I'm Faded.

Friday War Story: Man Versus Wide Format Printer

The week been gentle. The week been chill. Too gentle. Too chill. I don't trust it, man. Shit has to get a little crazy some time. Why not today?

I get in. Email waiting for me. See, there is this special printer on the third floor. It's this beast of a machine that is used to print and scan technical drawings. It seems most people cannot scan to their network folder. Turning the machine off and then back on did precisely dick so it falls to me to exorcise the demons from this fucking machine.

 I ascend one flight of stairs to see this for myself. Stick the piece of paper in. It scans. Well, son of a bitch. It works, right? Well no. For some people, it scans and then prompts for a password but guess what? The touch screen provides no way to actually enter in a password so whenever it prompts for a password, I'm sunk. That's a brick wall.

 This has me sweating. Everybody is being nice about this but if I can't fix this, I'm thinking maybe it harms my reputation. Maybe people start thinking I can't hack it. It occurs to me now they probably don't care THAT much but being the anxious, neurotic son of a bitch that I am, I sweat.

 So, I'm about out of ideas. I've not seen this problem before and Google is no help. Fuck. Why the hell did I come to work today?

 I let the office admin know that I got no idea what the motherfuck is going on. She puts in a call to the printer company and she says they will call me and send someone out. Thing is though, I know they are gonna push back cuz there is no god damn way this is their problem. They call me up and tell me to piss off.

 Yeah. I get it but fuck you too, brotha.

 Aight. MacGyver time, man. Think. I'm up and down those stairs. Hey. Wait a minute. There are a few ports on the back of this printer. Got an ethernet port. Got some funky looking serial port and a USB port. Hmm. I run downstairs and grab a USB keyboard. I plug it into the USB port on the back of the printer and... IT TYPES. I can type in the password now. I type the password I think it wants and check the box that says 'remember my password.' ... IT WORKS. Holy shit. I fixed it. Inside I'm ecstatic. I walk tall. I'm like that guy at the end of The Right Stuff walking away from the wreckage with a cigar hanging out of his mouth.

 God damn. I need to chill.

I’ve been inexcusably lazy this week. I’ve written nothing this week save for what you’re now reading.

Laziness and boredom have been the order of the day. It’s a bit excruciating to even sit down and attempt to write this. I know that I’ve got to try though.

I come from a fairly conservative background. I grew up in the suburbs. The suburbs are tough for me to endure now. There ain’t much in the way of soul there. It’s all Neighborhood Watch and I’d like to talk to your manager. It’s wine moms and religion that consists of nothing but not making Jesus cry over what you may or may not be doing with your genitalia. I’ve changed. Maybe you can say that I’ve evolved into whatever it is that I am now. Whatever it is? C’mon. I guess I can label. Wishy washy agnostic socialist writer who can be pretty god damn angry sometimes.

Anger.

I woke up from a nap Saturday evening. I see I have a notification on Twitter. It’s someone that went to my high school who I used to be friendly with. They tell me that I’m being a typical irrational lefty and labeling people fascists who disagree with me. The last sentence of his insightful commentary tells me that ANTIFA are the modern day fascists. Call me pathetic, call me crazy, but if you ask me it’s crazy, this pretty much ruined my Saturday night. I fired off a multi-tweet reply. I never heard a word back in response. It took a lot of effort not to just attack him personally (Although there was a bit of that. Sue me. I’m no debate team nerd here. I’m not above ad hominem attacks.) but I have to say that I’m a bit in awe of a person who thinks exactly the same way that they did when they were a “porn addicted” pimply-faced teenager. There really has not been too much in the way of appreciable evolution. This is a guy with a well-paying job in tech, a wife and an investment portfolio. I guess you can’t blame him in a way, this is a guy who has a lot invested in keeping things exactly the way that they are now.

ANTIFA engage in violence. Thing is though, I can’t fault them for that. They are putting their bodies on the line to defend people who are not white, not Christian, not straight against fascists who are very openly calling for their forcible removal from society. I told the guy on Twitter who I used to be friendly with that it was very clear that he didn’t care. He doesn’t care. Even if this country gets even more horrifyingly authoritarian, they are never coming for him.

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.   

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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. 

This is me reading two of my posts. 

I get stoned enough, I'm honest. Smart honest. The kinda honest I can live with.

Maybe that's what I tell myself.

This is me writing garbage ain't nobody gonna hold me accountable for.

I don't know how to be. There ain't no fucking manual. Bring me a pizza every once in awhile and I'm good. Pizza and a whiff of sex. I'm good.

Nah. Shit. Maybe I sound like the Internet equivalent of that homeless dude rambling about some shit that makes no sense while he waits for a bus he doesn't have money for. That could be you. That could be me. Maybe your wits and your good looks and your talent and all that shit ain't gonna save you cuz you're just you. Look. I'm just me. It's aight. I love you. Okay. Maybe I won't say that again. Yo. We gotta believe a better world is possible.

Fuck. I'm getting sick of this. 10:29 PM Pacific Standard Time.

I feel lazy.

This is art, yo.

This is sugar.

This is late night truth.

This is finding the one true god again.

This is bullshit but it had its moments.

Should I read this again in the morning?

Week has been stressful. I don’t know if it really was stressful or if my brain just told me it was stressful. Even under stress, I found myself bored as hell. Maybe that’s a sign of progress. Bored by stress? I’ve been put down for the count by that sort of thing before so yeah, I’m going to go ahead and label that progress. 

Haven’t done much in the way of writing this week. That was laziness. That was me slacking off. That’s something I do. I need to chill on the slacking. How do I focus myself? How do I stay present? How do I be? 

That’s what I’m trying to figure out. 

Just tryin’ to figure out how to be 

in this game 

I never wanted to play 

but here I am 

cuz I’m what emerged 

from a night the magic happened 

or maybe a night there wasn’t anything on TV. 

Boy, what’s your excuse? 

Read all the lines that occur before the above one 

Yeah, best I can do right now 

Sometimes your best ain’t happenin’ 

Maybe it’s never gonna happen 

Maybe you’re on the team that loses in the movie 

just there to lose to the hero 

but you mattered too. 

You had a journey 

You had training montages 

You fell in love with a girl who has no personality but lovin’ you

and on the other side of this 

You’re the hero. 

On the other side of this 

You’re wise and kinda sad 

but one day 

you just find a way to be. 

Me. Haven't posted regularly in years but this is me.

Hey.

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.