February 2024 Monthly Roundup
Pardon me while I slide into your inbox or web browser, Waywards reader. You’ve got that “come-hither” stare, I see. Should I take your view as a sign?
Here are the pieces I wrote that were published this month:
Education as a Common Good / Comstock’s Magazine / 2-9-24
Cobbins groomed to play at Kansas / R1S1 / 2-12-24
Staying true to herself key for ‘KB’ / R1S1 / 2-19-24
I’m working on two more assignments for R1S1, both of which will feature KU track and field student-athletes, provided they make it to publication as planned.
The editor who published my op-ed at Comstock’s (see above) also invited me to pitch the magazine going forward. I might take her up on the offer when my workload lightens up.
In addition to the work that helps pay the bills, I’ve also been working with my IWW Freelance Journalists Union legal committee co-chair, Ben Camacho, on what we hope becomes a veritable campaign . Should that develop, you can likely find out about it here, so long as you, Waywards reader, remain, well, a Waywards reader.
If you would like to see how I waxed poetic this month, you can find two poems I completed in February beneath the picture below of me with my friend—and onetime podcast co-host—Dr. Eli Kramer, at his post-wedding celebration in Oxnard, California, which went down this past weekend.
Actualizing Meaning and/for the Love of Hitherto Denied Humanity
She asks when the suffering will end
Nay, she screams, and she dreams
An urgent prayer and interim escape blend
It’s both a cruel tease and needed Godsend
Then she contends with the profane again (and again)
He pleads for the torment to cease, for it to subside
His humility is strong from exercises in futility
To hurt or not to hurt, that wasn’t for him to decide
Unbearability broke his not-so indomitable spirit, and he cried
On himself he relied while wants, needs and better worlds were denied
We all endure torture in our human frame
Eventually, might it be meted out less differentially?
Can’t social relations be more than a zero-sum game?
Drown sorrows in rhetorical questions but tears come all the same
That reflection in the mirror suggests to us we flushed hope down the drain
Yet when we see ourselves in another, our perspective can change
That effort to ameliorate the source of her tragedy will appeal your fate
She begins to grasp that she’s not just weird; that man’s also strange
Then he gets a grip and she feels less alien, more like warmth from a flame
Nevertheless they’re still distressed, as the wrong world remains
We’ve come to our senses and might just sense why suffering commenced
The modus operandi of pain perchance pertains to what we endured to gain
From existential bane came the erotic and agapic, revealing love that upends
Hurt, harm, ache and agony could have meaning, but I guess it depends
If our hitherto denied humanity materializes and we come to our own defense
You Assume Subtitle: But You Know What They Say About Those Who Assume, Right? You assume you can tell me what to do Pardon me when I respond with, “Fuck you” And, “I won’t do what you tell me to” Like on that Rage song circa 1992 You assume you can tell others what to do You’re accustomed to ordering people around Anytime you encounter a disobedient sound Consider that discomfort is what redounds You assume you can tell her what to do You act like Blankfein, Bezos or Musk Benefitting from class war waged from above Behavior like slimy milk—enough to disgust You assume you can tell him what to do You’re surveilling and incessantly tracking this Putting amateur poetry on repeat in your track list Is it accurate to say you acted like a sack of shit? You assume you can tell them what to do And dispose of us like horses turned into glue But you’ll soon rue that you can’t continue To treat us the way you act—like gross poop In lieu of forfeiting agency, the rabble now refuse Seeing beyond the imposed, marginalized view It’s safe to assume, it’s no longer privilege for just you and a select few To your previously putative authority, we will henceforth steadfastly eschew