Jamiemccarthytv

Tag: creativity

  • THAT WHICH CANNOT BE EXPLAINED

    The earth shrugs, and a fault line splits a city in two.

    A rock, smooth from centuries of wind and rain, decides today is the day it falls, crushing a man who never missed Sunday mass.

    A wildfire starts in the bones of a dead tree, the wind carrying its laughter across acres of homes and history.

    Somewhere in the ocean, something ancient rolls over in its sleep, and the tides rise just enough to erase a coastline.

    No explanation. No reason. Just the universe twitching in its sleep.

    And then there are the other things. The ones written in history books with footnotes that lead nowhere.

    The bodies that vanish.

    The wars that start because someone blinked at the wrong time.

    The lone gunman that wasn’t so alone.

    The flag that was still  there, an anti-gravity, star bangled banner still waving. 

    The numbers that don’t add up, the footage that disappears, the coincidences that stack too neatly to be random but too scattered to be anything else.

    We shake our fists at the sky, but the sky never bothers to look down.

    And then there’s this—the real question, the only one that matters to me. 

    Jack.

    Why Jack?

    Not the dealer, not the smug piece of shit pushing poison for profit.

    Not the ones who make money off of death while dressed in white coats.

    Not the fucking grinning death merchants in boardrooms, approving a new batch of slow, quiet execution.

    But Jack?

    Why him? Why that night?

    Why that second, that breath, that choice?

    The tectonic plates shift and ask questions but they don’t answer.

    The fire roars, but it doesn’t explain.

    The rock doesn’t whisper a reason as it falls.

    I wake up every day, expecting the answer to be written on the ceiling, in the cracks in the paint, in the coffee, in the way the wind moves the leaves.

    Anything.

    I don’t even need it to be the full answer. Just a hint. 

    But all I get is silence.

    And silence is the loudest fucking thing in the world.

    But, somehow today I am temporarily at peace, it may not be the answer, but fuck, at least it’s not another question. 

  • The Stoic and The Fraud

    The Stoic and The Fraud

    Lou came into the bar a familiar ghost with a boner,

    moving through the crowd like he was made of smoke and wet dreams.

    Not a man.

    More like an idea of a man,

    stitched together with sinew and sincerity,

    spewing  something sticky,

    something dangerous. Vulnerability, he called it.

    “Strength,” he said, his voice a convincing needle in a junkie’s arm,

    “is the courage to be soft in a world built of knives.

    Expose the meat. Show the gristle.

    Let them in, let them carve you open.”

    The bartender didn’t blink.

    The drunks in the corner didn’t care.

    ButI felt it in my teeth, 

    an electric fence buzz biting my molars. 

    Lou went on, spilling alpha male guts on the floor:

    “Love is the real revolution, man.

    Bleed it out. Don’t be afraid to cry,

    to ache, to feel.”

    I wanted to punch him.

    choke him.

    Vomit on his terrible shoes. 

    Because here’s the thing:

    Lou wasn’t the real deal, he was an untested idea

    with just enough soul and sinew,

    while I was a meat machine

    held together by duct tape and denial.

    I wouldn’t cry,

    not even if they put a gun to my head

    and said, Tell me how you feel.

    I’d laugh,

    Spit in their faces 

    And die. 

    Lou finished his drink,

    some clear shit served neat

    meant for better men,

    and left the bar a false prophet walking out of a burning church.

    I sat there,

    Uneasy in my own skin,

    thinking: What the fuck is wrong with me?

    I can’t do what he does.

    I can’t be soft, I don’t know that trick.  

    Because softness is a risk.

    It’s a scalpel and i’m nothing but scar tissue,

    stitched and glued together with fear and chewed Nicorette. 

    Lou is a goddamn cathedral of flesh and feeling. 

    I’m a busted vending machine, 

    spitting out rusty nails and bitter black coffee.

    So I ordered another club soda and cranberry

    Something that looks real but is no different than what a 2nd grader would order. 

    But, that works for me, it doesn’t talk back.

    Because strength?

    Strength is shutting up,

    locking the door,

    and pretending you’re whole

    even as you crumble.

    And if that’s a lie,

    then fuck it.

    I’ll take the lie.

    Spoken Word Jamie McCarthy

  • Last Man Standing

    I walk into a bar.

    Not a “mixology lounge,”

    not a “craft cocktail experience,”

    just a bar.

    A place where the stools wobble

    and the whiskey doesn’t need a citrus garnish or an approval rating.

    I take a seat.

    The bartender nods.

    He knows.

    I don’t ask for a menu.

    Don’t scan a QR code.

    I say “club soda and cranberry, neat,”

    because I’m here to rehydrate,

    not curate an experience.

    To my left, a guy swirls a drink

    that looks like it was made in a science lab.

    A woman to my right stares at her phone, checking for notifications that will never make her happy.

    The TV plays a fight.

    Real men bleed on the screen.

    No one apologizes for it.

    I exhale.

    “You good?” the bartender asks.

    “Better now.”

    Outside this bar,

    the world is drenched in apologies.

    Men say “sorry” before they speak.

    Before they order a steak.

    Before they hold a door open.

    Before they exist.

    They bend over backwards, twist themselves into apologetic pretzels just to prove they’re not like the bad ones.

    They’re “safe.”

    They’re “allies.”

    They’re “good men.”

    And in doing so, they’ve traded self-respect for a participation trophy in male guilt. And, potentially given the obvious away, these men aren’t trustworthy. Shakespeare would tell you same.  

    I refuse to participate in the virtue game. Maybe it’s better to let them know you are recovering.  Healing the guilt that comes with being masculine. Some would call it barbarism, I call it, science. 

    A woman sits next to me.

    “You alone?” she asks.

    “No, I came with my emotional support group.

    We just broke for snacks.”

    She smirks.

    A real one.

    Not a “haha, I hate you but you’re paying” kind of smirk.

    A flicker of genuine intrigue.

    She orders a drink.

    A real one.

    Not a “pink nonsense in a mason jar.”

    Not a “statement piece for Instagram.”

    I raise an eyebrow.

    “What, no oat milk?”

    She laughs.

    I laugh.

    And for a moment,

    we exist in a world before the noise.

    Before men became house-trained.

    Before attraction was a liability.

    Before everything we said

    needed a disclaimer.

    A world where men led,

    women challenged,

    and neither needed a corporate webinar to explain the difference.

    Outside, the world keeps spinning.

    The New Age Man is still waiting

    for permission to be masculine.

    The Diversity Committee is still

    conducting witch trials in the break room. And the Virtue Hustlers are still selling rebellion at a markup.

    Last man standing

    But me?

    I finish my drink,

    tip my bartender,

    and walk out into the night,

    unapologetic.

  • Well Preserved for the Funeral Home

    Most people will die with their bodies in damn good shape.
    Neatly kept, clean, like they were waiting for the mortician all along.
    A few crow’s feet, maybe a little sag around the chin,
    but overall—good enough for the open casket.

    The funeral director will nod,
    “Looks just like them,” they’ll say.
    As if that’s some kind of fucking achievement.

    But then there’s us—
    The ones who didn’t treat life like a goddamn waiting room.
    We come in with screws in our bones, plates in our heads,
    scars running across our skin like crude roadmaps.
    We come in with cigarette burns, busted knuckles,
    wrinkles earned in back alleys, in bars, in love, in wars in octagon of life
    (physical, emotional, financial—pick your poison).

    Our hands don’t look soft because they weren’t.
    Our ribs might have been cracked, our teeth chipped,
    and our hearts—
    well, our hearts certainly don’t come in mint condition.

    No embalmer can fix what life did to us.
    No makeup can paint over the shit we’ve been through.
    They might try to sew up the damage,
    smooth out the years,
    but some things don’t hide.

    And maybe that’s the point.
    Maybe it’s better to arrive at the end,
    not looking like a goddamn mannequin,
    but like someone who actually lived.

  • Where I Buried the Brine and the Bruises

    Born pickled
    a bundle of brine,
    spit out with the pigs,
    stepped on, tossed aside,
    buried under the muddy rugs—
    the carpet chorus muffled,
    rolled up and stained with the slap of hands,
    wet dirt naming me sinner,
    naming me fool,
    while the silence screamed back.

    Junk on my hands
    but my fists stayed open—
    bound wrists,
    tight-rope veins walking the thin edge of despair,
    slippery slopes greased by whispers,
    shadows hoarding truths
    behind my spine.

    I dreamed of the bottom of the bag—
    hiding in burlap shadows,
    draped over my shoulder,
    the sack of sorrow dragged uphill.
    The sun was a dagger,
    its glare split my skull,
    its fire pushed me to the peak
    where the earth yawned open.

    And I fell.

    Down through the dirt,
    down to the roots
    that never asked forgiveness,
    that held the mud and called it life.

    I planted my name there,
    deep in the soil.
    The weeds forgave me.

    I sprouted new hands,
    climbed the hill backward—
    not to escape
    but to meet the sunrise
    and the bruised boy
    I’d left behind.

    I held his face in my palms.
    I said, “We are here now.”
    And he disappeared
    into the light.

  • Hellfire in the Golden State

    Hellfire in the Golden State

    The state is burning again, and this time, it’s not just the trees. No, my friend, California has slipped its tenuous grasp on sanity, plunged headfirst into a Dantean nightmare with flames licking at the edges of every gilded promise. The land of milk and honey is now a charred wasteland of smog-choked skies and people stumbling through ash like extras in a post-apocalyptic snuff film.

    I pretend to light a cigarette—an act of rebellion or stupidity, depending on your perspective— starring at the horizon. The sun was a malevolent orange orb, veiled in toxic haze, casting a sickly glow over the melting suburbs. Somewhere in the hills, tech billionaires were watching their mansions turn to soot while clutching useless NFTs like talismans against the inferno. You could almost hear them scream, “Alexa, stop the fire!”

    Noah Berger/AP Photo

    This is California, where dreams are sold on credit and reality comes with a steep interest rate. A state that promises paradise but delivers apocalypse on demand. The fires, they say, are “natural.” A cleansing force, a rebalancing of ecosystems disrupted by decades of greed-fueled sprawl. But there’s nothing natural about it. Not when every acre of forest carries the weight of broken treaties and corporate negligence, not when every scorched town is a monument to the hollow promises of progress.

    The politicians, of course, are useless. Flaccid marionettes jerking off to the rhythm of kick drum, campaign dollars thudding into their off shore accounts, offering “thoughts and prayers” while fiddling with climate policies designed to appease both Greenpeace and ExxonMobil. It’s a delicate dance of double-speak and outright cowardice, and it would almost be funny if it weren’t so goddamned tragic.

    And the people? Christ, the people. Desperate and dazed, fleeing in Teslas with their organic soy candles and artisan kombucha tucked under their arms. Some fight the flames with garden hoses, others sit in traffic and weep, their cars packed with photo albums, pets, and the eerie realization that nothing they own is worth saving.

    The sky above turns darker, almost biblical, and the smell of burning pine mixed with the acrid stench of melted plastic and singed dreams. Beautiful in a grotesque way, like watching a great empire crumble under the weight of its own hubris.

    California will rise from this, of course. It always does. But what it rises into—that’s the real story. A phoenix or a chimera? A shining beacon of resilience or a festering hub of denial? Place your bets, folks, because the odds are as volatile as the stock market when the grid goes down.

    As for me, I’ll keep chomping Nicorette and documenting, because someone needs to remember this madness. Someone needs to remind the survivors that the fires didn’t start in the forests—they started in our heads, in our hearts, in the searing heat of human ambition unchecked.

    This is not the end of California. But it might be the beginning of something worse.

  • Silence is the killer when you look the other way. (How virtuous)

    the newsreaders smirk behind the desk,

    their teeth polished white,

    their words unpolished and dull.

    the world’s on fire,

    but no one wants to say where the match came from.

    they shuffle papers,

    nod solemnly at the camera,

    and move on.

    next story.

    young girls with broken eyes walk streets that don’t care for them,

    their stories—

    torn, gutted, and stitched with silence.

    a thousand screams swallowed by a fear

    greater than justice,

    greater than truth—

    the fear of being called a name.

    racist. islamophobe.

    Or phrases like Resident Alien.

    they weigh heavier than the suffering of the small,

    the forgotten,

    the torn apart.

    the rapists walk free because the culture has grown soft,

    too soft to call evil by its name.

    and isn’t that convenient?

    for them, I mean.

    they know the game.

    play your cards right—

    and the good people will look the other way.

    good people.

    they don’t want to seem bad,

    don’t want to upset the order,

    don’t want to be labeled.

    better to let the girl bleed in a corner

    than risk being impolite.

    virtue signaling is the new religion.

    you wave the right flag,

    tweet the right slogan,

    kneel at the right altar—

    and you’re forgiven.

    it doesn’t matter what’s behind it:

    indifference,

    ignorance,

    or worse.

    the mask is enough.

    but what about the girls?

    the ones they pretend to care about?

    their bodies are battlegrounds

    for a war no one wants to admit is happening.

    the press won’t write it,

    the cops won’t fight it,

    and the priests of tolerance preach

    their sermons of silence.

    it’s a goddamn joke.

    we scream about progress,

    about justice,

    but only in the ways that won’t cost us anything.

    and the victims pile up in the shadows.

    this world isn’t just ass-backwards—

    it’s in full throttle reverse

    marching proudly backwards into oblivion

    while the banners of virtue flap overhead.

    but you can’t eat banners.

    you can’t heal wounds with hashtags.

    and you sure as hell can’t hide the blood forever.

    eventually,

    the truth crawls out of the dark.

    it always does.

    the question is:

    will anyone be left to give a damn when it does?

    (Remember when the U.K stood for something?)

  • The Beast in Seat 23A

    35,000 ft up, 42 drinks down.

    Let me set the stage: an airplane, five hours from Detroit to Los Angeles. A goddamn tin can full of sleep-deprived zombies and corporate swine, all clutching their pretzels and plastic cups like sacred relics. And me—drenched in sweat, reeking of stale, cheap scotch, tearing through little airline bottles like a lunatic on death row.

    This wasn’t just drinking. No, this was a high-octane bender at 35,000 feet—a desperate attempt to defy the laws of physics and sanity. By hour three, the flight attendants were avoiding eye contact. By hour four, I was mumbling incoherent nonsense about the death of civility in America and demanding more ice. By the time we landed at LAX, I was less of a man and more of a biological weapon—a one-man disaster staggering off the plane with murder in my eyes and a thirst that could drown a small village.

    Straight to the airport bar. The bartender looked at me like I’d just crawled out of the La Brea Tar Pits, but I waved a twenty at him and demanded a double. This was the routine, the sacred ritual: land, drink, repeat. The cities changed, the bars changed, but the mission was always the same—annihilation, pure and simple.

    It wasn’t about fun. It wasn’t even about escape. It was about the necessary obliteration of self. The world was a strange, indifferent circus, and the only way to survive was to light yourself on fire and hope the flames kept the demons at bay.

    But here’s the thing: they never stayed gone for long. Sobriety didn’t come to me as some grand revelation—no white light, no epiphany. It came because one day, the demons won. They dragged me down into a pit so deep and dark that even Jack Daniels couldn’t light the way out. But even in my discombobulated subconscious, I knew there was another Jack far more important in my near future. And a Samantha, whose birth opened my eyes to real miracles and shone a spotlight on the skull and crossbones of every bottle, glowing like Las Vegas from space.

    Now, 24 years later, I’m sober. Clean. A goddamn Boy Scout. But I’m not stupid—I know the beast is still out there, pacing in the shadows, waiting for me to slip. And I won’t. Not now. Not ever. Even with the loss of my son Jack, the thought of diving back into the bottle just to escape that pain is as repulsive, grotesque, and cowardly as the former lush I used to be.

    If someone put a gun to my head and told me to drink, I’d laugh. I’d tell them to shoot, because a bullet is quick, but one drink? That’s a slow, deliberate execution—a drawn-out death sentence dressed up as a good time.

    Sobriety isn’t a victory parade. It’s a knife fight in a phone booth. But I’ll take that over waking up in an airport bathroom, trying to piece together what’s left of my soul.

    This isn’t an ode to sobriety, where I tear a rotator cuff giving myself a proverbial pat on the back. It’s an extended middle finger to the beast that once ruled my head. And if that’s not worth raising a glass of sparkling water to, I don’t know what is.

  • Tightrope Act 101 

    I’ve spent my life on a tightrope,

    no safety net, no audience,

    just a dizzying abyss waiting below.

    The extremes tug at my ankles like rabid dogs—

    one side screaming “Perfection!”

    while the other whispers,

    “Why bother?”

    It’s not balance I seek, not really.

    Balance is for the zen masters,

    the kale-eating crowd with too much free time.

    No, I’m just trying not to fall,

    to not let gravity win.

    One misstep,

    and I’m back to licking the dirt.

    I sway between hunger and apathy,

    between the bottle and the book,

    between the lover who stays

    and the one who only pretends to.

    The rope wobbles like my convictions,

    weak promises I make

    at 2 a.m. and break by dawn.

    Some mornings, the rope feels too tight,

    cutting into my feet and bleeding regret.

    Other times, it’s slack,

    a lazy threat, daring me to jump.

    But I keep walking,

    not because I’m brave,

    but because standing still

    feels worse than the fall.

    And maybe that’s the trick.

    It’s not about balance;

    it’s about motion,

    the forward stumble,

    the glorious, awkward shuffle

    that keeps me alive. 

    Subconscious Voice: (what a fucking bore)

  • Gratitude

    Gratitude

    Gratitude isn’t a hymn or a handshake. It’s a bruise you press to remember you survived. A quiet mutter to the chaos for sparing you—this time. It’s outliving a child but remembering the magical brilliance he brought you in just 19 years.

    It’s not for the gods, the gurus, or the grifters. They’ve taken enough. Gratitude lives in the cracked things: the last drink in the bottle, the skulled wedge that hits the flag at 100mph and drops in the hole, the night that didn’t kill you.

    Keep it small. Keep it sharp. Fold it in your pocket like a cheap map out of hell. And remember, you’ve been beaten but not defeated.