"We may have all come on different ships,
but we're in the same boat now."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Today I saw the dead, bloody body of a guy who killed 8 people at a mall near Dallas, and wondered how he feels now among the burning worms, the suffocating darkness, and the flames. Did he think he was going to rest in peace, or that there wouldn't be a price for hating his fellow man, to the point of indiscriminately blowing them away? GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING.
Today I saw a black guy pour a bag full of mice on a white guy on the subway in New York, and wonder how it is that the black guy doesn't know he's cashing out, and condemning himself to an early, violent grave, the fury and hatred of which will far exceed any of the mediocre, would-be pleasures of ruining another person's day.
Does he think he's dishing out justice? Like the mall shooter, will he have to get to hell before he realizes that he's his own jeremiad, proclaiming judgment and destruction on himself?
Has it become redundant to sound the warning at this point? Does anybody keep the alarm on once they're actually awake? Who listens to the alarm while they're making breakfast, getting dressed, or brushing their teeth? Do you carry the alarm clock out the door with you, on your way to the factory, or office? Who is listening to the alarm clock in their earbuds, while they're shoveling numbers and stacks of origami bodies into pits of honky lime, for their overlords at work?
Is there any point in sustaining a prolonged lamentation or angry harangue at the Walking Jeremiads who've blown their brains out with hate long ago, who've consumed their own thinking processes with the plastic spoons sticking out of their heads like a bowl of Zombie Corn Flakes, and who spend their days pushing other people's buttons, tempting everyone they see to cash them out?
Jeremiad (noun): a prolonged lamentation or complaint
Also: a cautionary or angry harangue
How is this guy going to feel, when he realizes he has bodyslammed himself on the bed of nails he built to torture his enemies? Does he actually believe he's going to be wearing his hardened look of aloof, self-righteous loathing (which is proof of hell itself).... forever?
Or is he just another Walking Jeremiad who thinks he's somehow not his own cautionary tale? "Young men take heed. If you don't repent, you'll end up like me, a prolonged lamentation about what happens when you blame other people for your problems, and let demons run your life. I am on my way to hell, and so will you be, if you do not learn from my example."
“The white man's happiness cannot be purchased
by the black man's misery."
Frederick Douglass
“True, and likewise, neither can the black man's happiness
be purchased by the white man's misery."
Pablo Smog
"It is evident that the white and black
'must fall or flourish together.'"
Frederick Douglass
What about this girl, an off-duty Chicago cop who was gunned down execution-style today, taken out with 5 shots to the back of the head on her way home from work. Has her killer achieved something? Will he ever learn? Or will he continue to urinate on the buffet of time he has been given, by a God who actually loves him, however difficult that is for those of us who don't listen to our own alarms all day to comprehend, and who have not been duped into believing the aggravating warning sounds are music?
Does he believe the buffet of time is all-you-can-eat, or that it will never expire?
Do these people not know that they've cashed themselves out.... today?
Today. All these stories are from today. The "cautionary, angry harangue," the "prolonged lamentation or complaint" is something that is no longer necessary to verbally communicate from the comfortable, secure distance of the reasonable world of the past. Now, the cautionary harangue has legs; the prolonged lamentation is sitting next to you on the subway, or bleeding out in front of a Fatburger in suburban Dallas after trading its eternal soul for 10 minutes of demonic power.
They have harangued themselves into a corner. To warn them at this point, is like trying to reason with an unrepentant drug addict. They're just going to pour mice on you and wait for you follow through with the only logical response and send them to the hell they warn themselves about every time they look in the mirror, even if they never heed the warning. Their great, ridiculous anti-desire is to rage at you from the place from whence their disconsolate fury came, from the fires and endless pits of darkness, as the mob of Zombie Jeremiads tears you to shreds on the subway platform of your obsolete belief in the inherent goodness of man, even if you did act in self-defense.
But is there any defense against the walking dead? How do you protect yourself from The Zombie Jeremiad, creeping through the streets? Is there a defense against the self-ignoring warning of death and hell and suffering that sneaks up behind you and pops you 5 times in the back of the head because of the color of your skin, or the line of work you have chosen?
If the warning eats my brains, will I become a self-ignoring zombie jeremiad too?
An infinity of yikes, screaming up at me through forbidden, holy smokes,
The screaming noise of the hellfire alarm clock
Raging in my morning earbuds.
Confrontation Postscript
Regarding the guy with the mice on the train, if you want to know what I'd do...
Unless God gave me clear direction otherwise (I mean clear), which is possible, I'd follow the guy around for the rest of the day and ask him what his problem is. I wouldn't touch him, since he's pushing his minority privilege on me and tempting me to attack him and/or defend myself, but I would follow him to the moon and back, talking to him without taking a single break, regaling him with questions and doubts about his intelligence, manhood, spiritual condition, aesthetic preferences, and everything. I would ask him why he insists on sending himself to hell, and I'd give him detailed descriptions of the place, until we got to his apartment. If he wants to hate me, I would indulge him. I would give him something to hate. He thinks he hates me cuz I'm white, but I'll convert him to one of two things:
Hating me because I'm not intimidated by him,
Or hating me because I'm right.
You have to take it on a case-by-case basis. No two situations are exactly alike, and standing down will be the better, wiser option as often as not.
I had to get weird on a guy in Boston once, though, after getting off the bus at South Station (or South St. Station, whichever) at 1am, looking for a way to get to Watertown. A black guy approached me from behind and I heard him actually say out loud, "Time for a stick-up," so I immediately turned around and got in his face, and chewed his brain off with an endless stream of words. He understood that I didn't respect him and wasn't afraid of him and that he was pissing me off by being a presumptuous racist prick in the middle of the night, and he backed off, even though he could have shot or knifed me, if he wanted to.
The key is not being a mark.
If they hate you anyway, give them something to hate. Don't fall into the trap, but step over it and ask the guy why he's wasting his life in the best place in the world acting like a douchebag and assaulting passengers with bags of rodents. Make him choke on his disgrace. His only power is that you're afraid of him. He is reveling in your shock and fear. Turn it on him. He's the biggest idiot in the world, right? Make sure he sees this knowledge in your eyes. Force him to choke on his disgrace. Remember, you can cut him down to size a lot more effectively when you don't play by his rules. He doesn't respect you, and is waiting for you to take the bait.
Pick the bait up, metaphorically speaking, throw it over your shoulder like a disposable thing of no value, and make him choke on the unassailable fact of his own stupidity. He is asking for it, so make him eat it. Teach him what it is to really hate someone, what the cost of it is. He thinks he hates you, but he has never experienced true hatred in his life. If he knew how dangerous hatred was, and the consequences of it, he wouldn't be pouring mice on you in the subway. That is the act of a spoiled, idiot child who thinks he is above consequence, and who is begging the world to destroy him. At some point, someone will oblige him in this request. That is not avoidable. His days are definitely numbered. But if it proves necessary for you to meet the confrontation, with luck, by the end of the optional, dangerous situation (which he has in fact asked for), he will hate himself far more than he has ever hated anything.
If your hand is forced, feed him the doubts he doesn't know he has. I mean, relentlessly. He wants to open a can of worms, fine. Make him eat them all. Educate him.
You are the drill sergeant. He is the punk.
You're not soft. You're a Viking.
Educate him.
Of course, don't do it if you have any doubts, and/or if God tells you to stand down. Maybe it's pearls before swine. Maybe the trap IS to follow the demoniac around all day, and waste your time trying to win an ego battle. If that's the trap, and Pablo Smog must die in order to avoid it, so be it.
Pablo Smog lives, Pablo smog dies.
So it goes.
But if God doesn't tell you to stand down....
These days, I would probably be inclined to regale the mouse offender with stories of God's love and the atoning power of Christ's blood, more than anything else. I would tell him God allowed him to attack me so that I could preach to him, since he is exactly one involuntary heartbeat away from an eternity of hellfire. I'd probably go all fire and brimstone on him, and ask him if it's worth trading his soul for the miserable, pathetic enjoyment he gets from watching a guy squirm with shock and fear from behind the bulletproof glass of minority privilege, like a coward. I would just ask him. Then I'd ask him again. What his problem is, why he can't think of anything better to do with his time, why he isn't ashamed of his lack of imagination, etc. I'd ask him on the stairs, up to the street, down the block, and all the way to Battery Park and back a thousand times, until he either kills himself to get away from me, or repents. I'd ask him what he'd do if Jesus was in the room, and/or if he thinks he's going to whip out his minority privilege at the Great White Throne Judgment, before being tossed into an ocean of endless flame. What's he gonna scream on his way into the flames, "Douchebag Power?" I'd ask him that, with a tone of clear disdain. I would patronize him, and speak to him as though to an incredibly stupid child. This will embarrass any grown man, however regressed they may be. Their inner man will secretly want to hear it, no matter how debased they have allowed themselves to become. I would inform him of his shame. Relentlessly. I'd tell him to stop acting like a bitch and get it over with and hit me. I'd tell him he is a small, pathetic little man who can't follow through with anything, unless... he strikes me down, and strikes me down again, and again, and again, while I tell him the truth about his intellectual and spiritual condition.
Stop wasting my time, and shoot me.
I had to do it a lot when I was a cabdriver. It was one of the reasons I was a good cabdriver. There are many stories, including one in which I had to quote the Bible to a drunken gangbanger who was trying to scare me with his insufferable ignorance and pride. The Bible shut him up. He made me sick, and before the end of the ride, he knew it. I also had to lock a couple guys in the car, who were threatening me with physical violence. I locked them in the car, and gave them an education. They were terrified, especially when they realized they were trapped in the car and couldn't get out. They were terrified, and all their idiot bravado disappeared like the mist from a soft morning flower, though I didn't raise a single finger against them. They realized their words were meaningless, and worthless, and if they didn't follow through with their idiotic threats, immediately, and kill me, that the only honorable thing to do would be to commit ritual seppuku on themselves with a broken beer bottle, in the backseat, right now, making sure to leave me a huge tip for having to waste my time cleaning up after their worthless punk asses.
You boring idiots destroy everything you touch. Are you going to pay the meter and continue to waste your lives somewhere else, or go to jail on your way to hell?
Decide. Decide... right now.
The guy in the back was shaking with terror, even though I was unarmed, and never raised a finger against them.
They paid and got out, if I recall. They paid, and I unlocked the door, and they got out and went on their way.
Adios, muchachos.
There are many stories. I saw a white guy do it once on the Olympic Avenue bus in L.A. in 1999, when a black guy threatened to take his foot off. The white guy told him to stop talking about it and do it. "Take it off then," he said. His tone was... unfriendly. The black guy shuffled past him w/o incident.
You have to take everything on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes, they're going to take you down, and you're not going to project the slightest anger or disdain. You might not even get the chance. But still you're going to win. Even if you lose.
Thinking about it, that's what it is. You're never going to lose, even if they kill you.
To live is Christ, and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21).
Today is a good day to die.
If you're going to win, the other guy has to clearly see that he's never going to beat you.
Even if he beats you.
Ya dig?
Once, a junky ex-girlfriend sent a couple guys over to my hotel in Hollywood to extort me. I got a call from the front desk saying, "two guys from your work are here." I didn't have a job, so I took out my wallet and put it on the table, put on a shirt I didn't care about, and went downstairs.
The guys were waiting for me, and said that I owed their "homegirl" fifty bucks, which was of course untrue. I told them it wasn't true, but of course they insisted. Before they knocked me out, one of them asked me, "why are you looking at me like that?" "Why are you looking at me like that?" I didn't know "how I was looking at him," but you could tell he knew he was wrong. Perhaps it was the LACK of anger or disdain I was projecting. He could read everything that had ever been true about the current situation on my face and in my eyes.
He could also tell I wasn't afraid of him.
I didn't have time to answer. They hit me so hard and so fast I didn't even know I'd been hit, until I woke up on the floor a moment later. They ran out of the hotel in fear, without any money. I could see the fear on their faces as they fled. The guy at the front desk didn't say anything, and never looked up from his paper. He didn't call the cops, and I didn't ask him to. Nobody in that place ever wanted to talk to the cops. I walked back up to my room and finished my joint, as the rotten, scummy city crawled like a roach at the window of my feet.
There are many stories. Perhaps another time. Suffice it to say, I'm no longer a cabdriver, and prefer to live in Mexico, where nobody ever gets pushed onto the subway tracks. It is a story that is never reported, because it has never happened. These people haven't been trained to hate each other or themselves. I have to strain to remember why gringos are afraid of Mexico. I have run into crooked Narco cops, to be sure, and am not unfamiliar with the queasy feeling you get when you are summoned to the shoulder of the road for extortion and inspection. Regardless, because of the cartoonish, indiscriminate nature of the violence up in Clown World, and the extreme impunity with which massive swarms of people drunk with sanctimonious idiocy trample all over the work of people like Frederick Douglass, MLK, and Rosa Parks, Mexico seems to me to be the safer, wiser option.
Famous last words, perhaps.
But not losing words.
Good luck.
