Where Do I Fit In The Plan: Here Comes Christmas Once Again!

It’s beginning to look a lot like the holiday I don’t like at all has begun its slithery path and making attempts to hit me like a ton of bricks. But this year, I think I have the edge on it; this year, I believe I have it beat. This year I have a lot to be happy for and Christmas is not one of them.

But am I supposed to respect a holiday that a majority of Americans and the rest of the universe go ape-shit for? Some sides will tell me yes and some sides will tell me no and some sides will want to wrangle me into their personal vendettas as to why I should respect a holiday that those who celebrate it, worship it like a false idol.

False idolatry; well, well, well. It’s not the first time I’ve run across this before and it sure won’t be the last time. It wasn’t even that long ago in mid-September when I saw the first circulars come with the daily newspapers and in the weekly mail, advertising crap for Christmas. 

Now tell me, why am I supposed to respect Christmas? Oh I remember; it’s a holiday for the children, always the children. That has got to be one of the biggest lines of crap ever! For the children! My ass it’s for children. 

All Christmas is for is to make some corporate giant like Wal-Mart or Sears feel fat and happy and wallow in their shoddiness of a product manufactured & outsourced to China, India, Malaysia, Mexico or some other foreign country that has taken American jobs away for life?

You want my respect and hundreds of others like mine? Then give those Americans their jobs back! Give them back their self-worth! Give them back their dignity! Give them back their souls! Most importantly give them back what they’ve lost and that is hope.

Now, if you’re thinking that I’d be blaming this one on President Obama, you’ve got to be kidding! He didn’t get us into this mess to begin with. Yes, I know he promised in his campaign speeches to champion new hope and new inroads and all other happiness, and sure it’s not fast enough for some people’s taste that’s not what I’m talking about.

In the last position I held before the big collapse, I talked to hundreds of men and women, who personally vented their frustrations to me and I heard the same words over and over and over; where is the humanity in it all? Where do we fit into the plan? How am I going to survive?

Some were angrier than that; some blamed current their own state governments, their own local markets and some even blamed me for bringing it up with them, even as it was my job to collect this data for ongoing habitual nonsense.

And then, after the screaming was over, the venting and frustration was over and done with, they apologized to me; said they were sorry and didn’t mean to attack me. I accepted their diatribes and just filed them away for remembrance sake later.

And here they are; and as I write this now, I remember what many have said; what am I going to do with my life? It’s in ruins. I’m going to kill myself.

And sadly, that’s what some owners & workers have done, killed themselves. Those that have survived their own personal hells have also looked for new jobs and have given up looking because the market is so brutal. 

Some rob banks. Some steal from the corporations that made them miserable. Some have relatives that have an “in” to the next possibility. Some sleep their lives away and become mentally unstable, unable to handle the pressure of no viable means of income.

And some people like me write poetry and essays like this, spilling our insides out on clean white electronic documents like these, that we hope someone else will read and realize that we don’t sit around all day and cry because we have dignity too.

So it’s all for the children, huh?

Merry Fucking Christmas my ass! 

 

 

Haiku For An Early Sunday Evening

Hello my friends, four haiku for a gorgeous early Sunday evening! 

Any way I show off my brain,

Every other bitter pill

Will chew on me like raw wet leather.

Show-offs

Skip, from out to in

Hard luck

Awaits them all

What less you know?

More likely you’ll become

Pure eggheadedness

Morphemic light

Projects itself toward daybreak

Moonless shying shadows  

Bad Ole' Boys Tour Diary Part One-Let's Hit The Road

It was last fall when I first thought about a tour for the following year. 2009 was going to be my year; the year where everything would finally come together for me. It already had in terms of projects of mine that were up & running & off the ground. A triumphant return to the poetry scene in Chicago…a new band…regular performances…local & international press. I seemed to have had it all & I was in good spirits, despite what was just around the corner.

I’d been planning for a fall tour of the tri-state area (NY, NJ & PA) much earlier in the spring; I’d even had a contact that promised to help me out. Together we prepared a decent press kit & she promised to get me gigs. But then it happened. The bottom fell out & she disappeared. She continually sent me list emails, but stopped responding to my personal requests of helping me out with this fall tour & so I forged it alone once again. Managed to get a few gigs after a good thrashing from those who I thought were my friends. By then it was too late. Still I had a good time and came home happy.

It was about late December when my good pal Mykel Board proposed a new tour for 2009; but he wanted to go south. I wanted to go to Boston & all points east. Eventually I agreed to go south. We settled on Tennessee initially, but then again, I was the one who would be booking the tour. Just like fall 2007, when I booked that tour as well. Three dates in Chicago, four dates in Indiana. That trip was a true success for me; I’d learnt all the tricks of the trade in terms of how to book shows, where we’d stay, pay (if any) & many other miscellaneous tasks.

I was in my element. I felt we did well, despite small audiences at times & Mykel’s feelings of inadequacy with our last show in Indianapolis of bombing out completely. We’d received good press, whether we knew it or not. We met good people, had great experiences, great adventures, the kind of thing you’d expect when you toured with someone else.

So, in mid-January, 2009, the bookings began. We went back on forth where and where not could we go, due to distance. Once that was settled, it wasn’t long until I had lined up four dates for us; one in Knoxville. One in Nashville. One in Memphis and then one in Greenville, South Carolina. Mykel took care of all the sleeping accommodations via friends & couchsurfing.com & took care of all the sight-seeing activities for us. He said I had the harder part. I disagree, but I digress.

We went back and forth on tour titles until I settled on Mykel’s proposal of “Bad Ole’ Boys” Tour 2009. It seemed to fit in perfectly with the South; you know that mentality I’m talking about. Rednecks, inbreeds, Elvis, KKK, hillbillies, moonshine, gun lovers, hound dogs, Deliverance, Easy Rider, slavery, racism, segregation, civil rights-all the usual stereotypes, that I’d been used to as I’d never been to the South, other than passing though West Memphis once on a Greyhound bus coming back from Texas in 2002.

 The furthest South I’d ever been to was Indiana, both visiting there as a child, living there in the middle 1990s and then touring there in 2007. Anything south of Chicago, I considered south. Most people never go out of their own backyard, or just dream about it, so I felt lucky.

Then in late March, 2009, my personal life fell apart. I was terminated from my job that I had held like a prison sentence for seven and a half years long. It was that job that kept me going just in terms of finances, in order to pay for things like airline tickets & rent & bills. Now what was I going to do? All of my friends were happy for me; the complete opposite of what one would expect. But they knew how unhappy I was there. I filed for unemployment and began looking for a new job. In this uncertain economy, anything might be possible. So I thought.

The following week, my group disbanded, due to creative differences. Happens all the time, my co-partner & friend said to me. He said he’d still be able to accompany me for future solo gigs, as his guitar-playing was getting better all the time. But I saw it coming too, as there were major divisions within. The band I had started over two years ago was pulled out from under me & became a runaway bastardized monster; something of course, that I didn’t want or need. Something that was not like me at all. More about that later.  

I worried constantly. Lost a lot of sleep & had little appetite in the days that followed. Wondering if after all this time if Mykel would cancel the tour we put together. With no viable income, how could I go or at least afford it? Close to tears, I emailed Mykel and explained my situation that I couldn’t afford to pay for gas & car rental. No problem he said, as he proposed an alternative to paying for my half. All I had to do was give him eight promo radio spot records I’d bought last fall at a yard sale in New Jersey. 

I was saved! All I had to do was pay for food and the little trinkets I saw along the way. I’d been hoping that this time perhaps people would either pay us well enough or at least buy my CDs, so’s I could have enough to live on throughout the tour. Unsure of myself, I left the morning of Friday, April 17, for O’Hare International Airport with only $20 in my wallet and three bags, hoping for the best.

What's the worst thing that could happen to two Jews touring in the Bible Belt?

And that’s when this adventure began…