Trump Card/Hate-Speech

Dear Internauts,
Over the past year, I've become heavily infatuated with the website Quora.com

I thought this here blarg might be as good a place as any to repost an answer I tappity-tapped to this question posed by username Amal Ali. (original page found here)

Q: Despite his hate speech towards Muslims, Trump's popularity stays high compared to other Republicans. Americans, what does this mean?

My Answer:

It means that fear is still a decent motivator for people.

 

The kind of fear that drives people to shrug off human rights violations and spew hate speech to their grand kids. The kind of fear that keeps ratings high for Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. The kind of fear that turns otherwise well-mannered schoolchildren against their peers because mom and dad say that "those people" hate America. The kind of fear that roars against higher taxes but would never dare to question exorbitant defense spending. The kind of fear that justifies acceptable losses in the name of a war on some vague political buzzwords. The kind of fear that spends two terms of a presidency still questioning the elected's nationality and using racially motivated doubts to hold congress at gunpoint. The kind of fear that has turned the armed forces into the giant bully of the international schoolyard. The kind of fear that can see a white mass murderer as a troubled individual or a brave hero but makes out an entire race of people to be inherently evil. The kind of fear that drives hard-working people to believe that if only they had worked a little harder they wouldn't be facing any debt. The kind of fear that keeps a collection of economic, socio-political, racial, gendered, sexual, and otherwise ill-conceived, overly simplistic monsters in a box to show off whenever its to the best interest of the head monster to keep people scared and boxed off. The kind of fear that keeps walls between people who are so much more than the reasons for those walls. The kind of fear that says you must always hold tight to what's yours 'cause there's always someone out to take it. 

 

That kind of fear is Lv.1 skills for players who've chosen the Dictator, Cult Leader, or Political Opportunist classes. And to continue that metaphor, we Americans are a pretty cheap mount. 

 

-------------

 

So anyways, what do you think? Americans? Non-Americans? 

 

Feel free to comment on here or any of my social media about this or anything else you want. I always love hearing from other people since it makes me feel a bit less Sam Rockwell in Moon. 

 

\,,/.
 

-Odist

ACAB

Dear Internauts,

Several years ago, I took a Psychology 101 class where the students fit three basic categories. There were Psychology majors, Social Work majors, and Criminal Justice majors. While us Psych students had a large variety of opinions on the subject—and often less passion behind those opinions for how often they changed—the SW and CJ students varied distinctly in their views of people. The trend for Social Work was to see people as neither good nor bad but products of their circumstances. If the circumstances were changed through better role models, education, food, housing, then the moral direction of a person’s life would change alongside that. Criminal Justice, however, tended to see people as either good or bad, with a much more definite line of demarkation between the two. 

Some philosophers might argue that we need these different sets of people to hold such opinions, one more fluid and the other more rigid, in order for society to work at its best. The problem is that while the one group may argue about how to shape a better world, they often get overwhelmed by the day to day work of managing the lives of broken people and fixing immediate problems. This leaves room for the work of actually shaping the world to those with simpler goals. This keeps those in power who can only see the world in black and white. And we give them lethal weapons which they use to kill off any gray.

While I lived on Boston’s South Shore, I observed the discriminatory treatment of lower income and homeless people by the police and other city officials including as the Occupy Wall Street movement made its way onto Boston’s Dewey Square. This systematic enforcement of class inequality became especially apparent when I first moved back to Nashville in the Summer of 2012. For the first few months, I spent most nights sleeping in my car or couch surfing with local friends. In looking for places to park for the night, I awoke on at least three or four occasions to an officer tapping on my window with his hand on his firearm or with it drawn. On around five or six of those nights, the bright spotlight from a squad car woke me and I was able to come up with some excuse before the officer reached my window. Though, in retrospect, these situations were not immediately hostile, the assumption in the officer’s words and attitude was first and foremost to put distance between himself and myself through either verbal or insinuated threat, such as the show of weapon.

Later, in conversations with others who’d had such experiences, I realized how fortunate I was to be young, relatively clean looking, male, cis-gendered, and especially white. 

Before I found a job and later a more fixed place of residence, I experienced some subtleties and not-so-subtleties of poverty-based discrimination in cities like Nashville. I learned to wash my face and clothes, try to smell nice, shave, and only carry as much as I absolutely had to not as general rules of polity but rather from seeing how those without access to a car, friends’ showers, or basic hygienic products were treated by both police and the staff or restaurants and stores. I began to see city planning very differently as the bars in the middle of public benches came no longer to mean an arm-rest but a device to keep the exhausted from being able to lie down off the dirty ground. Especially post-Occupy, signs against tents and a crackdown on all forms of makeshift shelters has become more commonplace, especially anywhere public where the vocal middle and upper classes may interact with the poor and displaced. 

Further proof is the response by the citizens of Brentwood to the presence of salespeople from the Contributor, the Nashville area’s homeless-employing newspaper. On at least four occasions I can recall during my year living in Tennessee, there were calls by the wealthy electorate of Brentwood, Franklin, and Nashville to curtail the ability of the Contributor to provide jobs for the poor and displaced. Sighting the safety of drivers and pedestrians as a cover for class and racial prejudice, at least two of these calls were brought before local government as rules against street vendors. With a bubble of protection by the generality of that category, their intentions were still clear as the only major source of street vendors in regular circulation is by the Contributor. Of course all this prejudicial behavior is only a cursory inspection, highlighting a few of the many mechanisms of class discrimination. 

Every act of discrimination, whether legally promoted or inspired by personal grievances, is punctuated within the context of law enforcement. Loitering, while an innocuous enough term for those who have places to go, acts as justification for police discrimination and brutality against those who do not. The monitoring of public spaces is severe and unrelenting. Looking at police action, it is not only illegal to exist in areas which are closed to the public, but anyone can be treated as criminal for simply being in a public space for too long. Other unspoken infractions include existing in a public space while looking unkempt, while falling asleep, while having a mental illness, while going through drug or alcohol withdrawal, while having a conversation or interacting in any way with someone who looks like a “good, upstanding citizen” no matter how that person feels about the interaction, or for countless other reasons. Most often, it’s simply up to the discretion of the officer, who has the unquestioned authority to take out their bad day, inner prejudices, and/or pressure from City Hall to “clean up the streets” on anyone they deem unworthy of existing in a particular space. 

Sadly, this is not simply rhetoric, but a circumstance I’ve seen personally occur in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, and California. That’s, of course, not counting the thousands stories from advocacy groups, independent news organizations, civil defense sites, friends, fellow artists, and people I’ve met on the street, in bars, at the library, or at the park. 

While the will of rich citizens influences City Hall and City Hall pressures developers who are similarly pressed by companies aiming to make a profit off pushing out the poor from a community, it is ultimately the enforcers of the law who interpret and bend that law to the detriment of real lives and families. During my time working at a Hotel in eastern Nashville, there were over ten situations wherein it became necessary for me to call 911. Most of those cases were specifically related to the health and well-being of guests under my care, and at least four of them were because I or someone else were in immediate physical danger. No matter the case, the first to eventually show up were the police. Their relation with me was at all times uncaring, mocking, disrespectful, and often openly hostile. 

Violent drunk men running around the hotel threatening myself and several rooms worth of guests? Police never found him, so after fifteen minutes they just left without telling me anything. 

Robbed at gunpoint? Police joke about the thief and it being just one guy. They prefer to yell at and condescend to me and my assistant manager (who didn’t have to come but woke up and came over especially so she’d be there to help me when the manager and owner arrived) about why she didn’t retrieve the security footage fast enough. 

Traumatized young woman covered in blood and bruises having trouble staying conscious in the lobby? Police take an hour to show, yell at her, rip her purse away and throw everything out of it onto the floor, all while loudly joking about how she’s most likely a hooker, how she deserved it by wearing that dress, how it was just some drunk dates gone bad, how this is a shitty neighborhood so what do you expect, how I probably see more violence in my job then they do in theirs, or how I just shouldn’t have let her in the hotel in the first place. At the time of this last incident, there were around fifteen officers just milling about the lobby, joking with eachother, not helping the young woman her with her still bleeding wounds, and asking me why there wasn’t any coffee out at 4am. 

Considering all of this from a personal standpoint, I feel I have a right to be a little wary. However, in the two years since I left Tennessee, I’ve begun to follow more blogs, activists, news stories, and fact-sharing sites centered around the incidents which became and have been a part of the Black Lives Matter initiative. At this point in American History, it is abundantly clear that the systematic discriminatory actions of local police forces are not simply local phenomena, nor do I feel are they a generally representative product of our national collective prejudices. While a consistent thread of hateful bigotry based in classism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and sexism is at the core of what drives our national permissiveness toward such militarism, there can be no doubt that the particular foundations of our criminal justice system amplify these vices beyond the control of any individual police officer. 

While each individual is responsible for their own actions, the judicial system upon which our society relies for some semblance of moral order continues to fail us by dismissing calls for indictment, ruling against any penalty for unlawful deaths, and presiding under the delusion that a trained officer is within their rights to claim self defense after beating, choking, shooting, and/or otherwise murdering unarmed civilians. This includes children, and especially people of color. Such a continually egregious affront to legality is one of the most injurious paradigms of injustice in the post civil rights era United States. 

Perhaps one thing that allows such an obscene cycle to continue is the commonly held belief that the civil rights era distinctly resolved with equality under the law for every citizen. My personal experiences and those I’ve read, heard, or seen from others paint a very stark picture of just the opposite. 

Injustice reigns in an era where civil liberties are unilaterally denied by federal agencies and ignored as a matter of policy by local law enforcement. 

Maybe I’m generalizing too much. Maybe it’s not my place to speak up. Maybe writing some rambling blog post is just another shout into the void to serve as a balm for my white guilt or make me feel like I’ve done my part for justice. In fact, I’ll say not only maybe, but probably. 

Still, every single time I get to thinking that I should STFU and go write a love song or some shit, another story hits my screen...my twitter feed...my tumblr dash...some news front page...my email inbox... Another unarmed civilian shot down by the cops. Another child brutalized and killed by the cops. Another family torn apart by the cops. Another future ruined by the cops. Another transgendered teen beat and molested by the cops. Another black man or woman around my age treated like a lethal threat just for walking down the street. Another cop who broke the law and gets a paid vacation for it. Another long list of white Christians raising money for a man who shot a hand-cuffed child in the back. Another day. Another killer cop. 

Most of those stories will never be told and the ones that are fade all too fast. While we live in a world where I can know almost anything in a few seconds if I know where to look, these stories of brutality are laid out plain and yet killer cops continue to walk free and even come out richer or promoted for the trouble. 

But what about the good cops, doing their job and protecting us from harm? Well, what about the good men, not raping women or sending them death threats online? The difference is I didn’t choose to be a man in a society that oppresses women. Even so, I have a responsibility as a member of the human race to disrupt patterns of misogyny, to call out other men on their sexist behavior, and to always be vigilant against the internal prejudices within my own thoughts and behavior. 

If a police officer—an adult who made the choice to be a part of such a plainly corrupt institution—cannot at the very least find a way to bring order to a situation as they were trained to do without first firing their weapon at an unarmed child, then that person should either be considered an outlier and fired from their job at the very least or counted as one more amongst the orgy of damning evidence. 

The American criminal justice system is a castle built on crooked deals, gang and mob ties, racist and otherwise prejudicial indoctrination, and the idea that there are only two types of people—those with the guns and those who must bow to those with the guns or get shot. Stand up even just to mourn a murdered family member, and the whole town is in wartime. Tanks roll down the street. Community-wide curfews are strictly enforced. Tear gas, tasers, rubber bullets, smoke grenades, and water hoses are just safer enough than guns that if you're lucky they won't kill you right away and only maim you or make you fatally ill.

To ignore the severe injustices going on would be an horrendous, if not uncommon misstep in judgement. 

One misstep is all it takes to fall into a hole. 

How much deeper might we fall offering excuses and ignoring the lives deemed illegal and thus dispensable by those sworn to serve and protect?

Sincerely,

Odist Abettor

___________________________

Interested in what inspired me to write all this tonight, why not check out my 

new music video right here.

Super Secret Special Project 2015 REVEALED!!!

Dear Internauts,

On and off for the past several months I've been working on something new.

This past month I dove in and dedicated myself to finishing this super secret special project for realz this time. And after several weeks of exhausting, confusing, frustrating, exhilarating, yet still quite enjoyable work I present to you the official music video for Pigs on Patrol (Cardboard Cut).

It's taken a lot of work, and I've learned a whole lot about a creative process I've never really had much practice in before. I had something like this in mind from the start, but felt like it had been so long since I released the track, I should record a new version just for the video.

If you'd like to download the first version of the song from 2014, click here.

If you'd like to download the audio for this new version, click here.

As a note on content -

I am very much against the vial treatment of real life pigs. Their lives, the environment, future generations, and your own health could benefit from remembering to eat food, not friends. For more on the wonder of the real life animal, check out http://www.onekind.org/be_inspired/animals_a_z/pig/

From the start of this project, I struggled with questions of respectability and appropriateness. Whether it be the lyrics or the imagery associated with them, I thought at times that I'd gone too far in the name of making fun of an institution meant to serve and protect people. As some of you know, I've had my fair share of interactions with the police, and as with any large group of people, I can attest that some seem altogether not half bad.

However, over the past almost two years since I sat down and wrote the original song, any doubts I have had about my position have been shaken away. Though statistical anomalies and oversimplified trends can confuse the issue, what is clear is that every time I thought maybe I shouldn't keep going, another report would pop up of a police officer killing an unarmed civilian. These killings were most often against people of color and many were of children.

A reality that I as a cis white male have rarely, if ever, had to even see in the least is that there is a vastly and horrifyingly incompetent level of policing going on. Further, the standard of serve and protect has been flipped entirely to the complete dismissal of the value of human lives.

You know I've seen some injustice where police are concerned, in how they've treated me or others around me. What is far worse than any of that, though, is the continued devaluing of POC lives by those who have sworn to protect them. Too many lives have been ripped away at the hands of someone who decided to shoot first and think never. Afterwards, these officers are often given paid leave, transferred but not fired, or at best publicly reprimanded while privately cheered.

A change in policy is necessary. A change in society is crucial. A change in what we pay attention to and what we speak up against is the key to changing our world for the better and saving lives.

After all, this is only some silly music video from a practically unknown songwriter. But for the moment, this is something. Hopefully it might keep our thinking in a direction of change.

Stay woke. Don't forget.

thanks for listening,

Odist Abettor

#blacklivesmatter

One Freshly Frozen Fowl

Dear Internauts,
In the grand tradition of this bloggity blog, the following is a probably-too-personal-but-vulnerability-is-the-diet-off-brand-of-sincerity-ramble-through-the-brambles-of-my-tired-mind post. Let's get into it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. 

I sincerely hope anyone who is in an abusive relationship of any kind is able to find a safe and healthy way to get the help and distance they need. That is a definitive stand. In no way am I trying to contradict that in the least. I’ve got a whole host of people who I can no longer be around or be in communication with because they were too manipulative, triggering, or a bully.

Here’s what I am saying, in light of all that:

If you’ve got an issue with a friend, family member, close acquaintance, significant other, or anyone else whose life would be severely affected by your absence from it (but again, is not themselves abusive), I urge you, please, don’t cut them out with no warning.

If you care or cared at all about this person, at very least find a way to let them know why you can no longer be in contact with them. Please, try to make it as clear and specific as possible. I would even encourage actually having a conversation or some sort of correspondence about the issues before you decide to never talk to them again. 

(again, please understand, this is in cases of seemingly healthy, positive relationships being ended suddenly by one party—not about abusive relationships were one must get away for health, safety, and/or sanity)

Ceasing communication with someone who cares about you and is a regular part of your life with no explanation, warning, or concern for the effect of your actions is heartbreaking. Losing a friend or loved one is devastating enough without the constant question of why. Should I blame myself? What did I do wrong? Let me parse through every conversation and make wild mass guessing about what could possibly have caused this. When is it okay to ask mutual friends (if you have any)? When is it not legitimately caring and wanting to be true to the relationship that once existed versus a form of low-level obsession/pre-stalking levels of investigation?

Am I crazy for just wanting to know why? 

If I hurt you, I want to know so I can apologize and understand your feelings.

If you just don’t want to be my friend anymore, I want to know what changed. 

But mostly I just want you to be honest with me like how I thought we once were with eachother. 

After enough of this same treatment, y’know what becomes the through-line: I’m the common denominator in all these situations. They say it’s best to give folks the benefit of the doubt and not take things personally. We are all self-centered and even the empathetic among is only ever as close as the next body over. 

Still, I thought we were good.

I mean, screw some random whoever’s opinion of me, but if my best friend cuts me off like the flick of a switch with no explanation or consideration, it does severely chop into any sense of self-worth I may have had. 

If nothing else, isn’t the relationship at very least worth a goodbye. 

People drift apart. It’s tough to stay in touch over a distance of lifestyles, schedules, and or physical space. But that’s not the issue. I can see someone from high school who I haven’t talked to since ‘09 and we can have a fun, positive catch up then part ways. That’s very different than the one you love more than anyone or anything else acting like you don’t exist at the word go.

Y’know? 

Your friendly neighborhood,
Odist Abettor

-p.s.- sorrynotsorry for the emo ramble. working really hard on finishing up the semi-secret project before the end of the month. i know, i know, i’ve been working on it all year. to be fair, I didn’t take it very seriously until this fall season. still, the last big-ish thing i did was the From 9 video. Speaking of, how bout checking that out for old (2014) time’s sake? 

Finding Home

I think for more than a few Americans what’s double-heartbreaking about the news coverage of those escaping Syria, especially that picture of the young child on the beach, is that for far too long we’ve had no coverage of migrants into the States from Mexico or South and Central America.

How many families have been separated?

How many kids have died?

 How many women raped?

How many people have tried to find a better life only to lose theirs?

I don’t know, but our political leaders sure like to talk about building walls, forcing families apart, and making it as difficult as possible for this country to be a welcoming place of hope, opportunity, and acceptance.

Somehow, we have before us a multitude of wealthy fame-gluttons who want to make America a place even less likely to represent those most basic human ideals.

Little Media Update for 08/11/2015

Dear Internauts,
How ya been doing?

Post my eleven week new song fest over on youtube.com/odistabettor

I've been continuing to work on a new mixed-media music video

I played a show the other night at The Nail in Ardmore, PA

I'm essentially rewriting my novel project from scratch (but the key is to write every day)

Oh yeah, and I've got a really cool show opportunity coming up for all you lovely folks at The Philadelphia Mausoleum of Contemporary Art

Please help me make this a possibility by purchasing tickets online: www.wantickets.com/OdistAbettor

Or email me at odistabettor@gmail.com about tickets or with any questions. It would mean so much to see you there :D

In the meantime, I'd love to hear about what media you've been into lately from music to books to movies to sites. Here's a quick list of stuff I've checked out recently—

Music:
Little War Twins
Kristen Ford
Genesis Blu


Books:
The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson
Marvel: Civil War Prose Novel by Stuart Moore
X-Men, Volume 1: Primer by Brian Wood and Oliver Coipel
Seconds by Brian Lee O'Malley
Stitches: A Memoir by David Small
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Police Brutality: An Anthology ed. Jill Nelson

Movies:
Amy dir. Asif Kapadia
Nashville dir. Robert Altman
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl dir. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Mr. Nobody dir. Jaco Van Dormael
Dope dir. Rick Famuyiwa
Ex Machina dir. Alex Garland

Sites:
Quora.com

YMMV: Friendships and Forgiveness

Hey there, Internauts

Got a bit of a personal one for ya tonight. I've always been pretty heavily open with this blog, and I think I'll try and keep it that way, good or bad mood.

On TV or in plenty of movies, you’ve got this character who has some friends and they all care about each other so much. Then something goes wrong. Either there’s a misunderstanding (bleh) or an argument or a big mistake or some awful choice or a combination of up to all of them. That’s when the break between friends goes down and sometimes it’s moving and sometimes it’s such bs, but whether this week or several seasons from now or at least the third act, there is an apology, an honest conversation, growth, and forgiveness. In the end, lessons are learned and everyone deserves a second chance (or third or fourth or twelfth depending on the genre).

I’ve never had friends like that. Sure, I’ve had some close acquaintances who aren’t really attached tight enough to the mast for the tempest to toss them. Real friends, though, the ones you would give up whatever for, the ones you really trust and love and can be real with. I guess we’re lucky if we can find just one.
Mostly, I’ve always felt like I have to walk on eggshells, ‘cause if I say or do even the slightest thing wrong, intentionally or otherwise, I’m out. Just like that. Oh I can apologize and be put on probation, with near constant reminders of my shortcomings and enough guilt to steer a tanker, but forgiveness is a non-option. Reconciliation, a fantasy. Friends who can work things out and talk things out and lay it all on the table, far as I can tell they’re reserved for the screen, where a return to plot status quo supersedes humanity.

IRL, I’ve never been allowed past the trial run.

For my part, if I truly care about you, you can get pretty far and I'll welcome you back. It's not that I'm super merciful or something. It's just that if I have to choose, I'll take honesty over calm.

Thanks.


_______________

Reminder: If you're 21 or older and free on Thursday, August sixth, I've a show as part of Kristen Ford's tour at The Rusty Nail in Ardmore, PA. Show should start around 8pm and I've been told I'm up around 1030ish. I would love to see you there.

Update 07/27/2015

ey there Internauts!

How ya doin?

Quick update on where I'm at and what's coming up:

1. After Ten weeks worth of new song posts on YouTube for New Song a Week Acoustic Challenge Party Yeah!!! I've decided to move on from that project so I can focus on other cool stuff. No worries, I'll still be writing and posting videos for your enjoyment and/or scrutiny, but I've just got so many other cool things going on I want to devote my time and energy to for now. Such as...

2. Brand new (not so) super secret music video projects coming along nicely. I'm exploring some very new for me media and styles and trying to stretch my creative self far as I can.

3. Seeking out and applying to jobs. Not quite as flamboyantly exciting but still pretty great in that I'm finally in a healthy enough place where I can fill out apps and send emails and resumes without feeling like the world is crumbling around me. Not exactly an easy or empowering search by any means, but despite seeing so many ways the job market could really improve I think I'll be able to find something that fits for now. After all, for now is all we get.

4. Continuing to charge/stumble my way through fiction writing.

5. My next live show!!!! 8pm 21+(sorry) at the Rusty Nail in Ardmore, PA on 08/06/2015 featuring Sophie Koorhan, Kristen Ford, and Genesis Blu!!!! I would really love to see you there. Let's pack this place in the name of great live music, eh?

Anyways, check with you good folks soon :D

Stay woke,
Odist

Boston Hahbah

Dear Internauts,

When I was a child of around 10 or 11 years, I was tasked with holding an offering bucket as churchgoers disembarked from a small cruise ship. The ship had taken a loop or two around Boston Harbor, while I imagine the adults talked about boring stuff and us kids drank too much soda. Being the kind of church kid I was, I volunteered to stand on the dock, beside the ramp, and receive donations for the church. Excited as ever to be useful, nigh important, I stood up straight and smiled and caught change as the congregation regained their land-legs. At some point, the mass of those walking down the ramp increased to the point that I decided it best to give them a bit more room to move. A polite little rascal with such undeveloped proprioception. Of course, I backed up right into empty air. The bucket shot up. The money scattered. My confused little 10 year old self hit the frigid autumn bay. And in the finest turn of the century luck, my zipped up windbreaker jacket blew up like a balloon. There I was, just a little boy bubble bobbing in the Boston bay between the big boat and the dock. I'd failed in my position as bucket holder, donation acceptor, and dry human being. However, I'd succeeded extravagantly at giving the people on the dock plenty of room, and this certainly would not be the last time I'd be surprised to find myself in a position of both aquatic and arctic peril.

Anyway, we accept the love we think we're worth.

I read that somewhere, and it's only proven more true since.

Growing up with the dual teachings, 'I am inherently broken, incomplete, imperfect, sinful, etc...' and 'God loves me' had the (hopefully) unintended effect of keeping me in a steady state of feeling unworthy of love. Combine this with an exponentially steroidal boost of society's already false-meritocracy-con to commoditize my worth based on my usefulness to my peers, my teachers, my role-models...and you get a kid who feels always just shy of good enough.

Q: If we can't love ourselves, can we truly accept the love of others?

A: In the wise words of Jedi Master Yoda, "You must unlearn what you have learned."

Perhaps this is a warning.

Perhaps you can relate.

Try to live up to impossible standards long enough, and it can become more than a little autodidactical. Basically, I'd spent so much time trying to be what people expected me to be, I began to infer expectations, presume standards, and even preemptively punish myself for failing. The limits I placed upon myself were encouraged by those who loved me, because they only saw a portion of them and it was what I wanted. I assumed what they wanted from me, and got wicked good at essentially making every relationship about being who I believed they wanted me to be.

The beauty is that it's always my fault. If I succeed in being who I ought to be, then the chance of failure as well as the stakes increase each passing moment. And if I fail—as I always will—I can distance myself from the other person before they ever get to see what a loser I am. As you may well imagine, this way of playing the game of life is a fast-track to being alone as $#!%.

Q: If we can't be honest with ourselves, can we be honest with others?

A: I'm gonna say no, but then I don't really trust myself.

The bitterness, regret, heartache, debilitating anxiety, and depressive frustration that such a solipsistic outlook will inevitably lead to only serve to feed the beast of imperfection, incompleteness, unworthiness, and self-hate thereof. While I'm caught up in all this, guess what happens to my relationship with someone outside my own head. (Hint: It's similar to what happened to those church folks' nickles and dimes.)

Loving oneself is a process, especially as we keep changing. So far, growing up seems to be comprised of both getting to know myself and getting over myself more than much else. To all the friends I've won and lost throughout the years, I'm sorry I treated you like a prize I had to earn instead of like an actual, yknow...person. You deserved better and so did I.

So here's to the future, but mostly the present, because really—the past is no longer worth our full attention.

Yours as always,
Odist

p.s. - I've got a Free, All Ages Show coming up on Saturday, June 27th at 6pm at Steel City Cafe in Phoenixville, PA. I would LOVE to see you there. Bring everybody!

p.p.s. - If you haven't already, feel free to mosey over to YOUTUBE and check out my new series, NEW SONG A WEEK ACOUSTIC CHALLENGE PARTY YEAH!!! where I've been writing and sharing a brand new acoustic song every Monday.

p.p.p.s. - Met up with some high school friends last Sunday and went to my first LGBT Pride Festival in Philly. It was wicked hot out, but we were by the river and under a tent, so I just kinda chilled and people-watched all afternoon. I miss the city so much, and everyone there was wicked nice. All this to say please support LGBT Pride in your community, and let's stand in solidarity with all those who are faced with oppression in daily life.

Philly Show!

Hey Internauts!

Not too sure how many/if any of you are within decent distance to Philadelphia, PA, USA. If you do happen to be, are 21 or older (sorry youths), and love live music, you should come see me play at THE LEGENDARY DOBBS on Thursday, June 4th. 8$ at the door which opens at 730ish. I’ll be playing around 8ish, opening for Galvanize, Little War Twins, Something like a Monument, and the Late Greats. It would be so lovely if you could come out to enjoy the tunes and support me in the first full set I’ve played since fall times.

tl;dr

Who: Odist Abettor, Little War Twins, & more

What: 21+ Concert Show of Great Music yay!!!! Featuring four bands and one me!

Where: Legendary Dobbs - 304 South St, Philadelphia, PA 19147 USA

When: Thursday, June 4th. 7:30 doors. Show 8ish-12:30ish. Stop by or duck out whenever, but since I’m opening you maybe might wanna possibly at least see the start ;)

Why: Supporting local, indie, and up-and-coming artists is not only fun. It’s also politically subversive. Plus live music is cool.

How much: $6 advance tix @ http://legendarydobbs.com/

$8 at the door.

I am wicked excited for this show. The relatively late notice is only b/c I just found out about it today. Hope you can make it.

All my good vibes,
Odist

Boxes in the Attic

 Dear Internauts,

How does it feel?

It feels slippery, coated with a layer of familiarity that frustrates any attempts at grasping, holding onto, or analyzing what’s underneath. It tastes salty and like the sick that climbs up the back of my throat when I haven’t eaten for a while. Apple slices you can get pre-packaged at some gas stations always have this acidity that dries up my tongue and makes me worry about if its poisonous. The way it smells flits around moment by moment between artificial sweetener, cow patties on the rain, antiseptic clinic hallways, or kicking up bits of road tar and oil spills into the sterile chill of deep winter. Heavy as fuck and rough too, though more scratchy than anything, and I’m carrying that carpet or over-stuffed box of Christmas wreaths up the pull-down ladder stairs to a crawl space. A thin layer of insulation spreads between the 2x4 support beams, one misstep and that’s eight to ten feet to the hard floor. I’m especially careful when I think I’m over the stairs, not so much because of the farther fall at the bottom but because of how it would feel to land on the stairs themselves. The way the wood fits into my kneecap as I kneel brings to mind how the edge of a step might feel to the back of my head. Staying focused on pushing the boxes into some organized pattern keeps my mind off how parts of me would fit on those stairs if I fell through. Attic dust is distinct, with unique flavors for every space but an earthy after-taste common anywhere.

Straddling the ladder, I reach down to help pull up the next box or bin or suitcase. Doesn’t much matter the season, that attic—that miniature universe, that vacuum bag—is always sweltering. My skin melts into thick pockets around my wrists, elbows, armpits, knees, waist, any joints really. The grime of the job with the sweat on my hands swirls into a mud-swamp, forcing me to overtax my fingers on grasping the next delivery. There is no comfortable position, with my lower back taking the worst. I’m told since I’m young I’ll bounce back. I’m flexible, or at least more so than whoever feels like telling me. The voices can fade together in general, like a mosaic where every tiny square is a needle under my fingernails.

Even when there is a lull in the pushing and the lifting, my job isn’t finished. I kneel and spin and plan my steps. Sliding and stacking the baggage does get easier over time, but I never feel any better at it. At a certain point the whole task smudges up together, my every swampy joint aching and my eyes blinking in excess from their constant need to flood out invaders. Soon enough a new train will pull up to the bottom of the ladder, where the delivery system reinvents itself poorly at least three times before settling on a three-fourths approach. They lift the box up one fourth of the way, and I hang by ankles, twisting every ligament. I speculate that often there is a worry I will be able to hold the box and it will come crashing down upon its giver. To compound the box’s weight is its giver’s reluctance to fully let go, a silent plea ascending and bouncing around the rafters that I pull it from their grasp. This of course would mean I gain not only responsibility to store away the box and its contents but also the synthetic burden of having taken it from them by force. Even due to my precarious position as compared to their free use of the hallway space to leap out of the way, I have still never allowed a box to topple back down and crush anyone. However, if I should drop a box, the fault may lie in the immediate use of the aforementioned leaping space by the giver the moment their box has changed hands. In summation, the box is mine now, I pulled it from them, and they moved far enough away to regard it as something distant, alien even.

Betrayal comes to my mind, as it might come to yours. Or perhaps you wonder at my foolishness to continue finding myself up in that attic, arranging boxes. After all, if everybody has a box to bear, shouldn’t the burden of the box be on the bearer? I don’t think any one of us could say we’ve never labored under the weight of a box too heavy for to what distance we mean go. Contrariwise, our culture of box-bearing encourages a commercial trade of burdens so regular, we schedule our every hour by it. I would never try and convince you I’m the only one to take on others’ burdens.

What I mean to explain, however, is that this betrayal is common in my life. Specifically, I continue to find myself hanging by my ankles, receiving weighty admissions from those who smell most like a freshly laundered blanket on your own favorite chair at home. The greatest disguise to disarm and distract is no disguise at all. In this spirit—the spirit of honesty—home comes to me and pushes up some honesty. In the box there is always a tender nerve, a speck of vulnerability enough to convince me to reach out again and again. And they push a little, and I pull that box up and find somewhere to squeeze it into my dusty, crowded crawlspace.

“I used to hate you,” sits in the corner where the wood is cracked enough to cast new light on a box and its contents. Years of unknown bitterness and unexpressed vitriol, at least to my face, are now laid plain before me. Sometimes, after they’ve let their fingers loose of the box, they will start to turn away but then face me once more. A bit of the light from the attic wall causes them to squint up at me and offer me forgiveness for whatever I did leading to their anger and loathing. Despite the glare, I can never seem to find a clear piece of anything in the box describing what I’d actually done to hurt them and then be undeserving of their gift of forgiveness. A few smaller but much heavier boxes are stacked behind those in the far right corner, containing “And I still do.”

Some boxes are made of a similar material and delivered with that same genuine smile and concerned tone, handed up slow to make sure I can get a real strong grasp of it. These come in different shapes and sizes, but always appear much heavier at first than they end up being, causing me at times to overcompensate and fly backwards. My elbows or even my funny bone will suffer in its attempt to save me from falling through the floor. Take, for example, this big blue boxes with stars drawn all over it. Carried to me in slow, careful steps, the sight of it made me tense up, ready for anything. “I used to have all these feelings for you...” read those boxes’ labels. I take my grip and get ready to pull up the massive weight of whatever kind of feelings those were. The bearer lets go, and I fly backward, narrowly avoiding insulation death. Flying out of my hands, the deceptive container bursts open mid-air, raining down a confetti shower of “...but now I don’t even think about you,” and “...but now I’ve moved on and am so over you” and, my personal favorite, “...but I’ve matured beyond that and don’t need you anymore.” Cleaning up this confusing mess can be quite a task, especially when I find amongst the tinker-tape explosion, a few, small balloons in the shape of the common and inferred, “...so you should be proud of me.”

(An important exception to the norm should be noted, in that while organizing all these other boxes of phrases and emotions and decisions and values, I have at times heard a knock behind me. Turning to the ladder, I see someone has pushed a box all the way up into the crawlspace without me having to lift it. At first, I suppose this seems sensible and fair. Tough love boxes, I used to call them. Problem is, when I open them up, a creature of some kind will often jump out and bite me or scratch at me, leaving deep marks before it scampers away to hide in the way back by the childhood traumas. Besides that these boxes are empty and without any real clue as to from whence they came. I call down the ladder, asking for whoever left the box, but there is never a response. I’m left to nurse my wounds and stack all the boxes alone, as per usual.)

Sometimes the box is very much meant for me, and other times there’s little thought to anything more than the bearer getting as far away from their box as possible. I just happen to be the one available to take it off their hands. Please know I don’t think my job an entirely negative experience. I’ve gotten good at finding a place for every shape and size of box and continue to improve at knowing what will fit best where. I even can enjoy the small segment of time hanging over that ladder, a box in both our hands. There’s an innate trust there that can just as easily be a growth experience as it can be mutually assured destruction.

The best is when I can simply do my part as another worker on the assembly line, a cog in the clockwork, a part of this complete breakfast. The problem, as you may have already surmised, is when something gums up the gears. A box is that pound too heavy, that inch too big, that slight shift off-balance. I know at any moment, what I hold in my arms or the heights I stack could come crashing down and me with them. There’s no way for me to handle this job without knowing that, and in fact, I can only now begin to understand what all these boxes are for and what I’m doing in this sweaty, dusty, cramped bit of storage space. Only after I crashed through that insulation, landed hard on those stairs, and bounce down to the damp, old basement, did I finally start to gain some perspective on the issue.

You see I’ve recently been unable to pack away one particular box. There are several places I know it could fit, but my hands are clamped tight around it. Heaviest box I’ve ever held, but far smaller than most. I often stare at where I know it will go, should go, but I can’t yet make myself crawl the few feet to that spot. There’s no lid or latch for this box, just a penny-sized hole in the top. Inside, it reads, “I don’t love you anymore.”

Often enough, my whole world is an attic full of boxes, and/but/so there have been plenty of times when I too have stood in line to lift my boxes up to some other creaky soul. But if you recall, there is a place in the wall of my attic where the wood is cracked and a beam of light slips its way into my world. It can be good to offer some perspective on this or that as I crawl around, but what if I tilt my head sideways and peek out? What lies outside this world of boxes and attics and ladders and hallways and stairs and even bigger boxes? What might I see if I looked out through that little break?

And what might look back at me?

Growing Up an American Christian

Dearest Internauts,

I get it, ok? I'm not some raving, anti-theist who blames religion for every bad thing ever. My parents are extremely devoted to their church and raised me to be a christian. So I understand what having that be such a huge part of one's life can mean.

However, I've also come to a place where I can no longer ignore the manipulative, hypocritical, and severely abusive tactics indoctrinated in me to seem normal throughout my entire up bringing and adolescence. Even now I'm having to build up a whole new sense of identity because my whole life for over two decades was about doing whatever I could to live up to the church's impossible and contradictory standards. Anything good in my life was always labeled as because of God but anything bad or confusing was on me.

Now, while I understand institutional religious practice is crucial to many people's lives, there are some inherent ideological flaws which by their very nature force abuse on any followers (and I'll relate my experience very specifically with Protestant Christianity in the US, though many points can be generalized).

Some will say it's just the abusive relationships I've experienced and I shouldn't disrespect other Christians outside that. I'm not aiming to do anything more than delve into some of the problematic aspects of the faith itself, which should be welcome for one thing and is important to me because of how tight a hold on social and political power it holds in this country.

- sin as a concept being used by leaders to police those with whom they have personal grievances
- the idolization of the bible
- the white-washing of Jesus and other important figures
- the petty game of decontextualizing various scripture passages to prove a moral and often condemning point
- the same decontextualizing used by those out to argue against others' decontextualizing
- the deeply entrenched sexist ramifications of God as male pronouns
- the consistent portrayal of woman as pure temptress and man as mindless beast in lessons of sexuality
- dangerous and foolhardy hushing up of any faults, confusion, uncertainty, or differences
- original sin and intrinsic human depravity as concepts defining people as helplessly evil, twisted, broken, and at fault for all evil
- using the above to pitch and sell religion, first proclaiming how evil we are then telling us only Jesus can help us, and in doing so trapping and monopolizing morality
- close-mindedness to the progress of scientific and sociological shifts even when it's toward more ethical and caring practices
- the labeling of women, lgbtqiaa+, minority ethnic groups, children, those with mental and physical disabilities, and anyone else who to a congregation seems less than or different, labeled as the product or harbinger of sin
- sex as inherently evil or simply a nonexistent topic
- unquestioning support of Israel
- unquestioning support of military and other nationalistic propaganda
- shaming of pacifist, socialist, or even anyone the tad bit to the left
- traditional family values as an excuse to oppress anyone outside that box
- a deep-seeded reverence for wealthy, straight, white, cis-males
-early childhood indoctrination of strict gender roles and the unhealthy presumption and enforcement that all outside them is sinful
- the constant and ready use of a lingering damnation
- the refusal to admit and hold up to a violent past and present
- refusal to admit any fault or contradiction in scripture, preaching, and teaching esp. when covered by a blanket "mystery"
- refusal to confront harmful even abusive teachings toward children, teens, and adults
- a long tradition of placing the blame for any bad thing on the shoulders of one person's or a small group's sin
- constantly returning to the manipulative teaching of just needing more faith or to pray or listen harder instead of actively confronting the issues and unknowns in this sort of religious tradition
- the false modesty combined with a cult of personality surrounding rich celebrity evangelists, bands, and political figures
- a personal relationship with a God who makes it so difficult to have anything but a one-sided conversation
- struggles such as that being portrayed as faults in the one struggling or -- perhaps worse -- as an unavoidable aspect of a mysterious deity
- war and natural disasters being god's way of dealing judgement
- love, grace, mercy, redemption, and faith all stressed to a much lesser extent than sin and the wages therein
- use of scripture and religious doctrine to persecute animals and nature
- use of scripture and religious doctrine to persecute those of other churches, denominations, religions, or lifestyles
- a consistent and political disregard for systemic sources of poverty
- a wariness toward academia, expanding one's knowledge base, and learning in general outside of religious study
- the absurd and often impossibly muddled use of and arguing over religious jargon
- no admittance of how disgustingly awful the acts of both God and the revered figures in the bible truly are
- the contradictions ignored due to such reverence
- such a disregard for young women that Mary, one of the most key figures in the whole of Christianity, can be impregnated without her consent as an early adolescent and the holy rape is seen as such a gift from then on
- the vilification of real people as wholey evil due to a preoccupation with an apocryphal satanic mythology
- raising funds for new, expensive architecture comes before helping those who really need the money
- a silent acceptance of anything a pastor or religious leader does or says
- the continual bloodshed and hate-spewing in Christ's name
- the importance of using people for different ministries over caring for their actual needs
- missions/work and witness trips that end up costing those supposedly helped more in time and money than any actual help given
- those trips breeding of a white-savior complex, encouraged by adults and praised in teens
- no question for the ramifications of prettifying Noah's ark, the fall of Jericho, and other genocidal gore-fests then teaching them to small children
- a dislike for critical thinking, creativity, and self-expression beyond a purely human-based discriminatory standard of religious branding
- forcing complex theological and philosophical generalizations and practices onto children and teens by their parents and teachers
- long lists of dress code policies for girls when guys get one or two items
- seeing a church as progressive if they have at least one token minority
- an unwelcome environment for admitting one's imperfections
- sickening anxiety over living up to unclear, impossible, and ever-changing standards
- defending a God who can control the wind and the waves from being held accountable for tsunamis and other natural disasters
- competitive praise song lyrics putting down other religions
- prejudice excused in church elders
- sexual abuse and assault excused in church elders
- victim blaming before all else
- gay counseling and other forms of abusive and traumatizing bullying and brain-washing by parents, youth leaders, teachers, and pastors
- too many still won't let women preach
- holding a same-sex wedding will often get a revered fired and shunned
- inner politics destroying homes and lives
- those who pray over you one day
- the continuous refusal to admit participation in and work to change any of the above mentioned, consequently bringing up generations of self-righteous, terrified, out of touch, ashamed, traumatized, racist, sexist, classist, transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic, judgemental, hypocritical, unhealthy bigots
- and how I spent most of my life thinking that was the only way to be and now struggle every day to keep living and healing when I grew up learning how best to hate myself

Like I mentioned, this is what I've experienced. However, it's not just my opinion but rather a lifetime of experiences, both my own and those shared with me. I wouldn't go to the trouble of typing all this up if I too hadn't been a part of all of the above and am actively trying to unlearn that way and be a better man.

How Many Miles Between the Trigger and the Child

Like our business is murder and business is booming
Like bombs dropped on children
Like drone shadows looming
Like lies from the puppet on pulpits of policy
Like teachers telling students that we live in a damn democracy
Like the trail of tears disappears from a History textbook
Like we forget about all of our fears with this season’s new best look
Like Mrs. King sued the government for the murder of her husband
Like they settled with the family for one hundred dollars, hoping that it would hush them
LIke every twenty-eight hours a black man is shot down by police
Like corporations are more people than people and have more rights to free speech
Like you can’t trust the cops or the courts for justice
Like rape victims are scorned, informed they’re not to be trusted
Like internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War Two
Like Guantanamo Bay, which by the way is still in use
Like the terms Alien and Sedition aren’t just Social Studies facts
Like it’s held many different names, always the same, what is the Patriot Act?
Like the sizes of the countries on the map on the wall
Like little kid’s report on the greatest country of them all

unrequited love (take 942)

Dear Internauts,

 If you’re like me and fall in love with everyone instantly, a great way to deal with the pain associated with such feelings is turning your problem into your craft time or baking time or movie time or coloring time or hit the books time or pop a wheelie time or run for office time or find your real father time or fly a kite time or skip some rocks time or overthrow the establishment time or learn some new dance moves time or spaghetti time or write a poem about it time or remember that unrequited love isn’t about what someone has done to you but about the great capacity you have to notice loveliness in the world and there’s so much more beauty and wonder and hope and friendship and love and life left to live far beyond a rush of endorphins or when they laughed at your jokes and you really felt hilarious and special for once but that wasn’t them making you special but a bit of your special showing through the cloud that makes us think we need constant reciprocation of everything we feel to make it real and an endless loop about how great we are when really what we love in others and makes our heart go WOW is probably just we’re hungry or tired or lonely or maybe everything and everyone is lovely and sexy and beautiful and it’s not their job to tell you that or make you feel that way cause it’s your job to find out who you wanna be in this beautiful and lovely and sexy and totally crush-worthy of a heartbreaking world and chase after those dreams instead of someone with their own life to live and then when you least expect it the hole inside you is no longer a defect but a part of your story and it is your problem and your life and your story time...

(Every minute you waste on hating yourself is just another wasted minute.)