Jamiemccarthytv

Tag: #ungrateful #woke

  • MANUAL FOR SPOTTING A KNIFE

    By Jamie, not Cormac, McCarthy

    Manual for Spotting the Knife

    There’s enough rot in a regular person
    to fuel a thousand comment sections
    and still have leftovers for Sunday.

    You don’t need monsters.
    You just need people
    with slogans
    and something to protect.

    The loudest about mercy
    keep their hands clean
    by pointing.

    The loudest about love
    need an audience
    or it spoils.

    The loudest about peace
    sleep with one eye open
    and a thumb on the trigger
    they swear they don’t own.

    God-talkers rent God.
    They don’t live with Him.
    Peace-talkers rehearse it
    like a line they keep forgetting.
    Love-talkers mean approval
    and charge interest.

    Watch the ones with microphones.
    Watch the ones with certainty.
    Watch the ones who underline books
    but never bleed on the page.

    Watch the ones who romanticize hunger
    or mock it—
    both are tourists.

    Watch the fast clappers.
    They clap to hear themselves.

    Watch the ones who police language—
    they’re terrified
    something feral might get loose
    and name them.

    Watch the ones who need crowds.
    Alone, they evaporate.

    The average man isn’t harmless.
    The average woman isn’t gentle.
    Their love wants a receipt.
    Their love wants witnesses.
    Their love wants to be normal
    so it doesn’t have to be brave.

    And here’s the part nobody says out loud:

    There’s brilliance in their resentment.
    A precision.
    A teamwork.
    A choreography.

    They can’t stand silence
    because silence asks questions.
    They can’t stand solitude
    because it doesn’t applaud.

    They can’t make anything
    that didn’t already exist,
    so when they fail
    they blame the room,
    the time,
    the culture,
    the weather,
    you.

    They don’t understand art
    because art doesn’t ask permission.
    They don’t understand love
    because love doesn’t negotiate.

    So they’ll tell you
    you’re doing it wrong.
    That your grief is excessive.
    That your joy is suspicious.
    That your freedom is offensive.

    Then they’ll come for you
    not messy,
    not emotional—
    but clean.

    Their hatred is efficient.
    It shines.
    It passes inspections.
    It wears credentials.

    It doesn’t rage.zwzwq
    It executes.

    And that—
    that is the only masterpiece
    most of them will ever finish.

  • The Fine Print on Freedom

    Don’t Hang Your Joy on a Ballot Box

    never let the outcome of an election
    decide your whiskey pour or your morning scowl.
    one single vote’s a pebble in a canyon –
    we toss it down, watch it fall,
    hear no echo.

    they told us about checks and balances,
    a seesaw for suits
    to keep the beast tame,
    but some checks
    they roll overseas,
    a deposit here, a hand there,
    tucked safe and sound in the Alps,
    in the vaults with no names.

    meanwhile, the talking heads tell you
    to pick a side, pick a tribe,
    pick a face from a screen,
    and let it roll you like a cheap cigarette.

    so don’t get all unhinged if your horse didn’t come in,
    don’t hang your happiness
    on a bought-and-sold dream.

  • The Green Tablet

    The green tablet.

    All my life I stumbled, staggered like a drunk at closing time, reaching for something, anything. I’d been told to find meaning in the sermons of men, the wisdom of books, the clink of coins in a beggar’s cup

    it was all more of a junkie’s dream. The kind of thing you’d find slipped in between the folds of the Interzone, tucked inside the sweaty palm of some two-bit dealer with half his face gone, nodding off in the alley. I wasn’t looking for it, not really. But it found me. They always find you.

    Years spent in the static haze, the off-channel white noise of existence. I moved through life like a virus spreads—covert, unnoticed, but always present, always creeping. Everything felt slippery, synthetic. The streets, the people. All part of a bad signal, fuzzing in and out of view. I tried to decode it, cracked open veins and heads alike, trying to read the messages in the blood and the circuitry. It all led nowhere. Circling the drain.

    Then the tablet. Green. The color of rot, the color of new life. One third of the tricolor draped along the walls of the long, hollow corridor of time, reverberating with the somber hymns of Irish proverbs, and maybe, just maybe, carrying enough luck to turn pessimism into hope. Sort of like a coin toss, only with a tablet. I didn’t so much find it, it found me, pressed itself into my hand, throbbing like some living thing. Organic. Synthetic. All of the above. I swallowed it without thinking.

    And then the world folded in on itself, a collapsing wave. Time ceased to have meaning, space unraveled into dimensions I didn’t believe  existed—places where gravity was just another bad trip, a suggestion instead of a rule. The walls of the room bent, melted, reformed. Faces flickered, sliding in and out of their skulls. Bureaucrats with insect eyes and needle fingers. All the usual suspects.

    The tablet wasn’t knowledge. It was beyond knowledge. It was access, a key to a hidden layer of reality, a frequency just out of reach unless you knew where to tune the vibrations. And there it was—the whole system laid bare. The machinery behind the facade. The puppet strings of control, the invisible hands pulling us all in circles.

    The thing I’d been looking for in gutters and bars, in the eyes of strangers and the bottom of empty bottles. Turns out, it was the very thing that made me stop searching.

    I don’t remember what was written on it. Maybe there was nothing. Maybe it was just the act of finding it that mattered. That green tablet wasn’t salvation, not in the way they sell it in churches or schools. It was just a reminder that the world, the one I had spent years fighting, didn’t give a damn. It never would. And finally, I no longer needed it. 

    I wasn’t stumbling anymore. My new found saunter suggested confidence, not arrogance—just the ease of a man who knew the system and could slip through its cracks unnoticed, the few eyes that caught me probably green with envy. But I always looked past them, through their lost souls, and left a simple inscription on their softened brains…

    “You want out? There is no out.’”

  • 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?

  • 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.

  • Reflections from the Future: A Retrospective on 2015-2025

    As we peer through the rear-view mirror at the years 2015-2025, the contours of that tumultuous era appear both jagged and instructive. With the clarity that only hindsight affords, we now ask ourselves: was this the period that presaged the demise of the West, or was it merely a tempest in the teapot of history?

    The decade began with a global landscape pockmarked by crises. Political upheaval, the resurgence of nationalism, and a pandemic that rattled the very foundations of societal norms—these were but a few of the seismic events that defined the period. The United States, that erstwhile beacon of democracy and economic prowess, found itself grappling with internal schisms as deep and abrasive as any since the Civil War.

    It was a period characterized by the rise of populism, where figures like Donald Trump in the United States and other nationalist leaders across Europe commandeered the public discourse. They tapped into a wellspring of discontent that had festered in the underbelly of globalization’s promises, harnessing the fears and frustrations of those who felt left behind by a rapidly changing world.

    Yet, as is often the case, the pendulum of public opinion swung with vigorous unpredictability. The West’s obituarists, who in their haste had drafted somber epilogues, perhaps underestimated the resilience of democratic institutions and the liberal order. Despite the cacophony of crises, the core structures held firm, battered yet unbroken.

    The mid-twenties were a testament to the tenacity of these systems. Despite burgeoning cries that the liberal model had run its course, there emerged a renewed commitment to the principles of freedom, equality, and justice. This was not a smooth recalibration; it was contentious, often messy, and invariably incomplete. Yet, it was a definitive rebuff to those who predicted a rapid descent into irrelevance for Western democracies.

    What then of the extreme divisiveness that marked those years? It is here that we glean perhaps the most poignant lesson. The divisiveness was, in no small measure, fueled by the echo chambers of digital media—platforms that often amplified the most extreme voices to the detriment of nuanced discourse. The societal polarization this engendered was palpable, reaching a crescendo in the early 2020s. Although, the greatest achievement that seemed to bring the country and the west a touch closer was the declaration of Fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction in late 2024. Before the end of 2025 the military had demolished every Cartel and their annexes, and all who were caught selling counterfeit pills laced with the poison were sentenced to death and that was the end of what took more lives than 911, the pandemic, or any war since World War 2. And, thus far, no new cartels have been able to resurrect themselves.

    Now, decades later, we appreciate the cyclical nature of history. The fissures that seemed so insurmountable have, in many respects, been bridged by a subsequent generation that views the ideological battles of their forebears with a mixture of bewilderment and instructive caution.

    In retrospect, the decade from 2015 to 2025 was neither the nadir of the West nor an era of unmitigated calamity. It was a crucible moment, one that tested the mettle of institutions and the spirit of societies. The lessons gleaned from those years have informed newer, more adaptive approaches to governance and social cohesion.

    Thus, as we look back from a vantage point of relative stability, we realize that our forebodings were perhaps overstated. The period under review was undeniably marked by trials and tribulations, but it was also a testament to the durability and adaptability of the Western model. It reminds us, in no uncertain terms, that the course of history is seldom linear and never preordained. The resilience of the West was not guaranteed—it was earned. And therein lies the fundamental insight of this retrospective examination.

  • Mediocrity (Ignore Everything I Wrote)

    Mediocrity

    Embrace the futile pursuit of some obscure designer lingerie called Agent Provocateur because, obviously, the key to reviving a relationship is to awaken the lifeless corpse that’s been hiding under the covers for far too long.

    Lavish yourself with Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and the overt indulgent, creepy pedophiles at Balenziaga because materialism cures all existential despair, right? Oh, and don’t forget that iPhone 15 that never leaves the clutches of your carpal tunnel-afflicted hands, a sheer masterpiece of exploitation, crafted by modern-day sorcerer children in a sauna they call an office somewhere in a COVID-infested Chinese cellar.
    Stick it nonchalantly into your coat pocket, ignoring empathy and instead celebrating the evolution of a digitally connected sixth finger that you might as well shove up your ass before the whole shit house goes nuclear.
    Of course, we mustn’t neglect the holy trinity of social media: TikTok, SNAPCHAT, and Instagram – the ultimate trifecta of meaningless validation. Spew the vile yet mundane nothingness of your existence, writing paragraph upon paragraph in excruciating detail because nothing says ‘I’m alive’ like sharing your breakfast choices, bowel movements, and Cinnabon recipes, even if it means ignoring the glaring truth that no one gives a fuck.
    And, while you’re scrolling through the virtual assembly line of wall to wall shit, stalk ex-flames, comparing their train wrecks to your dumpster fire while subconsciously hoping for any flicker of validation.
    Get a tattoo that reads “personal privacy is for losers” as you realize all of humanity is just an Excel sheet of cold data… then get on Snapchat in hopes of squashing that mountain of anxiety growing in your chest, only to score some cheap, counterfeit Xanax made by a slimy Sinaloa cartel terrorist who’s loaded it with enough Fentanyl to wipe out an entire sorority.
    And then, in an act of pure disassociation and impulse, embrace your inner stand-up comedian, by joking about sensitive topics you scream out-loud in overcrowded elevators, “not a single fucking life matters, so why not get the abortion, or don’t, have that tax write off and let the baby change its gender when she turns four”
    Hope you get canceled because nothing’s funnier than human suffering with no hope of redemption.
    Reinvent historical events, or better yet, pretend they never happened, especially if they don’t fit the lie of your twisted narrative.
    Embrace losing yourself in the maze of a 9-to-5 cubicle farm that slowly crushes the soul from those hipster sneakers you once bought for 12 dollars at a flea market. All while telling yourself, ‘see, I’m not shallow .’
    And pass this legacy of despair down to your children because suffering is a family heirloom, after all.
    Cherish your unfulfilled promises as they gather dust alongside the mantel of participation trophies and shattered dreams.
    Bask in the glow of your own repeated failures like a moth drawn to the same broken lightbulb.
    Observe the déjà vu of history because originality is overrated, and everything new is just something old and forgotten.
    Embrace that you’re merely, at best, below average, hide your tears with a smile, kiss your loved ones goodbye, one disappointment at a time.
    Fade away into obscurity, bit by bit, until you’re nothing but a distant memory to your own mother.
    Fall in love with this joke, this depressing carnival of life, and embrace every last ounce of mediocrity straight to the grave.

  • Unconscious and Entitled

    Unconscious and Entitled

    In a dimly lit room, with the flicker of a single, dying light bulb overhead and the hum of the city’s night leaking through the cracked window, there it sits—the essence of a world spoiled to its very core, marinated in its self-entitled glory. It’s an American tradition, not the kind bound by the pages of history books or celebrated with fireworks, but the kind you see in the glazed eyes of the too-many, wandering through their days like kings of a forgotten kingdom, unaware of the ground beneath them or the sky above.

    The streets are filled with the sounds of their discontent, a chorus so constant it blends into the backdrop of daily life. “The wifi’s too slow,” they cry, in cafes where the coffee beans have traveled further than their complaints ever will. “There’s nothing good on Netflix”, they moan, flipping through a thousand channels on their flat screens that glow like false moons in their too-big houses. They drive cars that could feed families for months, to jobs they say suck the soul from their bones, not pausing to think of those who sift through bones for a meal.

    This great American spoilage, it’s not just in the things they have but in the air they breathe, taken for granted like the last cigarette in a pack, smoked without thought or care for where the next might come from. It’s in the way they view the world, through lenses tinted with convenience, unable to see the beauty in struggle, or the strength it takes to simply survive in places where the ground is harder, the water scarcer, and the sky a luxury afforded only to the dreamers.

    They throw words like “hardship” and “struggle” into conversations like loose change, not knowing the weight of those coins in pockets other than their own. They speak of rights as if they were the only ones to have them, blind to the fact that for some, rights are not a given without a battle fought every day.

    And yet, amidst this spoiled landscape, there are those who see, truly see, the absurdity of it all. They’re the ones that nod to one another in passing, those who understand that to appreciate the light, you must also know the dark. But they are the whispers in a storm of shouts, the flickers of truth in a sea of contented ignorance.

    So here’s to the spoiled, the entitled, the blissfully unaware—may you one day find the beauty in a single blade of grass, the wealth in a shared meal, the fortune in a breath of air without having to experience some godawful tragedy in order to gain perspective.

    Until then, the world waits, not so patiently, for you to regain consciousness and see the value of looking passed your sixth finger, which is now a mobile device, a screen serving as a detour to personal hell. We’re anxious for you to wake up and see that while the American Dream may have always been a nightmare, there’s so much still out there, sprawled out like a roadmap of a million smiley faces, waiting to be titillated , waiting to be traveled and truly seen.

  • Unconscious and entitled

    Unconscious and entitled

    In a dimly lit room, with the flicker of a single, dying light bulb overhead and the hum of the city’s night leaking through the cracked window, there it sits—the essence of a world spoiled to its very core, marinated in its self-entitled glory. It’s an American tradition, not the kind bound by the pages of history books or celebrated with fireworks, but the kind you see in the glazed eyes of the too-many, wandering through their days like kings of a forgotten kingdom, unaware of the ground beneath them or the sky above.

    The streets are filled with the sounds of their discontent, a chorus so constant it blends into the backdrop of daily life. “The wifi’s too slow,” they cry, in cafes where the coffee beans have traveled further than their complaints ever will. “There’s nothing good on Netflix”, they moan, flipping through a thousand channels on their flat screens that glow like false moons in their too-big houses. They drive cars that could feed families for months, to jobs they say suck the soul from their bones, not pausing to think of those who sift through bones for a meal.

    This great American spoilage, it’s not just in the things they have but in the air they breathe, taken for granted like the last cigarette in a pack, smoked without thought or care for where the next might come from. It’s in the way they view the world, through lenses tinted with convenience, unable to see the beauty in struggle, or the strength it takes to simply survive in places where the ground is harder, the water scarcer, and the sky a luxury afforded only to the dreamers.

    They throw words like “hardship” and “struggle” into conversations like loose change, not knowing the weight of those coins in pockets other than their own. They speak of rights as if they were the only ones to have them, blind to the fact that for some, rights are not a given without a battle fought every day.

    And yet, amidst this spoiled landscape, there are those who see, truly see, the absurdity of it all. They’re the ones that nod to one another in passing, those who understand that to appreciate the light, you must also know the dark. But they are the whispers in a storm of shouts, the flickers of truth in a sea of contented ignorance.

    So here’s to the spoiled, the entitled, the blissfully unaware—may you one day find the beauty in a single blade of grass, the wealth in a shared meal, the fortune in a breath of air without having to experience some godawful tragedy in order to gain perspective.

    Until then, the world waits, not so patiently, for you to regain consciousness and see the value of looking passed your sixth finger, which is now a mobile device, a screen serving as a detour to personal hell. We’re anxious for you to wake up and see that while the American Dream may have always been a nightmare, there’s so much still out there, sprawled out like a roadmap of a million smiley faces, waiting to be titillated , waiting to be traveled and truly seen.