0-9-Doc on 7/15: 20,000 DAYS ON EARTH (2014)

The title card of 20,000 DAYS ON EARTH (Reminder that the phallic stain on my wall is a defect from my projector)

July 15, 2026, was such a weird day for me. Thanks (I guess) to the heat wave, I woke up at 11:30 AM instead of my usual 3:30 AM, and when I opened my eyes, everything around me was bathed in sepia tones. I thought something was clearly wrong with my eyes, but before heading to the ER to get them checked out, I decided to read the news: Toronto had the worst air quality of any city in the world because of all the wildfires raging across Canada, displacing Indigenous communities and killing wildlife.

I was alone at home, and my anxiety was off the charts. Was the future cancelled? I spent the day frozen (figuratively speaking—I was butt-naked and sweating) in a liminal space, trapped in that post-apocalyptic atmosphere. It was a Wednesday afternoon in mid-July, and Roncesvalles Avenue was empty.

That night, I ordered my favorite pizza from Pizza Defina, along with my ERA—my Emotional Rebalancing Aliment: their $15 tiramisu. Now, if you ever see me splurge fifteen fucking dollars on a single slice of tiramisu, it means l'heure est grave. This is an emergency.

I remembered that I was supposed to kick off my Forcing Myself to Watch Documentaries challenge on the 15th, starting with a documentary whose title begins with a number. I put on 20,000 DAYS ON EARTH (2014), assuming it would be an ode to planet Earth or something. It most certainly was not. It was about Nick Cave (a name I was hearing for the first time IN MY LIFE! I mean, I know a Nick CAGE, not a Nick CAVE), celebrating his 20,000th day on Earth,looking back on his music career.

There's something surreal about watching a documentary about a singer you've never seen before and never even heard of. The whole time, I wasn't even sure he was a real singer. It could have been a parody, some mockumentary that deliberately chose not to be funny. After all, there are fictional biographies. Why wouldn't there be fictional documentaries? I liked his nose though. And the depth in his eyes. Nick Cave is no ugly man.

He would sing songs I'd never heard before (an excellent lyricist, who reminds me a bit of Leonard Cohen in his writing style), and not once did I think, "No way! That's the guy who sings that famous song?!" Nothing rang a bell. Our worlds were never supposed to collide. But the format of the documentary was very creative and inspiring (at least from the perspective of a writer who has no idea where the truth begins or ends). The only person I recognized in the film was Kylie Minogue. That made me wonder, "Maybe his other friends in the film are famous too?" The therapist? The musicians? The guy who cooks incredible purple pasta aka rich people’s food? The guy who says that teaching was his original career until he discovered heroin and alcohol? No fucking clue.

Noteworthy anecdote: Nina Simone’s chewing gum

“Well, not every gig you're gonna go to is gonna make you feel that way, but when... when they do... I mean, I put on a concert at the London Meltdown with Nina Simone, and before she went on, she called me to her room, and she was sitting there in this chair, and she was like the nastiest woman. She had this big, white, blousy thing on and this kind of Cleopatra make-up, and she said... (MIMICS NINA) "I want you to introduce me!" like that, and I'm like "OK, how do you want me to introduce you?" (MIMICS NINA) "I am Dr Nina Simone!" like this, and I'm like, "OK, OK.” and, er...l went out and I introduced her, and she walked up to the... to the front of the stage. She...she was not well and it took her a long time to even get onto the stage and she walked up to the front of the stage and held her sort of fists by the sides and stared at the audience with this expression of loathing on her face, and everyone's just sitting in their seats like, "What is...what's gonna happen?" and she sat down at the piano and she took the gum out of her mouth and stuck it onto the piano and just kind of launched into this show, and through the process of this show, um...became this other thing, and you could see it within the audience, - how they responded to this... - Mm. ...until the end she was up the front and touching people and dancing on the stage, and it was an absolute transformative performance and it absolutely changed everybody in a... you know, that could pay witness to that... - Mm. - ...show. And to me, that's what we should... that's what we should be trying to... to do when...when you go on stage.”

To summarize, on July 15, I watched a documentary that I thought would be about Earth, and it turned out to be a musical documentary about some white male British singer with a beautiful nose and a name I had never heard before. And the person who inspired me the most during his documentary was a Black woman whose music I loved.

On August 15, I will watch a documentary that starts with A, and maybe a second that starts with B