I'm Sitting At Work And Reading Noam Chomsky.
I'm sitting at work and reading Noam Chomsky.
This is the most Chomsky I've ever read.
It's possible I am going to become an insufferable asshole for awhile. Strike that. I'm not becoming an asshole. What I'm doing is becoming more aware. I've been reading a lot more recently and I'm gaining insight into the way the world actually functions. It's cliche as all fuck to say but in all my schooling, I never really learned much of anything. They don't teach you about the illusion.
I'm convinced that one of the trippiest things ever is living in the U.S. and believing everything we tell ourselves about how great we are. THAT is a hell of a trip to be on. That is a trip that I was sort of on in my younger days. It's hard to judge now how sincerely or deeply I believed it. See, I think I always had my doubts. Doubt is good. Doubt is a sign that you're still sane. Shit, I even doubt where I am now. I could be totally wrong. Maybe I just picked up a new illusion.
I'm becoming quite convinced that one of the most vital aspects of the human project is disentangle oneself from illusions. These include the illusions of society and the illusions a person has about themselves.
More Posts from Mistahsojourner and Others
Sick Dogs and Our Bad Conscience
I spent a bunch of time with a sick dog this weekend. I’ve known this dog since she was 8 months old and rowdy as hell. I really thought that she might die. I cried buckets. It looks like it isn’t this dog’s time though. As a result, my emotions are still pretty raw. I ain’t got tears to cry but I’ve still got plenty of feeling.
Compassion that moves me to anger. Furious anger. Righteous anger. I don’t know what it is about the drive home from work that makes me think about all the big picture stuff. Big picture stuff? Shit. That’s so inadequate but I don’t know what else to call it. It’s burning anger about all the injustice that’s bigger than me. The injustice that happens while I watch a clock. It’s monstrous shit. It’s shit for The Hague. It’s shit that gets Meryl Streep Academy Awards for starring in fucking movies about it. It’s shit that grieves my fuckin’ spirit but at the end of the day doesn’t even really inconvenience me because of the accident of my birth.
My country puts little brown children in concentration camps. They cry for their mommies and daddies. These facilities are often run for a profit and the guards go home, drink beer, watch the game on occasion and probably beat their wives and then promise to never ever do it again. They can do what they do and then they can go to Home Depot or Cabela’s and never give a second thought to what they are doing to earn a pay check. Banality of evil. They’re just doin’ their jobs. Maybe they’re all grim about it. Maybe they’re tormented. Maybe they lose sleep over it. I know some of ‘em enjoy it. They are having the time of their lives.
Yeah, immigration cops are bastards. It’s a popular thing in certain circles to say that all cops are bastards. I didn’t use to believe that but I’m starting to. I got a relative who is a deputy sheriff. I’ve watched him joke about running over protesters. I’ve seen his buddies mock African American Vernacular English. I’ve seen them drink a beer while rockin’ a Punisher skull on their chests. They’re bloodthirsty, suburban warrior fascists. They are the soldiers of this sad apocalypse.
The enforcers of this shameful order are one thing but then there are the people on the sidelines. There are people who see the pictures of weeping children behind chain link fences and are thankful. They smile. They could not be happier. They are seein’ America become great again. They are seein’ people who are not like them suffer. They are watching a man who says the vile shit they say in their taverns and their country clubs in front of the whole nation proudly and without any shame at all. They got a man leading the country who has given permission for the demons that lurk inside them to run wild.
I sit here at my desk and pound my keyboard and I got no idea what to do. I wish that I could tell you what to do. Tomorrow I’ll go back into work, the machine will grind on and I kinda hate myself because anything I might do or say is ineffectual in the face of this grave evil.
Here’s what I’m going to do. It’s not much. All I can think to do right now at this moment is to tell you the truth as I see it. It is that bad. My country is engaged in a great evil. If there be a God and that God is just, he must punish us. I do not know if there is a god. I do know evil though. We’re seeing it. I don’t give a flying fuck about flags or anthems. I care about what’s true.
God. Damn. It.
I will never forgive the people who perpetrated these atrocities. As far as I am concerned, names like Trump, Miller, Sessions, Kelly and the whole Satanic cabal of them deserve to live in infamy. They should be hauled before a court and sentenced for crimes against humanity.
Been kind of a brutal weekend for me.
Didn’t know that I was going to be dealing with a sick dog. All of that wrecked me. Think I got my cry quota done for the next week.
I’m exhausted. I feel beat up.
I’d take a hug or two.
That dog is hanging in though. She is this adorable thing but god damn, she’s tough.
I think I’m way too up in my feelings right now.
I’ll get back to you.
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.
This track always goes right to my heart for some reason.
“The borders should be illegal instead of the people / That were here before the Bible and all of its sequels.”
Slightly Different
Monday morning and Eugene Debs is whisperin’ in my ear
The word is fuck.
Fuck this. Fuck the boss. Fuck the Benjamins but save some for me, will ya?
When it’s just about all you can say
When you ain’t got a prayer but mama says ‘em for you anyway
FUCK
She whispers it in the dark
and then screams it
fuck yeah.
Fuck.
Can’t say it in front of everybody
It’s special like that, ya dig?
This feels cliche because the late comedian Bill Hicks tends to be an influence on insufferable artistically-minded types of a certain age. I meet people and I feel like I can sense people who the man spoke to.
This is one of my favorite bits of Hicks. This spoke to me even when my mind and my world were much smaller.
I’m slipping a little. I feel laziness starting to grip me. I ain’t been as conscientious with this endeavor. I missed two days this week. I did not write a single word. Whatever. Like many a baby boomer says, it is what it is. I’m gonna pick up. I’m gonna continue. I’m gonna live on. I will survive. Aight. I’m gonna put on that song. The Cake version.
I sit in this room that was my bedroom back in the day. I grew up in this room. I came to be in this room. I prayed in this room. I had my first orgasm in this room at the age of 16. I dreamed in this room. I woke up on summer days that were full of nothing but possibilities in this motherfucking room. I sat in the dark and listened to Art Bell in this room. I don’t have my own space anymore. I haven’t since some time in November, I think. I miss it. I’ve always felt like I didn’t belong anywhere. I don’t really have a space right now where I can just be. That’s traumatic, man. It really is. I express this and nobody really seems to give a fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Part of me thinks this shit is about on the same level as some angsty, hormonal teenager who is failing English and is brilliant but lazy according to themselves and who writes on a blog with a background that is as black as their nail polish.
I need to challenge myself. I’m not quite sure how though.
I finished reading two books this week. For a man that has been struggling with his attention span for years or at least feels like he has, that is an accomplishment. I finished the The Great Derangement by Matt Taibbi and The End of Policing by Alex Vitale.
Taibbi is just an excellent writer with a good eye and a keen social conscience. He’s a minor hero of mine. I will pretty much read anything he writes.
The End of Policing made me think a lot. I can’t say that it challenged me too much but it made me think about the why of a lot of things. In recent years, I’ve become really concerned about the militarization of police forces and the violence that more often than not victimizes the poor and people of color. It keeps me up at night. It makes me angry. It makes me want to give the finger to every cop I see. Blue Lives Matter flags make me fighting mad. I really cannot watch cop shows any longer because they play like insidious propaganda to me. The book is a bit dry but it’s quite readable. It is written by an activist academic who traces a lot of the problems heavy handed policing is thrown at to cruel austerity measures. If you’re reading this, you should read that book. I kinda wish everybody in this rotting empire would. Maybe some time soon I will write about some of the things I actually learned from the book.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I had nothing so I typed the same word over and over and over again. That really didn’t get me anywhere. Seriously, all I accomplished was typing the word ‘fuck’ over and over again. That is all I have to show for it. Maybe that’s all I have to show for this entire day. A single word.
Fuck.
A word uttered when shit gets real.
A word uttered just because.
A word she whispers when you’re doing it right.
The last word before a sudden fade to black.
A word when you got nothin’ but the rain, your sweat or your bones.
A word that’s just way too motherfuckin’ honest
for some people.
Wanted:
The people I can use it liberally with.
---
Fuck. That was kinda lazy.
Yo. I didn’t get too much of an intermission between crises. Sick dog and then corporate office warfare. Johnny on the spot with the duct tape, the kind words and the bullshit.
The President
I’m going to tell you the truth.
Not gonna put sugar or honey on it.
It’s not that I disagree with the President or his policies.
It’s not that he represents everything that is soulless and wrong.
No.
It’s that I fucking despise him.
With everything in me.
I hate him. I don’t give a flying fuck about discourse or listening to or understanding the other side. If you are going to come to me with that, fuck you. I don’t care. We are past that. What has the fucking discourse ever gotten us? What has being respectable gotten us?
You can tell me that I’m wrong in my hate. That’s fine. Maybe you’re concerned with the effect that such intense feeling has on my health. I mean, God bless you if you think that. Let me tell you, it’s hard to carry around, aight?
See. I’m owning the hate. I’m not dressing it up in some pretty three piece suit and calling it something polite. Nah. This is me owning it. It’s ugly. It’s awful but I’m owning it.
I go off sometimes. I fucking lose it. I lose my voice. I get told by people, “Oh. You’re so full of hate. Everybody hates him so much. It’s scary.” What the fuck?! WHAT THE FUCK?! What do you think he’s full of? Love? Hell no. If you are going to put on that stupid red hat, you do not get to play that card. That’s perverse.
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.
