#417

A furtive guilt nags at me when I consider how much I enjoy extremely hot weather. It leaps to the fore when I read about how drought is driving millions and millions of people into food-insecure and unsafe conditions. How much food got thrown in the fucking garbage last year? 

As a matter of fact, it gives me decent guilt just to be typing when I know there are people running from gangs and cartels and inexorably advancing armies, that they don't get to keep their houses, that they don't have money for shit and nowhere to buy it, and here I stand. Even if I only have five dollars in my wallet and debt and whatever the fuck else, it's not fair. It's not fair that I should look upon a peaceful, well-feed street of housed and clothed people, because it is literally at the expense of others. It is built upon their backs. It is provided by a system that relies on creating and sustaining conditions of inequality. 

Do I sould like a child when I say that it's not fair?

Good.

My instinct has always been this, and never deviated: none of us should sit easy while there exist those with less than us. I was born on a capital city located just barely north of the Equator--the global south, what was once known as the third world. A democracy, but an unstable one after a string of dictators. There, I lived way up in a tall building while hundreds of thousands of children not ten miles away lived in a carpet of hovels; slums like nothing that exists north of the Rio Grande. Now it's dictators again. I live up here in the U.S., now, first world par excellence, first world with a raging erection and a finger in every pie on the planet--and we might have ourselves a dictator soon. 

Life, huh! It is nothing but a fucking joke.

Anyway.

When something is not fair, we can't just shrug. I knew it was simply not fair, simply inexcusable, that I lived in a building while other kids had to live in slums. I was not wrong. I still feel that way. Children are correct. Things being fair and equitable--it's not some childish thing, some unrealistic pipe dream. That they are not, after all this having of civilization, all these vast piles of wealth circulating the planet and accumulating in vaults, always more, ever growing, and poverty only ever grows with it?

It is not fair.

*

We act like bad things happening far away are only happening because the people there deserve it for not making economies and governments as strong as ours. But we had fuck-all to do with how strong our government and economy is. Getting born in some shithole--as we like to say--instead of America is your own damn fault, we think, because we ourselves did nothing to deserve getting born here. And so we protect ourselves with "well, what do you want me to do about it?" Because after all, we may be lucky, but we're not in charge, and we didn't make the world, and it's all very complicated anyway, and you're bothering me and you should fuck off because I don't like thinking about it actually.

Honestly, I just need you to not be cool with it. That's enough for me. Because making up justifications and deluding yourself on purpose about the actual costs of your lifestyle and the actual ramifications of what your government does with or without your consent is the path not only to this sated, distracted, rationalizing life of self-compromise and consumption and complicity, but to actual secret police shit, actual gulag and torture shit, actual sitting in an office signing documents that authorize things like Final Solutions. I am saying that there comes a point where you're not just a citizen anymore, because you don't live in a state anymore. Something else is happening, and you didn't want to notice, and a very important choice was made for you when you weren't paying attention. 

When you go from a republic to a dictatorship, there are those whose positions do not change that much. It is a condition of class, but also a condition of attitude. It is a condition of the required complicity for a transfer of power that is legitimate not in fact but after the fact. All you have to do to put your seal of approval on it is to keep going to work, keep going for opportunities whose cost is not discussed up front, keep acting like what you do is justifiable because you deserve to have what you have.

But it isn't. And I'm telling you now it is because it is a sin to have while others want. And it is that sin that has driven climate change and fascism and the attitude that industry justifies anything in the name of industry, that profit is the sacrament which washes us clean, and the comforts of our earthly rewards are proof of our righteousness.

But they aren't. 

And frankly, blessedly, it is factual that all you have to do is not be cool with it. Because if you're not cool with it, you have a chance to at least stay awake and keep your eye out. And when the opportunity comes to make a difference, the difference you are suited to make, you'll see the opening. You'll know.

*

Anyway, it was too cold to ride my bike yesterday. I need it to be hotter. That's why I was guilty.

Easy enough for me to go all the way with guilt that I do it most days. Today, I brought you along for the ride.  

What can be done? What is that difference that we should seek to make, and how to make it, and how to know the moment, the opening, the chance?

Well, I've been thinking about it for a long time. Hopefully I've made progress. You'll be the first to know if I figure anything out.

All I know for sure is that hope is what is needed above all. Keep your hopes alive, burning bright, daring, free.

--JL

#186

Made use of my offensiveness yesterday, like I do sometimes. Let us all meditate briefly on how offensiveness is the most transparent defensiveness there is, then, meditate briefly on how important a tool it is to retain if you are to keep something of yourself intact in the extremely polite meat grinder that is getting the fuck by in society. Then, once our meditations are complete, we will be prepared to take the next step in our lives. Take my hand. Flying is as simple as missing the ground.

*

Due to a combination of travel anxiety, guilt, free-floating stress, and a complex about the whole thing that would take several post's worth of narrative to unpack, I stayed in the house alone with the dog instead of going out to Chicago for my youngest brother's commencement ceremony. This was of course designed exactly to compound and add to my feelings of guilt, but I did a lot of math and this was the bearable outcome.

I see how some men are able to use their pride to overcome these problems that I allow to essentially rob me of life. This is a kind of pride I lack. Speaking hierarchically, that mode of pride is above my station; it is the pride of the noble, the father, the head of the clan. I have access to modes of pride that this type of man could never understand, but you would never in a million years stick me at the head of a parade, nor would I allow you to. 

The difficulty for me does not involve shame, though, which can be confused with guilt. My problems are manifold, but the main one for concern is that attendance at crowd-gatherings is entangled with a demonstration of love and filial feeling, which I have trouble with. My feelings on the matter are peripheral, of course; you show up for your people. That is basic. So if you don't, you did fail to show love, you shot down a window for it, you have to own that you put your wrecked nerves ahead of showing your love, you can call that selfish or call it self-care; I call it a missed opportunity, which I understand could be perceived as very trendy in the holistic psychoanalysis circles, but I am as usual thinking phenomenologically in order to protect myself (a useful defense against these practitioners, incidentally), like a coward, just as Heidegger taught me. I will learn from this missed opportunity and try not to miss the next one, and I will create an opportunity through action to account for, though not make up for, the missed one.

It is selfish, though. Rationalize away, by all means do not punish yourself, lie, whatever, but for my part, it is selfish. I admit this.

*

Speaking of, I can't believe I wrote about "Bohemian Rhapsody" and talked a bit about its subtext and omitted that it also brings up the problem of being able to consider not having been thrown into existence after the fact. I listened to it again just now, with headphones on and my eyes closed. I hadn't done that in years. Gotta figure out this music trauma, gotta learn what has happened to me while I was trying to just survive and apparently missed it as things fell away from me, as dissolution had its way.

Also I cannot believe I wrote about "Bohemian Rhapsody" without talking about THIS ONE TIME AT BAND CAMP when five buddies and I whipped up a brass quintet arrangement of the song with a drum part and performed it for everybody in lieu of "Taps" at Senior Taps. One of the buddies was not just a buddy but my brilliant and longtime partner in distinguishing deeds ranging from something as completely dorky as what I am right now describing to sneaking beers into High School and totally drankin' before class. We considered ourselves gentlemen, and talked about James Bond a lot. It was him did the bulk of the arranging and editing, which I was more than happy to let him do because that writing that stuff down in my bad notation penmanship bores me to death and using computer programs to do it sucked really bad back then. 

Many laughs we shared and many terrible and crass names we called one another as we prepared the arrangement in dusty basement practice rooms, computer speakers hooked up to an iPod so we could replay sections of the song over and over to, sharing Blistex and telling lies and awful jokes as we hammered it out between us. The trombone players were assholes, of course. That's just something you live with in a trombone player; I love both those dudes, they were good dudes I had known for a long time and shared much with, especially as one of them was also a wrestler, but they are trombone players, and therefore pricks of a category all their own. The drummer was, as is proper and correct, hardly there.

Played the tuba that year (band directors have this skill for cornering me into playing the tuba for them though I kinda prefer the trumpet), so I got to do the bassline. It was definitely worth learning to play brass instruments and dealing with all the crap that being in a school band throws at you in order to have done this with some dudes, all breaking the rules and whipping out a banger in front of the director and four years of band geeks all ringing you round and loving every second as we did our thing full and complete start to finish, well-played and a good show rolling without a thought off your lips, easy under sure fingers, all huge smile on the director's face as he stands there arms crossed as the people (nerds, bless my people) went wild. 

A little later in life my brothers, attending the same band camp under the same director, let me know that the seniors always play "Bohemian Rhapsody" for Senior Taps; every year since they'd been there. My middle brother's first year was my last, and some seniors played out their class with "Bohemian Rhapsody" the year my youngest brother graduated, four years after the middle one did. Not just five horns and a percussionist on a snare, a hi-hat, and a ride cymbal; up to fifteen people, depending on the year, playing all manner of instruments, some of the drumline folks using the drumline shit, there is an actual electric guitar, a true Thing. My middle brother actually thought my friends and I were embarrassingly unmemorable, since obviously it could only go up from our humble breaking of the ground; neither had any idea that no one had ever played anything but "Taps" before we came along.

Dunno if they're still doing that, as it has now been four years since my brother left, but I don't at all care; that should be more than enough for any dude, I figure.

*

Keep yourself alive! All you people, keep yourselves alive. The show must go on.


--JL

#53

Spring is a dangerous time for me. Most of us spend most of our lives on a set of rails, imposed by circumstance and held to through our own will. The designs of others come into and out of play, needs and duties tug, perhaps a switch of rails is needed every now and again, or a dramatic once. 

Some of us are not so good with the business of staying on the rails. Some of us get off. Off the rails, the undergrowth is dense, and maybe you can't ever go back to the old rails. Maybe it's not so sure a thing you find some new rails. And everywhere, amongst the twisted roots and dead leaves, the bones of those who don't. The best you got for signposts, out there, off the map.

Used to work at this Chinese place. The boss's husband was an officious, ignorant, busybodied skinflinted little prick. I've known worse dudes, way worse, but this dude was a wet shit. I only kept my job because he was a little scared of me, as he wouldn't have tolerated a lot of my nonsense--chiefly, putting my feet up and reading a book when there weren't any customers in-house or orders to take, and also complaining immediately and saying no to his face if he said something stupid or told me to do anything ridiculous. These were regular things, with him.

Dude was nice to me sometimes, though, and we did have some laughs together. Yet he also sold me my first lemon, a terrible old Plymouth van that barely wanted to start and whose muffler fell off after about a week, which was a fucking bullshit move. But! I never signed the thing over to myself, so when I left it parked in the apartment lot where I lived, and the city towed it, it was him who got hit with the real fucking bullshit. He made noises at me about paying him, but let me tell you, I ignored him completely. His wife ended up making me give him a little out of each paycheck for a while just so he'd shut his mouth about firing me or whatever. I got paid cash under the table, so I couldn't really argue that much, short of quitting, and since I could do the job hungover every day, I wasn't much interested in scanning the market and putting my best foot forward.

No, my interests lay in drinking and smoking myself to death, passing the time by fucking my girlfriend, watching movies every day, playing Super Smash Brothers, and reading the rest of the time. Sometimes I dropped acid, or consumed some other hallucinogen--I was tripping on acid and sitting alone at my typewriter at the moment of J.D. Salinger's death. I wrote a lot of shitty poetry. The bits worth polishing, by the way, survived and made it into one of my books. I scribbled and slam-typed hundreds and hundreds of pages, but only sixty-four are left standing, much amended, and one's the title page.

Thought this was all okay, for my part. Probably the absurd confidence that I would soon  be recognized for my vast, unprecedented talents and thrust into a new life took a lot of the edge off.

Man, I hope that's funny to you, because I really just want to rub my face until it vanishes when I think about that. Is there anything more risible than a young writer who has rejected writerly society, secretly convinced that one day, they will beg and plead for him to assume the mantle of literary lion which he so richly deserves, and which he would wear so well? But no! I would never give those...those phonies the satisfaction!

Ah, youth. 

Punched out of work one fine Spring day with fresh money in my pocket, though less than what I would have made if I hadn't had to pay that fucking guy money I shouldn't have had to pay him. A half-shift at the Chinese place was always six hours, ten or eleven to four or five and four to ten or five to eleven. Off at five, all high on the money and in a good mood, I thought I'd have a drink at the bar like a gentleman before going home. I did  not ever do this. Usually I went straight home, where I would drink at a wooden table by the kitchen window. If I did go to a bar, it would be with my girlfriend, and usually at least one other friend, who cared more about bars than we did.

Had the barman draw me a pint of Two-Hearted, and settled down to read my book at the bar. By the time I was into my second a little bit, a big old fellow sat for a chat, weighing in at least deuce-eighty and aged almost seventy, but still hale, agreeable, breathing well, sound of mind, and of good cheer and friendly disposition. He had a large-cheeked, florid, bright-eyed face behind his big aviator-style glasses, messy white hair, and an affable way of talking. He made conversation by noting that it wasn't often he saw a fellow reading at the bar, in a tone that indicated comradeship rather than the xenophobia of the barely literate, which dissolved my rigid mistrust of anyone older than me that wasn't a dead writer or certain sets of living musicians (after working as a musician a bit*, I now mistrust every living musician.)

He was a computer whiz but from the day. Without revealing too much,  he was one of those dudes that had run the huge old computers that cost two billion smackers, ran hotter than a volcanic chute, and couldn't do the thousandth part of what an IBM would be doing in just a decade and change, let alone what your pocket rectangle can do. Dude had his hands in it from the start, and he told me many fascinating stories from the old days, and I was only too happy to listen, interjecting when I felt I could with some question or witticism or to show that I was listening and relating. He was a friendly dude with a good way about  him, and I was being as courteous and erudite as I could. We were having a nice time.

Then comes the first break in my memory, somewhere after the fourth beer. I hadn't eaten anything in hours; I meant to go home after one drink. 

Next thing I remember I am running back and forth in the bar, yelling and singing something unintelligible, but filled with a ferocious kind of joy. The old fellow's smile was gone, he was shaking his head, torso twisted around on his barstool to regard me gravely. I noticed this, but it in no way dampened me or slowed me down. Another blank spot, and we're at the door of the bar, he's handing me bus fare and actually looking a little alarmed, telling me to just go home, get home and lie down. I brashly assured him that I would, I would, of course I would, couldn't wait to!

Another blank, and the next thing I am aware of is just finishing a word, my finger in my boss's husband's face. No idea what I said to him, but I had put my face about two inches away from him to say it. He looked completely bowled over, and just started moving his head slowly from side to side. "You gotta go, Joe," he intoned slowly. "You gotta go."

Drawing my lips back from my teeth, I growled silky through a rage I hadn't realized I'd been feeling, let alone acting on. "Okay, man. I will. I will."

Yet another gap. I'm getting off the bus, laughing hard, laughing my ass off. It was way before my stop, barely halfway home. At the time I didn't know why I'd gotten off so early; it is fairly easy to deduce that I had done something to get myself kicked off the bus, something which certainly had never happened to me before. Don't like the memory of that laugh. It had grown dark. I started walking, feeling like some kind of king. 

Flashes, now. I found myself trespassing on a pharmaceutical company's private property--no fucking memory of jumping a fence and wading through some kind of mudfield just to get someplace I wasn't supposed to be, but there I was. I don't remember leaving, either. I remember staring at a traffic light with my mouth open. I remember screaming--fucking screaming, long wordless shrieks like to break glass, tearing at my throat, at a dude walking his dog. I know that dude didn't do anything to me. I have no idea why I did that to him. He kept his head down and kept walking. I would have done the same, some fucking nutball piece of shit in torn muddy jeans screaming blue devil in the darkness so hard he leans over and balls his fists. After that, nothing until opening the front door.

Got home so late that my girlfriend was home. She had been on shift when I got off, must have witnessed my screaming at our boss, and got home before me. I had wandered considerably after the bus, more meanderingly and slowly than I thought. She was waiting, along with my best friend. I had not been picking up my phone.

Their eyes, their wide scared eyes--they both have such light blue, such expressive eyes, eyes I knew so well, eyes so filled with pain and fear. All on me. By me, for me, because of me. If we exchanged words in that moment, or after, I have since forgotten them. But I will never forget their faces, their postures, most especially, their eyes, as I walked through that door.

Would have preferred to walk into four splinter bullets shattering into my torso and genitals than to walk into those eyes.

*

Don't ever be like me. Don't suffer people like me in your life. Shit like this, much more like it, and some even worse, is why I am a ruined nervous wreck with no friends**.


--JL


*roadied under circumstances I'll go into sometime; been in a few bands. Bad scenes, ranging from mere tomfoolery to actual abusive situations. I still make music all alone. Maybe someday if I make some more recordings I will share. The recordings I have, I don't know what decisions to make about them yet. But I have been playing music since I was a toddler; some of my earliest memories are of a musical daycare I attended and have always loved fooling around on pianos and xylophones, loved whistling and singing. I played trumpet and tuba in middle and high school, taught myself bass, drums, harmonica, and guitar, and have fooled around on countless weird electronic instruments. That's why I mention on some days off that I played some instruments. 

**my ex is still my friend, and time has put this all behind us. I have many friends. I am simply too often fool enough to forget that. Frankly, that paragraph is profoundly stupid in every way.