I'm Tired

I'm Tired

                I’ve been working a lot.  When I’m not processing and shipping out orders for the company I work for, I’m playing guitar or running on the treadmill at the gym.  I eat a good amount and drink a lot of caffeine to keep me going but eventually you start to hit a wall.  I hit that wall last week and I became agitated and furious.  My uncle’s dying and my Mom called me “manipulative” on the phone because I was literally too exhausted to play guitar for him and the rest of my extended family.  So of course I played and I sucked and which made me even more upset.

                I managed to play well for the open mic last Tuesday so I felt better but I’m still just really tired.  I wake up at 4:30 or 5 almost every day.  For awhile there it felt like I was working 12 hour days and then out of nowhere, recently, someone offered me drugs.  I said no, but I had an internal conflict over it and I got really upset with myself.  I was alone in a room, thinking about it, and then I just yelled out loud to myself, “Why can’t I just be happy?”
                I drove to my house.  It was Thursday night.  I was going to go to sleep and then I thought I should just relax and have a beer.  I can’t drink at my house because my roommate doesn’t like it so I walked downtown to a bar I like.
                I was standing alone, drinking a Racer 5 and IT happened again.
                It’s really annoying when people assume you’re sad because you’re alone.  I hate that.

                Anyway, this girl walks up to me and decides to make a joke out of me and goes, “I’m sorry you have to feel this way,” loud enough for the entire bar to hear, and then comes around the island I was leaning on and grabs my ass, thrusts her butt into my hip and yells, “Shaz-Amm!”
                Obviously I was humiliated and felt a little upset.  I think she continued onto a sexual assault rampage and started doing it to other people and finally the bouncers kicked her out.  I figured I’d play some air hockey to feel better and of course I got destroyed 7-2.

                So it was a bad night.  But at least I didn’t do drugs.  You know, besides the beer and three shots of Jameson.
                It seems like every time I put myself out there I wind up feeling rejected or worse but I don’t feel happy being alone a lot of the time.  I honestly don’t know what to do.  I guess I’ll just keep playing guitar, writing, working and running.  It just gets really exhausting.

"It's the Republicans"

"It's the Republicans"

I strolled into some overpriced “tavern” downtown in my pajamas.  I sat down next to a dude sporting a Northface sweater-vest, reminding me of Rick Santorum, the Mongoloid, god-fearing Christian crusader.  Incidentally and accidentally I rolled my eyes.  The gentleman looked me up and down for a second, and to his credit wasn’t overly condescending about it.  He turned back to a conversation he was having with his two friends.
               “So you got a Forrester?” the farthest one to my right said.  “That’s a neat car, I’m told.”
               “Yeah, I’ve heard good things about Subaru,” the one in the middle commented.  “I’m thinking about getting one.  What’s the stat?  After ten years…”
               “Yeah,” the Santorum guy said.  “After ten years ninety percent are still on the road.”
               “How’s the gas mileage?” the middle guy asked.
               “You know, for a mid-sized SUV it gets pretty good mileage.  It’s not a Tesla or a Prius or anything, but I like to think I’m doing my part to combat Climate Change.”
               I raised my hand wildly to get the attention of the bartender.  She came over and I ordered a 9%.  The Red Label was wearing off.
               “Oh, yes,” the one on the right said.  “Climate change is the biggest threat to the human race.  My daughter really looks up to Greta Thunberg.”
               “I would have gotten a Prius,” the middle guy added, acknowledging the Climate Change propaganda, “but I think the Forrester says more about my personality, you know?  Just because I make a decent living doesn’t mean I don’t like to do outdoorsy stuff.  You know – kayaking, mountain biking.  And I feel like I’m doing my part on the Climate front.  Sometimes I ride my bike to work.”
               “Same here,” the Santorum guy said.  “I ride my bike twice a week.”
               I couldn’t stand it and blurted out, “I used to ride my bike to work every day 45 minutes across town because I was too poor to afford a car.  But you know, now that I have my Civic, I still walk to the bar to get a drink.  Climate Change and all.”
               I guess they sensed my sarcasm about Climate Change because they all began to talk at once.
               The Santorum guy lost it and practically started yelling:
               “Look buddy, I know what you see when you look at us.  You see a bunch of sell-out Gen-X yuppie tech guys.  You think we’re the problem, that we’re the reason people are shitting on the street in San Francisco.  You look at us and see three guys who went to Georgetown and you’re envious and you think that we grew up in affluent white neighborhoods, and while there may be some truth to that, I personally had two black friends in college.  My best friend in high school was Asian.  And I understand, you millenials got a raw deal.  But one day, when you’re older, you’ll see that it wasn’t us.  We didn’t fuck things up.  We’re not the ones trying to stack the Supreme Court with right-wingers hell bent on overturning Roe v. Wade.  We’re not the ones trying to pull the troops out of Syria, we’re not the ones who want to abandon the Kurds.  Just because we have money doesn’t mean that we don’t understand that health care is a right and that college should free for everyone.  Just because we had opportunities doesn’t mean we’re not trying to make the world a better place, and for your generation as well.  We understand not everyone grew up with the same privileges we had.  I support raising taxes.  I want to help people.”
               “Yeah,” the middle guy added.  “It’s the Republicans who are the problem.  Every Thanksgiving I get in an argument with my father-in-law because he votes GOP.”
               “We’re good guys,” the Santorum guy started.  “We all voted for Obama.  We’re not part of the problem.”
               They went back to talking about Subaru.
               “Yeah, the Forrester would be a good choice,” the Santorum guy said.  “I like the name for sentimental reasons.  The first time my wife and I made love was in the woods.  We bonded over hiking.”
               “What position did you do it in?” the guy on the end joked.
               They all laughed and I stared into my beer.
               “Obama voted to fund the Iraq war every time Bush asked for the money,” I said and stood up.  “I’m half Iraqi.  My uncle and aunt died because of the bombings.”
               I turned around and left half my beer sitting on the bar.  I walked to the liquor store and got a half pint.  I chugged it when I got home and passed out.

Alright To Be Sad

Alright To Be Sad
I get, I get how it is
You wanna do what they told you to
Back in high school
And since you let them fool you
More than a couple thousand times
It's hard to give up and admit you're dumb
Either way you're alone and you deserve it
You wanna be the cool kid
It seems no matter what you do
You let them pick on you
Maybe it's alright to be sad
If that's how you feel

On Account Of My Depression

On Account Of My Depression
Someone asked me if I get tired
Tired of playing guitar
The answer is a simple
and emphatic, "No."
Music is a joke that never ends
And on account of my depression
Largely stemming from
My great purple onion
And my inability to relate to any women
(Since it grows wider
and more stumpish with each passing day)
I must continue playing guitar
Lush with pretentious, Marxist chords
and blistering leads
and obnoxious, offensive words
Yes, I must remind myself
That suicide of the quick vareity
Is not a responsible option
Ow, my kidneys hurt

People Calling

People Calling

People calling is always bad news

They come hands outstretched

And wanting

Begging for sunscreen

For their lobster sunburns

I don’t need anything

In return

People calling is always bad news

They talk about how they miss you

But you’re always the back up

The second string guy 

Praying to imagination in the sky

People calling is always bad news

I’m on a roll with my creative mind

I don’t need to sing the blues

Or pretend I’ve fallen behind

Go Your Own Way, There’s No Hope

Go Your Own Way, There’s No Hope

                It was hard to turn down the bagels.  The donuts, the coffee.  But most importantly, it was tough to say no to the cigarettes.

                I’m not an asshole, or a fuck boy.  I’m not a user.  But I do smoke the most expensive cigarettes on the market, and I’m not talking about American Spirits, which are horrible.  You can spend an hour or so trying to smoke an American Spirit and still fail.  They go out as soon as you light them, and forget trying to get one lit while there’s wind or if you have only matches – heaven forbid.  No, I’m talking about the square packs that say “Export ‘A’” on them.  They cost slightly more than the Spirits, on average, and that’s because they’re better.  They taste better, the tobacco quality is better, and they still have enough chemicals to KEEP MY FUCKING CIGARETTE LIT!

                Like I said, I’m not an asshole.  But she kept showing up to my work to hand me my $12 packs of cigarettes when her Crohn’s  wasn’t acting up.  She’d cook me dinner after she picked me up from work.  I’d drink her entire bottle of Jameson and a couple of her IPA’s before I gave her seven or eight orgasms or so.  She was an awful lay.  She’d do this thrusting thing with her vagina that really bothered me.  Every time I’d get a decent rhythm she’d take over and ruin it.  I hated making her orgasm.  It was one thing that her tube was so narrow that I couldn’t get long enough since she was restricting my girth, but it was quite another that she just kept coming and squeezing the shit out of my cock.  I swear, she almost circumcised me.

                And then she’d have these flare ups with her joints and all the nurses would tell  me how sweet I was for driving her to the hospital and pushing her around in her wheelchair and being there for her.  I didn’t mind, and I liked being there when she needed me and all.  But one day, in the middle of one of her flare ups, she was trying to project confidence or some bullshit and she looked up at me from her wheelchair and said to me:
                “I’d say you’re like a generous six.”  Then she smiled.   Little shit.
                “What’d you say?”  I couldn’t believe it.
                “You heard me,” she said and smiled again like an impish five year-old, hell bent on causing mischief in its kindergarten class.

                “Who the fuck do you think you are, Donald Trump?” I asked, outraged.  “Did you just rank me on a fucking 1-10 scale?”

                “Mmmhmm.”
                “That’s it,” I said.  We were on a ramp at the time and I just let go.  She screamed as she picked up kinetic energy toward the bottom and hurtled into a pile of autumn leaves.

                Okay, so that’s totally not what happened.  I would never do something like that, but seriously – what the fuck is up with young women these days?  Even wheel chair girl is looking up at me and ordering me to roll her around like I’m an Oompa Loompa and she’s the blueberry girl while telling me I’m a generous six?

                Just go your own way, jack off to internet porn.  Get a sex doll.  I don’t know.  There’s no hope anymore, I swear.

She Tells Me

She Tells Me
She laughs when she hears about
how the last chick abused me
stole and broke my shit
threw things at me
lied about me
how I feel sick around women now
She tells me if she wanted it
I would put out
I deny it and she reiterates how
the culture forces me to be a whore
She ignores how she lives with her Dad
has sparse rental history
was arrested and went to jail twice
and ignores how none of these things apply to me
She doesn't get that the same ten dudes on the dating sites
are fucking her and all the other 4's and 5's
that her getting dick whenever she wants
doesn't mean I'll just lay down and take it
She tells me she's worth something
She tells me I'm nothing
and I sit and nod and listen
She forgets the things she told me on the phone
because she talks to so many dudes
I should be honored for her time
While she laughs at me
I guess I thought she might start acting like a grown up
But all she is is a sober child
And she tells me this
through everything she does and says
She tells me