THE ONLY ONE AS WEIRD AS ME

In Uncategorized on July 15, 2021 at 10:25 am

If all isn’t well at the end of the world at least it’s the end.
—GETTING BY IN THE END OF TIMES on Patreon

Stories are the basic unit of human consciousness.
—Steve Almond

Maybe in the next life,
I’ll be a hero not a criminal…
—The Bronx

Demi Jurada wrote me in the summer of ’15 but I didn’t get her letter until I was up on a mountain with no reception and a drinking problem. I solved the drinking problem by not drinking but getting down to why I drank is like peeling an onion full of razor blades and bad memories. I was probably in my cups and definitely in the paint, in a cabin by a lake in North Country when I read her letter. I knew instantly she was a writer. Writers should take you there, or else why read them? Her letter was like a small stair I had to crouch to climb and inside was her wild and peculiar mind. Her letter was the beginning of a long and supportive relationship which is also why I knew she was a writer. Writing and creating art are simply, if not easily, manifestation. She wrote me of her particular isolation and I, in mine, received it. We forged a bond and these years later I’m convinced she’s the only one as weird as me.

Her blog is plain-spoken and singular. She’s got the best voice and let’s face it, voice does most of the heavy lifting in writing. Rhythm’s just as important and she’s got it, a kind of janky illogic that feels comfortable, if not right. Calling it, what it is or otherwise, makes for great writing, sure, but if you’re calling it I’ll be pulling up a chair. The world needs more stories and certainly different ones than the one they’re selling—and I need your blood. It’s how I make it through the day, sober and in turns horny and mad, destitute and proud of the life I chose doing the same and calling it in my own way. If you tell it, they will hear but the truth is by the time I’ve told it I’ve got the Bose cranked and staring out the glass doors with a decaf Americano imagining the blower man defeated by The Bronx at volume 10. Another great friend of mine told me you keep choosing what you want and everything else will just fall away. Fall away it did, Reader. I’m barefoot in ripped jeans, listening to post rock. I’m a writer who spends most of his time putting off writing, which is perhaps the easiest way to spot a writer. I read only what doesn’t offend me, and so much does. It only takes 3 words for me to know I’m in and I’m in on Demi, pilgrim, all the way. She’ll be guest-posting here and Your Writer’ll find some ink on her wonderful Gurus Should Find Honest Work. We write to get it out and feel better and because it’s what we do. You read and we come together and isn’t that nice?

See you at Gurus, motherfucker.