Confession, Part One.

I was born with two club feet. My first surgery was at nine days old (I've had several over the course of my life). It took me a long time to learn to walk without braces. I wasn't supposed to play sports, but I pushed really hard and spent the bulk of my early childhood playing basketball and everything else under the sun until, inevitably, I'd severely re-injure myself (including one that almost killed me in the 90's).

My feet have hurt my whole life. Foot pain, along with childhood trauma, were the primary factors in developing a reliance on, and later, an addiction to, pain medication (I later found my way to heroin, but that's a story for another time). Various opiods and benzos were wonderfully efficient in helping me remain upright. However, kicking them (been clean a long time) was no easy task and learning to live with the daily pain has never been as difficult as it has in recent weeks, with my pin slipping and my arch collapsing. The problem with surgery? If I get back on those meds, I'll die. I'm sure of it.

Pain. Some of us have an intimate and grotesque relationship with it. Mine causes frequent suicidal ideations. I made it through 2018. Fingers crossed for next year.

I wasn't allowed to join the military. Couldn't keep playing sports. Wrestling, MMA and Baseball are no longer possibilities. I can barely stand for an hour to play an acoustic set and I used to OWN the stage. So.. For now, I'll do what I've been doing and what I suppose I'll always do.. I'll stretch them for 15 minutes when I get up, I'll put on my braces and I'll go to work. What other goddamn choice do I have?

Wolf Tickets..

Okay.

Enough sad shit from me. Enough debilitating depression. Enough shame spiraling. Enough being afraid of showing my cards and living out loud. Enough of the near daily suicidal ideations. Enough goddamn drowning. Enough waiting for winds to change or the "time to be right." Enough fucking running.

I've had 42 years of this shit. 42 years of getting my feet under me only to sink back into the hole over physical pain and emotional exhaustion or unresolved childhood sexual trauma. I've beaten severe birth defects, parental abandonment, addiction, horrific injuries, near fatal illness and unimaginable loss; and yet childhood has never lost its grip on some part of me. I spent my teenage years being dishonest with damn near everyone because I was terrified if they knew the truth about me they'd abandon me. That voice always told me to build a wall, that the real me was wholly unworthy of their love or praise; that I had no gifts to share and that my heart was not any kind of treasure. Even when I could get a handle on things and gain some sustainable momentum, even when I started being honest and trying to be brave as the years wore on, that inner voice telling me how much hurt I deserve would always reemerge, sometimes when I thought it had been silenced forever.

Well.. It's time to set the alleyways of childhood on fire. Time to slay dragons and bury ghosts. Time to put Durzo and Charlie to rest. Time to make joyful noise and share the sonic architecture of my heart. And no more extra soft bullshit, either. I appreciate that some people value my capacity for empathy, compassion and tenderness, but the time has come to also embrace the beauty of the shadow self and reconnect to my most ancient and primal frequencies. No more apologizing all the time. No more feeling guilted into saying Yes to things I don't want. No more being afraid of being abandoned and unloved. No more creating distance. No more accepting situations where I feel used or manipulated or unable to connect. And no more allowing people to minimize my masculinity by trying to tame it, or define it, or own it for themselves, or call it toxic.

Nobody is f*cking with me anymore. I'm handing out Wolf Tickets from here on out..

I love you somethin' fierce, but you've been warned. Govern yourselves accordingly.

Navigating The Holidays

I don’t necessarily expect most of you to understand or relate to this, but for many of us out there, this week begins the toughest period of the year (it extends through the New Year). The “Holidays” mean something entirely different to many of us, meaning that they're not a particularly uplifting time and we do our best to navigate the trenches of childhood trauma and the ghosts of holidays past and get through them. Please remember that some of us willfully choose to isolate during this time of year. Please don’t take it personally if we don’t accept your offer to dine. Please don't think it's okay to push us or guilt us into taking part.

That being said, some people need the exact opposite. There are many who aren’t coping as well and some of those people don’t have homes or families or communities to visit. The silence that can accompany Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.; for those who find themselves alone, can be devastating. This year, as we are amidst in record suicide and addiction rates, perhaps we can make a more concerted effort to step up our game. Maybe we can reach out to those “Holiday Orphans” we all know and check on them. You might even ask them to join you. The caveat being, of course, if they say no, please don't take it personally. The trick, I suppose, is to really take the time to find out what the people you love need. It's not easy, but love is never easy.

To others in my tribe feeling the heaviness of this time of year: Hang in there. It’ll be over soon.

"The Last Time"

In the hills above the murky waters flowing with the blood of ancestors and madmen and jilted lovers, we found a dirt path leading up the side and down into the old, dirty town. We scurried along, kicking bottles and rocks, seeing children playing in dying fields, dogs missing legs, with hunger and desperation in their eyes.

I finally found the guy, sitting in the back of a rusted out Ford Ranchero. His smile was more welcoming than threatening. My middle school Spanish proved useless, but he knew what we wanted.

We waited for a few minutes, watching birds pick at a carcass under a straw umbrella nearby, with the nauseating smell of death hanging in the air.

“This is the last time, baby,” she scolded.

“Of course,” I lied. I studied her eyes, doing my best to ignore the tears welling up.

Pretty soon, I was in the front seat of that rust bucket, elbow in the cup holder, eyes half-mast, waiting for sweet oblivion. Out of the corner, I could see her wearily being led away into a room to pay off my sickness.

Maybe death chases us from the day we’re born. My father always told me that some secrets should stay buried, but I can’t think of that day now without sobbing like a baby. The ghosts are never far away; always ready to feed on whatever is left of your soul.

Sometimes, before nodding off, I call out her name, in a sobbing bestial wail, to an empty sky or a god that knows my sins. In the end, it’s always useless.

But wherever you are tonight, please forgive me. I am sick again, my love. Thirty years of sickness. But I promise, this is the last time..

(note: This is obviously fiction)

On Complicity And Denial

One great shame of American politics is that it forces anyone who dares to undertake an authentic examination of our history, culture and values, to tear apart the carefully orchestrated origin story we've fictionalized for so long to suit our own emotional needs. It requires that we lay bare the kinds of things we were forced to absorb as children; a history that was constructed to make us feel better, as long as we didn't have to look too close at the foundation or the collapsing brickwork of our deluded narrative.

I don't believe much has changed when I see the self-congratulatory claptrap being taught to young people today; and any glance of the evening news will feature a Pathological Narcissist and Presidential Man-Child, wielding his insecurity as a weapon, demanding that everyone play the game he wants to play on the playground while he manipulates the rules to his advantage as he goes along. Sadly, one of the biggest lies we continue to tell empathetic children in 2018 is that they could someday grow up to be President.

Someday, I hope we'll have the courage to be honest with ourselves about who we are and where we're headed. Until then, it will continue to get uglier and more polarized and abrasive; and we'll continue to deny that the house is on fire.. or even worse, those of us so psychologically attached to this narrative will attempt to call on some notion of greatness and insist that it'll be fine (safe to say that they're the most isolated). It can't be - Not until every last one of us is willing to relinquish our childhood attachment to a carefully constructed lie and recreate a world that works for everyone and excludes no one.

I don't have much faith in this possibility. A rigorous moral and cultural self-examination is Painful. Illusion is a warm blanket we've had since childhood. We like our heroes and our story too much to examine, let alone abandon them. Truth is a necessary casualty.

Complicity and Denial. They're both one hell of a drug.

"The Trains At Our Parties Are The Best In Rome. They're The Best Because They Go Nowhere..."

Watching Paolo Sorrentino's masterpiece "The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza)" with my morning coffee. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.

It's a film set against the breathtaking backdrop of Rome - with striking, picturesque shots of the Eternal City throughout - but it's focus quickly turns inward; on the inherent loneliness of a writer's human condition, even in the midst of his own narcissism, self-loathing and nocturnal discomfort. The various gatherings and bacchanals of the grotesque, self-absorted Roman upper class (his social circle) prove to be a kind of charade. Even the decadence masks loneliness.

The meaning is found in the passion; in being a connoisseur of Art, in the fleeting nature of love, sex and human connection, and in savoring those rare, simple moments where human beings can overcome their fear and crippling self-doubt just long enough to take off their masks.