[223] Screed City
[223]
01/17/2023 Tuesday. Very Odd Adjustable Orange Table. Room 219. Holiday Inn Express by the Airport. Albany, New York.
The word is cheeks, spread the word.
A full day of gold-bricking. I mean, it wasn't, it was a full day of work, but the work was mostly fixing someone else's fuck-ups. But the work was easy and the wage was prevailing, so who am I to complain? I mean, I am sure I can whip something up if need be, but at the moment I got nothing. I mean, this job was supposed to take two days and had it not have been for the fuck-ups it would have taken half a day. But now we are off to Troy tomorrow, to do a fire curtain inspection. Which is cool, I guess, I think we are going to go out to dinner with G, their school is right there. And from 3p-7p they don't have anything doing, so that is cool, and I have the horse calendar I bought them, so that is cool too. I mean, we'll see, there will be no way to gold-brick this thing tomorrow, so I don't know what we are going to do for half of the day, butwhatever, they hired us for three days, so they are getting three days of something, whether it's actually working or not. Butwhatever, again, I have a tax bill coming, so I need to get some money real quick, and I just bought the ticket to Berlin for the film festival, so last weeks earnings are long gone already. Woe is me, I can't catch a break.
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Just joking, but taxes, am I right? Who would have thought it? And I just got a 1099 from this fucking thing. Can you believe it? I can't. I really can't. I mean, this is the problem being working class, making money doesn't mean anything. Every dollar you spend it basically a tax on you, yet the more money you make the more taxes you have to pay, which, sure, that would be logical if the amount of money you were making meant you had a whole bunch more money, but you don't because you have to spend it all on taxes. I mean, what is the point? Literally every dollar I spend is on upkeep only. Rent, bills, gas, groceries, and I know I just got done saying I spent $1,000 dollars on a plane ticket, but my god, a cramped winged sardine can fart clogged red eye luxury like that, you're right, I should stop spending my money on avocado toast. I am just saying that no one making less than $200,000 a year should be paying any taxes. Individually. I mean, if you have to budget for food, for bills, for rent, when everything you pay out is simply cost of living, I mean, a living tax, I mean, the reason we can't get ahead is not because we are bad with money, it's just we don't have any fucking money to begin with and the money we do have gets taxed at least 25%. Yet, if we were rich, we could claim that any money paid out during the year would be considered a loss, so we could claim that on our taxes, like rent, like bills, like gas and groceries, I mean, if this were a just world I could claim almost 80% of my income as losses. And my tax bill would and should be reduced to 1/4 of what it is. Just saying.
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And it's not like we get anything for it. Interstates and Missiles. No health care, no affordable housing, no safety net, nothing. Just defense against a some perceived enemy and disgusting racist roads that take you from Buffalo, New York to Pittsburgh, PA, I mean, I have a new love for Pittsburgh, so maybe that is a good thing, but we drove the pretty roads back and I have to say, it was worth the extra 30 minutes it took us. I mean, the interstate is brutal. That's what I mean.
I mean, when I got home last Friday there was only one Tickler explosion, only one dead mouse, and that fucker had died from the poison, it was lying dead next to one of the traps in the Garbage Room, I had to use a pair of tongs, grabbing it by it's tail and flinging it into the snow. I mean, also, I heard some very horrible screaming in the walls for a couple days too. Little tiny screaming. Weak scampering. I mean, there is a dead mouse in the walls now. Hopefully lots of them. I mean, once again my house is mouse free. But until they stop coming, I won't stop murdering them. I mean, there is a little bit of a Holocaust vibe to it, that I don't like to admit, but I don't know what else to do, we do not get along, the mouses and me, they prefer to shit on everything and chew holes in food items, and I prefer to not have things shit on and food items to not be chewed holes in. I mean, I guess it is a problem of communication, I guess, but they don't know how to listen and the only way I can express myself is with poison and traps, so until they open their tiny little ears and know I am not fucking around, I think we will always have a problem.
Scott put the pellet gun to use. The Compound has been having trouble with the roosters killing the hens. So he had to snipe a few of the fuckers to create a better balance. I mean, I only mention this because it means that I sighted in the thing real good. So I am proud of myself. I mean, I still look forward to assenating some squirrels in the coming year. Rats in top hats. I mean, they declared war last summer, and I am not going to forget it.
I mean, I am sorry, I don't mean to bring such violence into this writing, it's just a kind of dark part of the year, where everything that is living has seemed to stop growing and now we just have to wait out the spring. Taxes are coming due, it's cold all the time, you find yourself in Albany, New York, with nothing better to do than talk about death, and just down the road the Hooters is open, advertising $.25 WANGS, and you don't know of you should hitch a ride with the local racist pipe fitters to go oggle some titties. I mean, any port in a storm, as the bridesmaids say.
Speaking of tits, the book launch party is in full swing. There is going to be two punk bands, Jack and I will play some chaos, Kristin is going to bake some shit up, there is going to be Ticklers and books to buy, shirts even, I mean, if I had my shit together, I could have really done a number with this book launch, I mean, if I had my shit together and was 10 years younger and didn't think that people were fickle cunts, I mean, I have set myself up for something spectacular, I just don't know how to do it anymore. I mean, I was talking to Kristin on the phone, trying to figure out what to make, what she should make, and I was hoping for something like what we did for KinderRinder [Italics] when it came out, the Whiskey Tit chocolates and the bands, Cushions had played, I mean, maybe it wasn't a book launch, maybe it was a full reading of that book, I can't remember, but it was at Tom's place, and it was fantastic, but when we were talking this idea of having some sort of infrastructure for any artist that managed to make it past 40, who was still trying to make art, but had become exhausted by the process of self-promotion, like maybe when you reached that age, like a retirement of sorts, where you could suddenly gain access to publicists and agents and advertising, so you didn't have to work your ass off just to get 25 people to come to your shit, I mean, it doesn't matter how good your idea is, unless you have an audience it will fail. And sending out a electronic mail to 200 people and posting shit on social media for a few days is just not going to cut it. Nor should it cut it. But there is a point in a working class arts career when you have to just give up. Admit you lost, and move on. And I am okay with that. I have another 100 books in me, I mean, I am shifting to this new idea of conversational prose combined with working class grievance that I have been finding quite satisfying writing, whether or not it is just treading water in tepid swamps, I don't know, but I mean, it is fueled by anger, so I have that going for me, but it will always come down to the same thing:
Nobody likes the weirdo until everyone likes the weirdo.
100 monkeys, man. And as the racist and mysogynistic Charles Bukowski once said:
Endurance is more important than truth.
Fuck around long enough and you will find out. I mean, flood the zone with shit. Another racist mysoginist said that one. Something will stick eventually. And I keep resisting Professor Curly telling me to write a screenplay, because it hurts my feelings so much, but going back to the DISHWASHER [Italics] merchandising brilliance that I have been pushing, I mean, I'm joking, but still, the shirts and the book and what the book is, I mean, it's stupid enough to work, but between all my trips to Portland and Pittsburgh and Albany, and living in Vermont, the very pretty girlfriend who is a kind of dumb and is a huge pain in the ass of a state, I mean, being over 40 now and exhausted from a lifetime of working class artistic drudgery, I mean, maybe I should just write the screenplay for DISHWASHER [Italics,] I mean, I know how it opens, a little like Barfly, the movie that was written by the racist mysoginist’, Charles Bukowski, but it starts with the camera panning in and around Laramie, Wyoming, finally coming to the back ally where the Altitude is, the song; Machine Head by Bush, playing over the opening credits, the camera goes through the back door, past the prep room, the cooks line, and into the dish room, where Disher is furiously washing dishes, explaining things to Mike, the new hire, who wants nothing to do with it, he only took the job because his college scholarship forced him to take it, and Disher, the insufferable boob that he is, is having trouble getting Mike to focus on the task at hand.
I mean, my problem being non-typical, is that I need to translate my stuff into something edible, and it is all noir shit anyway, it's just that people are incredibly lazy. Nobody cares for art. Not really. I mean, Van Gogh is easy, there is no thinking involved, plus he has that cool back story where he is a fuck up and he cuts off his ear and shoots himself in the heart when he is like really young. But if you read anything about him, he is an insufferable asshole, drunk on absinth all the time, insecure and suffering from myriads of mental issues. But his paintings are quite something. I enjoy them. They are fast and sloppy and intense. I mean, I would rather look at his shit than Picasso's boring ass machismo aint art Vladimir Putin let me tell you how art is supposed to be made bullshit. I mean, cubism? Give me a fucking break. Art isn't dinosaur bones. Nobody really thinks that you can't have Jackson Pollok without Picasso, right? Kurt Cobain didn't invent distortion, man. Keith Moon, I mean, all I am saying is that if being a dick is somehow the way great art is made, I mean, nothing has anything to do with anything and it is only how you sell it, and this idea that you have to know how to draw before you can destroy drawing is something that needs to be thrown into the garbage heap of history, because all it really means is that there are gate-keepers for human emotions, and I don't care how many classes you took at Julliard, banging on the drums or rooster fucking a guitar in a way that people can enjoy, I mean, that shit is transcendent, and whether the New York Times can wrap their pea-sized brain around it or not, does not change the art, and everyone knows that cubism was crap, just nobody is willing to admit it. It didn't change a thing. And Picasso praying on teenaged girls in order to get his geriatric cock hard does not make him a genius, it makes him a creep, and if that fucker was alive today, he would be spending all of his time on Pornhub.com and we would all be the better for it.
Anyway, what was my point? Oh, if you are in the City next week, come to Tom Fruin's studio, we will have cool bands and cool desserts and Ticklers and books and shirts and fun times, and nobody will get Covid, and maybe later in the night we will all do cocaine and have a wet t-shirt contest and I will personally pour Vermont maple syrup, from the Compound on Professor Curly's bongos, and then the party will erupt into an orgy and at midnight we will set off fireworks from the roof and the cops will come and take everyone home, free of charge, no matter what neighborhood you live in, and the IRS will deduct $10,000 dollars from your tax bill.
I mean, for the thousandth time, here is Mess On A Mission. I mean, I love the Liars, but their KEXP Seattle performance is garbage. It's as bad as the Tiny Desk bullshit NPR does, I mean, I love Seattle, there is some very good things going on there, but I can't take KEXP anymore, I refuse, Tiny Desk too, I refuse. I won't abide. I will not abide. It's an SBD [Silent But Deadly] for anything that is supposed to be art, but couched in a way that takes all of the fangs out of anything. I mean, it is just cotton in your ears, and it makes me feel sleepy and late to work. Like a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich from a deli, good at first, but then you regret it later. But this video, it really hits the spot, because it is about something:
[Insert Mess On A Mission]