Hi Billy, my girlfriend proposed! But meanwhile life is going extinct. There’s racism and oceans full of plastics and our vigilante president — everything is in free fall. And yet there are all these weddings. I’m asking myself, how will we raise a family?

— Nancy, Flushing

Dear Nancy,

Beware: romantic love is an old profit center for consumer-capitalism. It inserts its products into love — not to mention hate, nostalgia, bowels and boredom — and it is ready to make your wedding very expensive.

If marriage is what you two are choosing, okay, but be sure to kick out the patriarch and all that right-wing religiosity. Love molds destiny, love defies laws, as Emma Goldman tells us.

The personhood of the corporation has his hand on my leg.

Families are under attack by the gun-toting state. The most obvious nightmare is the tent-camps of children along the border. But your love can be the best defense against official hate and fear.

When you think about it, homemade governments — devoted couples, caring children — really are the future, because the climate apocalypse is pushing the fascists back to their forts and resorts. The future needs our love for each other and a healing love for Earth. 

Gaialujah!

•   •   •

Dear Billy, is it just me or are dating app algorithms guiding the natural selection process these days? Maybe the changing climate isn’t the only aspect of the Anthropocene Epoch we should worry about.

— Bertie, Kensington

Dearest Bertie,

The personhood of the corporation has his hand on my leg. It’s Mark Zuckerberg. I’m trying to clear my head — is this real? He says he loves me, his tongue is slimy between my lips, prying open my face. What a bad date!

Can we break through the rot of corporate erotics? The plastic and conflict minerals that reboot our genitalia across space. A.I. is sold to us as a way to get what we desire faster, but Silicon Valley’s inventions are always hard work in the end. Addictions are exhausting. 

It’s 10 degrees. It’s raining ice. Walk outside shirtless with me, Bertie! Immerse yourself in the natural world. Go back to natural selection. Every blood platelet in our bodies stares at this storm. Fantastic. Earthalujah! Great sex is extreme weather.

— Billy

Reverend Billy is an activist and political shouter, a post-religious preacher of the streets and bank lobbies. Got a question for Reverend Billy? Just email RevBilly@Indypendent.org and unburden your soul.

Photo credit: Nick Fewings.