"This new world wants those that think and feel for other people to die and they're going to use the broken brains of the dehumanized, gutted of empathy, to carry out the mass homicide through negligence, suppression, forced illness and possible brute force."
Marc Maron
When the person I'm pretending to be dies, will the real me be born?
Seems kind of risky to wait and see.
So here I sit.
71 years old. The biggest decision I should have to make is how late to sleep today. Instead, I am working part time, condemned to do so until I die.......................................until a vicious, vengeful, unbalanced man was elected president.
Now I am condemned to working full time until I die. I'm already applying for full time jobs.
When social security is ripped away from us, Carol and I will not survive. We will lose our home.
Brief aside: What kind of heartless, immoral, psychopath takes social security away from people who are already receiving it. If you are opposed to it, lay out a plan to phase it out over time so the younguns can plan ahead. You have to be one cruel son of a bitch to take it away from people who rely on it.
Carol and I will survive. I will get a job. We'll eat spam and I'll drink cheap whiskey. But there are those in my own community who are too old and frail to work, who rely solely on social security. They will suffer. Poverty, health issues, homelessness, and death.
You Fucking Asshole.
To a great extent, it is my fault we are in this position. If I achieved, we'd be sitting pretty. But early in life when I realized I was living the exact life I vowed never to live, I threw up my hands and turned to whiskey and partying. Had a lot of fun. Figured I'd survive. But I did not count on a dictator ripping America to shreds.
You gotta watch out for life. It will fuck you hard and stomp you when you collapse in despair.
I never chased the life I wanted. I gave up instead. Huge mistake. Because from here on out my life is out of my hands. If I was alone I would just drink myself into the grave. But I owe Carol. Owe her big time. She deserves to be happy and unafraid. So I will do what I have to do.
But on my terms. A lot of whiskey will be consumed. With whatever limited free time I will have, I'm going after fun. I will not drag my ass home at night and fall asleep 18 minutes later.
I only get 4 hours of sleep right now. So fuck it. I can push myself hard and I already just don't care.
I admit to my portion of the blame for the way my life turned out. But the harsh truth is that 77 million gullible people voted a man into office who will destroy my life. These peoples' twisted opinions ruined my life. MY LIFE.
The only comfort I take from that, is that he will ruin their lives too.
And they will never see it coming.
My cats are serene. Happy. Loved. Loving. Insane.
I would love to trade places with them. See what it feels like. But with my life as it is and, even worse, what it is about to become, they could not handle it.
The level of stress and unhappiness would be so foreign to them, that they would die. Immediately.
I would rather die than have one of my cats die.
Been doing the rope-a-dope all my life.
Arms raised, covering up, absorbing the blows. The strategy being to wear out my opponent to the point where I can suddenly knock him on his ass when he least suspects it.
The jokes on me, 71 years down the road. I am the one who is tired, I am the one who is worn out.
Thinking about dropping my arms.
How much worse can it get?
Got me a cheesy bookmark.
The Friends of the Library whipped up a bunch of homemade bookmarks to be available in the library free to patrons. Nice touch. But they are cheesy.
I was curious. I thumbed through them and came across one that said Trust Your Soul. Felt that was appropriate because not trusting my soul has royally fucked up my life.
The catch is the bookmark has a fucking tassel on it. I hate tassels on bookmarks. And it looks like it was made by a prison inmate. Or a psychopath. I am not kidding.
The words are printed out and taped to a piece of cardboard.
Like this:
Trust
Your Soul
"Trust" is on one small chunk of paper, "Your Soul" is on another. Kind of like psychos do when they leave ransom notes, or when murderers want to freak you out before they kill you.
So I'm not really sure what I have here.
Inspiration? Ghoulish nightmare?
What the fuck.
It was free.
All the worst things we believe about one another can always be proved with a story we've heard from someone who heard it from someone else.
We have had nine cats and one dog over the years.
My relationship with our pets is always intense because I am deeply emotional, incredibly sensitive, empathic to a fault. And I need emotional connection. Open and honest. Crave it. Cannot live without it.
Carol digs our pets too, loves them intensely, but she is more reserved with outward displays of emotion. Something I had to adjust to but never got used to. Even after 47 years.
I have been very close to all of our pets but never as close as I am to Patsy. The love that goes back and forth between us is genuine. And intense.
She doesn't just sit in my lap, she crawls up my body until she is draped across my arm inches from my face. Then she stares into my eyes, directly, and for long periods of time. She talks to me constantly.
I am so grateful for this because she repairs my soul, which is torn and on life support. She melts me. She softens me up in my harshest moments and amplifies my love when I am in a good mood.
Lately I have been wondering who she is. Her love for me and attention to me are so intense, so focused, that I've been wondering if someone's soul is inside of her. Some dead relative or friend. But I can't place it, can't make sense of it.
Who have I known that could love me like this? No one. I cannot think of anyone who loved me enough to go out of their way to communicate that love to me from beyond the grave. Someone who cared for me enough to want to make my life softer through Patsy.
It's all Patsy. Has to be. And I am so grateful for her because every day, every fucking day, she is in my lap and on my heels and in my arms, meowing at me, staring lovingly into my eyes, melting my heart and resuscitating my soul.
She makes me so happy, makes me smile, makes me laugh with her cat insanity; gives me life when all I feel is death.
Patsy is a miracle and a gift and a surprise, a life-giver, and a bottomless well of pure, untainted love.
She keeps my heart beating.
"There are no sides. There's no Sunni's and Shiites. There's no Democrats and Republicans. There's only HAVES and HAVE-NOTS."
"There's always a confused soul that thinks that one man can make a difference, and you have to kill him to convince him otherwise. That's the hassle with democracy."
From the movie Shooter; Ned Beatty as Senator Charles F. Meachum
"What I see now, Eilish, is a black hole opening before us, we have passed the boundary of escape and even when the regime has been overturned the black hole will continue to grow so that it will consume this country for decades."
From Prophet Song, by Paul Lynch
The story is about exactly what is happening to this country right now, only set in Ireland, and it follows events to their logical conclusion.
Meaning people getting arrested for criticizing the government, people getting killed and "disappeared", grocery stores running out of food, the internet disabled, the military roaming through the streets, no news on TV except government authorized news which is all lies.
It is chilling.
It is coming.
Maybe not all of it, but enough to make us suffer financially, physically, and psychologically.
Good times.
As I was driving home Sunday morning after spending a night with Keith, I was overwhelmed with a sense of wonder.
He and I ate at a funky burger joint the night before. A cool place that is frequented by the local college crowd. The place was crowded with youth. Which means it was filled with laughter, conversation, energy, and unbridled positivity. Because life has not yet robbed them of hope and optimism. Beautiful.
It was fucking great. And the burgers were damn good.
Then we went to a UNH/Boston College hockey game and watched a game that was so good it should have been illegal. BC is #1 in the country, UNH is pretty shaky. BC should have won 58 to 0. Instead, UNH took them to OT, and then a shoot out, when they finally lost. Heart-braking.
Again, the arena was rocking. Lots of youth and lots of alumni exuding equal intensity of enthusiasm. The atmosphere was fantastic.
I spent the night in a hotel and headed home in the morning.
Travelling from Belmont to Portsmouth and vice versa, GPS's first choice is a route that follows back roads. And I mean some seriously back roads. There is even a half mile stretch of dirt road along the way.
I navigated that route once before and was afraid that GPS was shitfaced. I could not believe it. I was so worried that it was all wrong that I didn't enjoy the ride as much as I should have. But it did make an impression on me. It was gorgeous and left an imprint in my brain.
Ironically on the way to meet Keith I avoided it and took a typically boring route. But on the way home I was a bit looser and went with the flow.
Spending the night with Keith greased the skids. Spending time with my sons is the best thing that can happen to me. It opens me up and makes me come alive. We had a great night and I was happy. So when I drove home my senses were wide open and receptive.
New England, man - it is beautiful. Even on a 14 degree morning when the ground is covered in snow. I was thinking about these hardy people hunkered down at home on a freezing Sunday morning living their lives free of work and obligations for a day, reading the Sunday paper, having a special breakfast, being themselves unfettered and feeling alive.
New Englanders are indeed a special breed.
Stereotypical New England homes. So much character. My head was on the swivel, which was OK because it was Sunday morning early, there was no traffic at all, and the speed limits were conservative.
Abandoned pickup trucks in the yard. Falling down fences, peeling paint, porches on the slant, steps in need of repair. Beautifully maintained houses, freshly painted and in good condition, expensive trucks, farmer's porches inviting me to visit, smoke billowing out of chimneys. I drove through it all in sheer amazement.
Wonder welled up inside of me uncontrollably, making me feel so good that three years were added on to my life. No question.
I came to a four-way intersection and sat at the stop sign alone, just sat there for minutes because the view was so damn gorgeous. Surrounded by funky houses, yards, smoking chimneys, sun bouncing off windowpanes, snowdrifts sparkling.
Eventually a car came from my left and another from my right and stopped at the stop signs. Still, I sat. Until I realized they were waiting for me since I was there first. I looked at one driver, then the other, and they were both staring at me. So I turned left and kept on appreciating.
I am trying very hard to hold on to the nourishing good vibe that originated on Saturday night and Sunday morning. Doing pretty good too.
There is hope for me yet, surprisingly.
"Love is a lie. It is a trick played by the cruel on the foolish and the weak, poisoning your mind. Cast it from your mind. Never let it render you frail of mind or will because in my kingdom there is but one law - do not love!"
Freya the Ice Queen, from the movie The Huntsman: Winter's War
Paul McCartney closed the SNL special that focused on 50 years of musical guests.
Makes sense. He's a Beatle, for Christ sake - one of four from whom all good music is derived.
The special is excellent, by the way. Find it.
But Paul overreached, he chose to perform a portion of the Abby Road medley - specifically Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight, and The End.
I know he wanted to close out on a rockin' note, and I don't blame him, but he couldn't pull it off. He couldn't do the power, he couldn't handle the range. The man is 82 years old. His voice was strained, it cracked here and there - it was not powerful.
There are a million Beatles' songs and his own songs he could choose from, songs he can probably sing beautifully - many he can even probably, maybe, still rock out on, but he chose these three.
It was painful to me.
I hate that all these people who I worshiped as a kid, still do, are clawing their way to the grave. I fucking hate it. Because in large part it means I have plenty of dirt under my fingernails too.
You gotta be selective about what you choose to perform as an octogenarian. Especially if you are Paul McCartney, the man with such a beautiful voice over a lifetime.
Paul Simon opened the special. He is 83 years old. He sang Homeward Bound, such a beautiful, atmospheric song. But he sang it with Sabrina Carpenter - they split the load, which was smart. And even when Paul sang solo, he was restrained - he did not overdo it. Even then it was a little painful to listen to, but it was not horrible.
I see a lot of these people perform, and why not? They are icons, they have earned the right, they deserve the respect. But most of them make adjustments - they don't go for the high notes, they don't go for maximum volume. As professionals, they know how to recognize their limits and stay within them.
And still create beauty, still bring tears to your soul.
Broke my heart a bit to listen to Paul McCartney straining. It wasn't pretty. I know I sound like a hypocrite - I have shit on him a lot in here. But I also know that I will wake up one of these days to the headline "Paul McCartney is dead at the age of --. Maybe, hopefully, ---.
And on that day I will be crushed.
I was reading some tasty fiction recently and one of the characters was described in this way:
"She was a dissembler."
Holy shit, I thought - that's me. That's a perfect description of me. And I like it because it's a bit of an obscure word - you never use it, do you? Actually, neither do I.
Google AI (which we cannot live without from now on - how did we ever get by without it) defines a dissembler as " a person who hides their true feelings or intentions, or who pretends to have different ones. Synonyms include: hypocrite, pretender, charlatan, deceiver, impostor, fake, and phony."
Wait, what? That's a bit harsh, don't you think?
I dissemble to survive. I tell you what you want to hear because it takes too goddamn much effort to set you straight. Where's the harm? You walk away happy, and I walk away with some energy left in the tank.
If you are family, you get pretty damn close to the truth. I don't bullshit family. Unless you want the truth about what's really going on in my head - you're never going to get that. Shit, man - if I told you the absolute truth about how I feel about myself and my life, you'd put me on suicide watch.
Wait a minute - that's what I've been doing in here for 14 years now.
Shit, now that I think about it, I feel naked. Although there are only a handful of people who read the effluvia that pollutes this blog.
I think it's safe to continue dissembling. Only a few will know the truth.
You look quite distinguished wearing that cravat.
On the back of every dust jacket on every hardcover book are the tributes.
"Best story I ever read." "Best writer of this genre." "Best writer of diverse genres." "Best writer in the world."
Tributes from fellow writers, from magazines, from professional book review websites.
I have read a million of them. I have ignored a million of them. I recently read the best one ever.
Vince Flynn on John Connolly: "The intensity of a madman and the subtlety of a poet."
It is how I see myself.
No one else sees it because my soul is encased in lead - nothing gets in, nothing gets out.
Still, there is hope.
I have made my impression on my family and friends.
It's cast in concrete; indelible.
For better or worse, they have their opinions, their criticisms, their appreciations - based on decades of me doing what I do. My opinion of what their impressions are might not sync with their reality, but I am not happy with what I believe those opinions to be.
Jackson is ten months old. I can make him laugh. I can hold him and hug him and love him. This is the easy stuff - he's not discriminating yet.
I do believe we have made an emotional connection. I love intensely; it springs from my heart and soul with a ferocity that cannot be misinterpreted. I am sensitive and empathetic with a dizzying earnestness.
That's just who I am - the King of Emotion. And I think Jackson has picked up on that. When I hold him and talk to him and make funny faces for him, I feel like he just knows he's being loved, that he is safe, no worries, no fear, no doubt.
I could be mistaken. I could be full of shit. I could be perceiving what I want to perceive. I could be wrong.
But I'm not.
Reality is looming just over the horizon, though. Won't be long before he gets to really know me, and he will form opinions.
I don't want him to know the me I am now.
I am fighting really hard to change my life right now; it is all I can think about. I don't like parts of it; I'm finding it harder and harder to live with myself as is.
I have very little time left. If I died right now I would be pissed at the impressions I left behind. I would be roasting in hell thinking how badly I wasted my one shot at life.
And The Devil would be laughing.
Jackson is a fresh, new, and precious life. He is my grandson. I will be around for only a small part of his life.
I want that part to shine, to blow him away, to make him think and talk about me with respect and love and amazement when I'm gone.
I want him to remember me as a force of nature.
Watched a movie last night - Things We Lost in the Fire - Benicio del Toro, Halle Berry, David Duchovny.
Watch it. It is intense, it is human - it makes you feel, it makes you think.
Duchovny's character has a pet phrase - "accept the good." When Halle Berry is talking to Benicio (a heroin addict), he's talking about the hard things in his life and she says "accept the good", because he does have good things in his life.
Perfect. Accept the good. It makes so much more sense than today's typical bullshit, like "live your best life." Nobody, no normal person, is living their best life. The fact that we are human and we are the bottom 99%, makes it impossible.
And gratefulness seems like a wimpy cop out; your life is a struggle, a marathon run on razor blade road in bare feet - but you're supposed to be grateful for what you have, even though it falls far short of what you expected, what you deserve.
"Accept the good" is perfect because it is not over the top. Life may be a cesspool of unfulfilled expectations, but good things do come around, however small they may be.
Don't push them away. Accept them. Roll them around in your mind, caress them with your emotions, anesthetize your hurt with them. So ten minutes later, when the next bucket of shit gets dumped on your head, you will have had relief. Maybe made a memory you can use like a temporary painkiller, if it's strong enough.
Don't overdo it. No grand statements, like "living your best life." No wimpy gratefulness, as weak as overcooked pasta.
Accept the good and move on.
That's about as good as it gets.
So few, extraordinarily marginal victories; so many crushing defeats.
Like trying to exist on a diet of pulverized rock and broken glass.
"Am I young enough to believe in revolution?"
Not just revolution. Change. Forward movement. Acquisition of knowledge and wisdom.
"Am I strong enough to get down on my knees and pray?"
To ask for help. To admit to weakness and confusion.
"Am I high enough on the chain of evolution to respect myself, and my brother and my sister?"
Respect myself - so fucking important. And others; indispensable.
"And perfect myself in my own peculiar way."
To work at being the best person you can be, staying true to your own unique soul.
The quoted lyrics are from Pilgrim's Progress, by Kris Kristofferson.
The agonizing and unrequited striving to make those words reality, is my own.
to everyone in my life who is right around my age.
I come up short.
A high percentage, a very high percentage, of people my age are fully retired.
I am not.
I know a fair amount of people five or six years younger than me who are retired.
All of these people are living life effortlessly and smiling a lot.
These people, every single one of them, are obviously smarter than I am. Much smarter.
This disturbs me. I used to think I was smart. Until I got past 65.
And the older I get, the stupider I get. Unless I maneuver a way to retire.
Or die.
Everything I think, do, and say is completely justified.
Everything.
Every fucking thing.
I should be living in New Orleans.
I am not.
I should be living in Austin, Texas.
I am not.
What the ever-loving fuck happened? Who dropped the ball?
"Objection, Your Honor - question asked and answered."
"Objection sustained."
Took the decorations down today.
Always a melancholy event.
There is something inexplicable about the lights. Soothing. Inspiration for reflection. Gazing, thinking, evaluating, appreciating. Or just vegging out, shutting thoughts down.
I wasn't into Christmas as much as I thought I would be.
The Jackson effect is powerful; the mere fact that he is around instigated many smiles as I lounged in the recliner. Christmas Eve and Christmas day were excellent, exactly what my soul needed. But generally, my mind managed to sabotage the good feelings when I was alone with my thoughts.
The bloom is off the rose.
Been here 14 months and change. Reality sunk its claws into me recently and my tortured mind is casting about for solutions.
Gotta deal with a vicious landlord who wants to destroy our lives. So there's that. And I gotta dig up bagfuls of money if I ever hope to experience peace of mind. I really would like to retire, you know.
So........................I'm thinking and plotting and planning, and the responsibility of it all, the reality of it all, is stripping the flesh from my bones.
There's time. Got a chunk of change in the bank, so a horrific ending is not imminent. But it will be if I don't stumble upon answers.
But, what the fuck, you don't want to hear about this and I don't want to talk about it.
Went to Christmas Eve service in Craig's church with Jackson, Amanda, Craig, and Carol. I enjoyed it. There's something about being in a church that soothes me deeply, even as a lifelong sinner. Got me some peace that night.
New Year's Eve in Nashville (NO - I wasn't there, but I sure as hell wish I was), Jelly Roll singing Need A Favor.
"I only talk to God when I need a favor, and I only pray when I ain't got a prayer, so, who the hell am I, who the hell am I, to expect a Savior, oh, if I only talk to God when I need a favor?"
I don't pray, but there is a space in my soul that longs to be saved, for my problems to be solved - I don't want to fight anymore, I want my life to caress me lovingly instead of prompting me relentlessly to come up with solutions.
I want smooth. I want tranquility. I want no worries.
But I got no right to ask for that.
So I'll keep my fists up and hope I can take off the gloves someday before I hit the canvas. I am tired, been that way for a long time, but the past 14 months gave me a taste of joy.
It was delicious.
I want more.
It's January 2, 2025.
Oh my god, is this the promise of the new year?
Holy shit, is this all there is? Where's the magic?
Kidding. Get on with it. This is reality, baby
Bend to the yoke, do your job, and fucking deal with the consequences.
Have a good day.
"This year I will be more thoughtful of my fellow man, exert more effort in each of my endeavors, professionally as well as personally. Take love wherever I find it, and offer it to everyone who will take it. In this coming year I will seek knowledge from those wiser than me and try to teach those who wish to learn from me. I love being alive and I will be the best man I possibly can."
From Duane Allman's journal on January 1, 1969
I need to break this down a little bit this year.
The most important words are about exerting more effort. I need to try, to really fucking try, in everything I do. Professionally and personally. In other words, every minute of every day I need to be aware of what I'm doing, and I need to assess whether it's the right thing to do. If not then I need to make adjustments. Sounds tiring but at this stage in my life it is fucking critical.
This will lead to me being the best man I possibly can. I have tried and failed before, I have failed to try before.
I want to be the best man I possibly can. I yearn for that evolution. I need the peace of mind that will result from getting there.
"I love being alive". I never think that way. Never have. I'm too busy being unhappy. And by doing that, I'm pissing my life away, decade after decade.
I need to start loving being alive because it won't be long before that's taken away from me.
It's here and I'm still circling the drain.
Motivation:
"Am I young enough to believe in revolution
Am I strong enough to get down on my knees and pray
Am I high enough on the chain of evolution
To respect myself, and my brother and my sister
And perfect myself in my own peculiar way"
From Pilgrim's Progress, by Kris Kristofferson
I need words to inspire me. I need the strength to follow through with those words. This lyric says a lot, and it resonates with the kind of man I want to be.
When I turmed 70 it was somewhat frightening, but it's also a milestone. I did not freak out too much.
71 is heavier because it implies momentum. Moving towards 80, and to me 80 is the line of demarcation. I am aware of so many people admitting that when they hit 80 they really started to fall apart. It's embezzled in my brain and I fear it.
I recently read Al Pacino's autobiography. In it, as he was discussing age, he said in his seventies he had to make some adjustments but nothing he couldn't live with. But when he hit 80, things got a lot tougher.
He is a successful and fulfilled man. I am still trying to make sense of my life. 80 is going to be cataclysmic for me. I fear it.
You are laughing, I don't blame you. You're thinking "Here we go again. He's gonna tell us about everything he needs to do to get fulfilled. To justify his life. Then he won't do any of it."
You may be right. But today I'm feeling motivated, afraid, unsure, and fucking angry. I need the anger to put me over the top. I'm hoping that's the secret sauce because I am really fucking angry.
What a fool I've been. Compromising my life, being who I am not, hiding who I really am, bending over for other people, not getting out of life what my soul needs to flourish. Just fucking being weak time after time after time until I became invisible.
I was born to be a supernova, not some fucking shadow.
Once again, I'm gonna give it a shot.
Addtional motivators:
1) "Perhaps even in darkness the soul can be healed before the last warm pulse of life fades"
From Cemetery Road, by Greg Iles
AND
2) "He tortured no one so much as he tortured himself" - random quote I picked up somewhere. My point is that it's tough enough doing battle with life without doing battle with yourself on top of it.
Fuck my past failures.
Well, Jimmy Carter made the cut.
Something you don't know: Jimmy Carter had a relationship with The Allman Brothers Band. They played a number of concerts to raise money for Carter's campaign, which was struggling financially. He liked their music and he considered them friends. Carter's daughter Amy gave Gregg Allman a tour of the White House.
In Jimmy Carter's own words: "I'm proud of my relationship with The Allman Brothers Band. They are good people, they are my friends, and anybody who wants a President who doesn't like music like this, and who doesn't like people who make music like this, should simply vote for another man."
That is one cool President.
