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  • The Physics of the Line

    What makes a good leader?

    Haha

    The Physics of the Line

    he must be a man who has

    tasted the barrel of the gun

    and found the metal

    cold and honest.

    he must have burned down

    his own house,

    sat in the ashes,

    drinking cheap scotch from a

    cracked mug,

    and decided to build it back

    without a single nail of

    pity.

    he must be dangerous.

    a violent thing

    wearing a quiet suit.

    a wolf who learned

    a knife and fork

    so the children don’t notice

    the teeth.

    he takes the screaming chaos

    of the universe,

    runs it through his ribs,

    and hands it back as

    calm instructions.

    he is the wall in the wind.

    the father who stays awake

    so the family can dream

    of meadows.

    we write books about him.

    we carve his face

    into mountains.

    we argue over

    vision,

    grit,

    the holy mechanics

    of command.

    burn the books.

    sand the statues down

    to dust.

    spit on the philosophy

    until only pavement

    is left.

    the answer is not in the man.

    it is in the space

    behind him.

    you ask what makes a

    good leader?

    turn around.

    if there is no one there,

    you are just a man

    taking a walk.

    if there is a line of

    warm bodies

    mistaking your shadow

    for a map,

    following your heels

    into the fire—

    congratulations.

    you are a leader.

    the rest is just

    marketing.

  • Un-Inventing Organized Religion

    Un-Inventing Organized Religion

    If you could un-invent something, what would it be?

    If I had to un-invent Organized Religion, let’s be clear: I wouldn’t be trying to kill God. I’d be firing the middle management.

    I would dissolve the corporation of faith. Because that is what it has become: a global franchise that sells you water while you’re standing knee-deep in a river.

    There is a profound difference between the spiritual impulse—that raw, undeniable feeling you get when you write a lyric that tells the truth, or when you sit in silence and actually face your own Jungian shadow—and the rigid structures that demand you outsource your conscience.

    Hitchens would call it a “celestial dictatorship,” and he’d be right. It is the ultimate Orwellian surveillance state. It demands we surrender our modern intellect to the whims of bronze-age provincials. It insists we take our moral cues from illiterate merchant warlords who solved their disputes with the sword and claimed divine permission for their questionable domestic arrangements.

    Why should the messy, beautiful search for meaning be held hostage by the egos of men who have been dust for a thousand years?

    If we un-invented the organization, we wouldn’t be left with nothing. We would be left with us. We would be forced to build our own moral architecture, brick by brick, based on empathy and reason rather than fear. We would have to find the divine in the faces of the people we love—and the people we mourn—rather than looking for it in a gilded cage.

    True spirituality requires bravery. It requires the guts to walk into the dark without a map. Organized religion is just selling you a flashlight with dead batteries and telling you it’s the sun.

  • The Alchemy of Green

    I tried to paint a mourning that didn’t hurt,
    dipping my brush into the brightest yellow I could find—
    the color of survival, once the color of son,
    the color of I am okay.

    I laid it thick across the clear sheet of today,
    trying not to cover the past
    but to bring it with me into the next scene.

    But you know the physics of this book now—
    the pages are glass, not paper.

    And deep beneath my layer of yellow sunlight
    lies the permanent midnight blue, sometimes black,
    of losing you.
    The indigo of a silence that started at nineteen.

    I thought the darkness would spoil the light.
    I thought the blue would swallow the gold.

    I tried to outsmart grief—
    it already knew my name.

    But as the layers settled,
    something impossible happened.

    The yellow of my living
    sank into the blue of your absence,
    and the world didn’t turn grey.

    It turned green.

    That wild, impossible emerald green.
    The color of the fields you loved.
    The color of the heritage you wore like armor,
    the family crest tattooed over my heart
    that reads jackiemac4ever beneath it.

    I see it now.

    Every time I let a little light in,
    it doesn’t push you away.
    It just mixes with the memory of you
    to paint the whole world
    in your color.

    (No hashtags necessary on this one)

  • The Calendar Didn’t Change You

    We’re all dysmorphic

    January Is a Mirror, Not a Door

    The calendar did not absolve you at midnight.

    It did not forgive December.

    It did not sprinkle moral disinfectant on your habits while you slept.

    January 1st is not a beginning. It’s a receipt.

    If you were moving toward something in October, you’re already closer now.

    If you were lying to yourself in November, you brought that lie with you—carry-on, not checked.

    Resolutions are charming in the way apologies are charming when they arrive late and rehearsed.

    They sound noble.

    They feel ceremonial.

    They allow us to pretend that discipline is seasonal and courage can be scheduled.

    But character doesn’t wait for fireworks.

    Anyone who truly meant it—the running, the quitting, the writing, the calling back, the drinking less or loving better—quietly started when no one was watching. Usually on a random Tuesday. Usually without an announcement. Usually without permission.

    That’s the part no one sells you.

    Change doesn’t arrive with a slogan. It creeps in through boredom, discomfort, repetition.

    It shows up looking unremarkable and asks if you’re willing to be consistent instead of inspired.

    So keep your resolutions if you like. They’re harmless theater.

    But don’t confuse the theater for the work.

    If you want to begin, begin now.

    If you already began, don’t stop just because the calendar caught up.

    January doesn’t make you new.

    It merely exposes whether you were honest before the countdown.

    And that, inconveniently, is the only resolution that ever mattered.

  • 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.

  • Dr. Falls Freud 2: The Refill

    (The Diagnosis Was Wrong, But the Confidence Was Strong)

    “Doctor, the patients are restless.”
    Good.
    If they were calm, I’d think the meds were working.
    Hand me the clipboard—
    the one covered in my old resentments
    and your new insurance co-pays.

    The refill

    I need a refill
    on whatever I prescribed last time.
    Don’t check the dosage—
    I wrote it during a blackout
    and the AMA refused to comment.

    Bring in the next disaster.
    Who is it?
    Ah yes—
    the man allergic to responsibility
    and addicted to horoscopes and whores.
    Put him in the trauma bay;
    tell him Mercury’s been in retrograde
    since his third divorce, and Amber retired anyway.

    And someone get me my reading glasses.
    Not to read—
    just to look smart
    while I guess wildly.

    The nurse asks,
    “Doctor, are you okay?”
    Of course not.
    I’m a mental health professional.
    We don’t heal—
    we outsource.

    Now… where were we?
    Ah yes, the refill.

    RX #1:
    Take one truth
    with two lies
    and chase it with a childhood memory
    you haven’t processed yet.

    RX #2:
    Apply gratitude
    directly to the wound.
    If burning occurs,
    good.
    It means you’re still alive.

    RX #3:
    Stop saying
    “everything happens for a reason.”
    Everything happens because
    people are irresponsible
    and God clocks out early.

    Next patient, please.

    Mr. Ego returns—
    as usual—
    complaining of a swollen sense of self.
    I recommend ice.
    Preferably Antarctica.

    Miss Co-Dependence is back too.
    We tried cutting her off last visit,
    but she refused
    because she “didn’t want to be rude.”
    We’ll keep her overnight.

    And you—
    yes, you—
    the one pretending to be fine
    because you bought a new candle.
    You need a refill most of all.

    Your diagnosis?
    Life.
    Chronic.
    Terminal.
    Relapsing and remitting
    but mostly just remitting.

    The nurse hands me a chart.
    The chart hands me my fate.
    I stare into it, horrified.
    “My god… is this my handwriting?”
    No wonder half the patients
    left the building enlightened
    and the other half
    started a podcast.

    Time of day:
    who knows.
    Cause of day:
    capitalism.
    Treatment plan:
    “fuck around and see.”

    I sign the discharge papers
    with the confidence of a televangelist
    and the accuracy of a man
    throwing darts in the dark.

    Before I leave,
    I grab my coat,
    my stethoscope,
    and the final universal truth:

    Nobody’s cured.
    We just refill the prescription
    until the bottle or the body
    runs out.

    Fade to black.
    The credits roll.
    Freud slips again.

  • Dr. Falls Freud

    “Doctor, we need more pills for our patience

    so we can get more patients.”

    Get me an Rx, stat—

    hit the deep web,

    or whatever corner the interns score their morals from.

    And bring me a nurse we can bang over—

    well-versed, sober,

    but tell her to hold her applause

    because if this hangover wins,

    I’m clocking out in a hearse.

    And while we’re at it,

    the whole world needs a makeover.

    Fraud in plain sight,

    unconscious piss on the fallen—

    what a trip.

    That’s not a Freudian slip,

    that’s Freud falling down the stairs

    and blaming your mother for it.

    It all goes back to Uncle Trouble’s past.

    Self-made man.

    Self-made until he dropped the big E,

    now he’s just self-mad.

    So let me pause before this final sentence—

    use common sense,

    add an extra comma before but, and, or,

    to add drama or suspense.

    And that comma?

    Instant karma—

    you’ll get what you got coming

    and going.

    Everybody wants their shot,

    but the dharma bums don’t talk about guns;

    they just swing for the fences—

    ostensibly offensive to some,

    but you can’t fix what sticks in your head and makes you want to fight.

    And that being said, here’s my plight:

    the insanity sits in my vanity.

    Maybe I should find God.

    “Doctor, I think you’re losing your patience.”

    What do you mean?

    Love is patient, love is kind—

    they said if I loved myself too much

    I’d go blind.

    Bullshit.

    I can see for miles.

    Maybe I’ll fight the resistance,

    write their riddance,

    rewrite their wrongful existence.

    Be the pause

    before my final sentence.

    And get that nurse an ashtray.

    The patient spent his life working,

    now his heart is hardly working—

    he’ll be living in an urn.

    Too soon?

    Alright, call it.

    Time of death:

    whenever the last punchline landed.

    Cause of death?

    Freud slipped again.

    I’m losing my patience.

    There’s no cadence to this curse.

    I want to go back in time—

    you know, when men were men.

    And goddammit—

    where’s my nurse?

    FATHER SICARIO

  • 19 Feminists

    Nineteen feminists
    —yeah, nineteen—
    were sentenced today
    for laundering bra straps.

    Not the Steinem warriors.
    Not the women who marched, bled, built, changed the goddamn world
    while men smoked on the porch
    and called it thinking.

    No.
    These were the new models.
    The knock-offs.
    The grievance influencers.
    Feminism with a filter.
    Oppression with a promo code plus a series of weak hashtags that only resignate with band wagon broads who’ve never turned the pages of a book beyond Woman’s World.

    And the prosecution—
    a collection of men
    who still need two hands
    to operate a zipper—
    said the defendants got “girly”
    with a plea bargain.

    Meaning:
    they spoke clearly.
    And weren’t apologizing
    for taking up oxygen.

    Then the judge—
    God bless him—
    a man whose worldview
    was embalmed sometime around
    the Reagan administration,
    issued his verdict like a man auditioning
    for a parody of himself:

    Women. For life.
    No parole.
    No shopping.

    The courtroom gasped.
    Mostly because the judge thought
    he was being edgy.

    And in the back?
    Steinem’s generation.
    Arms folded.
    Looking at this circus like teachers
    watching students
    act out Hamlet using emojis, and incomplete sentences.

    Attention all gentlemen:
    a few of these new-breed feminists
    are still on the loose.
    Yes, you’ll know them.
    They weaponize victimhood
    like pepper spray,
    and treat every polite man
    like a war criminal
    who forgot to Venmo reparations.

    But—
    listen to me now—
    if you’re one of the rare good men,
    the real ones,
    the diaper-changing,
    emotional-labor-sharing,
    I’m-here-I’m-present-I’m-accountable men—
    you’re safe.
    You’re invisible.
    They don’t attack you. Because they know you aren’t a murderer but are capable of doing so with your barehands if that means protecting the woman you love.

    They only go for men
    who look like authority
    or know how to use a wrench.

    If you get “hard up,”
    the state recommends:
    Handle it yourself.
    Safest option.
    Least paperwork.

    Ignore that
    and you’ll find yourself
    caught in the spin cycle—
    tumbled, shrunken,
    and left in the lint trap
    next to every man
    accused of sins such as
    “interrupting,”
    “breathing confidently,”
    or “existing while male
    in the general vicinity
    of a complaint.”

    Outside the courthouse?
    Oh, it gets better.
    They’re shouting
    “GLORIA STEINEM! PROSTITUTION!”
    like it’s a spell
    that summons empowerment
    instead of proving they’ve never read
    a single goddamn thing she wrote.

    Somebody tell the prosecution
    this is community service.
    A PSA.
    A reminder:
    that real feminism is a movement,
    not a mood swing with a merch table.

    Meanwhile the doctor—
    who’s clearly done with everyone—
    sent his report:
    “Surgery successful.
    Patience drained.
    Shirt removed.
    Libido parked.
    Safest place for it.”

    He’s running on empty,
    but insists feminism
    stole the gas cap.

    This from a man
    who’s been firing
    homemade grenades
    of insecurity into every conversation
    since 2009.

    It is not easy—
    trust me—
    being a man
    married to the cleaning lady
    when the cleaning lady
    is the only person in the house
    who understands equality
    and how a washing machine works.

    P.S.
    Before you forget—
    help your wife
    with the laundry.
    Not to earn points.
    Not to look woke.
    Not to impress anybody.

    Do it
    because lifting your own weight
    is the oldest
    and sexiest
    political statement
    you’ll ever make.

    Mccarthy, not Cormac, Jamie McCarthy

  • Gratitude (2025 Edition) By McCarthy, not Cormac, Jamie McCarthy

    Gratitude isn’t a prayer or a posture.

    It’s a scar that still throbs when the weather turns—

    a reminder you’re somehow still here

    while the world keeps finding new ways

    to set itself on fire.

    It’s outliving a son

    and carrying his brilliance like contraband

    through a year that tested everyone’s faith

    in everything.

    It’s knowing the gods are broke,

    the politicians are puppets,

    the prophets are running side hustles,

    and the news is just a fear carousel

    you didn’t buy a ticket for.

    Gratitude doesn’t live there.

    It lives in the cracked places:

    the dog who curls against you

    like she’s guarding what’s left,

    the laugh you didn’t think you had in you,

    the friend who calls before the collapse,

    the night that lets you pass without a toll.

    It lives in the chaos we survived

    and the beauty that somehow survived us.

    Keep it small.

    Keep it sharp.

    Pocket-sized and battle-ready—

    your own stitched-together compass

    for a world that keeps losing north.

    Remember:

    you’ve been broken open,

    but you’re still walking.

    You’re still dangerous.

    You’re still here.

    Mccarthy AKA FATHER SICARIO

  • Music: New and Relevant

    https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/new-and-relevant/pl.u-70q3Fg1Wge