by Travis Mateer

I didn’t know, when I picked this image, that I would be using it to conclude my latest poetic gem, but that’s how my creative process works. If you are not entertained yet by the fruits of my creativity, just wait, because this one was shared in its infancy with City Council yesterday morning during the Public Safety Committee.

Here’s me stumbling over some words and providing some context to the silent (and unseen) faces sitting and waiting for their poetic fate. I think Stacie Anderson does a FANTASTIC job keeping a straight face after my performance is done!

Of course, four stanzas is no where near enough when you’re a poetic genius using triggering language to tear apart the stupid illusion that our two party political system is anything more than a slightly better produced series of professional wrestling matches.

Yes, when you’re aiming high, like I try to do, a dozen stanzas is more appropriate, but before we get to the end-product of my poem-song, let’s take a look at what the state where I was born is doing to promote free speech:

This is GREAT news. Why? Because, the harder these stupid fuckers push, the bigger the pendulum swing will be against this bullshit, and every day my anecdotal interactions point to BIG problems for the soul-sucking psychopath class. Let me share a few to keep up the morale.

I had the most delightful phone conversations with two women recently who work in call centers, where I sincerely hope the recorded calls are kept for posterity. One woman was up-selling me something from the bank financing by nascent bookmobile dreams, and the other woman was inside the Lee Enterprise’s beast, the company slowly destroying Montana’s newspapers.

My no-filter approach to communicating with ANYONE leads to fascinating places, and because I try to orientate my butt-hurtedness about the pains of doing local journalism to the more humorous side of venting, I’ve garnered audiences in unusual places. The woman from Lee Enterprises, for example, didn’t want me to stop trashing her employer because she KNOWS the capacity for real news reporting has been decimated by these cutthroat boardroom motherfuckers and the whole panoply of bullshit that props up the more obvious villains harvesting what they can from breaking-down system.

There are real consequences for being this public and abrasive, like ruining the chances of the cute girl I’ve been flirting with saying yes when I get the guts to ask her out. But I’m willing to risk being a wise hermit dispensing poetic truth if that’s what my karma requires.

Ok, enough of the damn bellyaching, here’s my tune, and here’s your chance to help me out with some digitals 1’s and 0’s.

Thanks for supporting FREE SPEECH!