Well, damn.

As I’ve shared before in my last newsletter some months ago, this shit don’t stop. No sooner have I commented on some new atrocity, worrisome state of events, violent act, or cruelty, HERE COMES MORE. This shit is getting beyond tiring.

I’ve had this in the drafts for months, and SO MUCH BAD has happened that I’m in a perpetual loop of writing things, then deleting huge swaths of it to update it with more bad news every week or so.

Also, I am writing you from the federally occupied city of Chicago, Illinois. Didn’t have that on my 2025 bingo card, but of all the things that could have happened this year, I could have called this. A city, with a Black mayor, a large Black and brown population is fresh meat to emerging white nationalists and the moderates/centrists who decry them in words but support them in policy.

But don’t fear, friends. If you are NOT feeling some sort of empathy for people here and around the world for their situation, then you just may be a psychopath who needed a hug a long time ago. This hug train done left the station, though. Toot toot, let’s get into it.

Country Ish

THere’s been a ton of talk about “abandoning” red states, and I get it. Articles like this pop up on my social medias all the time, and their argument seems…sound? Delicious in its cruelty? Appeals to the human need to rub someone’s nose in their shit, a “you wanted this” as they get a snout full of consequences they wanted others to suffer?

Here’s the thing, my people; PLEASE don’t fall for this shit.

The author of this and other articles extolling this view are cowards in the basest sense. They cozy up to the reasoning but won’t name the perpetuators of the system and decisions that made the situation what it is.

They appeal to those who care about the victims, but not the victims themselves. They speak of pulling together, but you get the sense that they are vindictive, and there is an Other, who they’re not writing to but about, that needs to be dealt with.

Plainly, these articles do not state the overt facts, that these red states are run by Republicans. That those governors and Senators and reps stay in power because of disenfranchisement, legal segregation, and portraying non-white people as an enemy, even as the white population suffers.

The population of those states may not want their elected officials to devote their time and energy to anti-trans legislation and Neo-Christian fundamentalism, but when it is legal to have polls close early only in certain districts, to leave standing legal and physical challenges exist to draw doubt to votes cast, then what is their recourse? They live there; they want things to change, but articles like this proclaim to all that help isn’t worth giving, to leave them to the whims of their politicians.

It is only right to ask, “who is doing this?” These kinds of articles never name the problem in stark terms. It is the Republican Party responsible for this. Period. And with our current political climate, that power is going to increase, and more examples of lax governing will pop across your social media, and if you react the way these articles will have you to, it’s a shrug and a “well, the leopards are eating your face. Must suck to be you.”

And I will say, with full disclosure, that I am a big fan of FAFO. The difference here is that a lot of people in these red states AREN’T VOTING FOR THIS SHIT. They are actively trying to vote for someone else, something else, ANYTHING else, but it doesn’t work out for an absolute ton of reasons. My joy at FAFO lies with those who DID vote for this shit, but are visibly dismayed that they are suffering consequences as well.

These articles don’t appeal to the resident of those states, but to those of us in blue cities and states as a cautionary tale about what “those people” are doing. The resident of those places is adrift in a sea of governance that does not care for their welfare or survival, and wonders where help could come from. It’s not coming from the smug liberal, who, after reading this kind of thing, is okay with letting those people suffer the same fate as their governors do. This may be different though processes, but the same damned result.

The problem is not the people (although the people who vote for this shit is a problem), it’s their government, content to wage culture wars for points while people face real consequences for their decisions. And these governments are loaded with people who do not want to govern, who do not care about others, and, states away, neither do the people who put Care reactions to news articles about some hardship some Southern resident has had to endure because their governor is more concerned about tracking down women‘s health care providers than enabling childcare, giving kids school lunch, or providing a safety net to people working 39 hours at WalMart and qualify for welfare benefits but can’t qualify for health insurance.

The problem isn’t the states themselves. The problem isn’t largely those people who live in those states and who stand to suffer. Those people are aware that other ways of government exist, but they’re playing with the hand they were dealt and are trying to figure out a way to survive. The states are full of people who can’t vote, won’t vote, been made to jump through hoops to vote, and apparently, no amount of writing and showcasing those people can sate even the steadfast liberal’s need to lump them all with “those rubes” and write them off, saying that they need to be weaned off the teat of California and other blue states and left to die. I thought this was some Unites States? Or are we just “America” now?

It’s easy to see this as a state vs state problem, but this kind of argument simplifies the reality. I get it; it seems simple to say “me good, you bad” and keep it moving.But it’s more complicated than that. It’s rural and urban voters uncertain how to counter that fear. It’s progress versus the status quo. It’s “this is how it’s always been” versus “we can’t do those progressive things, like fund mental health services” to “I want people to suffer who aren’t me.” This is messy, this is personal, this is political, but it doesn’t have to be punitive.

I urge you to realize the personal cost of writing off states in engaging in your revenge fantasy, friends. The people need help, and they all didn’t vote for this shit, I can guarantee they didn’t. It is so easy to group a Floridian with DeSantis or a Texan with Cruz and Abbott, but there are some residents and leaders in those places that want to help people, and your “CUT THEY ASSES OFF” doesn’t help them. In fact, it tells them that they don’t matter, and that they should be abandoned, and that’s not what you should be about.

I hope.

I Made a Thing!

I fancy myself a creative, and every creative has…something…not right about them. Mentally, our brains are wired different, our view of the world is different, and sometimes our brain chemistry goes out of sorts in very particular ways.

I may have shared in this space before that my brain chemistry has…been a bit off, but in the area of creativity, I’ve had a few challenges that have really hindered my production.

I know that, in an effort to be perfect, I have lessened output for fear that it’s not my best.

I have ripped up and disposed things that I’ve made because I can’t bear to look at it anymore.

I have stopped myself before I’ve even started.

So, after years, I finally decided to start a zine - a self-contained, wholly self-produced compendium of stories and drawings - and, most importantly, finish it. Procrastination was working heavily in my process, and while it’s not totally eliminated, I can say that I conquered it this once, and hopefully can ride that wave of productivity to create more.

The zine, The Air Up There, is 16 pages and consists of two stories about music, some remembrances of younger me, and my mother’s cornbread recipe. It is all over the place, and I enjoyed making it and learning to produce it, with the specter of past failures and bad brain chemistry and everything else hanging over me. All that…and I did it.

I know it’s very afterschool-special to say this, but I encourage you all to do the thing. Whatever it is. Sit down and do it. Shut up the voices telling you that you can’t, or ignore them. You can do the thing, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be done, and when you look at your finished product, and start comparing it to the perfect thing you had in your head, you know what the difference is there?

The thing in your head isn’t tangible. You can’t show anyone, or trade it, or sell it, or have people see it or hear it or expereience it. What you DO have is something they can, and I don’t give a damn if 3 people see it or 3 million, it’s worth it.

As a recovering Baptist, I grew up in the Bible and the myriad ways to look at the events written within, but my dad loved one verses that I think will appeal to anyone making things or just trying to be a good person. It’s Corinthians 4:8.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.

I probably can’t change the world, but I can influence it to be a bit better and more livable. And so can you.

The zine can be purchased in Chicago at Third Coast Comics or I can send you one for $5. Reply to this email for more details.

Mortality Reminder

As if you need any more of them…

In these emails, I constantly extoll one of the virtues I hold dear; hug your people, and give them their flowers while they can still smell them. I will reiterate that, and throw in another plea.

Be the kind of person that, when you go, people celebrate your life instead of your death.

My friend Jeff was a light, a soul who exuded calm, humility, joy, and intelligence…and he’s gone now. He was younger than me, and while cancer didn’t get him, it sure as hell didn’t help.

His funeral was standing room. His life was celebrated and remembered and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. He touched so many people and was so generous with his time and energy that it was impossible not to reflect on one’s own life - “when I go, will half these people show up? Have I made positive impact on people, both those I love and those I know?”

I dedicate this to Jeff’s memory, because while life ain’t fair, I am blessed to have had him in my life for just the bit of time I did. I want you to examine your own life and give freely of those flowers you have for others, as well as be able to accept flowers from other people. Be a good person, and while I’m not as much of a fan of the insistence that your great reward lies in the afterlife, I will say that living well and generously and empathetic and honest is a great reward in itself.

Aunt Nikki Made Me

I read Nikki Giovanni’s last book, put together after her death last year, and I was reminded why I loved her writing. So with that context, here. I’ll just call it…

Porch
After work
I run home
To my happy place.

It is unseasonably warm
for this time of year. Fall
(and my birthday) is next week
but Mother Nature is taking her time.

I close my eyes
in the warmth, and open them
to see my wife grinning.
“You’re like a big cat, basking in the sun.”

I inhale my cigar (not into my lungs, mind)
and blow Nicaraguan smoke. It wafts
Capricious, going as the breeze does.

I sip my bourbon
(don’t tell my mother)
and savor it; not too much
(it is a school night)

I rock in my chair
Across from our outdoor couch, unfurled
for company, but covered now.

I am at peace
the ills of the world continuing around me
the bad guys win for most of the movie
which is supposed to make eventual victory that much more
Poignant? Symbolic? Deserved?

I connect with my people
(everyone hates phone calls, it seems)
to love on them, to make sure that
even though the state of the world isn’t great
that their souls are still housed in failing vessels
and I’m thinking of them.

There is something to feel
not alone
when the world is telling us
“go for self”
and
“you can’t trust nobody”
but 
“there is a loneliness epidemic”
as if all of these things aren’t connected.

I sit in my chair
and sip my sip
and smoke my smoke
and love
us.

Thank you as usual for reading. I thank you for your time and brainpower and love, and I appreciate you more than you know. My links are over here as well. Holla at me.