Subtlety Has its Time & Place. This Isn't One of Them
(Editor's note: Rather than write anther one of these damned things so soon, I'd like to keep this at the top of the page for the weekend considering the first response has been so relatively anemic. If I write any new posts, they'll be right below this one.)
Perhaps I was being a bit too subtle in my last post in which I'd provided an editor''s note at the end. I've uploaded way too many of these fundraising posts over the years because circumstances had forced me to do so. With a disabled girlfriend and a cat to support, somehow, I've been obliged, time and again, to do things and reach levels of audaciousness that no doubt has been contributory to my readership falling off this year as it has. After all, I get begging emails and snail mails from every liberal organization out there as contrition for every small charity check I've sent off over the years. It seems for every check I've sent out, I get put on the mailing lists of ten others. So, yeah, I get it.
Be that as it may.
I was trying to soft pedal our incipient desperation because
first and foremost, I wanted to entertain you guys as a way of repaying and
justifying the money I've gotten from you over these last few months to years.
Since the winter of 2009, I've been the magnet of bad luck on a par with Job
and I know even the most bleeding heart liberal gets weary of hearing about one
person's neverending problems. I know. I get compassion fatigue from time to
time myself, especially when the funds aren't there to help others as I'd like.
But what I've been going through these past 5+ years isn't
luck I made. It can't be said I've made bad choices and that I have to lie in
the bed I made. I did not deserve to lose my last job in 2009 because my boss was an embezzling, right wing scumbag nor did I create
this nightmarish economy and job market where guys having to start all over
again in their 50's get skeeved for even interviews let alone jobs by hiring
managers and with complete impunity. It's none of my doing that US corporations
get to skate away and incorporate overseas so they can dodge taxes while the
IRS and the Massachusetts DOR go after guys like me for a few hundred dollars
in unpaid taxes. And I did not create the publishing environment in which
unknowns like me, talented though we are, have no chance of getting an agent
much less a publisher unless we have an "in" in the publishing
business.
I've said it before- I live a Rodney Dangerfield routine
only without the laughs. I'm just a cash cow for various utility companies,
state agencies, brokerages and other entities but no one wants to give me the
chance to earn the money I need to pay my debts. It's a terrible situation to
live in, having to work harder and harder each morning to find excuses and
reasons to stay alive when it increasingly seems that pinprick of light at the
end of the tunnel will never appear. And, to make matters worse, the car
insurance payments will resume when I have to reup in June and our landlord
just informed us he's raising our rent this September when our lease gets
renewed due to "maintenance costs." AAA will have to be renewed this
August and the car still needs some serious work.
I love you guys for your past kindnesses and readership and
compassion and you have no idea how much I hate myself for having to post
these time and again because the America I grew up in, that we all
grew up in, will never again return, an America where a man who wants to work
and stand on his own two feet will have a fair shot of getting a job.
I know some of you are down and out or have stopped coming here on account of all the solicitations for help. I can't fault any of you if those are the
cases and I know all too painfully well that no matter what I do on the
internet, no one owes me a damned cent.
But my last post netted
us barely over $100 from all of two people and we desperately need help if we''re
going to survive even another month. I have a girlfriend and a cat depending on
me for EVERYTHING and you have to believe it's getting harder and harder to
tread water considering the readership hence the money isn't there as it used
to be. So whatever you guys can do would be appreciated by not just me but Mrs. JP
and our cat. I'm all they have and you're all I have and every day I doubt more
and more that I'm up to the task. So please help however you can even if it's
just to pass the word to others through blog, email, social networking, word of
mouth, whatever. Thank you in advance.
2 Comments:
Best solicitation I've ever read or heard. Know where you're coming from. Just wait till you're almost 70 and they won't even give you an application. Which is also about the age the waitress pats you on the shoulder and asks "How are you today, honey? Doin' alright?"
One suggestion: put a music background to some of these blogs, read 'em out as a video, and load onto YouTube. People making good money there doing jack crap. You could be one of them with better stuff.
btw, got this missive in an email. Only problem is the name and address on the email ain't mine. How the hell did it get there, and who is Don Shipton, anyway???
Splain that, and just might send another (yes,another)donation.
Dude, I honestly cannot explain that. Honestly. Sorry 'bout thst.
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