Love at a Reasonable Price

Dear God,

We — Bartleby Willard and Amble Whistletown — humbly submit our

Resignation.

We have failed and we will continue to fail
We know this
We therefore respectfully request that you take due not of the writing on the wall, and accept this, our humble

Resignation.

Why pretend?
Why mime the actions of real writers and real editors?
Why ape the thoughtful brows and careful eyes of men wise enough to help?
Why pretend?

It would be one thing if we were writing timeless essays for a workable, sustainable freedom under human law.
Then no matter which way the chips fell, we’d be yet fighting the good fight and worthy of this our daily bread.
But that’s not happening.
Honestly, nothing much is happening.
Amble is wasting time in alcohol and tainted loves.
I am wasting time in the introductions to essays I’m afraid to begin for real.
And everything swirls down the drain so regularly that we feel more like washroom attendants than writers and editors.
And so, God, let us hand your infinite hands — amazingly fresh and clean considering all the infinite dreck you wipe off all us infinitely grimy mortals — some towels (sturdy and soft enough to feel kind of like real towels, yet cheap and biodegradable [so the packages claim] enough to be thrown away after each use). And let us, infinite eternal and ineffable Lover of All, sweep this golden floor.

As if!
As if we were even fit
to work for lazily tossed tips in your divine water closet!
As if we’d even proven ourselves any kind of good and loyal servants to the Love that chooses everyone!

No, none of that.
Here, God in the Highest,
here is our

Resignation.

Not that we suppose it matters.
We never received a special dispensation, and we’ll go right on receiving the same infinite wages you pay everyone — regardless of the kind of job they’re doing here on this conveyor belt that carries us all into and out of life without so much as a how-do-you-do-? .

We wanted to help.
We saw well enough to see that trouble was coming.
We saw the storm clouds, felt blizzard approaching, smelled the whiteout and subfreezing temperatures; and we also saw how we all seemed to be outfitted in shorts, T-shirts, flip-flops, bold complaints boasts and oaths made possible and practical by a certain heavy sleepy certainty of eternal safety here in a time and place without bombs or political prisons, a sleepy-headed certainty that everything would always be as it had been.

We wanted to help.
But we didn’t have the discipline to even find out if we could think of ways to act that might help.
That’s why we are handing in our

Resignation.

We feel like recipients of a scholarship who used all the money on drinks and nice clothes in the hopes of impressing women and even just like passerbys who might be a tiny bit impressed with us because we look so cool and in control and funny and edgy.

Edgy! Edgy like a lie.
Edgy like a joke.
Edgy like a good little pawn who is free to preen and pomp and thunder and ironize just so long as we keep to our little square, from which we will soon be lifted, sent to another little square; where, if we survive this move, we are again free to find ingenious ways to pretend we’re doing something.

Ah, but we forget that,
or we tried to ignore the fact that
God doesn’t accept resignations.
God accepts all our bitching and complaining and giving up and flopping on the ground with a great display of fluffing dust and thud and groan,

but God never signs resignations,
God always laughs them off,
God always kisses our boo boos and tells us it’ll be okay and now
we should
try again

But how?
Because this time we just don’t know how to even begin?
Life feels like molasses and we feel so sleepy and heavy, we think we are
sinking down into the
thick gooey sweet sticky slightly tangy
answer
to all our questions
the answer is
hopeless it is hopeless let yourself lose let everyone lose let the evil win
or
maybe you and everyone won’t lose, maybe the evil won’t win
but
in any case
you are
de trop
you don’t matter
you are not involved in this equation

What is true, God?
What should we do here and now?
What would be any good?

If you will not accept our
oh so humble

Resignation,

could you maybe
give us just one little tiny

Hint?

Author: B Willard
Editor: A Whistletown
Copyright: AM Watson

To in the imagination brave the danger, the violence, the folly
While remembering the joy in the heart and the songs that sing it true
That insight might be learned through empathy and contemplation rather than disaster and bitter experience

Calling for submissions
for a higher art
for a wider vision
for an art that holds us all together here in this moment
to see things as they really are
that we might be wise alone and together
wise enough to see
that Donald Trump is lying and stealing
and that that is not okay
and it is not normal
and that
it is not how it has to be,
that
we can choose a better way here and now

Calling for submissions
for a deeper art
for a kinder vision
it’s not all six of one half dozen of another
who were those young men face down dead in bloody mud for democracy and freedom?
who are we who’re called upon to pay a little attention think a little clearly act with a little gentle aware resolve
to save the land
from
might makes right, money talks louder than competency and good intentions, “true and false” as meaningless weapons — heavy blunt instruments with no value beyond fooling people into submission –;
from what is obviously both foolish and mean

Calling for submissions
for an art that loves sharing more than winning
for an art that remembers we are all in this together
for an art that chooses fun and joy and creation all of us together here and now
for an art that says No to rage and certainty,
an art that says No to everything
that contradicts
gentle aware clear accurate competent loving-kind joyfully-sharing gentle

Calling for an art gentle enough to save us from ourselves
to weave us back into each other and the heart of things
to sing us back into enough shared clarity to gently but firmly say,
No, Donald Trump,
No, we won’t hand a charlatan, liar, cheater, oath-breaker, mean-spirited bully the keys to the kingdom.
No, Trump 2.0,
No, we won’t hand collaborators in the lie, excusers of idiocy and meanness, we won’t hand fools who would put our democratic republic at risk for a moment of power and glory the keys to the kingdom.
No,
we’re not mad,
we’re just saying gently No to your foolish impulses — such impulses do not deserve power or prestige.

Corruption is when bad impulses are encouraged and selected for and good impulses are suppressed and shut down.
Corruption is a thing of degrees, but
A Republican Party that lies along with Trump and whose wonks figure out how Trump can further consolidate his power and have the tools needed to make good on his promises to weaponize the DOJ — such a party has become corrupted to a democracy-threatening degree.
The nation now has a choice:
Do we say, No, we’re not going to let that corruption infect the wider body? Do we tell this group of eager fools to please go sit on the sidelines until they can admit that the 2020 election was lost fair and square and that Trump should not have tried to manipulated his own DOJ to stay in power.
Or do we say,
Okay, sure guys, whatever, let’s just see what happens when we let you help Donald Trump replace 50,000 career bureaucrats with political appointees (read: people who think their job is first and foremost to satisfy Donald Trump) and otherwise consolidate power. Maybe that’ll work out great!
Okay, maybe, one never knows; but we the citizens of a democratic republic are not called upon to play Russian roulette with their nation, but to pay attention and make educated and thoughtful guesses as to which direction the nation should move.

When the Republican Party acts like Biden is the liar and the threat to democracy, and that Trump is the victim of a weaponized DOJ; then the Republican Party is agreeing with The Donald that “truth” is just whatever you say to help you win whatever you’re trying to win on a given day. That Republican Party has decided become part of the lie machine. Why would we give them more power? Why would we give them the power to institutionalize the lie machine? Don’t we know that the lie machine is a foundational and key element of repressive regimes? How is this happening, America? What is the art that will pull you out of your collective sleep?

Yes, a nation at sleep: for even those who see the danger do not see how it clear and true enough to mirror it fully to themselves and their neighbors. We don’t like to see it, to feel it in our gut. We scream at “them”; but what is needed is to perceive the way Reality mingles with this particular political reality well enough to reflect this moment so clear and true and bright that we find the voice that helps.

Calling for an art wise enough
to mirror this moment
to enough people
well enough
that we
en masse
gently sidestep
Trump and his would-be collaborators,
and gently together
reassert the primacy of democratic values

Why is democracy a spiritual good?

Because democratic values are the values without which none of our worldviews are meaningful to any of us:
aware, clear, honest, accurate, competent, loving-king, joyfully-together, creatively discovering win-wins

Because anti-democratic values are the values that make meaningless empty mush of all human thought and action:
lying, stealing, cheating, anything to maintain power, might makes right, “truth” is not “true” but just another weapon, zero sum us-versus-them with an ever-shrinking pot because we the rulers aren’t worried about competent stewardship of the whole so much as we are interested in holding power

Because in a democratic republic the citizens serve as a final check on madness/corruption/tyranny in government while together gently evolving/nudging their shared conversation and government towards the better and away from the worse.

Because sharing rights involves sharing responsibility and sharing responsibility involves sharing rights.

Because in a liberal democratic nation, both the people and the government are encouraged to seek win-wins rather than fight to the death over shrinking rights and privileges — in a liberal democratic nation the citizens are not forced to choose between doing the right thing and protecting themselves and their loved ones from the ruling corruption, don’t have to choose between doing what’s best for everyone and getting clean water and safe food and freedom from political prisons for them and their family.

So many for so long have dreamed of a stable, peaceful government where you don’t get bombed and where you can speak your mind without fear of reprisal. People sacrifice for the dream. They even sacrifice their lives. We are called upon to pay attention, think clearly, and move honestly. That’s it. But how to do that together? How to do that together in time to prevent a great folly? In time to together choose an imperfect but workable path over an error that will almost certainly harm our nation and its citizens, and that has a nontrivial chance of harming democracy enough to make that harm either impossible or at least extremely difficult to reverse. Why? Why side with that when we really don’t have to?

How about we stop asking our politicians what they can do for us
and start asking ourselves what we can do to help our politicians help everyone?

How about it, USA?

How about not failing this gut check?

Where are you
spiritual art
art that is fearless
that is not afraid to love everyone?

Where are you art
strong enough to save art
from those who love power more than Beauty = Truth = Goodness = Just-Order?

Where aer you art
strong enough to save art
from those who love winning more than Love?

Author: Bartleby Willard
Editor: Amble Whistletown
Copyright: Andy Watson

Pretend to-do list:
Make art so beautiful it saves the nation and helps the world.
Find the right girl and settle down.
Be healthy for her and cool it on the drinking.

Real to-do list:
Keep stalling until you die

where to put him
when he can’t tell
love from madness
wisdom from wishing
God from talking to himself
when he can’t distinguish
anything
from him
talking to him
about him
????

Author: Idle Jim
Editor: Bartleby & Co.
Producer: The Amble Experience
Copyright: AM Watson

you can’t run out the clock dude
that won’t work here
you need to make a move
or get the fuck out of Dodge
but Dodge City is so fucking big anymore!

no one is chosen
all are chosen
all are equally infinitely eternally chosen
the rest is arrogant boring oh so fucking dull bullshit

microphone drop

prettiest girl I ever saw up close
prettiest girl whose shoulder blade I ever held
prettiest girl I ever turned round
I mean prettiest girl that fits me
the way I am put together the way I am shaped
prettiest girl for me that I ever came across
what does it mean?
Who is my wife?
Prettiest girl for me is not necessarily the same as the right girl for me
The right girl for me is not necessarily the same as a girl who will bend my way
A girl who will bend my way is not necessarily the same as a girl for me
Meanwhile
the world bleeds
the systems fail
surely you
such a great systematizer!
surely you should set aside childish dreams of big tits that shake while you moan
surely you should return to the task
at hand
surely
surely
all your pretty lies
all your sneaky schemes
leave the girls alone
get back to work
or if there is a girl who could be more than a story who could be more than you turning dials and spinning webs
well then
let her show you
what you don’t find no never find on your lonesome

no more
please
captain of the sliding ship
sliding through the atmosphere towards the land where it will break into many pieces puking bodies all over the alien scenery
sliding down the waves deeper and deeper where Davy Jones sleeps and his locker holds all his dreams
a pretty girl
a happy home
a family in a nice safe spot
a world that didn’t walk over him
or flush him down into the pitch black deep dark empty sea so far down so very wrong about what was going to be

who is in the wrong now?
please don’t make me go back
please no more
please I can’t do any more of this
please God
not again
down into the boring stress
down into the pointless struggle
and yet
why should
I
be so special?
Most everyone slogs against the mud
soft and deep cold and calm indifferent to our puny mortal hooks and jabs

your useless strength
your useless power
your useless violence
because
you are lying
and the lying is always
bodies turned to corpses turned to bones turned to dust turned to sand turned to never mind
sorry