I never thought I’d be so glad to have Writer’s Block. I’d been throwing down and slinging 6 and 1,200 word posts and columns like lightning. I was getting lucky too long. I stayed out of the hot seat and got away from the worming of the world by divulging great and grisly psychological weather and personal detail. Then the American Century ended. Well, depending on who you ask–could’ve been any number of dark days in the 80s…or the countless times we went back to the well of hegemony and waged endless war. I’m not sure myself, I avoided politics as long as I could, but I’d put good money that even Saint Mike could get behind, on the day when capitalist labor and modern day slavery, corporatocracy writ large and the monopolization of media, glommed into a giant, 244-year old ball of shit, lost it’s thrust and started to roll back–and you know what they say about shit rolling, it started doubling back and coming downhill and all over us. That’s when the working poor got rubbed out of history and thrown into the breach of an insurmountable wealth divide.
The worst news is often the news nobody hears, or says anyway. Not Obama and not the Bushes, nor the Clintons and certainly not this clown up here having a run for Dictatorship in the Year of the Metal Ox. The market crash of ’09 was it Good Reader, kiss your middle class and healthcare and standard of living goodbye. Mind you, harbingers of ecological scarcity begetting terrorism and constant war, the outsourcing of American labor and rise of the Corporate State all but guarantee this country will never be as good as it is today, and today, Saturday September 5 in the Year of the Rat is worse than it’s ever been. That’ll fuck the mind. Or what’s left of it after surviving The America. I did alright. Made it through alcoholism and day labor, amour fou and communal living. I never got into politics but thanks to Going For the Throat, I never had to.
Personal Journalism. It was a way of life. I wrote my way through. It wasn’t so much about what was happening as what had to be endured. And as sex-crazed and wet-brained as I was, I’m still not too far gone. At least I know the difference between getting fucked and making love but now I ain’t doing either. Hit the testosterone dip, can take sex or leave it, going bald on top, have a bedtime, eat meals, the whole nine and anyway live well-adjusted and healthier than I’ve ever been. I probably sold out and without too much to show for it but at least I prioritized. I’ve foregone love and fame and savings, holding on to my solitude the whole time and above all. I’m sitting here writing ain’t I which only goes to show. The world’s offbeat too ain’t it, ego and greed have run the clock down. It’s Shadowtime in the Anthropocene which, for me, is plenty fine to write about from the desk on a quiet Saturday in one of America’s cities where they’re not lining up with semi-automatics like they are in Louisville right now. Put it to you plain and country simple, right now there’s a Trump parade on Lake Travis, boats full of dickheads flying red flags in the wide open and folks gathered and spiking Corona levels watching from the shore. As I write and close in on 600 words here, I come to peace in my own way. A whole other set of folks will be taking to the streets later, on foot, and cops in riot gear will hang back in alleys as they pass, like they did when Garrett Foster was murdered and then let his killer Daniel Perry drive away, scot-free and without a charge.
I came here to tell you I mean to write more responsibly. Thoughtful, less personal and more journalist, but then I was rolling and having the kind of fun that hasn’t failed me in 10 years and over seventy-five thousand words yet. Old boy’s still got it, fat and old as I am, and I suppose I’ll always relish in shooting my mouth off this way. I was at a loss though, writing Part 30 of The Grind last week, and I can’t make sense or come to any wisdom about Dictatorship in the Year of the Metal Ox. There really isn’t anything to do or say. No point in looking into border crossings and naturalization laws. At a loss. A big one. Fuck me and fuck us all. From rope’s end this is Jim Trainer signing off.
JOIN JIM TRAINER IN THE STRUGGLE FOR PERSONAL JOURNALISM
AT JIMTRAINER.NET
Going for the Throat 