BEWARE THE FIRST PERSON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Sometimes I wonder, why do we tear ourselves to pieces?
-Paul Simon

Second chances are getting harder to come by these days.
-Michael “Corky” Corcoran

Do you enjoy being on this side of history?
-Someone commenting on Michael Corcoran’s Facebook Page

Jim Trainer’s writing is not for the weak. It’s like stepping in dogshit barefoot.
-Ignacio on Pterodáctilo

Writers feel like the best thing they have to offer is the worst thing that ever happened to them.
–Jia Tolentino, Editor
Jezebel Magazine

I am the pressman, acknowledge me…
-Primus, The Pressman

Warmest Greetings from the War Room.  I’m at a loss but what else is new?  Sometimes I wonder:  why do I have to be in trouble to create?  The last couple blogs on here, well, shit–pretty gnarly ain’t it though.  I’m on deadline so that means I have to mine for kernels of life, exceptional or otherwise. On a slow news day a bird on a wire can be newsworthy, especially if his beady yellow eye speaks to me of my own hungers and unsavory instinct.  Sadly, equally unsavory and unresolved relations with others make it on here, too.  Usually I don’t mind.  Revenge is a great motivation.  By the time I write about someone, I feel they’re long gone anyway.  Nothing to salvage so may as well trash ’em and get on with it.  If that doesn’t sound horrible enough, the truth is GFtT has cut too close to the bone, too many times.  Not to mention I hate when people write about me without at least consulting or attempting to address their grievances with me in person.  It seems passive- aggressive, which I can’t stand.  My horrible point is I only write about folks and situations that are resolutely in the rearview–or I write to put them there.  I can’t live with vague and unresolved.  It feels hopeless and futile.  I need to bury my dead and it’s a huge mistake simply because all of the people I’ve buried in print are still alive!  I don’t think I’ll remedy this dark flaw of mine, at least not in writing anyway, and as abyssmal as all this undoubtedly sounds, I don’t like writing about my life because it makes me feel like a hack.

We knew the dangers of this medium from the get, ain’t it though, but they didn’t feel like dangers at the time.  I achieved a goal of mine to be a columnist, by exploiting my own flaws and offering my own foibles, and it was incredibly satisfying.  The blog that started me posting every Thursday was written out of sexual frustration for Christ’s sake.  I was tired of playing ring around the rosey and I said so, in writing.  Don’t you know a woman I’d been courting up until that point called me repeatedly.  She was upset about it, the blog, wanted to talk about it.  We talked.  I told her it wasn’t about her and that our conversation would be the last time I ever explained my writing to her.  We made amends and made plans.  A week later she stood me up.  Now I had over 600 words up on here, I didn’t take that blog down–why should I, especially after she stood me up?  Which is no consolation.  I’d of rather gotten laid, which was the point of the thing to begin with, and I’m a writer so the blog stayed.  I’ve never taken anything down in over 7-years of writing for GFtT–but my point is when people get more upset about the truth being printed than the truth itself then I feel like I’m onto something and they probably deserve it anyway.  All this might justify doing what I do but it doesn’t mean I’m not a hack.  Which was ok, too–I figured at least I was writing.  I didn’t mind (much) until now.

Social media is killing me.  Better, depression is killing me and social media is one of its best weapons.  There are other things I’ve been abusing.  Flagrant misuses of my power and magic are well documented and are all rooted in fear anyway.  I don’t want to be a hack anymore and I don’t want to waste any more time on social media.  My own weaknesses sway any discussion about it.  A democratized media?  Nope, just creepin’.  A way to stay connected to others when I’m at rope’s end on an isolation jag? Nope just looking at selfies.  Staying in the loop?  Maybe.  The list can go on and on but none of these reasons are why I’m on there—scrolling as the sun comes up and scrolling as the sun goes down.  It’s making me perverted—well, it’s feeding my perversions.  So, I’m striking out.  I’ve got some resolutions for the new year.  You Bet.  One of the biggest is to get current on my website and post from there.  The other is to take to the territory.  If this is mid-life I am ashamed.  When I’m done being ashamed I’m almost excited.  After my excitement has been checked by my depression I am resolved.  I’ve miles to go before I sleep.  I’m thinking, long and hard, on how I can offer the road I’m on, this new media and me and my life and Art—as a service to you, Good Reader and the waiting world.  I know from your feedback that I’ve already done this for some of you, so I know all is not lost.

The world stopped ending in Boyd’s town at a very special wedding last month.  It got cold and I feel alright.  I’ve got so much work to do, especially if I don’t want next week’s post to be about bad blood or masturbation.

See you in the territory motherfucker.

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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