Tyler Knows Nothing

Where is it, the rage? We should all be really, quite upset. Why aren't we marching in the streets, demanding accountability for the endless stream of corruption and criminality that has been unveiled on an almost daily basis for quite a few years? The French? Fuck, they're out in the street if anyone, anywhere sneezes on their rights! The Yellow Vests? You might have heard of them? 

Today as I am writing these words... the Nassar child rape case that alleges this one asshole raped potentially hundreds of young gymnasts for decades with the apparent support of the Olympics committee people, U.S. gymnastics, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. 

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Here's the thing. We, as Americans, have lost the ability to lash indignant hellfire at those who violate our collective sensibilities. Cops outright murder Black people almost every day, and we get mad, but nothing changes. Our politicians lie, cheat, steal, and send dick pics to minors, and we get mad, but nothing changes. Companies like Facebook, Google, Uber, the entire oil industry, the entire pharmaceutical industry, the medical establishment sell each of us for $12 a year, tricks hundreds of thousands of people into indentured servitude, skirt the law with impunity, and price gouge with lip-licking voraciousness, and nothing changes. Banks, housing, dialysis, the battle for a living wage, the death of education, the abandonment of the separation of church and state, and much, much more is killing us all every day.

And nothing changes.

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I've talked about this before. I don't talk about being homeless a lot. It's painful, living in hotels for two and a half years. It's a short story if I leave out a lot of the detail. Two and a half years ago, around Christmas, we were evicted from our apartment in Mission Viejo because my publisher sat on their asses getting my advance check to me for my book, Getting An IT Help Desk Job For Dummies (available on Amazon, cheap plug). I worked my ass off to finish that book. 330 pages in three months. They didn't care. Companies don't care, so we were screwed. We figured we'd be out for a month or two then find a new place.

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I wanted to write about Slack and my new project, The Human Family Foundation, but I landed on my admin page and was smacked in the face by my reality. 

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On Monday morning, we'll need to check out of our hotel. That's significant because, after that, we don't currently have another place to go, though not for any lack of trying. Ever since I got my job at Mirantis a few years ago, and lost it a few months later due to a big shakeup in their ranks, I have been unable to find work. That leaves us on a fixed income of a few hundred short of $3,000. Considering the Extended Stay America we're about to end our relationship with costs us just short of $100 a night, the math isn't difficult to understand. Of course, we need the kitchen that the hotel provides, or our daughter would get sick all the time. She has terrible food allergies, which basically means she can't eat much of anything. 

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NOTE: The original title to this piece was "If you feel like someone's out to get you, they probably are". I decided to change it because I had just written down what popped into my head and it's a little "out there", if you know what I mean. Nobody is out to get me. When I spent some time thinking about it, a visual metaphor came to mind. Hence, the new title. The cape is a beautiful distraction. Inside, my soul is broken and the laughing, jovial, juvenile, and kind imbecile I project is just a shadow of who I am. Look inside the cape, and the elegance fades quickly away. And yet, I remain optimistic, hoping that one day I achieve something, even something small and insignificant. Or, something big, like saving my family. 

Ah, good old paranoia. It's an American classic with two slices of cheese and a side of Freedom Fries. The funny thing is, sometimes you are completely right to feel paranoid. I know I do, and with good cause. My little family has been having the shit hit the fan for well over a year now.

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