It’s been a while but I am at a loss. The world may have gotten in more than it usually does but I haven’t been without inspiration since the early days at Going For The Throat. Those days the crisis was real. If I didn’t make it as a writer I’d be stuck behind a bar or working hospice for 9 an hour. Dressed like a Hershey’s Kiss on campus or test driving the Golfquick LE in Sugarland. My definition of “making it as a writer” is broad and wild. I can sit down and come up with 600 words out of thin air, and by keeping it simultaneously all too and not personal at all, the thing will find its legs and walk its way into you. The archetypes are free to roam. The fact that I’ve become a character in my own story, coupled with a 10-ton outrage and Black Irish honesty has made Going For the Throat a success. My definition of success, too, is unorthodox-but if anything is true about my 20+ year career trekking down the savage road of New Journalism, it’s that the medium is the message. That means that I’ve got my transmitter, just like in my Radio Days, and I can feel you out there listening. I’m a writer so I write. I still got a day gig, one that’s winding down, and I’m not 100 on what’s in store. I’m booking overtime-I hope to play every night and write every day. That’s been my dream and charge for as long as I can remember. “Writer’s Block” is less than a memory for me, but waking up today, fully clothed, in a dead confederate palace with all the curtains pulled back-is taking me back to when I knew I had to be a writer, and tried to do every day what I now do every week. Back then it was 1,200 and pure agony. I volleyed the imminent avalanche of self-hatred that would fall if I didn’t become a writer with the agony of coming up with 1,200 words every day. There was beer involved. And cigarettes you bet. It worked but it drove me out of my mind.
I’m just as fond of those hardbitten scoop days for what happened away from the desk. Hopping fences, getting shitty. Falling through the Night Kitchen, driving down dark barrio streets with my tongue in Gwendolyn’s teeth. My hangovers were grim back then, nothing compared to what was coming. It was beginning to get old but I saw no other way to assuage both the loneliness of writing and my utter dread of never becoming a writer-as the money ran out. I caught some breaks. I got a good job. I met Rich Okewole and Najla Assaf. I found my community. I was taken in by the good folks at the IPRC in Portland (and taken right back out by Trump’s America but that’s another story for another time). Perhaps my hesitation to pull the trigger this morning is indicative of the end of those Salad Days as a struggling writer. The gravy train has left the station. Of all my myriad blues and woe, movement seems to be the answer. As proud as I am of what I’ve become, I’m terrifed here at the midway. Possibilities that ain’t been realized won’t be and I could die at any time.
It’s got me shook. I quit my gig of 5 years, should be out October 1. I bought a car. I enrolled in this year’s SWRFA and sent 22 booking emails out into the Live Music Capital of the World, even canvassed West 6th. Survivors Wisdom tells me it’s time to grind it out, hit the road and stop being such a pussy. Maybe the truth is that struggle is over. Not this one, but that one. The battle with self can conclude. It’s I and I and a good night’s sleep contending for top place on my list of priorities. I’ve found myself. I am who I am. Cruel time has showed me who I am and branded me with the wisdom that there’s not enough time to change that now.
We both know there would never be enough time but that didn’t stop us before ain’t it though. We rebelled. We clanged against the deathhead, came for the Gods and offered them the head of the King. We bled for it, we had something to prove. It was useless, futile and fatal and the biggest waste of time. We squandered our youth. The youth is gone. It’s time to get off social media and take to the territory. Our lives depend on it. I got witchy women mixing up the medicine for me and an Ayurvedic scholar laying out a diet plan. I got Brother Don on the telephone and Sister Sarah at the other end of a computer screen. I’ve got friends like blood, holding vigil and corroborating and besides all this big love-a fear of death that is all too real. The prime motivator. The best time to hit it was a long time ago. The next best time is now.
I better see you on the streets motherfucker.
Going for the Throat 