Ah, the serene spirit of the holidays.

Here’s a cheerful story, and I mean that with no irony. It’s about a far better role model than Tony Soprano.

Catching the guy who stole 20 things from me

Please watch it either as mindless CSI entertainment, or to restore your faith a little in parts of humanity, and even in the talent of cops to do the right thing, at least when all their work is done for them by a particularly resourceful victim.

That hero reminds me of Mav–remember Mav? A few weeks ago I told you about Mav the Slacker who bought a truck, lived in and out of it awhile, filmed the thing, and became a YouTube millionaire. It was a moment of inspiration for me. But Cody in this new story, who goes by Whistlin’ Diesel, is Mav on a whole ‘nother level.

In three days this thing has 6.2 million views, off a subscriber base that already had three million.

If he wasn’t rich already, this would do it, but he is rich already. Rich enough to push $1400 in damages back into the hands of the thief’s wife, who is crying while her moral cretin of a husband stares on at the scene blankly, knowing his whole character is now documented as garbage for the whole world and his own family to witness. With a high-ground shake of their heads, or in shame and gratitude, or whatever. Even Johnny Law is deeply impressed.

I don’t really need or maybe even want millions of views or subscribers, which is good, because it’s highly unlikely that my path will bring those things to me.

I’d very much like to go for some fraction of that, and be an acquired taste for a narrower niche audience, and tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, while remaining somewhat personally enigmatic and far from the kind of fame that gets you recognized at a glance.

I’d like to take the natural folksy Bob Wells idea of freedom and built on its implication with a razor-sharp insight or two, in a low voice that soothes, while I tell you both elevating and disturbing things at once in the manner of a Steely Dan song.

Belletrism.

Good dear Bob has been at this for years and has made it up to half a million subs, and one supporting role in a Frances McDormand film.

My ambitions are even more limited.

I just want to do good art and pay my own way with it, and leave behind a vapor trail of actual good to gently blanket this very wicked world.

The solstice is over. Christmas is here. The brave new year lingers around the corner.

Get your head out of your own ass, Alexander, and begin to peek out from this sedentism coma. It’s been a long time coming: and it’s long overdue.