The fucker just flew on by. Time is no longer swaying. It gave up singing years ago, now time erupts in an endless thrust. I smoked a bowl. A Damien Jurado song lamented its tale in the chorus: “Tomorrow we will drive/To North California state line/If you call off the guns/I’ll call off the dogs.” I played it three times. A song by Converge screamed out: “In new day dreams a promise gives way to a star struck death and a gold disease.” An old marine told me a joke. I didn’t laugh, he said I looked like a drunk. I  said he looked like the one to pump up the racism. I read a manuscript, thoughts of life’s death and new waves on a train. I rode a train once, through Russia. It smelled of cabbage. Gazpacho soup is Russian for we don’t have enough ingredients to invent something. I realized I have never heard Die Antwoord and as each day passes there is another thing I am to experience and feel in order to stay connected and I’m loosing any concern on what falls through. A man said I was a stand up guy despite never drinking coffee. I smoked a joint. I felt the world spin and it felt nice. There’s no flinching off this rock, I said to my joint. I touched myself in a way not sexual nor of self-examination; it was an action and it happened. At work I smile for the police; it’s my dance that I do. I thought about a girl I tried to get to touch me at a Converge show when I was young. I showed her my tender side, the macho brute force of young punk hidden. “Oh, you like that band too, so do I. I don’t care if they are sensitive. We kissed and my hands were clamped to her side.” I decided to not eat but instead drink B-12 supplements and a few other vitamin cocktails. When I sat down my heart spoke in gibberish and I decided to write all this down. I kept thinking the drunk man riding around the street powered by his rascal scooter must know the obese man who sleeps in his rascal waiting for the Pizza Emporium to open. A wall filled with fliers for DJ parties and sexual yoga. I thought about the time I flew from Michigan to Ohio in first class. I blacked out on the flight as my alcohol was free of charge. I stumbled as a conscious being in an airport massage pallor. Security told me I was demanding a massage “on the cheap.” I said that sounded about right. I missed my connecting flight that night as I slept. On another flight I sat next to LL Cool J, his lips an outline of his biceps. I never said a word. I just finger tapped the beat to Big Ole Butt. Not the conversation starter I hoped for. I applied for three jobs that I can never get, nor should ever have. Business consultant, tax preparer, and a lab technician. For one job I sent them a picture resume of myself holding a resume. My cover letter said suspense brings in the money.  I watched a movie I had already seen and didn’t like. 

The wonderful (begin with flattery when possible) Roxane Gay wrote a great, and boldly honest, piece at HTMLGIANT about what she’s learned running a micropress. I’ve never been a fan of that defining term micropress though it does sprinkles the same idea of an “indie record label” vs a “record label”: this shit is getting done by a few, if not one. 

She details the harshness, the tight budgets, and the hardships of selling bound words to a small but focused audience. But she wrote this Goddamn beauty (flattery) I adore and say as a publisher myself that it’s all too true — and as a publisher you hug to this fact as if it pumps your blood with more strength than your own heart.

“There are people out there who will support your press unconditionally. It’s amazing. That kind of support makes me extra committed to publishing books that are beautifully written, look good, are well edited.”

Belief that gives trust is an engulfing inspiration. It’s a note to go further, to push your own bounds. Whether you write, publish, paint (whatever the creation is) embrace the unwavering ones and reward their assurance by never slowing down. 

The xTx and Frank Hinton chapbooks have been unveiled in a pre-order form. I’ll be packing and shipping them on the 31st. I know my future and am content with this.

There is a bundle pack, it can bring joy to your heart. I breathe truth in those words despite claims of research and data that purchasing consumption does not lead to an ultimate joy. I am the naysayer. 

Today a seemingly homeless man —determined by his sagging demeanor and lack of clothes, strolled by my office. He sang like a ghost with an adoration for a Cobra 40oz, but his voice kept to Michael Jackson’s hits. I felt the air grow warmer on his melody transition from Billie Jean to Rock with You. 

I have a monthly column.

It’s called From Pastor to Bastard.

You can read it over at Atlanta is Burning.

Last week I read as part of a reading dubbed The Holiday Hangover. Before the bands readers were to converge on the end of the holiday season with might and fury and look back at holiday season with a vengeful eye. The piece I read was one for the assholes and embracers of laughing at darkness. 

I felt I needed to soften the crowd for my big bummer, so I confessed that my holidays are doomed as the sins I have done in the gauge of the seasons have left me cursed.

These are my four trespasses 

1. Vengeance Against a Plush But Mechanical Holiday Idol is Still Vengeance.  

There was a singing reindeer, my mothers mantle piece for the front door. As you came close enough to see the felt eyes it began to howl in harmonic squeals of holiday songs.

I gutted it. I chopped its head off, ran it over with a skateboard, and lit it on fire.

I told my mother local kids stole it when she gasped at its absence. For three years she would buy another—QVC bomb dropped shipping—and each year I blamed the neighborhood kids when it disappeared.

One year I clutched to fabricated details that one of my fiends stole it. I was told I could never see him again, which was fine. I stole video games each time I left his house. He was catching on.  

2. My Oath: If a Church Won’t Nail it Down I Will Steal it.

There’s more to be done with a van than spreading legs apart in the open spaces of the back. I stole a pew from a church, sold it to a second hand store (never once wanting to know why they needed a pew), and spent the money on punk rock entities and trinkets not worth a thought when I turned eighteen.  

3. Sexual Baptism

I got an erection during baptism. A nice one. I gave it a quick tap when I was shoved under water. I emerged, soaking wet with clenching clothes and my hands folded below my waist — from a distance I was in a reverent pose to a holy act. None of this had to do with the priest but more with being a kid full of bungling hard-on. In all theological circles and discussions arousal during the symbolic deed of being reborn has a canceling effect.  

4. Beloved Violence  

My first memory of my mother is of her punching a donkey, knocking it out. It was just there, spinning eyes and flattened ears, unconscious and dripping spit on a mountains trail. Not sure if this ties into Christmas but it’s my fondest memory of my mother, and I’m sure placing this as a cherished moment makes baby Jesus, the drumming child, and at least one smelly, camel ridden sore wise men ask when my suffering will begin.

I can now say that Safety Third Enterprises has put out an award winning chapbook. So much love is lasered to both Frank Hinton and xTx.