Introspective Rulings
by j.charles @ textproductions
So Mr. textproductions; what have you learned? It’s the summer of 2k6. Your life has been lived. Now it’s time to identify the inherent direction it will take, regardless of attention to recourse. You’re twenty four. Life is halfway over. Half-mutherfuckin’-over. And what do you have to show for yourself?
What does j.charles have to show for a lifetime of introspect, self doubt and alcohol dependency? Everything in the world, baby. Any loyal fan knows the fucked up situation in which I grew up. A combination of genetic mental instability and tragedy has destroyed my family’s potential achievements. I should have been no exception. So what the fuck makes me any different from my blood?
Independence. I was lucky enough to realize at an age that was far too young for rational futuristic thought that I, Mr. fucking textproductions; Mr. j.charles, was born into dysfunction. I still bear the scars. Most notably in social insecurity. But I learned to trust absolutely no one but myself or the closest. I achieve for no one but me, and could give a fuck less about you and your plight.
The most significant of gifts proffered to me by the late and revered Patrick Sean was the gift of, as the Irish say. “gab”. The ability to spit the proper verbiage and content in any place. Fuck who you are, I can make you laugh. In fact I won’t stop until I do. Comforts me to know a person’s weaknesses. As for you, unless you have earned the respect and trust allowed only to the best and most respectful of kats, I may feign interest. But I do my own time. And so should you. This gift allows me the self-reliance required to be the only one I know at a club and still buy the ticket. To go to a show, sans posse, and still rock it. If I need to make friends I will, if I want to wander around lost I will. Sometimes I don’t care what people think of me, sometimes I just don’t want them to notice me.
Next, aint nothing as it seems, and this includes women. The best thing to do in my opinion is fuck a bitch. Not literally, but figuratively. “I’d rather see a bitch reach into her purse than see a bitch’s head bob.” Women, starting from the beginning (and excluding my immediate family) have done a good job of being completely useless save for paying the rent. Be good at it and it works. Be bad at it, and end up with a kid and a slut for a wife.
Occasionally I run into past mistakes at the bar, seeing as the valley is such a small god damned place. You know, you’re kicking it. Drinking Budweiser out of an aluminum bottle for last call (because the corona ran out). And you see her…on the lame side of the velvet, getting her hair pulled out by a fat chick in a sun dress. It makes you realize that your proper decisions are few and far between. A lot like the count on sober days of the year.
Sometimes girls just aren’t what they seem. They add to the problem, apparently, but allow a sort of armor for your emotions. The jezebels make you realize that nothing, not sheep or wolf in sheep clothing, acts its role. Everybody’s on some other shit, trying to put up the front. Every person alive wants to impress others. Sometimes they try too hard, disrespecting themselves and their achievements. As much as you wanna be a bad ass muther fucker, it still hurts a little, knowing you got straight up lied to. Not even an ounce of truth.
Third and most importantly, don’t ever try. If you’re trying, you’re failing. “Do, or do not” as Yoda would say. Nothing good can come of trying to get a job, trying to pass class, or trying to bend a corner. Either you can or you cannot. And everyone in the god damned atmosphere knows how fine of a line divides. I think the rehab saying goes; “you can’t do it until you want to.” truer words haven’t been spoken. Or lived by. Sometimes you gotta gamble, understandable, and sometimes you know you’re the shit. Means you can act like it. Anyone in disagreement can eat a dick.
So there it is; life. Twenty four years in three thoughts. In retrospect, I may not have been a nut that fell far from the tree. I’ve been on a mission from god, and I’ve lived life wondering why I was the one who lived. Nothing has helped, nothing has hurt. This fucked up, unmistakable life I have lived has dealt me black eye after black eye, and I’m not dead yet. I’ve used six out of my nine lives, but here I stand.
I personally have experienced enough of life to live with confidence of better and different. You were there, watching passively with me. Absorbing more than the dancers on the floor, seeing all that exists in the club. You have been there, in the back seat without a seatbelt on, while acceleration threw you from driver’s side to passenger’s side. You expelled an alcohol induced euphoric “woooo.”
But you forgo it, in favor of responsibility. You grow up, have kids and make salary. You stop living and start providing. And you forget. You forget all the fucked up shit that got you there, all the blood you lost in the name of honor; sometimes you forget that your drive is stronger than your will.
All I’m tryna do is keep it me, see the world and try to die happy. Life is for living, not planning. Life is for seeing, even if you never leave. Life…is for questioning every answer. This life of mine is for pushing the acceptable right off the cliff. If I die from it then at least I tried it. My only regret lies beneath the innocence of youth.