August 15, 2013
A lucky guess if anyone would have called it. I know I sure as hell didn't. At one point my life constisted of poetry slams, cheap wines, and late night confessions. It was the only time of day I could sit back and reflect on how I reacted while the sun was up and people still had on their mask, too sober to take off.
Believe it or not, this was a simpler time. I had my life down like clock work. Wake up. Write. Call friends and or poets, the ones I kept closest were both, then find a spot to meet up for cheap food or drinks, the best places had both. Recount the night's drama, whether it was due to my overzealous consumption of whatever I didn't have money to buy that night, or to review and analyze the thoughts and actions of someone else. Ask for the insight from those who were well versed in speaking bullshit, whether the dialect was denial, insecurity, passiveness, or projecting any combination of the three. The experts I kept in my wine cabinet like a wino president knew how to read and write these languages because people had been talking to them in it their entire life and picked up on it to survive. Others were still making new words and catch phrases like "I'm ok, I'm just tired." Yeah, and I drink for the empty calories.
I guess everything is black and white when you're at that time in your life. Blacking out after finally dealing with whatever it was that drove you on top of that bar stool. Like the day's problem was a mouse and you couldn't stand the sight of rodents so you scrambled up on it while wailing that drunken slur that no one understands why this place can't observe that we're all dirty and crawling on all fours with our tales dragging behind us. Because anything we say, is something we already did, past tense. Anything we do is the present but always feels way past tense so we need something to relax us. To turn those memories to nostalgic moments and find the silver lining cutting the clouds wide open on a table top ocean. But I've never been one to go nose deep in anything. Its always been a hard night for the heart and a liver punch for a bar tab.
Yeah, I remember the nights like that. I also remember the helpless feelings I would have. When I felt like I had no say in what my life would throw at me. All of the could have beens would haunt me out of sleep. Plaster a fake smile on so people would quit asking me was wrong and what they could do to help. Shutting the fuck up would have been a great start. Being strong doesn't always feel like a blessing. Most of the time, it pulls at my skin like I'm wearing a heavy responsibility that I never asked to carry. But I know in that weight, I could hold my own against a current that would want to wash me away and be nothing mote than a figment in someone else's memory banks. I'm here. And I'm alive. And I have roof tops to rip off the churches I've built to yesterday's glory days because tomorrow is looking less and less familiar every time I pray to those false gods. But I still walk like Johnny Cash and any other man in black. My soul to Concrete one step at a time. Days left, tomorrow write, my nights I'm playing catch up with the emotions I left in the car this afternoon.
I was hoping they'd be dead by down. But instead they're just pissed from letting them sit in the heat of my passiveness. Then again, maybe I just need some time away so I could feel a sense of nostalgia towards them.
-DCR
I was talking to a good friend of mine who is a Conservative Christian over the weekend (yes I do have friends who are T baggers and Libertarians) and we were discussing different topics.
We got talking about the amount of money that various billionaires donate to political agendas whether Republican or Democrat.
We found that a lot of them actually donate to both parties. Some give more too various people and affiliations than others. My friend has a Conservative POV where the belief is it’s a level playing field because there are just as many billionaires donating cash to left-wing driven agendas as there are right-wing donors.
My gut feeling is totally the opposite.
There are 1426 billionaires worldwide (Forbes list) of which the USA has 442 (2013).
Now, I am a firm believer that most rich, wealthy people are sociopaths.
They didn’t get their wealth through being nice to people (most of them).
Since 2009 (under Obama) the amount of billionaires has risen from 793 to the current total. Almost doubling in 4 years and the estimated combined wealth has risen from 2.4 Trillion $ to 5.4 Trillion.
Initially there was a drop when he came into office but that turned into a massive jump as I stated earlier.
I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
So as my friend and I continued to chat (sometimes heatedly) we both agreed that ‘corporatism’ is the real evil.
Whether it was Reagan ( he was the first REAL out in the open corporatist), then Bush, Clinton (one of the worst) or Obama, they are all beholding to the corporate entities that control them.
With the advent of citizens united and the flood of ‘ dark money’ coming in from every conceivable angle. It’s hard to differentiate.
TDB.
Its strange the way the brain works sometimes. Stuck in a cyclical existence bound to the rhythmic progression of seasons, our minds have become very adept at spotting, deciphering, and creating patterns, both as a means for survival, as well as for making sense of the world. Witnessing the same process year after year, we learn to associate seasons with certain periods of our lives, locations, memories, and people. For me one of the most consistent reminders of this was always autumn. Finally being able to feel the faint relief from the summer heat, and the promise of more to come, autumn reminds me of the anticipation of waiting to seeing my friends again at school, learning new subjects, the annual trip for new school clothes, new pens, hoodie weather, and pumpkin everything. Tying with spring for my favorite season, I have never been able to tolerate the extreme nature of either summer or winter all that comfortably, and much prefer the landscape in spring and fall, as well as visual evidence of the cyclical nature of our reality.
While spring brings with it a sense of rebirth, autumn is slightly more somber, and frequently chilled by the ever present hand of mortality. Reminded of all of those we have lost, it is hard not to feel nostalgic from time to time, to get lost in memories, and to long for days that didn't seem so damn complex. Of course, this like so much else is just a trick of time and memory. Forgetting the pain of the moments, and all that was wrong at the time, humans have a tendency to only remember the best parts
(or for some only the worst), while allowing everything else to fade away. So much of history is like this. Case and point, those commonly referred to as the “greatest generation”. Although the contribution of those brave young men and women who came together to defeat the nazi’s is admirable to say the least, the reverence that comes with such a title, glosses over the harsh realties and hypocrisy of much of the world at that time, leaving only the sugar coated half-truths, that ignore so much of the progress that has been since that point.
Clinging to tradition and fear, we have allowed several generations to be subjected to imprisonment, physical and psychological torture, and even enslavement, as punishment , not for violent crimes, but for problems that should be regarded as a health issue. Leaving people in trouble with little avenue for support, due to fear of penal repercussions, the problems of mental health and drug abuse consistently overlap, and similarly are largely ignored in this country, or pacified with simple solutions such as chemicals that often increase chances of causing harm to oneself or others, or privatized prisons. Requiring far better solutions that what we have been force fed for decades, the time to change our course is increasingly past due.
-Joshua Genius
Money, money, money.
Tradition & Fear
