I’ve Been Trying To Read More. The Journalist Seymour Hersh Was On An Episode Intercepted (By The Way,
I’ve been trying to read more. The journalist Seymour Hersh was on an episode Intercepted (By the way, if you listen to podcasts and you do not listen to Intercepted, you need to be listening to it.) and he said that before you write, you need to read. Of course, Sy Hersh was talking about journalism but it applies even if you aren’t a journalist.
I’ve been struggling with reading for a few years. One thing that has helped is reducing subvocalization when I’m silently reading. No, I’m not becoming some kind of freak who is obsessed with speed reading but it makes things flow a lot more smoothly if I am not reading shit to myself in my head. It never occurred to me to try and cut that out. It’s something that I’ve done since I was a kid but no, I don’t need to do that. I can just sort of look at the words and fit everything together. Almost feels like a superpower actually. It’s weird. I’m re-discovering a love for reading, I think.
I randomly bought a poetry collection to expose myself to verse. It’s garbage.
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I don’t like hearing Trump.
I don’t like looking at the fat orange fucker either.
The problem with school is that it doesn't teach you to be a human being.
Aight. So, I’m gonna blow away the dust. Blow the dust off my soul. Gonna awaken from my comatose state.
That’s what life is, kids.
It’s a series of awakenings.
It’s staring at cave drawings.
The f-f-flicker of fire’s light against the cold stone.
The stick figures the aliens left us to tell us who are god(s) were.
The warmth of the burning bush
feels like the home you can never remember
The voice that comes from it sounds like
FRED MCFEELY ROGERS
it tells you it’s a lie
and that you shouldn’t be afraid
and that you’ll go home some day
but until then
you carry the medicine.
White fear weaponized runs the machine.
Day dreamed of spiking the **********’s [Redacted] Diet Coke with LSD.
Of course, I don’t know that that would do much good. Never done LSD myself. Some day. Maybe.
Was going to throw some lines out but nothing is really coming to me.
Plans. Plans of mice and men. Best laid.
Laid and paid. Can never get both, ya dig?
Gotta get outta this place.
Game, set, match, cowardice.
.Don’t play tennis. Never played it. Never watched it. Never think about it.
Dubious metaphor. Why reference something you know precisely dick about, dog?
That’s been on my mind.
What?
Appropriated blackness, ya dig? You want depth or whatever it is so you channel a voice that ain’t your own. That creeps into my voice both on the page and out there and I’m not sure how the fuck I feel about it. I mean, is that right?
I blacked out the owner of the Diet Coke due to paranoia. You can probably guess who it is. It occurs to me that the paranoia might be preposterous because who really cares what some loser writes on some blog almost nobody reads. You never know though. I’m not too keen on having a sit down with Feds.
Fuck.
God damn it.
Fuck.
Structure.
I need to read poems or something. Let that seep into me. Let it influence me. I learned not too long ago that the Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh wrote poems. I read a few of them. I dug them, especially the ones he wrote while incarcerated. There was something really honest and pure there. There is something about the work of someone who is not noted for being a poet. There is something about the work of people you don’t ever study in some course in school. Example from Ho Chi Minh:
A COMRADES PAPER BLANKET
New books, old books, the leaves all piled together.
A paper blanket is better than no blanket.
You who sleep like princes, sheltered from the cold,
Do you know how many men in prison cannot sleep all night?
I mean. God damn it. That hits me.
CLEAR MORNING
The morning sun shines over the prison wall,
And drives away the shadows and miasma of hopelessness.
A life-giving breeze blows across the earth.
A hundred imprisoned faces smile once more.
See. Nothing too mysterious or abstract there. He’s just writing about his situation.
Yeah. I know. Blood on his hands. The French and The Americans had blood on their hands too. Not too many heroes there.
Or anywhere really.
Heavenly father,
One more day.
Have mercy on your boy
but if not on me, someone who fuckin’ needs it more.
Can ya do that?
Amen.
This feels cliche because the late comedian Bill Hicks tends to be an influence on insufferable artistically-minded types of a certain age. I meet people and I feel like I can sense people who the man spoke to.
This is one of my favorite bits of Hicks. This spoke to me even when my mind and my world were much smaller.
Memorial Day
Yeah. It's Memorial Day weekend.
Fuck American Sniper.
Fuck Boeing.
Fuck Raytheon.
Fuck the NFL and its camouflage shit for "da troops."
Fuck John Bolton, that demonic Colonel Sanders looking motherfucker.
Fuck the drone strikes.
Fuck the chills you get up your spine whenever you hear our lame-ass national anthem that doesn't even slap.
Fuck that verse in said anthem that taunts slaves who dared pick up a weapon and fight for their freedom.
Fuck the Blue Angels.
Fuck Henry Kissinger.
Fuck that yellow ribbon.
Fuck the war they plannin' in Iran.
Fuck Blackwater.
Fuck Erik Prince.
Fuck Barack Obama.
Fuck Manifest Destiny.
Fuck Pete Buttigieg and his tour in Afghanistan.
Fuck every pundit who calls Trump (Fuck Trump too, of course) Cadet Bone Spurs.
Fuck the idea that killin' for the colors that don't run makes you a real man.
Fuck 'these colors don't run' bumper stickers.
We're not the rebels.
We're the Empire.
Fuck your jingoistic logic.
Fuck the gods of war.
Fuck the dark, patriotic elixir that makes people lose their damn mind.
Fuck your lectures about being disrespectful.
Yeah.
Let's be pro-life.
Let's hug.
Let's cry.
Let's feed all the kids.
Let's be strong and beautiful.
Let's do what we want to.
Fuck heroes.
Mourn the dead.
Say never again
And fuckin' mean that shit.
Brain feels kinda smooth today. It always feels like it’s not quite firing on all cylinders on a Monday.
Fuck Mondays.
Yeah. I said “Fuck Mondays” but I don’t really feel it that viscerally at the moment. Nothing much happened really. Just dealt with minor problems here and there that I was able to fix fairly quickly. I got to spend my idle time at my desk listening to podcasts and reading. I’m about halfway through the book The Great Divide by Matt Taibbi. Maybe I can finish it by the end of the week. Been awhile since I actually finished a book.
I’m flirting with the idea of cutting back on my gaming, specifically Rocket League. I’ve played Rocket League pretty much every single day since I got it some time last year. It’s a fun game but I think it distracts me too much. Yeah. You are reading about a 35 year old man talking about his need not to game so much. I find myself firing up Rocket League even when I don’t really have a desire to play that much. I guess it fills up time when I have absolutely nothing else that I could be doing. It stimulates my brain when I ain’t got shit else to stimulate it. I guess I want to see what happens if I try stimulating it with something else.
I put in a call to a therapist I saw some time last year. He hasn’t called me back yet.
This navel gazing is getting old to me. I want to be writing about something else but I have no idea what.
I’m fucking bored.
I suppose I’m bound to catch a feeling about something this week.
I am half-assing right now and not even lying about it. I am phoning this in. I don’t give a shit.
Sup with you? You good? Did you daydream about sex or murder today? Did you fantasize about being some sorta hero? Did you cry today? Did you do anything to advance a criminal conspiracy today?
This is a man throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. This is a man sitting cross-legged in a chair and trying to think.
This feels like a fuckin’ homework assignment.
I don’t feel much of anything right now.
I just am. I guess that’s okay. I mean, what’s the alternative?
Been working almost 6 months. I have not held down a job for more than 6 months since 2012. If I make it beyond 6 months and I’m still employed, do I fucking win something? I’ve been thinking about that. What does that mean for me, if anything?
Fuck. I tried.
