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so check it out.
you wanted a story? grand and extravagant and all the things you have ever wanted a story to be?
oh, so sorry. you wanted a fairytale. i could tell you stories for days. from one end of the street to the other. it could be a full time job if you wanted. fairytales, on the other hand, i am sorry to say, are not exactly my specialty. lie to you? surely, you jest. or maybe, you just want to hear something that isn't so much like what you see everyday on the news. is that it?
sort of like why i enjoy going to the movies. there is a reason i don't necessarily care to see films that are what some consider to be artsy or dark or brooding. i can walk out the front door of this shitty apartment and stare the real world right in the face. i don't really feel like i need to pay nine bucks to go suffer through reality for a couple hours. i'll pass thanks.
"it reflects life as we live it today."
yeah, and people are fucking starving and being murdered in Africa, our own country, a superpower, can't alleviate its own homeless problem, and there is a war for oil, greed, and land being waged in the Middle East. I will pass on the movies tonight, thanks.
But, goddamn, if you put some kung-fu, Star Wars, aliens and predators up there, I am all for it. I can turn my head off, relax, forget about reality for a little bit and pretend that we aren't just killing ourselves and our fellow men and women for profit.
Must be why it is nice to be Kobe Bryant. He plays basketball. he's not a politician, not a religious leader or zealot, and he obviously doesn't worry about a thing. he is an abuser, a sexual deviant, and an arrogant fucking prick, and gets away with it. his only concern is whether or not the Lakers finish well at the end of regular season play. "Fuck the middle east, women, and charity, my three pointers are falling tonight!"
save my soul, for i know i can't save myself.
so fairytales?
not tonight.
what i can tell you about is a kid i knew growing up. he lived a few miles from us, in what i guess some people would have considered to be a lower end part of town. truth of the matter is, all of town was lower end, some just a bit lower than others. this kid, lets call him Tommy, never asked anyone for anything, never had a care in the world, other than to just fit it in with everyone else. And he did. He was friendly, attentive in classes, made good grades, and was a starter on the baseball team. Tommy was every man, every kid, what we all were and were content with being. his family lived in a two bedroom house, tommy and his sister shared a room and mom and the baby shared a room as well. tommy was the man of the house. from day one his dad wasn't around and tommy did what he could, even at a young age to help keep the family afloat. at 18, he had finished high school and moved out and into his own apartment down the street. tommy worked two jobs, college wasn't an option even though he was all state on the baseball team during high school.
really what middle class american family can actually afford to send their kids to college these days without guaranteeing a life of work and toil just to help pay that debt off. retirement? oh, not in this life, we sent little sally to state to get an education.
but i digress...
what little money he made from waiting tables, and working graveyards, he used to pay his rent and the rest went to his family so his sisters could grow up with more than he had. he still played ball on the weekends with the boys from the factory. misfit children, hapless adults, and the few that marched proudly forward protesting adulthood, tommy burned the torch at both ends and would burn the middle if he could get it to light.
tommy was 22 when it happened. four years of mediocrity to make ends meet. four years busting knuckles off brick walls and harder skulls. just when you think life can't possibly hand you anymore lemons, and making lemonaide isn't an option anymore.
tommy was walking home from the factory one night after a 16 hour shift. he was approached by some kids he knew from high school while he was still there. they were a year or two older but he knew them. knew what they were, where they lived, how they operated. the rich kids, if you will. the kids who had it made. it must have been summertime, since they were all home from their respective universities. they stopped tommy. asked him how he was. made small talk outside the bar they had just crawled, walked out of. asked what he was up to and then laughed when he said, "...just working and trying to live."
at what point does all rationality finally come to a halt and you just can not take anymore and you fucking snap? how far do we have to be pushed? how painful does it all become? when do you quit letting the world shit on you and just fight back? at what point do the haves and have-nots become mortal enemies and kill each other with bare hands leaving a million naked children to tear it down and rebuild and start the cycle over again? how many years can you kill yourself for the people you hate a million times over only to get up and do it all again at 8am the next day?
tommy punched the first to laugh in his mouth, knocking out his front teeth and breaking his jaw in one shot. the sweater tied around the kids neck turned from a light salmon color to a crimson red almost immediately. the others stood there shocked, and the second closest caught a right cross to a broken eye socket before he could react. the third and final turned and ran as fast as he could up the road, disappearing into a painfully clear and bright summer's night. tommy stood there over two moaning kids, 24 or 25 at the oldest. the pain in his right hand was apparent, pulsing, but not his main concern. the guilt in the back of his head slowly slid in.
"what...what the fuck have you become?" he asked himself.
he ran his hands, broken and otherwise through his hair. as the kids picked themselves up off the sidewalk, tommy turned to leave. he didn't notice the cops hand on his arm until it was too late. as he turned and let the right fist fire again through the still air, he barely noticed the badge, the blue uniform, the gun. knuckles met skull once again, only this time it would be the last. a loud crack. pain you could never imagine without experiencing it. a bright flash in tommy's eyes. he had hit the ground as fast as the cop he had punched, but something was wrong this time. he felt the warmth from his shoulder, the cold steel and excruciating pain as his arms were pulled and clamped behind him. he smelled gunpowder as it all made sense. the police travel in pairs. the switchblade tommy usually carried had fallen from his pocket as he had swung on officer number one, and officer number two fired an academy quality shot into tommy's left shoulder.
into the car, to the station. booked. no job, no more. violent offender. aggravated assault. attacked an officer. no good. punk. put in the holding cell. going to do time.
what about my sisters? my mother that i work to support? what about my family you fucking idiots? does anyone understand this can't be happening? how the fuck are they going to eat, pay rent, LIVE???
and why? is it necessary for some type of fucking balance in society? something that will never make sense? that a handful of us should prosper and the rest should suffer through life, content with scraping by? hoping to never be hung out to dry like tommy. and why do those of us who are trying, struggling, working for the ones we hate, the ones that hate us, trying to love and not be crushed by life, why do we let them walk on us? for what?
when does it become time to pull the wool back from the eyes of the downtrodden, to burn the estates and mansions and reduce them to rubble. to take that rubble and build new shacks, homes, houses for everyone. to steal the food from the grocery stores catering to the upper class and feed our homeless. when do we march on the house at the end of the block that sits empty for 49 weeks of the year and demand it house the humbled masses instead of the pampered few?
i am tommy. i am writing this with a rope around my neck, clawing at it with fingers worked to the bone and broken from battles long lost. you are tommy as you sit in that cubicle dreaming of better days, hoping for something that may never come that will set you free. we are all tommy, forgetting everything we were taught and balling up a fistful of hate and aiming it at the head of mediocrity. and like tommy, we will not be ignored or forgotten or laughed at or beaten or enslaved anymore.
the stranger stood under the streetlamp and pulled his last cigarette from his jacket pocket. the match he lit it with was the last in the book. as he looked at the ground, at the wetness beneath his boots, his mind was clear and steady. the match dove in the gasoline puddle and the stranger watched as the dawn of a new day raced toward its destination...
you wanted a story? grand and extravagant and all the things you have ever wanted a story to be?
oh, so sorry. you wanted a fairytale. i could tell you stories for days. from one end of the street to the other. it could be a full time job if you wanted. fairytales, on the other hand, i am sorry to say, are not exactly my specialty. lie to you? surely, you jest. or maybe, you just want to hear something that isn't so much like what you see everyday on the news. is that it?
sort of like why i enjoy going to the movies. there is a reason i don't necessarily care to see films that are what some consider to be artsy or dark or brooding. i can walk out the front door of this shitty apartment and stare the real world right in the face. i don't really feel like i need to pay nine bucks to go suffer through reality for a couple hours. i'll pass thanks.
"it reflects life as we live it today."
yeah, and people are fucking starving and being murdered in Africa, our own country, a superpower, can't alleviate its own homeless problem, and there is a war for oil, greed, and land being waged in the Middle East. I will pass on the movies tonight, thanks.
But, goddamn, if you put some kung-fu, Star Wars, aliens and predators up there, I am all for it. I can turn my head off, relax, forget about reality for a little bit and pretend that we aren't just killing ourselves and our fellow men and women for profit.
Must be why it is nice to be Kobe Bryant. He plays basketball. he's not a politician, not a religious leader or zealot, and he obviously doesn't worry about a thing. he is an abuser, a sexual deviant, and an arrogant fucking prick, and gets away with it. his only concern is whether or not the Lakers finish well at the end of regular season play. "Fuck the middle east, women, and charity, my three pointers are falling tonight!"
save my soul, for i know i can't save myself.
so fairytales?
not tonight.
what i can tell you about is a kid i knew growing up. he lived a few miles from us, in what i guess some people would have considered to be a lower end part of town. truth of the matter is, all of town was lower end, some just a bit lower than others. this kid, lets call him Tommy, never asked anyone for anything, never had a care in the world, other than to just fit it in with everyone else. And he did. He was friendly, attentive in classes, made good grades, and was a starter on the baseball team. Tommy was every man, every kid, what we all were and were content with being. his family lived in a two bedroom house, tommy and his sister shared a room and mom and the baby shared a room as well. tommy was the man of the house. from day one his dad wasn't around and tommy did what he could, even at a young age to help keep the family afloat. at 18, he had finished high school and moved out and into his own apartment down the street. tommy worked two jobs, college wasn't an option even though he was all state on the baseball team during high school.
really what middle class american family can actually afford to send their kids to college these days without guaranteeing a life of work and toil just to help pay that debt off. retirement? oh, not in this life, we sent little sally to state to get an education.
but i digress...
what little money he made from waiting tables, and working graveyards, he used to pay his rent and the rest went to his family so his sisters could grow up with more than he had. he still played ball on the weekends with the boys from the factory. misfit children, hapless adults, and the few that marched proudly forward protesting adulthood, tommy burned the torch at both ends and would burn the middle if he could get it to light.
tommy was 22 when it happened. four years of mediocrity to make ends meet. four years busting knuckles off brick walls and harder skulls. just when you think life can't possibly hand you anymore lemons, and making lemonaide isn't an option anymore.
tommy was walking home from the factory one night after a 16 hour shift. he was approached by some kids he knew from high school while he was still there. they were a year or two older but he knew them. knew what they were, where they lived, how they operated. the rich kids, if you will. the kids who had it made. it must have been summertime, since they were all home from their respective universities. they stopped tommy. asked him how he was. made small talk outside the bar they had just crawled, walked out of. asked what he was up to and then laughed when he said, "...just working and trying to live."
at what point does all rationality finally come to a halt and you just can not take anymore and you fucking snap? how far do we have to be pushed? how painful does it all become? when do you quit letting the world shit on you and just fight back? at what point do the haves and have-nots become mortal enemies and kill each other with bare hands leaving a million naked children to tear it down and rebuild and start the cycle over again? how many years can you kill yourself for the people you hate a million times over only to get up and do it all again at 8am the next day?
tommy punched the first to laugh in his mouth, knocking out his front teeth and breaking his jaw in one shot. the sweater tied around the kids neck turned from a light salmon color to a crimson red almost immediately. the others stood there shocked, and the second closest caught a right cross to a broken eye socket before he could react. the third and final turned and ran as fast as he could up the road, disappearing into a painfully clear and bright summer's night. tommy stood there over two moaning kids, 24 or 25 at the oldest. the pain in his right hand was apparent, pulsing, but not his main concern. the guilt in the back of his head slowly slid in.
"what...what the fuck have you become?" he asked himself.
he ran his hands, broken and otherwise through his hair. as the kids picked themselves up off the sidewalk, tommy turned to leave. he didn't notice the cops hand on his arm until it was too late. as he turned and let the right fist fire again through the still air, he barely noticed the badge, the blue uniform, the gun. knuckles met skull once again, only this time it would be the last. a loud crack. pain you could never imagine without experiencing it. a bright flash in tommy's eyes. he had hit the ground as fast as the cop he had punched, but something was wrong this time. he felt the warmth from his shoulder, the cold steel and excruciating pain as his arms were pulled and clamped behind him. he smelled gunpowder as it all made sense. the police travel in pairs. the switchblade tommy usually carried had fallen from his pocket as he had swung on officer number one, and officer number two fired an academy quality shot into tommy's left shoulder.
into the car, to the station. booked. no job, no more. violent offender. aggravated assault. attacked an officer. no good. punk. put in the holding cell. going to do time.
what about my sisters? my mother that i work to support? what about my family you fucking idiots? does anyone understand this can't be happening? how the fuck are they going to eat, pay rent, LIVE???
and why? is it necessary for some type of fucking balance in society? something that will never make sense? that a handful of us should prosper and the rest should suffer through life, content with scraping by? hoping to never be hung out to dry like tommy. and why do those of us who are trying, struggling, working for the ones we hate, the ones that hate us, trying to love and not be crushed by life, why do we let them walk on us? for what?
when does it become time to pull the wool back from the eyes of the downtrodden, to burn the estates and mansions and reduce them to rubble. to take that rubble and build new shacks, homes, houses for everyone. to steal the food from the grocery stores catering to the upper class and feed our homeless. when do we march on the house at the end of the block that sits empty for 49 weeks of the year and demand it house the humbled masses instead of the pampered few?
i am tommy. i am writing this with a rope around my neck, clawing at it with fingers worked to the bone and broken from battles long lost. you are tommy as you sit in that cubicle dreaming of better days, hoping for something that may never come that will set you free. we are all tommy, forgetting everything we were taught and balling up a fistful of hate and aiming it at the head of mediocrity. and like tommy, we will not be ignored or forgotten or laughed at or beaten or enslaved anymore.
the stranger stood under the streetlamp and pulled his last cigarette from his jacket pocket. the match he lit it with was the last in the book. as he looked at the ground, at the wetness beneath his boots, his mind was clear and steady. the match dove in the gasoline puddle and the stranger watched as the dawn of a new day raced toward its destination...