Taking a Big Fat Crap in the Blogosphere

I've said it before but: the sky is the colour of wet concrete and just as heavy. I've cracked the window to let the smoke from my cigarette escape and cold air creeps in from outside. I'm drinking soy milk in my coffee beause I know it's better for me. The words that used to come fast and furious now hobble in through the open door in my head one at a time, sometimes days apart. Do I need to tell you how draughty it is in here, in my head? How tempting it is to close that door? But if I do, what am I? Not a writer, that's for sure.
So how does a writer, who hasn't written in ages, start writing again? Well, apparently he begins by pilfering his own material and then degenerates into question asking. I suppose he could, if he were so inclined, fall back on that old writing axiom: write what you know. Though I have to confess, I've always thought of that as a fallacy. Who wants to read fiction about drinking coffee, job hunts and going to the bathroom? Not me.
Still, for our purposes it seems like as good a place as any to start. We'll start with non-fiction in the hope that it gets that cliched metaphorical ball rolling.

So, what's happened lately?
Well, Canada has elected another Conservative minority--that was pretty stupid. The most shocking thing about that, at least from my perspective in my riding, is best illuminated by information gleaned from candidate profiles in my local newspaper. What gave me hope before the election was that the Liberal, NDP and Green Party candidates for Chatham-Kent all said that the important issues facing Canadians were jobs and the environment. All three suggested creating "green jobs" in a fabulous bit of two-birds-with-one-stone philosophy. Imperfect? Yeah. Better than nothing? For sure.
The Conservative incumbent, on the other hand, said that the issues that most concerned him as a Canadian were crime and our nation's role in Afghanistan. I remember reading the relevant passeges out loud to Stephanie and laughing. I figured that if the candidates' views reflected those of thier respective parties the Conservatives had no hope. Crime? Our role in Afghanistan? Most of the Canadians I know realise that with the economy the way it is, crime can only get worse and that the answer to that is jobs.
The answer to Afghanistan is even simpler (I recognise that job creation is easy to say and difficult to do--but why else to we elect these cats?) and it goes a little something like this: get the fuck out. If we were doing some good there, if the country was truly stablizing, if terrorism were actually evaporating I might sing a different tune, but at this point we're just doing our continental nighbour's dirty work. And let's face facts: we're doing it badly.
So a record low 59% of registered voters came out to elect the wrong party. And, if I'd not let optimism get a stranglehold on me, I'd have been able to call that. It all has to do with this book I keep joking about writing: How the Right Ruined Canadian Politics by "Uniting".
The trouble is that there are three parties on the left for liberal-minded folks to divide thier votes between and only one party on the right, monoplozing the conservative vote. Of course, I use the term "conservative" loosely. When you examine thier fiscal moves since coming to power they actually appear to be very liberal--or rather, neoliberal in that horrible Milton-ian sense of the word.
As far as the piss-poor turnout goes, it's not hard to understand why Canadians are disillusioned at voting, particularly the young. It's easy to feel detached from our political process when Stephen Harper petulantly changes his position every week or so and Dion prances about posing for pictures trying to create an image for himself as the ultimate environmentalist--I mean, a husky named Kyoto? I'm sure there's a "wag the dog" joke there that my writer's block won't let me make.
Then you have Jack Layton, jockeying for position between the two; the leader of the party that was supposed to be about everything but playing politics doing nothing but playing politics. And for the record, I'd prefer not to discuss Elizabeth May or her party because my mom always told me that if you can't say anything nice you should keep your damn mouth shut.
Despite my stand on Afghanistan, is it wrong of me to wish Ignatieff had been elected Liberal leader?
Let's see what there is to be said after the first week of November when the shape of North American politics will be a little more clear.

So I suppose some people are going to want a review of the punk show I went to on Saturday. And I guess I ought to say a little something; even though what I can say is limited. At a show with three poppier punk bands and two ska bands this embattled veteran of hardcore finds little to say. I will, however, do my best to review the show quickly.
First off, I can't comment on the opening band at all. Any criticism I offer, constructive as it may be, would be viewed as a vicious attack. I will say that it's bad form for a band who has no original songs to sell T-shirts. I remember the old maxim: songs before stickers. These cats have obviously never heard it and jumped well beyond the sticker stage.
So be it.
The next band, Cambridge, was definitely not my cup of tea. A little on the poppy side, a bit boring to me. I suppose they were tight and talented, but that doesn't mean much when you're just ripping off the Lawrence Arms.
Up next was The Rucks who, as usual, tore the roof off. Truly they are a blazing band in a scene still struggling to find some fire. Thier upbeat, singalong streetpunk (while not my thing) still managed to get me into the pit--somewhere I haven't been in eleven years. These three guys manage to mix up the sound of something like the Swingin' Utters with just enough of a classic Sham 69 sort of feel to make them pretty singular and noteworthy.
At this point I pretty much stopped listening to the music and focused on drinking. I did manage to stand up and take in a couple of songs by The Corporation who closed the night with some ska-core that would probably please fans of Against All Authority. Again, not at all my thing, but well done nonetheless.
All in all I didn't feel like I wasted my seven bucks, but I long for the day when Sarah of Death Rattle Industries brings me some hardcore I can sink my teeth into. Hey, Sarah, if you're listening: The Endless Blockade, Reprobates, Black Ships, Black Birds... oh hell, just gimme a call.
That's all folks. I wish I'd had the will or the time to do a little eulogizing on George Carlin, but fuck it. That piss-poor novella of crap above is all I can manage today. Maybe things will get better tomorrow.

How Great Things Happen When You Give Up Hope

Hate and anger and jealousy--these are things that come so quickly. Probably because they’re so easy to feel. They demand nothing of you but your time and a constant fear of the unknown. Forgiveness, understanding, love--these are significantly harder to feel. They require you to trust, to respect, to stick your neck out and let it be cut if necessary. And once you’re cut, they require you to go on and stick your neck out again.
They require bravery; whereas I am convinced cowardice is the natural human state.

We make decisions every day. Every minute. We do them, sometimes, without a thought: chocolate or vanilla? paper or plastic? soup or salad? vaginal or anal? Daily we suffer this onslaught of meaningless options and we move forward.
We rarely, if ever, make big decisions. When confronted with a real choice we generally stare at it until the choice is gone and then pretend we made up our minds. It’s easier that way, because deep down we can tell ourselves we didn’t have a hand in our own failure. We can say, “I had no choice.”
Again, cowardice.

There are people reading this, I know, who will say that they are the brave sort. That they make their decisions in a timely manner; that they trust and love and understand. That they never let fear get the better of them. That they are not cowards.
These people are liars. Which is also a mark of cowardice. We’re all cowards sometimes. We’re all flawed beyond repair. We’re all damaged, we’re all fuck ups. So it’s okay. I suppose what I’m hoping here is that we can be brave enough to forgive one another of this all too human flaw.

I made a decision recently. Actually, to be accurate, another person and I made a decision together. We weighed the options, considered the consequences, examined the relevant issues from every angle.
It took days.
We sat facing each other on the couch. Outside in the sun. On the phone. Over the internet. In bed. We talked endlessly about what to do, how to do it. We talked about why we were doing it and whether anyone would or could understand.
What became clear pretty quickly was that no matter what we did, someone would get hurt. We also came to realise that even the best-case scenario would be a fucking nightmare.
I wish, in making other difficult decisions in the past, I could have had a partner who made it as easy.

So what’s happened?
I’ve damaged at least one friendship beyond any hope of repair. There‘s a chance, I suppose, that one day we’ll be able to look at one another again without feeling mistrust or guilt or anger. But I know it can never be like it was. I also know that it was never quite what I thought it was.
I’m not sure which of those realisations hurts more.
I am sure that if I regret anything about this decision; it will be how I failed that friend, how his accusations felt and how our friendship simply wasn’t strong enough.
What else?
I destroyed something fantastic. I salted the earth where I’d only just sown the seeds of a relationship that could have been amazing. Probably because I mistook that relationship for something like salvation and destiny. Which was stupid, because I don’t believe in either of those things.
There’s some semblance of a friendship there now. But we can never be as close as we might have been.
Then there’s what it’s done to us--to her and I. Me and my fellow decision-maker.
It’s brought us closer than I would have thought possible. It’s renewed our confidence in something we’d both recently lost all faith in. It’s landed us in the middle of something we never asked for…
…something we never asked for because we never would have thought to ask for it.

So was it worth it?
Yes.

In So Many Words

Have you ever read a story and thought to yourself, I need to know the person who wrote this?
This is how I felt after reading New blues song by Lauryn Mutter (link to her blog at right). It was a pretty new feeling. It’s not that I’d never felt like I wanted to sit and have a conversation with an author whose work touched me in some way. But there was an urgency to the desire this time around--one that I wasn’t prepared for and couldn’t have prepared for if I’d known it was coming.

When other writers ask me how to get better I usually do everything I can to help. I have thirteen rules composed of the little bits of writing knowledge I’ve garnered over the years and which I frequently hand over, piecemeal, to other aspiring writers.
For example, one is to practice writing Haikus. Because if you can pack all the heart-rending, the most bleak, the most exciting and the most emotional moments of your day-to-day life into seventeen little syllables without losing any of the ooey-gooey-goodness that made those moments worth writing about; then you'll never need to write another unnecessary word again.
Here’s another good one I lifted from Kurt Vonnegut: "Every character should want something, even if it's only a glass of water."
Another one I put a lot of stock into is that a storyteller should learn the basics of journalism. Yes, an MFA in Creative Writing will teach you all sorts of tools you can use to write a fantastic story--but you don’t necessarily need those tools. What you need is to be able to deliver the facts of the story to your reader--everything else is just pomp and circumstance.
Another thing I tell writers to do is read. A lot. To take apart the stories they love, figure out how they work and use what they learn in their own writing.

Lauryn Mutter majored in journalism in college--not English, not Creative Writing. She’s never taken a course in CW or been in a workshop. What she has done is read every short story in the New Yorker, the Atlantic’s Fiction issues and Harper’s for the past few years.
This is a fantastic start--and the beginning of a pedigree that I have to admit, gets me just a little hard. Especially given the skill with which she delivers her stories--stories that shake me to the core.
In short declaratives, Lauryn unpacks the details of her stories. Each little fact, each sad truth, soaked in so much feeling that your heart can’t help but chip and crack as each individual word hurtles into it, assailing it in a way that you really don’t want to end. She takes peculiar incidents in the lives of her characters and distils the events down to an emotional truth so compact and so complete that you can’t help but relate to completely.
Amy Hempel is one of Lauryn‘s favourite writers and, like Amy, Lauryn Mutter manages to take the mundane and elevate it. She makes masturbation into an atheistic prayer and converts the image of two people on a street corner into a vignette about youth lost. Like Amy, she holds your hand while she breaks your heart.
And like Amy, you will notice a few themes, a few personae, a few events, that come up repeatedly in Lauryn’s work. And just like Amy, you’ll know that these are things she’s lived through. And this is where Lauryn really shines. Because when she tells you about her life; even when she just uses some small, personal truth as a mere aspect of an otherwise fictional character’s life; the effect is severe. She does it bravely, with complete honesty and a heartfelt earnestness that sends me to my knees with tears in my eyes. And, where Lauryn and her work are concerned, it happens more often than this Black Bejeaned Prophet of Doom cares to admit.

I have gotten to know Lauryn. The desire was too strong to ignore. I know her by two names, we talk on the phone, we plan to meet one day (soon, I hope). We’ve shared stories with one another, discussed the craft. What amazes me is how much she loves my stories--given that I think of her raw talent as miles ahead of my carefully cultivated and learned style.
She loves my voice as a writer--she calls it “distinctive.”
I love her voice as a writer--because it disappears in the story, cuts to the quick and makes you forget that it’s a story you’re reading.
Here’s something else she said about my writing:
“You have an aesthetic that allows you to feel sympathy--actually, empathy is a better word--for things and people that are downtrodden, neglected, flawed, sad.”
Which is, I suppose, a really good thing to be able to do. It’s something I’ve tried to do. But to me, what Lauryn does is so much fucking better.
What Lauryn does is, she takes the personal and makes it universal--and really, is there anything bigger or more fantastic that an artist could ever hope to do?
Somehow, I doubt it.

Recently, in an IM, Lauryn said to me, “Sometimes the most important, profound stuff is so hard to get across right…”
Truer words were never spoken. And yet, I have nothing but faith in her ability to do it. And I hope to remain close enough to her to watch her do it; again and again and again. I’ll put my heart into her hand and let her break it--in so many words.

Get Well Soon...

I longed and I waited for something with teeth…
- CURSED

When I step out onto the porch to light my cigarette and feel the small, light flakes fall cold on my neck something occurs to me--that this can all end very badly. Not just in broken bones and torn flesh, but in ways neither of us can predict.
Maybe this is just the spectre of doubt looming in the shadowy parts of my life, as I have always allowed him to do. Or maybe experience has left me raw and I flinch a little easier than I let on. Or maybe I’m just acknowledging that I won’t be satisfied with mere disappointment anymore. Maybe I’m trying to tell you that I’ve got the gasoline and you’ve got the spark and if we’re going to do this we better burn the whole damn thing right down to ash and black dirt. Because enough of the structure of my life has been seared and singed and no fucking way am I replacing these beams again.
I told you: I got this thing for fire.
What Im saying is, you might want to get yourself nice and wet before this thing goes up.

I’m not trying to scare you away.
Or maybe I am.
You see, my whole life I’ve waited for something that could open up new wounds and make me bleed again. Maybe that’s why I’m so eager to expose myself to you. Because the pool of blood I’ve stood in for years now has gone dry and sticky and rancid and it’s doing nothing for me anymore.
And I feel like these abrasions are starting to get serious. These welts you’ve raised--the ones I told you about--they’re starting to cause me some serious discomfort. And you should know better than anyone that, to a writer, this isn’t the worst thing that could happen.
Your stories, dear, cut me. Tear into me with teeth so well concealed I’m surprised at the sudden pain. But I know it‘s happening.
I know it’s happening because it’s leaking slowly out. Onto the page. Every day a few more words. A few more sentences. A paragraph. A verse/chorus/verse. I long to lose myself in the deluge. To bleed out and to hell with the consequences.

And if this was just about fire and blood, maybe I wouldn’t feel the need to say all these things. If this was just Dave being dark and ugly like Dave always does, I’d let it go without recording it.
But it’s not all dark. And it’s not all ugly.
I have these images…
Of an armchair arranged suggestively near a bed in a room designed for sin. Of flimsy red fabric crawling all over you--of you crawling all over a canopy bed. Of red lipstick, second-hand boots and quilts with poppies on them. Of words on a screen in a darkened room that won’t let me close my eyes, that drill into my chest and make a permanent home there.
Of you, walking backwards against cool, Northern California winds. Of wild daisies in the field adjacent. Of unopened packages of men’s briefs. Of how you look when you write. Of how your hand looks holding a cell phone. Of how your lips move when you talk.
Of how scared of me you might be if there weren’t miles between us to protect you from a man who can go on and on like this--about blood and fire and beautiful images he can’t seem to shake from his head.
Of confetti on the bathroom floor…
I see these things like someone has lit a roman fucking candle in my head and I can‘t help but smile as I search out the culprit. And since you were the one with the spark at the outset of this…

Have I scared you? I hope not.
I’ll never ask for anything more of you than what I think you can give.
And maybe I’m just trying to find out if you’ve got the stomach for this--if you’ve got the guts to burn me up and bleed me dry. And maybe, just maybe, burn and bleed with me for a while.

Entirely Human

I am one of the walking wounded who lights his way through this absurd void with a perpetually burning heart.

There’s a point when you run, a point when your body finds its rhythm--your meat is contacting, your tendons are pulling and your bones are obeying. Your breath comes deep and even. All your hot blood is pumping and the whole machine is working marvellously. You feel strong, you feel righteous, you feel animal and unstoppable and utterly alive.
And if you’re anything like me, this is about the time all the bullshit drops away. All the crap we built up over the centuries. All the people who’ve convinced us that they’re our betters and the towers we’ve erected for them to rule us from come crumbling down. The clock stops, the bills fade away, order and religion and anything inorganic or unnatural just don’t exist anymore.
The whole fucking edifice of modern life just topples.
And if you know me, then you can understand how appealing this is.

And so it’s as I reach this point--this sublime, primitive moment--that some things begin to occur to me.
Like to simultaneously curse and praise all the walls that came down when the wires went up. And where that lead me. How good and bad things happen when you can connect with a person you’ve never met.
To love and disdain the human element of the edifice I only moments ago watched fall away. Because for all the time I spend lamenting an urban sky obscured by telephone wires; they brought me to someone that, no matter how it plays out, reached through this blighted webscape, pushed through the digital abyss, and made me feel something totally and completely human.
At precisely the point when I wanted to stop feeling anything.

My sneakers scrape gravel and my lungs fight for every breath. Blood rushes through me, my heart is audible to everyone in a one mile radius--I’m sure of it. The sweat lashes off of me, my calves turn to rubber. My eyes stare straight ahead, watching the road cut a swath between frozen, snowy fields.
I grunt, I groan, I let out a short sharp bellow and force myself forward. My body, my mind, will not get the better of me. There’s no quit in me. I’ve never felt this before. My heart burns for a dozen reasons and still I go. I suck cold air through gritted teeth, I taste wood smoke on the air.
And still I go.

Last night was the end of something for me. A shift, a transition, to something else. There’ll be those of you who know what I mean, there’ll be those of you who don’t care.
There are a million and one reasons for it. And the best one I can come up with is that it was time. Time for two people who still care very deeply about each other to separate themselves while they still care. Time for two people who’ve been through everything to face what’s ahead on their own.
Time for two people to be two people.

My feet throb, sweat pools in the soles of my cheap sneakers. My chest feels like a tire with a slow leak. I grind my teeth and watch the sweat fall from my brow, soaking my sweater. I’m running on emotion now. There’s nothing in the tank. I left it all out on a country road.
I spent it all.
In the snow and mud of my backyard I collapse. I fall to my knees, pressing them into the cold earth. I raise my torso, point my chest at the sky.
Across the backyard my neighbour sees this all. He sees this--this sweat-drenched, gasping man kneeling in the mud in shorts and what he says is, “Looks like someone had a spiritual experience.”
And I say, “No. Nope. Entirely human.”
And I get up and go inside.

And you--yeah, you; you know who you are--you’ve come into my life at a very strange time. I guess we’ve come into each others lives at a very strange time--and if I believed in things like fate and destiny I’d probably be very afraid.
But I do believe in coincidence, and happy accidents. And now, in very happy accidents.
You’ve helped me realise some things about myself. And I hope you’ll stick around while I sort through these things I’m feeling and experiencing.
I hope I can make it worth your while. I imagine I can. I hope I’ve already demonstrated this to some extent.
It doesn’t feel wrong anymore.

CURSED III: Architects of Troubled Sleep... a review

“Kill the bosses, kill the priests, kill the shepherds--save the sheep.”

I don’t usually write about music in my blog. There’s a few dozen reasons for it but the best I can come up with right now is that a good deal of the people reading it don’t give a fuck how I feel about some basement-dwelling powerviolence band from Iowa who put out one EP and then fell into the void while attempting to fill it with their own jizzum. And really, in that context, I can appreciate and understand the lack of interest most people would have that sort of entry.
But, because I spared you all my insights on the last WORLD BURNS TO DEATH record and my lengthy comparative analysis of the discographies of RECENSION and OXBAKER, I figure I’m within my right to review the third album by Toronto’s metallic hardcore heavyweights. If this isn’t your cup of pee, I suggest you mosey, cowpoke. Because this is as likely to bore you as the actual album is to tear a strip out of you.

I could start where most reviewers, interviewers and other writerly sorts start when discussing CURSED. I could perform a run-through of the scene credentials and list the bands these guys have played in before. But if you’ve decided to keep reading then you either already know, or will listen to the album and take great pains to find out how far back the great hardcore goes. (It goes way, way, waayyyyyy the fuck back.)
But where I’d like to start is here:
I’m playing an Epiphone SG that hasn’t been restrung since I moved to BC. Those three year old strings are down-tuned a full step. I play with a Rat distortion pedal through a Crate amp about fifteen years past its prime. This amp has a speaker cone that rattles like Bea Arthur with a lung infection receiving earth-moving oral sex. And my guitar doesn’t sound half as evil, dirty or heavy as Christian McMaster’s.
Not. Even. Fucking. Close.
From the first notes on the eponymous introductory track, through the blast beats of the opening of the album proper right until the final strains of “Gutters” have seared themselves into your battered brain, the guitar never lets up, never sounds weak. In fact, it never sounds like anything but a raging conflagration bent on consuming every available source of fuel.
The guitar overload of the second album isn’t here (suggesting to me that CURSED should always operate as a four-piece) and I figure when you have Dan Dunham of--y’know, that heavy band from Hamilton with the really cool name--playing bass you want his noise as high in the mix as you can get it. Which might have something to do with (what turned out to be) the band’s brilliant move of getting their sound guy, Donny Cooper, to produce. Who knows better what the band is supposed to sound like than the guy that’s been making them sound like them night-in and night-out on tour?
Another boon of the departed guitar overload is the fact that the drums never once get lost in the mix (which, truth be told, is my only real complaint about Two--why have a drummer like Mike Maxymuik if you‘re going to hide his talents behind a wall of feedback? Good drummers are damn hard to come by!). In fact, at times, like at the end of “Friends in the Music Business”, the drums shine in a way they never have on a CURSED record.
And of course, through all of this you have what I’ve come to regard as the razor edge of CURSED’s musical attack--the lyrical and vocal ability of Chris Colohan. I warn you: this might come off as hero-worship with just a touch of homosexual longing--but the dude is a solid word-monger. I remember way-back-when, listening to a 10” by a band that contained three-quarters of CURSED (man, it’s hard to write this without mentioning the bands they were in before) that ended with a spoken-word track by Colohan that thoroughly blew my mind and was responsible, in large part, for my return to writing.
Things are no different on this album. Take, for example, the opening quote of this review, taken from the album’s third track, “Magic Fingers.” Is there any simpler expression of just what punk is about? Probably, but does it rhyme? Probably not. And it probably doesn’t have Colohan’s gravel-throated delivery to back it up.
Or how about on the song "Into the Hive," where Chris, in a rage against Toronto’s condominium-culture, expectorates this little gem: “Show me a man with that much faith in concrete and I'll show you every self-starter that ever put torch to building.”
What amazes me most is that Chris seems to get more and more disgusted and disillusioned with every release. Some three bands ago I figured Chris had peaked as far as total rage went. But here, on CURSED’s third record, he manages to plumb new depths of anger and frustration. If he didn’t come off as such an affable, funny guy in interviews I’d implore his friends to put him on suicide watch (though a homicide watch is not entirely out of the question).
All this ass-kickery comes with a neat little bow on it: this is easily CURSED’s most cohesive record. There were moments on the first two records where I found myself taken out of the flow--for example, listening to Two and asking myself, “Wait, are they covering War Pigs?” and then checking the track listing and realising that it was indeed and original called “Model Home Invasion.”
That’s not to say that there are no surprises on Architects…. In fact, just wait until you get a load of “Unnecessary Person.” Not only is it a huge departure for CURSED, it might just be the finest vocal performance Colohan has turned in since “Nineteen Seventy-Four” (the song, not the year).
But I suppose the big thing people are going to want to know is how III: The Architects of Troubled Sleep stacks up against One and Two.
See, the great thing about One is that these dudes didn’t care if it came off as too metal or too heavy or (G*d forbid--too SABBATH). If you thought that the breaks were too “tough-guy” sounding or the music not tuneless or atonal enough (this, of course, at a time when everyone was doing their damnedest to sound like LÄ RM) then fuck ya. CURSED was doing CURSED.
Two, I’ll admit, I didn’t get right away. I thought the production was muddy and everything seemed muffled to me. I had to listen to it while running to figure out what made it great. The sound of Two is the sound of your heart pounding in your ears; of blood pumping at insane volume through your head. It’s the sound of your body on the brink of total exhaustion.
If One was the dark cloud, and Two was the rolling thunder, then Three is the storm. Three is the total devastation that leaves nothing in its wake but wrecked landscapes, decimated cities, mourning families and utter waste.
I worry, sometimes, that there won’t be a Four. With the turnover rate in underground hardcore being as insanely high as it is, it’s rare to find a band that has staying power. It was easy in the early days, I suppose, when what was “punk” was less rigidly defined. If BLACK FLAG had been forced to release Damaged over and over again instead of being permitted to evolve, well, we might not have gotten a third album from them. Luckily, they were permitted, for the most part, to explore new territory. And while In My Head might have been taking the experiment a little far, at least they had the opportunity to make that record.
I realise that CURSED will likely be vilified in some quarters for the few departures on this album. Hell, look what happened to their fellow Torontonians in FUCKED UP--a band that could do no wrong while they were releasing two-song seven inches. When they released Hidden World a major split occurred amongst fans that the band, thankfully, survived and which helped to rejuvenate their fan base.
Let’s hope the reviews are kind to CURSED. And let’s hope Four comes quickly.

Being a Good Person is a Thankless Job

I have this history with so many people’s fingers getting tangled up in my dreams and “real men” throwing punches at my glass-jawed aspirations. There are so many nights in my memory that reek of stale air, heavy with nicotine and sweat and beer, nights where I didn’t believe I’d wake up the next day and didn’t care if I did. I’ve sought refuge from the disappointments I’ve had to face--that I’ve retreated from--in so many wasteful ways. Laying my tears to rest with so many rotten, wrecked people.

My way is now and always has been to remain the cynic. To be angry and frustrated and let that drive me to success or, more often than I care to admit, retreat. Because for some reason I’ve always found it preferable to failure.
But I’ve learned. And I’ve grown.
I’m not a perfect person. And there are times when I doubt I’m even a good person. My weaknesses have always been so much more apparent to me than my strengths. I don’t think I’ve ever seen myself through eyes unaffected by my own flawed understanding of the world.
But like I said: I’ve learned, and grown.
It’s so easy to take the people who matter for granted, the people who make us better human beings and who push us to, and beyond, our limits. It’s easy to take them for granted because they’re always there. It’s in their nature--they don’t run away.
It’s such a thankless fucking job.
Over time I’ve learned to be confident. And I’m still scared shitless of what lies ahead, and I still doubt my ability to make it through from time to time, and I’m still unsure and cynical and angry.
But I want to fight. I want to try. I want to make decisions and see them through. I want to face failure and know that I’ll live to fail again and not fucking care. And slowly--so painfully slowly--I’m getting there.

I want you to know (and I say it publicly in the hopes that others will see someone in their own lives that needs acknowledging) that I appreciate you for everything you are. That--whatever else happens, or has happened, whatever disappointments we‘ve shared or faced separately--I’ll always be here for you. Because you deserve no less.
You know who you are.
Thank you.
I love you.