Latest Posts by mistahsojourner - Page 4
I sit down and think that I want to write a bit. I turn on some music and notice that I’m not getting any sound. God damn it. What the fuck is going on? Check volume in Windows. Check that the right playback device is selected. Test playback device. Nothing. God damn it! I then realize that the TV my computer is plugged into has the sound turned all the way down.
I’m angry today.
Fuck CEOs. Fuck you if you are a CEO.
Fuck the carceral state.
Fuck The Supreme Court.
Fuck Tucker Carlson.
Fuck white nationalism.
Fuck white supremacy.
Fuck capitalism.
Fuck Jeff Sessions.
Fuck the War on Drugs.
Fuck the lawyers who fix shit for rich motherfuckers who do bad shit.
Fuck Goldman Sachs.
Fuck Chase bank.
Fuck Capital One.
Fuck Netflix.
Fuck the Democratic Party.
Fuck the Republican Party.
Fuck fascism.
Fuck fascist superheroes.
Fuck the state of Israel.
Fuck SWAT teams.
Fuck the NFL.
Fuck the New England Patriots.
Fuck Tom Brady.
Fuck Robert Mueller.
Fuck James Comey.
Fuck the entire Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Fuck welfare reform.
Fuck Bill Clinton for welfare reform.
Fuck Bill O’Reilly.
Fuck Paul Ryan.
Aight. That went on long enough.
I wrote nothing on Monday or Tuesday and that frankly is unacceptable.
Are you still reading? I don’t really care if you are but it’s nice if you are. Thank you.
The blank space and the blinky-blinky.
Fan blowing and gettin’ down to the slow beat only they can hear. Move its head to the right. Move its head to the left. Do oscillating fans get together and have raves?
I’m a straight man. Sometimes I don’t even know what turns me on anymore. I mean, I do but not really.
I have an appointment with a therapist on Tuesday. This time I’ll go to the right address. I don’t really know what to say to him.
So, what brings you in?
Scream my lungs out.
Or punch the wall.
Or throw something.
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.
Half naked.
Arms raised like some prophet preachin’ what nobody wanted to hear
but I bleed for ‘em
so they love me
Get punched.
Get kicked.
The more it hurts
The more they feel it
that stuff people think is the holy spirit.
Tightness in the chest
need bed rest
but the show must go on
the roar of the diabetic souls
that in the night
tell me not to mix those two things
gets me through another one.
Fly to victory
and then the waiting room.
The problem with school is that it doesn't teach you to be a human being.
I suspect that I’m getting better at this. What is this? That would be writing. Pause. Scratch chin. Take sip of water. Get up and close the door. I sit with my feet up on the desk. My keyboard sits in my lap and I type away.
It was one of those angry drives home. It was one of those drives home where I just got murder in my heart. I just got weaponized hate up in me. Anything I might possibly say is gonna be barely coherent. I’m gonna shout. I’m gonna keep shouting til I can’t anymore. I’ll be out of breath and none of it will be cathartic. I won’t feel better. I hate that kinda anger. I’m glad I didn’t do that today. It’s anger at the world and the people who run it. People talk about evil. They talk about people who do monstrous things. They talk about ‘em like they got glowing red eyes and how you can smell sulfur when they walk by. I believe it was Hannah Arendt who talked about the banality of evil. It’s these utterly unremarkable dudes like Scott Pruitt and Jeff Sessions who fuck up the world. They don’t look like monsters but what they do is monstrous. They get to manufacture a hellish reality for millions of people and then they probably go home and watch Blue Bloods or Chicago PD or something and then maybe their wife gives them a half-hearted hand job and then they are back at it the next day. That’s how they do.
It’s good that I’m diligent at putting words to the page almost every single day but maybe I need to strive for more than that. I don’t know what exactly. I think the paragraph above had its moments. I fantasize about poetry and literary journalism.
Making a living distracts me. Takes too much time, ya dig? Shit. That fucking game has us all by the nuts.
I think to myself, “Where the fuck you going with this? Do you just want to stop? Chill the rest of the night?”
I really do.
I will actually.
There is a church in Indiana that put Jesus, Mary and Joseph in detention. This has gotten a lot of love on progressive-ish Twitter.
I get it. I appreciate where that is coming from.
I’m definitely someone who is interested in socially conscious interpretations of religion, particularly Christianity since Christianity had a big part in shaping me coming up in this Empire. I’m not sure about God or the supernatural or the efficacy of prayer or anything like that but I cannot deny that Christianity had an impact on me.
Here’s the thing.
I’ve never known conservative Christians to see the humanity of The Other in Christ. I traveled in those circles. I was in that orbit for a long time and I just ain’t seen it. That just is not something they do.
In fact, the humanity of Christ is a tricky thing. Set aside the humanity of The Other (undocumented, gay, indigenous, lots of other categories). I don’t know that they really see too much humanity in Christ period. He’s this righteous messiah character and not much else from where I find myself standing.
I’m reasonably certain there is an alternate timeline where America descends into fascism to the strains of “Holding out For a Hero” by Bonnie Tyler.
Even as I sing along about pining for a street-wise Hercules, the spirit of eternal fascism tickles me.
This song pines for Charles Bronson in Death Wish.
It’s calling out for a version of Walt from Gran Torino who doesn’t have a redemption arc.
It’s calling for a cop who becomes like The Punisher in real life.
Umberto Eco wrote of the cult of heroism.
This song could be the hymn for the cult of the avenging hero.
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
Day started all chill and then all of a sudden everything was on fire. Had excitable bougie folk to the left and to the right of me. I’ll spare you the details. It’s really not important.
I could pat myself on the back for surviving all that. I could say I’m tougher for having gone through it. Fuck that noise. I’m not.
I’m just glad that it’s over for the moment.
Tomorrow is the 4th of July. I’m just thankful for the day off of work. I don’t plan on celebrating. Fuck nationalism. The only thing I’ll really be celebrating is waking up and being aware of the fact that I’m not punching a clock. I’ve spent a lot of national holidays sitting at a desk in some ugly-ass, depressing office somewhere with a headset on waiting for phone calls. There is a tone in my ear and there is someone terribly surprised that someone is actually working. Some would even comment about how terrible it was that I was working on the 4th of July.
God damn it. I spent way too long answering phones. I will forever be bitter about that. I’m never getting over that.
My brain is fried.
Due to a mix-up that is too stupid to explain, my appointment never happened.
I lay in a semi-dark room and listen to Hulk Hogan's old walk-in theme "Real American."
This song is America.
"I am a real American. Fight for the rights of every man. I am a real American. Fight for what's right. Fight for your life."
If only.
I also scroll through the normie politics subreddit and people are wondering if we are one violent incident away from this country exploding like a Roman candle.
I see it.
Everything is so sinister and mean.
Sloop John B plays in my ear.
"This is worst trip I've ever been on."
We're on that trip, America.
This has hung in the home I grew up in for as long as I can remember.
I think I’m slowly getting over myself. The operative word is slowly.
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.
I get lost in the night's machinery
with nothing to see but what there is to see
synthetic angel glow and Internet Protocol that never sleeps
keeps me company
and that troubles me
Get lost in the night’s machinery
with nothin’ to see but what there is to see
synthetic angel glow and Internet Protocol that never sleeps
That once a week crying thing I do..
... doing it now at 1:28 AM.
No irony here. The rise of this woman gives me hope. I remember hearing her name on Intercepted and Chapo Trap House. It’s trippy as fuck to hear a name in those weird podcasts you listen to and then see that person on normie TV.
Even if she never gets to Congress, she fucking won. I don’t think she’ll be the only one. She’s 28. Seriously, this lost generation is waking the fuck up. Some of us are pieces of shit but some of us get it now.
I'm gonna have to juggle a bit. My desire to write and be a real human being and do what I need to do to survive in this brutal, boring game.
Heavenly Father
When I lose my religion
I come to you.
When hope is just a bitch
Maybe I lose it and I pray.
I reach for the phone and start dialin’ for parts unknown.
Heavenly father,
one more day.
Have mercy on your boy
cuz he’s for sale
and he’s last year’s model.
Have mercy on your boy
cuz maybe today is gonna be the day.
Have mercy on your boy
cuz he never asked to come out of that cave
into this blinding white light screamin’
like he knew exactly what the hell was up.
God damn it.
Have mercy on your boy.
Can ya do that?
If not me, for someone who needs it more.
Amen.
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.
It’s starting to become not enough to just write. I’ve written semi-diligently almost every single day. I want to say something. I want to get close to the inexpressible and get kinda close to expressing it. I want to get so close that god damn it, I actually fucking expressed it.
Dog-whistling Dixie. That phrase kept occurring to me on my drive home today. Dog whistling Dixie. Dog whistling Dixie. I dunno.
I’m actually close to having read an entire book in I don’t know how long. I got to spend a lot of time just reading at my desk today. That was nice. Seriously. I took care of some minor shit here and there but most of the time, I just got to read. We’re not talking anything that literary. It’s The Great Divide by Matt Taibbi. It talks a lot about the machinations of the financial collapse of 2008. I barely remember that. Seriously, I think maybe I was barely conscious. That event touched everything though. It was a complicated shell game that ended up torching the lives of so many people and no one was ever really held accountable for it. That’s crime on a massive scale. There’s crime and then there’s crime.
Something that can send me into a rage is local news broadcasts because of all the “crime” stories. Maybe they’ll have some story about some thieves that are stealing packages on people’s doorsteps. I remember once seeing a video on some local news station’s Facebook page of some package thief nicking a package and then slipping and falling and the comments were all, “KARMA! IT’S A BIIIIITCH AND SO AM I,” and “THEY WAS LUCKY I WASN’T THERE WITH MY GUN CUZ I WOULDA GONE PUNISHER ON HER FAT ASS.” All this ire for some desperate petty criminal but where is the rage for the banker who ripped off their pension fund on Wall Street with a nose full of cocaine while getting head from a barely legal prostie? C’mon man. I know it’s not the 80s any more but I’m pretty sure Wall Street still runs on cocaine. You ever see that episode of Cops where they were stopping and frisking people outside of a luxury apartment complex and hitting Wall Streeters with coke possession charges? No you don’t because it never happened and it doesn’t happen. Nah, if you are one of the brain dead idiots who enjoys a show like Cops, you are treated to shirtless folk in trailer parks getting busted for meth and domestic violence and monologues from boring motherfuckers with crew cuts talking about how they are like a 4th generation pig or some shit as they drive along on patrol with their eyes peeled for people of color.
I will be going in and seeing a therapist on Monday. Fuck! A god damn Monday. So, I am going to be groggy and ready to just go to bed after a long day but I can’t just go home. I gotta go talk to some guy I’ve talked to exactly twice. I better think about what it is I’m going to say. Damn. I wonder how honest I really am going to be in there. I’ve got to make at least some attempt to be honest or there really is no point, right? So, what is it really?
Hmm. So. Here’s what it is. I’m really fucking bored, lonely and I can get really anxious. Look, I’m doing better than I have in a long time but god damn it, what else should I be doing?
Some people have the ability to manufacture reality for others.
I am not one of those fucking people.
You probably aren't either so we have that in common.
Lot of people just live here.
That's okay.
Maybe I'm doing something right.
Maybe.
I don't fucking know though.
You feel me?
Can't even dress it up.
Anything that ever worked wasn't cuz of the white boy in me.
I wanna mean that.
Loosely connected thoughts.
Back to the lab again.
Just tryin' to live.
She told me, "May you find your worth in the waking world."
I picked up the controller again.
She shook her head and insisted I had learned what I needed to learn.
The waking world.
Back to the world.
To try and live.
Ordinary man.
Trying to live.
That's all.
It’s hard to fake it when you can see the hallucinations of others who have far too much money and can identify said hallucinations as hallucinations. That is an awkward sentence and would make a terrible bumper sticker.
People say, let’s run the government like a business and that’s basically the beginning of The Book of Revelation.
In some kinda half-asleep state some time this morning or last night, it occurred to me that life is a trip. Yeah, I mean trip in a similar sense to a trip one might take on psilocybin mushrooms or LSD. Life is the trip. It's all a trip. That sounds like utter bullshit but I mean it. I'm being completely sincere here.
I knew at some point I would touch on my exepriences with psychedelic compounds. I just didn't really know it would be today. I am not a veteran psychonaut by any stretch of the imagination and it's not something I ever thought I'd do. If you told me a decade ago that I would develop an interest in psychedelics, I would have thought you were quite insane. My experience at this current time has been exclusively with psilocybin mushrooms which are popularly known as "magic mushrooms."
The first thing I became aware of even at relatively low doses of psilocybin was my personality coming apart. Basically, I would become aware of all the parts that make up me. All of these parts are distinct.
There is a part of me that freaks out almost instantly and is basically a slave to fear. I was acutely aware of the sound of this part's voice, its presence.
There is another part that is calm, analytical. It speaks in soothing tones. It's wise. It says, "Hey. You're just tripping, dog. It's okay."
There is yet another part that is suave, ultrasexual and rarely seen by anyone really.
I can also recall being aware of the words I was saying internally being audible as a whisper in my head or something similar.
It's almost a given that I'm going to cry during a trip. I don't mind this much.
Visual hallucinations really don't intrigue me that much. It's about the thoughts that come to me.
I'm barely scratching the surface here.
I'm typing this on my phone at work. I'm trying to not look as idle as I actually am. I'm playing the part of the dutiful employee. In less than an hour, I plan on sneaking out of here. There isn't jack shit anyone can do about it.
I managed to get an appointment scheduled with a therapist on Monday.
I guesss I'll end on that note.
So... I woke up and thought
Being aware of your own internal life and spending time there makes you remember that others possess an internal life as well.
This has the side effect of wanting to make sure the world is gentler.