It’s 9:51pm on Labor Day, and all the labor I’ve ever endured is piling on top of my bones as I write. I am not an old man, but I’m aged, and the age I am now shudders in the remembering of the 16 hour shifts I sometimes logged, and the two or three jobs at a time that I held down, and especially the times when I would go six or eight weeks between days off.
And the reminiscing of that work begat some aches that caused me to put this down for the night, and pick it up again the next day. Here it is now, near noon on Tuesday the 3rd, and I’m still wrestling with a lot of thoughts and emotions about Labor Day, American Labor, and Politics. But when I sat this writing aside last night, I switched on the Bob Marley movie, One Love, that came out this year, and I watched it for the second time. Fuck man, have you seen it? What a powerful fucking statement on the power of art and love. I tell you, One Love is exactly the movie that America, and the world needs right now. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it.
I hope everyone reading this had the opportunity to enjoy their Labor Day holiday. It is a holiday that was fought for, and earned, like everything else in American Labor History, by sacrifice, sweat, tears, loss, and even death. And those costs are still being paid right now, by an American workforce that bears the brunt of corporate greed even as I type.
The sign on my door while I served as an elected chief steward at the Toledo Jeep Plant, 2019 -2022.
And let me tell you all something else right now, they will tell you that Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer, but remember what I told you about how they are often full of shit? Ha! Here we are again. There’s weeks of summer left. There’s months of decent weather ahead of us in the Midwest and points beyond. They are full of shit. It’s fucking September, the best summer month of all. Get outside. Look at the sky. Breathe. Dance. Fuck what they tell you. There’s so much more to unlearn than learn my friends.
Last week was an epic week of pure summertime for me. Lots of time outside. A few evenings spent around a fire pit with some of my favorite humans, lots of good, loud music, lots of late night and up still in the early morning reasons to dance, laugh, and smile, and so I did. And this week I’m going to do the same goddamned thing, and I’m going to do it again the week after that because it’s fucking September man, the best fucking month of the year. It’s summer. The weather is postcard pretty and no matter the war torn conditions of your spirit, you can smile in the sun, too, if you just find the strength to curl the corners of your lips upward for a moment no longer than an angels breath.
sunset views have been spectacular the last several days
Yo, wait until I tell you about the books I’ve loved this week. Fuck, I’m embarrassed at the wealth of language I’m fortunate enough to swim in, and this past week has been one of the most beautiful weeks of reading I’ve had in ages. Beauty. Pure beauty.
My buddy A.S. Coomer, the artist from Kentucky, he was up last week, and like many of my close friends are prone to do, Drew gifted me two books: Yelping the Tegmine (Finishing Line Press) a brand new released chap from Detroit poet Cal Freeman, and A New Path To The Waterfall, Raymond Carver’s last book of poetry. Both books, read back to back in the same week are a master’s course in the power of language.
**And here, again, I put this aside and fed animals on the farm, showered and worked a six hour shift budtending at a Michigan dispensary, and I’m back now, near midnight, trying to tell you about these books I’ve loved.**
Cal Freeman writes poetry that reads like poetry is supposed to, beautiful, rhythmic and damn near lyrical. The fact that his topics include the Midwestern rust of his Detroit area roots, and heavy shit like loss, change, warm soda, and Yelp reviews is just a glad handed bonus for those of us that have endured more rust that beauty. If you love poetry, you’ll fucking love Cal Freeman, plus, he’s just a good dude.
And Raymond Carver? And this last book of his? Oh, man. Oh man oh man oh man. I’m halfway through it, and it’s peppered with beauty, grace, snippets of a life flashing before a writer’s eyes, and patchwork pieces of other’s prose, most notably that of Anton Chekhov. There are parts of this book so breathtakingly stunning and tender in its simple use of language that it has nearly caused my heart to wail in gratitude. Read this one with the knowledge that it’ll tug at your heart, but read it anyway.
And finally, add to that this collection of last short stories collected after Kurt Vonnegut’s death, and fuck man, you can see why I feel like a Richie Rich of words and literature. Armageddon in Retrospect is filled with Kurt’s scrawled drawings, a letter he wrote when captured in WWII, his last speech, and several unpublished short stories. The thing I enjoy the most about this is that it shows off Vonnegut’s humor. There are other writers that make me laugh, but Vonnegut is up there at the top of that short list.
every Hoosier born writer needs a tattoo of Kurt Vonnegut's asshole
**And now again, it’s Wednesday the 4th, nigh upon four in the afternoon. It’s a day off from my part time gig in the cannabis industry, and I’m gathering the vines and roots of this thing, and determined to sit down and hammer it in through to the end. I normally wouldn’t give you, the reader, this ongoing days long monologue. Normally I’d just type the thing officious, like I meant it to be this way at this time all along, but I say, if this isn’t a snapshot of how I write, then there’s not a camera that can document it. Leave the cursor blinking when you shut the computer down, and that motherfucker will be right there winking at you when you switch the machine back on. Read the last paragraph. Stretch and crack the arthritic fingers, and let ‘er rip yet again. When you’re hooked up to the right source, it flows when you turn the tap loose, and it’ll be there when you need to crank her shut.**
And next, my favorite report of the week. Just what the hell are you smoking? You know, because access to legal, medical marijuana is a life saving medicine for me and so many others. Did you know that I’ve held a medical marijuana card in Ohio from the time it was legal until letting it lapse in these recreationally legal times this year? I’ve been prescribed medical weed by my primary doctor and psychiatrist for the treatment of my CPTSD, IBS, and for the chronic pain of degenerative arthritis, and while I love nothing more than getting dry eyed and blasted halfway to Mars, I don’t want anyone to fall under the impression that there’s any other way for me. The pills they prescribed me for pain, panic attacks and for being bipolar for years were so much fucking worse for my mental health than weed, and if you have these same conditions, and live in a state smart enough to allow its residents access to medicine, you should talk to your doctor and psychiatrist about it.
my rolling desk, next to my writer's desk area.
As a budtender at an undisclosed cannabis dispensary in Michigan (they don’t pay me to advertise) one of my favorite patients to help are the 60something newly retired folks that find their way in and say, “my doctor told me to try edibles for my pain. Or to help me sleep.” Oh man. I’ve been studying for years to help myself and others in just those exact moments. And I tell you, you know I’m days and weeks slow to respond sometimes, but if you are considering using weed to help cope, I’d love to listen and offer my years of research and experience to help. Plus, I love getting high almost as much as I love books and poetry.
So here’s what I’ve been smoking.
I often show off the flashy pre rolls and fancy buds here in this newsletter corner, but I’m a high volume stoner. I consume about a half ounce of flower a day, and I eat edibles at 100-200mg doses at a time. I tell you that not to boast of some high tolerance, I’m just old and my brain has a crazy overdrive motor that takes a lot of throttling to keep me sane and productive. Used to it would take two or three psych meds and a xany or two a day to keep me inside my own skin all day, but I like this half ounce a day method so much better.
Burning a half ounce of bud a day on a starving artist budget is easy if you’re within driving distance to Michigan. Did you know that for the first time since cannabis legalization, Michigan sold more weed than any other state last year? Michigan truly has the best weed at the best prices in the U.S. I’ve smoked in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Florida, Ohio, Washington D.C. New York and Illinois, and trust me, Michigan has the best weed and by far, the best prices I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. It’s common to find two ounces of decent weed for under $100 if you look. And the bargain pre rolls have bargained out at less than a dollar a gram. You can buy 30 one gram pre rolls in Michigan for $30 or less. It’s insanity. And what a fucking time to be alive.
Often times I buy bargain flower. Stuff from last chance bins or on sale, and I buy a gram of cheap crumble concentrate, and I crumble some wax into the cones I twist up, so that way you get your own poor man’s home-infused firecracker joint with a couple of dab hits in the middle of the sucker. Give me a gram of wax and a half ounce of $25 bargain weed and I’ll get ya 20, 0.8 gram joints that’ll keep you squinting at the sun with the dark corner monsters of your mind hushed and quiet all day my friends.
And here’s one for you edible lovers. No weed discrimination here. Let’s get toasty all the ways we can find. In fact, I keep reading about THC infused lubricants, ahem, and I’ve yet to find any, but when I do, we’ll see if I feel like telling you about it.
Lately I’ve been nipping at different live resin gummies. Live resin, unlike most hash, wax, and concentrates, goes through a flash freezing process that preserves more of the terpenes and cannabinoids in your flower, and although live resin always tests out slightly lower than cured resins in THC strength, it has better flavors, aromas, offers that fabled full spectrum of cannabinoids and medical contents, and is significantly a stronger high than standard THC distillate infused edibles. So, I’ve been eating the live resin for nights I can’t sleep, and microdosing them 20mg at a time throughout the day to help with the aches and pains of old age and too many hours spent surviving in factories.
just some budget live resin gummies. These go for about $6 retail in Michigan.
And there you go. A long winding road, this newsletter. But it is fucking September, and it is the best month of the year. It is the month I was fucking born. God help us everyone.
One more thing, I’m going on a big long reading tour in November, and I’ll be releasing tour date stops and shows soon. But, I’ve also got to figure out how to prepare, plan, and fund it, so in honor of that, and because it’s my newsletter, I’ll be doing a drawing this month to celebrate one big super fan, and getting your name into one of my chapbooks and maybe a published book, has never been easier. Entries are just $5 a piece, and I’m lucky that there’s already been 10 entries and I’m just now telling y’all about it. If you’ve got a little extra cheddar, consider putting into a tip jar here or elsewhere, to help working artists achieve the opportunities they need to grow.
you could win a tie dyed t shirt and get your name mentioned in my next published book
everyone that donates at least $5 gets big thank yous from me.
And finally, it's 9:30 Wednesday night. The road winds, turns, curves, rises and dips, but it never ends. This is the one big secret to my success. I never let it go. I started writing in elementary school, and I didn't finish my first novel until I was 42 years old. If you love something so much that you stick at it, failing year after year for 35 years until you get it right, you too could be a writer, or an artist, or whatever it is that you love so much that you never quit on.
I've been on a big Bob Marley music kick lately. I mentioned that movie, One Love, the biopic of him earlier, and here you are still reading this damn fucked up rambling newsletter. You really should give that movie a look. But what I really wanted to leave you with is a short list of my favorite, happiest music. Whether skies are blue, or your heart is gray and cloudy, these are the musicians I play loud to boost my happy.
The Grateful Dead
Ray Charles
Otis Redding
Bob Marley
Miley Cyrus
Ol' Dirty Bastard
and Patti Smith
Find the things that boost your happy this week.
Love,
Dan
a photo of farm cats Kora and Gertie out on my evening walk with me the other night
I hadn’t thought about ODB in a long time. Shimmy shimmy ya!
So glad you've got a summer groove going. And I'm really enjoying all your photos.