OKAY. I'm quitting cigarettes. And I'm Angry! I am angry about Working all the time working my life away--never a break from the rent and the utility bills and these Creditors that routinely remind me of my brief but, well I admit dizzyingly irresponsible endeavors of the last few fiscal periods. No I'm not the Federal Budget. Just one of the masses, a frustrated Nice Person, a writer who would be a Writer but for certain harmless social excesses--and wait a minute I am angry about words, about Royalty Words those big, fine ones that run over the good sensible little ones like they're Czars in their damn gilded carriages, so grand and perfect. Media whitewash words like "social unrest," or "threatened strike averted" meaning somebody and somebody got sick and tired of [fill in the injustice] and rioted while somebody else was being bought off by the Establishment (again) I'm talking about Establishment words, yeah, riding around in their new BMW Czar-Mobiles for which they traded their old Cadillacs, flying in Airforce One wearing fur coats and Yves Saint-Laurents to make them indistinguishable from the struggling and immodest masses of words trying to get a little respect--words like, "dizzying" and "routinely," like "endeavor" or "certainly" words the rest of us are now, in this free society of ours, entitled to buy.I am angry that Diner's club sent me a card so that I could presumably order the words which before I could not afford, from a menu which dips them in special sauces and charges me with the authority to eat everything in sight now and, What's "Later" some Foreign word where they are starving? It's a good thing I live in America where I can say whatever I like without fear of reprisal or government suppression. I can challenge authority! Observe me now as I chastise the Cretins. (That's Caucasian for: "I'm going to rip the @!#*+&!") [@!#*+&! = Motherfuckers]
First, there is something I must tell you, if you did not already know it: most words won't let us be angry--I mean the GETDOWN LOOK OUT YOU MESSED WITH MY LIFE TOO MANY TIMES NOW I'M GONNA TAKE YOU OUT! kind of angry--and when we finally break free, I know it's happened to you, you're using those really bad, BAD cusswords and they're shooting out of your mean crazy mouth like fire like gunfire, and there's hissing and cracking your voice is going up and down your blood so hot it's making your face red and your lips thin and your teeth getting taller and taller, eyes big and pupils dilalating and pretty soon your body all hunched like your insides ready to jump out of your outside, you're doing a little dance as you pick up steam swaying, sidetoside until pretty soon your audience if there is one is sure you'll fly up like a great big ugly vulture or American Eagle or some kind of monster coming out all red from under your skin with a pointy tongue looking to make a meal out of somebody, "LOOK OUT GODDAMNIT HE--SHE--IT'S COMING RIGHT AT--AT MEEEEEE OH GODDAMN, SHIT LORD!" Yeah. You and me we've been so angry that there just weren't words... But I'm not telling your story. My story my "His-story," is a sad one, of always, just before that final roar and RROAR and CHAARRRGe CHAARrge CHAH Blam! Getting iced by some word or gang of words. Probably waiting for me all that time. Makes me--crazy. But I'm wondering, are you with me? I'm thinking you're thinking, "That Man Is Crazy." So I'm going to mellow, chill, relax. But you should know--and it's not just nicotine talking because I'm truly smoking now--there are some bad words in the world. In the newspapers and on the TV, on the radio and on billboards, even on the telephone. On the street: gang-words, drunken-driver-words, little-old-lady words. And the worst ones, the most dangerous, the words in our heads. These are suppressors of revolution. (Because if we could see them without their disguises I promise you, there would be revolution.) These words can be arrogant, and forceful. They can be sophisticated, cool, smooth- tongued and sharply-dressed. Here they come. Just look at them they think they own the world, these, aristocratic bureaucratic idiosyncratic words, these yachting haughting notebook jotting words these pretty, witty, mediocrity words. Fine, shiny, lookingattheirwatches timey words. The cutting, strutting, butting words always pushing me around, the white right outof sight fightinmad words that try to put me down because I'm-- different. Like I'm misspelled, outofstep, nogood or something so sorry, sorry, I'm sorry, excuse me sir, sorry. (@!#*+&!) Make me feel so sorry and small, looking down, even afraid to go to the mall anymore, (unless I got my Walkman on,) make it hard for me to write down my feelings now I have to rhyme 'em to fight 'em. Seems they get bigger and bigger and I get smaller, and smaller, and--now I'm inventing slogans. That's one thing, those slick ones have so many slogans and I don't have enough! I want one like, "Save Tress--Kill A Bureaucrat!" But what good would it do when they own most of the cards and TV shows and when they're not riding around on the street or on Airforce One, or flying at me on the airwaves and in the buses, they ride around, unsuspecting peoples' clothes, even on baby carriages! I can't win. I'm just a kid. I can't fight, so I write. Even when they call me names--every name but my own--Red. Asshole. HeyYou. YouWithTheHat. Cutey. Baby. Son. Sir? [Mothefucker]
I hate writing so why do I write? No not because I can't fight, I just said that so you wouldn't get it in your head that you should beat me up. Or to make the Po-leaze Officer somebody called not beat me too bad when he busts me for being a [Bad Word]
I write 'cause I'm angry about everyone buying buying working always working so they can be buying the rest of the time, because this is the "American Way" or sosays BusinessWord; because "Economic Power is REAL Power" or sosays J.J. and I'm sorry I believed him cause I want and voted for him and LOOK WHO GOT TO BE PRESIDENT WORD. Me I buy because I'm not yet angry enough--about blind consumerism taking over the hearts and minds of all of us here, about television and radio and billboard advertisements telling me I'll look just like a beautiful celebrity when I buy the Magic Goods--and I must have believed it, cause I just went and bought the goods and I sure as hell DO NOT want to look like ED Mc Mahon! I'm angry about those Medias, all the time discounting or worse, trying to snowjob people of otherthanWhite ancestry or female people because they don't look at all like the Founding Fathers. And I don't hate my father. But I pity him because he didn't realize he died and he keeps haunting my mind, and he must by this time stink worse than rotten meat because I can't even conceive the words to bury him, every time I get close I'm either so redfacedcrazymad I'm so happy--or I'm puking--I lose the corpse and it gets away to develop a marketing strategy targeting LowIncome, Youth, and Developing Nation groups for another group of starving Cigarette Masters down South, and I'm hurting about this, and about this dying American Civilization where some White people are turning Black with shame, and maybe groveling and getting empowered, and maybe not, and the shameful Black is turning White with Pride and I don't disapprove of mixed marriage but is this Equality, women wanting to be men and men wanting to be women, children growing up after they earn their first paychecks, and the Founding Fathers who haunt our culture know this, they are hip to trends, they never miss and so they have created what they call with their moneywords, THE YOUTH MARKET which is where it's at after all, and if you missed the words between the lines I'm saying that it seems to me we are every one of us wanting to be something other that what we are, that we are being SOLD a (news- word, this,) "BillOfGoods" and the Fathers and even Himself, The Father--this IS GOD'S COUNTRY is it not--they would have us believe that the road to equality is paved with gold, and you better move on up that road or get out of the way because real power is CONSUMER-POWER and it's a feeding frenzy of every one trying to get it any way he can she can you cancanohyoucan/ifyouwantedto while the mediawords, like "white blood cells" in a "healthy immune system," make sure that the ugliness of our reallife, LifeOrDeath desperation is covered over with beautycream words.
Goddamnit I am angry at the so-called Pro-Life lobby which calls itself Moral and Family and Good words, trying to rip us off of reality pulling at our heart-strings telling us the baby "has a Right" to be born and the mother of that baby has not the reality behind the word, "Life," and that reality is not necessarily composed of those most basic of rights like, Right- To-Eat and Right-To-Education, Right-To-Work and Right-To- Love, and she may even see the rights between-the-lines, like the right to be treated fairly and with justice irregardless of racial ancestry, gender, gender- preference, physical-mental- speech-test-job aptitude and like the right to have a life that MEANS something, meaning, intellectual freedom, and safety, as in, (and I'm the mom now,) "Will my baby have safe passage through the Life? Will my baby have a 'quality' Life--what? What do you mean, 'You should let the BABY DECIDE!' Fuck you.. It's MY body and in case you didn't know mister it was a "@!#*+&!" like yourself who helped put me in this condition!" That's right, I'm a mean, angry mother! I'm a mean, angry faggot even if I'm a screwed-up, shit-scared white man, and I'm going to live my life the way I choose because my mom who bore me into this crazy world made the choice to, and she didn't let me have the choice to be other that biologically male, and of Irish-Scottish-Welsh-German- Swiss and French ancestry and I forgive her, I forgive her because I know that it was her choice and not Society, it was only after she had me that Society came to get me and with its flags and helmets and promises of power, tried to make me a Manword against my wishes and in contrast to my own special words, but I fought it and so far I'm winning because I made choices, even when Society tried to make me do it somebody else's "moral" and "right" way, just words, I chose to be hetero and then I changed my mind, tried to be homo, those, too just words and then I realized what I really am at least for now is a faggot, a powerful weapon word and one which scares and annoys a lot of people, but it's the nature of my relationship to Society and if I could choose to be Irish in Ireland I'd be helping to kick British Soldier asses the hell out of the country, same as if I was African in South Africa I'd be kicking white asses the hell out, but here in this country I'd be African American and I might wear my hair in a afro or I might choose to be Black and cut it short and maybe make an artistic or fashion statement with it, or maybe I'd be stuck in some little rural place, a Negro in the mean, deep South and I'd have to make the choice to get liberated somehow and being as I don't fear God it wouldn't be spiritual like listening to the Church tell me everything's all right, just pray and live a good life and don't make trouble, no I'd have to learn the ideas of people like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan who rose, got out but never really left, then I'd try some different things and fail some, and succeed some, and I'd realize it's all a game, but feeling as I do that life should be meaningful, and also because I'm angry, and angry about words, I'd say "Nigger" I am a Nigger, and maybe I'd let my hair grow out and be natural, and then shave it all off and wear Ray-bands for awhile, knowing it's just looks and feeling like changing my looks when the mood took me, that's all well and good but I'm not African American, or Black or a Radical Black Panther or African FreedomFighter or first Black Governor, though I might like to be.
I'm not a woman, or Irish Nationalist, or deep of voice or smooth- skinned, and while I could pretend and "be" any of these in costume, or fantasy, or from surgery I feel that there are so many choices to be made it's a waste of time to mess around with the obvious and natural, and although it might seem convenient to, I will not say that I can't help being a homosexual--that it's biological and predetermined chemically, or even, it's God's will for me--because, first, I am not a homosexual because to say I am, is to let Society determine a whole bunch of factors like attitude income behavior feelings lifestyle, and even though I did, with Society's help at one time believe I was a homosexual, the fact is that life is like a river and we are like fish, or water-snakes, or the plastic rings from six-packs and we flow and so some of us flow, as a friend of mine once said, into a different pool so when someone says to be "I'm sorry about AIDS Queer-bashing Police Harassment Discrimination, but you chose to be queer," I respond, that I've chosen to be an uppity faggot, actually, and that this was my choice and yours, and I mention queer-faggot contributions to the arts, education, social and sexual liberation, liberation movements and Civil Rights movements, not forgetting uniquely faggot educational activity like, "genderfuck," which by the way if you haven't noticed it is really catchingon, so, yes, I can help it and helped myself to it and I'm angry about a Society so full of contradictions and hipocracy and double- standards, I'm angry that the American Presidentword called himself "The Education President" in spite of the fact that his predecessor and former boss who helped him lie and helped him get elected, that this former Presidentword when he was the Governorword of California was so concerned about education that when the universities were hurting because he fucked-up the economy with his conservative ideas and corporate subsides, he sold off the rare-book collections of those universities to pay for his mistakes and still he couldn't save his ass (although the Founding Fathers who helped him get elected, those chain-rattling, rotten Patriarchs who hide our choices from us by preventing us access to Knowledge, they covered his ass when he could not,)and this current idiot who says he is for education, who says he is going to be "The Environmental President," too, wants to make abortion and flag-burning illegal, he takes money from education to put it into nuclear weapons and other war-preparation, he proposes cutting "capital gains" taxes on the rich and has the audacity to still say No New Taxes, when every one of us can see that education will not be improved, or eventual destruction of the natural environment prevented unless the government and corporations start spending less of our money on death-worship like Star-Wars and multi-million dollar war-planes, and making people who are angry about the way people are treated in the Nation and about the way this Nation's symbol is held to be somehow sacred, pay for their views in costly attorney's fees and work lost and violence against them, and I'm not just speaking of those courageous folks, who are burning the favorite symbol of the Fathers and of those Americans who worship this "god" off NATION--a peculiar American "God," who send boy-children into the world to kill and be killed for reasons of Nation-al Importance, to kill and maim their brothers and sisters in the name of ( the Father's concept of "freedom" and for corporate interests calling themselves Democratic--no I am speaking of women, too, young women who made, with Society's help, the choice, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not, to become pregnant and who have decided not to bear a child, the choices to have or to not have being both irreversible, it takes courage and conscience to do it, and if a woman feels she is not ready or that the child will not have a fair chance in life or be adequately provided for or given opportunities by Society then all the power to her and not to those of Society who have their "moralistic" and "ethical" agendas to push. And if a woman feels it is time, she has planned it and she might have help from the father, or from Society to nourish the child in this world, or she might just be stubborn and strong or wimpy and foolish, whatever her reasons if this is her choice, all the power to her and none to those of Society who are too busy pushing their agendas and worshiping their various symbols and concepts to give her child any notice, all the power to her and also the strength and grace of ten horses because she and her child will need it.
So I say, the President and his bosses the Founding Fathers are motherfuckers, and I feel badly it had to come out this way, but they and their devotees are fucking with motherhood, holding it up like it's their own special religion and trying to convert the rest of us, they are missionaries of Motherhood, they hold the patent, and they think that they can sell the goods to every one else and they are mercenary, too, these Pro-Life Action Ministers of Propaganda and the like, they are mercenaries in the same old war on women, Crusaders for that false prophet of Christianity, that woman-hater, THE CHURCH, and they are clever and shrewd and have their fingers always on the pulse of Public Opinion which helps them to know people's fears and hurts and egos and when to manipulate these, and how, for maximum hysteria value with words and phrases that make me angry, because they are empty and at the same time full of shit, these self-styled preachers with their bullshit make me angry! And I can preach, too, you're reading me after all and since I have to soapbox I want to say that I believe people have the right and the privilege to believe whatever it is they want to, and they can preach and curse and lecture and write books and scripts and even textbooks, but they must not be allowed to tell me or you how we are supposed to live our lived, or use our bodies, if they want to help people to gain knowledge or faith or love or courage or a decent job, or to raise the children some people choose to have, let them do so and I thank them with my heart and my soul, but if they choose to lie and give false information, or if they try to force their values on women, or flag-burners, or African- Americans, or homosexuals, or children, or Asians or even on the flag-wavers and minority-haters and queer-baiters and other such frustrated types, I say, they will one day eat their words and hopefully, they will choke on them, because words, they're powerful and righteous and unpredictable so never underestimate, especially if you're planning to try and turn somebody's head around, cause if you use them for the wrong reasons--that is for purposes other than the will to knowledge, or to life a young person or a down person--if you use them like propaganda, or to make women considering abortion feel bad, or homosexuals to feel ashamed or some one of a different ethnic background than yours feel inferior to you, or if you use words to lie or even just to knowingly tell only part of a truth when it will suit you, you better watch behind you later on because those somebodies you tried to cause to feel like nobodies, they, we, are taking those venomous words and they, we are getting their power and all of use who you tried to control, we have our own opinions about how things are going to be and right now we're saying to each other how we're going to beat you at your game and then maybe we'll make this, so-called "Education/ Environment President" eat his words too and the American government will have to let all people have access to knowledge and to a quality education if they so choose, and they will have to stop polluting our earth, together to clean up this mess of a planet and this can be called the "Pro-Life Lobby" goddamnit, and these are my final words and blessed be our hearts and our minds and our souls and our bodies and to each her own, and to each his own, and so be it and make it a great day for CHOICE!
Love, Violetta.