What Happens

Saturday and some stuff and things

The words written the night before (See post entitled “What the fuck do I call this?” I think that’s what I called it.) were what they were. That was an experiment. If you surmised that those words were the product of an altered state, you are correct. It’s fair to say that I do have a relationship with cannabis. It’s been an off and on thing for about 3 years but mostly on. I despise a lot of the culture around this drug. A lot of it makes me cringe. That said, I do find it a valuable exercise at times to write while under the influence of it. 

That can be easier said than done. The temptation is to just chill and listen to some music until I just get drowsy or to play some Rocket League. Rocket League while high can be quite the trippy, beautiful experience. That’s often when I can enter ‘the zone’ when it comes to that game. I know when to challenge for the ball, I somehow make decisions that seem to make sense without really thinking, I seem to react automatically and I’m okay trying something crazy to see if it works and it seems like I learn how to make “crazy” work. 

A soccer game with rocket powered cars while stoned as fuck is only so satisfying so at some point I’ve got to pry myself away and look at the page. I’ve got to ride the green dragon and take it where I want to go. 

I’m less judgmental of my thoughts. The flow is easier. There is a danger there. If you’re high as fuck, you can be really satisfied with mediocre or lazy ideas so you find yourself in the position of trying to figure out whether you are onto something or if you are just being silly. If you can tell the difference (even sort of) then you are getting to be dangerous. 

At 11 AM, the pledge will be recited 

Call the number on your screen to report 

anybody who ain’t sufficiently excited 

about being free to do what the fuck we tell you 

while the red, white and the blue 

fly above 

and burst your hearts with love 

God, guts and glory 

goes the story 

of a nation that kicked ass and looked good doin’ it 

Light from the Lord God spread to the world 

by us 

Evil and darkness flee 

Get your WWIII commemorative pin today 

to trigger the snowflakes and the pussies 

on your way to church 

to hear the padre preach about how Jesus woulda dimed his neighbors out to ICE 

cuz it’s the law 

If there was anything that Jesus was about, it was the law. 

Bless the nightsticks and the guns 

Bless the kevlar and the riot shields 

Bless the blood in the streets and bless that liquor to forget all that shit 

or to get nutted up to lie under oath about it

or to just live here 

in the land of the free, the home of the brave 

one nation 

that got the goods on all of us 

A Moment on a Tough Day

You join hands with your sister. 

You pray over a sick dog. 

Fuck

Fuck. 

When the boss on his shit again and I got a head full of commie propaganda on a Monday

When it’s one way and I need it to be another

God damn it, good looks don’t pay fuckin’ bills. 

Fuck. 

She whispers it in the dark

when she wants that love harder.

At the sky 

when you got nothin’ but the rain, your sweat, your bones and a raw deal. 

Gotta watch who hears you say that 

Not sacred 

but it’s something, ya know? You feel me? Am I talkin’ crazy? 

Fuck. 

I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in. 

I wish that line was mine. 

Thing is though. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t. 

Sometimes I wanna scream 

cuz I’m wise to the game. 

I know the game is rigged

but I ain’t wise to all the ways the game got put in me 

without my consent. 

I catch myself playin’. 

Hate myself for the size of my wages 

and the fact that my words ain’t commercial 

won’t pay my bills 

won’t free me from dreadin’ the first day of the week 

and from feelin’ all Shawshank on the last day of it. 

Random embarrassing fact #2

I don't know that this really qualifies as embarrassing but it might be. I try to cry at least once a week. Basically, I sequester myself and either think about something that makes me sad or touches me and just let the flood gates open. Why the fuck do I do that? That's a good question. It's not something that I entirely understand but I think the reason I do it is to re-connect with my humanity. That's not to say I'm like a fucking Vulcan most of the time but the world we got can be de-humanizing as fuck. It re-connects me with something pure. Like, that which animates the forces that liberate. And fuck, sometimes I gotta cry, ya dig? Okay. I guess also it's solidarity with people who have a reason to cry. Shit. That is cheesy as fuck but that's what's in my heart, I think.

One day 

I can awaken from the dream

and I’ll be a YouTube star. 

My idiosyncrasies will be viral 

and my soul will be trademarked. 

Maybe I can buy myself a seat 

on The Muskrat’s space boat to Mars 

and I can suffocate 

with the richest 

and the sexiest 

while the people left behind watch 

while the minds that coded all the killer apps 

die well-dressed. 

Maybe I’ll upload 

in some time, some place 

that’s warm 

and that ain’t so cruel 

and that’s broken in some way 

that’s easier to fix. 

Maybe one day 

I can awaken from the dream 

as a man 

who sorta knows what to do 

sorta knows the truth 

sorta knows how to love. 

Further thoughts on Alex Vitale's The End of Policing

A few summers back, some cops got killed in Dallas. That summer had hate in the air. The Trumpian demon was waiting in the wings. I remember seeing a friend of a friend on Facebook express anger that the people who protect us were under attack. The idea that the police protect us is an idea almost nobody questions. If we're not questioning it, we're high on something.

Alex Vitale in The End of Policing tells us a bit about the origin of what we know as the police. Sir Robert Peel who started the London Metropolitan Police developed his ideas while he was managing the British colonial occupation of Ireland. That is crucially important to know. The origins of one of the most influential police agencies was in oppression. Peel took what he learned about social control on a foreign shore home with him. This illustrates one of the many troubles with the monster that is imperialism. Let's apply that to the U.S. What we learn about keeping a population down in Fallujah, Iraq comes home and is used in places like Ferguson, Baltimore and Bedford-Stuyvesant. That is the ugly truth of it. It's the truth that we cannot ignore. The U.S. is a society of savage inequality. The police are there as managers of that inequality. They are there to impose the order of the haves on the have-nots. This is true regardless of how many videos go viral with a cop lip synching to a Taylor Swift song or how many photos are shown on the evening news of an officer hugging a black child. I see blatant propaganda like that and it makes me want to fucking puke.

I reflect on the propaganda of my youth and it's enough to make my brain nearly self-destruct. I remember D.A.R.E. A clean-cut, white-skinned officer of the law with a gun visited my school every week. He led the class in an anti-drug cheer. He told us that people who used drugs were losers. I sure as fuck did not want to be a loser so I resolved never to use drugs. I did not touch a drug until I was almost halfway into my 30s. I suppose it is a tough thing to broach with kids but do you know what was absent from Officer Friendly's lectures about drugs? The sociological reasons that fuel pathological drug use. Guess what, children? When the factory that paid a decent wage closed, a bunch of people found solace from their misery in heroin or meth or something else. The shit was bad but it took away the pain. We did not get told about any of that. We got told to choose baseball or ballet instead of a joint and that was the end of it. Do people fuck up their lives? Sure they do, but you cannot overestimate the importance of individual acts or "moral failings." It seems that the political will to address the pain that causes people to fall into drug abuse simply does not exist. What does exist in ample supply is the impulse to throw cops at the problem and to build massive prisons to warehouse the people who have been left behind by the system.

So, what the hell do we do? The bitch of it all for me is realizing that we simply cannot just manage inequality. That's a bitch to realize because managing inequality is all that the people with power wish to do. We've got to address inequality. That means public housing, education, healthcare. It means the transformation of our society. Something has to give. I truly fear for this country. I believe inequality will grow worse under the regime of Donald Trump and policing will grow more heavy-handed.

Why I’m Not a Good Writer

It’s tempting as hell to just half-ass this and say that at least I tried today.

This is one of those days where I feel like I have absolutely nothing to say. In fact, I don’t know that I ever have anything to say. I think to myself sometimes that I will run out of things to say.

It’s not the end of the world if I do. It’s not like I’m needing to do this to pay the bills. I do need to do this though. It seems to make life a little more bearable. I feel more present. I feel like I’ve done something with my day. My head feels a little less foggy.

At this point, this is little more than a bit of self-help.

My pledge is this: Write even if my head feels dull and even if I feel no hate, love or any fucking thing at all. Just have to do it. It will probably be shit but even in the midst of the shit, there have to be moments of perfection, right?

So, I’m not a terrible writer. I know I’m not. I’m not a particularly good writer either. Why? I’m gonna tell you.

I don’t do a ton other than work, play some games and sleep. I don’t have a ton of mileage on me. I haven’t done a ton with my life. I’m short on experiences. Sometimes I think maybe I should just go to bars and talk to people, anybody and see what the fuck happens. A friend of mine told me he is driving across this fucked up country of ours just for the hell of it. I need to do that but the thought of doing something like that scares the shit out of me. I got serious social anxiety. I’ve never quite been at peace with the fact that I’m a human being. Is it as weird for you as it is for me? Probably not in the exact same way.

I’ve already mentioned I’m deficient as hell when it comes to focus and self-discipline. Finishing a book is a near impossible feat for me these days. In fact, the other day, I thought maybe I’d read Umberto Eco’s essay Ur-Fascism which I guess is about the qualities of eternal fascism. Fascism is ultra relevant these days. So many countries on this earth seem to be lurching towards it. I’ve tried getting through the essay twice but without success. My just wanders. I need to read more. What should I be reading? Not real sure but I’m almost positive that I should be reading more.

I don’t know a lot. I’ve got a vague idea about a lot of things but there is not a single subject on the face of this earth that I can call myself an expert on. You can see that in my screed entitled ‘What I See.’ Most of that flowed from emotion. I was talking about the real world so I feel that perhaps I needed to show my work a bit more and maybe cite sources like I was back in school or something.

I get these ideas for creative pursuits and then I just abandon them. I’ve started two short-lived podcasts. One was a political show that I began in the wake of Trump’s election and another was just me talking about random things or.. something. Who the fuck knows what I was doing with the second one? I don’t follow through. I’m a flaky son of a bitch.

I’m lazy and I don’t put in work.

There are probably other reasons why I’m not a particularly good writer but those are the most fatal symptoms in my estimation.

In the back of my mind, I have to wonder if this is just filler to put off going into the stuff that really makes me look like a god damn loser.

We’ll get there though.

I’ve been inexcusably lazy this week. I’ve written nothing this week save for what you’re now reading.

Laziness and boredom have been the order of the day. It’s a bit excruciating to even sit down and attempt to write this. I know that I’ve got to try though.

I come from a fairly conservative background. I grew up in the suburbs. The suburbs are tough for me to endure now. There ain’t much in the way of soul there. It’s all Neighborhood Watch and I’d like to talk to your manager. It’s wine moms and religion that consists of nothing but not making Jesus cry over what you may or may not be doing with your genitalia. I’ve changed. Maybe you can say that I’ve evolved into whatever it is that I am now. Whatever it is? C’mon. I guess I can label. Wishy washy agnostic socialist writer who can be pretty god damn angry sometimes.

Anger.

I woke up from a nap Saturday evening. I see I have a notification on Twitter. It’s someone that went to my high school who I used to be friendly with. They tell me that I’m being a typical irrational lefty and labeling people fascists who disagree with me. The last sentence of his insightful commentary tells me that ANTIFA are the modern day fascists. Call me pathetic, call me crazy, but if you ask me it’s crazy, this pretty much ruined my Saturday night. I fired off a multi-tweet reply. I never heard a word back in response. It took a lot of effort not to just attack him personally (Although there was a bit of that. Sue me. I’m no debate team nerd here. I’m not above ad hominem attacks.) but I have to say that I’m a bit in awe of a person who thinks exactly the same way that they did when they were a “porn addicted” pimply-faced teenager. There really has not been too much in the way of appreciable evolution. This is a guy with a well-paying job in tech, a wife and an investment portfolio. I guess you can’t blame him in a way, this is a guy who has a lot invested in keeping things exactly the way that they are now.

ANTIFA engage in violence. Thing is though, I can’t fault them for that. They are putting their bodies on the line to defend people who are not white, not Christian, not straight against fascists who are very openly calling for their forcible removal from society. I told the guy on Twitter who I used to be friendly with that it was very clear that he didn’t care. He doesn’t care. Even if this country gets even more horrifyingly authoritarian, they are never coming for him.