Full-time Fake
Slowly killing myself each day to be the person I thought everyone wanted me to be. Now I feel as shallow as my grave. The one my persona dug. And I worry that when I look at the camera, people can see it. The old me I killed. That hides just beneath the surface, underneath what was supposed to be a temporary act, not a permanent play.
My grave. My obituary never saw the light of day.
And I fear the only one who grieved, was me.
The Death of a Content Creator
We met in 2019, a summer excursion.
I admit I was on the outset reluctant to go. Though, interested and supportive, on subcutaneous, surfacing, level I sensed instinctively that it would be hard. Emotional.
(Ericc Tascott, April 20, 1952 - March 13, 2024)
My husband had told me about him, with great fervor and esteem; how much he had learned from the man, and how he valued living and apprenticing together, creating and selling painted sculptures. Tasting the bohemian artist life, as it were, feeling Ericc had opened a door to a possible life he didn't believe could be made real-- to live solely off of one's artwork.
It's difficult, near impossible, to write on, without giving the impression of arrogance, presumption. To know. And yet...
The foundation, cracking, the traces of art before the stoop, the circle of familiar cats, the apologetic disarray on entry--- The scent of death is not new.
It's in the smell of glue, and paint, and varnish; in the finished and unfinished wood and clay; in the very pulp of paper, once dampened and now dried. It's not a sometimes thing; occasional; or project based. I'd been to other studios. I've lived one. It's a very visceral thing, sensitive, beyond object curiosity. It permeates everything. And I maintain that the working artist knows the lingering smell of Death.
To the art appreciator, those paintings, photos, sculptures, and other tangibles, take on a Life on closure. To the maker, it is as if one more nail in the coffin, one more boulder to the tomb, set loose. The things we make that bury us, in the byproducts of creative thinking-- it's the knowledge that death can creep in at any moment for the Content Creator, the instant he or she losses that momentum of expulsion. Loses out to depression or physical ailment, because in a twist of logic, that unburdening of "dead weight" is a Life affirming process, and when no longer making that "refuse," the Artist is already dying inside.
Going in, I knew he was no longer creating. Parkinson's, my husband told me. I understood the particulars of what that illness entailed, the debilitating involuntary tremors. My grandmother had suffered it. Her handwritten letters to her elder son almost illegible in final years, yet still she wrote, by necessity, unfailingly remarking on her scrawl (przypraszam za bazgroly) until she absolutely could not intelligibly hold thought nor pencil.
...the Dualling of life and death, is ever present, as a question unspoken: How are you ... Doing? I shook his hand. Not an ordinary shake, firm. Held. Our eyes locked, depth, and a cemented understanding: One of us.
Maybe numbers people (accountants, lawyers, bankers, etcetera) have the same sensation of Recognition. I'm sure poets and musicians do. The connection was strong. Painter to painter. He couldn't know, but it's as if we did. Whatever was wired in that handshake went through a lifeline, telepathically. Deuce the details.
I turned aside and fought tears and pride.
He reminded me of my father. He was a father figure to my husband. He hadn't compromised-- in a life full of compromises. He had insisted on Living. The biology of the Artist being to Create content. And when he stopped creating, back in 2019 or prior, he was already dying. I had the foolish notion of understanding something of the phantom pain he was feeling, as the amputation of the archaic vestigial organ of creativity, while he showed us around; where he used to work; what he used to do...
The understanding being that the Death of a Content Creator can come at any moment. The content, meaning, what resides inside the person: the Next.
Death of a Failsman
I slowly leak my innards
Through the sieve of collagen
Holding out my outards
I messily spill my guts
Through the holes in my broken heart
Until those beatings finally stop
I keep my sleeve unrolled
To wear emotions clinging like lint
Easily pet-brushed off like dander
I wax maudlin by burning
An oversentimental candle at both ends
Until the light finally goes out
I live in peace
I go in peace
But I go
Winter Feels
Barren; open; still
Empty;
Heavy like the weight upon the snow covered ground;
waiting still for better days.
Winter feels
Silent; isolated; alone
Violent like the cold;
and Death will certainly collect what’s owed.
Winter is
renewal; resurrection; rebirth
Beauty like the awe new life brings;
and promise that soon will come the Spring.
©S.J.Reed
Inner Pe--
We do this all the time, this expectation for another new year to be better htan the last then it proceeds to feel more awful than the one before. There is a genocide that makes me feel like if I was alive during the Holocaust and faced with the images that have twisted my stomach since 6th grade, I would still be here just liking them on Instagram and moving on. A is such a funny word. No, multiple genocides. Children mining for the cobalt that makes this little lightbox in my hand that gives me dopamine like Pez dying daily in Sudan (I think, God there's so much to remember nowadays), yet I still am against having a diamong ring anywhere near my hands (or other body parts I guess) because I refuse to fund such an unsafe environment for tradition.
I want to get closer to God but it feels like I can't without walking myself to the pearly gates because the world is full of noise, noise, noise. I feel like the Grinch, the original without Christine Baranski and her boobs or whatever the fuck was happening that musical distracting from the fact that Christmas is just so goddamn loud that the Grinch can't get any sleep in his little mountain with his dog. Plus, it just frustrates me to hear thtem root for Israel when I just watched parents sob over bundles of cotton that were once their smiling happy children. It's disheartening to know that I'm right and hear people that I used to trust as teachers are more worried about the name in a book than what the name represents. Should we really defend land over the people on it? If Jesus died for human sins, why are we still idolizing the possession of land over the precious lives on it.
It's just so much. I can't even beg for a break because this is the part of the accident where the doctors are removing the shrapnel of windshield you didn't realize was too dirty until you hit that tree you didn't see coming. We have to go through it, not over it. What's over it? It doesn't matter. We are in the scary trench, holding onto a celestial hand and praying things will be alright. There will be more scary things to come. You thought the anglerfish was bad, but you've never seen the bottom of the ocean before. You always stopped before the end of the adage and now get to see why the curious cat is the cat that truly lives. I want to be the cat that truly gets to see the beauty of live, which means going forward and not stopping no matter how much I want to.
I do not think that 2024 will be any better than 2023 or 2022 (but hopefully better than 2021; though if not, I'll be okay with having people 6 feet away from me again. I felt someone's breath on me the other day and nearly lost my mind). I wish for peace but you can't wish for peace; you have to make peace. This is me making peace wiht the fact that peace will not come. I will not have inner or external peace. I'm already mentally preparing for November when Trump somehow wins the office and the Supreme Court fights him and he joins Israel in their onslaught on Palestine and becomes a dictator and people try to stop im by striking but the three moneybags, Zuck, Musk, and Jeff fund him anyway and Mr. Tiny-Dick-Tator goes on and on until the rush of power he's never had before gives him a stroke and he dies at 80. It's going to happen. I'm just happy we get to fight a war in gym shoes and sweatpants instead of heels and dresses.
I think in 2024, I want to live like I'm going to die. But that might lead to me actually dying since pre-diabetes doesn't mix well with eating every shape of pasta I can legally find. I'd like to get laid again. I'd like to buy my second car. I'd like to maybe address this whole student loans thing (preferably with lawyers and dynamite, Tom and Jerry style), or say to hell with them and move to New Zealand. I'd like to continue to push my friends towards their goals, even though for them it probably feels like the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friend's game where you had to push Cheese down a hill and he only seemed to be having fun when you pushed him too fast and were trying to break/stop him from crashing. I'd like to reach out to more people and read more books (but not buy more books, for the love of God). I'd like to pray more. I want cheese. Like... A lot of cheese. I'd like to diversity my palate is probably what my brain actually meant. I just want to snag the bits of happiness that I can make in this awful disgusting place and put them in a drawer so I have something good to look back on.
This year absolutely sucked. Aside from "everything in the world going on", I lost my grandfather, someone that I loved and one of the people who helped shape the silly and weird person that I am. I fought a losing battle with student loans, barely made it out of my war with unemployment, lost a job in three weeks over nothing (the man literally cited a broken bottle as why I was let go -_- I will eventually forgive, but today is not the day). I just want to have more happiness next year to hold onto than I had this year. That's my ultimate New Years wish.
[The title is a Kung Fu Panda 2 reference. 10/10 recommend, the animation and story are both wonderful.]
To The Ones Santa Misses
I wish I had a pony.
I remember saying that often when I was a kid. I don’t think, looking back, that I really wanted a horse. What I really wanted was to be a cowboy and I’d never seen a cowboy without a horse, ergo…
Fortunately, Santa didn’t fulfill every childhood wish I had. I mean, what would I have done with the horse after the divorce anyways, when my mother moved my sister and I into that little townhouse out on the edge of town where there was barely enough money to pay utilities, much less to buy horse food? Or worse, what about when she moved us to the eternal suburb that is Virginia Beach? My horse would have had to been stabled on the balcony of that tiny apartment we lived in while Mom chased after that fighter pilot jock like it was her hair that was on fire and not his.
And what would the poor horse have done when I hit my unbridled teenaged years with no father around to rein me in? He would have had a rough go of it, to be sure, with many a missed brushing and feedbag.
Some things are for the best, I guess. Still, all these years later, here it is Christmas morning and that urge is strong as ever, and I am left to wonder how different things might have turned out if every missed request in those old ”Dear Santa” letters had been filled.
I am plenty old enough now to understand that even Santa has his limits, but it is Christmas… and I can’t help but wish I might have gotten that pony.
Infernal Informal
"If He is benevolent, why am I here?"
His voice is a car engine refusing to turn over when the killer is steps away from the window. He speaks in fits and starts, and his sentences are punctuated with wheezing coughs. His eyes are red brake lights illuminating shadowy figures in the dark; the killer isn't alone.
But there is no car. There are no killers in the dark. The two of them stand several feet apart, surrounded not with an audience of murderers creeping in the night, but by moonlight shining through tall pines and live oaks.
This used to be a crossroads, before white men arrived in floating coffins, carrying with them a new God. Game trails now mark where coastal tribes would journey inland to trade for deerskins or pottery.
They stand, the summoner and the summoned. The living and the undying.
"So you say God isn't good, bruv?"
He recoils at the g-word and it is a reassuring sign of weakness.
"I should show you your insides for wasting my time." He looms, growing several feet in the darkness. His is a shadow deeper than those cast by the moonlight, and his eyes narrow into crimson slits, demonstrating anger and seething hatred.
"Good thing that circle is there, innit?" The man is confident, but wary. He's done this dance before, but he can never relax.
"I grow tired of your games, little man. I no longer wish to speak."
"Oh, did I interrupt something important? Were you and the boys just having a grand time, torturing the wicked or being cast into a herd of swine? Tell me. Is Hell really all fire and brimstone, or is the heart of the place a giant lump of ice, with your boss trapped like a fly in amber?"
People miles away will swear they were awakened by a peal of thunder, others will claim an Air Force jet broke the sound barrier over civilian territory. No one would ever believe the anger of a demon was something that could disturb the physical world in such an incredibly powerful way.
"I serve no one. There is no boss."
"Bullshit."
The demon shrank his form into more of an animal, something the size and shape of an extremely large wolf with wings. The dimensions weren't quite right, but the snout was there, along with the bestial sense of the thing. He lunged at the man, but rebounded off an invisible shield that faintly glowed with the creature's impact.
"Watch that temper, tiny. You're still in the circle."
"Release me. Test yourself against me then, human."
"Do I strike you as stupid, demon?"
"You summoned me."
"Fair point."
"Why? Do you wish a bargain in these crossroads?"
"Ah. No, thank you. I only wanted to chat."
"You risk your soul to speak to me?"
The human chuckles. "Not even close, big guy. I was bored."
The demon seems genuinely confused, having reverted to a vaguely humanoid form. He is still bestial, with vestiges of a snout and a haphazard collection of fangs.
The man regards his prisoner. "Show me your true face."
"To see my true face would be to trade your sanity for satisfaction."
"Oh, sorry. I wasn't asking. Let's try this again, Marchosias. Show. Me. Your. True. Face."
Thunder and rage again fill the world, but the demon does as he is told. Floating, softly glowing, the many eyes of the Lord regard the man. Wings ripple, but no wind comes off them. The demon, now in the skin of an Angel, speaks.
"Be afraid."
"I think the line is be not afraid, but you already know that."
Silence is the response, and the two regard one another for a span of minutes. Finally, the man speaks.
"Thank you."
The demon almost seems surprised. "For what?"
"For proving that God exists."
"You've known He exists."
"Yes, but from time to time, I need to be reminded."
"Your knowledge is not faith, and it will not save you."
The man sadly nods. With a shrug, he turns to walk away. Looking back over his shoulder, he speaks at this crossroads for the final time.
"Do me a favor, bruv. Go to hell."
With a barely audible *pop*, the summoning ends and John Constantine walks away.
Pearl Harbor - December 7, 2023
Surprise Attack at ground zero
coordinates: 21°22′N 157°57′
Most every American soldier sailor tinker spy (and innocent civilians) moseying along the beautifully picturesque island of Oahu, the evening of December sixth never imagined, predicted, nor suspected, what annihilating blitzkrieg, catastrophizing debacle, emasculating fiend, Gorgonesque hellish imperial Japanese Kamikaze looming monstrosity neared Secret Operation Z, the unsuspecting civilian and military population, nonchalantly, insouciantly, and blithely went about their usual business, and upon late night hours of dark bedded down until awaking to an unbelievable, unforgettable, unnatural morrow.
When those first rays of sun shone forth on one typical pacific island, that unforgettable December seventh dawned with early risers basking in the warm sunlight initially oblivious to impending insanity, infamy, ignominy, et cetera.
Stock still, and as keen as a doe wide deer (there stood at least) one watchmen accidentally beholding conspiracy displayed flapping eyes insouciantly grimacing, evincing, convincingly approaching flashing red sun sinister terrorists unloading vicious wickedness.
Annihilation, eradication, incineration, punctuated earsplitting cacophony, when just a scant number of hours prior total mortal wrested tranquility, quality, piety, magnanimity, levity, jocularity, harmony became instantaneously obliterated pitching raw troops into the killing machine, where awaiting days, weeks, months...hence, a battle fatigue would be worn couture forcing the hand of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to issue additional conscripts as World War II torch hoard former neutrality, where statecraft instantaneously donned a take no prisoners posture.
This surprise aggressive attack launched a maelstrom of pandemonium before a handle could be grasped to stave off subsequent rapacious quicksilver pounding obliterating national dire straits, sans moody blue.
Loathsomeness kickstarted joint intelligence hurriedly galvanizing fortified ensemble. Duty culled country bravehearts answering belated call to arms, and farewell to family, which urgency to fight back wreaked havoc among family and fare thee well to friends.
No matter what price (paid with young and restless lives), an esprit de corps gung-ho, johnny minted platoons snapped, crackled, and popped into ready action.
Off to the Pacific fleet went stripling chaps barreling into harms way, charging full speed ahead, apply electric koolaid acid test (with no room to fail) assaying quickly assembled on the fly zippered dive bombarding claques, whose headlong risk sans carpet bombing sorties always carried a worse fate than death.
Plan net quickened scuttling damaged military armaments tugged back for possibly being repurposed for makeshift calisthenic, gymnastic, logically rustic yakkking gastric peptic zapper, or if scrapped hastily recycled for munitions.
After some degree of order instituted out of chaos, a well plotted strategy enlisted every spare, tiptop usable vet. This attack on Pearl Harbor delivered (as aforementioned), categorized as a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, on the morning of December 7, 1941.
The attack, also known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor, led to the United States' entry into World War II. The Japanese military leadership referred to the attack as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI, and as Operation Z during its planning. Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep United States Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions they planned in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and United States.
Well synchronized, linkedin, and choreographed arced traceries over the next seven hours. Japanese coordinated, carried out simulated theatric, which witnessed attacks on the U.S. held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
The attack commenced at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time (18:18 UTC). The base was attacked by Imperial Japanese aircraft (including fighters, level and dive bombers, and torpedo bombers) in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers.
All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four sunk. All but the USS Arizona were later raised, and six were returned to service and went on to fight in the war. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and one minelayer.
One hundred eighty-eight U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded. Important base installations such as the power station, dry dock, shipyard, maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section), were not attacked.
Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, and 64 servicemen killed. One Japanese sailor, Kazuo Sakamaki, was captured.
The surprise attack came as a profound shock to the American people and led directly to the American entry into World War II in both the Pacific and European theaters. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan, and several days later, on December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S. The U.S. responded with a declaration of war against Germany and Italy.
Domestic support for non-interventionism, which had been fading since the Fall of France in 1940, disappeared. There were numerous historical precedents for unannounced military action by Japan, but the lack of any formal warning, particularly while negotiations were still apparently ongoing, led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proclaim December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy."
Because the attack happened without a declaration of war and without explicit warning, the attack on Pearl Harbor was later judged in the Tokyo Trials to be a war crime.
Today, The Pogues [repost]
Shane MacGowan died this morning. As a small nod in his honor, I wanted to repost this piece about my favorite song that he wrote, which I originally posted on St. Patrick's Day in 2021.
My Irish bloodline is more personal trivia than heritage. My forebears sailed across the sea to farm in Pennsylvania nearly two centuries before my birth and roughly a generation before the Potato Famine, all of which is to say, there’s a great deal of distance there. Ireland is an abstraction, and my connection to it is ancestral rather than lived.
I never experience that connection more strongly than when I listen to The Pogues, “Thousands Are Sailing.” That song encapsulates anything I’ve ever read, seen, heard, or felt of my Irish heritage. There’s a push and a pull, grief and love, genuflection and spit, grit and pride. It’s a great song.
I’m putting a YouTube link with the very-much-still-relevant lyrics below. By all means, wear the green plastic hat, drink the Shamrock Shake, tell the kids the leprechaun left a chocolate gold coin, and down some Guinness and Jameson alongside your corned beef. But if you can spare five minutes and twenty odd seconds this St. Patrick’s Day, give them to The Pogues and think of the Irish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27iJsZpQn3A