The Unlikeable Writer

First I should apologize. My uncle is a writer, and for that I'm sorry. I'm sorry if you've encountered him and he's put you down.

Writers are usually invisible. If we're lucky to have supportive parents, then great. Mine weren't supportive. My interest in storywriting was to them hopefully a phase. I mean every kid has an imagination and creates. That's what lego is for; that's what Barbie dolls are for. But I mean to actually do this as a career? Naturally there is more to the story, and one of these days I will write that story. I have part of it written down, but it's not the whole story. Basically, my parents hoped I would choose something more lucrative and more professional. Yes, there are professional writers, and yes, writing is a profession, but they were hoping for something more traditionally professional, like a doctor, a lawyer, or a teacher. Something with more weight to it. Or maybe even a business person.

So yes, I was very happy when I found out my uncle was a writer. I wanted to be one. Not so much because he was one, but because I wrote stories. Then after elementary school, I stopped because of my lack of support from parents and peers too. (Of course, I had never stopped creating, so in a sense that writing drive never died). Then after high school, that writing bug was still there and I wanted to write and I did. I kept my work hidden. I chose to go into teaching, but still, I took a writing course on the side. It was an option. Now I'm not a teacher and I'm a writer. The friends I had during high school aren't my friends. Some of my family aren't my family. Of course, I have new friends, and now I have supportive writing friends. This is more than ten years after high school. Forget about the friends I had in elementary. I had at the most two.

What's my point in telling you all this? Writers come from humble circumstances. At least most do. A lot of people don't get us, or understand us. We read people nobody's ever heard of. Bukowksi, Kerouac? Who? Yes, they're famous, but you'd be surprised how many people don't know who those people are. My parents don't, my family doesn't. Most of my "friends" don't. If someone I met from high school comes along and I say something along the lines of "My writing is sort of like Kerouac's." There reply is "Cool. Who's Kerouac?" And it's only cool because now that we're out of high school, they're not cool anymore, so they want to get into my good graces, but that's for another blog entry one day.

My slave labour job, nobody knows who Kerouac is. The people I serve don't know who Kerouac is. Are they stupid? No. They're not in the same world I am, and my world is really really small compared to their world. That's what writers have to live with. Most of us have nobody who shares our passion or understands why we would wake up at 2am just to read a poem. I mean why would you read a poem? You did that in high school. It's like gym class. You do it once, just to get your high school credits, after that fuck that shit.

My uncle grew up poor, but he wrote, and after he became successful, he forgot where he came from. He forgot the struggles, in fact, ignores them. He becomes unnerved when a restaurant doesn't have a real tablecloth on it. Becomes unnerved if the pizza isn't like the pizza he got in Italy. I mean, my goodness, just be thankful you're getting pizza, or getting food. Be grateful you have food on your plate because there were days when you didn't have food on your plate. As writers, we're thankful, we're grateful. We're grateful when people read our work. He's expectant. You have to read his work because it's the best. If he's the best, then I'm the best. I mean really, screw that crap, because the best are those whom we follow or model. People like Hemingway, or Tolstoy. To me, those are the best, and those we can never hope to emulate.

With so many talented people, writers are grateful when someone comes up to them, holds the book in their hand and asks a writer to sign it. I know I am. I mean you chose to pass that new Stephen King book. I mean wow. I mean why? Stephen King is awesome! You wanted to try something new? And you liked what you read? Well, I thank you, dear reader, I really thank you! Because I'm a poor boy and nobody loves me, but you made my day, like that kid who's on the street selling lemonade that nobody really wants to buy and if someone does buy it, they either know the kid, or just trying to make the kid feel better. Writers are like that kid with the lemonade.

So if you're going to be a writer, remember where you came from. Remember all the hard work you've done. Remember all the people who've helped you obtain your success; and help people obtain success. Don't just turn up your nose at everyone and hang out with losers who do the same. Just because you're rich doesn't mean you're cool, just makes you a stuck-up bitch.

Words

They're coming to get me, they're coming to get me. They wear blue, they were black, and have golden badges on their chests and lapels like massive body strength wanting to consume me. But they won't get me, they won't get me, because I write this, because I write. They can't stop the writer from writing. They may have muscles, but I have a brain and that outdoes any muscles or politics that they may have. I'm a rat in a maze, I'm a rat within walls eating cheese, chewing my way out and I'm inside them chewing their skin and drinking their blood in a wine glass because I feast on their authority because I don't respect it. Useless cops with nothing to do and I don't mind because I don't see them and they don't see me and yet I had to call them when I was in trouble. I did my job, they did theirs and we parted ways and it's too bad, it's too sad we couldn't be friends anymore, but they stabbed me in the back, fucked me up in the ass and it hurt pretty darned good, so there is nothing I can do except hold you, hold my writing, hold what keeps me alive, because without it, I would have no support, no rock, except for Jesus, but it's hard to hold on when you're falling down a well, and you need something to help you scrape along the sides. Something to help you open your eyes so you can see Jesus, and once you get that first step, then, and it's only then that Jesus becomes alive in your eyes. He's there, just standing there, not moving because he wants you to come to him. He's too lazy to come down and save you, you have to save yourself and only then do you get the goods that heaven has to offer, and you think it's all bs, but once you get out of it and see all this shit, you're thinking it's pretty good and then once you're in, you're in for life, and it's a good gig, the people are good, and you don't mind their company. Sure there a few bad apples, but you ignore those because their ticket is almost up anyway, and you don't worry about them because you're hanging with the Big J eating and drinking his good wine without the hangover the next day, and that's heaven when you can get drunk and not have a hangover the next day.

So they can't get me, they can't get me, I'm too smart for these rich pricks, obsequious dicks with guns on their sides and badges close to their heart. They respect the badge, but they respect the green as well. It's money that talks, money that makes decisions, money that tells you who's right and wrong. Money writes the rules, the government doesn't, only think they do. They only do because they're rich and he who has all the gold makes the rules and that's all bs, so all you can do is smoke a joint and write whatever you do and keep moving in the world because when you stop, that's when you die, that's when you've given up. And as long as you're moving, then that's something, because most of these political bastards have stopped moving and smoke up their money, and once it's gone, they have nothing because young up-and-comers are coming up with more money taking them over. There's always a bigger fish. And meanwhile you're just floating on the street, high as a kite, still surviving, still living and that should be worth something. It's something when you can write.

Dead

Oddly the last time I posted was in October 1st and since October 8th life for me has been hell. The police or security or whatever you want to call them, rent-a-cops, I really don't care, but they're idiots anyway. They finally screwed me over for the last time, but that's not what bothers me. What bothers me is they're still alive? And what bothers me is that all their body parts are still together. I'd like to cram a screwdriver or a drill in their ear or something and make them bleed the way they made me bleed by stabbing me in the back, and I still bleed from their betrayal. Why should I have to leave my job? My job is going well. It's just seeing them around, seeing them everyday doing their stupid patrols which is not really anything but trying to look pretty. They got swanky new uniforms now, but that still doesn't hide what they really are. Just a bunch of politicians really, that enjoy kickbacks from the rich and enjoy harassing the lowly.

I talked to Jack Kerouac the other day. He's my mentor. I asked why I should bother going to work, why I should bother getting up. I mean who really cares anymore. Why wouldn't I just put a bullet in my head? I mean what's the point of life anymore, when you just don't feel like going to the mall maybe? I could say going to work, but I do like work, it's just they're around and that's what makes work suck for me, otherwise I'd like work. So I asked Jack K., I ask him why I should bother getting up. Why? And he says to me "The writing man, the writing," so that's why I'm up today. That's why I'm writing in here again. This is what makes me live. I mean yeah, my friends and MJ, they all help me, but they can't be here for me everyday, 24/7. I mean they got their own lives, and MJ's not in the same city. I mean I wish she was, but she isn't so not like I can cry on her shoulder or maybe I still can but it still hurts because what can she do. There's only so much she can do to make me feel better and she's tried, but then it all boils down to me. I mean I have a great life other than work.

Why should I quit work? I mean yeah, I thought about it. Sure, MJ just suggested it like 10 minutes ago, but I thought about it before. I thought maybe I should go find another job, work in the post office like Bukowski did, even though he's tried to warn me about working there. I mean it sounds like a good gig. Someone else said I should work there too. Seems like a good gig.

Something to think about I guess. I feel better writing all this. One reason I can get up in the morning, to write. That's my only reason or main reason for living I guess. It's like the blood that flows through my veins. Without it, I'd be dead and I think that's true.

Those cops though, they screwed me over bad. They're not the friendly people you learn about when you're in Elementary School. No these guys are different. In it for themselves. They don't know what justice is. They're too scared, too small. Yes, I know the law's the law and I have every right to press charges, but they won't let me press charges.

Not all the security are bad. No, not all of them. Just the head guy, like the head vampire in The Lost Boys. Keifer Sutherland wasn't that bad. It was the head vampire that was. Him and his little minion. The little minion caused the most betrayal because him and I were close, but now we're not, and he's a Jesus lover and that prevents me from slicing his throat because you don't slice a man of Jesus even if he did betray you. Doesn't mean I have to like him though. I stay away from him, he stays away from me. Don't give me this crap about forgiveness. You just want me to forget you stabbed me in the back. No, I won't forgive you, I just won't know you. You want professionalism, dick, I'll give it to you. Professionalism is knowing your there, but not acknowledge your presence. So I won't acknowledge your presence, because really, why should I? When you caused me this grief.

Other than those idiots, that's why I'm alive, that's why I wake up today and go where I'm going. It's the writing man, the writing.