BACK IN THE PERSONAL JOURNALISM BUSINESS

You guys laughed in some of the places I wouldn’t have, but that’s cool.
—Glenn Danzig

We’re gathered at a time where the hard left, where the socialists control the levers of government, where they control the White House, where they control every executive branch, where they control both houses of Congress. Bernie is wearing mittens, and AOC is telling us she was murdered.
–Senator Ted Cruz-Texas

Just as importantly, you have to call out BS. If somebody is peddling fear, you have to call that out. It’s calling out that stuff openly and aggressively and shining light at darkness. 
—State Rep. Adam Kinzinger-Illinois

I don’t know any part of this country where someone can survive on $7.25.
—State Rep. Ro Khanna-California 

The only way poets can change the world is to raise the consciousness of the general populace.
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti 

I lived through single-digit temperatures without heat. I suffered roaring anxieties and the terrible turns of colitis and disease. None of these fuckarounds and ailments or blown-top developments of the Final Century were worse than what I’ve done to myself. It seems foolish to ruminate on it now, I’m up and swinging—before dawn and sealing the last of 250 letters sent since the beginning of this campaign. I drafted the Poem Of The Week in the grainy fog of morning and uploaded one to Patreon for The Bard tier. I’m bound to write at least one more letter before I send out the almost 50 copies of KEEP BLEEDING IN THE ANNO FINEM, paid for and ordered by you, Good and Cherished Reader. I’ll have to pen this week’s Grind, due to go live at Into The Void Sunday, and I’m glad to have you with me here. This way I can clear the chamber and ain’t it good to be workin‘? Ain’t it good to do anything, considering the sloth and catatonia that befell me between January 6 and Night 1 of the KEEP BLEEDING release.

Sadly it’s all to common suffering a volcanic anger with no release but to watch all 7 seasons of Mad Men and come up only to pay bills and smoke. Between trouble and the blues, how will we ever survive? Remember that one? I made a career of that doomed maxim and hacked my way through depression for 10 years now thanks to you. I offered no help to anyone but stayed on deadline and figured as long as I kept up the appearance of being a writer I wouldn’t have to write or do anything else. Worse than all this is the harrowing realization that I am the silent majority. Why else wouldn’t I be out there and making change like Little Brother, or at least putting my talents to good use writing letters to shitbags like Ted Cruz and Steven “Fuckface” Crowder? Depression. It’s a motherfucker and if it’s a choice between a black mood and debilitating rage, what’s the difference? 

You’re the difference Good Reader and a bigger part of this than I am. You helped me believe in this columnist’s dream, and read on, as I came as close as I ever will to columnists like Thompson and Ken Herman, writing in the Statesman last week. Understand I’ve no children, and every good and sensible woman gave up on me unless I gave up on myself first. I’ve no student loans and recover debt only incurred while out on the road. I write and publish a collection in a run of 100 every year. I’ve some books and money in the kitty and I can get onstage anywhere and tell it like I was born to but the only furniture in here is this writing desk and a sofa, an upright bass and a bed. I threw out the big chair, if that ain’t an apt metaphor, and when I get to work now there’s no anger at least not the desperate and grinding kind. It’s passed through me but what have I done to make the world better—besides turn my own blues like a shaman and glorify this dumb life imitating Bukowski? I got by and it’s not a bad thing but I fell down and the dark seasons of depression seem to lay me out for 3 weeks out of every 4. I’m not suffering but I’m not writing, at least not how Herman or Mencken tell it. Being idle was a death knell and I can’t say I wasn’t busy. I’m just not as compelled by that dark energy and without anger I’m at a loss penning these weekly columns at Going for the Throat.

It’s a new paradigm, Good Reader, to motivate and perform from a good place, and comically perverse. Why should I take an upswing as democracy withers and the Earth shakes us off like a bad dream? I’ll be 46 on Saturday and living this age that I rued for most of my youth. I feared that what I believed in would die, never knowing I’d only become who I am. I’m back in the personal journalism business but without the fuckall and psychological warfare I’d been suffering trying to make it in their world. I learned to write at the chipper blades but now as I lay down my arms and I can write about whatever I want. Which isn’t to say that isn’t what’s been going on here, but, fever dreams of past lovers and year’s end-lists were only a stopgap. Living for deadline was all I was living for. I’d get up and hit word count and then pull the covers over and try not to think about authoritarianism and ecological collapse. I don’t know how I’ll ever get through these columns but I think I did ok this week, don’t you?

See you next week motherfucker.

GOING FOR THE THROAT IS A WEEKLY PUBLICATION OF CYNICISM, OUTRAGE, CORRESPONDENCE AND ROMANCE

Join us in celebrating the release of KEEP BLEEDING IN THE ANNO FINEM 
on Friday March 12 at 7P.M CST.  
To watch last week’s presentation of KEEP READING, A Virtual Release, go here.  

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