By the Reverend Eggking
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” ~Not Plato
Disclaimer: I have been homeless multiple times. I know what it’s like to see a tasty slice of pizza on the filthy pavement and break out in remorse as I walk away from it. I have also begged for food and change all over this beautiful continent. The best hustle my main road dog ever showed me was to take all our change, spell out an “L” , part of an “O”, and surround it with flowers. Then as folks walked by, we would ask them to “Help us make love on the sidewalk!” I can plainly recall nights of wolfing down rich folk’s half eaten leftovers, as well as their backwash laced near empty glasses of alcohol, both in this country and abroad. By comparison, the story below about going deep into debt for things that cause suffering for those involved in their production, is a quite fucking luxurious problem to have. I fully understand that. But that doesn’t make it any less real for me. I have never had access to credit before the last few years. I am now 42 (Don’t Panic!) and this past year alone I went into $60,000+ of credit debt. That is more than every preceding year combined. The following is a somewhat brutal self examination of this ridiculous way to live. Also, as an added bonus, fresh sarcasm has been sprinkled liberally throughout the piece. Enjoy……
Every time I inadvertently start to fantasize about the latest “must have” commodity, there is a section of my brain that feels an abnormal sense of loss. There is also actual physical pain. I can only equate this pain with someone trying to bail out water on a ship that is sinking faster than the speed of Disney buying up every hero that I have ever turned to. Next, my mind uses a significant portion of itself to figure out how best to manipulate the Rubik’s Cube of my current finances. Then, and only then, can this “must have” product find it’s way into the gaping hole of debt that I have dug for myself over this past year. Looking back, it seems that I had no choice but to pimp out my future paychecks for both my third iPhone in the past 4 years and my second Samsung Galaxy (it came with a magic pen, damnit!) in less than a year. Apparently, I also couldn’t sleep at night until I finally got my grimy fingerprints all over the largest iPad screen known to man. In 2015, I went massively into debt to get my first Prius, but snagging the new 2017 model was worth it! By plunging deeper into this particular indentured servitude, I am able to continue enjoying the honor of celebrating my uniqueness with the other 5,287,317,842 Prius drivers in the Bay Area.
As you can plainly see, generic awareness of the world wide suffering that goes into these “must haves” was not enough to stave off my perfect storm of consumerism these past 11 months. I know that children all over the world are an indentured labor force for the many products that I have purchased. I know that cobalt is a key component in the lithium-ion batteries that power so many of our “must haves”, and that child labor is heavily utilized for the cobalt mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I know that there is currently well over a trillion dollars worth of lithium found within the borders of Afghanistan. I know about the estimates of over 360,000 human beings whose lives have been cut short in Afghanistan, due to indirect causes related with our “War on Terror”. I know that our country’s collective murderous impulses have been raining down upon them without mercy since 2001. But guess what else I know? Slaughtered innocent civilians and lithium are not all that is found there. Trillions of dollars of other minerals and natural gas are also found in Afghanistan. I am certain that my lack of acting upon awareness supports the world wide suffering for those hit hardest by humanity’s relentless greed for these supplies. And last, and certainly not fracking least, we have 90% of the world’s current opium supply found in this fabled land.
That is just a few of the reasons why the “Owners of All Things” are willing to spend so many billions on the media blitzkrieg that is required to justify the fuckery they continue to unleash. All of this carnage just so Wall Street can continue to be the gift that keeps on giving. How quaint.
Quick 9/11 reminder: If you are one of those who doesn’t believe that it was an inside job, fifteen of the 19 hijackers were citizens from Saudi Arabia, and the others were from the United Arab Emerites (2), Egypt, and Lebanaon. There is nary an Afghanistan citizen involved in 9/11. And yet, here we are, well over a decade and a half later, still blowing up their people, land, and dreams to smithereens. And that’s right folks, for those of you paying close attention (shout out to Big Brother), my consumeristic tendencies are also imbedded deeply into the endless “War on Drugs”, which was lovingly set up to obliterate as much hope as fuckkking possible.
The “War on Drugs” is one of the main driving forces of our country’s not so subtle caste system. This caste system insidiously winds it’s way throughout the granular details of our healthcare, environmental assaults and the vicious entrapment factory better known as the industrial prison complex. Just think about everything that goes into it’s daily operations. Prisoners in the San Bruno Jail in California have no yard time to gain access to fresh air or feel the sun and wind upon their face. Countless prisoners country wide slave away for pennies on the dollar so that the companies who continue destroying the last remnants of “Mom and Pop” shops can cash in on the billion dollar prison labor industry. Even “Whole Foods” was guilty of this practice, until they got called on it. And don’t forget about the massive disenfranchisement of voters, infinitesimal opportunities for gainful employment upon release, and the endless hell that is unleashed while they are behind bars, often for being guilty of nothing more than a pathetic lack of opportunity where they were raised. You think it’s a coincidence that crack and meth houses have replaced former neighborhoods where, just a few generations ago, hardworking families had economic opportunities that were legal and a source of pride? This caste system has grown from the seeds planted by the genocidal slaughtering of between 30 – 130 million indigenous human beings (so many estimates, but they seem fall between that range) who were a part of this continent long before any cracker ass cracker ever stepped foot upon it’s shores. This caste system took those ol’ Jim Crow laws and evolved them into more than their inceptors could have ever fathomed within their most pyschotic of fantasies.
OBVIOUSLY, I am as much of a cog in this fourth Reich powered machine (hail hydra!) that we call home as the next asshole who feels the need to feed their greed and watch it force their conscience to concede victory to capitalism’s juggernaut. This bloodlust based monstrosity keeps picking up more steam with each and every new birth upon this planet. We deserve better, and so does the rest of the world.
Now we can get into a whole other crate of canned serpents that I just had Amazoned to me straight from Costco. Wait a second. Fuck Amazon and Costco. They both denied my credit application and actually want me to pay for what I purchase before I check out of their respective stores. Don’t they know who the drunk I am? My long suffering wife knows who I am. I am a gutter pissant addict in recovery with a clean and sober date of August 31st, 2009. Can you believe that shit? Just because I would black out nightly, and wake up in a bed stained in psychedelic urine samples doesn’t mean I have a problem does it? What about all of the fecal matter that was accustomed to having its way within my pants as I walked home, and the bar, bathroom, and bedroom walls where my projectile vomit would work it’s magic? Fun, fun, fun.
I am not going to get too much deeper into the trials and tribulations resulting from the endless sedations that I administered to my heart, body and soul during my sanity’s vacations. Suffice to say, I have never met anything that I am not capable of abusing. And that includes the patience, financial security, and faith of my incredibly intelligent and beautiful wife, Mariposa Loca. Just imagine her stress, if you will, as she watched my spending habits this last year, fully aware that I am still employed for a non-profit organization based in San FranSpending Cisco.
But I am making amends to her right now as we speak. I am seeking solutions on a daily basis. I have redoubled my efforts to be more cognizant of each purchase I make. I have stopped purchasing technology. It has been at least four months since I bought something that brought my wife pain and discomfort. I no longer shop at Safeway, Whole Foods, or any other corporate store, to the best of my ability, I seek out family owned retail opportunities by investigating a business’s history. I seek to make amends to my wife by actually paying off all of my debt in a timely manner so that I can actually be the provider that she deserves, all while living in a city where the succubi never sleep, honoring their programming to drain every penny found in my bank account.
I am continuing to get deeper entrenched within the RESIST Community that has so many branches throughout the incredible Bay Area. I am the event coordinator for both a non profit Soto Zen Japanese Buddhist organization comprised of multiple temples throughout California, and the only Anarchist Collective Bookstore in San Francisco which has been volunteer run for over 40 years. I facilitate a weekly open showcase there on Thursday nights that has everything from 18 year Non-Binary identifying poets to 75 year old living encyclopedic jukeboxes of every protest folk song known to humanity. I am seeking to take advantage of all of the ecstatic bliss, genius, and pure unadulterated power that the Bay Area has to offer. And I am thriving.
Now we can get down to the sub-atomic molecular structure of what this article is all about. I am calling myself out to live according to the principles that I claim to hold dear. I have not been respecting them with my rampant consumerism, and that needs to change, pronto. “McTexAssTrumpLandia” wants to be the air that I breath. It wants me to swallow the lies that so many believe and ignore the totality of why I ever grieve. “The Owners of All Things” do not pledge allegiance to any flag. All the flags of the world are butt toilet paper for the digestive systems, I mean “governments”, that they place in power by any means necessary from sea to toxic sea. Saddam Huissein was put into power through a C.I.A sponsored military coup in the late 1970’s. Osama Bin Ladin and his boys received tens of millions of our tax dollars from the late 1980’s until just about a month before the events of 9/11. I don’t care if you don’t believe me. In fact, I could give a fuck. I am so tired and broken down physically, mentally and spiritually from trying to figure this all out. After all, as my lovely voices are reminding me right now, what I really care about is my quest for the meaning of meaning. Meanwhile, I am fucking sapped like a tree in a haunted forrest that knows the chainsaw is all gassed up and waiting in the shed while the master sleeps.
I know that I have a part to play in all of this. My daily decisions ripple to the ends of infinity’s patience with being ascertained. I vote each and every goddamn moment that I spend a cent and it is high time that I hold myself accountable for these reckless decisions. I take part in a goregous revolution each and every time I offer kindness and compassion to anyone, whether or not I feel they deserve it. For that judgement is not up to me. There is a sacred force which is so beyond my ability to encapsulate it within the confines of the written word(or typed:). All I ever need to be reminded of this awesome unknown is to try and listen to a motherfucking dog whistle. How dare anyone, especially myself, ever think that our pathetic explanations of anything can be considered an absolute for all of time. We need to evolve past the fear of the unknown. I am going to start right now.
Be well my friends, and know that you are loved. You can trust me on that……