Blog
Blog entries that follow are from roughly September 2005 on…(and all out of sequence)
May 2, 2008
The Nuclear Family is a fuking Deathtrap.
Father, mother, and children alone as a group under one roof attempting to secure all of the needs of living without assistance from any kind of tribal human collective. That is my own definition as I’ve come to know it over these past 3 years of parenting. As soon as my son was born, I felt the hammer falling upon me from all around… family, ‘friends’, onlookers… all doing their part in this insane society to let me know that now I had to change, now I had responsibility, now I was the great lone provider. I actually endured ridicule behind my back from spending the first year after my son’s birth in my mother’s home where I thought we might be better able to navigate that confusing time. Even my mother, a single parent since I was around 5 years old, still never misses a chance to tell me how she never had any help from anybody raising me… and she continues to this day to repeat that scenario for me, no help, no real interest in her grandson… recreating her own bitter history as some sort of strange unconscious payback. It is completely insane. And it is no goddamn accident.
The co-opting of the tribal human family has been an efficient one. Orchestrated by those who desire wealth, monetary and material gain at the cost of robbing us all of our right to a sane social environment capable of sustaining love. In the lack of that tribal support, the home is nothing more than a box to eat and sleep in, Mother and Father both working full-time jobs to support what the culture has taught them they must own to “qualify” themselves. Children turned over immediately to the ‘educational’ institution, groomed from day one for the same fate.
Well I’m not fuking buying it. My middle finger remains displayed to all of those who would have me abandon passion and youthfulness for the dungeon of so-called ‘adulthood’. The worst example I could set for my son is the same one that was set for me, martyrdom and contempt… the abandonment of dreams… go to hell I say. Go fuck yourselves and call me the bad guy, the black sheep, irresponsible, turn your heads for good and write me off, “oh, poor boy, if his father would just grow up and prepare for his future…” I have a news flash for you: The future you all have been so diligently planning for isn’t coming. While you spend your precious moments ‘preparing’ for the future by putting dollars in the banking system, your sons and daughters grow up, raised by someone else. That time was yours, and you wasted it. We are poor. We own nothing… and when your credit cards fail to work and your gastanks run dry, we will have lost only conveniences, not lifetimes of labor.
Call me the bad guy. Leave us alone. Talk behind our backs then return to your television programs to remember how to think and what to believe. My wife and I will sing songs about you around campfires and tilled Earth. We’ll remember you, but we will not follow you. Ever. The nuclear family is a deathtrap, and we will never cease our attempts to recreate what was lost to it’s engineering.
But in the meantime, here we are, on the doorstep of a real life… posing as a nuclear family. And it’s not working.
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Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
For me, parking lots have always been paved with a grande schizophrenia . The walking wounded emerge from their palaces on 4 wheels, dazed and twittering with the mild anticipation of buying something… They lock down the palace and briefly reflect on their public ‘identity’, displayed for me, the onlooker, in the form of brand names and model numbers, bumper stickers and window decals…”I’m for Garfield”, “I’m for war.”, “I smoke dope.” , “I’m not sure.”… ad nauseum… lifestyles and preferences defined in paragraphs and small sentences set against 2 or 4 wheel drive, so many colors and choices…gee whiz.
But no matter our ‘distinctions’, we are all here to buy something. I know I am. Woopie.
Retired US army officer who skis Sugarloaf mountain and attended Brighton college returns to candy-apple red ford explorer with bag of books from Barnes and Noble. Rush Limbaugh, perhaps … or Hunter Thompson, or Madonna, will further define the American dream for him tonight between sips of Bud Light or Michelobe… or maybe mineral water… how the fuck would I know? I wouldn’t. Who the fuck am I? I’m just here to buy something. Just like him. I’m gonna go in there soon… to buy a calendar.
The cold wind whips the walking wounded while they wander, wondering: “what was I wanting?”
I try to go into these places and buy things but it never works. I always come out with nothing. It’s true. Sometimes I try it to see if it really does cause me to feel something…. Even if it’s phony, empty, plastic feelings of fulfillment, ever-so fleeting… who cares? I’m just curious what it feels like. I go in, dead presidents burning a hole in my pocket… I look through the isles… sometimes I get excited (a little)…20 minutes pass, and then I find myself back out in the car. I NEVER BUY ANYTHING.
I’m a fucking reject. I don’t belong here.
The wind lashes my car. It’s cold out there.
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Friday, August 3rd, 2007
We finally made it out of Bangor and back into the countryside… it’s been about a month now since I looked over my shoulder at that steaming pile of garbage next to route 95 south as it grew steadily higher and higher. There is no point in living in the past, there is no point in revenge… and no point in looking back.
Uriah learned to walk in that apartment… we had plenty of good times, but I believe that for the first time in my life, while I lived there, the bad times seemed to close in around me and begin to outnumber the good… or at least that is how it seemed by the end. I know why… I know that I did it. And I know that I am solely responsible for never letting it happen again. Our lives depend on it. So we finally put our broadcast out there again, like old times… demanded/ pleaded for something real, something stimulating, something worthwhile. And now here it is in Farmingdale… at Kennebec homebrew supply. Wood heat, the beginnings of a garden… teaching fermentation science in a small town. And the clincher: a great big colonial house to raise my kid in… big backyard… next to the river, but up high enough from it not to have to worry about flooding.
I’m not waiting anymore.
I’m living for us… now.
Wednesday, January 24th, 2007
Got high the other night and had a realization: In the past year and a half since my son was born, I have slowly digested and begun to believe those assholes around me… to believe that I’m not quite good enough, worth enough, not quite ‘grown-up’ enough. I don’t have money in the bank, I don’t own property, and up until 6 months ago I refused to work a full-time ‘job’ on the grounds that I could shape my lifestyle with the opportunities at hand to be with my family, to help my wife raise our son, to help do the dishes, make meals and spend time together enjoying life instead of adopting the idiotic role of ‘full-time working-class American asshole who comes home burned out and useless every night but gets all the bills payed like a good little robot.’
Then I made the mistake of believing that regular people might understand who I am… and that crashed down around me in a hurry… and I scampered to secure something for the winter.
And so… here I am. Working full-time to pay for a rental apartment. I spend more time away from my family than I do with them. My ‘job’ is meaningless. My friendship with my wife has suffered. We’re sleep-deprived from attempting to nurture our child rather than ‘let him cry it out’, I feel dull and sometimes deeply depressed… and we’re waiting… waiting… waiting for a chance at having a home that may never even come.
And in the middle of all of this, I don’t even know the person in the mirror anymore. He’s angry, and selfish, and shut-down. ..
And then… one night I got a rare chance to spend he night alone…after working an 8 hour day in the twilight zone of retail, and then coming home and working for 9 hours straight on music, I put on one of my albums… one that I made, one called Patience. And all of a sudden something wakes up inside my chest… energy. And I remember who I am and what I do, and why I spend every single available moment when I could be resting jamming ideas into microphones and camera lenses and disc drives and stereos.
I am a fuking artist.
I am not a salesman. I am not a welder. I am not an American. I am not just here to ‘make a living’. I am here in this lifetime to make a noise, to make color, to make words, to effect the human race, to leave an imprint, to express what it feels like to be alive, for good and for bad, for love and for hate. I am not here to live in a box with wires going into it. I am here to walk on the Earth and experience life. To experience people. To experience.
And that , you sons of bitches IS GOOD ENOUGH.
Maybe I don’t have the skills to be a working-class fukin hero. Or maybe I don’t want them. Maybe I don’t want to waste my time comparing myself to a bunch of dysfunctional retards to see if I can compete for the crown on shit island.
I can spin the thread of description and weave blankets of narrative that keep us warm, that help us all remember that we are not alone. And yah, when it comes down to it I can pay the goddamn bills… but I tell you this:
Every day that I resigned myself to ‘work’ for a better tomorrow and ignore today, without telling my story, without dancing in the dark, while secretly trying to qualify in the eyes of you misguided fuking pillars of how- we’re- supposed- to- act- in- the- name- of- adulthood, I died more and more.
And I guess that would be fine, like it’s fine for you sad bastards, except that I love myself.
And I love being alive, and I am worth too much to the world to waste all that.
So I’m going to keep trying to do it another way.
Sunday, January 15th 2006
Fatherhood
posted @ 5:38 pm Edit This in [ awe ]
Monday, March 13th 2006
Land of the ‘free’
posted @ 11:02 am Edit This in [ a rage ]
You know what I hate? I hate the fact that 3 days ago I made an aggressive little bit of comedy that clearly states how so very many of us feel about the current leadership of this country, and now I am actually nervous that I might be putting my family at risk. I am NOT a paranoid person, but as a generally invisible person who has now gone and spewed myself into the tides of the internet, I now feel the implications of the fascism that has taken the wheel of this country, and of the fear-based witchunt mentality that grips so many Americans these days through the mainstream media.
Does anybody else remember when journalists felt it was their duty to question the government rather than defend it? I watch in disgust as the institutions I used to look to for the ‘News’ rapidly fold into corporate propaganda machines before my very eyes. I am left searching for the truth within the underfunded and low-powered back rooms of the radio dial while Rupert Murdoch and the rest of the paramilitary industrial complex swallow everything that made journalism such a strong tool for the American people, and regurgitate their right-wing Orwellian BULLSHIT into the living rooms of a new fear-driven and materially addicted America that can’t get enough of it. I am afraid and amazed at the gullibility and apathy of the American public. I am constantly reeling from it.
My family and I are moving into the forest this year to begin the process of changing our lifestyles to accommodate this cultural emergency. There is no hope for the future on the path set for us by this criminally insane ‘leadership’. As long as none of us can imagine living our lives without the oil-based ‘conveniences’ that we are all addicted to, as long as we continue to refuse to actually make a plan of escape from this quagmire, or AT LEAST begin to talk openly about it in terms of the next 5-10 years, we will pass our children a handful of shit as our life’s work and shrug our shoulders when they look up at us and ask why it has to be this way. The human species has to prove that it deserves better. It has to get off it’s ass and imagine it’s way out of this.
I don’t profess to be above any of it. But I am trying- I am demanding the conversations- I am demanding more from myself, in mental and physical health, environment, and action NOW! It is ALL hard work, whatever you choose to do. Why not try something crazy? Why not try dedicating your life to creating a GREAT MOMENT NOW instead of saving it all for a vacation or retirement or heaven or Christmas or death….
I’d love to correspond with anybody interested in this direction, in whatever form that may take in your particular situation. I’m designing a section of Ihatethat.net to chronicle the construction of our farm in Maine, and our progress toward sustainability.
Thanks for being interested.
-G
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Saturday, January 28th 2006
No Soul for Oil
posted @ 6:12 am Edit This in [ a rage ]
I suppose I should be proud to be a part of such an ‘advanced’ culture with all of it’s technology, information and opportunity for advancement; but you know… maybe I’m just not a team player, or maybe I was just raised bad, but it just doesn’t do much for me.
I’ve been scribbling shit like this on little pieces of paper for half my life… but now, I’ve come back to where it all began… for me to begin the next leg of this trip.
This is the part where we all transform ourselves from hip-bitchin-about-the-culture-around-a-coffee-shop-table-while simutaneously smoking cigarettes and lining the pockets of Phillip-Morris and destroying our ability to think clearly… into human beings that actually have the guts, intelligence and determination to go in another direction. There is a huge difference between yakking about some imaginary revolution and beginning the process of abandoning the vices that keep us all tied to the establishment we claim to have so much contempt for.
OIL - The most effectual shackle on the ankle of human culture- the idea that energy must be purchased under terms set forth by those in power… and if you buy that shit then it is true… I mean all that shit that their selling… the new cars, the T.V., the tits and the pill that makes your dick stay hard while you lay there and think about your heating bill… if you type in your credit card number and buy this shit then you buy it all… the whole ball of petroleum-based wax. You’re gonna need a good blender for those cocktails to help you forget about that big hole in your heart that your Viagra-bimbo doesn’t fill… and a newer car, and a bigger T.V., and while you’re at it, better buy some lip-stick and pucker-up because none of it will work unless the fat-ass that you’re kissing in Washington doles-out enough oil this week to keep it all operational.
Me… I think I’ll skip the hair-dryer and let my clothes drip-dry by the woodstove.______________________________________________________________________
Wednesday, February 15th 2006
Tension and my world to date
posted @ 7:30 pm Edit This in [ a rage ]
I am poised precariously between a major revolutionary step toward sustainable alternative living on the land, and the mundane trappings of an American life; dragging my ass thru the frozen winter, dreaming of the escape of the hard work of simple living… I drink beer at night to lift the weight of worry and dwell in inspiration… seems like such a quagmire… I skip from one project to the next to ward off the wolves waiting in the wings… drooling as I grow bored… ravenous dogs who feed on my emptiness.
My Son’s smile, my Wife’s Love and bravery, my ability to make people laugh and relate.. these things, somehow, are all that seem to separate me from the great nothingness- identity-less nightmare that I am pathologically afraid of… especially here, at this cash register… at “work”… I often feel that if I were to stand still long enough, that all my energy to fight would turn to stone.
The clock moves slower and slower… the news from the radio, even from independent news radio drives me slowly mad… tapes of Bin Laden, warning of new attacks on America… my Son’s face in my mind… all I want is to retreat and work like I have never worked before to build a place to survive, without dependence on an insane culture, and from that foundation all else shall spring. Whatever future is possible shall be made possible for us.
But for now, all I can do is make fun of the great emptiness… fill it with creativity… live beyond the trappings of the “American Life” in my mind… all it takes is resources and hard work… I want it to go on after my departure form this world.
“Build it and they will come.”
Over and out.____________________________________________________________________________
Sunday, January 15th 2006
The Spark of Revolution
posted @ 5:30 pm Edit This in [ awe ]
And now I have a son. Man oh man. The whole symbolic belief system my culture injects me with really has gotten to me and I must get out of it.
Yesterday I hopped into an unregistered, uninsured, uninspected piece o shit junk car that I had got running and tried to drive it to the salvage yard under the radar to make a few hundred bucks… easy money.
I made it to the town line (my home town) when a cop went by the other way and flipped around, lights flashing. This does not happen to me.
Now, granted… two years ago the stakes were alot higher, seeing as the trunk would probably have been filled with pot…and I am thankful for years of good fortune… but my luck seemed to have run out in a hurry yesterday, and that bothers me. Even though I got off without any charges (I could have been arrested, etc the cop made clear to me), the junk guy didn’t give me a cent for that piece of crap car, I left it there and I went home pretty low.
What’s the deal here? What happened to that spirit of adventure that made courting danger FUN? Have I begun to buy into the big bullshit lie that you have to grow up and play by the rules… the ’stay at home and pay your fukin taxes and hope the system ALLOWS you to live your life as a good little soldier’ mentality???
Jezuz, I’d rather eat dirt. And how am I going to offer better possiblites than that to my son if I can’t offer them to myself? It’s ALL your belief system! All of it! What do you believe, who do you believe that you are? Who do you want to be? Fuck the rules… we need to take a good look at the folks who play by them… ask ourselves if they look fulfilled. I’ve got some big questions to ask myself today. Am I going to slowly fade into the world of parental apathy or am I going to rage against the boredom and emptiness of that world and continue to be an artist with guts?
What say I?_________________________________________________________________________
Saturday, July 15th 2006
Thought for the end of July
posted @ 11:53 am Edit This in [ a rage ]