This Game Got One Mode

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. 

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. 

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. 

Introduction

My name is not important in any way. If I’ve linked you to this blog, then you know my name. If you do know my name, then for some reason, I think you’re capable of handling this. 

Shit. I’m reading over the above paragraph and it’s so lame, right? What the fuck am I ever gonna write here that’s so earth shaking? 

I suppose I’ve had a lot to grapple with in this life. One of those things is a harsh truth. I’m nobody. There are other things too. Life is boring. It’s dumb. It’s scary. Mostly, it’s just boring. It leaves me feeling restless. 

I get older and I get more restless, ya dig? 

I’m a lazy son of a bitch. 

I’ve wasted a lot of my life. 

I got this need though. I said need. I didn’t say love. I got a need to put words to a page. I got a need to play with language. I got a need to write. I don’t love it though. I hate this shit. It frustrates me. It pisses me the fuck off. It makes me want to scream. It makes me want to put my fist through a fucking wall. If I’m not trying to do it though, I just don’t feel right. 

In fact, I can feel myself calming down as I write this. I don’t feel like I’m just wasting. 

It’s unfortunate but I’ll never be famous. I’ll never be rich. I’ll be average looking but I’ll be wise. I’ll have bore witness. Bearing witness to what I see is something that’s important to me. You can laugh. You can scoff but the idea of bearing witness is sacred to me. 

Part of the reason this exists is cowardice. Actually, maybe cowardice isn’t the right word but I’m usually not too gentle on myself. I’m freer with my expression if said expression is not tied to my slave name. Aight. Maybe slave name is a little dramatic but ya know, there is some truth there. If i’m not worried about reputation or about people sending me messages that they are praying for me, then I express myself more freely. So, there is slavery to reputation and to capital. Capital got us all by the naughty bits, ya dig? I get paranoid about something making me less employable. Look, I’m probably never paying the bills with this shit. I know this. I know what it’s like to struggle to find a day job. Let me tell you, that can fuck with you. 

So, it’s between you, me and the NSA. 

There will be navel gazing. There will be laughs. There will be tears. There will be stuff that works and stuff that doesn’t. There will be poems, prose, jokes maybe. 

Thanks for reading. 

Halloween: I Was That Guy That Didn’t Wear a Costume

I get invited to a Halloween party by a fella I used to work with about 4 years back. We were call center slaves once and sorta young. We survived the brutal, terrifying drudgery of that white collar McDonald’s. I can’t speak for him. I emerged as the man writing this. I got wiser, weaker and my eye got keener. Reader, this is me bearing witness. This is the mundane drama that gets us where we need to go, I suppose. 

It had been a brutal week of pretending I knew what the fuck I was doing at my day job. I had my suspicions I was probably gonna get found out that week. I made it through. 

Let me make one thing perfectly and abundantly clear to you sir or madam or whoever it is that’s reading this. I don’t get out much. I sorta know how real life works from TV but I don’t spend a lot of time out there. I spend a lot of time alone with my stupid thoughts that melt the steel beams of my life every once in awhile. I’ve been in this period of trying to get “right” again recently. I know I’m gonna be too anxious and inept to drive out there so I don’t. I summon a poor soul with the Uber app on my Samsung personal surveillance device to get me out there into the land of pick-up trucks and country music and maybe god damn Trump supporters. 

Yeah. This shindig or whatever the fuck was way the hell out there. The Uber drivers I get when I use this terrible, dystopian service are usually these motor-mouthed go-getters who probably do a lot of Adderall or they tend to be these earnest, polite immigrants just trying to make it in this fucked up, racist, brutal country. I get this gentleman from Eritrea who barely says a word the entire ride. I should note that before I got in the car about 15 minutes before, I had ingested some cannabis infused chocolate. If I’m not mistaken, that put about 10 milligrams of THC into my system. I then pick up on something. 

The driver of this Toyota Prius criss-crossing it’s way through this autumn night is getting worried, he’s getting flustered. He is getting lost. Oh shit. See, I haven’t been in the exact same spot this guy was in but I know what it’s like to feel utterly alone in the night. I know what it’s like to feel sweat collecting on the back of your neck. I know what it is to feel like your body is itching with fear and dread. He starts apologizing to me. Something happens to me. I know what I gotta do. 

“Brother, don’t worry about it,” I say. “Do not worry. Aight. Just go straight and follow the road for a few miles. You don’t gotta turn for a bit.” 

THIS IS FUCKING CRAZY TO ME BECAUSE I’M NOT USED TO BEING THIS CALM CAT THE UNIVERSE PUTS IN PEOPLE’S PATH BUT THAT’S WHAT I’M GONNA DO FOR THIS GUY. 

He thanks me and thanks me and thanks me. 

“Alright. You gotta turn right in a few hundred feet. There we go. See that road sign? Just turn there when it’s safe. Don’t even worry about it, man. Why do you think I ain’t drivin’ myself? I’d get lost out here even worse. This ain’t my hood, man.”

He calmed down. I’m not sure when I started to feel the cannabis. I’m not sure if me being so fucking kind is the cannabis or if that’s just me. It’s just me. Being alive has hurt me in the weirdest ways and as a result, I’m basically a wannabe Mr. Rogers who is angrier and curses a lot. 

I get to the party. I guess it had a circus theme. There was this circus tent. My friend is in a cover band. 

I walk in. I have a brief conversation about the health impact of vaping and I deftly steer the conversation away from whether Trump is really all that bad. The weed was starting to kick in. I was high but I sure as fuck ain’t stupid. I ingested the second piece of cannabis infused chocolate that I had in my coat pocket. I’m starting to feel it. I know I am. 

I’m in uncharted territory. When I’m high, I’m usually alone. Yep. I am the weirdo that gets high and will just let the chips fall where they may. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I write. Sometimes I just waste time. So, there I was getting higher and higher around a bunch of strangers. 

Some of the things I say that night, 

“Holy shit. Is this what an episode of Miami Vice is like?” 

“See. I feel like I should tell you. What you’re seeing right now is a cat who don’t get out much.” 

“We don’t need secret police. We build the dossiers on ourselves. It’s crazy, man.” 

“I’m too old for this shit.” 

“FREEBIRD!” 

“THATCHER WAS A CUNT AND I’M GLAD SHE’S DEAD!” in a dubious working class English accent. 

At some point I get offered beer. I don’t ever drink. In fact, I will admit that I had never been drunk before. I start drinking and drinking and drinking. I end up stoned as fuck and somewhat drunk on um light beer. I can feel my inhibitions lower. I’m definitely keenly aware of it. I shout things at the top of my lungs. I even dance and don’t really give much of a fuck how it looks. 

The lowered inhibitions start to concern me. I lean in close to my friend. I say in his ear, “When you get a minute, I need to talk to you.” He nods. See, I ain’t used to alcohol. It’s the weirdest thing. I’m very accustomed to being very high on marijuana and I’ve lived to tell about a few intense trips on psilocybin mushrooms. Alcohol just isn’t something I have a lot of practice with. In fact, being out ain’t something I have a ton of practice with. 

I become intensely concerned about what I might do while under the influence. I worry I might become Brett Kavanaugh. I’m terrified I might flip out and kill someone. I nod to my friend’s friend. He’s dressed like The Driver from Drive and has this weird kinda charisma. I see something in him. I see a kindness. I see a light in that man. I ask him if he’ll step outside with me. In fact, I’m pretty sure I say something like, “Forgive me if this is weird but will you step outside with me for a second?” He doesn’t even question it. We step outside and I lay it all out. 

“Like I said. I don’t get out much. I don’t get fucked up with other people around so this is a new experience. Do you ever worry about what you might do under the influence and does that scare you?” 

I actually start crying. I don’t even recall what he says now. I just recall that he listened to me. He told me it was okay. I remember telling him that something told me I could come to him with that. I told him that even as a complete stranger, I could sense the goodness in him. I told him he was a good man. 

Yeah. So, I got to be the shepherd and the shepherded that night. 

I spend some time just chilling outside in the dark. I get to talking more to the dude who was dressed as The Driver. As I write this, I am sober but everything is slow. I feel sluggish. In retrospect, I say too much. I guess that it might be kind of a bad idea to get all cross-faded like that. That’s a young man’s game and I ain’t so young any more. I say too much. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t get out much and you’re drunk and high, you start sharing the thoughts that terrorize when you’re alone in a dark room. 

I spill about my upbringing. My overprotective mother that wouldn’t let me out of her sight and wouldn’t let me grow up. I talk about how I BS my way through like half my day job. Driver tells me how badass that is. I feel the need to keep mentioning I don’t get out much. He tells me, “You’re an astronaut, dude. Exploring new worlds.” I say, “I know what you’re saying but that’s a little too dramatic.” 

I spill about the heroic mushroom trip. I talk about how dreamlike everything was. I talk about how I had only messed with shrooms a time or two before but the last time, I suddenly found myself drowning in a psychedelic ocean. I tell him about coming to grips with how weird and terrifying that could get. I look over at him with a straight face, I say, 

“This is the part where you tell me about Jesus.” 

I was kidding. He says, 

“Do you wanna pray with me?” 

“What? Are you fucking with me?” 

“No man.” 

I size him up. “You’re being sincere.” 

“Yeah man.”

“I did not see that coming. I don’t know how to respond.” 

“You think mushrooms are amazing. Wait til you commune with the creator of the universe.” 

God damn it. This is a hell of a plot twist. 

“Do you want to pray with me?” 

“No offense but I don’t feel led to do that.” 

“That’s cool, man. I’ll pray for you though.” 

“Aight. I just wanna say though, if you are only talking to me to get a convert, you can fuck all the way off. That’s not comic exaggeration. That is not me playing a character. Fuck all the way off if that’s what you’re doing.” 

“I’m not doing that, man. Don’t worry.” 

“Okay. I’m just gonna be chill. It’s outta my system.” 

I had more intense, way too intimate conversations that night. I don’t feel the need to recount any more of them. 

I get home somehow. I don’t sleep much. I only sleep about four hours or so. I have a lazy Saturday. I don’t feel quite normal all day. I feel tired and need to take a nap at some point. 

My soul changed. A little. Maybe. 

Sometimes the sun shines 

and somehow I’m okay with that 

The wind tickles me like it does 

and I really can’t protest 

even if I got no clue 

what the sweat and the tears 

were for. 

I’m tryin’ to try

but if I die

I’m like, “Okay. Yeah.”

Sunday afternoons are a bad trip

without a sitter

without a map

without old men with kind eyes

who tell you exactly where the fuck you are

and how to get back home.

Midweek in lieu of more imaginative title

I haven’t been reading over my words too much lately. I often do while in the course of writing them but it’s pretty rare that I revisit them after the fact. I think that probably needs to change. I read over the words I wrote yesterday about faith and lack thereof. Things were more lucid and interesting than I initially thought but there was more awkwardness and lack of clarity than I’m comfortable with. Things that read clumsy get on my nerves. Unfortunately, it seems to me that I’ve got a knack for that sort of thing. It’s frustrating. It pisses me off but it’s not like I’m trying to make a living here. Language that is just functional bothers me. I like it to have flair, swagger, style, musicality even. I guess it can’t always. I guess it depends on what the hell it is you’re trying to do. Maybe I’ll get on firmer footing with this. It has been awhile since I’ve actually tried at this. Of course, I’d contend that I’ve never really tried.

There are things I don’t want to do. There are places I do not want to go with this.

I don’t want this to degrade into pounding out “hot takes” on current events. I’m absolutely nobody. Nobody cares what I have to say about the horrors of the age. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ll never comment. I’m not above breaking my own rules. If somebody shoots up a school or some other place like probably happened today somewhere in America (Fucked up, right?), do you really need me to tell you how awful it was? Do you really need me to ruminate about how surreal and terrifying life in Trump’s America is. You don’t. You’ve got people with more expertise and talent than me to do that. The other thing is I’m invariably going to read an issue of Current Affairs (look that one up. Good magazine.) or listen to an episode of Chapo Trap House or Citations Needed (Great podcasts. Listen to them.) and my take is going to be influenced. When I had short-lived podcasts of my own, it essentially became this frustrating exercise in “hot takes” on current events. I definitely delivered them in my own style but it felt very derivative and pounding out “hot takes” is exhausting.

It seems pretty inevitable that I’m going to re-tread ground I’ve already been over. How many times can you read that I just don’t want to go to work? That I’d rather chill in a dimly lit room? That pretty much describes every single day since I’ve been conscious.

Of course, I think maybe I’m catching myself engaging in “market thinking.” I’m under no obligation to make this interesting in the least. I’ve said that this is not my diary or my journal but it essentially functions that way and I’m some weirdo that has inexplicably given the public access to my inner thoughts. It does not get more non-commercial than that. Still, if this gets boring or tired, just remember that you’re getting what you paid for.

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.