[258] Screed City
[275]
01/18/2024 Thursday. Papers Box. Crisis INC HQ. Ridgewood, New York.
Brother Luke's birthday tomorrow! Happy Birthday Lukey Dukey!!! Brother Buck turned 50 last week. Life, right? What can you do?
Whatever, nobody wants to hear me rant about the terrors of aging. Myself included. Although there has been a lot of dread around these parts the last week or so. I need a damn job. But I don't know how to get one. Who would have thought that dropping out of high school when I was 17 would have a detrimental effect 30 years later? I was supposed to be a millionaire by now! Instead I am a grumpy, highly irritable artist that worries about his rent on a monthly basis, that somehow managed to score a hot, fire down below, that puts up with my bullshit. I mean, I need to make changes. Stabilize. Start seeing a therapist. I am, quite literally, becoming my father, god rest his grouchy, cranky soul.
I mean, I don't know how my mom put up with him. She was raising five boys basically alone and he just moped around, ranting, taking trips to the library then back home, walking around in his tighty whities, his back hair, his taxidermy beetles crawling around the house, smelling like rotting meat all the time, refusing to get a job because he had some vision of a zero waste household. A sustainable household that never materialized because it required actual effort, actual work, you know? The hard stuff. The practical stuff. I mean, if I think about it at all, growing up in Wyoming with that influence, combined with the magical world view of how society works that came from the rest of society...oh! But my point! Whenever my dad would get too grumpy and cranky to deal with, my mom would send him up to the mountains to get his shit together. Then he would be gone for a few days, a week or more, come back home as a different person, basically. A thing that probably could have been addressed by going to see a therapist. But you don't see a therapist in Wyoming. You cowboy up. Which means you act like an intolerable jack-ass until nobody can stand you, then you go feel sorry for yourself in the mountains for a few days and when you realize how much of a boob you have been, that your feelings are not more important than anyone else's, you come back home and walk around in your tighty whities, smelling like rotting meat chasing beetles around the house.
I mean, whatever. I love my dad. I guess loved him is the proper grammer since he has been dead for 20 years now. He was pretty funny. Hilarious even. When he wasn't a raging asshole. And he did work. He worked every day. He went to bed at 9p every night and was up at 5a every morning. All day long he worked. Whatever his projects were, he did them. But his ability to make money was subpar. My mom waitressing, a side hustle ironing clothes, another side hustle managing a storage unit business, amongst other things, and cranky, hairy, hilarious John with his art projects and his taxidermy and his ideas about things. I mean, I won't lie, if I think about it, becoming my father, I mean, like, the biggest impetus for making art, for sticking with it, it comes from him, not from him doing it, but from him basically being a pain in the fucking ass at all times. His art was okay. I don't think he was some taxidermy genius that solved the fourth dimension problem of dry hide like he always claimed. You know? He did "European" mounts, which is when you remove all the skin and hair and stuff and then bleach the face bones. I mean, he made his own rawhide. He bought hydrogen peroxide in a way that, 100% he was on the government's terrorist watch list. I really do assume that one day, or two days, or whenever, however this sort of thing happens, that a couple FBI goons drove down the alley behind 1313 Robertson in Worland, Wyoming and watched my father dunking an elk skull into a huge bucket of 20% HO2. I mean, he wasn't the Unabomber and he didn't exactly hate the government, although he had a couple ideas that he would be more than willing to tell you about.
My point about this. My only point of doxxing John Truman who lives at 1313 Robertson, Worland, WY, if anyone wants to swat the guy. Bad joke? Too soon? Some jerk yesterday when I went into this place to get a slice of pizza and I was like, "Motherfucker it is COLD outside! Give me a god-damn pepperoni slice, dog! I gotta warm these meat hooks up, yo!" He said, "Yeah, it's very cold. We need more global warming. Haha. You know what I mean?" Yeah, I know what you mean, you're a dick, that is what you mean. Your joke sucks, man. But it is always funny to find these weirdos in Brooklyn, especially in Clinton Hill, right next to the arts college, Pratt, he was just being a dick for the sake of being a dick, but then he forgot that I had paid when he gave me the pepperoni slice and I had to remind him that I paid and it was stupid and awkward and et cetera, but this Long Island bro....
And then! Has anyone noticed that the news media keeps reporting on these "Swatting" things that are happening supposedly? Like the White House got swatted even? I mean, it's joke is my point, but what is funny is that narrative about it, because it is very much a right wing thing, right wing idea, that I kind of don't understand, I mean, I really don't understand, not why they are doing it or that they are doing it, go back to my Unabomber joke I made, but what is the point? And not only that, but really? Somehow the SWAT teams just go wherever someone calls them and tells them to go? Like my neighbors keeps using my lawn to let his dog shit on, I can call the SWAT team and they will just show up and break all his windows and drag his ass out in cuffs? I mean, I am not even trying to make a point here. I think it is such a ridiculous claim, OR NOT, I mean, if I can just call the cops on anyone and they show up in riot gear? I mean, a White woman weaponizing her thoughts? You know what I mean? If that is all it took, a phone call and then the SWAT team shows up? I mean, I know it is a lie, and that is my point, but it is such an foolish and ridiculous lie that I can't, I mean...
And what's up with plane doors popping loose? I mean, it's funny and scary, but nobody makes any reference to the joke I made like 10 years ago where nobody can roll the windows down in an airplane because it will suck your smokes right out of your shirt pocket. What's up with that? I mean, when was the last time you were on a plane? Has anyone been on a plane? Let me see a show of hands. Okay, that's good, oh no, you look like when you got on the plane the wing broke when you sat down. My bad. I know I can't make fat jokes anymore, but look at me, I'm skinny, that doesn't keep me from getting busy. The Humpty Hump. Remember that one? You don't have to worry about the door popping open, man, you'll just clog it on your way out! When the stewardess see you coming they must be like, "Fantastic! Here comes the contingency plan! I hope he doesn't break the fucking gateway! Or fall into the cargo hold, I gotta get to Las Vegas by sundown otherwise I'll miss the all you can eat shrimp buffet at the Crocodile Cafe!"
I don't know. Whatever. I had a point and my point was to sock it to my dad and then show you how I have become him, and that Professor Curly puts up with my bullshit like my mom put up with my dad's bullshit, but that is a bad look and I need to stabilize, but at the same time the art she is making, meaning Professor Curly and the art I am making, meaning me, is a different thing and age is wild and hard to understand and one day, back on my 17th birthday I dropped out of high school and then now I can't get a job, but who cares because, like all things cyclical, I will keep making my art and I have a whole lot of ideas. Well, more than ideas. I mean, the things are written already and soon I will be a millionaire like I always predicted. So when that happens, you'll see. I'll bring my dad back from the dead and we'll make hilarious jokes all day long, counting money, going to the library and watching the FBI cruise down the alley checking us out, wondering what we are up to. No good. That is what we are up to.
[Insert Humpty Hump]