Don't Be Carl. Joy Whizzes. While Carl Waits.

I don't know who made that pic, but it's the internet so somebody out there has pics with what I'm sure is a hilarious caption of me in a thong selling hotdogs. It all balances out.

So I was talking to my wife about art and creativity, and how that whole thing of the tortured artist (be it writer, painter, singer, musician, dancer, etc) just won’t go the unwashed hell away. And she brought up an excellent point. “People get too wrapped up in it, in themselves; they forget about it supposedly being a joy to create. I often wonder if it’s a defense mechanism. ‘I can only be good at this if I make it more complicated and uncomfortable to deal with. If it’s easy I can’t be that good, can I?’”

 And that’s when that that thunderclap boomed. That was the Charlie Brown “THAT’S IT!” moment. I have always maintained that the choice between holding hands while walking beneath trees or holding a pen while scribbling out a story was no choice at all. Dappled sunlight, broheems, for the win.

There’s no need to wrestle God in the desert. God is like, bro, chill, I brought Funyuns. Have fun with whatever you feel like creating. Enjoy the act even when the act bogs down and gets difficult. Enjoyment doesn’t mean you become a shining Brony 24/7. Enjoy it and know that it is not you. It’s what you do. “You” are the soul packed in a meatbag that’s about to smile in the eyes of someone under the setting sun.  

Wife ended with this: “I always strive to simplify and streamline my life. Nothing should ever be that hard. I can’t understand people who dramatize and complicate everything. Just accept and be grateful, that’s when you have peace and joy.”

You get to write, paint, sing, compose, move. And if you’re lucky you get to kiss. Wrap that up and score it as a win, Bubbles.

Six Short Graybles

Anybody who's watched Adventure Time knows that a grayble is a little story meant to heighten introspection and clarity. Thus:

As the GOP gets into full batshit mode for the presidential campaign, here are 6 Short Graybles to Reassure Politicians and Their Support Base That Gays Are Not the Issue:

1) Worried that they’ll locust all the available mates away from you? Overpopulation took care of that.

2) Worried they might try to seduce you? You’re not that attractive.

3) Sanctity of your marriage? Chill. “The homosexuals” make just as bad decisions as you. Divorce lawyers will not want for work.

4) You secretly want them to find you attractive but, so far, none have? It’s because you’re an asshole. A big one. And for you that counts as irony.

5) They’ll turn your kids gay? In the same fashion that you were turned heterosexual watching Bugs Bunny in a dress and later you fapped furiously to that memory, so too is the implicit gay agenda as effective at influencing the sexuality of unwary children everywhere.

6) Public displays of affection are between a person and their dog and that’s it! Now that, my friend, is something therapy might be able to help you with.

I Have Good Feelings About Me

...how often does that roll through your head? Not bloody often enough. Change that. Change it now. Unless you're a cold, mean, psychopath who enjoys the suffering of others. Do not feel good about that.

That is all.

The Checklist O’ Diversity

Because it’s not so much fight the power as it is fight the weakness (since the inability to see others as people is not a strength) here is the Fuck-That checklist for creators, beginning thusly:

If the only time you describe a skin color is for the ‘ethnic’ types, fuck that.

If the Black dude dies, fuck that.

If the woman is put in sexual peril because, you know, wimmin, fuck that.

If there’s even a tiny fart’s whiff of “Diversity is so haaaaaaaard, ermagherd!” Everybody: we will, we will... fuck that.

If you use the words “almond eyes” or chocolate anything we will slap the fuck-that into you and out the other side.

If the only time dialect is used is for those colorful, saucy types, Webster fuck-that.

If everybody but the hero/heroine is PoC-marked, you are the dude trying to perform Hindi alphabet cunnilingus. You are trying too hard. Fuck that.

I swear to Gawd that if your Destined White Child gets counseled by Morgan Freeman on something even so tiny as what color shirt to put on, not only should that be fucked with all due haste, it should be followed by Piss Off, Wank of Doom, and Really Bruh.

If for any reason your White character lands in a region where she’s never ever seen a lava Wyrm but after she puts on a pair of the local jeans she’s the best Wyrm rider ever lived in that realm, even if this is clearly G-rated, YA fuck-that.

If your gay male character is there only as comic relief, fuck that.

If your wheelchair-bound character is there only to show how brave she/he is for having the courage not to roll themselves off a cliff, fuck that.

Addendum to the homosexual agenda: If your gay/bi/tri/abacus male characters don’t have sex with dudes but your gay/bi/tri/abacus female characters get to hear that boom-chikka-wow-wow music drowning out their girl conversation, please do fuck that.

May I remind you that if the Black dude dies, fuck not only that but you.

(see answer code below) Is your trans character only there to be:
(a) crazy; (b) edgy; (c) dangerous?

-a- Fuck that. –b- Fuck that. –c- Fuck that.

If your book starts with the White teen having the Luke Skywalker Stare Into The Sunlit Horizon O’ Destiny scene, fuck that plus the droids you’re looking for. We know what’s coming and, as former owners of the Millennium Falcon, we are not amused.

Unless your princess is a guy who has made it very clear that is how he wishes to be addressed, do fuck that as the focus character of all future stories.

If you are “not sure” how to write "People of Color" (yes, I fluggin’ hate that. Message for the world: EVERYBODY HAS A COLOR. White people don’t come born with Romulan cloaking tech lodged up their kumquats rendering them clear and invisible), I will Bernie Mac-slap the Fuck-That into you so you can see how fookin’ ridiculous you sound. Turning someone you see every Thursday in the checkout line at the local Monsanto Mart into “The Other” is just as bad as calling out a racial slur. What do we say to the God of Turning People into “Others”? Fuck that.

Does your PoC-mark die so that Biff Muscles (others too but mainly Biff) can live? And then Biff gets so dude-fired he Does The Thing with 40 ninjas hanging off him with his mighty dick a swingline for Sue to get to safety and Sue’s like, “No! We are not closing the door! He’ll be here!” and Biff gets there but Sue sees in his half-formed dude tear that Bubba (his best good friend) didn’t make it—OK, we’re gonna fuck ALL that and start fresh in the morning.

Seriously. Seriously. If “diversity” means showing how those simpler folks have so much to teach the gods, finger fuck that till it gets frustrated enough to walk away.

If your manuscript is the Irony-board of Diversity whereby, get this, the White guy thinks he’s the hero but it’s actually the ethnic dude, scrap that. Fuck that. “Big Trouble in Little China” already did it better.

And if you EVAH use “The Help” as the title of your book – What’s that you say? Been done? Oh, fook that. *drops mic, throws Godzilla-hornet middle finger, slides into the water to chill*

(If there are any missed tired tropes it’s only because my pressure was starting to go up. Godzilla-hornet.)

Writerss: Do you know how to write characters? OK. All those people you need 12 variations on the word “caramel” for? DO THAT!

Where To Find Yes In Today's World

Do this without thinking about it. Say “yes.” Say it out loud. Breathe it, make love to it. It will make love to you. Tell your body you love it out loud. It’s not a dictatorship, you in that shell, it’s a symbiosis. Your body has needs and wants you to acknowledge them. Say yes like the last prayer before the final burst of your solar system’s star, its light spreading so wide and bright you’ve no fear of any type of burn. Say yes to your life more often than you do because, Gods bless it, the corollary of “no” is a silent and adept lover capable of making you groan even when there’s not a single sound. Say it as though there are dreams to be picked up from the cleaners; no one but yourself wants to marry you and that’s cool as hell; you thought you were wrong but found out you had been right all along. You just have to say it out loud and mean it from that place in your spirit that knows you better than you think it does. Once or twice or maybe a hundred times a day. I like to do it in the morning or when I’ve forgotten that all things are beautiful when made beautiful. Say it not as vocabulary but as invocation. Don’t bother adding anything behind it. Additional words just get in the way. This just needs to be you in your voice saying one thing:

Yes.

Ferguson, MO Grand Jury Nov 24 2014

We can have video from a hovering news chopper of a gang of police beating a man to the ground. We can have video of a gang of police choking a man to death. We can have video of police killing people for holding toy guns in a store that sells toy guns. We can have video of police officers abusing their authority every day of the week.

We can have candlelight vigils. We can have spiritual marches and protests. We can scream in the face of injustice…but all injustice does is get bored and goes to play somewhere else.

We will take away injustice’s playgrounds. We will take away its toys. There will be no more state-condoned executions of unarmed black boys.

Time Has Come Today

My query is this: what time do you go to bed, and why? Is it to save energies you might have used today for work tomorrow? Did you stop writing because tomorrow there's a meeting? Pencils down because tomorrow's inbox is sure to be a bear? Are you soaping your hands, and especially getting the clay from beneath your nails, because you'll likely be shaking hands with some guy tomorrow who will forget you the moment you're not immediately useful? I'm wondering because I'm sensing there's a lot of energy loss out there. I'm sensing worry. Worry that time is finite and perhaps giving in and giving up, as a whole, isn't entirely defeatist. I'm sensing that on your part. My part. Ours. I'm sensing that the thunderbolts you could have thrown are powering tedious bits of dross, but lord knows I hope I'm wrong.

There's no such thing as the non-creative mind.

Sleep well, Glorious Revolutionaries, on your own private terms.