Hole In My Side

Fuck

It’s beautiful down here.  Great weather. No stress. People come here, they live to be 100.
–Joey Merlino

We are trapped in the belly of this horrible machine, and the machine is bleeding to death.
–GY!BE

As long as we live in this world we are bound to encounter problems. If, at such times, we lose hope and become discouraged, we diminish our ability to face up to what challenges us. If, on the other hand, we remember that it is not just ourselves but everyone who has to undergo hardship, this more realistic perspective will increase our determination and capacity to overcome what troubles us.
-The Dalai Lama

We are living in a news cycle that can be measured in nanoseconds.
-Dan Rather

If this doesn’t take you down,
it doesn’t mean you’re high
-Soundgarden

Yo.  Trainer here, at the bougie coffee shop, where the jazz is smooth and the skin is white.  I can’t complain but I will.  It’s been a long time that I should be far from here, and I’m way past being sick&tired of my own bullshit.  Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to spend some time with others, hang out and fraternize, but-most of them are worse.  What an existential stalemate I’ve reached and for shame, too.  I’m in the prime of my life with money in the bank but all I can do is bellyache about how easy living is down here in the Pearl of the South, crank out another 400 words and go home and jerk off.  Oh well, it could be worse, I could be satisfied with life, like any of these feel goodies here at the coffee shop seem to be, listening to Curtis Mayfield, eating bananas and grinning like imbeciles.

This could be a great opportunity to take to the streets, or hit social media and throw my complaint onto the pile.  I can’t even pretend to care anymore and it could be because the whole thing has been at hysterical pitch too long.  No wisdom can be discerned.  I see outrage and I understand.  I see smug complacency and I didn’t think I could ever understand but-look at me, with my fat stomache and apathy, black clothes and apolitical angst.  Whichever side you’re on, one thing is certain and that is the genie can’t be put back into the bottle.  Racism is the biggest problem in this country, barring imminent ecological disaster, and the American experiment has failed.  We ain’t gonna make the nut.  It’s all over baby blue, big business has trumped all and the thing that really spurred it on was as dumb as the color of our skin.  I can’t pretend I’m not entitled, no matter how much I ignore the national scene.  Does my apathy anger you, Good Reader?  If so, then use it-impeach the fucker, eat the rich people, start a riot in the street and burn it all down.  Let these be the chronicles of a sorry bastard who didn’t care, or whose own emotional load was too close to capacity to affect anything except putting out fires.  It’s that bad.

We came up with a soft date for my departure, and it’s after the summer and the over 3,000 miles we’ll be doing up to the Adirondacks and back.  I looked at a car today.  Lady wanted to sell it to me at almost a grand over the Kelly Blue Book value, and that was after my mechanic found about $500 worth of repairs she claimed unaware of.  It goes on.  Psychologically I suppose I’m at a crossroads.  The worst is done.  I’m sober now.  I’ve survived and I don’t even entertain the bad drama needed to get laid anymore.  Mr. Excitement has retired, the dreamer is fully woke.  I suffer bad anger and terrible boredom though, the former flaring in my abdomen and stiffening my neck and upper back, literally getting my haunches up and cursing to myself in the dark.  I can’t carry that burden anymore, either, Brother.  I feel like there’s an opportunity here, that I could do a lot better than cranking out 600 word complaints to you and generally just getting by.  My first time on the therapist couch I’d been up for over 72 hours on whisky&cocaine.  Safe to say I’m over that.  I’ve survived.  Maybe it’s time I give my man a call and see if we can thrive.

See you next week motherfucker.

It’s Been A Long Time That I Should Be Far From Here

For many of us in the KGB, infiltrating the 1970s punk scene was one of the USSR’s most successful experiments of propaganda to date.
–Alexandrei Varennikovic Voloshin

Three weeks Tommy boy…
–Hero Constituent

The problem with Creative Nonfiction? I’ve addressed it before. The transparency I strive for on here-the bare ugly, it can scrape too close to the bone. Couple that with the fact I’m out of material most weeks and it’s a real dilemma. I know you tune in exactly for this high wire act and I’m thankful for it. Sometimes the only way to get the world off your neck is to build a column of words, 600 high, with venom or in reverie, frame it neat and fine and nail it to the fucking wall. Some people need to be kissed off and the dead should stay buried. Now take all these rules and tell ‘em to the Boss because deadline trumps all. It’s become obscene. We all know about the ones that she hates, and my feelings about the blog are either inside or outside of 20% of them I can be proud of, while the rest are metaphysical bowel movements. For the times when the tide was high and rising, and I managed to get my arms around the thing and send it home, I’m thankful. For your devoted readership, 50+ a week, I’m thankful. But Brother Charlie is right, it’s been surgery on myself without anesthesia, dirty laundry&tears, whining, poems about my dick size, old rivalries roustabouted and new enemies found. In short, it’s fucked but the fix is in. The die is cast and it’s for the fans and a Christian jerkoff on Instagram who learned a valuable lesson about retaliation when engaged in battle with an east coast Pisan.

There’s been much ado about the firing of James Comey this week and I’ve heard enough. When a news story reaches fever pitch, without any answers to the 5 Ws, I find it best to tune it out, put on the latest episode of the Broad Street Breakdown and get horizontal until the sun goes down, maybe take to the streets like some Black Irish manbat or just fall asleep with my clothes on and wake up grizzled and unnerved in a dead Confederate palace to the sound of blowers blowing or club music shaking the rafters at 8 in the morning. It’s a fucked life but I can’t complain. Truth is, this is as good as it’s ever been-but, don’t hate me, it’s not good enough. It’s been a long time that I should be far from here, which should sound familiar to anyone reading this blog on the regular. It’s become my mantra. After all these weeks banging my head against the wall, something had to give and it wasn’t the wall. Being in between isn’t fun anymore. I’m stuck. I come at you every week because I said I would and my word is everything, but the message is the same.

Another constant is my oversight, a deathly modesty that will soon have me forget that I’m 4 cites closer to achieving my goal of 12 new markets by 2018, that I’ve nailed a few venues on the east coast and should be heading out again in July and October. The MAMU is maybe half assembled, certainly amassed, and will be fully operational by the end of the next credit cycle. I sharpened my latest story onstage at the Middle East Corner last month, and gave ‘em the blades at the Poetry&Ptamale Party at Malvern last Friday. Things are moving, even if I’m not. I’m just getting sick and tired of assuring myself of that every week. I need to either make some big moves or be sure that I’m doing the leg work and research for those big moves to go down without a hitch.

Thank you for reading. This blog hasn’t really lived up to its potential, it’s not what I intended it to be. It’s become something else, though-and it’s always a release. I know some of you check in here for the Real, something true and raw in the hall of mirrors that authenticity has become in the New Century. It’s nothing short of a miracle that in writing this blog I’ve been searching for it, that burning beacon, and you read me for just that. That, my Brothers and Sisters, is the power and beauty of creation.

Ab Irato,
Trainer

Burning Down The House

“Dating is a game,” the cunt was saying.  “You’ve got to play.”
She took the cigarette out of my hand and sucked on it the bitch.
“So how do you win?  And who are the losers?  Where are they tonight?  Who are they with?”

She, as you can tell, was thee absolute fucking worst.  Last I saw, she traded in her minivan for an Acura, got back with her baby daddy and continues to walk around like her shit don’t stink.  Also, she’s been one of the biggest motivators for me to quit drinking and get my shit together.  I was in love with her, or getting close, but I guess I lost the game of dating.  I really don’t mind losing but ultimately I’d rather not play-especially if winning means kissing the ass of a phony cunt who sells medical supplies for a living.

We’ve all got our row to hoe.  It betrays my Buddhist leanings to hate anyone, let alone this much and for this long.  It’s been a long time that I should be far from here.  I’m kicking in my stall, digging up corpses from the past for another round of abuse.  The only reconciliation I can come up with between hating her and having compassion for all things is that after all this time maybe I shouldn’t be thinking about her, let alone rueing how awful she is.  My hatred is distracting me, desire is the root of all suffering, but she is still thee absolute fucking worst.

I’ve met many lovely ladies over the last 5 years living here, and most of them were the same:  self serving and narcissistic, coupled with a diabolical need for constant validation.  I should’ve known better than to try and love any of those broken birds.  The Buddhist angle on it is loving them would be hating me.  Ultimately hating them would also be hating me but not so fast, Mr. Bond, and don’t too wise.  Forgiveness of that scope may have to wait for the next leap of evolution-and hatred will have to end here, with me, the last Trainer.

The truth is I don’t mind burning bridges as much as I don’t mind losing the game of dating.  My only regret about burning the bridge is I can’t ever go back and burn it all down.  That doesn’t sound very Buddhist, does it?  I’m a writer, not an arsonist-but if I can’t come up with at least 600 words every week then I might as well set myself on fire.

I’m nothing if not a hard worker but my inspirations are hardly pure.  Another week has come and gone.  I’ve managed to dodge the bullet and stay the avalanche of self hatred that’s always waiting should I fail this quest and not live up to who I chose to be.  Self hatred is fine fuel, it’s worked for me, though it used to be hatred for:  him and her, my Mother and Father and them and that town.  Now it’s only me and this mountain, 600 words high.  Some weeks I ride the tiger, the words come pouring out and the world, having written, is a better place.  Others I overly personalize, I take you into the inner chamber or I dig up corpses of former adversaries and hang ’em from the poles while we ride silently together down the charred avenues of memory lane.  This post is obviously one of those.  We both know I can do better.

She’s still thee absolute fucking worst.
Ab irato,
Trainer

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A post shared by Jim Trainer (@goingforthethroat) on Apr 3, 2016 at 9:33pm PDT