HOW TO BE A SOCIALIST

GENGHIS KHAN BLUES or LIFE IS A TOUGH GIG MAMA

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. . .
—Walt Whitman

I don’t cook, I don’t clean,
I don’t have the energy for the scene…
—Circle Jerks

Will we live to see a new new media (NNM)? Will David Hogg burgeon a true working class party? Will we “vanquish our enemies, chase them before us, rob them of their wealth, see those dear to them bathed in tears [and] clasp to [our] bosom their wives and daughters?” Will working people ever get their due?

Will I get so bored of asking questions like these that eventually you’ll see me on the news, cuffed and hauled away like Luigi’s fat uncle for trying to fight (or at least get beat up by) Joe Rogan, and dropkicking Senator Kennedy of Louisiana right in his teats? I’m not just bored of asking these questions Subscriber. I’m sick of waiting for their answer.

I can’t exactly applaud the meager advancements of the NNM and I include myself in that critique. I know there are writers out there, on-mission and committing journalism as a spiritual calling. Activists, too—making 1,600 calls a minute to our reps, writing countless letters to the SCOTUS and protesting in the street as establishment media turns a blind eye. But I’m tired of waiting while I’m barely getting by…

I’ve gone from assuaged in the cocoon of my apartment, gorging on infotainment behind blackout blinds and stepping outside as little as possible, to getting my shit together for the first time in my life and rising a like a Bushido into the dim and dire throes of the final century. I do it for us, Subscriber. Yes. The People.

With a potential payday for a piece on spec, I interview for caregiving gigs in the sticks, teach at private school and deliver corporate lunch. I’d love to say I’m doing my part by sharing how you can join the movement but the truth is this column could very well only be instructional for me. I met my deadlines but have fallen short of my activist goals. HOW TO BE A SOCIALIST may as well be called HOW TO BEG CREATIVELY. To wit…

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It pleased me to get these columns off but I’ve still got work to do and the walls are closing in—five grand on my car and ad hoc drug tests in hotel lobbies for $21/hour jobs with so many men no one needs. The media has failed us so what’s next? Another question. Another week, another column and another deadline met. Another 40+ plus hours a week to remain in the red while driving a fifteen-year-old car with molars rattling round my mouth.

This is Jim Trainer reporting that I’m still reporting because, like “Uncle Hank” Rollins said—life, even when it sucks, is still pretty cool. There is hope but there is no future Subscriber, and in the meantime ain’t it good to be workin?

Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne…