XIX

 What the fuck am i doing here? what exactly is this nonsense i've been prattling on about for fucking nineteen years? was it a lark? was it a (not so) interesting experiment into the dribbling and droolings of this lumpen-prole who over the last nineteen years has bobbed and weaved his way through the dirty and dark back alleys of the interwebs? what kind of lonely shut-in works at something for nineteen years for no other reason because they want to? or need to? for no pay? understanding that said shut-in has never understood the game, never liked rules or authority, can't seem to get through one fucking story in a proper lit mag without wanting to vomit, the MFAs all writing like fucking MFAs, which to this uncultured and unrefined now aging man is dull and boring, there are some things that my old mentor Buk instilled in me that have stuck even as his influence has faded but one of them is just that.... those trained in poesy and prose tend to taste like vanilla ice cream or Wonder Bread... meaning there is no taste, can't even call it substance or style as it seems to lack both... now one could argue that this is just the bitter ramblings of a failed writer which could be valid if this writer (or whatever i am) gave two shits about such things as failure but maybe it's my slight and undiagnosed ADHD that keeps me moving, which hampers my ability to go backwards with any sort of consistency in order to rework and reshape things into a palatable form for the public at large... then again fuck the public at large as i'm not much interested in them either... in fact the contrarian in me would most likely feel shame if i somehow managed to produce something widely accepted and approved of by the wider reading audience (whatever the hell that may be i have no idea as in order to have an audience like that these days i'd have to read blurbs on Tik Tok to get anyone's attention)... is it nothing more than a divine stubbornness and antisocial tendencies that have me constantly waving the flying V into the wind, at passersby, at the soccer moms and golfing dads of a strange and foreign suburban world that i currently inhabit... 

Nineteen years in and still pissing joyously into a stiff wind while watching the remnants of a once civilized world smolder around me... started in the year of our Dude Aught Seven the lounge hasn't received so much as a new coat of paint, like that favorite dive bar of mine it's been horribly consistent with layout and design while being horribly inconsistent with quality and quantity... but that's fucking life now innit? the ebb and flow of things and the working out of that dreaded "process", and in those nineteen years what happened? oddly enough i'm better shape and dare i say healthier than when this shit started, having navigated various substances (some better than others) and come out the other side squarely on the shoulders of plant medicine as they say, the drinking curbed, the pills and powders put away for good, an addiction to swimming and super-smoothies my new found favorite vices... and all of it documented for the world to see if they could ever find the clandestine entrance to this sad, old lounge... the I-mac was just over six months old when this project started, he'll be twenty in July, Disaster would come along two and a half years in, he just got his license yesterday, i'd say good bye to six of my best friends known as my cats (Sylvia, Pablo, Louie, Claudia, Sydney and Pedro) as well one hamster (Waffles), i'd ride shotgun with my father as he stared down the void, spend a month in my old hometown and drink a Guinness on my back porch on that spring afternoon when word came down that my father was gone... even though i knew that he was gone physically a large part of him lived on in that wayward and once wild son of his... i'd make friends and lose friends both figuratively and literally, losing two this year to suicide, reconnecting with old ones because of those losses... i'd piss and moan about a domestic plight that isn't exactly the most loving or caring but still find myself living in a cave and coming to terms with things, basically understanding that shit ain't gonna be perfect so i do the best i can by being kind and empathetic and self contained... maybe i'm just trying to be a more decent human being in the face of a society that increasingly places little value on being such a thing... and of course there is the ever present state of the nation... 

When i hit post for the first time all those years ago i thought, naively, that i was in the midst of the dumbest man ever to ascend to the throne, Dubya... fucking hell, how is it one could pine for the good old days of this blithering idiot? obviously the answer is find what may be the most horrible excuse for a human, a grown toddler in a full diaper and budding dementia to go along with being a raging narcissist and a pathological liar... and not only did he get "elected" (i use that term loosely on both occasions) once but the fine fucking racist, homophobic, misogynist shitbags of this shithole country rocketing towards the bottom of humanity felt it appropriate to elect this fucking monstrosity twice... as Bill Hicks said, we are a virus with shoes, particularly the species known as Americanus Horibblus Dumbfuckis... of which roughly 35% of this place is inhabited by (give or take) but which yell the loudest and have worked tirelessly to rig the game in the name of whiteness... these lowest common denominators can be seen wearing "swag" from said monstrosity and often smell of nicotine and Aqua Net with a predilection for gun stickers on their automobiles and are most frequently found inhabiting the parking lots of Wal-Marts and Sam's Clubs since that Costco place is too fucking woke... yes i live in a place that now openly scoffs at things like learning... reading, critical thinking, being able to debate without screaming, kindness, empathy, basic human decency and minding your own fucking business about who people love or like to fuck is now anathema to the AHD knuckeldragging set...  a group that hates trees, renewable energy, rainbows, common sense and most of all anyone who doesn't look like them (meaning white) while at the same time loving fossil fuels, christian nationalism, politicians who wear makeup and last but not least, their shiny metal phallus known as guns... (mainly to make up for their lack of masculinity due to MPS aka micropenis syndrome)... it's a fucking shit show if ever there was and now we have a dear leader and a cabal of jackasses giving us the Big Brother treatment, don't believe your eyes and ears but only what dear leader and his minions tell you... of course this all started with that shitbag Ronnie and this guy Milty and his "neoliberal economic theory" meaning the top 1%  reap the benefits of corporate guvment welfare while us commoners can suck a sweaty fat dick from the back all while being told how lucky we are to live in such a loving capitalist "democracy" where all one has to do is pull themselves up with those bootstraps to be "successful"... that is of course if one can afford the fucking boots... and be advised, don't mention that S world or you may need a hazmat suit from all the fucking magat type heads bursting... and don't try to explain that the highway system, public libraries, fucking sidewalks, Social Security, regulatory bodies (that used) to keep the air and water somewhat livable all fall under that word cuz then you're just some freeloading commie pig who needs to get the fuck out... yes all very rational from a crowd that is the Dunning Kruger personified so no use wasting time trying to logically argue with them, they ain't big on that logic shit... 

So happy 19th to the lounge... can't say we're in a better place than when we started this exercise but hell? how many "bloggers" are still doing this shit who started way back when? i remember when there were "blogging conferences" and shit like that and every would be genius was hoping to parlay this platform into some sort of monetary success and fame type shit (Diablo Cody anyone?) while some of us or maybe just this sad bastard, have done it for no other reason than i'm fucking lazy and it's convenient? fuck if i know, i just like typing stories and my warped philosophical ramblings... who knows, if the inteweb survives the lounge may be the gospel to some demented tribe of weirdos who survive the apocalypse ala Will Self's Book of Dave... most likely not but dad-gummit this here is Merica and we gotta have fucking ambition right? here's to another year, maybe if this fucking place doesn't do itself in or i get snatched up by the fuckwads at the local protest we'll make the big Two Zero... but honestly looking at the state of things that's a big fucking if... so for those who still stop in and read this shit, thank you... it's cool to know some people actually dig this shit and this shut-in for one appreciates it... now i gotta get to the pool so i can have my smoothie... au revoir til the next time... (the lounge was launched Jan. 16, 2007)