Jamiemccarthytv

Author: Jamie McCarthy

  • The High Isn’t Coming

    god is the new obedience.

    the rest of us? just junkies chasing the first high. eyes glazed, hands outstretched for the next hit of belonging. the tribe, the party, the movement—they offer you a fix, say you’re one of them now, part of something bigger. they sell you purpose in a pill, a flag to wrap around your shoulders like a noose disguised as a security blanket. but here’s the thing—just like the junk dealer’s push, it’s all laced with something lethal. the high doesn’t last. it never does. you wake up sick, needing more. always needing more. and the cold truth is, the club you think you’re part of? it doesn’t exist—not the way they sold it to you.

    talking heads and politicians, like junk peddlers, know the game. they cut it just right, enough to keep you hooked, just shy of dead—or at least, that was the plan. but the bodies are stacking up. 279 die every day from counterfeit killers. more dead recruits than Vietnam, and these aren’t soldiers, just citizens swallowing the lie. it’s all poison. they toss you a pill, tell you to vote, tell you it matters. but it’s counterfeit, a placebo laced with sweet nothings. you down it, even though it chokes you every time, feel good for a minute, like you’ve made a difference, like you’re part of something righteous. but what’s in that pill? more poison. just another way to keep you tethered to a system that doesn’t give a shit if you live or die. hell, they’d prefer you sick, obedient, just healthy enough to show up and follow orders.

    and they need you to chase it again—the high of belonging, the sweet lie that you’re on the “right side.” but there is no side. it’s grey. the world is grey, the people are grey. the skies are always grey, the streets paved in grey since day one. I’ve walked down that avenue, eyed grey faces lost in the grey mundane of their everyday. everything’s muted, colorless, lifeless—just the way they want it. they need you blind, seeing in black and white, picking one of two flavors, because they need you to believe you have choice. But you’re just another number on that team jersey they sold you at the concession stand. they know you’re never actually going to be a real player on the squad. that’s why the numbers are grey—just bright enough to keep you loyal and coming back for more counterfeit salvation.

    i’m done with their game. i’m done swallowing their pills. i’ll walk through the grey, hands dirty, eyes wide open, because that’s where the truth is. the rest of them? let ‘em keep chasing that first high, keep lining up for another spoonful of sweetened bullshit. i prefer the chaos, the mess. i want the real thing, the uncut stuff—bitter and sweet, raw and true. not the garbage they keep the masses hooked on.

    it’s all an illusion, this belonging. a drug they sell to keep you numb, keep you thinking you’re alive, when really, you’re just another junkie in line, waiting for your next fix. the question is, when do you wake up and realize—the high isn’t coming?

  • Uncivil Savages

    Uncivil Savages

     

    Here we are, a nation of uncivil savages.  

    Bumping into walls, knocking over the furniture, 

    blind to the fact that the room we’re in 

    isn’t even ours. 

     

    Identity? What a joke. 

    It’s a mess of recycled sound bites and half-truths, 

    spun out like the web of a spider high on bad dope. 

    George Orwell’s laughing his ass off in the back, 

    maybe sipping whiskey, shaking his head. 

     

    It’s not the left. It’s not the right. 

    It’s just jabs and crosses, a nice little show. 

    The real damage, the real kill, 

    comes with the headkick you never see, 

    brought to you by your friendly neighborhood 

    Weapons of Mass Distraction.

     Flying elephants, underground donkeys— 

    who gives a damn? 

    We’re all shopping at the same supersized mall 

    jacked up on steroids, neon lights buzzing overhead, 

    propaganda posters hanging like cheap art 

    next to racks of aborted dreams. 

     And what are we doing? 

    800 million eyes, glued to glowing screens, 

    watching, waiting, scrolling past the snakes 

    slithering under the walls. 

     They’re coming for the kids first, 

    turning them into slaves. 

    Then they’ll poison the rest of us, 

    and we’ll call it anxiety, 

    pop a pill and go back to pretending 

    we’re free.

    So tell me—is this what freedom looks like?

  • My 5 and your 5.

    Somewhere uncomfortable

    I’m always five minutes late. Doesn’t matter if it’s therapy, a meeting, or a funeral—hell, I know for a fact i’ll be late to my own, if I even show up at all.

    I’ve been seeing this shrink for a while now. Good guy. Listens well, scribbles occasionally, throws a “hmm” out like he’s adding salt to a shitty dish his wife whipped up. So, one day, after the usual “you’re late again” look, he finally asks me, “James, why are you always five minutes late? No matter what time we set, it’s always the same.”

    I shrug, staring at his overly polished desk, and say, “Well, Doc, best as I can figure, my five minutes and your five minutes just aren’t the same.”

    He raises an eyebrow like I’m onto something. Like I’ve finally cracked the code to the universe of perpetual tardiness. So, I keep going.

    “See, your five minutes, it’s precise. Probably feels like 300 seconds ticking away, one, two, three. But mine? Mine could be five seconds, or five hours. I don’t feel the difference.”

    I could tell he wanted to laugh but was trying hard to remain the professional. He adjusts his glasses, the kind of move therapists do when they’re buying time to decide if they should diagnose you or just let it slide.

    “Maybe it’s because you taught me to live in the moment, Doc. You ever think about that? Maybe I’m just so focused on the now that time… bends. It warps around me like some kind of slow-motion bullet in a movie. Except, instead of dodging it, I’m just late.”

  • Ghosts in a cheap room

    Ghosts in a cheap room


    my old man was tough but I wouldn’t call him a bastard,
    rough hands, stentorian voice,
    but it was those eyes, they were odd in a beautiful yet chilling way , the way he’d stare right
    through me, like he already knew the end.
    he checked out early, left me holding the bag—
    a kid too young to know the game was rigged.
    I got older, meaner, learned to drink it down,
    fill the empty spaces with smoke and bad decisions,
    but nothing ever took root, just ashes in a cheap ashtray.
    then my boy, Jack
    all bright-eyed, all promise and fire, went cold at nineteen.
    like he was never even here.
    one day laughing, the next day gone,
    As if the most beautiful ghost ever decided to punch my gut and keep walking.
    so now it’s just me, an old man stuck between
    some past that’s long dead and a future that’s already given up.
    they talk about the Father, the Son, and some Holy Ghost—
    but what do they know about ghosts?
    all I got are dead men’s whispers
    and shadows that follow me from room to room.
    maybe I’m the ghost now,
    some sober, leftover thing, wandering between bad memories and worse nights,
    waiting for that final bell to ring me out.
    but until then, I’ll keep dreaming of drinking
    the cheap whiskey that almost drown me,
    chewing the lousy cigarettes I cannot light
    and telling those ghosts to fuck off—
    because it’s all just a bad joke , a hit—
    and I am the punchline.

  • Lessons from the titans.

    Yo, I’m suffering. “Good” “stay hard, motherfuckers”

    Mental Toughness and Creativity: Lessons from the Titans

    Ah, creativity. A fickle mistress, a deceptive muse, a relentless tormentor. It demands from us everything and offers nothing but suffering in return. Yet, we plunge into its chaotic embrace, knowing full well that true brilliance is born from the depths of our agony. To understand this dance with madness, one must look to the hardened warriors of resilience: David Goggins, Jocko Willink, and the indefatigable Rocky Balboa. Imagine them not as athletes or soldiers but as artists, writers, filmmakers, and musicians. Their capacity to endure, to dig deep and savor the pain, is the crucible of their greatness.

    David Goggins, a man forged in the fires of suffering, would approach creativity as he does his ultramarathons and SEAL training. His canvas is the battlefield of his mind, his brushstrokes the relentless pursuit of the impossible. Goggins would tell us that creativity is not a gift, but a grind. It is the result of thousands of hours spent honing a craft, of pushing past the point of exhaustion, of embracing the suck. His mantra, “Stay Hard,” would become the battle cry of the artist willing to bleed for their vision. Goggins teaches us that to create is to suffer, and to suffer well is to create something truly extraordinary.

    Then there’s Jocko Willink, the stoic warrior of discipline. For him, creativity is a war, a series of battles fought in the trenches of self-doubt and procrastination. Jocko’s advice is simple: get up early, show up, and do the work. He would see the blank page, the empty canvas, the silent instrument as an adversary to be conquered with relentless discipline. “Discipline equals freedom,” he preaches, and in the realm of creativity, this means mastering the basics, committing to a schedule, and attacking the process with military precision. Jocko would remind us that every masterpiece is built on a foundation of mundane, repetitive tasks executed with unwavering focus.

    And then we have Rocky Balboa, the quintessential underdog. Rocky’s story is one of grit, heart, and the indomitable human spirit. As an artist, Rocky would teach us the value of perseverance in the face of relentless failure. He would stumble, fall, and get back up, each time with a little more wisdom, a little more fire in his belly. Rocky’s motto, “It ain’t about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward,” is a testament to the resilience required in the creative journey. His work would be raw, unpolished, but bursting with authenticity and soul. Rocky shows us that the beauty of art lies not in perfection but in the relentless pursuit of one’s passion, despite the odds.

    In the end, creativity is not a serene stroll through the park but a grueling marathon, a bloody battle, a tenacious climb up an unforgiving mountain. It’s about embracing the pain, finding joy in the struggle, and knowing that every ounce of suffering is a testament to the work we’ve put in. Goggins, Willink, and Balboa each illuminate a path through this wilderness, showing us that the true artist, the true creator, is one who revels in the suffering, who finds strength in the darkness, and who emerges, bloodied but unbowed, with a masterpiece in hand. For in the crucible of our torment, we find the purest expression of our creative selves.

  • TikTok killed Hollywood

    TikTok killed Hollywood, and I watched it die,
    in a dim-lit bar on the 3rd street promenade
    where ghosts from the golden age
    whispered eulogies into cheap whiskey glasses
    that shattered just as the silver screen cracked,
    like brittle, glass bones under the weight of 30 frames….
    and in one second, just like that, there were filters that washed away the grit.
    I saw the stars fade,
    one by one,
    replaced by brats in their bedrooms,
    dancing to bullshit algorithm’s,
    lined up one after the other to join the pixelated parade of fleeting faces.
    there were no more dream factories,
    only copycat hackers of distraction,
    likes and follows replacements for a deflated currency,
    every scroll, heroine at the end of a billion thumb prints
    the old guard, lost in digital dust,
    while new idols born without a single talent
    pushed trends of bite-sized dopamine
    compressing all creativity into an offensive nothingness
    Hollywood and its lost souls echoed the silence of unread scripts,
    rejected Oscar winning directors
    and queers being canceled for being queer
    blown away by the winds of virality.
    the city’s neon lights flickered,
    as if to signal the end of an era,
    a final curtain call for the grand illusion,
    now reduced to a series of swipes.
    so here’s to you, TikTok,
    the swift assassin,
    the desensitized dream killer, you paralyzed and buried a behemoth,
    leaving us to mourn the magic,
    lost in the endless scroll.

    The takeover

  • Reoccurring Dream on Jupiter Beach

    The dream hits like a cheap shot after last call, every night, same damn thing. There he is, the poor bastard, standing on the edge of nothing, staring at the horizon where the sea meets the sky. It’s calm, too calm, like the silence before a bar fight. And then, out of nowhere, it comes—a tidal wave a mile high, a wall of watery doom.

    This isn’t some Hollywood disaster flick. No, this wave is real, raw, unfiltered. It rises with the fury of every unpaid bill, every broken promise, every lonely night spent in the bottom of a bottle. It’s the weight of existence, the crushing force of life’s relentless bullshit.

    The man, he doesn’t run. There’s no point. He stands there, rooted to the spot, like a drunk pinned by a cop’s flashlight. He knows what’s coming, knows he can’t escape it. It’s not about courage; it’s about acceptance. He’s staring down the barrel of inevitability, eyes wide open, heart pounding like a bum’s fist on a midnight diner counter.

    The wave looms, casting a shadow that swallows the sun. It roars, the sound of a million lost dreams and forgotten loves. It’s beautiful, in a way, this monstrous, all-consuming force. There’s a terrible beauty in surrender, in the recognition that fighting is futile. The wave crashes, and for a moment, everything is chaos, a swirling, suffocating mess of saltwater and despair.

    But then, there’s a strange peace. The man is engulfed, yes, but in that drowning, there’s release. No more running, no more struggling. Just the cold embrace of the inevitable. It’s over, and in the end, maybe that’s all anyone can hope for—a moment of clarity in the madness, a brief respite in the endless tide of life’s absurdity.

    Life’s a wave, kids. You can’t outrun it. You just stand there, take the hit, and hope to hell you find some meaning in the drowning.

  • Posthumously Me

    I spent nights of violence

    wrestling with demons,

    scribbling truths on napkins,

    each word a battle

    lost and won.

    The world slept

    my mind never woke

    but always awake

    the weight of existence and the absurdity of it all gave me that heavy chest

    But they never noticed,

    never cared,

    while I was here.

    I was just another voice in the din,

    a face in the crowd, but now that I’m gone,

    they sing my praises,

    laud my genius,

    hold my words like sacred relics.

    Dissect my verses, analyze my syntax,

    and claim to know the depths of my soul.

    Teach my pain in classrooms,

    quote my anguish at parties,

    a chorus of misunderstanding.

    Totally mistaking the grit and the grime,

    and the blood on the page as something I didn’t love, because it couldn’t hurt me.

    For fuck’s sake, I spent my days chasing shadows,

    grappling with the mundane,

    tied to the grindstone

    a cigarette in hand and the bottle of my solace close to empty.

    And the world oblivious and indifferent to their misinformed applause.

    Maybe the despair wasn’t so quiet, I did write with the ink of my own blood

    Screamy paper and deaf tone dreams, was all it was

    I never heard them just as they never saw me

    It’s only when I was gone, the chair was empty,

    and the light had faded,

    they came to notice me

    the brilliance in the mess,

    the truth in the madness.

    Pouring over my every word

    like holy scripture,

    seeking meaning in the chaos.

    They say my name with an unfamiliar reverence

    toast to my genius and tortured soul.

    They find beauty in the pain,

    wisdom in my godawful ramblings,

    calling me a prophet of the damned, a seer of the sordid.

    Holy fuck, are they misguided.

    It’s the cruel joke God plays on us

    for it’s not until the silence settles, and dust on the pen gets blown through the paper with the echoes of my last breath, they finally hear it.

    But they only see the surface, at best

    the pretty lies they tell themselves,

    and wrap my chaos in neat little boxes,

    polish the rough edges,

    making me a saint

    when I was always a sinner at best.

    And there it is,

    clear as a living day,

    they praise me but get it all wrong.

    They don’t know the man behind the prose

    the heart that was black and blue

    or the life that bled into those lines.

    They didn’t know me then and they cannot know me now, son.

    In death, I am god

    but not in the way that matters.

    They see the legend,

    but miss a man stumbling through the dark,

    trying to make sense of nonsense,

    searching for a spark in the ashes

    while laughing his ass off the entire ride.

  • Anything goes in Wayne County

    Anything goes in Wayne County

    ◦ Wayne County Circuit Court, Detroit, Michigan.

    If a criminal wants to commit a crime and get away with it, Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit is the place to be. Take Aron Miranda, a 24-year-old who sold counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl, resulting in the death of a Birmingham boy. Miranda was also caught with 11 illegal firearms, cocaine, fentanyl, and a mass of pills he sold mainly through Snapchat.

    Miranda’s arrest was made by Birmingham police since the victim was from Oakland County—Detroit police were not involved. Birmingham handed Miranda over with all the evidence needed for a conviction. Yet, in a predictable turn, Wayne County dropped the ball. Despite the overwhelming evidence and serious charges, Miranda received a minor personal bond and no tether. The expectation that he would voluntarily return for his court date was naive, given his criminal background.

    Now, Miranda is a fugitive. Some believe he fled the country; others think he’s still in Detroit, continuing his criminal activities. There’s little confidence in Wayne County’s efforts to apprehend him. If you’re a criminal looking for a safe haven, Detroit seems ideal. You can sell drugs, kill people, and even if caught, walk away scot-free.

    In a city where law enforcement appears ineffective, what’s stopping criminals from flocking here? In Detroit, it seems, the line between criminal and free citizen is blurred by a justice system that fails to enforce the law.

    You don’t have to have much of an imagination to envision how vigilante’s are born……

  • Resilience

    Resilience

    I was just a piece of paper on a desk,

    blank and waiting for the ink-scars to dry

    A gust knocked me off, I spiraled, fell,

    landed on a Bukowski poem and stories of office kissing chaos.

    The cleaning crew even dumped us,

    Inside recycling bins we met The Rum Diary,

    Hunter’s ghosts mixed with mine.

    In the back of a truck,

    we joined a thousand paper lives,

    half-written notes, guilty pleasure receipts,

    paper planes from Dublin to Detroit.

    Felt the muscle of existence,

    The grit, grind and weight of every story,

    whipping fear into submission.

    The journey from umbilical cord

    to last breath.

    Transforming tears and touch, and every spill of coffee into a worn and tarnished work of art, never quite complete.

    In every recycled pile of randomness

    we found connection,

    Bukowski’s brutal honesty,

    Hunter’s wild search for meaning,

    mundane records, whimsical flights,

    proof we were here.

    Pieces of a puzzle called, resilience.

    To become resilient is to embrace the ride,

    see beyond the immediate storm,

    reflect on the scars and whispers of wisdom.

    To find out enlightenment is a space between fragility and strength

    No more than a ball cap, flipped and worn.

    Mental callus doesn’t come in a day.

    It’s born from trials, falls, and the muddled reflections in midnight whiskey.

    Staggering but eventually standing firm amid life’s gusts,

    knowing each fall is a rise, a rebirth.

    Among the papers, I learned

    the art of turning fragility into armor.

    Shaping the journey of imperfection and somehow arriving totally unfazed.

    Happy I ignored the doubters from 30 years ago that are now all dead.

    Resilience—

    is becoming

    Evolving from a drifting scrap into a grounded whole.

    Through time, experience, reflection,

    we find our place, our strength, yes. our resilience.