“To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death... We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere."
"To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.”
― Michel de Montaigne
The talking heads are bandying about with figures of 120,000-140,000 Americans dead by the 4th of July - today, there are 116,000 · according to the NY Times. There are still medical personnel wearing trash bags for scrubs while police in the latest military assault uniforms have arrested 10,000 people protesting the murder of George Floyd and continuing assault by police against citizens exercising their constitutional right to redress their grievances. The 2nd wave of virus death has not begun, but the 3rd wave of climate havoc is only a faint swell still far out at sea - how are you doing ?
If you feel the need to give jeffery bezos one more thin dime to bolster your flagging self-esteem with another vanity purchase, i propose instead that you send me a nickel of that dime and i will personally send you an authored paragraph affirming my respect for you as an valiant resistor of consumer fraud and my solidarity with you on the front lines of change. Each and every nickel you send to me will go to buying food for hungry children. Laugh if you must, but you also know that what i say is true and it beats the shit out of buying gilded toilet paper for one of jeffery’s palaces - you’d be 5¢ richer, instead 10¢ poorer, you do the math. This is not rocket science - $50 billion in stimulus money, aka your tax dollar went to schnooks lacking the testicles to step up and their ill-gotten gains out of the public trough - what kind of chickenshit tough guy are you to let a “suit” rob you without a raising a finger in your defense - i don’t give a fuck how deep in the heart of Texas you life · you a punk in the neighborhoods i’ve spit on grufyti in.
It is love that will preserve us, and if you look to your left or to your right - you will find yourself sitting next to somebody who cares more deeply about your world than any avatar you hope to find scrolling on this contraption. Don’t believe me, i’ve been trolling for love in the digital universe since before 976 party lines and have yet to find one sincere exchange more meaningful than the “fuck you” in the eyes of the clerk i paid good money to for a wilted cheeseburger or broken bean burrito. The flip side of the coin is that each of you who are reading this chronicle has a personal story about having had a bad day reversed by one simple - “i feel you” · or “thanks for your kind comment.” It is this power of horizontal distribution that the corporate digital overlords have attempted to hijack for personal gain - rather than propagate as a greater good · ladies and gentleman, that manifestation of greed is rather than pathetic - an abomination worthy of outrage, censure and stringent closure like an gaping wound in your body you understand must be staunched and then healed.
Again, it is not rocket science. Due to my goofy eyesight i’d be willing to bet i have enjoyed more personal injuries than odds dictate. From that unique roll of dice, i possess a formidable understanding about capacity for healing which few of you reading this could begin to imagine - even the homies with multiple gunshot & knife wounds would be hard-pressed to match misery with misery · lucky me. I built a surfboard in the garage of the house i grew up in; after waiting patiently for the fiberglass to cure i used a double boiler to melt the paraffin to pour over the virgin surface - the aged saucepan didn’t make it to the surface of the virgin board and instead poured over my bare foot, possibly the same foot which the 5th metatarsal was to be broken a few short years later on the same right side i was to pour an industrial vat of spaghetti sauce over my forearm which was to own a broken 5th metacarpal a few short years after - it is not “accident prone” it is luck of the draw. Just like you born at the moment an entire species became aware of its fragile mortality.
I refuse to accept that all the spirits and misbegotten lives i have intersected with in my short trajectory on the “3rd Rock from the Sun” has been for naught; sitting just now on my porch nursing the last of my “medicine”, i believe it is possible to make another stand regardless of the of simpletons arrayed in front of me. I have been carving stone for the better part of my life, enough to have more than years of labor stolen for no other reason than gratuitous greed. I am inured somewhat to the cruelty of our times and remain faithful to the origin of our species - cooperation. We did not crawl out from under animal blood lust without a healthy measure of mutual organization - the sort of organization that is not found in the back channels of sordid transactions between amoral corporate cowards and other amoral corporate cowards. I am addressing the sort of initial cooperation between stalwart humans capable and willing to outrun an animal buck for the protein it could afford a small tribe of like minded hominids. I could give a fuck, if you are Neanderthal or pure bred Australopithecus, as long as you are gentle with children and kind to old people.
jts 13/06/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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