[253] Screed City

[253]

Note: This is for the reading tomorrow. Why I wrote it the way I did. Here is the thing, in case you live in NYC:

[Insert Reading Bill]

06/05/2023 Kitchen Microwave. Queens Palace. Brooklyn/Queens, New York.

My god, I am all over the place, and I don't know what to do about it. Like, literally. On Saturday I got up early and drove to G's house in near Chatham so I could take them to school for the last day and let her mom go to her college reunion, but G decided not to go and her mom also decided not to go. So me and G looked at their yearbook for a while and I grabbed my swimming trunks and hit the skids. But Chatham is three hours from the City and three hours from Granville, so it was really 50/50 at this point, and I kind of had no reason to go in either direction. Sure, Professor Curly was getting back from London that day, but I had taken this reading gig tomorrow, so I wasn't in any real rush to get to back to the City, but then I did kind of have to go to Vermont, a thing I couldn't really remember why. I mean, I wanted to get some plants and some work clothes and check the mail and grab some Ticklers, but really? And it was Saturday and that would mean I would have Sunday to do stuff and then get back on the road by Monday morning. Oh, right, now I remember, Jesus, I'm losing my fucking mind!

My computer, I needed my computer. Well, I didn't need my computer per se, I needed what was on my computer. I needed to write an expense report for BMI and I didn't have the template on my other computer. This computer. And novels, I needed some sweet, sweet novels, for my files. I have decided to get organized, you see. This is the year it happens, almost mid-June when I am desperately unemployed, this in when I really need to buckle down and get my writing shit together. Not look for long term work, or make long term pragmatic goals about how to never be in the situation again, I need to figure out how many novels I have written and not published and figure out which ones are the best so I can do what? I don't fucking know.

You see, here is the problem. I'm an artist. Money stresses me the fuck out. Whether I have it or not. When I have I think of all the things I need to do, like go to the dentist, go to the doctor, buy a house, buy some clothes that fit and don't have Christmas themes, you know, be an adult, but because I rarely have money, doing these things is a huge struggle, normally I have an excuse, and because I have an excuse I don't have to worry about this shit I get to worry about the fun stuff, like, do I have enough money to buy food, or pay my rent, or pay my bills, or buy gas for my car, which is such a fun stress that I have chosen to get into my mid-40's and am still living pay check to pay check because why? I'm an artist. And because I am an artist, I am a moron. or not, I don't mean to be so hard on myself about it, it's just that I can spend three, four hours a day writing no problem, but if I need to spend 15 minutes of any given day doing anything that will benefit me and my future, I can come up with a million excuses not to do it. Or I can drive six hours to Vermont to get on a computer where I think a template is, but really it was sent to me in an electronic mail in the first place, so I could have found it there and never have driven 12 hours round trip, spent $80 on gas and added 600 miles to my car just so BMI can send me the $75 per diem they owe me.

But that's the thing. Or what's the thing. Or how's the thing. I have been going through this mid-life crisis for over a year at this point. I think it started last May when I committed to the Farmers Market for the whole season. I made a mistake. I was too young to do it. But I was too stubborn to eat the $600 and just bail on the thing. I should have decided then and there to move back to the City and start doing readings and finding a studio and playing music and looking for work, you know, like un-retire. The pandemic is over, like finally over. For me. For most Americans it was over in the Spring of 2021. But I was doing great in Vermont. Life was cheap, the scenery was beautiful. I had a great big house with plenty of places to write, a sweet ass boiler that never worked right that caused me days and weeks and months of agita. I was baking like a fool. Perfecting the Ticklers. Professor Curly's career was taking off like a rocket, so even if I wanted to see her, I couldn't. Not that I didn't want to see her, that came out wrong, but you know what I mean. It all made sense. I had all this work coming in. I was travelling to Portland, working for the Brewery, or working with BMI, I was doing that serial thing with Donkey [Italics.] But instead of being smart, instead of making a move when I should have made a move, I dug my heels in with regard to my early retirement and committed whole hog as the bridesmaids say, and devoted six months of Saturdays to the Farmers Market in Waitsfield.

I mean, I loved the thing. I was committed. It was a fun experiment. I made some friends and had some laughs along the way. But I am now literally reaping everything I sowed since then. I am out of the loop. I have no work. The only thing I am good at now is making novels, baked goods and Ticklers. And the novels thing only works if you can actually finish the process. And the baked goods only work if you can devote your full time to maintaining and growing your business. And the Ticklers thing only works if you aren't the only one that drinks them. I mean, I have all the elements for success, it's just that in order to get anywhere with them, I need to remain in Vermont. And if I remain in Vermont I loose all of my validity down in the City, and if I am not valid in the City, I am just an early retiree living in Vermont, not being an artist, which, first and foremost, is the thing that I am.

So here I am. Out of retirement. Broke, once again. I have no idea where money is going to come from. Paying rent on a house I don't want to live in. Or, well, I don't feel like being in at the moment. Sharing an apartment that is too small for two people, I don't have a studio, I can't make Ticklers, I can bake, but can I? I mean, I really feel I need to pivot one more time and start up a business here, a hot dog cart would be fantastic, or a Tex-Mex stand on Fresh Pond Road. Or even sell Cubby Bubbys, I don't know. But because of the nature of the economy, all my work dries up at the exact same moment I need it to stay consistent. I can't catch a break! It's like a decade has passed and nothing has changed. I mean, I am older, I have a bad haircut and my gums are receding, I have put on some weight and I can't play basketball anymore, I mean, I can't play it any less either, because I could never play basketball, but you know what I mean. I mean, the one thing I actually got good at in the last ten years is now just a hobby. A very huge, very disciplined and personally fulfilling hobby, but a hobby nonetheless. I mean, I should have been on Facebook this whole time, making troll buddies, being part of the scene, but I am not that, I never was, and I never will be. I am an artist. I need all of the attention and none of the work that goes into getting the attention.

I mean, this is it. This is the beginning. This is a declaration. The two things I believe in, like in my soul, in my heart, like deep down where it counts, is live performance and writing. The writing because it is a sharing of brains, from my head to your head, and the performance, because it is emotion, direct and personal, live performance. It is important. And sadly Vermont offers none of this. I tried, I tried with the Farmers Market, I tried with the Sequestered videos, and I got pretty close with the Screed City Radio project that failed to launch, I mean, none of you know what the hell I am talking about, but it doesn't matter. My point is simple though, I refuse to give in. Things are changing. This kind of shit, reading in public, it can be something. It can mean something. And the original idea, or what the original idea was, the Gravedigger texts and marathon readings that happened quite some time ago, I did them for a reason, and a lot can happen in 10 years, autonomy is a thing. There's no money in books, but there is no money in bands either, in theater, either, in poetry and spoken word, this is America, America hates artists because artists don't make money. We're all a bunch of Trans, Fag, Queers that refuse to work at McDonald's. Who think the status quo can suck a big fat fatty. And then when someone tries to tell us that you can't say big fat fatty, our Trans/Queer/Fag friends say, I'm a big fat fatty, what the hell do you have against paying attention to me, you fascist cunt?! And then I write myself into a corner, because I am neither Trans or Queer or a Faggot, and working at McDonald's is a job, a respectable job, work is work, and I just implied that all members of the LGBTQA+ community are artists too, which, maybe they are, and maybe they aren't, but my point is not who is or who isn't criticizing who does what for what reason, it is that it doesn't fucking matter, we should all be able to live the lives we want to live, however the fuck we want to live them, and the reason a straight, White, dude like me moved to NYC was not because I could get a job at some deli on Houston street, making sandwiches and coffee for people on their way to work, it was because nobody gives a fuck here.

I mean, the amount of, Hey faggot! I have heard since I moved to NYC is zero. The amount of, Hey faggot! I heard in Wyoming growing up? I mean, when I was walking home from high school, the day Curt Cobain died, some fucking jackass in his giant pick-up truck slowed down and yelled out of his window, What are you going to do now, faggot? I hadn't even heard the news. I was like 15. My parents were terrified when I got home that I was going to kill myself because of this news. I mean, it was heartbreaking news, I had long hair and wore cardigans with the thumb holes, but a straight White non-typical guy going through that shit, I got the least of it, and if that was the least of it? How fucking cruel can these assholes get?

My point is, we are not allies, there is no Ally, we are all in this fight together. Say it loud and say it proud is not some catch phrase. It is important to acknowledge our friends exist and need every thing we can give them. Because things are getting darker by the day, I don't know, I think there are now anti-Trans healthcare bills passed in like 18 states at this moment, and it will only increase. It is tragic and it needs to stop. How small the community is versus how profound the effects will be in astonishing. It is pointless suffering for no reason.

And sure, let me pause for a second, we should probably end on a high note, right? You can't just write off social justice as a turning point, right? But it never ends, and as a nihilist, it doesn't matter anyway, I mean, we all enjoy a good gallows joke, right, I mean, I'm circumsized, but so what? I got one inch of dick and six inches of scar tissue, so by that measure, I am well hung, right? I mean, the other day I was doing it doggy style and my dog came into the bedroom with a notepad and a pencil and took notes. When I finished he looked up at me and said, You like it Ruff? I said, Not really, what makes you think that? He said, Because it looked like you were putting in between the Bark! And I said, That wasn't bark, that was pussy lips. And he said, It's Bacon! Bacon! Bacon! I can't read! I have no thumbs!

Thank you, good night! Come to my shows! I plan to do them often! Sign up to my newsletter!