological or economic or any of the natural drivers of illness and susceptibility. The research indicates that it is prolonged exposure to racism. That it eats away at the core of you, forcing your body to make a choice. You, or the baby, and so many of the mothers die. A woman asked me yesterday at the store, how I was doing. I think I was supposed to know her. This white woman standing too close, eyes anchored with concern over the brim of her star-spangled mask. I think we’ve met. She seemed so genuine. I told her I was weathered. That’s the term for it. The accumulated abuse of macro and microaggressions. Weathered. She had no idea what I meant but she wanted to help me, she asked me what she could do, she was so desperate to fix it. I showed her a picture of you two, along with Randi and Harrison, on my phone from just a few days ago running inside from the backyard as the sky opened wide and an avalanche of rain funneled from bright clouds. I told her “Love them when I’m gone. I’m always gone.” I don’t know why I said that. Still. I’m not going anywhere. I couldn’t if I wanted to and there isn’t anywhere I’d rather be, but I meant it. Somehow. And she heard me. No one cries that hard unless they’re really listening. #covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #newpodcast #audiostories #blackaudiodrama #afrofuturism #amplifymelanatedvoices #amplifyblackvoices #shareblackstories #tiktok #seanmonterrosa #jamesscurlock #davidmcatee #breonnataylor #dad

COVID39: Chapter 32

Sat, 15 Aug 2020 11:18:32 +0000

Randi and Shane disagree about next moves as they deal with the consequences of Roderick’s letter. Cast Randi Halle Millien Shane Mark Millien Helen Philips Ko Forte Sonubi SFX and Music Contributors SFX Q Tone [Query] Tone 4.wav by patchen of freesound.org Q Tone [Response] Tone 3.wav by patchen of freesound.org Sirens Futuristic_Alarm4.mp3 by 13NHarri Emergency_Traffic-1.mp3 by 911elearning Siren by maycuddlepie Music Helen’s Letter Theme Trap Ballad Piano Lead Hook 128 by stalebrick of looperman.com Created by Mark and Halle Millien Cover Art by Halle Millien Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien Thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters risking their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thanks dad. Love you Mitch. Glossary allocated: an arrest that exists outside of the framework of the legal system for individuals considered to be too dangerous to place in common detention frameworks, usually due to their haz status. retro-tagged: the pejorative term for someone being assigned a lower haz status and corresponding haztag for fraudulent reasons. Many citizens consider this to be an unsubstantiated claim akin to how systemic racism was argued about in years past. Helen’s Letter: "But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace." First Corinthians chapter 7 verse 15. That sounded to me like absolution. Not that I needed any. My children. My babies. I substitute no one’s judgment for my own in pursuing your survival. Not your father’s. Not his surrogate’s. Not God’s. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that when I read that I felt unburdened by some of the tougher decisions I’ve made and the consequences that will come from them. Roderick is a good man but he is lying. To us. To himself. And I understand that. Selfishness sometimes requires a bit of self-deception. When I was a child, there was this commercial, I don’t remember what they were selling, but Kelly Lebrock was in it. For a fleeting tick of time, she was the most sought after woman on Earth. The only thing I remember about it was the line “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful”. I’d never imagined anyone could stand so casually proud in their own skin, even if it was flawless. You could tell that she believed, KNEW, she was different, better, and made no apologies for it. An angel asking the mob for grace. I knew I was pretty as a child. It was obvious. I was 15 when I realized that I was beautiful. Happily, I can say that it didn’t come from any man’s validation. One day I simply became acutely aware of the shape of me, the songs written in the notes of my features. It gave me a voice, especially when I was silent. The space between mysterious and withdrawn is separated by beauty. At times it has allowed me to escape deeper scrutiny while remaining in the spotlight. There have been times in my life when I could shed the disadvantages charred into my syrupy skin and walk among the free folk as an honored guest. It’s never been a source of guilt. If I had been born porcelain and ivory with a mastodon’s strength, I’d persuade with menace. Instead, I was born molten honey and aromatic cocoa so I negotiate my existence through sweet intoxicants. At birth, none of us are armored or clawed and what we do not learn will surely kill us because unlike other animals we must be taught survival. My first lesson was the police. My mother’s beauty was a curse. It brought her too much attention in her time, in that place. She told me that people with small power will always use it to remind you of how small YOU are, if only to distort the size of their reflection. She taught me to run. To apologize. To bow. And to pray. When I came into my voice, I left all her lessons behind. That husk no longer suited me. Everything she taught me played to my weaknesses and not my strengths. It wasn’t her fault. You can only teach what you know, and she knew nothing else. I look at you, my two children, and have decided what will be your armor and what will be your claws. Neither of you are, or ever will be, beautiful. Not in a way that will matter. And it is an imperfect set of tools with little room for error. If I had a choice, I would have made a different one. Harrison. You are precious. Funny. The stories you read are relentlessly optimistic, promising happy endings, defeated monsters, and cheaply bought adoration. They speak to you. It would be counter to your nature to rehabilitate you to a world where your brothers are being hunted, where the monsters wear tin stars, where your naiveté is a rope they will string you from. A black man was murdered for the world to see, a blue demon smugly kneeled on his windpipe until he was beyond stillness, and today, four days later he was arrested. Jesus rose from the dead in three. And yet, we the hungry, so starved for justice, swallowed THIS as a wonder. So your claws, my featherless son, will be forged from miracles. No reason to reinvent the wheel when there are miles and miles of track already laid. You are sincere. You are just. And you are susceptible. They will believe you. Thousands of years of well tested lies will serve you just as it has served all of the prophets that have come before you. A procession of sincere and just fairytale fed innocents, or better, ruthless opportunists. You may never mature into the latter, but you can become the best version of the former. And you will live. Randi. You see everything. Every detail. Every gap. You reason your way to the end of every maze unaware that there were traps and tricks laid, not because you could not see them, but because they were prepared by such clumsy hands you assume it was part of the game to sidestep them. It sets you apart and invites loneliness. So. Your armor will grow from your spine, like the tortoise. Your father left you to fight his noble crusades. I have left you to prove that you do not need me. You do not need anyone. I am playing to your strengths. Breonna Taylor’s murderers walk free! No one has been arrested. No one has been accused. No one has been fired. No one has done anything wrong. As a black woman, you will always matter less. As a black woman, you must prepare for solitude and abandonment. Relying on yourself is your greatest gift so I have accelerated it so that you may become not only proficient in its use but prodigious. Your mind is a blade and it must stay keen my daughter. The fool in the White House said just yesterday that when the looting starts the shooting starts. It’s hunting season and everyone gets a license, an orange vest, and the blessings of his evangelical purists. No one will question. The bodies can be hidden among the diseased dead. But YOU will live. You will live. Mr. Ko could see it. He was right, about so many things. About your father leaving. About the protests. More. None of this was his fault. I do not know what his plans for you are. He wouldn’t tell me. He said he couldn’t and still have them come true. But he has plans. And I believe them. He told me what the choices were, but they were my choices. Mine. I am no pawn. I am a queen. And a queen makes sacrifices. #covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #newpodcast #audiostories #amplifymelanatedvoices #amplifyblackvoices #shareblackstories #tiktok #blackaudiodrama #afrofuturism #dad

COVID39: Chapter 31

Sat, 15 Aug 2020 09:02:31 +0000

Roderick’s second letter has equally devastating results. Cast Randi Halle Millien Shane Mark Millien Roderick Brian Ashton Smith SFX and Music Contributors SFX Q Tone [Query] Tone 4.wav by patchen of freesound.org Q Tone [Response] Tone 3.wav by patchen of freesound.org Hospital Sounds MICU beeps_MaryWashingtonHospital_Oct2011.aif by jgeralyn of freesound.org Music Roderick’s Letter Theme One and Only Choir from Apple Loops in Garageband Created by Mark and Halle Millien Cover Art by Halle Millien Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien Thank you to everyone that has supported us during this difficult time. Thank you to the protesters risking their bodies and health. Thank you to the medical professionals who are healing bodies or granting them peace. Thank you to CBR. Thanks dad. Love you Mitch. Glossary cleanse: a MIC raid into orange slums meant to display vigilance against outbreaks but considered extrajudicial and illegal for years, but they have been tied up in the courts. comm-chain: a pirated network on the Q that allows multiple users to share the same node band, used mostly by the poor to gain Q access. Legal chained networks are expensive. tracer barbs: a tactical grenade that discharges hooked razor shrapnel embedded with micro locator buoys. They can be painful and difficult to remove often burrowing beneath the skin. Roderick’s Letter: I’m in the hospital. I’m sick. My first symptoms started four days ago. Over the weekend. Memorial Day weekend. I told you…I told you I’d be home. Flight 1984 out of Laguardia. I was in seat 33C, my reservation number was WUBVSP. Number, it’s all letters, I didn’t realize that til just now. We got diverted to Houston. They didn’t tell us why at the time. I was listening to a podcast so I didn’t hear him at first, the flight attendant. Coughing. Struggling for breath. It was like I’d been transported back into the triage tents. I didn’t even realize I’d unclipped my belt. I just wanted to help him. I held him while people screamed, backed away, or prayed. He didn’t make it off the plane. They quarantined the entire flight while tests came back. My throat wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t right, so I chalked it up to psychosomatic influences. I wasn’t worried. I just wanted to be sure that I could look your mother in the eye and tell her that everything was fine. That I’d kept my promise. I’m tested pretty regularly, so…I wasn’t worried. I didn’t panic. I just waited in a dingy motel a measly 222 miles away from you. I had been so ready to leave New York and all of its vast empty and here I was, at the finish line, til someone pulled us off the track. I was scrolling through pictures of you two when, when I got the call. I asked a lot of questions. I know all the protocols by rote but I still had so many questions. God. Uh, so, that was, Saturday. Saturday. They are going to keep me for a few more days. I haven’t improved. In fact, things have gotten a little worse. I’m in bed right now laying next to a ventilator draped in plastic. There are suction tubes and monitors and, you can probably hear the beeping, the oxygen tanks. Constant wheezing of machines. The staff knows they can’t lie to me or stall me with jargon but they try out of habit and apologize when they see me see them. Even behind masks, I can read their faces. I’m recording this on my phone. I’m not supposed to have it but…I can see why they take it from you. Germs and anxiety bound like mortar and cement encased in plastic and glass. A man named George Floyd died today. Wait, that’s not right, he died Monday, he was murdered on Monday. But the video became viral on Tuesday and the headlines caught up today, Wednesday. His name, the man the cops killed, his name was George Floyd. By the time you hear this his name will be lost like all the rest, sunken treasure buried under tons and tons of cold indifferent waves. There were four cops and a crowd of onlookers. One of the cops, THE cop, had George Floyd on the ground handcuffed and leaned into his neck with his knee, casually, for nine minutes. That’s wrong. It wasn’t casual. It was defiant. The people pleaded with him. George Floyd said he couldn’t breathe. Over and over again. Before he died, he called out for his mother. He told everyone there that he was going to die. HIs mother is dead. I, I didn’t know that before, I just read that. Fuck. And this cop, with his hands in his pockets, a smirk on his face, he dared anyone to do anything. Dared anyone to care. He knew that there would be no real consequences. He was sharing his impunity with the world and he knew they wouldn’t give a shit. They all eat from the same trough and its brimming with our meat and bones. Most white people aren’t even aware that they see us as no more than animals but can’t explain why seeing us slaughtered doesn’t move them the way a mutilated dog might on the highway between where they’re going and where they’ve been. No one will remember my name. I will live on in you, my children, but I will die more as a statistic than a man. I told you before that I regretted coming here. That’s not true, I just wish I did. I helped people here, people who really needed it, who would’ve died if it hadn’t been for me. Maybe one of their names will live on and I can share a scrap of their immortality. It’s enough that they will go home to their families. I didn’t intend to sacrifice mine for theirs. The flight attendant, his name was George Adiacco. He grew up in New York all his life. Used to be a police captain. Retired and decided to practice his comedy routine on domestic flights during landings and takeoffs. He was loved. I just wouldn’t have been worthy of you if I had done nothing. But now, I wish so much that nothing was exactly what I’d done. #covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #newpodcast #audiostories #amplifymelanatedvoices #amplifyblackvoices #shareblackstories #tiktok #blackaudiodrama #afrofuturism #dad

COVID39: Chapter 30

Tue, 09 Jun 2020 05:18:27 +0000

Randi and Shane are on the run.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Rat

03_crash into a crate.wav by tovje_amma of freesound.org

Riots

Bristol Riots Shouting and Swearing by chris_dagorne of freesound.org

Music

My Name for Music

Original Name by Creator of sourced Creative Commons website

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Glossary

#covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #covid39 #covid19 #newpodcast #audiostories #dad #ontherun

COVID39: Chapter 29

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 23:25:02 +0000

Randi gets creative in getting answers.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

Dr. Estrum Melissa Thomas

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Answers

Mystery Piano 310 by 310Artworks of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Melissa Thomas is one of my oldest and dearest friends. She is an amazing human being and lent her considerable talents to this project simply because I asked and she’ll never know how much it meant to me that she gave of herself so freely (literally, like, I didn’t pay her) and generously and always maddeningly blind to the worth of her contribution. This was Dr. Estrum’s last episode and I’ll miss her. Thank you Toms. Thanx dad.

COVID39: Chapter 28

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 14:10:21 +0000

Shane follows up a lead and Randi sets her own plan in motion.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

ringing tense melodic b.J.wav by martian

Tea Kettle

Doorbell

futuristic_doorbell2020.wav by 1jmorrisoncafe291

Music

Jolie’s Letter Theme

Sad Love Song Dreamland Thingy Idk by calebclarkmusic of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Glossary

butterfly: a slang term for a Monaxia abuser.

Monaxia: a pill developed to treat loneliness.

Jolie’s Letter:

Hello little darlings, this is your auntie Jolie. I’m a really good friend of your uncle Serge. He mentioned this project to me and I thought the idea was so cute so I wanted to send you all a letter. He talks about you all the time. I think it’s so sweet. He told me once that he doesn’t need kids of his own because he’s got y’all. I don’t know if he really means that, I hope he doesn’t, but it tells me how much you mean to him and that’s so important to me. You know I met your uncle at a birthday party for Shane, I think. It was the summer. Your uncle and your mommys and daddys had rented out part of our patio to celebrate and you all were there, so I have met you. I was one of the hostesses at the restaurant, I took you to your table. Your uncle asked me for my number. He was so sweet. He didn’t call for a while and when he did I was so happy, I thought he’d forgotten. I’ve never met anyone like him. He’s just amazing. Handsome and always so happy. He’s so articulate. I haven’t had a chance to see him recently since we are all under quarantine. We’ve always been a little off and on. I just realized the other day that we’ve been seeing each other off and on for five years. I can’t believe it. Five years. I miss him. Not having someone right now is hard. I mean I have friends, of course, but they’re taking it all very seriously too. So it’s just me. The fact that you are all quarantining together is so sweet. And you’re kids, so hopefully most of this won’t even matter to you since you don’t have a whole lot to compare it to. I hope so. Maybe you are getting on each other’s nerves, but at least you aren’t lonely. These screens we use to be with one another weren’t designed for long term isolation. My little brother plays a lot of video-games and his controllers vibrate when he falls or gets hit or whatever and I wish they had designed Zoom that way. When someone whispered I wish a little fan would flutter in your ear. Or there was an emoji you could use for a hug and the chair you’re sitting in would squeeze you. I think it’s been almost three months since I hugged someone. And I’m a hugger! So it hurts. I’m not complaining. I just think you all are so lucky, that’s all. I know it may not feel that way sometimes, but you are. You really are. There are a lot of people that love you. Take care of each other.

#covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #amplifymelantedvoices #amplifyblackvoices #newpodcast #audiostories #loneliness ##ampl#amplifyblackvoices

Japanese Infection Rate Experiment

COVID39: Chapter 27

Tue, 26 May 2020 07:55:25 +0000

A moment of Barack.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Joseph’s Letter Theme:

Marching Band 80 BPM by NateJMusic of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Glossary

Aircrack: the Aircrack is a wireless hacking tool that is renowned because of its effectiveness in password cracking. (This is a thing. I saw it here.

f-tech: fossil tech or fuck you tech cuz it’s so old you wind up cursing at it a lot.

hydrakits: a set of infiltration packages that auto-run in the background that protect against any potential intrusions and simultaneously probe for any opportunities to exploit systems it interacts with on the Q.

metasploit: the Metasploit is a vulnerability exploitation tool that can be considered as a ‘collection of hacking tools and frameworks’ that can be used to execute various tasks. (This is a thing. I saw it here.

vhd: “virtual hub dispersers” operate as VPNs on the Q.

Joseph’s Letter:

Today is a history lesson in Barack Hussein Obama. After the last four years, I am concerned that when today becomes days of yore, there won’t be anything left of his legacy. So I want to set the record straight for my beloved nieces and nephews about my president. Graduations couldn’t take place this year so the second best basketball player of all time, this is not a vote or an opinion, nor will it have changed by the time you get this, Lebron James, got a group of people like, Lena Waithe, Malala Yousafzai, the Jonas Brothers, Yara Shahidi, Bad Bunny, Pharrell Williams, Megan Rapinoe, and Ben Platt, all together to celebrate the class of 2020. Congratulated their accomplishments, highlighted their challenges, and encouraged them in all of their future endeavors. But the piece de resistance, was my Petty President, Michelle’s husband, the one and only Obama. I don’t know what it’s like for you now, but hearing anything from the White House these days is like an exercise in getting punked. You’re constantly pinching yourself wondering out loud in a room by yourself, “Did this motherfucker just say that?” And watching the press thrash about in repetitious dismay, but nobody actually says what we’re all thinking out loud. Is this motherfucker okay? Can’t be. Something is really, really wrong with this dude. Get him removed and rehabilitated. So to hear the English language spoken with clarity and coherence from someone of the High Office felt a little like waking up from a dream. Familiar, welcome, but a little discombobulated. It’s like being in the desert for weeks hallucinating about water and then when you finally get some it’s like, I remember it was good, but was it always this refreshing? Why is my skin glowing? Is that the water too? Ash begone. What is that taste in my mouth, is that nourishment? And your thirsty ass just guzzles it down cuz you don’t know where your next cup of clean free replenishing water is going to come from. And then he gave it just a hint of flavor. Nothing over the top. Not a kool aid packet and pound of sugar. Just a hint of fresh lemon, a wafer of cucumber and maybe a basil sprig or some shit. This brilliant fool said these leaders y’all got now ain’t leading shit, don’t know shit and ain’t shit. You wanna sing and dance and chest bump but you don’t want to spill no precious water, so you listen, and before you know it, you in the tripod headstand with lotus legs and don’t know how you got there. All relaxed and strong in your core and what not. When he was done he left you with that lingering caress of empathy you’d been starved for and you remember that truly great statesman are meant to inspire more than they are designed to deliberate. The dream dissipates and you are back to reality. America. A third of all global confirmed cases, a quarter of the world’s deaths and only 4% of the population. Texas. 1800 new infections, the highest single day increase thus far, after the governor allowed the state to partially re-open weeks ago with plans to announce new openings today. Washington. In six weeks the White House has dismissed four separate oversight heads designed to monitor corruption and abuses within government. And in Germany, Britain, Poland, Spain and Israel anti-lockdown protests led to arrests and more importantly, almost assuredly, more infections. There was this video from Japan that showed a bunch of people sitting down to dinner while one of them covered his hands in an invisible paint that would show up under black light. It’s a buffet. Thirty minutes later the lights go off and everyone sits there in the neon dark confused about the stains that are EVERYWHERE. What the fuck are y’all protesting?! Obama gave us eight years of decency. I’ll leave it to you, my scholars of tomorrow, to discern for yourself how you felt about his legislative accomplishments. I have some serious qualms with a lot of it, but the depth of sincerity provided by that man’s leadership transcends any political preferences I may have personally held and my hope is that in our lifetimes we all get to share in something so beautifully flawed as a human being doing their best to represent humanity to the world again.

#covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #covid39 #covid19 #newpodcast #audiostories #obama #2020graduates

COVID39: Chapter 26

Tue, 26 May 2020 06:44:25 +0000

Shane talks about what happened and Dr. Estrum talks about what will happen.

Shincheonji

More Shincheonji

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

Dr. Estrum Melissa Thomas

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Goodbye Jude

Goodbye Strings by danke of looperman.com

Bloody Strings

Mystery Flute 310 by 310Artworks of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Special thank you to my boy who don’t want to be associated with this dope podcast publicly but that’s fine but who put in the work to give us something reliable to work with in regard to today’s session with Dr. Estrum. Kudos to you Mystery sir.

Glossary

The Harvesters: a far right radical American Christian cult offshoot of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus. They believe that the age of pandemics is the first of three cycles wherein disease and famine will cull the world of the unfaithful. They infiltrate other congregations to recruit and to also spread contagion to would be infidels.

#covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #covid39 #covid19 #newpodcast #audiostories #harvesters #cultshit #obama

COVID39: Chapter 25

Mon, 18 May 2020 06:41:59 +0000

Randi shares her non-discoveries and Shane’s world crumbles.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Mara’s Letter Theme

Piano Quality - I Never Said Goodbye by MINOR2GO of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Mara’s Letter:

The world is tilting toward some recognizable version of itself. I am going to try and remember the type of patience this all required, because it’s not over, there is still going to be some pain ahead, and I don’t want to forget the lessons that I’ve learned. I guess we are doing this in part so that we can pass those lessons on to you. No matter what happens, I’m sure that when you read this the world will look a little different. The little ones, I’m not sure how much they’ll remember or what affect it may have on them. On the one hand the world was already so new to them maybe their expectations are more flexible and can bend to the shape forced onto them by the future. We’ve had grim days but nothing that we can’t overcome. For you Jude, it’s probably going to be harder. You’re at that age when responsibility is starting to really take hold. You can appreciate what your contributions are and understand sacrifice. I’ve learned a lot from watching how you’ve carried yourself through all of this. When this is over, there will be lost opportunities that you will have to reckon with. I have never been more confident of the man that you will grow up to be. It has been a long few months of waking nightmares, but now it’s finally getting to the end, and I feel guilty about my tepid happiness. Your father isn’t as optimistic, unfortunately. I think he feels more valuable in the world where everything is standing still, than in the one where he has to keep up with everyone else. He can navigate eggshells while speaking from his chest about this injustice and that looming menace but I love him in spite of our mutual failings. What I want to say to you most, is this. Living at the edge of free-fall has taught me about loss preparation. It’s all felt so near. Losing the house, the cars, my job. Your father. And some of these I’ve come to understand as inevitable. Do what you can to hold onto the things and people that are important to you. They are the only thing that matter. And sometimes even if you hold them tight and treat them as precious, you can’t will something into existence. You can hope and pray and love, but you cannot battle what time will take. Time will trade muscle for wisdom. It will heal all wounds but decay is not a scar, it is a cancer. I’m not telling you to save a corner of your heart because that won’t help, it’ll only allot less resources to the task of mending you back together when you need it. I want you to love without reservation. I’ve learned so much about the elasticity of time. Endless and yet so short, it speeds by so quickly. Don’t waste it trying to circumvent pain that is promised. Drink up so much of life while you can so that when you are living through a drought, you have reserves you can call upon. I’m going to write a book one day called “The Camel and the Bear”. It’ll be about coping with loss. Emotional hibernation versus resource management. I will dedicate it to you Jude. I’m going to spend the rest of the day working while daydreaming about a conversation between you and I, with me as an author and you as an adult, having emerged from the cramped chrysalis we now occupy. There will be plenty of time to sleep boys. We’ve spent so much time sleeping already. Dreams are still possible. Let’s capture them while rising instead of falling still. Loving each other is how we prepare for losing one another.

#covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #covid39 #covid19 #newpodcast #pokemonthagod #thetallman #tallman #worldwideweb #firstresponders #essentialworkers #nkjemisin #winteriscoming #starwarssequelsaretrash

COVID39: Chapter 24

Mon, 18 May 2020 05:36:52 +0000

Shane undergoes a transformation and Randi urges caution.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Desmond’s Letter Theme

Phantom Piano 1 by PhantomKillahBeats of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

A special thank you to NK Jemisin for the Broken Earth trilogy, in general but specifically, she hit us all with Father Earth and that really resonated with me and the beauty of her world building, which is where the impetus for Randi’s Mother God exclamation came from.

Glossary

diving: instead of “surfing” the net, one “dives” the Q.

screen: as in “giving screen” is a term of art for giving someone well earned accolades or “props” as it were.

trim: slang for flawless, excellent, immaculate.

Desmond’s Letter:

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to approach this. Jude, Shane. I’m watching the two of you right now have an intense “conversation” about Star Wars. This has been brewing. May the Fourth was last week and the Rise of Skywalker dropped on Disney +. We didn’t go see it in the theaters so when I put it on I thought it would be this amazing opportunity for us all to shelter around something that we love. It would be a serious understatement to say that I was wrong. Shane, you were really quiet afterwards. You seemed, I don’t know, affected, but I couldn’t tell if it was because this chapter was ending or if you just didn’t like the movie. Jude, you were, happy. You thought it did what it set out to do and felt good about it. The Morgan kids, Harrison wasn’t really watching. He was doing his assigned reading while catching glances in between verses. The Bible. Helen makes him read fifty pages a day. Randi, I didn’t see her blink once, but after it was over, she turned her attention over to the ESPN app, digesting commentary about the Chicago Bulls documentary. The first time I’ve seen her excited in months is when she talks about the finale coming up on Sunday. I figured everyone felt fairly apathetic towards it and moved on. Things escalated quickly, maybe because there isn’t a lot of competition for your attention. As you’re arguing I’m moved by the mundanity of it all. I’m as passionate about Star Wars as either of you, but I can’t bring myself to care at the moment. I struggle on a daily basis about what I should be prioritizing with you. How I should be using this time we have with one another. I don’t know if it’s the right choice, but I’ve decided, I think, to be honest about this moment. Today a man named Rick Bright testified before congress. He used to be in charge of an important part of the government that spearheaded the pandemic response. He was reassigned recently. He’s testifying today as a whistleblower, a term that’s come up quite a bit over the last year or so. He claims that the administration didn’t take him seriously when he was in his former position about the potential impact of the virus. He’s saying that he was removed because he urged that funds should be prioritized for treatments that have been vetted vs those that have not. He basically said, winter is coming. By his side was a man named Mike Bowen. He runs a company that makes N-95 masks, the top of the line ones. The ones people on the front line wear. He told the committee that he voted for the president but as he sat there he was embarrassed to be a republican. So as my two boys are making me proud by standing tall in their convictions about something we all care about, well you two and me, I can’t help but think about my best friend, who has entrusted me with his children, who is a thousand miles away. Bright said the N-95 masks that many nurses and doctors and clinicians are wearing are only 30% effective in comparison to the ones that they should be wearing. This Bowen guy didn’t disagree. If this is true, then it’s like parachuting everyday with a frayed cord. Apparently, all because the president thought it would help him win re-election, somehow. I’ve come to believe these people are capable of anything, but is Roderick out there saving people, risking himself, rationing his PPE, and being lied to on top of it all about the risk he’s taking? Could that be true? What I’m angry about, but proudest of, is that even if it is true, it wouldn’t make a difference. Not to him, not to any of them. They were drafted into this war but there are so many unforeseen combatants. The Wisconsin Supreme Court nullified the governor’s shelter in place order. One of the justice’s compared the mandate to remain home to the Japanese internment camps of World War II. The republican legislature has no alternative plan, but even though they brought the case, they requested the court give them a week to put a plan together. The court declined that request and neutered the governor’s order immediately. Within hours the bars in Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay were packed. The scientists are begging for a more cautious approach, but summer approaches with more questions than answers and impatience is making our decisions for us. Enemies surround you my friend, and I don’t know how to help, except to say that from this day until forever, I will do what I can to keep your children safe. To make good on whatever they need. When the Last Dance concludes this Sunday, I’ll be right there with your little girl, giving her the context of that mythical era called 1998 that she wishes you were there to provide. I will be there for Harrison during this confusing time and answer any questions a heretic like me can muster as he finds himself. And Helen, I will give her the space to heal so that when she is ready, her beautiful children are prepared to receive her in all her glory. I will be here, for all of you, always. And Shane, you were right. It was trash.

#covid39 #covid19 #createathome #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #covid39 #covid19 #newpodcast #pokemonthagod #thetallman #tallman #worldwideweb #firstresponders #essentialworkers #nkjemisin #winteriscoming #starwarssequelsaretrash

COVID39: Chapter 23

Thu, 14 May 2020 03:16:18 +0000

Shane seeks outside resources and Randi wants to hunt.

Breonna and Kenneth

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Ebony’s Letter Theme:

DjRellruger SOLITARE RellRuger Soul Sample by djrellruger of looperman.com

Tapir Hunt by Anubis of looperman.com

Face To Face 2 by Anubis of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Glossary

Q filters: people have the ability to source their information in a completely customizable fashion across all media platforms by including or excluding keywords; the system is sophisticated enough to remove even tangential information that is proximal to the keywords chosen.

The Run: a mass run that takes place every evening in most large cities that consists mostly of the poor and the marginalized; it is one part health wellness initiative and one part passive protest. Usually takes place at the top of blue hour.

Ebony’s Letter:

I used to imagine having kids and y’all growing up together, but now it’s gotta be y’all babysitting mine whenever mine come to pass. Sometimes I find comfort in thinking about the future, especially if it involves all of you. Sometimes it just makes me angry. I don’t want to wake up one day and see all of these empty years between us. But as long as I see y’all I can’t ask for much else. They told me that you’ll read this when you’re older, so there are things I can say here that I can’t send you in a video today. Randi, you are so pretty, just like your mama. I Facetimed you yesterday and you seemed so sad. That hurt me. There’s no real way to protect you from the world, even when it’s all locked down. Ahmaud Arbery played football, just like you Jude. His cousin is in the NFL now. Plays safety. They were athletes and young together. Running was safety, and freedom, and excellence, and pride. His cousin said he was slow as molasses, but he loved it, he loved to run. I watch videos of you Shane, running, with your whole heart and ragged breath and I wonder if that’s what it’s like for you, except you’re not slow. Unh unh, boy you fly. This white man wrote about how wrong those other two white men were, the way they hunted him down, with suspicious suspicion. How they should’ve called the cops and let them handle it the right way. Three times I read it, to make sure I understood whether he was being monstrously sarcastic or just exhaustingly simple. Breonna Taylor was killed by cops in her home. They were looking for someone else. Someone else who didn’t live there, had never lived there, who’d already been arrested and had been in police custody by the time Breonna was murdered. She was there with her boyfriend. They were asleep. The cops came in plain clothes and unmarked vehicles. They say they identified themselves. Which is odd, because Breonna’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, called 911 as people banged on his door trying to enter. They eventually did. Kenneth also called Breonna’s mom, and told her that someone was trying to break in. Breonna was shot eight times. Kenneth returned fire with a legally licensed weapon registered to him. He wasn’t injured and neither were any of the officers. But Breonna was shot eight times. There is this quote from the article, “The gunfire from the officers struck objects in the living room, dining room, kitchen, hallway, bathroom and both bedrooms, according to the lawsuit.” If that’s a two bedroom apartment, that’s every room. Every room. Some shots penetrated apartments that shared a wall with Breonna’s. How many bullets did that take? Kenneth was the only person charged. Assault and the attempted murder of a police officer. If you were white I wouldn’t have to worry about this. I’d worry about you being confident. I’d worry about you, Harrison, being too shy to express your brilliance. I’d worry about you finding your voice, not losing it. I know that God has a plan and he is keeping his babies close to him, washed in love that they didn’t always get here in the world. White people bury their dead much quicker than we do. We idle on the bodies of our loved ones. I think we evolved into perpetual mourners because our time here is such a short and savage struggle. We are weathered and they keep killing us but I picture Ahmaud running still. On clouds thread with gold, running headlong into praise, worshipping the wind. I can see him and he is beautiful. He isn’t slow. He is taking his time in a land of no fear, he is taking his time, he is running and he is peacefully, blissfully, free.

#covid39 #covid19 #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #stayathome #welcometowinnetkaheights #oakcliffdallas #atlanta #castleberyhill #theuninformedparent #covidpodcast #applepodcast #spotifypodcast #listen #scriptedpodcast #scifipodcast #scriptnotes #covid39 #covid19 #newpodcast #hatsunemiku #boomiverse #simulacrum #memorysaturation #ahmaudarbery #breonnataylor #kennethwalker #stopkillingus #irunwithmaud

COVID39: Chapter 22

Wed, 13 May 2020 08:11:58 +0000

Randi’s life hangs in the balance as she and Shane make decisions of trust.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

Dr. Estrum Melissa Thomas

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

I Need To Give Her This

Chase Scene - Arabic Orchestral Strings Build Up by KiestyleProductions of looperman.com

The Vectors

Pads Of Gold - Ticket To Your Spiritual Abyss by MINOR2GO of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

COVID39: BONUS

Tue, 12 May 2020 05:10:20 +0000

Music

Thank You Funk

Lil Funky Bassline We Got by ZboiTheSamplestick of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Phase One Doesn’t Consider Priority One

COVID39: Chapter 21

Tue, 05 May 2020 05:05:27 +0000

Shane tries to talk Randi through shared demons and delusions.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Desmond’s Letter Theme

Summer Lullaby by Nightingale of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Desmond’s Letter:

A security guard was shot and killed in Michigan. They have a mask mandate. This family, the daughter, didn’t have one on. The report says they got into a verbal altercation and then the security guard asked the cashier not to serve them, told them to go. They left. Twenty minutes later they come back, with another member of the family. Brother, husband, I’m not sure. But he shot the security guard in the head and he died. Half the states in the country reopened over the weekend and it doesn’t feel like any of us are any safer. It just feels like we are running out of options. Into madness. Most of the deferments that we were able to qualify for come due in July but we still aren’t making money. The stimulus check is supposedly a few days away but it won’t make the difference that we need it to. The guidelines everyone is working from is bullshit. It’s like they’re trying to design a class struggle between people with kids and people without them. I can’t leave them here with Mara. She can’t watch them the days she’s working Helen has been no help. I take that back. She’s become really focused on Harrison, but Randi, it’s like she’s disappeared as far as Helen’s concerned. I’m worried about Roderick. He called yesterday, but he only spoke to me and he didn’t want me to tell anyone. That’s not sustainable. He knows that, but he doesn’t know what to do about it. A car company based here said that anyone who didn’t show up May 1st had essentially quit. What’s the point of that? They want to lose experienced workers in the middle of the pandemic to replace them with people with more flexibility, who are desperate enough to risk their lives and in demand enough to go wherever this new mercenary economy will hire them? Is it just a way to quickly shed payroll under the auspices that they tried to offer their workforce a fair shot? I feel like the pictures of people flocking to beaches should be providing me with hope, but it’s a brand new type of dread on top of all the other solidifying shadows with sharp edges lurking at the periphery. It only occurred to me today, stupidly, that you all may be falling behind academically. That maybe what I’m doing isn’t enough. How could it be? I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. And will you suffer for it? Maybe the curve will adjust. If everyone is swimming in place, then won’t the expectations just shift? It’s a lie. I knew it was a lie before I typed it. This will be the same unequal bullshit on a whole new scale, widening gaps that were already chasms. I remember at the beginning of this feeling a sense of security because this was something that didn’t affect children. Then that beautiful little girl died and it shook another convenient lie. But now I see that whether she was an outlier or not, it didn’t matter. But the virus is coming for my children in another way. Instead of crippling their lungs, it will cripple your advancement, your ability to compete with an entire class of people that already had a head start. All the bills are coming due.

Glossary

The Atlanta Ospreys: a virtual league team that encompasses all the major VR sports (basketball, hockey, baseball, football and American football) under a single team with a single owner and employing hundreds of virtual athletes that compete in digital arenas for millions of specs.

COVID39: Chapter 20

Sun, 03 May 2020 05:41:56 +0000

Randi’s memories are detailed and dangerous.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Randi’s Letter Theme

Choirs Of Passion - Eternal Punishment 3 by MINOR2GO of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Randi’s Letter:

Hello. I need to talk to you. I know that I could call you, but if I did I don’t know if I’d say what I need to say. I heard you and mom fighting. She asked you if it was true that you were going to New York. You didn’t understand how she knew and she thought that meant you were trying to deny it. Things got bad quickly. This man came to the house, daddy. A few weeks ago. I didn’t like him. He was very tall. His hair is white like a polar bear and he has green eyes. He was the one that told mommy you were leaving. Is he a friend of yours? I don’t think he is. I think he’s the opposite of a friend. I think he told mom so that you two would get in a fight. When he came here he was talking to mom but it felt like he was talking to me. The man said some scary things, things that I don’t believe. The grownups are sending these letters to us when we are older. Uncle Desmond said not to play with his computer, at all. When the man was here, he made it seem like we weren’t going to see you again. So I wanted to send you a letter, for when you’re older, so that you would know that I didn’t believe the man. So you know that I know that I’m going to see you again. If I told you all of this now it wouldn’t mean the same. You’d think I was making up a story. But when you read this years from now you’ll know that I never believed the man. I know that you are in New York because you feel like they need you more than we do. It’s not because you don’t love me, or Harrison. It’s because you are a good man and you’re smart and you can fix people. I think you can fix you and mommy too. She loves you very much. Mommy says I shouldn’t call anyways since you’re so busy. When you read this could you send me a video saying so? You could send it to mommy’s phone or put it on youtube or something. I want you to know that I’m not scared. I know it’s all going to be okay. I just wish I knew when. I know Harrison really misses you. If you could come back soon it would mean a lot to him. Jude and Shane are lucky that their mom and dad are always around. Uncle Desmond and Auntie Mara never fight but they don’t really talk a lot either. Somehow that seems worse. I can’t explain it. Jude reads a lot and gives me good books but Shane just watches movies. Mom said he was going to O.D. on screen time. It think that means he’s going to die from watching so many. I don’t want you to worry about any of us. I’m taking good care of everyone. Please remember to take your vitamins. And to take your temperature everyday. And to wash your hands for twenty seconds. Rub them the whole time. I love you daddy.

COVID39: Chapter 19

Sun, 03 May 2020 03:08:00 +0000

Shane has reached a conclusion as Randi makes a revelation.

“Protests”

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Edge Of Cool by Fredbau of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Auntie Lolo’s Letter:

Breakfast. Have you ever thought about that word? It’s kind of disguised because of how we pronounce it, but it literally means breaking your fast, the one you conducted while sleeping. Language mutates over time to suit the needs of whoever is speaking, but it loses some of itself along the way. There’s a new valediction taking hold. Stay safe. There is one world of people who offer it to anyone they come within six feet of as a way of saying don’t die, I hope your friends and loved ones don’t die, because so many people are dying and they may have no symptoms and you may have no symptoms so you may not know it yet, so do what you can with what you do not know to evade something that you cannot see, but will kill you all the same. There is a whole other world of people who are operating as if the dead are so far removed or inconsequential to the patriotism demanded of normalcy, that the living do not deserve any inconvenient precautions. They are using language differently. “Freedom over Tyranny,” or “My body my choice” or “Vaccines are for sick people” with a picture of Bill Gates. It’s confusing. The vast majority of Americans don’t want to rush the process, but this discontented few have chosen the language of militancy to battle policies designed to fight a pandemic. For some reason I’m reminded of Basheer Al Assad gassing his own people so that he could rule them. Not because they are the same thing, but because it seems rooted in a similar type of nihilistic narcissism. We try to explain so many things with words designed to explain something else. More people have died from COVID-19 in the last three months than in all of the Vietnam war. More than double, almost triple the deaths of any other nation. The president’s son in law called that a success story. White people armed with assault rifles and shotguns descended on the Michigan state capitol in Lansing and threatened lawamakers with violence in what was deemed a “protest”. I remember last summer I was in a Chic Fil A and a stranger said God bless you. I hadn’t sneezed, he just used as a way of greeting. I said thank you. He seemed dissatisfied somehow with my response. As he left he said, Merry Christmas. It was June. He was trying to mark out territory that I didn’t understand completely. But while I shelter at home and have time to think about the shape of words I think I have a more complete understanding of the threat he perceived to his way of life. He thought he was in a “safe” place, where his Christianity would be enthusiastically reciprocated. He needs a place like that wherever he goes, and if he winds up in a temple and doesn’t see enough heads bowed, he reminds them of where they are. Except we were only in a sacred place in his own mind and even if it had been hallowed ground, is this his best interpretation of the edicts captured in the Bible? It was my fault for being at a Chic Fil A in the first place. It’s just so damn delicious. And the customer service is unmatched. But I digress. Words matter is I guess what I really want to say. You are growing up in a really tricky world. It’s going to try to deceive you at every opportunity. Most people will reveal themselves to you despite their attempts to hustle you. Listen to their words. Their actions are important, but listen to the words they choose. They chose them for a reason. It isn’t arbitrary and it isn’t an accident. We are our words, even when we lie. Farewell.

COVID39: Chapter 18

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 07:51:21 +0000

There was no letter today.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Additional Notes and Thank Yous

Glossary

bloomin’ folk: a term to describe the hale and hearty

clover: a derogatory slur aimed at evergreens or those with top rated medical hazard profiles.

Crimea4: shorthand for a pandemic that killed 13 million people globally before a vaccine was created in 2023.

H3N2-25: a strain of influenza that killed 20 minion people globally before a vaccine was created in 2027.

s-kit: short for sterile kit, a set of specially fabricated garments worn by individuals who feel they may be in at risk areas or who themselves are at risk and want to convey a sense of social responsibility. A typical kit consists of an apron, elbow length gloves, a mask, hairnet, and high grade outers (see the glossary entry for episode 7). Often times called a “skit”. It carries a connotation of the wealthy or privileged consorting with normal folk and over emphasizing the risk in these interactions, so a full kit is rarely seen except in the case of non medical personnel in proximity to a severe outbreak of some kind.

zombies: see Chapter 5 glossary entry.

All My Love Official Video

COVID39: Chapter 17

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 07:17:14 +0000

An awkward reunion.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Tag Scanner

TONE 100 Hz 44.1 16bit.wav by klangfabrik of freesound.org

Music

Uncle Josh’s Letter Theme

Hopeful Piano by itsredd of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Uncle Josh’s Letter:

This is one of those ideas that I should’ve had. Writing letters to your loved ones, to tell them how much they mean to you in the time before tney’ve gotten a chance to know you. This is a special thing, a very special thing. I’m honored to do it, especially for you guys. Jude and Shane, when your parents moved, we didn’t even know your mom was pregnant. They were being careful, didn’t want anyone to get too excited and then be let down. The first time was hard on them, hard on everyone. It seemed like we were all waiting to see which one of us would be the first grown ups. Helen and Rod had already moved to Dallas together but they weren’t married yet. Standing there in the hot sun in a tux, honestly all I could think about was getting to the open bar. But then, Harrison and Randi, your mom walked out and it felt like the wind had caught its breath. She glided out to K-ci and Jo-jo’s All My Life. Your uncle Serge was tickling the keys and they had these two dudes perform live. I don’t know where they found them. They were good, no shade, just doing the most. They were dressed up in the white gloves, white scarves, quarter length black jackets. It was so hot. I wanted to fight em cuz they were making me hot. But Helen. We all rose and paid tribute, and you could see Rod trying to hold it together. He was sharp too. It was their wedding when we all realized that a whole new era was upon us. We talked about it a little, made jokes, but because they’d already left, it didn’t hit home like Desmond and Mara’s wedding. They were still a part of the weekly crew. We were still sneaking into movies with bottles of Maker’s Mark and Subway sandwiches. We played Olympic level Taboo until four in the morning. We’d spend all day Sunday watching football. The one o clock game, the 4:15 game, the 7:30 game. The neighbors would complain. Now Des doesn’t even watch football anymore. Divorced them after Kaepernick. Des and Mara were our center. We all imagined what it would be like to help raise their kids. Des used to talk about making a spreadsheet so that everyone had a fair turn at watching you, so that no one could say they were playing favorites. Can you imagine? You were so loved that your parents had to design rows and columns so that we all wouldn’t fight over you. The hypothetical yous. By the time you’d actually come around our whole emotional core had up and migrated to Dallas. I gave moving there a lot of hard thought. I hope you remember me coming out to visit, us going to the zoo and feeding the giraffes. Hitting up that park in the middle of downtown with all the food trucks and sprinklers. Now must be pretty tough on you guys. All the things that you relied on for support is just all of a sudden, gone. That’s gotta be hard. But at least you all have each other. Quarantining with another family has got to have its pros and cons and I know the grass is always greener, but I really wish I had been visiting when this all went down and we’d all be together. Remember that your family extends past those brick walls, that historic district in South Dallas, that once a country never let you forget it state called Texas. Your family is everywhere and we love you, always.

COVID39: Chapter 16

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 06:20:08 +0000

Dr. Estrum provides answers

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

Dr. Estrum Melissa Thomas

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Therapeutic Revelations

StringSection Trap Stabs by JLiveGotDaSauce of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Glossary

decon tank: short for decontamination tank; spending time in one is mandatory when receiving a new haztag classification, or when traveling abroad, or even in between some states.

COVID39: Chapter 15

Mon, 27 Apr 2020 03:56:02 +0000

A letter from Randi’s father.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

Roderick Brian Ashton Smith (Instagram @bashtons)

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

EStrings Intro by Eendee of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Special Thanks to my boy Brian who came through in the clutch. He’s an amazing performer and a better friend.

Roderick’s Letter:

Hi. Uh, hello. Hi. I’m already bad at this. I’m sorry. This is so unfair to you both. You may have heard your mother and I, the other night. My intentions may not matter, but I didn’t mean for it to escalate the way that it did. I always wonder afterwards when it was that I lost control, and, it’s hard to pinpoint. I don’t know what mistakes I’m making anymore. Every morning I try to decide what the right thing to do is and by the time the sun goes down I still have no idea if I’d spent the day making things worse or making them better. I don’t know what will matter most to you in however many years it will be until you hear this. It’s supposed to serve as a time capsule, so maybe you’ll be adults. Maybe you’ll already have kids of your own. I’d like to have that conversation with you one day, parent to parent. I’m hoping that my actions will seem justified then, because I can’t justify them now, to my two beautiful children. Your uncle Desmond and aunt Mara love you very much, they would do anything for you, but I know it’s not the same as having me there. When this is all over I’ll sit each of you on my lap and we’ll talk about why I was away. Why I left without saying goodbye. I was always happy with your mom. It was never a fairytale, but I was proud of our story. I always felt lucky that she would even talk to me. I’d never met anyone like her. We were friends first. I watched guys approach her, watch them struggle with the words, fumble maintaining eye contact. Eventually receding until forgotten, with a resumé spotlighting all their tiny failures. I studied their advances so that I wouldn’t make their mistakes, knowing I would inevitably make my own. The day I found the courage to test my thesis, I had rehearsed my approach like a TV host’s monologue. I knew where to pause for effect, for laughter, for thoughtful consideration. I’d practiced when to look away and when to absorb her in fullness, calibrating against creepy, fine tuning my stare into a gaze. My mirror must have been so sick of me. It was a Saturday morning in the Spring. We were meeting Desmond and Mara for daydrinks. Not just them. Your uncles Frank, Juan, Serge, Marcus, Josh, Joseph and Robert. Your aunts Jessica, Jolie, Patricia, Tommy, Lolo, Eve, Tika and Ebony. I thought there might be safety in numbers if things didn’t go as planned, but back then we were always together. We didn’t need an occasion. So different from now. We’ve all dispersed like dandelion threads on the wings of wishes. And even if we hadn’t, now we live in isolation. Normal feels so far away. I asked her a couple of days in advance if she could help me go buy a suit for a wedding that was coming up later in the summer. She liked to clown me about how I dressed so I thought it would come across like I was taking her “suggestions” seriously. I’d pick her up, we’d spend a few hours together while I tried on ties and shiny shoes. She could see me look my best but in a casual environment. I could cheat her imagination into perceiving me differently. After a morning of tailoring, I’d ask her if she could give me a supplemental course, graduate with honors, or something like that. I got there 30 minutes early with Dunkin Donuts vanilla coffee that I knew was her favorite. I would catch her off her game, unprepared, shields down. I really was confident when I walked up to her door, but when she opened it...it was like getting to the dragon’s lair after weeks of planning on how to get out alive. She wasn’t ready yet. Her hair was everywhere at once like a fuzzy star and too beautiful to stare at directly. She had on an oversized t shirt. That’s it. A baggy faded inconsequential t shirt that managed somehow to hang on her like an heirloom tapestry. She said hey. And then I knew. It was pretend casual in the same way I was poorly trying to imitate. She was all stealth and the word was a shuriken. I stood there bleeding from the heart and lungs, trying to form a sentence, a word, a thought. In a jumble, sensations came over me that my lizard brain translated. HI. WHAT. NICE. HOW. YOU. FINE. I. SORRY. COFFEE. SHOES. But my wound was mortal. My breath came out in short clips while my lungs drowned in shame. I had been a fool. I wasn’t a hunter. I was meat. And the dragon had been waiting. She put a hand on mine and I was so thankful for the mercy of a quick kill. I thought that I was an eskimo brother to all those fools I tried to leach victory from and then I remembered that we were the opposite of eskimo brothers but I didn’t know the word for that and I was the King of All Fools and then...she willed the cup of coffee from my hand like a magic trick and said, “So do I get to be your date for this wedding, because I never asked, but it only seems fair considering the work I have in front of me.” And somehow I managed a not too feeble sounding “That was the plan,” and watched those dice tumble off my lips heady with the stakes, waiting for her mouth to annihilate or vindicate. She said “Good. Come in, I’ll get dressed.” Sevens. My life was never the same after that. Desmond and I, when we were kids, had always talked about what it would be like to have kids of our own. We were both determined to be different than our fathers. I’m so proud of Desmond, but it pains me more than I can describe to know how far I have fallen short. I’m hoping in the years to come I will have made it all up to you. What I want you to understand about this moment is that...it felt like being called to war. The stories you hear about Vietnam, Korea, the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan, they were all muddy with questionable motivations and no clear goals. World War II was the last time this country seemed to have a purity in conflict. Our people were still being killed or degraded at the whims of white men, cheered on by white women, and shunned or spit upon by what are now People of Color, in unity, but then we were niggers and they weren’t and that was that. But the fight came to us and we responded. Black pilots and infantrymen distinguished themselves in battle against an enemy that was literally attempting to destroy all non Aryans and establish a master race. Despite the circumstances of our service, serve we did. With valor. And though our contribution was mostly ignored in the lifetimes of those who survived, our stories were told and they’ve become sacred. This moment feels like that to me. Our people are dying at a much greater rate than whites or POC, and so this virus has made us niggers again. Alone and vulnerable. And I have never been a nigger and my children were not born niggers and I want to do everything in my power to make sure that this remains the case. Because our story must be told. If we leave it for others to tell, there will be omissions. There will be faulty narratives. And there will be lies. I trained to be a nurse because I wanted to help people. Here in Dallas, right now, the virus is under control. But in New York, it’s like something out of a Black Mirror episode. I left last week to try and help make a difference. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not a hero. I am no slayer of dragons. A hero would’ve had the courage to kiss my children on the head and tell them that everything would be all right. A hero would’ve held the love of his life in his arms and found a way to make her understand his choices and to heal the place in her that he had broken. I couldn’t do those things because I am a coward. I don’t have the strength to see any of you and leave in uncertainty. My optimism can only breathe in a space of limited consequences. Outside of that, I am as lost as anyone else, and my bravado has always been a watery illusion. Whatever I’ve said to you about why I did what I did in the past, I hope this clarifies it in some way that will be meaningful to you. If this is the last time you will hear my voice, then know that I regret it. I regret all of it.

COVID39: Chapter 14

Sat, 25 Apr 2020 05:31:01 +0000

Randi and Shane read a letter from the past that predicts their present.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Pathways Initiative Letter Theme

Meant 140BPM - Blend Beats by BlendBeats looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Pathways Initiative Letter:

Randi Morgan and Shane Philips. I hope that when you read this, you are both as healthy and happy as can be expected in the Post Pandemic world. We expect that you are. I know that there have been many challenges that brought you here to this point. We at the Pathways Initiative regret whatever part we have played in producing those hardships. It must be hard for you to imagine the world as it exists today. In some ways we must seem like a decadent society. Gluttons, wanton, and reckless. Shane, you are skeptical of authority, institutions, and altruism. It will be particularly hard for you to reconcile your concepts of free will with what we have developed. You will spend an inordinate amount of time feeling like a pawn. It will give you little comfort, and potentially exacerbate potential harmful cascade effects in your behavior, but our data points alwasys suggested that you would become a king. Randi. Our data regarding your potential and terminal vectors are more...shadowed. You are the quintessential paradox. Everything in your genetic and mental profile define you as an apex paragon. But along with such dominant traits comes an inherent uncertainty that we have not, truthfully, been able to model with the same degree of confidence as 99.998% of the participating population. This requires us to form a negative data set that is informed by what is going on around you, what we call a halo effect, at a greater dynamic than we would feel comfortable with under more data driven parameters. We include this letter in this archive as a test positive for reasons that will become clear in the coming days and weeks. Randi and Shane, there is a 98.9% probability that you have been living together for 4-5 years. There is a 99.6% probability that your relationship is marred by your past trauma and you are currently trying to determine the best path forward. You are both committed to one another but neither of you know if it is because you are following a pre-ordained stumble into your own codependency or if it is rooted in genuine respect, admiration and love. The world you both live in present you with far less options than the one in which this is written so you have a good faith basis for this lingering doubt. At this time we will not share our data sets on how this will turn out. This letter is meant to focus your directions and energies to making these questions a priority in your relationship to accelerate the process you are already undertaking. If you find this to be manipulative, it is. That unfortunately, is the point. You each have impactful decisions to make in the immediate and longterm. Whatever you believe after reading this, we wish you well.

Corona Viruses Taught Us How To Fight Climate Change

COVID39: Chapter 13

Thu, 23 Apr 2020 05:38:06 +0000

Helen’s letter reveals something unseen.

Drink While You Can

Data About the Systems

Systems Thinking

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Helen’s Letter Theme

F A B L E by renegadeonthebeat of loooperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Glossary

harvest equity: a small systems bank.

panacea: the first and largest global systems bank.

systems banks: for profit organizations that analyze your lifestyle and build a model dictating what actions should be taken to create a net positive healing factor or put another way, a negative carbon footprint. Since interconnected dynamics are verifiable and quantitative these tangible changes for individuals or corporations create currency that can be banked, spent or credited against your lifestyle, business or other assets. The analytics are derived from a specific model established by ?????????? that incorporates intricacies of human behavior, organizational interconnectivity, institutional influences and market structures.

Helen’s Letter:

Ever since we found you I feel like life keeps presenting all of these possibilities. In China, for the first time in decades, they are living under clear skies. Milan has announced new initiatives in regulating daily transportation emissions based on the data they are seeing from the shelter in place mandates going on throughout the world. Today is Earth Day. The 50th anniversary. I don’t believe in coincidence, or karma, or anything, I guess, but this, for me, can’t mean nothing. Nitrogen dioxide is falling throughout the country. In Berlin they are reimagining urban planning to coincide with this moment, this moment! And you are home! Safe! I think this is it. A turning point for all of us. You know all those clichés. Well you don’t know them now, but you’ll know them by the time you read this. Always darkest before the dawn. Baby, I can smell the sun. It’s rising on all of us. All the things we’ve gone through, went through, it was all leading to this, to right now. Desmond and Mara think I’m drunk. I haven’t had a drink since we found you! Two days in quarantine and not a single wisp of alcohol has creased my lips. I can’t even regret who I was before this moment, because it took that for me to be here, right now, seeing clearly for the first time in what feels like years. Maybe my whole life. I am teeming in abundance! I’m so thankful, even for the virus. Because it brought us to this place where we had to reckon with our behavior. The consequences of our apathy, our greed. Until finally, after rockbottom, you have to sober up. You have to reassess everything, consider options that seemed impossible before, and create something beautiful from the ashes of your old life. I’m burning it all, my dear heart. Every part of me that clung to unfulfilling scenarios out of habit as opposed to happiness. Baby, thank you. Thank you for rejecting all of this bullshit. That’s what made you run away! I told you. You are special. Empathic. You could feel intuitively what none of us could see. And we followed you, and you’ve led us to this. A bright tomorrow. Thank you my sweet boy. I told you that I would change. I didn’t realize at the time that you were already changing everything. Thank you. Thank you.

#covid39 #covid19 #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #flattenthecurve #earthday #emissions #stayyourasshome #religion

COVID39: Chapter 12

Wed, 22 Apr 2020 05:04:10 +0000

Randi and Shane have a hard discussion about what they each want.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Helen’s Letter Theme

Forgotten Bells - Gangs 2 by MINOR2GO of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Helen’s Letter:

Harrison. When I find you I am going to kill you. I know that we are going to find you. I know that you are scared because you heard me and your dad. I know that you will be so sorry when you realize how scared I am right now. But I know that we are going to find you safe. I know that you are okay because I know that there isn’t a version of me that could survive if you weren’t. Not one that I can conceive of, and because I cannot come to terms with that possibility I reject its existence in its entirety. I would blame Desmond if I was as worthless as I feel, as truly pathetic as the woman who’s voice I hear when I speak. The bulk of the homeschooling effort has been on him. He went to all the websites, indexed all the individual children’s interests, crafted an ad hoc Montessori curriculum, hoping he could keep you distracted enough from your boredom that he wouldn’t have to plug you in to any of the streaming services. Screentime is the new Satan. I grew up with the television as my nanny and look at how I turned out. A case study in accepted mediocrity. But you are not mediocre. You are special. Not because you are the beat of my heart and the pride of your father, but because you are empathetic. You will be so many things that I am not. You WILL BE. If I knew any voodoo I’d snatch the hair of a virgin and kiss the ass of a demon, oh god, I need you to be okay. I’m sorry I’m so consumed with my own shit that I haven’t given you what you need. I swear to you I will. I will. I will. I’m sorry about your dad. About what I said. I didn’t mean those things. Five weeks of quarantine has shown me things that I’m not proud of but I will make them all up to you. Since before I could walk, people have called me beautiful. Pretty. I am. It sits at the center of my identity. The world contours around me and I sit in its cushion. Having the pillows ripped out from under me has been, unsettling. I’m not making excuses. It’s long past the time for excuses. I just wanted you to know, after we find you, that I meant what I said. I wanted you to have proof that this is what made the difference. That you are how I define myself, you and your sister, from now on. God. From now on.

#covid39 #covid19 #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc

COVID39: Chapter 11

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 04:58:18 +0000

Randi and Shane deal with another disappearance in their lives.

links

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

Dr. Estrum Melissa Thomas

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Spanish Trap Guitar - Amado Carillo - Makalo Loop by Makalo

Music

Desmond’s Letter Theme:

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Thank you to everyone out there making a difference at grocery stores, clinics, hospitals, pharmacies and gas stations. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Desmond’s Letter:

There were a couple of nurses who stood in the crosswalk at an intersection, in protest of the protesters. It started out sounding like something really confrontational. Masked nurses staring down bare-faced gun-toting patriots like doomed students at Tiananmen Square. The reality was less dramatic. At red lights they would stand silent, arms crossed, as reminders to the signs and flags of what frontline soldiers look like in the land of COVID. Scrubs and gloves serving as the combat uniform of a nation under siege. Not just from a breeding virus. The fact that this isn’t happening anywhere else is telling. In Israel, there are protests going on against their prime minister and the allegations of corruption, leveled at him by his own government, as three elections have failed to unseat him and bring stability to a nation that has never known any lasting peace. And yet they did so in increments of six feet, with a soldier’s discipline. Here. Here it’s mobs pretending at militia. Science deniers calling upon biblical impetus for helping the pathogen spread into their homes and communities. These nurses weren’t hurling Molotov cocktails or climbing staged soapboxes. They didn’t need to. Helen has been really withdrawn this weekend. Moreso than usual. I overheard her arguing with Roderick. We all heard. The kids were sleeping next door, but the walls are too porous to absorb all that rage. He called me a little bit after the fight. I figured he would. We didn’t talk much about what he knew I must’ve heard. It’s not like any of us go anywhere. Mostly we talked about what we’d seen lately. When he got enough sleep, which was never and had some time to himself, which were scattered minutes cobbled out of pure human need, he would stream shows or movies in increments. It took him a week to finish an episode of Westworld. He still understood it better than I did. He mentioned something else though that was so him, so glass half full when all you’ve got is used solo cups. He told me that all of the animal shelters in Atlanta were empty. At first, I thought that he meant that there was some mass euthanization project due to a shortage of workers or supply chain issues with food. It wasn’t that at all. People in all of their need for companionship and love had gone out and offered their homes to every animal in the city, at a time when most of us don’t know where our next dollar is coming from. Now, truthfully, I’ve always had a bit of resentment to the PETA crowd. Prioritizing so many resources to animals when people all over the world are starving or worse, it has always smacked of, at best, warped sensibilities and at worst the type of racism that exists in the best of places. Maybe because he was the messenger, and he’d seen so much and felt so much from hearing about this, maybe because I knew he needed to hear something in me he wasn’t finding in the places he called home, but I found myself genuinely affected and happy to know that somewhere in America people weren’t being cruel, or ignorant. Maybe the nurses and the dogs and cats are the real world and the rabid protesters are a malignant outlier. I think he heard the hope in my voice and took it as a mirror. I don’t think it was an honest reflection, but I hope it was a lifeline.

#covid39 #covid19 #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #nurses #firstresponders #thebestofus

Exploiting the Virus for Hate

COVID39: Chapter 10

Fri, 17 Apr 2020 07:17:59 +0000

Jude is missing and Shane isn’t waiting.

Our Brothers and Sisters

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_EqdscJJIk/?igshid=184nmhjzy4clj

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Voice Cloak Q Hack

Droid Communications by LiamG_SFX

Music

Auntie Tommy’s Letter Theme

Moonrocks And Pianos 145 Bpm by Wphil of looperman.com

Part 2 Moonrock Pad 145 Bpm by Wphil of looperman.com

Part 3 Moonrock Ambient Glockenspiel by Wphil of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Thank you to Stephen Senne of the AP and the combination of real people that are encapsulated in Auntie TOMMY (Keet, Bam and Toms).

Glossary

nilled: turned off.

percoms: personal communication devices.

Auntie Tommy’s Letter:

Hey babies. Yo mamas and daddies told me about this archive shit and I was blown away. It’s not like me to trust the government to do much right, but hoarding information is something they have excelled at to an Olympic like level so let me be on the record for all of them MAGA fucks running the government right now...your days is numbered my G. Oh I wish I was recording this on November 4th. That should be a new holiday. As a matter of fact it should just replace the Fourth of July altogether. Raggedy ass racist ass holiday. Firework deez nutz. I’m not at all happy with the choice in front of us, but it’s a choice and as black people we have to be happy for that. I have no illusions that you will have to make similar choices. Your adulthood will inherit the fight that we inherited, but I hope you are more woke to the consequences of apathy and fatigue than my sisdren and breddren of today. I’d call them niggaz lazy if it wasn’t racist. Black people can be racist. Don’t forget that. You’ll hear that racism is a function of power, so at best black people can be prejudice. That’s true and not true at the same time. When it comes to other communities of color, black people can set the tone and frame the narrative for how those people are treated or at least enhance it exponentially. Right now we have a rise of Asian hate crimes going on because of the virus. It started in China so these dumbass rednecks thinks that means that Americans of Asian ancestry are plague carriers. Dumb shits. But dumb shits carry real consequences, as our current federal government puts on display for the world everyday. Joke I heard that I hope is less relevant when you read this. “What borders stupidity? Canada and Mexico.” Gotta laugh to keep from crying. Stupidity can be a pathway to power because ignorance is seductive. It removes responsibility, so anything becomes possible. In my worst nightmares I imagined a global threat with incompetence at its head, but I confess these mofos surprised me. What’s really clear to me though is the economic frustration nonsense. These people will be happy to die broke, as long as they can claim a win over all of the people they feel threatened by. The elites, which just mean people who have carved out a future for themselves that doesn’t include being buried where you were born. The coloreds, all the coloreds, because they aren’t real Americans. We’re just all people they’ve tolerated and should be thankful for what we have, no matter how little, because they were generous to share it with us in the first place. And lastly, the godless. I heard someone in a documentary say once that if the Bible told them that 2+2=5 then they would adjust their whole world view to support that. He meant it, with everything, and it helped me understand that these people can’t be reasoned with. You can only wait for their bones to become brittle and that their hate doesn’t fertilize a new crop of misanthropes. The FBI killed a man a few weeks ago who had been planning a mass kill event. He was linked to white supremacists who see the virus as a way to bring about the world they want to live in. He wasn’t choosy. Muslims, Jews, black children. Any “other” would do. But our Asian sisters and brothers, the model minority, are being targeted indiscriminately and the streets are as unkind to them as they have been to us for half a millennia. I want you to know, that I know, the future is no better. It can’t be. Because there are still people in it. So I want you to be careful. And to remember that before you commit yourself to anything, you remember how precious you are to so many and you owe those who love you careful judgment and heartbreaking consideration. I will always have your back. Fuck this corporate shit I do. You ever need me for any foul shit and you don’t call, Ima be offended. I don’t want you to be warriors. I would rather you be pharaohs. But our people will starve on the promise of fairy tales. We need manifestos. Oh, and the video of y’all reading A for Activist really hit me in a warm place that I needed right now. I hope I’ve given you something you needed in return. I love you, with everything.

#covid39 #covid19 #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #poc #humanrights #hatecrimes #militant

COVID39 Chapter 9

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 06:59:33 +0000

Randi and Shane plot next steps after realizing they may be in danger.

Freedom of the Nihilists

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Mara’s Letter Theme:

FallOut - 93cave Type Pad - Prod 93CAVE by 093cave of looperman.com

Photographer: Joshua A. Bickel @joshuabickel

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Thanks to Joshua A. Bickel of the Dispatch for providing such a striking image of our times at great risk to himself.

Glossary

pod: like an airbnb but suited to standards of sterility that make it considered safe for travelers to trust.

undefended: has replaced the term unarmed in the vernacular.

zeen: digital articles on the Q.

zombie: a slang term for M.I.C.s, who are basically commando medics (more detailed description in a previous glossary).

Mara’s Letter:

There isn’t much in the way of hope these days. There are people in Michigan and Ohio today storming governor’s offices, demanding that their governments reopen. In Ohio, the pictures and interviews don’t seem real. They can’t be. Some guy going on about not being able to buy lawn fertilizer? A woman whining about not going to the hair salon? Michigan has the fourth most cases in the states, and the third highest death rate. 1,921 dead. That’s 57% of all the people that have died in China. Allegedly. And just as efforts to slow this thing down seem to be working, these people want to rush headlong into an unknown that could decimate them. They’re out here screaming for the freedom to die so that they can go back to the jobs that don’t pay them enough. For the freedom to kill others by carrying this contagion asymptomatically to their fathers and mothers, grandparents and the ailing. People keep dying and it doesn’t seem to matter. When children started getting slaughtered in schools routinely, we saw that they cared more about these freedoms than they did their own sons and daughters. I told myself then it was because they couldn’t imagine it happening to them. But as the bullets flew in classrooms all over the country and shooting drills became standard in daycare centers, that rationalization began to evaporate. It was only a couple of years ago that I learned it was against the law for the government to sponsor a study on statistical domestic gun deaths. The law was decades old. I understood then that none of this was an accident. That death wasn’t an antidote to greed. In some cases it was an accelerant. The Senate Intelligence Chairman sold more than a million dollars in stock after receiving briefings about the virus’ impact and then told the public that the country was more prepared than any other to deal with the threat. He made money off of every single person who died alone in a room full of masks and plastic. And yet, I am still surprised. It may be because I grew up pampered. We were poor growing up, but racism had ebbed into the subtlety of sledgehammers instead of the bloodlust tied to nooses. Redlining had refined itself into gerrymandering. But the police remained. Brutal and efficient. When you read this, I can think of only one thing that will carry my hopes with you in words tight enough to hold onto you. The world will not love you my sons, cops least of all. Trust them with nothing. Only money will set you free, and even then, it is a poor man’s freedom.

#covid39 #covid19 #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #supportlocaljournalism

COVID39: Chapter 8

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 05:25:58 +0000

There's a knock at the door.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Desmond’s Letter

Playground Strings Main by ChrisNeal of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Glossary

chipwhich: an ice cream sandwich, with two chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream and chocolate chips in between. This is not an artifact of the near future. It is a thing of the now, but apparently not everyone calls them chipwhichs so consider yourself clarified.

Desmond’s Letter:

Hope felt like it was on the horizon today. On the one hand, information coming out of New York makes it sound like things are leveling off. Governors across the country are tentatively discussing plans to ease restrictions publicly. That election I told you about from last week ousted one of the judges who decided people should have to risk their health and lives to vote. Stimulus checks started going out this week. It won’t be enough to carry us, but it’ll keep us from worrying about whether or not we’ll have enough food. I find myself thankful that I’m spending this time with you, your mom and the Morgans. I haven’t gotten used to how eerie it all feels but I’m glad I don’t have to do it alone. We saw a movie the other day called A Serious Man on Netflix. It was a great experience for a couple of reasons. One, it’s a Coen Bros. movie so it’s got all that deft and quirky dialogue supported by memorable characters. It was a very Job like story. The main character’s world is falling apart and to cope with it he seeks the advice of a rabbi. Things get progressively worse and he gets shunted from one shitty rabbi to the next trying to earn an audience with the wisest of the wise, which never happens. Mostly I think I identified with his marital life. In all the ways that it was painfully familiar, it was also joyously different, and that reminded me of how lucky I am to have your mom as a partner. The other great thing was the party feature. You login and can watch the movie with your friends and a part of the screen on your laptop is dedicated to a chat thread. I’ve seen so many inventive ways to share in one another since this all started. It’s served as a good reminder of the things we’ve taken for granted. Like teachers. Or time. But a lot of it isn’t innovation. I talk to people now so much more than I used to via Zoom or Facetime and these were all accessible to me before, but the world was so busy that we didn’t make time for it. In truth I’m busier now than I’ve ever been, and yet I find the time to connect with people because nothing is frivolous anymore. Everything has weight because everything is ending. I don’t mean that in a morose way, it’s just that the way we used to live, it’s never coming back. Not like it was. It can’t. And that’s probably for the best. I’m optimistic that we’ll take the best of this time and plant it in the future that we’re growing, but I also know we’ll bring with us some of the worst. Some of the things that we keep trying to leave behind, but are too frail to bury. I love you boys.

#covid39 #covid19 #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #netflix #groupmoviewatch

COVID39: Chapter 7

Tue, 14 Apr 2020 05:03:20 +0000

Randi and Shane share misgivings and Shane reveals family is in town.

Young Gifted & Black

Black Enterprise

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Helen’s Second Letter

Epic Strings by Rowan30000 of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Glossary

Jude Philips: Shane’s older brother, who would eventually wind up fostering Shane in high school.

outers: slick silicate lined garments worn over normal clothes that are designed to repel liquids, oils and dirt as well as to be sterilized quickly in a residential or commercial sanitizer. Also called slickers.

specs: slang for qnet spectators.

Helen’s Letter:

Easter came and went in barren churches and cathedrals throughout the world. We’ve never been particularly religious but the absence of performative devotion is profound. No pastel peacocks. No restaurants teeming with brunch drunk disciples. No crowds of any kind. Deserted sidewalks and vacant roads, like the world is in mourning, which it is, I suppose. We take walks everyday, all of us, except your father of course, but the rest of us typically make the pilgrimage to visit the mausoleum that our neighborhoods have become. A place where living used to happen but is artificially frozen in place. Restaurants and barbershops and nail salons and bikeshops arrayed like toys. They could all be open tomorrow, tonight, but most won’t ever see another customer. They won’t rise on the third day, just die like the rest of us. I said the sidewalks are vacant. They aren’t. I saw blocks and blocks of chalk art framed in the jagged squares of concrete slabs under our caravan’s feet, though the children who etched them had vanished. Each of them inspired hope or unity. Patience and fidelity. There were signs on powerline poles that said “I can’t hug you but I can tell you that I love you”. I felt like an archaeologist clumsily navigating a long hidden utopia. The leader of the free world did a lot of lying today but that just made the chain of days seem more infinite without notable distinction. Until I read an article, which prompted me to write this today, to you. It was about a scientist. Her name is Kizzmekia Corbett. She is leading a team that is at the forefront of a vaccine. She’s 34. As I read I thought about Nina Simone’s song, Young Gifted & Black. Which made me think of you. That song was playing in the delivery room when you slid into the world greasy with afterbirth and wailing like an angel from Revelations. You’ve never found it hard to live up to such an auspicious first impression. This woman is equal parts genius and round the way girl. She clearly felt comfortable in the skins of her ambition and identity. I hope that you continue to foster that. There was something she said that really sticks out to me. “You understand that your work will have to be mighty so that it can do your speaking.” It might as well have been an incantation. I felt savage after reading it. My feet went kicking under the table as my arms shot up like one of those airblown advertising dummies. I startled you, siting across the table from me, the peanut butter jelly smear across your chin marring your perfect skin. Instead of reassuring you I lunged at you and trapped your cheeks between my hands, driving my eyes into yours like a madwoman. I told you “Speak that SHIT” but it came out more like a growl. It was a rare moment when we were alone. No one saw the madwoman grabbing and cursing her child. I don’t know what came over me. When the others came in from the backyard we were sitting quietly across from each other like the world hadn’t just tilted. No one knew, but us. I had soaked up the hope of the day and cycled it through the metabolism of my soul into something primal, inarticulate and unmistakable, like a screaming newborn. Like my firstborn daughter. I felt the hum of a subsiding hunger in me in that moment, that had drenched me but left me damp and wilted. But I pray that I left you with its fingers around your heart. I hope that I infected you.

#covid39 #covid19 #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi #generationc #ninasimone #younggiftedandblack #speakyoshit #kizzmekiacorbett

COVID39: Chapter 6

Mon, 13 Apr 2020 07:02:19 +0000

Dr. Estrum offers something that changes everything.

Cast

Dr. Estrum Melissa Thomas

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

The Offer

Simple Trap Piano by AnxiousBeats of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Special thanks to a therapist friend of mine for providing some mock therapy that constituted Dr. Estrum’s dialogue in this episode. He had some criticisms about episode one so I was like I got another therapy joint so why not put your feelings where your mouth at fool and he was like I aint doing shit so bet and it was kind of him to do so, so thank you, you can go back to playing rocket league with strangers online now. The quarantine looks different for each of us, I’m just saying. No judgment.

#covid39 #covid19 #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi

COVID39: Chapter 5

Sun, 12 Apr 2020 22:15:55 +0000

Randi and Shane speak plainly about their inequities.

The First Evergreens

Cast

Randi Halle Millen

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query] Tone 4.wav by patchen of freesound.org Q Tone [Response] Tone 3.wav by patchen of freesound.org

Music

Mara’s Letter

Shooting Star - Emotional Loop by 8thdiamond of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Glossary

blue hour: the elderly, infirm or predisposed are allotted certain windows of activity typically during four a.m. and 7 a.m. in most cities. This can include the obese, smokers, chronic drinkers, those who do not log a certain amount of exercise, etc. There has been evidence of people of color being given blue designations without merit by medical professionals either engaging in bias or systemic discrimination. A blue found out during sequester is at risk of being detained or involuntarily quarantined.

evergreen: a person who is considered genetically immune to historical pathogens due to vaccinations or novel ones due to inoculation. Evergreens typically only need to see a physician for a hazard status once a year or so. These individuals exist in a rarefied economic and social space in global culture.

green hour: the time allotted for people who have been seen by a medical professional within the last thirty days and deemed free of any viral impediment. They are given sway to roam as they wish.

haztag: an informal term for the irradiated tattoo that designates your sequester or evergreen status. It lasts for thirty days. The tattoo is embedded with a doctor’s signature code as well as an accompanying code that may allow someone travel dispensations during their sequester, typically tied to one’s employer. Anyone detained without a tattoo is risking immediate quarantine and potential jail. M.I.C: Municipal Integrated Corpsman. Tasked and equipped with assessing the medical threat of a person or group of persons. They are equipped with field tests for a variety of pathogens, body armor, advanced first aid, and both lethal and non-lethal armaments. They are military medics that have been sanctioned to operate within local governments with a great degree of autonomy. Derogatively referred to as “zombies” or “mikes”. orange hour: the time of day when hazard level individuals are allowed out into society. In most cities, this is between midnight and four a.m. sequester: the color-coded system that calls for people of various health or age dynamics to cede social spaces to others. Being outdoors outside of your hours is reason enough to be stopped by the police and M.I.Cs. Sequester is broken up between blue, green and orange hours.

Mara’s Letter:

From the very beginning, no one has been taking this seriously enough. Macro or micro. The ineptitude of the national response is criminal. They just released that more people have died from the virus in the U.S. than in any other country in the world. More than India. More than China. And we had the benefit of warnings, guidelines, the world’s largest economy, most accomplished epidemiologists. Granted, you can’t trust the numbers coming out of China. But they are going back to work. Their athletes are competing again, broadcasting to the world that they’ve put the worst behind them while for us, that’s still coming. And yeah, they failed us. People should go to jail for this. But I’ve seen the same juvenile lack of acceptance here in our own home. I’ve made it a point to never speak ill of your father in your presence. That has had its own set of consequences. It’s hard for us to be in the same room these days. I look at him and I’m not proud of the thoughts I have, of the way I feel. The house, the cars, most of the credit cards, are all in my name. I’m the one responsible for everything. So when it came time to call everyone and tell them we can’t pay you, I had to make those calls. They won’t speak to him, even as an authorized user of the accounts. So that’s up to me too. And I still have to work. They cut my pay by 50%, and I’m working three days instead of five, but I still have to work. I try not to pester him about filing for unemployment. I see the news. The system is managed state to state but it’s down everywhere. It wasn’t designed to handle 16 million people filing claims in three weeks. Nothing was designed for this. Including our marriage. Your father is a good man. He isn’t lazy. I’ve seen him work to the point of exhaustion for other people’s dreams. Bartending mostly. He’s got a way with people. But I’ve never seen him pour that much of himself into making his own dreams come true. For him there is always a tomorrow. I look at him and I can’t comprehend how he doesn’t see that nothing is ever going to be the same. That his tomorrows have come due and he has nothing to show for them. How can I truly respect a man like that, even if I love him? In this whole house of adults, I’m the only one setting up a plan for the future. Helen is still shell shocked and who can blame her? Her husband is at least out there making a difference, making some real sacrifices. But what does she think all of her morose self indulgence is going to accomplish? Boys. There are a lot of things I want you to take from your father. But my hope for you in your manhood is that you fight for what you want. Be your own boss. Be passionate about your worth. Discipline is self love. I hope this doesn’t come across as selfish or self absorbed. My biggest worry about right now is that the time I’ve taken away from you will have you thinking that I was cold or aloof and babies, that scares me. Because I’m doing it all for you. And if I didn’t say it, take this time to tell you here, I’m scared that you’ll never know and that would be worse than no future to plan for.

#covid39 #covid19 #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi

COVID39: Chapter 4

Sat, 11 Apr 2020 05:20:54 +0000

Shane faces an unexpected reckoning.

Philly Masks

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Frank’s Letter

Self Destruct Smooth Pitch Rise by MixxCustomSounds of looperman.com

Dillzedd Classic Boombap Drums 420 by DillzeddProd of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Glossary

dings, nudges, hits or tinkles: social media communication jargon of the future, ya dig.

spiked: salty, mad, pissed.

Frank’s Letter:

What up Fam! Oh man, this is such a cool idea. I’m blown right now. On some ol time capsule shit. So check it. I know that you all have turned out great. Your mommas and daddys are some of the best people I’ve ever known and they take the raising of y’all so serious. So much so, in fact, that I’m sure they started off with some real down and depressing shit about what’s going on right now. It’s not their fault. They aren’t like, negative people or anything. But they also got their hands full with y’all and they want to make sure that you know the real and blah blah blah, but yo! I’d be remiss if I didn’t share with you a couple of important things about the ‘Rona. One. I miss the shit out of y’all. It’s not like I would’ve necessarily been there right now anyway. My next trip to Dallas wasn’t planned until the summer. But the fact that I CAN’T get to y’all, and that the summer trip is now highly questionable, definitely has me feeling a kind a way. I love you all so much. Not having kids myself, I get to spoil y’all, and then leave your parents to deal with you. But truth is you’ve all always been such incredible kids. I don’t believe half the stories your parents tell me about y’all fucking up shit. I can say fucking up shit to you now cuz you grown. This is Incredible. Trippy shit man. So. Two. Gas prices are down. I don’t gotta drag my black ass into work. I’m collecting a check (allegedly, I aint seen no money yet), I’ve got all my bills and mortgage deferred, I’ve been catching up on all my Hulu and Netflix and Disney + like a champ. Rick and Morty is on hiatus. But watching the old episodes in my drawers in the middle of a weekday with some brown is a fucking great way to ease the time. Taking meetings in my drawers. Not having to change out of my drawers. All things drawers related have upticked. Three. Ya boy DJ Nice been killing the gram with his sets. I can now say I’ve sweated my ass off in the club with Michele Obama! What a world! My only emergencies have been running out of liquor. But I’ve got a fresh set of masks that I ordered from this joint in Philly so I’m always prepared to make my next run cuz that home delivery situation is cool and all but sometimes you run out and what am I gonna do, wait til tomorrow, when I still got daylight? That’s a no. Four. I ain’t got no kids! Five. Well. Huh. I will say that I miss sex. I wasn’t dating anybody serious when the apocalypse landed so when they shut this shit down I was solo. But honestly it’s not just the sex. It’s the contact. Like, I haven’t hugged anyone in weeks. Y’all know how I do. I bring it in. That part is tough, I can’t lie. But this flattening the curve shit is real. It’s showing results. Dumbasses are still out here dumbassing but it feels like if we can keep our heads this will be over and we might get basketball back! I’m not gonna spend a lot of time talking about it here cuz I wanna keep this positive but if the Rona robs my boy Bron of a chip, YO! Salty doesn’t begin to cover it. Anyway. I’ll leave you with this, my beautiful kings and queens. The world has thrown our people every sort of raggedy hand it could despite our royal lineage, and at every turn we rise. If your not up on your Maya Angelou, shame on you. Do that shit. So if you are ever down or not feeling at your best, remember who you are and where you come from. Your parents are Empresses and Emperors, fuck how much money they make. And they love y’all. I’ve known them, and you, since before any of you were born, know that. Your Uncle Frank won’t never lie to you. The next time I see you it’ll be all Star Wars and Sesame Street, but I’ll know that one day you’ll read this, and it’ll be like our own inside joke. I’m a say drawers, just out the blue, and someday you’ll know, that in that moment, I was talking to you then and now, at the same time. Cuz that’s what love is. And best believe, I love you.

#covid39 #covid19 #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi

COVID39: Chapter 3

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 05:13:52 +0000

Randi reads a letter from her mother and confronts Shane about something he’s been hiding.

Doctor’s Photo

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Helen’s First Letter

Sad Boy by Sizeoff of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Glossary

-American Political Parties

Black Party the coalition that concerns the rights of people of color specifically.

Condemnics an offshoot of the religious right who traffic in conspiracy theories concerning the what and how of COVID-19.

Democrats the center-left establishment.

Green Party environmentally centered and extremely powerful.

Jurists an offshoot of the mainstream right that considers the rule of law to be sacrosanct with literal originalist dogma with no variation.

Loyalists an offshoot of the GOP that considers the 45th president to be the greatest president in history and seek to emulate and venerate him in every way.

Platonics an extreme left-wing group that demands socialism and observance of every cultural hegemony.

Helen’s Letter:

Dear Harrison, this will be a series of minor and major confessions which seem apt since we are all being punished. We decided that we would share these with you when you turn ten. For you, that’s just two short years away, but you’ll still be too young for all of this. You say you understand what’s happening and I believe that you do but I confess to you, that I do not understand what’s happening. Every morning I wake up knowing exactly what to expect. It’s been a series of unchanging yesterdays. How could that be? There should be something inherent in the DNA of a Monday that differentiates it from a Sunday. Something your circadian rhythm would pick up on and murmur to your subconscious. But to me it’s all a desert of time like an hourglass resting on its side. Second confession. I am not fond of the Phillips. Mara walks around like the queen of the vagabonds, tethered to so many things that are somehow still important. Desmond watches over you and the other children like he is competing for an award, or attention or maybe affection. Before we were abandoned in this place I had decided that I’d had my fill of these people so everyday is a new torment in tedium. A third confession. Part of it you know, so I’ll start there. Your father is a hero. Objectively. To his community. His city. America. Shit. The world. A cosmic savior. So powerful in his generosity that he has given his family to the people we share a wall with. Saint of saints. He is here less and less. I don’t know what to think of that. I don’t know how to feel about that. I confess that I hate him for it. I will confess that I can say things to you that I cannot face myself because the man that you will become can handle my weakness. You can forgive me for it. My sweet boy, I can ask that of you in a way that I can’t of your sister. She is too strong to forgive me for becoming this angry, petty person. So to you, my future son, I leave one last confession. I saw a post today of spouses who are doctors, who spend 18 hours out of every single day, fighting the virus. You couldn’t see any part of their skin in the post. They were covered head to toe in medical blue latex and plastic. They held one another, separated by their transparent face shields and the contagion that could be lying dormant in their breath or blood. It is the only contact they are allowed and it was clear that they cherished it. There was nothing routine about the need between them. I envy them so.

#covid39 #covid19 #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #quibi

The coronavirus is infecting and killing black Americans at an alarmingly high rate

COVID39: Chapter 2

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 06:59:36 +0000

Randi and Shane listen to the first letter, from Shane’s father.

Cast

Randi Halle Millien

Shane Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Cheers

My bourbon by Me of Me

Music

Desmond’s First Letter

PG-Sunshining by PaulGuanez of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Special thank you to Puppy Pals for keeping our eldest dead-eyed and limp enough for us to get this podcast out.

Glossary

IRIS: Independent Retinal Immersive Scanner; a passive laser suite integrated into various bits of everyday tech that interprets your eye’s movements and translates them into digital action. Effective for drifting on the Q, inputing textual commands, communicating wordlessly and interacting with eleventh generation tech in an almost seamless way. It would appear like telepathy to people of today.

vam: slang for videogram.

Desmond’s First Letter:

Shane. I’m sitting across from you feeling guilty. The TV, as I type this, has drained your soul away. You are a husk of your normal self, deadeyed and limp. I try not to take your surplus of energy for granted. I try to marvel, in every moment, the mechanics of your limbs, the buoyancy of your spirit. I’m practicing staying present. One of the many lifehacks I’ve adopted culled from emails, newsletters and instagram posts from the perpetually zen. But right now I’m so thankful for your stillness and silence that I’m giddy. These two tribes of beasts that have become our Quarantine children. I made you all peanut butter and jelly sandwiches today with that thick Trader Joe’s bread. We’re running out. Dr. Birx recommended that this week, these next two weeks in particular, that we should all stay home. We’ve been sheltering in place together with the Morgans for weeks now, but this was different. She said trips to the grocery store and pharmacy should only be taken in emergencies. We’ve been watching the rest of the world suffocate, praying for Italy and praying to not to become Italy and now it feels like it’s our turn to choke. The prime minister of Britain is in intensive care. Each day there are more people with masks when we take our walks, even here in Dallas. We politely cross the street half a block away from our neighbors who have become potential carriers, well meaning and innocent threats. Your mom is doing better with it all than I am. At least I think she is. It’s hard to tell. She’s constantly moving. She has a job and she can do that job from home. Which would make us aristocrats in the new scheme of things but I don’t have a laptop job. I bought her three bottles of wine the last time I went out to the store. I peeled off the labels so that she could just enjoy whatever was in her glass without worrying about the price. It’s hardest for Helen, with Roderick gone all the time. I tasked you kids with picking her some flowers from the backyard. Flowering weeds, really. They’re dying in a plastic cup a couple of feet away from where I’m typing this. I don’t think she’s noticed them. Even here, it’s hard for me to talk about Roderick. I don’t know what to say except that when he’s gone the sun can’t quite reach beyond the panes and we wait for him in unwanted shade. There was a report today that said black people are being infected and dying disproportionately to other groups. At the beginning of this there was an internet rumor that metastasized into colloquial pseudo wisdom that we were somehow immune. Seems like it was so long ago that we were so proud of being so stupid. Majority black counties are dying at six times the rate of majority white counties. And we are just at the beginning. Before you were born I tried to reconcile the dangers that would stalk you in your life. I thought that I had been adequately paranoid and thoughtful. I was wrong. I never considered this. I never knew to be terrified of this new thing, waiting for you to grow, so that it could strangle the life out of you or leave you without a community of elders to nurture and guide you. But I saw something amazing today Shane. There was an election today in Milwaukee Wisconsin. Another family, like ours, stood in a scattered line, under a sky that dumped rain and ice, for hours, so that they could vote. The only reason they were there, were because a group of cynical people gave them a choice. Vote or stay home, thinking that the less people turned out, the greater advantage it would give them. I don’t know how most of those people voted, just like I don’t know what tomorrow will bring into our home. But they risked their lives today and I’m hopeful that they did so in defiance of the cynics and not in support of them. I’m probably wrong, but for the sake of the world I want for you, I refuse to believe otherwise. I love you.

#covid39 #covid19 #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #qibi

https://thesevensages.com/covid39

COVID39 : Chapter 1

Tue, 07 Apr 2020 05:25:52 +0000

Dr. Estrum offers Randi and Shane a revelatory solution to a painful problem.

Cast

Dr. Estrum Melissa Thomas

Randi Halle Millien

Shane. Mark Millien

SFX and Music Contributors

SFX

Q Tone [Query]

Q Tone [Response]

Music

Nostalgia and Discovery

This Fight - Cinematic Piano - Part 1 by RealNorth of looperman.com

This Fight - Cinematic Piano Loop - Part 2 by RealNorth of looperman.com

Created by Mark and Halle Millien

Cover Art by Halle Millien

Written, Directed and Produced by Mark Millien

Glossary

drifting: a term used to describe when one is using the Q to communicate across its platforms.

Q: slang for the quantumnet; a technology that uses discreet qubits of transitory particles to hold almost limitless amounts of data and transmit them at near light speed using the bones of the internet as infrastructure.

Run: a nickname Shane uses for Run.

tabs: all social media forms have been aggregated into a single hosting network that collates and slots their information into packets or tabs that have replaced likes and upvotes. Tabs, like their predecessors, can be monetized.

This series is intended to be a companion to people experiencing what we are all experiencing on a daily basis but provide some levity and beauty and a sense that none of us are alone via narrative. Something you could listen to after being depressed by your daily news podcast, but abounding with a hope that is hard to see right now. We hope it provides inspiration, hope and a little distraction to our collective chronicles.

#covid39 #covid19 #coronavirus #quarantine #rona #quarantinechronicles #covidchronicles #coronachronicles #qibi