The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!

The ruse is up. Satya motherfucker. It’s high time to disabuse myself of my own delusions. Might as well do it here and in writing, which is how I come to understand anything anyway. We’ve been down this dirty road before. Today we’ll be dismantling my belief in change.
I been blowin it out with big boys of Lonestar and Sapporo. Same old story. Same old song. My blowouts now are pretty harmless, relatively speaking. In my late 20s and early 30s a blowout was a catastrophic event. I was bored with life and I had an anger problem. The light of day was painful then and my furniture was never the same. I was a madman, the madman of 10th Street and any friends I still have from the Never Ending Summer of Evil Kanevil are true blue. Their love has been tested brother, believe me.
There is no limit to the amount of havoc&destruction you can cause with the single-pointed focus of dying before the age of 30. After 30 I had no excuse but by then Hostile City was closing in on me. Whether or not I escaped certain death by leaving Philly it is certain that I was born again by the time I stepped boot to Texas soil. There is my life before Austin and my life after. I probably drank around 9 beers last night, starting with lunch and ending with a nightcap after dinner. I was safe asleep, in bed before midnight and other than feeling a little crispy this morning, I’m fine. This wouldn’t even be the beginning of a blowout back then. Also, bourbon. And coke. And xanax. It’s comical what constitutes a blowout now but I ain’t laughing.

I’ve hired a life coach. Our overarching goal is to help me make the leap to becoming a full-time artist. We’ve broken it down into simple, everyday steps. First up are my beliefs and habits about productivity. I should mention that my life coach is more on the spiritual side then the business side. We don’t discuss personality types or business models; we don’t tangle with newage (pronounced sewage) or any douchey-corporate terms and strategies. For example, one of her suggestions to increase my productivity is to sit and do nothing for 5 minutes every day. It’s a very Zen approach-to do more, do less. What Taoists call “effortless action” and what I call taking the longview.
Taking the longview is accepting that the rest of my life will be devoted to creating art. It’s a forgiving view and useful, too. Instead of trying to be a journalist, poet and songwriter today, I instead schedule a little time to write this morning, with a break in-between, then attempt some research and promotion this afternoon, blow it out on the Epiphone and finally end the day with some poetry tonight.
Aho. The longview. It’s what was so roundly missed for all those years on the dayshift as a raging alcoholic when I felt like I had to get it all done and now. Plus, it’s hard to plan on days you don’t know you’ll live to see (or that you so dread living to see you get fucked up anyway). Of course there are many reasons to carry on the way I did for all those years but that’s another story for another time.
All I know is that a piece like this falls so short of my journalistic aspirations it may as well be a long, more thought out&better written Facebook post. Christ, the entirety of this blog could be viewed as such and maybe the bastard Doctor is right anyway, blogs are passé.
Whether or not blogs are useful tools of the new journalism or merely bloviating scrapbooks, there is no question-I’m ready to take the leap. But until I can push through these issues I’ll be delegated to the roof with Dylan’s first album blasting down Judge’s Hill and flanked on either side by a cup of Megadolo black and a pack of Nat Sherman MCDs. Baking sessions on the roof with the keys burning the skin off my fingers.
I’m not saying this blog is on hiatus. Just that I need to figure some things out. Like a way to get off the roof in 110 degree weather, for example. I’ve reached my goal with this blog anyway. I have systematically dismantled writer’s block and put that bad bitch to bed. I know that on any given day I can sit down and screw it on, smoke and cough and scream and squirm until I have 800 words, neat&fine.
I have contemplated the mountain. I’ve kicked, scraped and fucked my way to the top. Now it’s time to take the longview. Look around, up&down the chain. Sadly, my daily sessions smoking&coming up with a missive for you have come to a close. I just can’t bring myself to do it anymore. It’s no failure of myself as an Artist. I’m no less of a writer. I’m just making a different decision-one that has terrifies me when I think about giving up my 20-year-old crutch but exciting when I think of the Artist that I can be.
Here’s to hoping some new way will emerge and I’ll be able to devote more of my time and more of my life to the fucking beast of writing, without being delegated to the roof and smoking like an AA member.
Besides, I’m as bored as you are with these blogs about change and self-help. At the very least we’ll do away with the by now, oft-penned and most hated apology blog. Hell, maybe even write about stuff that interests us. Over 4,000 people marched on the Capitol on Monday and it makes me proud to live in a town where folks are exercising true democracy. Not only that, but I just got back from the hometown with enough love to shut down any idea of opposition and shred anything in the way of living the life I choose.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a kinghell fun. I’ve had a blast catching up with 20 years worth of neglect of the craft of writing. These long hours on the sinking throne are never boring. But as the temperature climbs into the triple-digits, the rooftop ain’t gonna cut it anymore, Brother.
Stay cool pretty babies. It’s time to go back inside.

We don’t need no water let the motherfucker burn
burn motherfucker burn!