#tim barrus format blog

[timbarrus]

Take notes. Great piece.

I knew we were in trouble when the Hurricane blew the front door off. I live at the top of a mountain in the Appalachian Blue Ridge. I have survived 22 hurricanes. But nothing like this one. The water was coming at us sideways.

There was no time to say goodbye to my tree. I love all the other oaks. But this one was their mother. Where the squirrels lived. Acorns everywhere.

It's just grief. I sit in stillness. It's a wound.

This mama lived through Edinburgh burning down. The Gregorian calendar. Sweden attacked by Denmark. The treaty of London signed. The poet, John Dryden, died. Massachusetts passed a law: Jesuits & Popish Priests. Making a finding that Roman Catholic clerics have attempted to incite American Indians into a rebellion against the Crown. Deposed King James II of England (James VII of Scotland) dies in exile, at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye in France. The first regular English-language national newspaper, The Daily Courant, begins publication on Fleet Street in the City of London; it covers only foreign news. Russian troops besiege the Swedish fortress of Nöteborg, and capture it after 15 days.

She lived through all of this and the War Between the States.

Every day, I could gaze upon something larger than myself. Something that came from the dirt like I did. I am not quite up to replacing that front door.

[timbarrus]

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Therefore, I conclude -- living far from society is best.

[timbarrus]

Take notes. I had to make a judgement call. I got my family out of North America. My decision was based in what the New York Times take is. In all the talk about vibes, the publication has one, too. It's dark. It's fearful. It's nervous. If it wasn't, something would be very wrong. Pollsters are beginning to look like stunned deer in headlights. One question dominates journalism. How Bad Is It Going To Be. What I hear in the voices of these conversations is a reckoning with defeat. Is there anyone at the New York Times who thinks he won't go after journalists. Journalists often feel immune to what to what is happening around them as they are there to cover it. A calm before the storm. No one has ever talked about a dynamic that is inherently stalking Trump. There is a psychotic link between suicide and homicide. It is not uncivil to say that because it is simply fact whether it is polite society or not. Trump is not stable. I have always seen him as being suicidal. Homicidal ideation is as toxic as suicidal ideation. He dreams of executions, and no one is pushing back because we cannot bring ourselves to believe it. Believe it. Ideation can swing like a pendulum back and forth. Them or me. Them or me. There is no us. There is no Other. There is no there there. The internal and the external is a contest between pitbulls in a cage. One of those caged dogs will win. And then both dogs will die. America is not immune. Trump is a junkyard dog. Let's fight. We remain transfixed.

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I was working in my office in the Hotel across the street from the Capitol building in Michigan. Our guests were legislators.The Secret Service wanted to speak to me. George Wallace was coming town and he was staying with us. I lived at the hotel, too. “There will be a lot of security.” You bet there was. They were on the roofs of every building. Snipers. Rifles. Suits. People hated Wallace. I was one of them. I had Room Service serve him bad cold food. Our roof had the snipers, too. Trump is Wallace on steroids. No one shot Wallace on our watch or in our hotel. He gave his speech, spent the night, and left. Inflaming the town. Trump is the equivalent of George Wallace. His racism drips with a concomitant disease called dementia. The mouth works and the eyes are somewhere else. His messages to Springfield are rants. His point is himself. He brings with him his emotional luggage and cruelty matching the cruelty of the place they came from. Haitians were in the way. Security for Trump. They’re vulnerable. And Trump is hunting them down with his rhetoric of rage. After all of this, you have to ask the question: What will he throw at us when he loses. Is there anyone who thinks he will go away. But no. We know who he is and the dark shadows he brings with him to the next town, and the next town, and the next town. Call out the National Guard. Yet we just bumble along. When he starts his executions, who will be next. Will Americans tolerate this. Yes. Apathy is the real enemy.

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Mark Kelly is glaringly obvious. But nothing is obvious when it comes to the democrats. Every now and then, they find the talent. But every now and then is just not good enough. I left the democrats. The republicans are outright nazis. I have always said the gay community is not really aware of how much they are institutionally, personally, hated in America. That hate boils in politics as well. You work your way around it. Pete did. Pete does. Work around a lot of issues. Great rap. Great vibe. The man is before his time.

But Suits give me hives. She won't pick Kelly. It would be unprecedented. But what is not -- at this stage -- unprecedented. Her policies are very center. She doesn't have an involved imagination. She has a stability. I knew her in San Francisco. She was careful. I want a prosecutor who is careful. If she was prosecuting Trump, this conversation would not be happening. Trump would be assigned to dish washing in Folsom Prison. Melania will visit once a year. Nothing is fair. Kelly would make short shrift of all the grifters who float around Trump like little puppy dogs he sometimes feeds when he's in the mood. Pete could do so much better than government where he's a wasted talent. If Harris picks a typical governor, the whole dog and pony show is over. Total lack of imagination. Then, why would I vote for her. I will not vote for her if she picks a governor. Someone has to do it. I want those dishes spotless. Go Kelly.

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I see shadows. And they move. Time itself is a choreography. I still cannot believe he's gone. I only get kicked like this if there's rain. I have no idea why. I had to break the door down. He was so glad to see me. I realized, he was probably deaf now, too. I dressed him and put him in the car. "Are we going somewhere." Shake your head, yes. "Where are we going." No where. "Look, there's Mom, he said. He thought we were driving, but we were just sitting in the front seat. We went past everyone he knew. All of them gone. He opened the window and spoke to the many people he had known. It started to rain again. Ignition. I am still driving. Usually until I'm lost and do not care to be found. I need new window wipers. There is a small squeak as the wipers push the rain around. Sometimes, he's there with me. Sometimes, not. I will sit in the car and turn on the radio. I am so unsure about where this thing is going. All I am left with are very faint whispers. Not unlike the sound of the rain on the roof of the car. He's gone. The shadows melt away. That and the sound of his voice as he spoke to mother. The rain finally stopped. I am unconsciously holding my breath. He died in his sleep. I bought him a brand new door.

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And low heartbeats of sleep. I can taste their dreams. Rolls right. Bites the roof. Bewildering. White fogspit spans and stands for any arch embattled. This tame world is Castle Sordid. And I am the wild oddity they point at he’s autistic and you know, low IQ, no one understands them. I pick at it in the sacred land of scabbed abstractions. All abstractions have had scabs disarranged like no other dust of words. I do not know what they want from me. They don’t understand you so removing yourself from the scene of the crime seems to be the moral thing to do. We have inherited false conceits. I was dropping out of asleep directly to the part where in nonland – we seaslaves – of rubs short the blush, and only the Butcher’s Daughter knows where the Sinister Hootch Clittring bands of thieves hide themselves inside the grits box. Flivvers of the earth breathe woodfires and the gut hummers in their ground stand on it so let loose the motherfucker fright, all of us are hunched broken men in overcoats and scars smell like leaves and the fuckerfight with its promises of purity is dead to rights call off the dogs because people are hungry and when Godot arrives very serious decisions must be made. Godot has left the building

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I am an alien alien. I have no idea who these other people are. I have no idea what the New York Times is.

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Tim Barrus: Why More Babies

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