maybe it might help you to see that there are small little tiny ways to help end suffering.

I haven't written anything in a long time and it's for no good reason.

Is he gay?  Everyone asks.  Funny they ask.  I don't know.  I don't know, maybe he is bisexual, I say.

And I don't really care either, but they seem interested but it's not what I even want to talk about.

I came to Baltimore and then it became cool.  Maybe it was cool before.
Maybe the stupid Wire was the national reason Baltimore became cool.  It's just like how the European kids love Brooklyn like it's Paris, France in the 80s- a fashion Mecca. American hipsters have some fascination with Baltimore.

It's alright if you party.  Like, it's THE PLACE to party.  I'm sure there is other stuff, but pretty much, Baltimore knows how to party better than Ibiza knows how to party, we just don't have the resources.

And by resources, I mean money, not drugs, because apparently ( not that I would know ) there is a plentitude of drugs.  Recreational as well as Habitualistic drugs.  Good times.  It's like the Basketball Diaries, The Wire, Party Monster.  Speaking of which one of those party monster kids, I found out, Because I was at the sentencing by the judge, one of those kids from the movie? The circle of friends was so far-reaching in their aging drugged-out-party lives, actually killed my friend (who ironically no longer partied and was 12 years sober). It was murder whatever. That guy was connected to another guy who killed Angel Melendez. I digress.

The only thing that we have missing here in Baltimore is money. I mean maybe some people have it by have it, I mean they stole it (maybe from colonization) and the other half lives in the country somewhere.

So right now I am using this dictation tool for my computer and I am learning how good or bad for my whole life I've wanted to be a writer and when I got to the good age this good age where I can be really writing and Focusing on the writing at night by the time I get home the arthritis in my shoulder has my arm cramped up and I can't even type. Doesn't it figure?

And then you have those people who say that writing with your hand and the pen is organic and you have a connection between your hand and your heart and your mind when you're writing but I just can't believe that right now.
I cannot afford to believe that right now
I can't spiritually afford to believe that right now
because if I don't use this technology the technology will destroy me.  

I would rather use the technology
than have the technology use me!

Of course you don't know what I mean.
People in Baltimore always ask if you know what we mean
but we don't actually expect you to know what we mean
it's just your cue to say,
"Yeah, I get it, I hear you, I am picking up what you are putting down."

On the other hand, we do expect you to know by heart our friends and acquaintances and local celebrities as if they are national household names.

 I was just on the phone with someone who told me that Mayor Schmoke was the first black mayor of Baltimore. I processed it. I didn't interrupt him. But that's just not true.  ( It was Clarence DuBurns, right?)

That's the other thing about being from Baltimore: you're charming, you're polite, you pretend to care even when you don't care.
Sometimes the people that pretend to care the most actually cares the least.
And as a bonus, actually sometimes, those people might kill you.
They might just be nice to you to find out where your family lives.
Find out where your family works,
find out where your family lives and kill them or
send someone to kill them if you're ever a witness.
Just in case.
Just kidding
not really.

This voice text thing -- Voice dictation is a flipping miracle.
I'm going to practice. I
'm going to practice on you.
There might be some weird stuff that ends up coming out on this blog. It might not even be what I meant to say.

So now back to the party. The fascination with Baltimore: how can I describe it? There is this desperation in Baltimore that is like the fertile swamp mud when it comes to creativity. We have so little stuff and we have so much suffering that the only result is art because we have nowhere else to put it.  And when I say it I mean pain. I mean it's the kind of emotional pain that the English language and all of the American vernacular combined doesn't even contain the words for it,
so we have to paint it
and we need to draw it on the walls
and we need to chalk it onto the sidewalks.

We need to sing it in churches. But that's another story.
That might be a story for another time that was a funeral yesterday that made me want to be born again into the artist that I am except this time, be better.

If I could just get another body and a new pair of Hands.

Okay. So I am thinking of the future. And I'm thinking what I might want to do with my life. And I know what I want to do with my life!  Of course I know. I want to help people. But I don't want to just help people who don't want help.  I don't want to help people who don't need help. I want to help the really needy.

I want to help people be free.
I want to help people be really happy.

I want to chip away at the huge monumental block
the monumental rock of suffering I want to chip away at it
I want to kill anyone who hurts animals on purpose. Not people eating animals as food, but people who hurt puppies and kittens and things like that I pretty much just think they should be put out of their misery ( the people, I mean).  And that's an extreme.

And I know there will never be a law that says I can do that, so I can't actually kill them, but I can daydream about it.  I digress.

I can tell you about it right now- my vision for the future. I can tell you about this extreme feeling that I have because maybe it might help you to see that there are small little tiny ways to help end suffering.

But if I talk about that kind of stuff–if I get really self-righteous about that kind of stuff I might start sounding like those people who want Women not to have birth control.
I'm just ***not*** an extremist.
I am just a person who is going to spell out for you and animate what cruelty looks like and what you can do tonight be a part of **stopping the adding** to it. I think I should move on to something else.

Can you stop adding to the suffering? Like attracts like.

So what was I talking about? So the suffering. I have always talked about the suffering here in this place.  You can look at all of my writing since the time I was eight. I've always known this about Baltimore. You can look at my blog from 2009.  There are allusions to it. Last year when there was the uprising, it was like a movie. It was unreal. It was not really like they were showing on TV at all. We were here, we were mostly fine, there were some cars on fire. There were kids throwing rocks. But for all the time I grew up here and all the time I spent being educated and then comparing what I saw growing up to what I had learned about Global economics also known as imperialism also known as colonialism also known as slavery, that week last year was really nothing.

When I describe it to other people I just fill in the blanks I pretend like they're asking me about "oh my god what was it like growing up in Baltimore?"

I pretend that's what they're asking.

I don't pretend that they're asking *what they're really asking* which is: what was it like actually on that day when there was a "riot".  Because then I would just WALK AWAY.  I would breathe a loud, short exhale and turn around and flee.

I say"oh man. It was tough."

What I want to be is a beautiful red Maple I want to be a cypress tree I want to be an Atlantic white cedar. I googled it. All of these trees? They grow in standing water. They can grow in swamps.

I want to grow in the swamp and I want to die on the beach.

This Spring has been like being punched in the face and somehow I am lucky

This spring was like a jack in the box.
It was like a jack in the box who pops up and then punches you in the face.

And it's my job that pays the rent; it's my job to turn the crank.

The jack morphs into different things whenever I turn the crank, it pops up as something else equally terrifying.

I had seven cavities diagnosed at lunch time on election day.
I had a hand surgeon stab me in the wrist with a needle the next day to extract a bible bump.
I learned that my friend had died 30 minutes later.  He was 45.
I learned that another friend died the same week, at age 85.
I learned yesterday that one of my best friends in the world attempted suicide, but he has the wherewithal to keep going,
but we started our conversation with me saying that I just don't have acceptance and he immediately retorted that he is sick of the rhetoric.  I can't argue with that.  I knew it and he told me, so I heard it.

He doesn't want to hear a slogan and I get it.  Slogans are sometimes too contrite.  And usually I feel that people who say slogans are too smug-- and yes, it's true, but the slogans are there for a reason, it's just that you can always use them on a genius.

Pretend you are dumb.  Pretend you are a peasant who is desperate for hope.  I didn't forget that there is hope, I am just weary of hoping when praying becomes like wishing.

This week the Zulu nation unseated their founder who wasn't much of a leader.  I have comments. Unseating him was the only option since he violated their trust and since they weren't going to throw away their advocacy for a liar and an old man who has no right to be guiding anyone anymore.  He did a couple good things, but now it's time for him to go.  This is what made me the least sad.  When I heard that one of his ( and I say ONE OF because there's gotta be more ) victims came forward as an adult ; I was slightly shocked, then not surprised, and then proud that the victim had the courage to write about the abuse in his book and talk about it in a magazine and talk about the statute of limitations being extended for things like this because it just takes longer for victims to actualize abuse for what it was instead of having it be some kind of shameful story where he felt like he did something wrong.  Because he did NOTHING wrong.  He trusted and loved someone and he was betrayed.

Relatively, my week was better than that.  Even though I was betrayed, it was a long time ago and this is just the aftermath.  I suffered some losses, but mostly I was glad I knew those people who were my friends who died.

I was glad I went to have my teeth checked and that I have health care.

I was glad that I have a job to do every day.  I was glad to sleep on my memory foam pillow and glad that I am anguishing over all of my choices because there were times when I felt I had no choices at all.  And if my complaint is that I have too many choices, then I am a lucky bird.