I may have been in attendance at the No Kings protest in San Francisco, or maybe I wasn’t. It’s difficult or dangerous to say where one is these days…with Meta, with Twitter, with Amazon supporting the birthday parade of he who would be king, people should be everywhere, and nowhere.

I might have been out by the Pacific Ocean clearing my head amongst the ceaseless rumbling of waves. Maybe I was down by San Francisco Bay dining with the tech bros: Musk, Zuckerberg, Thiel or Bezos. We have plenty of would-be kings these days vying for all or none of the attentions, launching spaceships, attending MMA events, getting Botox injections, blowjobs from yes-men and throttling posts in the name of their very specific free speech.

My phone’s geo-location says I was at home, and that’s for the best.

In America the price of freedom requires a payment plan. Exercising rights begins with a bank account. The founding fathers are dead, and the US Constitution is being shredded, fragments spread far and wide from boxes in bathrooms in Florida mansions to a recently dug up grave at Montpelier. Our dear leader has been dipped in solid gold, and yet he is still miserable. His turret is limp and crown askew.

Tread carefully out there, or nowhere.