It seems like everybody's looking for answers about what great men would do with their foot on the pedal and their hands on the wheel. And the best thing about turning to corpses for tips is that they're not around to contradict you so the advice you get is always that other people should do the things you want done but are afraid to do alone.

And damn near everybody's hoping or praying for reinforcements to come along and turn this tainted world into their personal favorite kind of clean and messy. And for those that use words like "sensible" and "courtesy", the day they're waiting for is the one when everyone finally comes to their senses and realizes how wise they are. But for those of us that prefer exclamation points to citations, our help from the outside looks a lot like the worst thing that's ever happened through the wrong set of eyes. You're rooting for Armageddon, you're rooting for global revolution, you're rooting for zombies, you're rooting for industrial collapse. At my lowest points I put my money and hopes on the volcanoes beneath Yellowstone Park to cover this country in ash and lately most of my points have been low ones. And we're all so sure we'd survive our own granted wishes, but we probably wouldn't. Still we cheer on catastrophes with fingers crossed because we don't yet know how to be the scourge of our scourges, 'cause we aren't disaster enough on our own.

We find each other through symbols and catchphrases that seem to say we hate the shit we're in for similar reasons, but I'm not so sure. You're drawing up verbal utopias and the picture's so vivid I can practically see myself sleeping through the ten hour meetings. But if the things we say are so obviously true than why aren't our hometown ruins or big rock candy mountain yet? You talk about hating yourself like it's the most radical thing you could do: well if that's the case, this place is on the brink of insurrection. Seems like everyone’s either ashamed of the bullets they caught or the bullets they dodged and the only ones immune from this guilt are the ones doing the firing. You put revolt on the backburner, purity on the front, but I’m not waiting till I’m sinless to start casting stones.

And if your problem with most people is that we're too greedy, I beg to differ, I say we’re not greedy enough. What some would call a rat race I call a race for scraps, and as soon as you get near the finish line you watch it get yanked back. You want a scramble for rations that's more just and fair and kind, but I got riches on the mind that are more than buyoffs and bribes. So I won't hate on anyone for hunting for treasure, just doing it uncreatively. Cause no billfold full of presidential portraits all drawn the same could be worth a life in tailored suits playing godawful boring boardroom games. And no pocket sized pictures of the guy that gave us bifocals could be worth betraying a friend or giving up a life I love in this or in any other world you through my way.

So fuck all the guilt and all the denial, I’m greedy for more than paper and trying to be more shameless than the ones taught us shame. So maybe getting this life unrigged will take all the friends we can find, but when all you want is everything that’s one thing that never runs out of supply. And maybe we can be the dead ones the still unborn finally listen to when we tell them to look to themselves, the reinforcements that never seem to come, disaster to our disasters, catastrophe to our catastrophes, scourges and proud.