Goodbye, Goodbye

It’s been a life, blown and bowled over, marveling at the destructive act.  It’s been nights cornered by lust, like a fly in a tarantula dream, and days that split the long beams down my eyes.  It was a white sun in Lafayette in 1999 and the only time I truly knew would never be again–in youth.  There was a heavy, grey lead blues and a black flapping ‘gainst the pane blues.  The yards, up north–burning down Camel straights through the chain link, and spitting out hot sugared coffee in the snow.  It’s a good thing to remember now as I can’t turn, I won’t turn, I can’t be–any of these but all of it now and roaring.  The cadence of my later years has laden each day with all the days, each day carrying a load of the days before, my past like a bushel of coal and future that cuts prisms of mash.  I love and lose and I am born and I sink.  I am tequila on Ocean Beach and I am warm Lager above the Dawson in her hot 3rd floor.  If I am all loves then I am all love and every sky is winding and every whisper knows a scar.  Ravenous I am without regret, I revel and twist and dwindle in a reverse sailor’s dive.  I stitch my dreams with nightmare silk and I feed fear to courage, my love is in the mouth of a lion, my love is the cutting stink of a locomotive train.  Everything that was true is still.  Everything that’s false will find you out, and crack you from your earthen bed but if you wave from Heaven we’ll see you and we will wave back from Hell…

It’s Been A Long Time That I Should Be Far From Here

For many of us in the KGB, infiltrating the 1970s punk scene was one of the USSR’s most successful experiments of propaganda to date.
–Alexandrei Varennikovic Voloshin

Three weeks Tommy boy…
–Hero Constituent

The problem with Creative Nonfiction? I’ve addressed it before. The transparency I strive for on here-the bare ugly, it can scrape too close to the bone. Couple that with the fact I’m out of material most weeks and it’s a real dilemma. I know you tune in exactly for this high wire act and I’m thankful for it. Sometimes the only way to get the world off your neck is to build a column of words, 600 high, with venom or in reverie, frame it neat and fine and nail it to the fucking wall. Some people need to be kissed off and the dead should stay buried. Now take all these rules and tell ‘em to the Boss because deadline trumps all. It’s become obscene. We all know about the ones that she hates, and my feelings about the blog are either inside or outside of 20% of them I can be proud of, while the rest are metaphysical bowel movements. For the times when the tide was high and rising, and I managed to get my arms around the thing and send it home, I’m thankful. For your devoted readership, 50+ a week, I’m thankful. But Brother Charlie is right, it’s been surgery on myself without anesthesia, dirty laundry&tears, whining, poems about my dick size, old rivalries roustabouted and new enemies found. In short, it’s fucked but the fix is in. The die is cast and it’s for the fans and a Christian jerkoff on Instagram who learned a valuable lesson about retaliation when engaged in battle with an east coast Pisan.

There’s been much ado about the firing of James Comey this week and I’ve heard enough. When a news story reaches fever pitch, without any answers to the 5 Ws, I find it best to tune it out, put on the latest episode of the Broad Street Breakdown and get horizontal until the sun goes down, maybe take to the streets like some Black Irish manbat or just fall asleep with my clothes on and wake up grizzled and unnerved in a dead Confederate palace to the sound of blowers blowing or club music shaking the rafters at 8 in the morning. It’s a fucked life but I can’t complain. Truth is, this is as good as it’s ever been-but, don’t hate me, it’s not good enough. It’s been a long time that I should be far from here, which should sound familiar to anyone reading this blog on the regular. It’s become my mantra. After all these weeks banging my head against the wall, something had to give and it wasn’t the wall. Being in between isn’t fun anymore. I’m stuck. I come at you every week because I said I would and my word is everything, but the message is the same.

Another constant is my oversight, a deathly modesty that will soon have me forget that I’m 4 cites closer to achieving my goal of 12 new markets by 2018, that I’ve nailed a few venues on the east coast and should be heading out again in July and October. The MAMU is maybe half assembled, certainly amassed, and will be fully operational by the end of the next credit cycle. I sharpened my latest story onstage at the Middle East Corner last month, and gave ‘em the blades at the Poetry&Ptamale Party at Malvern last Friday. Things are moving, even if I’m not. I’m just getting sick and tired of assuring myself of that every week. I need to either make some big moves or be sure that I’m doing the leg work and research for those big moves to go down without a hitch.

Thank you for reading. This blog hasn’t really lived up to its potential, it’s not what I intended it to be. It’s become something else, though-and it’s always a release. I know some of you check in here for the Real, something true and raw in the hall of mirrors that authenticity has become in the New Century. It’s nothing short of a miracle that in writing this blog I’ve been searching for it, that burning beacon, and you read me for just that. That, my Brothers and Sisters, is the power and beauty of creation.

Ab Irato,
Trainer

“We are not the dreamers of dreams. We are the word become manifest.”

 

The Shit

If you want something different to happen, do something different.

-My Zen Master of an ex-girlfriend
They’re out there grinding it out, beeping and drilling and building their towers of greed into the sky.  I had to get up just before starting this to shut the window and put on Rebels, Rogues&Sworn Brothers, at top volume, just to drown the sounds of new Austin out.  I’m on my second large mug of Extra Dark and this post is shaping up to be the kind I loathe.  Who the fuck am I and why should you care about what I’m listening to and what kind of coffee I’m drinking?  I got caught up in a rom com on TV the other night, because I’m a romantic jerkoff, and I realized that nothing will ever be the same.  Know what I mean, Brothers and Sisters?  Never again will an all-white cast living in New York City be acceptable, even for harmless distractions.  It used to just be evil and vapid-you know, pop culture-but now it feels criminal.  The middle class is part of our mythology now.  It only exists up on the screen and in the cellulite.  It ain’t me, Brother, and it certainly ain’t them-the working poor-who I’m one disaster and dental appointment away from at all times and we’re not white or black or Hispanic or Middle Eastern or Sioux but in fact all of them and more.  From now on, there is only us and them.  It’s always been that way but some of you are just waking up now, you didn’t listen to punk rock before it became a fad, or grew up somewhere so incredibly isolated it could’ve been life threatening for you to make a stand.  Make no mistake, we are in The Shit now, and this will be our fight for the rest of our lives.  Or, we could just slide nice and sleazy into the new world order, draw the blinds and turn up the TV.  Apathy has never looked so good and this is where things get sticky for me.
Apathy is a reaction.  It’s a feeling (or lack of), and there are prescribed actions that come in response to it.  Once you’re apathetic, you gotta feed the monkey.  The world only spins darker, you’ll need better drugs, cheaper booze, an extensive supply of British cigarettes.  The problem, good reader, the rub-I ain’t got no monkey.  If I were to be as apathetic as I dream about for these harrowing last gasps of The America, I’d need something to keep it all at bay.  Well, I ain’t got it. Nothing.  I’m straight edge and asexual (most of the time).  There ain’t a lot I go in for.  My point is, as much as I’d love to hide somewhere-I ain’t got nothing to take away the pain, nothing to quell the anger.  I’d be stowed away with it and it would destroy me.  Just like opiates or alcohol or a codependent relationship would, my anger would consume me, chew me, trash me-you bet.  This brings us to point.  I’m sick of here.  It’s fucked here.  I’m hating everyone and everything.  I’m nonplussed and unimpressed.  In the interest of wanting to change my life I offer this overly personal, petty and cringe-worthy post.  Why should you care?  I don’t know.  Why should any of us?

You played yourself to death in me.

–Failure

Ab irato,
Jim Trainer
Going For The Throat
Yellow Lark Press

Come celebrate the release of All in the wind this Sunday at Malvern Books, with readings by local favorites G.F. Harper and Jenna Martin Opperman, also releasing beautiful collections of their own.  As per usual, I’ll be telling a story-about Philly, sobriety and you, My People.  Light refreshments provided.  

Run, Rabbit, Run

And the harder it gets now, the softer I sing
cause the fight to be human don’t mean anything
-Justin Currie

The budget blueprint is for the guidance of Congress; it is not presented to the president for a signature or veto and does not become law.
New York Times, 4 hours ago, on January 12, 2017

…the vote-a-rama is a wholly symbolic exercise, political theater.
-John McCain, R-Ariz.

Once a picaro, always a picaro.
-Thrall and Hibbard’s thesis on the nature of a Picaresque novel

Fuuuuuuuuuck.
-Brother Ignacio on Facebook last week

I feel the absence of Dr.Thompson acutely.  More and more and every year, the man and his work is the only rudder I can grab a hold of to steer me through the polluted black waters of the New Century.  I suppose there’s Ian MacKaye.  And Brother Don.  Which is to say the only faith I have in these dark times is in the hearts and minds of great men and women who’ve managed to keep their eyes and hearts open.  For me it’s been a journey back, I’m often lost in the blast, not as confused as angry, but it’s an anger that can shut the whole thing down.  It’s unfortunate, but not permanent, and my facilities may come back just in time.  Nobody knows what will happen.  The only thing we can agree on is an uneasiness in the gut as we brace ourselves for the terror of a country rolling backwards into the type of oligarchy I’ve been dreading my entire adult life.

I have a tendency to duck out, hide away-not so much in apathy but utter disgust-a muted outrage.  I’m good in the clutch, I’m steady, but the day to day bores me to tears.  My point is I’ve had to read the same article on NPR at least 5 times now, and I’m still not sure I understand it.  Politics are made deliberately obtuse, which doesn’t make it any easier for a zen outlaw and escape artist born in the Year of the Rabbit like me.  After my second go through of the article, I searched online for a great quote from Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, which led me to William Brinkley and spidered out into unrelated research and ended in a flame war on Facebook with a stupid twat and eventually plugging in my strat and doing some Stinson, Waits and Psalmships covers.  It’s almost 3:30 in the afternoon.  I’m exasperated from waking up at noon to hear the news, and vague and obtuse writeups on NPR and the New York Times.  Can this qualify as activism?  Am I done now?  Can I have some time to myself, take the day maybe, lay in the tub with a copy of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail?

I am disgusted with myself.  Outraged at the world and about at the end of my rope here, at Going For The Throat.  It’s been happening for a while, probably concurrent with the tidal wave of dread that came over me right after I turned 40.  There was gratitude-and a real sense of power, standing in my kitchen, the last night of my 39th year.  I started to run myself through the ringer, you know, how I do, but then came something else.  You feel an ease in parts of your body you didn’t know you could feel anything.  Know what I mean?  There are parts of us that are so wrapped up in responding to stressors created by the mind that we don’t even know are there, let alone utilize, strengthen and nurture.  Aho I did not expect something positive to come of this post.  It was practically a resignation letter.  That is the power of writing, my Brother, my Sister.  You’ve got to clear the chamber. There is a diamond of you, buried ‘neath the toxic retelling of tired stories and lies.  You are not this detritus of the mind.  You are not your mind.  You are.  Unless you’ve made your exit-downing a bottle of barbiturates, running a garden hose from the exhaust pipe in through the window of your car, or turning the business end of a shotgun on yourself and pulling the trigger-like those 3 writers have.

As sad as it may sound, if not killing yourself is the one great thing you’ve managed to do today, this week, this year-than you can be glad.  I sure am.  But don’t worry about me.  This is not a cry for help.  I may be tired of my own bullshit and have to call myself out in public like this for getting frustrated at the news and dumb girls on Facebook but I won’t be checking out any time soon.  I’ve got work to do.

See you at the readings motherfucker.

Please join Jim Trainer this Sunday January 15th, at Malvern Books, as he and 100 other poets read as part of the National Poets Protest Against Trump and on January 22nd at Kickbutt Coffee, for his featured reading at SpokenandHeard, with wonderful poet G.F. Harper.  

Confessions of a Jerkoff

The following post was written the Sunday before last, while in the midst of feeling like a failure.  

“You get your story and you hold onto it, and every time you tell it, you forget it more.”
-Laurie Anderson, Heart of a Dog

There’s nothing ironic about writing this at a Starbucks in downtown Austin while they play The Beatles.  The Beatles aren’t my favorite and neither is this coffee shop, but I’m left alone here.  It’s perfectly copacetic and American.  No haircuts, no 80’s music and plenty of space between me and the only other customer in here.  The Beatles are too terribly cute to resonate with me and my junkyard mind, but it’s not insufferable, certainly nothing earphones won’t fix and heaps better than the hipster coffee shop near the mansion.  I can never work there, can barely sit there without choking on good vibes with the urge to kill rising.  Which is all strangely prescient, being that the intention of this post is to demonstrate what a jerkoff I’ve been, and that in a slovenly state of mind even the universe can conspire to distract you, fuck you off and prevent you from getting the work done, if you let it.

The months following the publication of September and my return from Portland haven’t exactly been stagnant, but things never passed the speed of agony.  I’ve been busy but not busy enough.  I’ve kept up with gigs.  I did a book release at the mansion, performed for a packed house and sold some books. That week I appeared as the guest on Writing On The Air.  I was Chicon Street Poets featured reader in March and played their year anniversary as well as their presentation of Popsicle’s Departure 1989 by Maydee Distefano.  I was a featured reader of Blood Jet Poetry Series in New Orleans in March with great poet and friend Bernard Pearce.  I played a short set at the first Story Barn and my monthly gigs at the Airport.  I tagged along with fellow poet Brian Grosz and writer Kent Grosswiler Jr. for Writer’s Roulette and Spokenandheard at Kickbutt Coffee, and I opened the Ice Cream Social at the end of April.  I’m playing House Wine Thursday and then heading down to Houston the next day for Songwriters Roundtable Vol 8.  I’ve been able to support my community and made appearances at performances by Grosz and local favorite Nathan Hamilton.  I’ve been out to see Ebony Stewart read at the Bedpost Confessions‘ book release and also Testify semi-regularly.  I went to Joe Gray‘s first show on Wednesday and been listening to my homeboys on the Broad Street Breakdown.  I wrote poetry and posted a poem every day in April, kept that going throughout May.  I’ve had some poems featured in PoetryInk‘s 20th Anniversary Anthology as well as a tribute to Lamont Steptoe, and spoke and read at NSFW: Poetry For Wankers in May.  I’m sitting on about 10 new poems and hope to have them submitted by the end of June.  Meanwhile, I’ve submitted “You’d Be Alone Here Too” to the No Extra Words podcast and hope to get some stories together for submission to Backyard Story Night and Testify before we hit the road for upstate NY in July.  Lastly, I had some work appear in the Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review and am thrilled to be featured in The Waggle Magazine again.  In my interview with Chicon Street Poets I mentioned that I hope to break into twelve new markets by 2017, including Boston and NYC in September.

If you think that I’m tooting my own horn, you’re goddamn right I am.  At the request of my therapist I’m doing away with thinking that I am not an Artist.  It was my mantra for a while- twenty years or so but who’s counting-but thanks to the professional help of a good therapist, I won’t need to think that way anymore.  Also it just ain’t true.  Point is, it’s become terribly necessary to toot my own horn.  Remind myself.  As much as I feel like a jerkoff, I’m still getting work done.  I’m not moving at the speed of my heroes and I may never.  The only way a little light’ll get in, and the only chance I have in this chase, is that I voice it, here and to the universe.  That even with the proof of shows and print and interviews and performances, I still feel nowhere.  And even though I’m not nowhere, and am in fact somewhere, I know I could do so much better.  If I can’t rightfully say that I’ve beat depression, I’ve certainly won the round.  I haven’t smoked a cigarette since December and I hardly ever have the urge to drink or drug.  The difficulty is this yearning for otherness.  I’m stable.  Clear.  And utterly boring.  This way of feeling reminds me of similar crossroads in my life when I knew I’d have to perform-do work or die.  I can only imagine that this time I’ll be able to hit unimagined heights.  I’ve got sobriety and health on my side.  A stable gig, money saved and lots of time.  I hope to see you on the road, good reader, and the next time I get up I plan on jamming this fucker all the way home.