pack light
what you’re running from
is already there…
I can’t parse my own depression from imminent totalitarian rule. In the meantime I gotta make a living and either stay below the federal poverty level to stay insured, or pay a hefty premium. Any way you shake it I am broke. A motor mount from devastation. Rolling teeth like dice in this gamble of life-as-an-artist. I think about my own death several times a day. I don’t know how I’m gonna make it so maybe I won’t. Might as well go on anti-depressants if I can’t tell the difference between the doom in my head and bloody ebbing tide of the final century. I’m doing gigs, caregiving on weekends and bartending during the week, and samplings in the supermarkets. All of this destroys me. Even though I spring back, I always find myself in the dark place again. This isn’t a cry for help as much as the need to tell it. The usual channels, and career I made as a writer on the socials, don’t feel as real as they used to. I want so much more than that. Even this blog doesn’t pack the same wallop, lost in feeds of pro-lifers and the horribly vainglorious. But it’s better than not saying it ain’t it and anyway this is to say—it’s bad, Reader, real bad.
I don’t have much more to offer. The Right tried to overthrow the government. My rent’s getting raised. The Honda’s running great if rumbling at 80mph or sometimes just when the AC’s on. Everything is a fucking slog and I’ve no real connection except for hit or miss phone conversations. Everyone on the street seems blind or dumb. Or mean and dumber. I need to get on something and pull myself out of the life of a dayworker. The shifts take more and more out of me and I’m only working to stay in place. There’s the doom approaching and the heavy tread until it gets here. I’m sure my art is suffering and the truth is it’s teetering on the edge with everything else. I didn’t mind firing at will, running a hundred books off, booking a flight and doing readings until I sold out of them. But my short-term thinking has landed me here, and my health and the economy won’t support that lifestyle anymore.
Patrons are still trickling in. Y’all are saving my ass in every way. I had a piece of personal journalism published last week and it’s everything I wanted for my writing. I’m getting paid to write my way, which isn’t factual or topical, per se. It’s the word on the street from Your Guy, running his deal there. If you’ve read this far, thank you. If you’d read this piece, called HIT ‘LIKE’ AND SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR DOOM at Music, Movies&Hoops, you’ll be celebrating with me. It’s a victory and I’ll take it and thank my lucky stars for you. Now back to the bloody fray. I can’t wait to see you on the street motherfucker.
Buy me a bubbly?
Most of my Patrons are contributing as little as $5 a month, and they’re getting letters for it, letter pressed broadsides, live readings and songs. I’m your mutineer, and I need your help. I’d love your readership, vis-á-vis a a few minutes of your week and for the cost of a fancy beverage.
Patrons keep me writing until I can find someone to pay me for it. Luckily I’ve a piece featured in Music, Movies&Hoops this month. The good news for me is that I’ll live and the good news for you is that as a Patron you’ll have access to street-level reporting, poetry and song. What could be better?
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Your Poet,
Jim Trainer
AUSTIN TX
Going for the Throat 