They really stop me dead in my tracks. An immediate confidence killer, a walking, talking malaise of confusion. I let the positivity and extroversion really pervert my sense of reality. No more "feel good" on the feed.
There will always be a right kind of snare, a veneer to ruin that cloud-nine feeling. I had a wonderful day on Saturday, it is only natural that God pulled me back to concrete slabs the very next day.
Lord, let me tell you something. I can remember the way I didn't even believe my eyes. I thought I was in hell. When they were talking to me I was certain I must have died. Thought I must have been in some sort of new age exposure therapy form of torture those real artsy sort of demons cooked up. They have millennials in hell too, right?
Yeesh. You know, I'm thinking about work tomorrow and, uh... maybe I needed to watch a different movie today.
I'm not telling you any fabrications.
I try not to look back and feel too bitter (I thought it would be too easy of a gag to say "don't look back in anger,") but it does kind of feel impossible when I'm alone.
The silver lining... I made a new friend at the conference, y'know. Always something to be cherished, very valuable. I'll try to leave that be.
But it never seems to escape my cycle.
"I hope I never see either of them." It's so tired, what a stupid inclination. Here's a new direction.
I don't want anything. I want to work towards an indifference to them. I don't think I shouldn't see either of them, I don't think I should, either. I have to forget about them... to the extent that I won't remember who at least one of them ever even was.
It would be so much better if it was never anyone. I should have said no to driving my twin up there all those years ago. I had no idea about the world of confusion that would open up inside my head.
The thing is, it was easy to ignore it when I wasn't myself. Layers and layers, the version of myself that was buried in lies was very strong, very resilient. Except for when I had panic attacks on Instagram. But that was different (it wasn't.)
Coming out means keeping those pores open, the wings are fully spread. So, in that nakedness, I have to grapple with what's really going on.
The more serious decision to make is whether I accept there's only one valid choice or not.
Because there is only one choice that makes sense. And he doesn't read these blog posts, so it's unlikely I'll get anything from an attempt at more pointed communication. Why even bother? This is so vain, but there's such an intoxication here. A sort of alluring nightmare, y'know.
A sliver is better than a void. I would do better to probably just... remove her? I dunno. It's so childish, its actually so silly! I have new friends that are counting on me to keep it together. I'm gonna keep it together, yeah, but I know I made her mad. It's so palpable, it's like staring at a needle. I messed up somewhere.
I remember I made an edit a few weeks ago, and I remember I posted it with a song they like. Big mistake. That's so creepy, right? This entry is vague, but honestly? That's okay. I'm tired.
It's a new day, once again.
Lemme talk about "Rock 'n Roll Nigger" for a second.
I'm going to assume you all know that I'm Black. Not just genealogically, culturally, you know.
Being Black is a beautiful thing, y'know. This community, my people, my family... never in my life could I give that up. Never.
Being Black in this world also means being let down. A lot. And it's not unique to being American, no. I could be Black from Haiti, I could be Black from Ghana, I could be Black from fucking Iceland. They don't like niggas, at every corner of the globe. Sorry if this is news for anybody.
Being Black can mean being disappointed, often. It means being distrusted for reasons you simply cannot control. Nobody's perfect, but some people get to be more un-perfect than others. By this I mean, you don't get to have as much wiggle room. Not like other people.
There's a disaffected attitude in our community that I try to avoid, y'know. Being stiffed for your whole life does change your capacity to hope. But this is not the totality of the Black experience. Our culture is much deeper than just the pain.
Being Black means meeting people who see you as a novelty, as a sort of character in their midst, moreso than an actual person. This is sort of the price you pay for branching out into places not made for you, speaking personally.
I know for a fact many of my friends and readers who are people of color can relate to this in their own ways. Latinos, MENA, Asians, Indigenous, Black, whoever you may be... there is always a sort of guard you gotta keep up towards a world not made for you.
You're going to come to understand just how many of your heroes don't respect people like you. At some point or another, y'know. That's just life. I choose not to think too much of it.
But I need to inform you, reader. Yes, I know about the Joni Mitchell's "Art Nouveau" character, and I know that she stands by it to this day. I know about that song from Patti Smith, Rock 'n Roll Nigger. I know about Eric Clapton's... entire deal. I know about Woman is the Nigger of the World, I have heard it all. I promise you, I know.
I don't pretend to believe that these people, as much as I admire their work, have any incentive in their hearts to really give a shit about the people they love to fashion themselves after. It's really disgusting, but it's nothing new.
When asked about why she wrote that song, Patti Smith said something similar to what I'm sure many of us have heard from some white person at one point or another. She felt, in her mind, that she basically was Black, because she was countercultural and rough necked, or something. Because she was on the margin of society, she felt that qualified a sort of Blackness. A lot of people think that being Black is about being poor and misunderstood, they essentialize an entire race of people as being avatars of refuse. They believe that simply because the hardships I described are common externalities of being a Black individual, they feel that it is at the core of what being a Black person, and thus what Black culture, is actually about.
You can't talk to these people. You literally just can't. Have you ever caught a white zoomer using the word nigga? They say all sorts of hilarious bullshit; it's like you caught them with their pants down.
Black people are not human beings in the eyes of a lot of people; it's like were elves or ogres to a lot of people. It's a sort of degraded kind of orientalism, where they "admire" us because they feel that we are effectively a catch all demographic that embodies the trash, the dregs of society. Joni Mitchell loved to say she thought she was spiritually Black in her writing, y'know. It's a bunch of horseshit.
Rockstars are overwhelmingly white, working-class kids with very little reverence for anything facilitated by their forebears. There was always gonna be some good and some bad.
The thing is, today, I notice a really unfortunate thing about a lot of members of our community. They have started to believe the very same lie about ourselves, it motivates a self-hatred of our community. You know, there is that respectability game that every marginalized in-group is forced to play. A lot of Black people do not love what we create, they do not love what we are in reality. They want to be like White people, you know. The goal is not a more equal world, a fairer and more equitable world. No, we want to be landowners. Kings, Emperors. Billionaires.
Recently I bought Wretched of the Earth by Fanon. I'm excited to read it! A lot of what it deals with is the way that colonialism degrades the mind. In the context of Fanon, it was not just Algeria, not just Africa, but the entire cultural world of "The Negro" as a community that is affected by the degradation. This is a topic I have become sort of obsessed with. I see how few of the older members of our community are standing up to the new Jim Crow, and it really bothers me. How many cop cities and prison slaves are they gonna use until the disaffectedness stops being chic? Does Trump have to send the guard into Detroit for the BOPC Commissioners to finally give a shit about the police state? When do we stop talking about having better influences on our youth and just actually start being those better influences? James Baldwin had this killer text, The Fire Next Time. I remember my Dad assigned my sister and I to read it, but he only wanted us to read the second half, about the Nation of Islam folks. He didn't want us to read the first half that critiqued the immobilizing effect of Black Christianity in America. I had to go and find out about that myself. My Dad is a great man, but everybody has their biases.
It's like we're moving in circles. A lot of you niggas are really shallow, y'know? Some of us really want to pretend that we are somehow singular in our struggle, as if we're an island. As if the context and realities of how we suffer are not interlinked to the struggles of so many other communities. As if we can thrive in a vacuum, without the cooperation and assistance of the world around us. We like to pretend that we have no allies, it's a sort of sub-community of sociopaths that is shaping the internal narrative of our efforts. They really want you to believe that Latino people all wanted Trump, that Muslims abandoned us, that we have to "focus on our own."
This is such bullshit. If anyone falls for that CIA crap, you're a fucking mark. But we let these niggas who have been deprived of a real education by the system, who lack the comprehensive skills to understand how they are being played, control the conversation. And then those of us who have been given better opportunities, the ones with real power, are all neo-liberal brainlet fucking morons. All they care about is the fucking money, because they can't see the social value of what it represents. All they see is the numbers, they're soulless! They don't want a community that provides for itself beyond the confines of commerce and wealth. They don't want protection for the vulnerable, they just want to get rich! Because if we're being honest, how easy is it to really make it as a Black individual in this world, with your soul still intact? They won't let it happen! They try to break you, man! It's some of you guys don't believe in a future of cooperation, you believe in some Roc Nation Fairy Tale bullshit. You think you're realists because you have no imagination, your brain is limited on a fundamental level. Those slaves in the Congo mine the materials your cell phones run with, guys. Those people in Sudan are being killed by an organization paid off by UAE Oil Magnates. The RSF gets more money to rape villages of women cause of those trips to Dubai you're taking with your twitch flophouse buddies, but you want to tell me you're good for our community. I don't give a fuck about if a rapper says whatever sort of thing in a song, that's art. Your kids like what's interesting, make something interesting for them to compete. It is your responsibility to care about the effects of what you use, what you invest in. Stop being useful idiots for capitalists, that's a white man ideology.
I'm not gonna humble myself by trying to say, "but, y'know, I don't have the answers."
Because on one hand, yeah, I don't. I'm not Jesus, right? I'm not Lisan Al-Gaib, I'm just Gabe.
But on the other hand... we have known exactly what is needed for a very, very long time. It is not news that we need to interlink the shared struggle of all common people. That it only works if we work together. But I already told you guys about the altar of blood, right? Doing the right thing isn't passionate enough, it doesn't feel interesting.
I'm gonna stop being mad. Let me pivot back to the psycho gossip instead. I don't want to come off like Huey Freeman on my hobby blog, yuck. That's the adult swim character, not Huey Newton. I'm not loving enough to be like that guy.
Hmm. What to say...
I got it mixed up all those months ago. It was him I intimidated, and I think I just plainly weirded her out. Water under bridges, my phone is open for anything. If they send me anthrax in the mail, I'd like to tell her that they should be sure to put it in a manila folder, and very clearly dictate that it is my letter to open. I don't want my family to get got, y'know? You understand.
That's easier to quantify, for the less familiar of the two.
Y'know what, if she reads this, let me just say, send me a picture of a gun. I'll pull it out of the screen and shoot myself with it.
The real tricky one is that friend of mine, a sort of platonic immortal beloved situation happening here. I would have an easier time trying to open a Coney Island Restaurant on Venus, Jesus. How many dead numbers do I have in my phone, I wonder? One of these has to be fake. I'm trying to manage a split custody friendship, and I embittered half of it already. It's actually the worst thing in the world when you befriend a couple, and then they break up. Who am I allowed to talk to? Can I be friends with both? Who ended up being the problem? Were they both the problem? Even worse... were they both normal? Are they still together but one of them is a scientologist? Was one of them secretly gay? I'll never know!
The half I have been told is going strong doesn't see my texts anymore. But he said - NO. NO. We are adults about this! I'm going to the bar, by myself. Again. And I will be happy about it. Again.
This sucks so hard, why did I have to be a nightlife hack? Being outside is the only thing that saves me, and it SUCKS. I don't even play my video games anymore, but I still watch Gundam and build these model kits... just yesterday I bought a Deoxys figure, yuck! I've got nothing nice to talk about with these people at Big Pink! People telling me how "good" I look, and it's like... I'm a fake hottie. I'm not actually attractive, I'm a nerd in slut's clothing. I have men telling me I look good, because I don't pass yet, I just look like one of Joe Jackson's bastard children.
Let me use the restroom for a minute. I'm at work, and there's like 3 no-shows today.
This isn't a sad one, it's a funny one.
I'll see you guys tomorrow.
