Inside Straight

Posted Today 7:12 pm

COMMITTEE, POLITICS, AMERICAN HERO | REFLECTIVE | “CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION” — VIOLENT FEMMES

The Committee.

Yeah, there’s more after that; but when you get right down to it, we’re really the Committee. Say it, print it, post it. Everyone knows what you mean. The Commit tee.

I have a new job now. I’m one of the poor bastards going out there to help save the world now. But at least they don’t want me to put on Spandex or a cape or some shit like that. It’s great, but it also has the feeling of something ending. I’m going to keep this blog going as long as I can, but I don’t know how much I’ll be able to keep up with it. There are only so many hours in a day, after all. There’s already talk about maybe going in to this shithole in Africa where a guy is encouraging half the people in his country to take machetes to the other half. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do about it, but I guess if they send us, we’ll try. What else could we do?

I started this thing because I wanted to talk about what it was to be an ace. Here we are, with powers other people dream of having. We’re the cool kids. The heroes. The ones who get celebrated. And it’s not because of what we think or what we do. It’s because of what we are.

I don’t think there’s anything more toxic than that. To be celebrated—or condemned—for what you are instead of who.

We’re aces. And some of us are petty little fucks. Some of us are pretentious asses. Some of us can rise to the occasion, and some of us can’t.

So, if I did write my book—and honest to God, folks, I don’t see the free time anywhere in the immediate future—what would I say with it? That Hollywood’s ideas of heroism are shallow and cocaine-driven? Yeah, there’s big news.

That genocide is bad?

That sometimes people do honorable, good, right things for all the wrong reasons? Or stupid, destructive, short-sighted things for all the right ones?

The problem with a cliché is that it starts in truth. So when you dig down, fight and scratch and bleed and sometimes even die for the truth, sometimes—not always, but sometimes—you end up with something you could have bought on a greeting card.

Do the right thing. Cherish your friends; you don’t know how long you get to have them. You’re flawed and weak, but that’s okay; just do the best you can.

For that, I went to Hollywood and Vegas and Egypt and Hell. Hardly seems worth it, except that maybe I understand better what the Hallmark cards mean.

And I understand they’re looking at another season of American Hero. Good luck with that, guys.

I don’t know how you’re gonna top this one.

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