White Privilege

A lot has been going on lately as far as "race relations" go. Things are as tense and touchy as they have been since the civil rights movement of the 60's. A lot of that is because we live in this weird internet age, and social media is more or less a cancer when it comes to these things. If you've ever made the mistake of reading the comments section of a local news article detailing any sort of racial issue, you probably understand where I am coming from here. A lot of these Midwestern "blue collar white folks" are not shy about voicing their opinion on subjects like the #blacklivesmatter movement, or when an unarmed black kid gets shot up and subsequently murdered by law enforcement. Then there is the seemingly unending list of celebrities caught up in their various racial scandals. Always these "down home" folksy types like Paula Deen, who I guess is some sort of television cooking show mogul (I don't watch that shit, I could be off base here) or Ted Nugent with his cheeky little racist schtick, whom the conservative types have championed as a proud purveyor of free speech. Now just recently Hulk Hogan has been added to this unfortunate group. Here is the thing though, when people like this, or people on social media commenting on a news story call young black kids "thugs", it's not hard to read in between the lines and realize what word they really want to use. The most difficult thing for me personally about this is in my opinion, people who are openly racist, or passive aggressive racists aren't that way because they can't help it. They can help it. They chose to be that way. It is willful ignorance. It is intentional, outright stupidity. It is based at it's very core in stupidity. They completely refuse to understand other cultures of people who have a different color of skin than them. They are terrified of brown or black people. They view them as sub humans, and they have nothing but contempt for them. But this post isn't about any of that. I can sit here and talk about how frustrating it is to know that these people exist. White privilege is real, because I am certain I have experienced it.

During the spring of 2007 I was 21 years old, and living with a roommate and playing in a shitty sludge metal band called Miserable Prick. We were pretty rudimentary and awful, but it was a lot of fun and we had a lot of conviction in the message we were trying to convey. Which was mostly just blasphemous H.P. Lovecraft themed shit metal. We didn't know a fucking thing about songcraft, or how to properly write music, but that was the last thing we cared about. We just wanted to make blasphemous noise. We more or less accomplished that. Eventually by mid summer, we had made enough racket and word had gotten around town (not hard to do in a town of 3,500 people) that we were a thing, and we were out there playing basement shows and people started to pay a bit of attention. I was working in a grocery store at the time and one day I carried out groceries for a woman who had a Testament window sticker on the back of her car. Being in tune with old school 80's thrash, I inquired if she was a fan, and she explained that not her, but her brother was a huge fan and he was in a local band that played shows around Eastern Iowa. I eagerly told her about my shitty band and told her I would like to make contact with her brother. She then mentioned that her husband plays drums in her brother's band as well. Long story short, I gave her a CD, went and auditioned with them, and a few weeks later they asked me to join the band as their new vocalist. The band was called Sinistir Mind and they played sort of an old school type thrash, very much like Testament or older Metallica. This was the most exciting thing for a 21 year old me, as I had been wanting to join an actual band who plays shows outside of a basement. And this band was ready with a canon of songs and years of experience playing gigs. It was my time to be a "rockstar" so to speak. A few months later we played our first show at Tornado's in Cedar Rapids. A small dive bar with a reputation as being a "rough and tumble metal crowd kind of place." Sometime before our set, a man sitting at the bar fired up a crack pipe, and got thrown out of the bar. We played our set, and I slayed. I did a great job, and I am proud to say that. The crowd was into it, and Sinistir Mind's new vocalist was greeted with love and open arms. I had made it, I thought. I was a local rockstar now. Fast forward about a month, and we played our second show with me at the helm manning the microphone, and if you are wondering if I was ever going to get to a point, here well, this is where I get to my point.

It was late August or September of that year. 2007. At this point I had quit my job at the local grocery store. I was working in a motorcycle parts warehouse. This meant that I didn't have to adhere to the rigid standards of working around customers and keeping up a clean cut appearance. I grew out my hair and a tremendous furry red beard. It was pointy and long. It was basically like I had a lion's mane at that point. I looked like a genuine,dyed in the wool motherfucker. I had adopted all of the requisite "metal guy" quirks at this point. I wore work boots with raggedy shorts. Band T-shirts every day. Maybe I was a try hard. Maybe I was a poser. Who fucking knows, and that doesn't matter. Our second show with me as the vocalist was in Dubuque Iowa, at a shitty rat infested hole in the wall joint in one of the worst parts of Dubuque. We were the second band to play. The crowd was a bit sparse this time. Apparently Dubuque didn't have much of an appetite for tough guy hardcore and 80's style thrash. Shortly after our set was over, we were on stage disassembling drums and wheeling amplifiers off stage, and I was approached by a woman who came up near the stage and she wanted to speak with me. She said "Hey, my friend over there thinks you're hot and she wants to know if you want to come party with us after the show." I glanced over toward the bar at her friend. She was sitting there sipping on a mixed drink. She gave me a seductive smile and waved. She was attractive, in a trashy yet somehow appealing sort of way. She had a dangerous, malevolent sort of persona about her. Like she might be into some weird "dark corners of the internet" type of shit. I was intrigued. Very intrigued. She had shoulder length dark hair and several tattoos, and short booty enhancing shorts.. So I said "Yeah, I can probably do that. Let me talk to my band mates." As we were loading out our gear, I approached our guitar player and told him about my situation. Me being the new guy, and they were eager and happy to have me as their new front man, he said "Brother. Here is a $20 bill. Go find yourself a case of beer and some condoms, and go have fun. We will come back for you tomorrow." I was a little bit flustered and overwhelmed, but hey I was a "rockstar" now and this was what I was supposed to do right? So I went along with it. I accompanied these two women on a late night adventure through east Dubuque. I got to know my new friend quite well. We hit up several bars, and all of us got exceedingly intoxicated. Just two girls and I. My new friend and I groped one another and made out in public. Looking back on it, it was fucking gross and crass. I don't ever want to be 21 again. If 29 year old me could see what 21 year old me was doing in public that night, I might have considered approaching him and telling him that was gross and weird, and to knock it the fuck off. And then 21 year old me would have subsequently beaten the fuck out of 29 year old me. I was a physical specimen back then, and I was an unbearable, arrogant fuckhead. But I digress. When last call arrived, we had made arrangements to go back to these girl's shared rental house and have a three person after party. I hopped in the girl's SUV who had initially approached me. The other girl and I made out in the back seat. And then there were red and blue flashing lights in the rearview mirror.

We were being pulled over. Apparently the girl driving had made an illegal turn, or failed to come to a complete stop at a stop light. Either way, we were fucked. Or at least she was. We pulled over and two cops approached our vehicle. One of them rapped on the back window where I was sitting. Now it is important to note, that I had to urinate at this point like I had never had to urinate in my entire life. If I waited another five or ten minutes, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have pissed my pants. So when the cop came up to my window, I rolled it down, and before he even got a word out, I said "Hey before you say anything, I have to pee in the worst way. Like I am going to pee my pants." And then he did something completely astonishing to me. He cheerfully said "Okay, go back behind that building, do your thing and then come right back." Totally surprised, I did just that. I went back behind a building on the street we were pulled over on, and I relieved my swollen, booze addled bladder. He didn't follow me. He didn't stand nearby to make sure I didn't take off running. He simply stayed near the car and waited patiently for me to come back. When I returned, he questioned me as to what I was up to that night. I was completely honest with him. I stated that my band had played a show, and that I was from out of town and I was partying with these girls that I had just met. I asked him what was going to happen. He said "well, your friend who was driving is going to jail for an OWI, and I am going to call a cab for you and your friend to go back to her house. Have a good night and be safe." So that is what happened. A cab came and picked up my new lady friend and I, and we went back to her place and did gross things.

But here is what I am getting at now. What would have happened to me, if I was black in this scenario? I did not look like an upstanding citizen of the law by any means. I looked like a bridge dwelling troll type creature, or a homeless vagrant. I had wild, long red hair and an awful beard. I was wearing raggedy shorts and scuffed up fucking work boots. This cop didn't even think twice about letting me run off to take a piss, unsupervised. If I had drugs on me or a weapon, I could EASILY have ditched them and he would have had no idea. He never searched me. He didn't even fucking ask me any questions before I ran off to piss. If I wanted to, I could have just run off and avoided the whole thing. Would that have happened if I was black? If I had dreadlocks or if my pants were sagging? It's impossible to know. I definitely think I had the advantage of being white in that situation. Something tells me things would have unfolded differently if my skin was a darker pigment.

This is just a personal experience of mine. I know people groan and roll their eyes when they hear or read the words "white privilege", but put yourself in the shoes of someone else for once. When black people or minorities deal with law enforcement, a lot of the time they are totally fucking terrified. And with the way things have been lately, can you blame them? Every other week we have an unarmed black kid shot and killed in this country by law enforcement. I don't know if it is a cop problem. I am not here to say that all cops are pigs and are awful people. In my current line of work I deal with police officers every day, and most of them seem like honest, friendly people and I get along with them. But instead of saying "HE SHOULDN'T HAVE RUN" or "HE WAS A THUG, GOOD RIDDANCE I AM GLAD HE IS DEAD", can we not have some fucking compassion and understanding? Is that too much to ask? I don't have the answers. I am just relaying a personal experience. And yes, I think I was a beneficiary of white privilege. I am not hear to try and make white people feel guilty about being white, and that would be ridiculous. But maybe if this goes over your head, you never will understand or just don't want to. And that's fine. If that is the case, keep watching Duck Dynasty re-runs and posting about how the Confederate flag is about "heritage and not hate." This is a divisive topic, and I know that. But let's try to get better at this. In 2015, we should be better at this. Thanks for reading.

Travis

Travis woke up on the floor again, amidst a clutter of beer bottles, cigarette butts and a paper plate with the remnants of a late night burrito smeared all over it. He pulled himself to his feet and looked at his clock. He was 14 minutes late for work. Travis went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. His eyes looked weary, with heavy bags under them. He hadn't shaved in 8 days and his boss would have his ass, he thought to himself, if he came in looking like that. Travis took a large swig of mouthwash and began swishing it around in his mouth, the taste of it burning his esophagus and his tender, smokeless tobacco ravaged gums. He peeled off his underwear that he'd been wearing all weekend and drew a hot shower. He stood there in silence and scalding hot water and tried to decide if his life had any purpose, or if it ever did in the first place. Travis finishes showering, shaves, and dresses for work.

Travis arrives for work about 45 minutes late. His boss gives him his final written warning and a stern lecturing, but Travis couldn't be bothered with such trivial matters. Travis works his shift in silence and avoids eye contact with his co-workers. He doesn't participate in 10 o'clock break. Travis eats a cold salami and cheese sandwich in his dark green 1988 Chevy Tahoe during his lunch break. He keeps a polaroid picture of his late mother on his dashboard. Travis wonders if she would be proud of him. Travis can't even remember what her voice sounds like anymore. Travis fights back silent tears and goes back to work.

Travis sneaks out of work early, and drives to the liquor store. He buys the largest, cheapest bottle of whiskey they have and a two packs of menthol cigarettes. The cashier is a girl, about 25 to 28 years old. Travis thinks she's pretty. She has dark red lipstick and long dark hair, past her shoulders. Travis considers all of the despicably perverse things he would do to her. Travis hasn't had sex in 14 months. His last girlfriend broke up with him because she thought he drank too much. She sometimes would find Travis cutting himself on his arms and torso, and she didn't like that either. Travis has blocked her name out of his head. He doesn't even know her name. But he remembers her smell, and the taste of her swollen vulva. Travis blinks, and comes out of his trance as the cashier gives him his change and he leaves the liquor store.

Travis arrives at his home and uncaps his bottle of whiskey as he sits in his truck in the driveway. He takes two long, hard pulls as he sits there in silence. Travis has never hated anyone or anything in the entire world as much as he hates himself.

Travis decides not to eat dinner. He smokes cigarettes and drinks his cheap whiskey as he listens to David Bowie songs from a burned CD his ex girlfriend left at his house after she broke up with him. Travis doesn't even fucking like David Bowie. Travis has most of his whiskey gone by 11 PM and he goes into his bathroom to relieve his bladder. Travis glances in the mirror and he hates what he sees. Travis takes a razor blade from his medicine cabinet and carves a detailed constellation into his forearm, but in a place where he is sure his shirt will cover it. Travis finally stops cutting himself and cauterizes his wound with a curling iron that his ex girlfriend left there. Travis winces in pain, but makes no sound. Finally Travis urinates into his stained, uncleanly toilet.

Travis is pissing blood again.

Travis walks into his bedroom and removes his stolen unregistered handgun from his dresser drawer. Travis loads a round into the chamber, and presses it against the back of his throat. He has done this every night for the last 4 weeks. Travis chokes on the cold barrel until he gags and tears start forming in the corners of his eyes. Travis pulls the gun back out of his mouth and falls to the floor and starts to weep. He knows he is a coward and he knows his life is without purpose.

Travis reads Friedrich Nietzsche quotes on his computer as he finishes his bottle of whiskey. Travis returns to the bathroom to throw up stomach bile. He makes sure to call his ex girlfriend's phone again that night and he hangs up again as she answers.

Travis wakes up on the floor again. He looks at his clock. Travis is 36 minutes late for work.

Tumors

The bitterness, no longer a passing endeavor
Knoweth he who walketh beneath the shadow of doubt
Uncouth and unbeknownst to them all
Feral, and beholden to none
Tattered beneath a passing light
Unfurling beneath the colorless smoke
The hissing serpent echoing displeasure in one's skull
A harem of women pleading a forgotten gospel
Running afoul of the long dead deity

Pain arriving like a dull knife
Carving itself into the tender organ
Tender and bleeding dust
Slain hearts and hollowed wounds
Pacified by time, rife with pollution
A gaping void in the soul
Lamenting agony
Uncoiled were the worms
Into the walking corpse

She walks beneath falling satellites
The stars and the moon turn ashen and cowl away
She passes the dying trees
Upturned graves
Corpses groaning and turning to dust
To know her, is to know death
Falling stars, falling men
Collapsing suns and buckling knees
She touches hearts
And tumors grow inside

Forgiveness For the Reaper

The blossoming corpse flower springs life from death
The looming specter shielded from the light
Shrouded in the mirth
Vomited contents
Billious and uncouth
An oozing black miasma
Poison, corrupted bowel
Forgiveness for the reaper that never came

There is no pain to be felt
The scythe ever rasping at the door
Pallid, sickened skin
Hemorrhaging any long held ideals
A looming failure at every threshold
Existing forever. Long held in the exquisite torture of existence
Life without time. Time without age.

Howling for death's loveless embrace
She utters a prayer for no one
A hollowed cadaver with a pulse
Corruption seeping through callous skin

Angry shadows dancing on it's body
What it was before, it can no longer be

The Boner

A lot of folks out there don't like to talk about boners and sexual situations, but I have never been comfortable falling into society's PC trappings or felt compelled to quell my opinions or thoughts on these subjects. So with all that being said, I want to tell a tale of a time when I got a boner in an awkward situation. Buckle up, assholes.

When I was in high school I worked for a canoe rental service. I started when I was 15, and I worked there through the summer into my senior year, when I was 17. It was  my favorite job ever. Not only did I get to work outside, but it was pretty physical stuff, lifting canoes over your head and loading them onto trailers. You got to hang out by the water, free canoe rentals when they weren't fully booked, you get the idea. It was a cool job for a high school kid. A big part of the job was waiting down at the canoe landing point, and loading the canoes onto the trailers to bring back up to the launch point. We ran a shuttle service, and when the actual shuttle bus was making runs and wasn't down there, we would ferry people back up to the top in the large econo-size vans that pulled the trailers. As you can probably imagine, being on a river all day in the sun and downing booze can dull a lot of people's inhibitions, and my co-workers and I saw many strange or amazing sights in our time working down there. It wasn't uncommon to see tits and asses or any combination of either of those things. We all got used to it, and it became a perk of the job. Not that we actually sought out to do that sort of thing, because hey we had work to do and when 150+ canoes are coming in at a good clip, you have to be on your toes. But there were times when it was just about waiting for the canoes to come in, and when it became later in the season, business came to a lull and there was downtime to actually "stop and smell the roses" so to speak.

It was late summer, 2002. I was 16. I was a virgin, and hadn't had much success with females at that point, as I was always pretty shy and reserved in those days. I didn't start really letting loose or partying until I was about 18. If I recall, it was a weekday evening, probably 6:30 or 7pm. There were maybe 70,80 canoes out that day and we had them all loaded up save for the last two or three out on the water. When they finally came in, it was a group of about 6. They were all drinking heavily, and they were having a good time that day. Two of them were females. The rest were frat boy type dudes. We loaded them up, and I had arranged to drive them the twenty minute trek back to the starting point where their cars were parked. After they all loaded up and got their coolers and belongings in the van, we were off. About 2 minutes into the ride, one of the females sauntered up to the cab of the van and asked if she could sit on my lap for the drive up to the top. At first I relented, because for one, it would be illegal, and for two, I am working and this seemed to me to be slightly unprofessional. She wasn't taking no for an answer, and she plopped down on my lap. I asked her how old she was, and her name. She said she was 26. Ten years older than me at the time. I don't recall her name. She was attractive. Brunette girl, with deep blue eyes and a nice bronze tan. Me being the hopeless dork that I was, asked if any of the guys in back were her boyfriend. She said they weren't, and they were egging her on heavily. She proceeded to nibble on my ear and kiss me on my face and cheek, and a few times during the ride back, she jammed her tongue into my ear canal. Really giving me a good worm tongue-ing. I was flabbergasted. I didn't know how to react or what to do, so I just tried to concentrate on driving without wrecking the van. She continued this behavior all the way back to the canoe rental. Once we turned into the parking lot, she hopped off my lap and there it was. I was wearing gym shorts that day, and I was sporting the most rigid erection of my life. She was somehow amazingly surprised by this, and she immediately started laughing and pointing at it and proclaiming "oh my god you guys, he has a huge boner". I didn't know what to do other than hope it would subside as quickly as it had blossomed. They all laughed and she clambered into the backseat with her friends and they all exchanged high fives. We hopped out and she gave me a big hug and another kiss, and they were gone.

So yeah, I got a boner one time when I was at work. I just wonder what ever came of that classy woman and her persuasive worm tongue-ing techniques.

Sex, Violence, and Angel Dust

A new whore breezes in and she's dripping with venom from all the right places.
Bursting at the seams. Sex and violence and angel dust. Seeping through her skin.
Devouring needles in eager flesh. Wine and dirt and polygamous human pyramids
Fucking like insects. Breeding for nothing. For no one. Blood, semen, fluids intersperse.

She spoke of a god and she kept the rosary tight. Hail Mary. Hail Mary.
Purging faith and hemorrhaging hope. She carves her hatred into the walls.
These walls bleeding her vehemence. Petrified scorn and weary neighbors cowl their eyes.

Phallic diversion and poisoned ejaculate. Hopeless men all spilling their seed.
Naivete will do them in. Like Saturn devouring his son.
Like Grendel in ancient folklore
Lipstick and blood
Lipstick or blood?

She snaps them in half and she bites off the head. Like The Serpent devouring itself.
Nothing ever earned
Supplanted by hate and stoking the ego's fire

Endless days.

A Fetid Corpse

Whiskey and heartache. Road trips and dive bars. Small towns filled with smaller people with minds smaller yet. A home like a prison with invisible bars. Clawing at the walls and smashing the mirrors. Curtains drawn tight and the mind aches with discontent. Blood in the vomit and kidneys throbbing. Just like your father and his father before. Beyond panic and strife and resigned to despair. Wallowing in faltering dreams. Defeat. Burden and squalor and a mental disease.

Skin like a ghost and sunken eyes failing. Deaf to the sounds of hope. A fetid corpse in waiting. Never came the day when the nightmare would end. She's never coming through the door. Like a corpse in his grave in the prime of his life. Second opinions from people who pretend to care. Rotted out from the inside and poisoned forever. Contents within him cannot stay inside. He's finding it hard to breathe. A bargained truth for a coward. A slithering snake in his dream. Rats and carrion. Ethereal decay. Sloping and spiraling downward. A harbinger of romanticized fate. A noose and a chair and cyanide capsules. Barrels in mouth's and trigger happy fingers.  No longer trying to hide. A loosened grasp on all hope. A smile drawn upon a drowning man. A broken crown and a malignant daydream. Forgot what it meant to smile. Forgot what it was to laugh. Bleeding comes easy and still he doesn't mind, for all that he has is time. Time would help him heal. Time would soon help him laugh. With time all the wrongs became right. In time his smile would return. In time his eyes would be able to see.  His watch hasn't worked in years.

Just like his father and his father before.