This Is Not Any Sort Of Earth-shaking Revelation But It Was Apparent To Me Today That I Am Capable Of

I get stoned enough, I'm honest. Smart honest. The kinda honest I can live with.

Maybe that's what I tell myself.

This is me writing garbage ain't nobody gonna hold me accountable for.

I don't know how to be. There ain't no fucking manual. Bring me a pizza every once in awhile and I'm good. Pizza and a whiff of sex. I'm good.

Nah. Shit. Maybe I sound like the Internet equivalent of that homeless dude rambling about some shit that makes no sense while he waits for a bus he doesn't have money for. That could be you. That could be me. Maybe your wits and your good looks and your talent and all that shit ain't gonna save you cuz you're just you. Look. I'm just me. It's aight. I love you. Okay. Maybe I won't say that again. Yo. We gotta believe a better world is possible.

Fuck. I'm getting sick of this. 10:29 PM Pacific Standard Time.

I feel lazy.

This is art, yo.

This is sugar.

This is late night truth.

This is finding the one true god again.

This is bullshit but it had its moments.

Should I read this again in the morning?

Thing with dreams is 

sometimes they are just too shiny 

and they blind you. 

Dreams burned into your brain 

by people who finished school 

and always work late

and you can never tell the difference 

between yours 

and theirs. 

That kills. 

Mid-July

On a summer night in mid-July

the asphalt cools from the day’s baking

and a man recovers from a day that ends in y.

Legs crossed on the floor like when he was a kid

Window is ajar and the breeze is sweet mercy.

Mercy hard to come by

even in mid-July

if you live long enough.

Money

from my blood, my sweat, my crazy 

deposited in the bank account 

of somebody in another ZIP code

in the months I used to just chill back in the day. 

Back in the day is what feels okay 

Back in the day to make ‘em spend their pay 

to make ‘em feel like they used to 

before things got sinister and weird 

and too damn expensive 

and not worth it 

back when it was all in front of ‘em 

and lookin’ like a shiny kingdom of love and sugar

Nothin’ in my head 

except the lies 

duct taped together 

that make the dream we live in breathe 

down our fuckin’ necks.

that breath is warm, sista or is it brotha?

smells like cheap perfume worn by Lady Liberty 

 after Elon Musk gave her a roofie 

then he went to the stars 

and forgave y’all’s sins 

but said hell no to stock options for all 

and tickets to the billionaire’s ball. 

Never alone 

got alphabetical men listenin’

to midnight confessions 

of dangerous love 

that will make them drink 

and die one of those deaths 

that ain’t quite official.

-----------------------------

You just kinda start. You see where things go and then you get stuck. That’s okay, I guess. 

The world will terrorize the fuck out of you. It does not need your help.

The Day Job I Ain’t Quitting

I do not feel like doing this today. The only thing that seems to be possible is dog shit doggerel. 

I will try today and I will be proud that I tried and then maybe I’ll try tomorrow and maybe the next day after that and then I’ll give up and feel this maddening restlessness.

I fear this whole thing becoming like my diary. The diary that some of you happen to get to read. Is it so bad if it does become like that? Maybe not. 

Okay. Focus, dog. Focus. 

Does it really fucking matter if I focus? This isn’t an article in Rolling Stone. I’m not Matt Taibbi chronicling the unraveling of the American economy back in 2008. I read shit like that and I think, “Fuck. I wish I could have done this.” I’m not Chris Hedges writing some beautiful Jeremiad about all the ways America is spiritually bankrupt. 

Fuck that. I’m not going to talk about what I’m not and what I’m never going to be. That doesn’t matter. I’m going to talk about what I am. What do I do?

I’m some company’s computer guy. They need IT (I.T. not the clown), they come to me. It’s me. Just me. It’s a one man band. Maybe some day it will be the basis of some narly off, off Broadway one man show about how the office computer guy slowly becomes this crazed motherfucker who hears the voice of God. What does God say? Death to capitalism. Ya know, if God said that then I would have to conclude that he truly is God. Anyway. Focus. 

Focus. 

I can take a computer apart and almost put it back together. It’s not hard. If you come to me with a computer issue, I can usually zero in fairly quickly on what exactly is broken. Look, it’s like this, okay? I’m not some wizard that is going to code some app that is going to make me insanely rich. No idea how to do that. The computer stuff is my most practical skill. That’s just about the only thing I can do that I’ve figured out how to monetize. I think that’s about the only thing I can do that makes money. 

This current gig is the most responsibility I’ve ever had in any job. It’s just me. There is no one to pick up my slack. I don’t call in sick even if I feel like it. I’m not going to bullshit you. I’m barely a computer guy. Sometimes I have no idea what the fuck is going on. Thing is though, I make up for that with my people skills. I build rapport. I charm. I play the role. I look the part. Stocky nerd with glasses but with passable personal hygiene. 

I go in and recede into the required persona. Friendly nerd with okay computer skills who idolizes MacGyver. They got no idea. They don’t need to have any idea what I really am. 

It could be worse. Seriously. I could be someone with nothing at all that is marketable. 

I hate that I even have to think that. Shit. I hate that anyone has to think that. 

Yeah. I’m underpaid. If I had a choice, I’d never work for a wage another day of my life. 

I’ll tell you what though. Somebody comes to me all stressed the fuck out over something that is going to keep them from getting their work done and I fix it? Shit. I think on that too much, I kinda feel myself getting misty. I’ll walk through the halls and get the respectful nod from people I’ve pulled out of the fire in the past and it kinda makes it worth it. 

Look, you gotta understand. You are reading the words of a guy who has not held down a job for more than 6 months since 2012. Do you have any idea what happens to the soul of a person who can’t hold down a job in 21st Century America? I can say that it rots but that’s not accurate. I can’t describe it.

Fuck. I really wish that the ability to work was not a prerequisite for dignity. 

I can feel myself getting angrier by the minute because I feel like I’m still accepting the precepts of this insidious and inhumane capitalist system. I feel like I’m weaving this tale of a man who was a flake but who battoned down the hatches and became not a flake. I went from a flake to a good employee. 

FUCK THAT. 

I get to have dignity cuz I breathe. I get to have dignity cuz I’m here and I didn’t ask to be here. I get to have dignity cuz I can bleed and I can cry. 

Fuck you, Ben Shapiro. I just felt like saying that. Fuck that guy. 

I have a day job that I can sorta stand. 

I don’t know if I believe in miracles but that’s pretty close. 

Was a good day. It was a day I could half-way breathe. I handled what needed to be handled and then I went home. 

The air is hot. I’m just in here with me. 

For some reason, I talk a lot at work today. I talk way more than usual. I make people laugh. I get told I’m funny. I get told that I should do stand-up. I confess that in my 20s, I sorta tried that. I told him it didn’t go so well because I half-assed it and I didn’t have a god damn thing to say. He asked me if I think I do now. I said, yeah but I didn’t have anything unique to say. 

I didn’t try so hard at stand-up. Maybe it wasn’t for me. I don’t know. 

Thing is though, I took some risks in the way that I perform me and someone liked it. 

I like that. 

That was cool. 

It’s tough to write things that aren’t just things. I’ve never put together a shopping list but I imagine that’s fairly easy. I mean, I guess it’s easy if you got the cash to cover it, right? It’s just a list though. You write down what you need and that’s it. 

Trying to write something that’s pretty and honest and makes someone cry or fucks with them or makes them angry or just mildly annoys them, that shit is nigh impossible. 

It’s Sunday. I’m not high. I don’t even wish I was (that much.) Nah, I’m indifferent to the fact that I am not high. I love being high. I dig the feeling of focus, how easy it is to smile, how sometimes it puts me in the mood for some love, how it can help me flip on a flashlight and descend into the dark cave of my feelings but I don’t need that all the time even if tomorrow I gotta punch a clock and it hurts to think about. 

If you’re reading this and the above paragraph worries you, please don’t worry. 

It’s misting outside. It’s gray. I dig it. 

Sometimes I think I should just drop all this and be a man. Learn to be alpha and all that shit. 

I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that my soul or whatever the fuck it is is the soul of an artist. My medium happens to be words. I hesitate to go around saying that shit because that’s pretentious as fuck. 

I got an appointment with a psychologist at the end of the work day tomorrow. I never really know how to prepare for those. I hope I can get something out of that. 

I’m afraid of women. I don’t know how to fix that. I have been for my entire life.

I think serial killers are not interesting at all. Serial killer groupies are pathetic. All this media that dwells on serial killers is propaganda that justifies heavy-handed policing. Fuck police states. 

I’m a weirdo but not in a particularly interesting or novel way. 

Unknown

I’ve only been doing this thing for a week. Somehow it feels longer than that. 

I feel like an itch has been scratched. I feel like I ain’t got no itches to scratch today. None. Is that a sign of trouble? 

I guess boredom, shit. No. This isn’t boredom. I don’t know what this is. I swear I’ve been aware of a keener sense of myself lately. No matter how keen your sense gets, you still find that your sense isn’t all the way calibrated. There are uncharted waters within you. 

Maybe this is just being chill. Maybe this is how most people are. 

There is another state of being I sometimes find myself in though it is rare. This is the state of being unfuckwittable. I’ll try and describe that to you some other day because right now there is no fucking way I’m going to be able to do that justice. 

I can’t do most things justice. 

I wasn’t even going to try this today. I was just going to leave it but that seemed like a bad idea. 

I sit here at my desk. Daily Mix 3 playlist from Spotify is blaring and I keep hitting repeat on a particular song. I don’t know why. Not in Love by Crystal Castles. Sometimes I kinda nod my head to it and sometimes I low-key white boy dance to it. The words don’t really speak to me. I can’t really speak to the beat or the musical qualities of this composition because I’m laughably unqualified. 

I find myself thinking of ending montages in TV episodes. Ya know, shots of the characters with little or no dialogue in the closing minutes of the episode as some song plays. 

Yeah. That’s it. Drive safe. 

I sorta tried. Sorta.