AIN’T IT

I’m John Hemmer!

There is no bottom to the abyss.
-John Cusack

…forced dispersal of people from encampment settings … accomplishes nothing toward the goal of linking people to permanent housing opportunities, and can make it more difficult to provide such lasting solutions.
–The Federal Interagency Council on Homelessness

“He asked me to write this book on his deathbed,” in 1989 at age 42, while he was suffering from AIDS, she says.

I don’t agree with it, I don’t like ’em, it’s fake news, and I’m voting no.
-Citrus County Commissioner Scott Carnahan

The cheats I have to do between devices without the cloud, and volleying between a 5-year old hard drive and an even older iPad, make the reading and writing and attributing of a good journalist impossible.  That quote from a shit-for-brains County Commissioner took 3 stabs at pasting here and the third was a copy from a search page because by then the Washington Post blocked me with a paywall.  John Hemmer’s story’s a good one, at least it was written well and I read it while on shift at the ARCH.  I did 2 shifts yesterday and the vibe down there is nasty.  It’s getting Lord of the Flies for the homeless and it’s coming from the top down. My quote from the Federal Interagency on Homelessness was lifted from a great article in the Texas Observer (note:  write a letter to good guy Gus Bova) debunking 5 things Governor Abbot said about the homeless and all but concluding that the state just wants to sweep the homeless out from the underpass and under the rug.  Ain’t that America and don’t too wise oh ye of the middle class.  When moving day only involves a tent and everything you can’t throw away, the homeless have it easy.  By the end of the terrible summer John Cusack was sounding  Nietzschean but it ain’t hard to be profound when it’s a crime to be poor, libraries call the news fake and lizards rule the barnyard.  None of this has shit to do with me.  I didn’t vote yesterday and even if I could get to the polls I wouldn’t know who to vote for.  I’ll go blue, sure, because these are the choices.  Last time I voted blue though, the President ushered in one of the worst economic catastrophes in American history while only raising the minimum wage once in an 8-year term.  I don’t like to weigh in on politics.  The only party I belong to is the Black Party–as in fade to and curtains motherfucker, kiss your middle-class goodbye.

I previewed this post on my Patreon Monday morning.  $5 gets you backstage, and could keep me writing instead of laying there, at 4:30AM, and stewing.  You either hate what you done or dread what you got to.  Ain’t it.  I should know better so now I get up and get to it, to the tune of at least $25 a month–which is 5 Patrons at that level and who I’m broadcasting to on The Wire.  Brother Julian and I agree that being so busy you can’t breathe suits career anxiety sufferers and anyway I’d rather be banging keys than laying there, in the dark, wrenching my stiff laborer’s neck and regretting almost anything I can think of.  I’d rather be with you and so here we are.  The sun ain’t up yet but I’ve got coffee.  I’m live and in the middle of this mess, with you–and isn’t that nice?

Book blocks are in the can and Minuteman Press is rolling.  Might have some last minute edits to the covers and I don’t know when I’ll get around to learning how to design a broadside.  I’m stuck on paper choice but I’ll probably just go with what I got–200 sheets of 100lb, Lemon Drop and Blacktop from French Paper Company’s PopTone and Construction lines.  I’m at the ARCH again this morning and playing the Driskill Hotel with Brother Julian again tonight.  I’m making a delivery first thing tomorrow and playing my third and final night at the Driskill after.  Friday I’m at the ARCH until 12 and then a wedding from 3 until midnight.  Saturday I’m bartending a tailgate party at Bobcats stadium and then I’m finally free…to learn InDesign, catch up with print guru Kevin Auer and Snakes Will Eat You, until Monday when the whole thing starts again.  It’s a good life motherfucker and I don’t know how glad I’ll be when it’s finally over.  Death is my inspiration, you could say, and you ain’t lyin.  There’s a strange kind of finality to things now.  Days they mean more and less, if you know what I mean.  I’m not as prone to be proud or sentimental, in no rush to signal virtue or be seen.  I’m in the dusk and the sun is warm and fine.  Nights clobber me and I fall out, as cleanly and without regret as I can.  Then I’m up, in the pre-dawn dark, waging my war, calling out into the wild.  Banging keys.  Hitting ‘Publish‘.  Sending up and giving voice.  Living forever for a little while and dying all the time.

  Love you.
TRAINER

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PART 22 OF THE COARSE GRIND, MY MONTHLY COLUMN ON THE CREATIVE LIFE, GOES LIVE THIS SUNDAY AT INTO THE VOID.

NO COMEBACKS BY WILL STENBERG WILL BE RELEASED THIS DECEMBER THROUGH YELLOW LARK PRESS.  JIM TRAINER WILL RELEASE 2031, HIS SIXTH FULL-LENGTH COLLECTION OF POETRY, THIS DECEMBER THROUGH YELLOW LARK PRESS. 
PRE-ORDER YOUR COPIES HERE.  

Stay tuned for news on these releases, readings and broadsides from each collection, designed by Snakes Will Eat You and letter pressed at the Austin Book Arts Center.

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Playing in 30, until 7:15 at the mighty @thedriskill with Julian Root! Come on. #singersongwriter #acousticguitar #banjo #jimtrainer

A post shared by Jim Trainer (@goingforthethroat) on Nov 5, 2019 at 3:29pm PST