It’s Been A Wonderful Year

While Americans are fascinated by major legislative drama, endless sexual abuse scandals, endless Trump-Russia scandals, and countless inappropriate presidential Twitter outbursts, key regulators — almost uniformly drawn from the ranks of corporate America — are doling out favors at a pace that boggles the mind.
-Matthew Yglesias

Why don’t Americans understand how poor their lives are?
-Umair Haque

Remember, we only shoot black people.
–Cobb County Police Officer Lt. Greg Abbott

A great America would be one where everyone had access to basic health care and dentistry, everyone was educated above a basic level, and everyone was treated equally and well. A great America would build policy on all the great science its universities produce. It would be a world leader in translating the latest knowledge into policy that improves people’s lives. It would be a beacon of Enlightenment thinking, as it was when it was founded.
–Tobias Stone

Is there any way to read it without you getting any money? You know, so I’ll only waste my time.
–Weird Mike’s Meltdown

2018: You are supposed to change your life – for good. With all of the evidence you’ve gathered over the past few years, now is the time to take action. You know where you want to go, the challenge is only whether or not you will be fearless enough to let yourself do it.
–Another Load of Dirt For Your Brain

Another load of dirt for your brain!
–The Accused

I’m not a professional. I only write when I want to. I’m an amateur and insist on staying that way. A professional has a personal commitment to writing. Or a commitment to someone else to write. As for me, I insist on not being a professional. To keep my freedom.
–Clarice Lispector

You’re not a renaissance man you’re a cunt.
-Joe McCabe

Don’t it feel good now that it’s over?
Ain’t it just grand now that it’s done?
You shut the door on that house forever
Test came back that idiot boy ain’t your son
–It’s Been A Long Time That I Should Be Far From Here

Fuck you that’s why!
–Done Deal

That oughta wrap it.  I couldn’t be happier bidding the Year of the Cock adieu, it was rife with murder and lust, progress and scientific rollback and frought with biblical disaster.  Last year gave new credence to the term Fuckall, because, really—what part of the last three hundred sixty-two days don’t you wanna flush, forget, move on from or at least avoid at the party?  Ah but don’t too wise.  Even an apathetic ex-Pat punkrocker like me will get wet in a shitstorm.  Islands and cities are underwater and the media is no longer free.  It’s enough to make you wanna throw up your hands and tell him go ahead, make my day.  Wage war with N. Korea and kiss it all goodbye.  I’m on temp and delivery shift next week if anything else happens and I don’t play dog and pony when it comes to War.  Fear is the first of a many tiered agenda acheiving manufactured consent and I know how they are.  9/11 was the warning sign on the road ahead but even Brother Neil and Osama Bin Laden couldn’t have predicted how far our Rome with cars would fall.  No one could say we weren’t warned but, either way, it’s good elected officials are protected…otherwise heading to the nation’s capital to put Paul Ryan’s head on a stick might be the best way to spend New Year’s, that or burning down the palatial home of Mich McConell but the truth is…they’re all to blame.  I’d do wise to include the electorate of this country—Red hillbillies and Blue establishment shills who played in to bipartisan democracy but then I’d have to believe in it.  We both know I haven’t voted since ‘00 but I’ll gladly go on the record with Brother Marx about smashing the state.  Short of that I’ll be glad to be rid of this year and even gladder to be done with Outrage Culture.

The quotes above are good at making me look smart.  Looking smart is being smart in the hall of mirrors of the New Century, just ask Umar Johnson.  The fact is I have no backing, no advanced studies under my belt or degrees on my wall that could either deny or correlate those fascinating and dreadful nuggets above.  I’d just as soon retire into middle age, write my poetry and play my music, fuck it—we know I ain’t here in mind, may as well get gone in body, GTFO while I can, go somewhere with healthcare and rational women.  This is the end Beautiful Friend and if I don’t take off and hit the road things could get more than a little buggy around here.  My lease is up in March and I’m due to get some tracks to wax with Psalmships in the spring.  The MAMU should be fully assembled by the first week of ‘18 and just in time to get my performance at Metaphorically Challenged on film.  The website is chugging along.  My biggest inspiration in these end days is getting off social media.  At the very least saying goodbye to Outrage Culture and the Shock Politic.  Who am I kidding, it’d be great to say goodbye to the Oligarchy while I’m at it, and this 200-year old slaveship of Capitalocracy.  I’m straight edge, sober and completely out of my mind.  I’ve got some habits, talents for hire or things I’m going to have to support for the rest of my life.  The Arts are my revolution.  I don’t care about your cause.  I don’t watch the news so why do I still read it on Facebook and Vox and Medium?

Lastly, I am proud to announce the release of Take to the Territory, my 4th full-length collection of poetry and prose, on Yellow Lark Press.  I  hit a snag in the production schedule and there’s no one to blame except me.  That makes me feel guilty if I haven’t lived up to my artistic goals, which brings me to the finest and most efficient fuel of my 20+ year career thus far:  self hatred (it really works, Good Reader, though I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone without the brutish and stubborn constitution of an Irish Italian-American from Hostile City)  AND you, Good Reader.  It’s always been about you.  My announcement of the book’s release is enough to get us through and back on the horn with the ABAC to get this rig the fuck unwound.

May the Year of the Dog bring you great fortune and happiness. See you next year motherfucker.