I need help and it’s never gonna come
I’ve been reading a few blog posts of mine, some notes I made during the Oscar Grant uprising here in Oakland. I was looking up a post on grief for a friend and rediscovered what was pouring out of me back then.
They throw an interesting light on the present internal sturm und drang at Occupy Oakland…and on radical, engaged living in general.
I need help and its never gonna come .
Fri, January 16, 2009 – 8:18 PM
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Its been a tough two weeks. I live across from the Fruitvale BART station and I heard sirens that New Years but it was a party night so I thought nothing of it. Now I realize that they were for Oscar Grant.
Its been intense here. My roommates come and go, go to work as usual, and so do I except that I go to rallies and marches like I used to do and I’m quarreling all the time: Everybody has something to say. Everybody is full of shit. I’m moody, even more than my usual. I’m wordless then I got everything to say and it all comes out stupid and wrong. Nothing is good enough. I go to a rally. I don’t know anybody there anymore really, so I just wander around and talk to a couple folks here and there but the feeling there is so…. so …. so I don’t know what . – the avalanche of new faces and all ages and all kinds blows me away. Preachers, emcees, a bunch of high school cholas hangin out,…. cardigans, dashikis, hoodies… and me a white boy in his shop clothes covered in aluminum shavings feeling better than I have in a long time.
And then its back to normal. Everybody who just watches the lame news thinks they knows what went down, what its all about. Everybody who knows somebody or who went to a demo once thinks they are a goddam expert. Somebody just doesn’t get it at all but still says the stupidest, know-it-all and irrelevant shit. yeah whatever. I try to say something pertinent or maybe I just ignore it. But then some guy online of all things says some of the usual shit and I bust on him a little then fucking explode and want to know where the fucker lives if you know what I mean.
At the grocery store, I’m thinking about stuff, about this holiday weekend, about how its MLK day, and the inaugaration of Obama and about how Oakland is gonna be partying down. I’m not a really compassionate person or even a nice guy but as I’m walking across the parking lot with my stuff, I just start crying. Little tears until I make it to my truck with the tinted windows.
There’s no sound. I just lay my head on the wheel and lose it.
I’ve been peaceful in the street and that was all I wanted to tell you the truth. I realize I’m fucked up and a total mess, but
THEY JUST FUCKING TOOK IT! THEY TOOK IT ALL!
THEY SNUFFED HIM OUT FOREVER AND I WAS SITTING ON MY COUCH ACROSS THE FUCKING STREET.
It’s like I can see his face now and i want it all to burn.
grouchosuavité 