American Down

I just smoked weed with a friend and her husband while she held their new born baby on her lap. She had a forty ounce Busch next to her and the babies head rested on the head of their pit bull.

I told her how amazing that picture was and that I was going to draw it when I got home. She said she wanted a copy. I tried to explain how amazing the picture was. I told her it would spark such thought and it would be so amazing if people could see it. She said “Well I just think it’s me.”

Her husband just got out of jail. She also has another son who is 14 years old. He lives with his grandma and calls her mom. They live down the street from their daughter and mother respectively. The boy knows who his mom is and they see each other and hang out but his friends think he has an attractive older sister. The grandma demands she be called mom and tells all her friends it’s her son.

My friends been a druggie. From crack to ecstasy and everything in between, this girl has been around. Worse than anything she’s an alcoholic. A bad one. Once she cashed her paycheck at the bar on friday at 10:30 in the morning and drank there until 1 am Saturday morning. That’s 15 hours of drinking without food or water. She passed out that night with her ass in the air and belly fat spilling over onto the floor. Snoring like an elephant calling for help while we got high. She had just drooled all over our drug dealer while he was rolling me one. She was begging him to fuck her and he kept refusing. At one point she drooled a string of mucus stretching from her mouth to his jean and suck it all the way back up while saying “Come on EERRRRIC don’t you wanna have some funnnnnnn.” He eventually told her she could suck his dick, that's when she passed out.

A little over three years ago I had a nervous breakdown and stormed out of a pretty decent job. I sold my condo for a hefty 900% profit and moved to the south with my dog to live with my mom. I decided I was going to write and draw my big epic graphic novel. I bought all the supplies I would need and got to work. I stopped after one day. I couldn’t do it right away. I got a job and, long story short, it’s three years, four jobs, and three moves later. I’ve only published a twenty something page preview edition of this epic novel that was to change the world and my life forever. The money from the condo was gone in the first year and I’ve since been stealing, dealing, pawning and working dead end jobs for mere months at a time. When I say months I mean no more than two.

I’m ready to write now. I’m read to create and produce. I still got a lot of issues though, issues that are preventing me from being productive. I’m stuck in this world that I didn’t have a say in the making of and I really, really hate it. I’ve come to realize I always have. In my mind I’ve always been an observer. I can't help but notice all these things that just aren’t ok. So many things that are in this world should not be. We as a species should not allow our race to go out like this.

I’m not merely talking about my friend and other humans using and abusing in front of newborn babies. I’m talking about the whole shebang. I don’t care what any idiot says-George Bush should never have been elected president. I’m not saying that’s the source of our problems either. I believe we’ve been nipple deep in shit since sometime between the Civil and 1st World wars. We gave our country over to Bankers and Money Changers. Now a completely private bank controls our money and entire economy and we allow it because it calls itself The ‘Federal’ Reserve. It's no more federal than Fed Ex in case you didn't know. Your tax money doesn't even cover the interest our country owes on the money it uses against us on a daily basis. Not to mention the Catholic Church alone has enough money to feed the world until it's swallowed up by the sun. Not to mention people like Oprah and Bill gates or any number of milion and billionaires who could easily solve much of the worlds hunger if only they cared enough. I'm not saying that people aren't doing anything about it, but when you got Oprah giving diamonds to rich black people while millions are starving every year then whats the point of doing anything at all.

We’re smack in the middle of an illegal occupation of a country that was justified by a lie that was originally built on another lie and then neatly wrapped up in fear and patriotism for your digestion. Before you start to even fucking argue just think about it. I’m not stating opinion, it’s not like I can’t prove everything I’ve said. I mean Hell it’s not even hidden! ‘They’ put it right out there and label it conspiracy and that's all it ever amounts to be.

There was no WMDs period. We were told there was proof and that we were in immediate danger. I think more people knew it was shit before it became the mess it has, only we had just been attacked by another monster from another country. The worst disaster in modern American history and it was used as a ploy to get a permanent military presence on the front lines of prime real-estate that just happened to be right at the realization that we are at peak oil. That means it's officially running out folks. Don’t fucking argue with me, there is nothing to argue. This among other atrocities is the world we choose to live in. Honestly I may kill myself soon, I think about it all the time. Not because I hate myself, or I'm depressed or I want the easy way out. No, because sometimes I truly feel like you don't deserve me. And to be honest, I'm sick of this world I didn't create or agree to. I either need it to change soon or I'm out. I didn't choose to be born into this, but I have to take my share of the responsibility for allowing it to be.

It may seem like I’m all over the place talking about my fucked up friends and the Iraq disaster but my friend and I are connected and equally responsible for allowing this to happen. And you, my friend, are just as guilty as us. We, not as Americans, but as a species have allowed our legacy to continue on a collectively destructive path that will no doubt lead to our extinction.

Yeah I think I’m going to talk about everything from Africa to A.I.D.S to Oprah to Oprah AND A.I.D.S in Africa. It’s all fucked up and it needs to stop. I know I will come off as self important to most to say the least, however, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I think we’re all the same. I mean we’re a species, we know that. We know why we live and why we die and how to prevent it from happening unnaturally. We have the power to never allow another of our species to starve and yet it happens every HOUR.

WHY IS THIS ALLOWED TO BE THE WORLD WE SHARE AS A SPECIES?!

It’s just not okay. I don’t understand how anyone can understand what I’m saying and not be as fucking pissed as I am. I feel once you hear this and can process what it means for us all then you are obligated to do whatever it is you can to try and fix it. For however many years there was life without homosapiens, existence waited patiently to be admired and enjoyed by beings capable of understanding the precious, wonderous majesty of it all. Then we arrive, the intended stewards of life, what do we do? We not only unnecessarily put our own specie's extinction at the top of our priorities, but the complete and utter destruction of all life on this planet as well. Even if you don't believe in evolution and you think there is an invisible political figure head dicatating the righteous from the damned, you still can't deny that our species will be responsible for the destruction of this world. The problem with you theists is that you glorify your own extinction by believing that what comes after our physical existence is better, not to mention predetermined. NOT OOOOOKAAAYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know science can't explain everything, BUT COME ON ALREADY! ENOUGH! IT'S OVER! NO MORE! EVOLVE!



What I am going to do is try to tell as many people as I can. From my neighbors to the idiot doctor than prescribed me Jesus and prayer for depression. (Not that it’s that much worse than being prescribed a drug that worsens the depression in over 50% of the people that take it, but come on.) I’m going to talk about that and I’m going to talk about my crack head friends my fucked up family and my fucked up self. I’m going to write it down and add some half ass, lazy fucking sketches call it a graphic novel and self publish it on LULU.COM. I’m going to put my fucked up crazy self out there and risk it all because I think the fate of our species is at stake.

Sometimes I think about my life from my first step to my first night being a male prostitute and I feel like the day I was born it’s like my mom’s vagina was a gun and I was a human bullet fired from it. I think we can all be baby bullets fired from the vaginal barrell. Pussy guns loaded with little crack babies aimed at the injustice that makes our world the way it is, religion. My target is within range and this book is my first strike. Even if you think I’m stupid or sound ridiculous I don’t care. I don’t think the truth can be stopped once it’s realized. My book will be Truth in print. Hopefully enough people will listen and together we can split this fucking world in two with the power of truth. BUY MULTIPLE COPIES OF MY BOOK, the fate of existence is at stake.

I'm not so naive as to not see that our time on this earth is as finite as the resources we are consuming at a progressively faster pace. We will be extinct. Everything that begins also ends or time would have no meaning. Only one thing is timeless and that is legacy. What will our legacy be and why wait to change it? We have the ability to understand it now. I do. Others do. We have the ability to change the only thing that will outlast us. We choose our legacy. I'm choosing mine now. What will your legacy be? Now, right now, lets just live up to our incredible potential. We are capable of so much more.

I think my new motto will be "Evolve or die.". I don't think I can make it any more clear. I'm coming for you, injustice. Your time is up.

-From the forward in the graphic novel American Down: What the fuck happened? by Steven Lawrence Cody Harper, available July 4th 2009.