The Has Been That Never Was

   Lately I have been having trouble finding joy. I seem to be angry all of the time, and I'm really kind of sick of it. I don't want to be one of those guys that wallows in his own misery, but I think I'm getting to the end of my rope. Everything just seems so fucked up. I just keep receiving blow after blow, and it's been going on now for the last 4 1/2 years. Then end is always just beyond my reach. Tricking me into believing that this is almost over, but I never seem to reach that horizon.

    Between the car accident, losing my wife, going to prison, dealing with parole/probation, loosing all contact with my son; watching the country go to hell; seeing the abuse/corruption in our justice system first hand; seeing the battle between the sex's reach new records of hypocrisy; watching our society cave into corporate/government propaganda and fear. Not to mention the loneliness I feel creeping up on me more and more with each new day.

   Am I losing my "touch," my "swagger?" I keep telling myself, "just a little bit longer. Soon you'll get your settlement, and then you can get your teeth fixed, your knee fixed... maybe do something about being so deaf. Lose some weight, buy a car and new clothes.... then people will like you again. Then you can be happy again; find a good girl that want's to be with you, and relax. Not have to be so alone, stuck in this God damn apartment.  Just hang on for a bit longer." However, I'm starting to believe that it's all a load of crap.

   What if I've been this way for so long, that I'm stuck in this angry, fat, toothless, broke as fuck body, and will never escape from this mire I'm swimming in? What if my roommate is right, and you don't need money to find a good girl;... then what's my excuse? Maybe I've turned into a horrible person; bitter and full of nothing but self loathing? Doomed to be lonely for the rest of my life.

   Most of my 30's were spent waiting for something to be over, and now that it's almost over, I'm damn near 40 and wonder just how marketable I am. I missed out on so much, and am beginning to realize that I'll never get that time back. Why is my life such a vicious cycle? I missed out on my childhood due to abuse and neglect, and now I miss out on the prime period of adulthood due to more abuse and negligence.

 There's not much left for me. There's girls that are too young, or immature to offer me any real substance. There's bitter women that are all used up, and have nothing worth wild left to offer. There's entitled women who want spineless meal tickets, with a boy toy on the side here and there. The good ones are all taken. At least that's the way it seems.
 
   Of course thinking about this only makes me regret the time I waisted on my ex even more. Or think about the mistakes I made here, or there. Regret letting my friend, whom won't even talk to me anymore, convince me into moving back to the west coast in the first place. I was living good in MPLS. Or re-live that horrible accident over and over again in my mind. Regret, regret regret. Which leads to me thinking about every mistake I've ever made over the last decade. How I burned this friend, or should have made that choice, or how I ruined that relationship. Over and over again, these horrors haunt me. Never allowing me more than a brief moment of joy here and there. That's all that seems left for me. And I doubt that it's enough.

   I need a friend. A good friend. Someone that I want to be friends with. Someone that wants to be friends with me. Someone I admire and look up to. Someone who see's something great in me, and is willing to help me see it in myself. Someone that admires me, my thoughts, my views, standards, and abilities. But how do you get someone to like you, be loyal to you, love you, when you can hardly stand yourself? When you are beginning to believe all of the things the courts, PO's, cops, jailers, media, feminists, ministers, lawyers, nay-sayers, ex's, ect. are saying about you?

   I have spent many years alone. Usually I find a way to embrace my solitude. To find strength in it. Eventually, I become stronger, confident, and learn to love myself even more. This time seems to be different though. Or maybe, I have spent too much time alone this time. Maybe. I am losing myself, and becoming a bitter old man. Angry at the world for missed opportunities and injustices never realized.

   Years ago, I wrote a song about an old friend called "The Has Been That Never Was." Maybe that is what I've become.

Just Saying

Guilty

I spend too much time thinking about my mistakes. I suppose it comes from my religious background, or maybe the run-in's I've had with the law... Whatever it is, I spend a lot of time in regret. 

I know, I know,... people like me are not supposed to have "No Regrets" yet they exist. There are people out there that hate me... Some of them I have no control over, like certain government agencies, women's movements, minority rights activists, both conservative and liberal groups... I suppose that there's a significant amount of guilt built from how I judge others... 

We all judge, I judge not on race, political influence, social status, sex, or sexual preference... I judge on your statue of human morality. 

I feel we're all equal... Equal, meaning that no one is better than anyone else based solely on what they are, who they believe in, or who they fuck, but what we do as human entities. 

Then there are personal relationships. These memories have a bigger influence on me, because these are judgments made upon me from people that I once'd loved. I hear all of the time how we need to move past our prior engagements, and embrase our own personel happiness. How can I do that though? To do that would mean letting go of some significant relations, and what they stood for. 

I've lost a wife, and a son to these sort of relations... so how do I move on. 

There's a conflict in our social standing... We pretend that we stand for things like marriage, and parenthood, but all too often we put those atributes aside for things like personal gain, happiness or social success....

Yes I judge myself... constantly, and crave for there to be someone out there to say that I am living a righteous life, but if I expect society to be honest, then I must be honest with myself...

I have failed,.. badly... Yet I see no way to work around it.I hate hypocrisy, yet it surrounds just about every aspect of human life, and I see it most predominately in myself. 

So then, logic dictates that I must hate myself. I could turn away from this hypocrisy, but then that would only lead to more self-loathing. 

There is no beneficial answer to this conundrum, because the answer would mean our own demise... so we live on,.. and for some of us, that means regrets. 

I'm just saying

Father? Nah! Just Another Misogynistic Pig

Is it just me, or are men starting to turn into sperm banks, support checks, and nothing more? We take their seed, we birth a child then they belong to us forever. We've made the laws say so. If you dont, I'll take your check, then your license, then I'll lock you up. That is perfect cus then you'll never have to see your child, and when you get out you'll have a giant bill. Meanwhile your child will have full medical, as will I, and we'll get food as well. Shit I should just move to Cali and live in my car,.. then you'll have to pay for my apartment too. Oh you're jumping through the hoops, oh, well, in that case, I've got plans with Roger this weekend. Sorry bud. Oh hey, you're calling to say hi, yeah, your son's not here... at his grandma's. WAIT! You want to see your child, OK... it's gonna cost 3 times more than you're already paying. What?! I'm just a helpless single mother,.. I'm entitled. Go to hell you Dead Beat Dad!

Higher School's Past

Yeah... So...
Who Knew?

If there was someone who could tell me what was to be, I'd probably punch them right in the mouth. Cuz there was no way we would have ever ended up like this.

Seemed like yesterday when I was pulling you out of the muck... Seems like yesterday when I was living in that bar above. Seems like yesterday when I left to do my stint in jail. Seems like yesterday when you left with junior wood chuck.

You don't believe in God, you don't believe in Jesus, until his prophet makes your escape; and the past is now inconspicuous.

It amazes me how much of the past comes to haunt ya... only if there is a past that's worthy of your coming back. Who cares about the tinsel red of that BMW convertible? Who care's about your black MR2? What will be your message when the towel is thrown, and you're through? When your cheers echo for the last time, and your plaid skirt no longer flails?When you'r Del Taco dreams fail and that ship sets to sail?

When all we see is what is now, we find it difficult to see what there is to come.

Commerce is only capable of so much of a load. Fathers can't always see what it is, that or when, failures may sum.

Wilcox, Cox, Jennifer, Amanda, McCullen, or Lil' M, or Summer's dawn, Victoria, or Disclumpin, what does it matter, One leg at a time; this leg, this sock,... Holm folk only remember what is their will, and the bearing down of those rocks.Their will,... their rocks! What justice is meant for these folks... these Mic's, these Scotts!?

Da DadaDadadaa....dadaa,.dadaa dadaaaa ..aaaa.aaa..aaaaaaaa

Stupid fucking bagbipes... So fucking loud, so fucking naked!

It's been several years now, and yet I cling on to a past that was as fragile as a moment. A moment only preserved in a memory of one that should have long ago let disperse.

So the anger of higher schools past, still the memory of you taints.

Wonder about the ending of these paints.

All Rung Out...With bad Tattoo's

I think I may be done. Not done in the way that ya'll need to call an ambulance and have me put on a 24 hour watch. But done as in, I think I may have reached my limit.

Look... It's been close to 2 years now, and I still have yet to recover from the last blow. I still hurt, I sill doubt myself, I still ache over it all. I'm still just basically fucked up. (Side note: All you mother fuckers that were there, and/or participated in this whole debacle, listen up....Here's from one of the collateral damaged; a result of your debauchery,.. from which this one is not getting back up) I just have lost the will. I just don't see the point. (again... not suicidal, so relax) I just can't find a reason to continue. A reason to try. There's no point in me trying to find a partner anymore. Shit I'm damn near 40. If it was to happen, it would have happened by now, and the last chance I had, got wasted away by a lot of bad luck and even badder  friends. (badder... didn't think I'd ever be able to justify that word) Shit I still have to deal with the asshole who won out,.. rubbing my face in it every chance he can get. Fuck! I'm still wearing the clothing of the wolves that infiltrated my most personal of depths.

Some of us were just meant to die alone. There comes a time in your life when you just have to accept that which you can not change. I have had some really great loves in my life. 3 to be exact, and I believe that a man can't ask for more. For me, it wasn't written in the cards for me to actually keep any of them. Guess the wind blows the way it chooses and there aint a damn thing one can do about it

I've had a good run. I've seen things that people who may live 4 times longer, never get to see. I've built stories that have pushed themselves well beyond the point of believabilty. I've earned every story tattooed on my body. So don't feel sorry for me. I made my bed, and I plan on sleeping in it.

I was foolish to believe that I would end up settling down with someone to share these life experiences with. Maybe I allowed myself to wish for a little more than I really knew I would ever achieve. But I chose this life. I chose it long ago. In the foothills of some town not quite forgotten by me, and definitely not by itself,... Long ago, on a starry night in my 18th year. Sitting on the hood of my old pickup, looking out on the lights of an unsubstantial city. Listening to a boy/man, that I would one day outgrow; a boy/man that would abandon me in a city of the most fierce cold,.. tell me a story that I would never forget,.. and be doomed,  from that point on, to live. That each of those lights out there represented a family... A man who decided to settle down and have a family... A man that decided that the road was not for him... That finding someone to grow roots with was the means to happiness... I listen to my friend tell me " Me and you,... We're not meant for that sorta life. We'll always search for more. Our lives will never be summed up by a light lost in a multitude of some suburban night."

So here I am... Some 25 odd years later, with a heart smashed all to shit, a pocket full of stories, and an empty room with nothing but this keyboard to keep me company. While I ache over what I've lost, there is still a part of me that is proud to know that at least I am not some porch light lost amongst a plethora of a million other lights. I'm alone, yet I knew that this was where my path would lead me. I'm not some failure that has no future. In fact, in many ways, my future still has more brightness coming that most would only dream of. It's just a brilliance that I have to endure alone. Something that I would do better by excepting sooner, rather than later.

I suppose the point is, pretty much the same as when I started the rant, I just need to learn to except the things in life that I have no means to change. Maybe then I can once again find happiness in my solitude.

I'm just saying...

Just Who Do You Think You Are?

I find that many confuse empathy with sympathy. You'll find that many of us "liberals" don't want your sympathy. I'd like to think that we, as a country, would take our "Melting Pot" proclamations, and apply it to our immediate social environments. My value systems are different than yours. Just as yours are different than your neighbors. Do you have enough room in your heart to allow for these differences? Are you capable of identifying these differences, and while not always agreeing with them, EMPATHIZING with those who's character is not exactly the way you would choose it to be? Well... are you?

What Was That?

   I still hang out with the worse of the worse.

   I have changed, but you'd never know by my company. I have lunch with those who have murdered... I toast with those that have crippled. I drink with those that you work so hard to imprison. Yes I have changed, but not the way you were thinking...

You might think that I am not talking about you...but I am.... You let me go to prison. You let me evolve in this manner. You supported my deprivation. You did it with,.. or without acting. This would never had happened if you had done something to stop it...

So here I am now... One who only finds reality in what I can actually see is real. Say what you want about us ex-cons... at least we're real. We may not, in fact often aren't, right... but we're real. We react to real situations. We hold you accountable to those sins that you would rather not be accountable for. We do what you know should be done, but would rather sweep under the rug.

Many talk about moral objectives and what that entails... many talk about abuse and negligence... Many talk about God and what he expects... Many talk about actually standing up for something... Many talk... and that's all they ever do... Guess what.. Convicts don't talk!

We're what you can never be. We're the warriors that you're too chicken shit to be. Yes there are a lot of us that are completely fucked up, but without those fucked up individuals, how would you be able to disregard us all as a whole? It makes for a convenient excuse.

Maybe we have forgotten the benefit of having differences between each other? Maybe we have been so diluted by others arguments, that we have forgotten that there was a reason for an opposition in the first place? Maybe we let that little "gnat" of a voice, decide our current future. Maybe we were never meant to be this diplomatic...maybe there should be lines... boundaries? Maybe,,, Just maybe... There are roles that need to be filled... Maybe there is an equality that can only be achieved by a dividence of responsibilities...roles even.

I challenge you "M"... What good has your feminism accomplished? Not feminism as the media chooses to portray it, but the one that you preach so adamantly about. What more have you accomplished? Other than a definite divide? More men imprisoned,... more war,where more men die,.... more children men are being blamed for abandoning. More spending that men are responsible for paying? What exactly were you looking to fix....How have you accomplished that goal....and as a man, I'm asking...How have you made my life better... or does that matter?

it's everywhere.... The Divide..

I can't get a job
I can't get licensed
I can't graduate
I can't buy a home
I can't drive a car
I can't live a life....

...Till Then I ask you.

So you have won... you now have control of me...what are you going to do with it?
About Face! What were we just talking about?
Was that all it took to get you to forget the last subject?
Or are you on some sort of recon mission to destroy all of this...
... debauchery?

What was I just talking about?... Do you even remember?

stay stuck on the thoughts of a majority that gets all the benefits and respect of a minority,...
and how they're entitled to win!

What was I talking about?

~SB~