You.
Me.
We want so badly to believe that we’re the good guys, even if that belief is the most patently retarded bullshit ever crafted by human minds.
What does that contradiction do to us, here?
Have you ever even been arrested?
Have you ever heard about somebody on the news and screamed in your heart that they be locked up, and the key thrown away?
Have you ever found out later that the news had it almost one hundred percent wrong, or even that a court did too?
I can say yes, personally, to all of the above. Does that make me a good guy?
Fuck no. It does not.
***
Once I get rolling it’s hard to stop myself.
Once I slow down and stop it’s hard to get myself going again.
I’m done I’m done I’m done.
What I mean at the surface level is that it is the actual 13th of March, and I am writing the post that says 13 March. I am, in other words, all caught up like a good boy.
The damage of getting there did me good. Oh he’s the missing link. The kitchen sink. Living on a scale to ten.
Well honey don’t just stand there, looking like this dream will never end.
It damn sure will. It’s later than you think. Consult your Awake! magazine, dated 22 October 1968 for details.
Or just be Done for ten minutes and ask yourself truly if living forever is the likely thing, alongside asking if we, you and me, are the good guys.
Nah. Nah.
Nanana-nah. Hey hey-ey. Good, bye.
***
If I can’t claim to be part of the good guys, can I at least say I’ve succeeded, Lord?
Well, that’s complicated.
I came here half a year ago in the swelter of August. I failed in what I came here to do and tomorrow morning at nine I’m going to pick up a trailer, not even the one that belongs to me, and I’m going to head north back to the sad place in disgrace. That’s real.
Harshly real, factually real … but not the only way to see it.
Pull focus to seven and a half years ago, the first of October in 2015. I was here then in Cienega too, for the Southwest Festival of the Written Word, and I became inspired.
To write, and to publish, every day.
At that point I was gainfully employed full-time. I was a card-carrying member of the middle class for the first time in my life, barely, and it wasn’t all that satisfying or fulfilling or rewarding in the spiritual sense. I longed to finally get started on my belletristic dreams, and I thought that committing some small thing to digital paper every single day was quite literally the least I could ask of myself, in the context of the demands of an employed life.
I faithfully met my self-imposed obligation and executed my duty, for a time. Mostly. There were times, especially when my life was approaching the crash wall and after I hit it, that there were holes in the Every Day part. I have to forgive myself for that. Those were very dark days indeed, and one person can only do so much. I do forgive thee, Alex. Go in peace my son.
Slowly I started to heal, and got back on the track.
Eventually I decided to cut ties with the System and I cashed out. It was pretty easy then to be good and faithful, at least to myself.
I came down here in August looking to cement that success with a fresh unfettered paycheck that never came.
I did start making films besides the writing, in the same rather creaking and tentative way as what you’re reading right now. I spilled on camera now too, not well, but with acceptable levels of commitment and faithfulness.
I did the Work and if I were to write my own performance review, I’d give myself a B–maybe a B+ including the initial foray into videos.
Lately, and partly due to the depressing nature of failing to cement, I dropped to a barely passing C, and then, just like the student days, I pulled a couple of all-nighters and pulled myself back even the night before finals,
Thirteen March. A perfectly acceptable report card and we head into the relief of summer break.
***
But acceptable isn’t good enough any more.
When I say I’m done, what I mean on the inner layer is that I’m done with mediocrity and getting by.
Before my middle-class life exploded like an East Palestine train car, I was very proud of my record of making it to every single class I was assigned to and scheduled for, regardless of sickness or the road to Hopi turning into glare ice. I bought an all-wheel drive vehicle just to be sure. I went in like death warmed over more than once and I did my job and I was proud of my impeccable record.
That pride was stupid, and acquitting myself acceptably didn’t save me in the end, not even a little bit.
The same goes for showing up here every day.
So what, dipshit?
Just showing up is in no way “90% of success”. That’s just another god damned lie.
I’m done. I’m changing the rules and I’m doing it today.
***
There will be a post for tomorrow right on schedule. It won’t be a good one. I’m going to dump here all the big pile of notes and links I’ve collected (but not used) over the course of getting caught back up, and I’m going to do that just to get them off the miserable messy plate of my Desktop. The post will be called, in the spirit of the real, Packing Day.
The day after on the Ides will be Driving Day, and there may or may not be a post. More likely than words here will be some kind of short video there. Eventually.
I am hereby relieving myself of the expired obligation to put something down in this space representing each and every twenty-four hours.
This will become more of a journal about personal struggles, and less about political ones, to the extent that I can still draw a clear line between those things.
The Work will shift focus, to places where there is some nebulously vague hope of monetizing. Right now that mainly means YouTube, with an archival backup at Rumble in case the censors come for me. But it might also mean an amplification on other platforms–Substack, Patreon; I’m not sure yet. I’ll think about it fiercely, and you and me shall see.
This space will always be here and it will always be free.
***
Socially speaking this is a completely fucked up world and we are the Kings and Queens of Fuck.
It has been that way since long before any of us were born. We are the fish and tadpoles in the waters of civilized Fuck, swimming around blind, banging into things, eating and being eaten, self-important and ridiculous and barely even conscious by any divine metric.
There is no salvation by social means and we’ve proven that over and over.
If there is any kind of saving grace at all, it won’t come from a prophet or a guru or a pundit or a senator or even the ones we love. If it comes, it can only come from the clouds and the moon and the birds and the trees.
Even the naked bare rocks perhaps, if that’s all there is where we go.
There. I said it.
I’m done.
❤️