Thanks to everyone who tuned in! Free or paid subscribers? Join me for my next live video in the app. Gonna be a Trigger Warnings kinda take on old men with their fingers on THE Button. This week…
Here’s my speaking script from this live performance. Close to a transcript, but I changed a few lines on the fly… some even on purpose.
Today I’m talking family, friends, love… not known as autistic “superpowers.” So let’s start with a quick blow up of the whole fucking superpower thing.
1. After the Secret
I have strengths.
Not one is my superpower.
I have challenges.
Not one is my kryptonite.
I'm that kid in third grade
Drop
drop
dropping
A mysterious blue crystal
Into that test tube—
Squealing in delight
Every time it explodes…
In purple streams.
I love cosplay.
But I don’t have to fly
Wear a mask
Or sport a cape
To be autistic.
Still…
I get to be the hero
or bald evil genius
of my own life.
2. Shameless
Family is freaking complex. For me? More disappointment, failure to meet expectations. Not being the son… or brother… the family ordered.
Live long enough
Ya get a lot right,
Get a lot wrong.
Get to know
Well enough
Ya can’t be a saint
Lurking in shadow…
Living life perfectly
Shameless.
Shameless.
Oh let me be
Shameless…
No sun sets
On a painless life,
So no moon shines
On a stainless wife.
Oh let me be… come
Shameless.
Scaling Mount Marcy
That night as Elvis died,
Got branded a Mountebank
As my sister grew colder.
Stalking Death Valley
Same sister… now dead… to me
Same stars… chill my shoulders
Now living life perfectly
Shameless…
Shameless.
Oh let me be
Shameless…
No peak caps
An aimless life,
And no grave ever filled
By a blameless knife.
Oh let me be… come
Shameless…
No mask hides
The pain in life,
So no words can
Explain my fight.
So, let me Be… come
Shameless.
I call this one it burns. I didn’t write it about autism. But families face terrible trials. This was my response to one.
3. IT BURNS
Up your nose
Or in your arm
It burns
First your charm
Then your pose
It burns
No one learns
The next child will yearn
Til It burns
Still burns
Oh it burns
It burns you up
In the mirror
That dark stranger
Stares back at you
Wild-eyed danger
But you don't fear her
It's you
Right on cue
She's seen things you'd never do
But it's you
Cuz Baby, it's you
It's you now
What won't you do
Bridges burnt
Towns ashes.
Poppa burnt
Mom ashes.
Beauty
Ashes.
Duty
Ashes.
Home
Ashes.
Dreams
Smoke…
Lovers turn to johns
Burnt.
Babies
Burnt.
Womb
Burnt.
Brain
Burnt.
Eyes
Burnt out…
Up your nose
Or in your arm
It burnt
First your charm
Then your pose
It burnt
No one learned
Your next child yearned
Til It burnt
Still burnt
Oh it burnt
It burnt you up
Ate you up
No one home
Just burnt bones....
Okay. Hello… family? Friends? I wasn’t born to produce. I was born to observe, experience… then overshare.
4. A Shooting Star Has No Purpose
my autistic life...
failing upward
toward collapse...?
succeeding downward
toward joy...?
it's a quantum thing.
the answer is simply...
yes.
I was not put on this planet
to produce.
I was born to experience.
Observe...
and over share.
our lives' value is
not measured
by clicks.
or data mined by AI.
a shooting star
slashing through darkness
has no purpose.
unless
it ignites
a human instant.
illuminates, ya know…
that ness…
this breath
and this moment…
all we possess.
All.
I ain’t gonna lie. This one’s rough. And long. And complex. It may not need a T.S. Eliot pretentious footnote. But I try to intertwine family, control, and religion. And real events from the winter of 97-98. When the Hale-Bopp comet was fading in the Northern New York skies. And the memory of the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult was still fresh in the national mind.This is a hybrid piece. In my mind it’s a movie. With scenes, background music. Jump cuts. But you guys probably loved Pulp Fiction. So I pray you can follow me.
5. sneaking your mother’s creepy g-d on high
Prelude, December 1997
I begin, “There…
There's Heaven's Gate.”
S
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