My Name Was Matthew Blake Atkinson

“do every stupid thing that makes you feel alive Do every stupid thing to try to drive the dark away. Let people call you crazy for the choices that you make… Just stay alive.” “Amy aka spent gladiator” by The Mountain Goats Oh my god I want all you guys to stay alive. That’s getting increasingly less possible as this pandemic rolls on. Turns out it doesn’t discriminate. It kills young and old alike. 50 doctors in Italy have died from COVID-19. We all have friends and family in medical and other fields that are on the front lines of this war. We are all under attack. But, it’s not just the virus attacking us. Lies and misinformation from #45 will make this an American tragedy like nothing we've ever seen. The virus is an out of control blaze and Trump’s words are the gasoline that will see to it that it burns much longer than it should have. I wanted to write today to mark the date that I first heard him say that American lives mattered to him. It was a lie,...

I was just thinking about why I hate the typical big time musicians who play huge venues with large scale productions. Ya know, 20 busses for their gear and fireworks and costumes and shit. To me, those are just layers to protect us from seeing their real selves. (kind of like suing to keep your taxes secret.) there's this live music phenomenon when you’re at a show and the musician is clearly adored by everyone in the room. The artist makes a small joke and everyone laughs like that person is Sinbad on Starsearch. Okay see. Not funny. My Sinbad reference or the joke the artist told. But, whereas out here the result is me getting an eye roll falling in the forest for no one to hear, the artist gets legit laughs as if it was the funniest thing that entire audience had ever heard. Or. Wait. Better example. I went to a garth brooks concert in college. Hold up. That’s not the joke. I actually camped out overnight for tickets to see mr brooks. Lord help me. But, I vividly ...

When they write the history of the fall of the American empire, the reader will be struck with the most obvious of questions, “how were they that dumb?” So far, what we’ve heard about COVID 19 in the States from our President is that… It’ll weaken “when we get into April, in the warmer weather” “It’s going to disappear. One day…it’s like a miracle. It’ll disappear.” We’ve have it very well under control. Cases will go from 15 down to close to zero. People may get better by sitting around and even going to work. It’s a hoax. It’s China’s fault. It’s the media’s fault. It’s the democrats’ fault. Only old people or the immune compromised can die from it. And most importantly, “I don’t take any responsibility at all.” If you were a disease, trying to buy yourself time to fester and grow, you could not have hoped for a better response or lack thereof from the leader of a country. Right now. In the US. It is fucking everywhere. We have a ...

The craziest thing to me about our new reality is that with most trauma, you don’t see it coming. Childhood abuse is so out of bounds from what our little minds can process. A sudden death of a loved one becomes where the fuck did that come from? natural disasters or freak car crashes give our emotional states the same kind of whiplash type feeling. With all of those examples, things happen. it takes a period of time for you to process it. you go through the stages of grief. There are people to help. People who have gone through it before. It feels good that you’re not alone. To recognize that it is possible to heal and move on. We’ll all deal with trauma in different ways and at different paces, but life goes on, like it or not. And it does affect us even if we choose not to process it with the help of others. So, I’m living with this idea of what things will be like for us in the US in six months. It’s haunting me. I had a nightmare last night that I was screaming at th...

Ahhhhh. So, I’m good at crying. I learned how to do it when I gave up organized religion and turned to therapy instead in 1997. But, with all the competing emotions of fear and shock and panic and maybe those aren’t even emotions…see…I didn’t know what to feel. Until frank turner chose to do a fundraiser to support his crew who will be suffering a huge financial loss since frank is unable to tour in our present day corona stressed reality. I cried. Ta da! Frank’s words got to me. And it was such a fucking relief. To get some emotions out. it used to be so easy. This song lyric got me. That movie scene reduced me to tears. But, it’s like I’d been living in this state of pent up emotion that needed a release. And it was frank’s words that got my tears live streaming. His third song was “long live the queen” about his friend Lex who died. She said, “you’ll live to dance another day, it’s just now you’ll have to dance, for the two of us.” and it took me to a high school bu...