I’ve never had less to say, that hasn’t been said already, better and even in a worse way.
I’m writing you at deadline and it’s a fine mess I’ve got myself in. The work needs to breathe and anyway rash quips and bitter judgment could benefit from time. Truth is I’ve been backing off the anger because it’s fucking killing me but without it I only stare at this screen and walk back and forth from the glass doors. All is well in the court and nature’s arena continues under the morning sky. The squirrel stops to stare back at me. His every instinct that a 6’2, 200lb-man can be dangerous is stilled, while I’m just standing there dejected and staring aimless like a rockabilly caveman. Back at the desk, the feeds roll on. I can check Facebook and check in with your battles or go on Twitter if I want to get angry. We’re rounding a year of being shut down and your writer hasn’t written a letter to Ted Cruz or the House Majority leader. When I think about what I wanted as a writer, my perceived failures cement into what, in this business, is called Writer’s Block. That’s what they call it anyway though it’s hardly been an issue. Lack of desire or inspiration to write inspired me, accountability to a deadline lit the flame and anger always kept the fires burning. I’m tired of posts about my psychology, tired of the politic, and the usual slagging that always kept the presses rolling has wreaked havoc on my insides. I’m slowing down as I grow older, praise be, but I can’t know what that means for a weekly column of cynicism and outrage.
It doesn’t mean I’m not writing. Good Reader even yesterday I got over 1,200 down for this week’s Grind at dawn, and cranked off a piece of flash fiction that afternoon. Again, writer’s block isn’t really the issue here but a lack of outrage has put me in a nice place, frankly, a nice place I’m a stranger to and at a loss reporting on. I’ll tell you what it means for this column—no more hyperbole. No more coming for their necks or wet conquest of drunk love. No more rails or vision and no more congress with the enemy. It could be worse and it probably will be. I’ve no more arms against calamity, though, and the reams of tragedy and despair of the Final Century haven’t just sickened and weakened me. The horror of it all rendered me stationary and usually that’s when the hope drains out, when I’m not doing anything but sipping hot-ginger water and staring at a squirrel. Turning away would never work but neither the feckless hem and haw as a participant in a business that’s made only a theatre of our lives. I could tell you I’m lonely for the real thing but it’s rare. Tell you I’ve tasted it and it’s worth waiting for but I’m not waiting at all. I could tell you great and many tales of torpor and thorny days that come with sad odds close to 7:1. I’ve suffered. We all have. The enemy feeds on confusion and would love nothing more than for us to get stuck, powerless, and render a sick devotion from the depths of our despair. I’ve done enough dealings with them. I’ve turned over fantasies of their destitution and rose on a tempest of anger but now I come back down and find I’m sitting here, typing these words, together with you and isn’t that nice?
Join Jim Trainer, and a stellar cast of luminaries, writers and musicians from around the world, in celebrating the release of
KEEP BLEEDING IN THE ANNO FINEM:
10 Years At Going For The Throat
at
KEEP READING, A Virtual Release
on
The Lunar New Year
February 12 2021
at 7P.M.
Going for the Throat 