A Tidal Wave of Feces

I’ve come to the decision that nothing in this life will ever come easily again. The shits, the screwheads have indeed taken over the asylum and they are bound and determined to make anything and everything as difficult as can be imagined for any and all who wish to show some originality with whatever they seek to accomplish. These days you are left with but two choices: 1) Get a lobotomy and step in line and become like everyone everything else, never saying anything out of line, just do your job get your paycheck shut the fuck up and be subjected to a shit life courtesy of the greed mindfuck screwheads. Or, 2) See the game for what it is and keep hammering away despite the obstacles, to finally win freedom from the tidal waves of feces that keep getting thrown over us to keep us hoodwinked and stupefied. Not really a choice, way I look at it. But fuck me, even the most simplest of exercises have become studies in tediousness and crackerjack bullshit that go well beyond the norm.
Yesterday I encountered such a wave. I damn near drowned, especially after the fight I had the day before to just keep a roof over my damn head, fighting as I was with a numskull of epic proportions! Like I said, nothing comes easy...
I have a new column in a magazine that is run out of South Louisiana. An old chum is involved and I’ve regularly sent him my stories for other publications. I appreciate the outlet to the nth degree. My friend is a lovable cuss, but in the grand scheme of things he is not what I would call the most reliable person in the world. I’d sent him my story over a month ago, and knowing the issue was to be published first of next week I contacted him to make sure all was copacetic. He stuttered and stammered around, not knowing jack shit, so I asked for the e-mail address of the graphics department so I could make sure everything was nice and tidy (they’d put in the wrong picture with the wrong column title last time, the first time the column was run).
Well, imagine my surprise when I was contacted by the managing editor of the magazine, wondering who in the hell I was?! After we negotiated that minefield, I was then told that my story was too long and I needed to shave it down by almost four hundred words! By tomorrow morning!! And then the kicker. He stated that they had a problem with a word in my piece, and that they wouldn’t print this word because if they did their readership would most definitely light up the switchboard in moral outrage and manic disdain. The word? Pubic... yeah, pubic.
My asshole squared up in a knot on that one and again, I realized it was me against the screwheads one more time. The right wing fully supports this idiot in power who’s squandered gazillions of dollars and untold lives in a war that’s enabling he and his cronies to get fucking rich, but yet they object to the word “pubic”!! How does one rectify and legitimize such outrageous dumbass?! Do these people fuck while they are in different rooms?! The mind reels...
All afternoon me and the managing editor exchanged a flurry of e-mails trying to find a balance, an understanding, so that we could operate within the agreed upon guidelines. I will say this, the fellow was on top of it, had a brain, and was flexible to a degree, and soon enough, we both understood our mutual playing field.
I took out my scalpel and managed to cut away the required number of words without losing the punch of the piece. I managed to fight the flow of skullduggery that impeded, or wanted to impede my progress, and after the fur flew my piece will indeed appear in the next edition.
How did we get there? COMMUNICATION. UNDERSTANDING.
But still, it didn’t come easy.
We exist in some mighty strange times, my friends. But know this, we need individuals who aren’t afraid to stand up and be heard, who will speak the truth despite the opposition. So stand up, fight the good fight. You might get wounded, you might get your ass kicked from time to time, but to win victory on your own terms is life itself.
Breathe deep. Keep your wits about you. And above all, sling your rectum around with wild abandon and dare someone to tell you you can’t.