The Lighthouse Diaries: CHONGQING, CHINA, April 13 – Never Trust a Vogon

April 13. Chongqing. Daniel has done an amazing, beautiful thing with the Invisible War song. It's earnest, it's gorgeous, and it's touching. The first time I heard it, I was in a meeting with China's biggest publisher. I took a break to fall to my knees and weep for a good half an hour, for all the dead, for all the sick, and for all the moments where I had been strong but was sure I wasn't going to make it out of this ok. I felt so human and raw at that moment, and that song was really a gift for me.

As I've been working, he's been also working, and it's changed in parts. We've got Rebecca, a fantastic singer, doing the backup and back and forth vocals with him on it now, and my good friend and collaborator, Stephane Vera, a fantastic musician, playing Rhodes and some drum bits to fill it out. We brought it to another old, dear friend, Dylan, and he gave it a second mix, so now we have two: A TV version, full of high-end majesty done in the Yukon, and a radio edit, mixed by ill Gates, with some kicks and a bit of street cred.

I met a wonderful kindred spirit named Olga from Change, and she's got lots of hands in lots of pies, spinning lots of plates too, trying to do triage on the mess Trump's made of America. We've had some great chats. There are some wonderful people doing their best, shining their light.

It's good to always remain humble, and don't be too serious in this life. No matter if you're a doctor or a lawyer or a prime minister or a humble journalist like myself, we have to take time to eat, wash up, spend time with our families and dogs, and be patient.

I was rushing to do a CTV interview before a film crew for a national Chinese TV interview and finish up with change.org and try to raise some money for "3hands" an organization that gives people in need the number of three astronauts who will get their groceries and medicine, and masks for all, a place that, well, helps undo 8 weeks of damaging CDC misinformation without further stressing our trust in the failure of our institutions to do their damn job, and have a shower, and then next thing I know Shaolin is between me and my workstation, sitting in my chair, and my producer is bugging me for a meeting with the head honchos, and there are 44 Chinese messages to translate, and I snapped at her to GTFO out of my chair, and well, surprisingly, my proud, wonderful, bossy wife didn't like it.

She gets mad, I get mad, and she finally capitulates to forgive me, after giving me a quick kick in the knee before she runs out to summon the film crews. In the post handshake world we're gonna need tree trunks with deep roots, mark my words.

So, I'm on the ground in my underwear, because Shaolin kung fu is really no joke, and manage to get a shower and some traditional Chinese medicine on my knee before I had to go for a nice spring walk, limping like I'm launching a rap album and my exponential growth talk starts sounding more like street poetry and art slam until I can sit down and recompose myself.

Of course, they want to take a walk around the school, and I'm limping, walking it off, but I feel like I'm back in the '90s promoting a new rap album slinging street poetry as I explain the nuances of exponential growth and its delayed effect on defining government and public policy.

But in the end, the coverage is good. If Youtube is any indication, forever 911 people that like me, nine people will accuse me of being a slave to China and that my message is far too positive for any reasonable person to be sincere. I hope they buy my book to skewer me and end up pleasantly surprised. I know that it may seem odd, but somehow my interests and Beijing here are aligned, at least for now. I want to share my message of how to save lives, and coincidentally, that involves using many protocols that China uses, and the west is slow to understand. I suppose this makes me pretty good press when China needs it, but as long as they amplify what I consider to be my authentic and genuine voice to get masks on people and people staying home, then I'm happy that I can get the boost. I'm really tired of screaming on my own, anyway.

We're putting it up on Producer DOJO for a rap remix contest, and sent it off to Justin Bieber's mom and Drake's… anyway… some people we know … to see if they want to sing a line or two and pass it along. Shaolin even called up her ex-boyfriend, a pop legend in China, and asked him if he wanted to take a crack at the Chinese version, and well, all of these things may or may not amount to much, but we're throwing flying spaghetti at the walls and seeing what sticks. People are telling me that we're killing it with the things that are working out, well, if only they knew the things that almost worked out or might yet bear fruit! HAH! I might be dreaming, none of this makes any sense to me either.

One of the great side effects of being busy is I just don't have enough time for bullshit. I barely have enough time to eat and see my wife and talk my dogs and occasionally sleep, so fighting unproductive internet battles is just not an option anymore. I have to do a strict calculus: will I manage to change their mind or sway their audience, and will it be a productive use of 10 minutes of my time? And if not, and it's often not, I just scroll on by. Scrolling on is my new superpower. I can't recommend it enough.

Inside China Post, we talk to a guy, and then a girl and then another guy, and pull a number, and then go to get the number stamped. Someone inspects the stamped number and writes another code on it. That second number is investigated and copied in quadruplicate.

Then we wait, but luckily I have lots of conversations to have and chores to do on my phone, so that's not an issue.

Eventually, they call us up, and we are moved to another area, and we inspect a box labeled "KANSO." I produce the discount receipt, and we are sent to another place to get it signed and then one more to pay the taxes. All the while, Shaolin grumbles over how foolish I am to buy international towels, made in China, sent abroad, and taxed heavily for idiots to reimport back in China, but, I am quietly satisfied that this is happening.

I've seen them with my own eyes.

This diary entry is part of Kai’s collection, from an upcoming book titled The Lighthouse, his second collection of COVID-19 diary entries, this one is a collaboration of voices from around the globe. He shares with them iChongqing, and at www.theinvisiblewar.co.