Hi.
(For a handful of you, hey, check it out. *does jazz hands*)
You can call me Manifestopheles—a devil whose will and focus know no bounds, no structure, no arc.
Literally. Literately. Maybe. I don’t know. Have seen the world lately?
Is it possible to focus? Develop mastery of some discipline? Make a plan? Build anything in a world so bent and contorted around itself? Pitfalls and dead ends grow wild along our road to Nowhere and Back Again.
Maybe the answer is why. “Why” like a child invokes in relentless drumbeats of doom. To the point beyond lies and belief and reason. To the point of madness. To the point of surrender, confessing that you know nothing.
Creating a center begs a fragmenting. It’s all eventual. The only persistence is liminality.
Has it always been this way?
I’m on the verge. In it. It’s a place, not a moment.
Poetry helps sometimes. Poetry is a devil too.
I formed left-handed. Spoken and written word came naturally. Books were food. But I neglected it. I let my dweomer dim and rust.
I grew older. Much older. And now I am late. I’m trying to figure it out. True story: if shrugged shoulders were an olympic sport, I’d die of gold poisoning.
It’s harder to explain in detail. Flux is stubbornly resistant to plot. I’ve become much more interested in math as a result. I hate it, but I read about it regularly now with great curiosity. It’s the closest we’ve got to actual Arcanum. Has anyone else thought this? They must have.
Thresholds and the Joy of Burning Bridges
I just quit my job. I only lasted four months. The one before that lasted four years before COVID-19 gifted me an out. The one previous to that lasted almost 25 years.
All of them were self-betrayals—straw occupations built of excuses and lies and hate. They kept me small, withered my gifts, stole my vision.
Age has a lot to do with the end of these agreements. My bullshit tolerance is thin. Regardless, I’m asking myself if this is an ascension of awareness or a continuing spiral to A Van Down by the River. The Sacramento River and throngs of homeless sleeping in their cars are both right outside my lipsticked pig apartment complex, so it’s not far. I can walk there before the bridge in the song My Poor Brain:
Sometimes I feel I'm getting stuck Between the handshake and the fuck
If it’s the latter, I’m pretty sure I’ve crossed the event horizon. Time to pray to Hecate.
I told a friend recently that the Internet is best way to experience psychedelics without actually doing psychedelics. Oh the information. Oh the circus. Oh the conspiracy. All of it infinitely enmeshed.
I deleted Facebook and Twitter towards the asshole end of 2020. It took ten years, but I finally broke their evil spell. Facebook was my drug of choice. My god, the loads of life-force I sacrificed at its altar! Twitter never got hooks in me, but I kept it around because it’s *supposed* to be the realm of writers. More like a snark and troll menagerie, if you ask me.
Now their ghost-monkeys are chuckle-whispering, “who is going to see your writing now?”
I’m not sure how Substack fits into all this. Will this be where writers become silo-monsters in a few years like how Facebook and Twitter turned everything to shit? Maybe. But it’s a simple platform that provides the option to get paid for writing in a way that transcends the gates and locks of THE MARKET.
Because, fuck THE MARKET, right? How many turds has it fed us? I mean, if you are into turds, no offense. Enjoy turds. Life is large. So large in fact, THE MARKET can’t hold it all. Not even close.
So, here I am, asking the most blasphemous of queries:
Can independent writing from a nobody be a lifestyle that can provide at least the basics to live? I can hear California cackling in challenge.
Do I have something valuable, important, meaningful to say that others will pay for? I hear everything cackling, cackling all the way home. Especially myself.
For now, the plan (LOL, plans!) is to keep it loose and free. I have some paid content ideas, but they’re all gooey and fetus-y and my writing habits are weak. I need exercise.
Things I’m Reading
The perfect book at the perfect time. Dense and academic, but full of insight and metaphor for the shitshow of now.
Where is your joy? Find it. Don it like a James Brown cape.
I never got into comics, but a life-long friend did. I geeked by association, but still didn’t get into it. When graphic novels started to become a thing, I began to pay attention. I’ve been mulling a graphic novel project, or a TV screenplay series, (I have no knowledge or background in either) but I read Gaiman’s Sandman series early last year and it kinda broke me, in good and bad ways. A lot of my “original” ideas Gaiman had already woven into a masterpiece.
Anyway, my friend persists. He gave me this but I haven’t cracked it yet. Looks like just another regurgitation of the Story of Empire. Did I mention that I am a picky and fickle reader? I’ll try it and let you know.
Speaking of Books
Do you know I wrote one?
Released in 2019, it was written chaotically, without intention, over the previous five or so years. In hindsight, it’s fairly prophetic.
This first post will reach just a handful of people who were subscribed to my Wordpress website. If you receive it and it smells stinky, my apologies. Feel free to trash it without guilt or fear of judgement. If it smells like flowers or fresh baked cookies, tell your friends! I’m not on any social media anymore and could use your help spreading my scent.
Until next time, xo.
I am moved by your words, phrases, subtlety and NOT. xo
Pitfalls and dead ends grow wild along our road to Nowhere and Back Again.