There is nothing more tragic for a parent than to lose a child in the prime of life.
–President Trump
In general, “The president has tweeted X.” is an overblown story.
–Rachel Maddow
They think we’re stupid. And maybe they’re right.
–Jonny Coleman
Attacks on established knowledge have a long pedigree, and the Internet is only the most recent tool in a recurring problem that in the past misused television, radio, the printing press, and other innovations the same way.
–Thomas M. Nichols
People don’t choose the President anyway. America is not a democracy. America is a Republic.
–Dr. Umar Johnson
Learning to kill
is a matter of habit
The more you have done it,
the better you’re at it.
–Izhar Ashdot
July 6, 2017, 1:01PM
Hippie Town, USA
Quiet as a tomb up here in the high rooms. Not even a blower on Judge’s Hill. I’ve just consumed a week’s worth of media over a cold cup of Italian Roast. Last night, Doc&I went out to Cold Town for the return of Austin’s No Shame Theatre. We both told stories about The America, as Uncle Hank calls it, this young frontier of bounty and bloodlust. Nothing has changed since last week, although some of you might’ve lost your shit a little. The President said or tweeted some things, I’m sure, and North Korea had its own fireworks display as the world turned darkly on.
This War Room has everything I ever wanted. A MacBook, replete with its NAS, plugged in and humming beside, an extra monitor, a pair of Nearfields on the floor and a Lexmark copier/scanner/printer on standby. I feel better than I’ve felt in weeks. I should be out this shitshow by late September and I’ll need to start compiling the poetry and prose for this year’s collection, due out through Yellow Lark Press December 1. We’re heading out in a couple weeks, and doing roughly 3,000 miles up to New York and back. It should be a thankless slog, rivaled only by the grisly heat of Texas summer if we stayed.
I’m apartment, or room, or house hunting-looking for something equally comfortable and private in which to plot and amass and roll out the grand machinations of this dream. To play every night and write every day has been my goal and charge for as long as I can remember. I’ve been maintaining both at dayjob levels and even sacrificing a little of my artistic life for this gig. That was a mistake but nothing compared to the last 5 years of my life, which is a dangerous way to think-a dark focus that could shame every thought and endeavor I’ve had since dropping out of music school and going homeless in the hometown at the dawning of the New Century. Brother K.O. has offered me a place on tour with the Dropkick Murphys, tenting every show and working for the Claddagh Fund. The road is always calling, like it did then and it does any time the present moment catches up with me and hangs itself around my neck.
This terribly blasé post could be summed up in a few different ways. We could frame it as duty and say that even without anything to report, I’m reporting-the medium is the message. It could be psychological-a check in and my way of keeping us connected. It could be even more personal than that. You either hang yourself or hang it on the wall, right Brother, and week after week we’ve been thankfully and sometimes begrudgingly doing the latter. To the chagrin of a cold world we’ve been holding on to each other, and isn’t that nice? The truth is that this is a pause, and, I’ll even offer, a moment of gratitude. I’m going to need my strength and you, too, very soon. You can bet I’ll be coming for you in these coming months. We all need someone to bleed on, and in these grim, outrageous and diabolically narcissistic times, in this cultural freefall and with the death of our Mother, a little bit of peace and quiet can feel like Heaven. It’s a good chance for us to remember the others out there, ease back into it, this lull in the terrible summer and suffer some contentment for a change. The worst kind of trouble is no trouble at all, right Sister?
Is fear rith maith ná drochsheasamh.
Peace and love to you, motherfucker.
Going for the Throat 