[241] Screed City

[241]

03/15/2023 Wednesday. Kitchen Microwave. Queens Haus. Brooklyn, New York.

Well, shit. I don't where to start this thing, it has been a turbulent week or so. AWP can suck a fatty. Seattle has junkies shooting up leaning against Teslas. I'm pretty sure I caught Covid, but that was days ago. I got a cool new hat. Slept on boat. Used a bidet. [Unrelated, but you'd think, right? Salty crack.] Ate a steak. Some wangs. A few burritos with tantric beans. Drank about exactly one million beers. Saw two bands. Tripped on a goose. Visited an old workplace. Saw some old friends. Bandmates. Drove around in a mini-van. Saw Cobain's memorial bench. Smelled the Tacoma aroma. Did a bong rip. Got rained on, [Real original, Seattle.] Did a reading. Celebrated Agustin's birthday. Kind of, there was a mis-understanding, [I mean, me and J G'bauer went back to the rental, thinking everyone would show up, but everyone did not show up.] I suppose it all worked out in the end. Kind of. I did give up writing forever on Monday morning, then I slept for 48 hours straight and now I am back to normal. BaTNAFU as the bridesmaids say, [Back to normal, all fucked up.] I don't know. I really don't. We are making progress. I think.

AWP can suck a fatty, though. They have a good idea, sure. If that idea was honest. Or if it was the idea they claim that it is. A gathering of like minded professionals getting together to sell books and mingle. But instead they created a pay to play scheme that only the richest, most government funded establishment academics can afford to attend, and then what? if you are just some jerk from the street who wants to be interested in writing? you have to pay to peruse the $1,000 dollar booths? And not a little amount of money, $300 bucks for the weekend, $50 bucks for the last day alone? For what? To window shop? To talk to Sarah Lawrence College recruiters? To eat Halloween candy and collect 15 collections of insufferable poetry collections that end up in the recycling bin because who the hell is taking them home on the plane with them? Don't get me wrong, poetry is great, but those jerks aren't there to make money, and more power to anyone that can spend $1,000 on a booth and not expect to recoup anything back because the government, meaning you and I, have paid for the booth, but c'mon! I mean, AWP is American Capitalism in a nutshell; Everyone that can afford to have a booth is either funded by the government and doesn't actually need to turn a profit, or they are so desperate to make new connections that the word "Afford" is in quotation marks, because there is no other game in town and people like Whiskey Tit or Alternating Current have no choice but to use the old Worlando Beach contraceptive, which is; "Spray and pray." And then when you are at the fucking thing it is highway robbery. I don't want to talk about it, but I will say that after the thing was finished we were promised some shipping options to send the books back home that we didn't sell, and after spending two hours in line, I mean, I am starting to think that Big Conference is in cahoots with Big Shipping, because what they did to us was complete bullshit.

I kind of want to crunch some numbers here, but I won't. I will just say that it reminds me of the decade and a half I spent playing music in NYC. The hundreds of shows I have done where you show up at some dumb place, bring four, five bands, 30-40 people, they charge at the door, everyone drinks like 4-5 beers or whatever, and all you get is attitude from the venue and hurt feelings all around. I mean, what kind of jerk gets mad at you for bringing $1,000 dollars worth of business to their crappy bar for losers? Oh, good point, those two drink tickets that get you a pint of McSorley's or a shot of well whiskey totally makes up for it. My bad.

I don't mean to be negative. All in all the thing was successful in some respects. Every time we do these things we get better at it. Sell more books. Meet new friends. Grow a little. And it was quite fun at the booth. I mean, our neighbors the first day handed out all of their hand bags so by the second day their booth was empty. We took it over. Which, I mean, the second booth somehow became a sausage booth, a corral of sorts. Whereas the main booth was just chicks. And in a way it made total sense. The nerd herd bouncing around the stall, trying to be cool, somehow getting laundered by the main booth, but easy to ignore if needed. And I don't know, the sausage booth sold a lot of books, don't get me wrong, I just don't know how successful it would have been if there wasn't that female energy next door to cut it's teenage boy vibe. On the other hand, the main booth also had whiskey, so who knows exactly what vibe was what.

But at one point some dude came around with a clipboard to yell at us because we weren't supposed to have electricity at our booth, but then we told him we were using batteries, and he made us show him the batteries, which he still didn't believe us, but he didn't harass us again about it. And we all had to share name tags because they charged every single asshole there to be there. Even though we paid for the booth and it was a god-damned farmers market at best. It's not like the ghost of Vonnegut Junior's ghost came around. I mean, even a farmers market would have a fucking band, right? Who are you paying to gain access to? To see? A panel on science fiction in the modern economy? You don't think everyone of those fuckers wouldn't pay YOU to come to your house and windbag your ass for five hours? I mean, I was surprised that I didn't see people slinging books on the street corners outside the convention center. It's a confidence game, ya know? And it has nothing to do with the quality of literature. It's just a thing of us versus them. Wild Animus [Italics.] And not only that, but the thing was a SuperSpreader event. 3,000 people descending on downtown Seattle, taking 3,000 versions of the virus onto the planes with themselves, heading back to wherever the fuck they went back home to. I mean, I don't know if I got the thing, but I was certainly very tired by the time I made it to JFK. At 6 in the morning. After not sleeping a wink. And do I feel bad about not knowing if I was carrying the thing? Morally? It's complicated. Pragmatically? What the fuck? I forfeit my $300 dollar ticket and spend a week in hotel in Seattle? Who is going to pay for that? I thought the pandemic was over? We all know the risk of getting on a plane at this point. I don't make the rules. I didn't have a fever, if that is what you are asking. And five days of late nights filled with beer and smoky rooms and sleeping on boats and boothing, I mean, that kind of feels like being sick, but such is the life of being a working class artist, or even just being working class at all, what I think DOES NOT MATTER. And is my moral imperative to protect other people when I feel tired and exhausted and dehydrated? I mean, Capitalism, motherfucker! It's been every person for themselves for, what? two years now? Self-isolate for the sake of Society? Whose Society is that? The one where the government bails out the banks that can't keep it in their pants, or the one where I have to spend my life savings to stay in Seattle so a few hundred people maybe don't get exposed to a virus that half the population pretends never existed? I mean, never once in my entire working life have I been able to just not go to work because I wasn't feeling well. Sure, emergencies are emergencies. If you physically can't go to work, you can't go to work, but it's not like they pay you anyway. You see what I mean though? There is no moral agreement when it comes to existing in the American Capitalist Structure.

Yeah, I know, I can't defend myself, but I also don't care. Not because I don't actually care, but because there is nothing I can do about it. And sure, I coughed a few times on the plane, and sure I got some dirty looks, but first of all, I coughed well, I used my elbow, and secondly, if you are so fucking worried about getting sick on a plane, I have some news for you, some advice; DON'T GET ON A PLANE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO GET SICK. That was true before Covid, it is true now. Humans are disgusting, slimy, greasy, bacteria factories. There is a reason that Howie Mandell shaves his head and eyebrows. Because he is insane, but also because humans are disgusting. I mean, we take our shoes off on planes. I mean, I don't, but I know about everyone else I know that does. Do. And I expect to get sick whenever I get on a plane, I am pleasantly surprised, ATBMS, every time I don't get sick. What can you do?

Morals aside, I mean, maybe that is the next project? A book of morals. A real shame-fest think-piece. I used to be pretty stringent, morals-wise, but as time has gone on, the more time I spend existing in this world, things are pretty fucking grey, man. Gray, I guess, American-style. But I kind of lost almost all of the arbitrary ones around the whole financial collapse of '08. Unlike almost everyone else I know, it took me an entire decade to pull my boot-straps up from that one. And now, now when things are finally going in my direction, the FED is doing everything it can to tank the economy so that that rich people don't suffer, and the first indication that they stop their Kamikaze efforts is this un-regulated bank in Fake Money, CA tanking? I mean, I fear I just started to make my situation correct again, and now I regret it. There is no big payout for me. Every dollar I earn is directly connected to every hour I work. And if I can't do the hours because all the "Job Creators" are nervous about their investments, I mean, labor is the first to go. Because it is all a huge, humongous lie. Jobs are not a thing. Driving an Uber is a "Job." The second people stop feeling rich enough to hire an Uber, suddenly that job is gone. But then, that creates a job at Subway Eat Fresh, because the Uber driver has to take a full-time second job at Subway Eat Fresh, because they can't do gig work for Uber. And they only got that Uber gig work because their job at Walmart wasn't paying them enough to survive, because that job was subsidized by the government by paying for food stamps and Medicare, meaning that corporation is Socialized, meaning the hidden cost of Walmart's cheap ass shit is taxing the American public, so instead of everyone having a living wage and health care, we get taxed to pay for the COO's of these morally corrupt businesses, who have no problem firing tens of thousands of employees at any moment because cutting labor is the easiest way to save money and therefore won't get sued for not following their Fiduciary Responsibility of making as much money as possible at all times.

So, no, I don't feel bad about getting on plane, tired and not exactly 100%. Because, fuck you, if you really want to change things, if you want everyone to behave like a decent person, un-elect every single Republican, every single Corporate Democrat, vote for Progressives only, and anti-Corporate Democrats, until we all do that, well.

Okay, relax. I can only go on a diatribe like that for so long. And I do feel kind of bad. But when I think of the thousands of days of work in my life when somebody shows up sniffling, or coughing, or under the weather, I mean, I am at work, there is no elective here, what do I do? Say no? I am already at work. And then what? We are up in the steel, or worse, running the table saw, I mean, I just drop everything and go home? It's the bully system. We all have to take it. I can't drop everything because I'll fired, and I sure as hell can't shame someone to leave work, and lord knows that if the work doesn't get done society will collapse, right? Fuck, I am getting sucked in again!

Anyway, I don't know. Seattle was; "Successful." I am back in the City. I have about a week before I head to Berlin. Check out Professor Curly's new scene. Eat some schnitzel. Apparently Vermont is a snow storm. Relentless. I worry about my plants, G's older sister and the avocados. I can only assume Beaver Haus is doing okay. I suppose I should get in touch with the New Landlord and get him to turn the water lever in the basement, just in case. I got no Ticklers brewing. I mean, I have a bunch of mail coming, but maybe I can get the Publisher or Scott to check on that. I mean, I went for a walk today. Just randomly, walked outside, hit the skids. I won't lie, fuck Vermont that way. It was like 20 minutes of clearing my head and everything was just fine. There were no snow shoes involved, or a 20 minute drive to a trail, or 35 minutes over a mountain just to walk around the grocery store. And the only grouchy White people I saw were the very cranky Polish workers at this place called D2, where I bought a shirt that said:

Two Reasons I Don't Trust You:

1: I Don't Know You

2: I Know You

[Insert HobNob Photo]

I used to work here, in Tacoma. As a dishwasher. When I told them that, they sighed. Then they sold me cool hat. That is J G'Bauer and Rocko.