The Health Care Snare by Frederick K Foote

(Note: Frederick has recently published poetry with us. But  he is prominently a creator of short, trenchant, witty prose, which we are happy to present today–The Eds.)

“Good evening, I’m Mavis Williams of American Evening News. Our program has been preempted by a special message from the White House and President Amanda Jackson.

We now take you to President Jackson.”

“Over the last decade, the United States of America has been on the edge of economic disaster. As my grandfather would say, we are surviving by the skin of our teeth.

To make the nature and extent of this threat clear, let’s look back at our recent history.

A decade ago, our country, regrettably, entered an ill-conceived and unprovoked war with Iran. That misadventure has extinguished over 30,000 lives and wounded over 100,000 others.

The War has cost us over 600 billion dollars to date, and our compensation agreements continue to burden this nation.

And that war has cost us support and friendships with many, if not most, of our past allies. We are still repairing these relationships.

The cost of his War, combined with the rising cost of health care, especially health care under the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs, created an unprecedented budget challenge.

Our honest assessment of our health care systems was that they were the most expensive in the world, but other, far less costly health care systems in other nations had far better health care outcomes.

Under increasing dissatisfaction from the public, the growing frustration of health care providers, and the declining number of private health care insurers, we sought a meeting of all the players in our health care system. The past administrations were open to all approaches to extract ourselves from our cascading predicaments.

And as you all know, we initiated a Manhattan Project-style development that merged the resources of our technology, artificial intelligence, and vast libraries of health research and information.

And with sweat, blood, and tears, creativity, imagination, and dedication, we produce a modern miracle—the Internal Health Care Monitor, or as most of us call it, IHCM, or simply, the Chip.

The Chip is about the size of a quarter, but half the weight, and is most commonly inserted just under the skin layers on the inside of the upper left arm.

The Chip has a living battery that draws its power from the body. Under normal circumstances, the Chip does not have to be removed; it is updated online and sends its information the same way.

All your vital functions are monitored 24/7, 365 days a year.

And this encrypted data is sent to the Department of Health Monitoring Evaluation, or DHME, where robust AI systems evaluate your health status and notify you and your health care provider when necessary.

In essence, you have the world’s most experienced and knowledgeable healthcare provider at your service at all times.

This health care system is the envy of the world.

For the last three and a half years, we have been testing and evaluating this system on members of our armed forces.

Three months ago, our evaluation of this system was completed and is now available online for everyone. I encourage you to read at least the executive summary of this fascinating report.

One of the many amazing results found in this 1,200-page document is that during the first two years of using the Chip, our healthcare services’ military costs were cut by 50%.

And our sick leave absences decreased by 60%.

In 73% of cases where medical assistance was required, no visit to a physician or care facility was made or required. Our AI diagnostic systems worked to a tee, and medication was prescribed and quite often delivered within less than two hours of diagnosis.

I found the results of this report absolutely incredible, and I would like to give my thanks and appreciation to the thousands who worked tirelessly to make this vastly improved system available to everyone in this country.

Now, we are ready to make this remarkable system available to all Americans. No one in this country will be denied access to this Promised Land of quality care for all.

Understand that billionaires and fast-food workers will receive the same quality of care.

Those who have no income will have the same access as everyone else.

I know you wonder if this program is safe. I don’t know if I have the words or knowledge to convince you of the safety of this system; however, I have Dr. Lisa Limbaugh, who is an expert on this system and will provide any level of detail required, and she will be here to answer your questions, from the very technical to the very basic.

However, in this particular arena, I believe that actions speak louder than words. My husband Godfrey and I both have Chips, and we have had them for 18 months now. With no adverse experience and have recommended the Chip to our children. That’s how safe they are to me.

Now, I’m turning you over to Dr. Limbaugh to answer your questions and explain in more detail how the Chip works.

Please ask your questions, read the Report, and check with service members and women about their experiences with the Chip.

I hope you choose to join Godfrey and me in the greatest healthcare revolution in the history of humankind.

Good night, and may God bless America and this endeavor.”

***

A conversation in a secure room in the White House between President Jackson and her Chief of Staff, Bong Yee, immediately after the President’s message to the nation.

“Damn, Bong, I need a shower. I feel like a used car salesman. How did we get into this mess?”

“Ms. President, the Democratic Party followed State Craft, our AI’s suggestions—”

“Shit, more like directions.”

“—on developing the Chip and on selecting you as our candidate, and here we are. One happy family.”

“Yeah, I still wonder why you came along on this unjoyful ride.”

“You asked me to, and we have been friends since law school. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to peek behind the stage and see what is really going on.”

“You know curiosity killed the cat. Any new info on the fucking Chip?”

“Dr. Limbaugh and her stiff-lipped crew of medical grand masters believe the Chip is performing as designed, and we should trust the magic of AI and move ahead with implanting the chip worldwide.”

“Damn, Limbaugh scares me worse than that fucking AI. So, what are our reckless scientific rebels saying?”

“Well, they are performing their test beyond the scope of AI, and they have evidence that the Chip has abilities well beyond what Dr. Limbaugh claims.”

“Do they have any proof of their claims? As if that would make any difference. We have to move ahead with this, this questionable fucking experiment, or be in debt to China. When I was giving my sales pitch, I had a strong, almost irresistible desire to cancel the Chip and take our chances with China.”

“I, too, would rather deal with humans than AI, but if our rebels with a cause are right. It might be too late. We have already implanted the chip in the military. And the rebels believe the Chip can impact bodily processes, not just monitor and report on them.”

“What a mess. What a fucking mess.”

“Well, AI was right about you, you have that combination of warm grandmotherly caring and steel African American determination that made you appealing and electable.”

“Yes, but I wonder if my main attraction to AI was that I am controllable.”

“Amanda, I think they may be wrong on that one. The rebels will be here in a few minutes with their evidence. How do you want to play it?”

“We listen and learn and ask every damn question we can. We do not accept or reject the validity of their information at this time.”

“We leave them swinging in the breeze.”

“For now.”

There is a knock on the door.

“Bong, I hope that’s opportunity knocking.”

They smiled and bumped fists before they opened the door.

Today’s Bear Drills Differ From the Atomic Bomb Drills of My Day by David Henson

(We are always pleased to bring back David Henson –the Eds.)

When I was in school, we had atomic bomb drills. We crouched under our desks and clasped our hands behind our heads, a few of us giggling until the speaker crackled, and the principal declared the drill over. Sometimes the class clown walked around stiff legged, arms extended and said they were glowing. Today, bear drills have replaced those for the atomic bomb. Bears should never get inside a school, but it can happen if someone leaves a gate ajar or a guard nods off.

The principal launches the drill by whispering Bear over the PA system. The teacher, who’s memorized the protocols, unlocks a drawer containing a spray can of Ursus Away and practices a two-handed grip. A pre-designated student locks the classroom door. Instead of hiding under their desks, the children pile them at the entry. The students pretend a bellowing, stinky bear is lumbering up and down the hallway. Everyone is supposed to be quiet, but although it’s only a drill, a kid with an overactive imagination might whimper. It probably doesn’t matter because a bear can smell a chocolate chip cookie from a mile away. A human can’t outrun a bear so the children lie prone, playing dead, trying not to sneeze from the dust bunnies. A couple students grip sharpened pencils … as if that could stop a bear. In the event of the real thing, the students know a few will be sacrificed, but even the hungriest grizzly will fill its belly before the whole class is devoured. When the speaker buzzes, and the principal announces All Clear, no one giggles; the class clown doesn’t act up. Hoping the next time is also only a drill, the children rise and drag their desks back into rows.

David Henson

The Drifter Presents: Happy Birthday Bob Dylan

“I is another.” – Rimbaud

“Say one more stupid thing to me before the last nail is driven in.”

– Bob Dylan

“Your best friends are my worst enemies – Angelina.” – Bob Dylan

Happy Birthday, Bob!

May you live as long as Willie Nelson is now and on and beyond (and same to you too, Willie; you two are kindred spirits).

But when Bob Dylan ever does pass on (not die), I will instantaneously think of what Bob himself said about himself after Elvis moved on: “After Elvis died, I didn’t talk for a week.”

I will not (probably) be silent that long, but my heart will break (in a certain way). And I will know (deep down) that times have changed.

I’ve seen Bob play live an uncountable number of times across five decades: in the ’80s, the ’90s, the ‘00s, the ’10s, the ‘20s.

I’ve seen him drunk (I mean me, although it was obvious that he was too at least a few times), I’ve seen him sober, I’ve seen him on drugs, I’ve seen him not on drugs, and I’ve seen him with my (now ex-) wife when she was preggo with the twins.

After the show she said: “It looked like you were studying him the whole time.”

That’s because I was studying him the whole time.

I’ve been studying the man (on and off) since I was thirteen years old.

I’ve seen him in Iowa, I’ve seen him in Missouri, I’ve seen him in Wisconsin, I’ve seen him in Kansas, and I’ve seen him in Illinois, many times, both in Chicago and at other locations.

(Side note: many folks don’t know that Iowa is our (the USA’s) Number One Agricultural State, which is true; it isn’t California. Reminder: Robert Zimmerman was born and bred in Minnesota.)

I’ve seen him with Tom Petty, I’ve seen him with the Grateful Dead, I’ve seen him with his own bands, I’ve seen him at the first Farm Aid in 1985, and I’ve seen him (and heard him) in my mind all the time, especially when all you beautiful ladies said goodbye.

(I never say “hi” and I never say “bye” to the beautiful ladies. They say hi and they say bye when the time comes: I’m still here; just don’t get too close any more; I don’t know why!)

(True beauty emanates from the inside outward and resides mostly in the eyes. Plastic beauty can be beautiful on the outside, but when you peer into the dead or predatory eyes, it chills the effect more than a little.)

The last time I saw Bob live he was with Willie and Mellencamp on the Outlaw tour, here in Illinois, two years ago.

He hid behind his piano wearing a hoodie the whole time and really pissed off a lot of the audience because he’d turned all his well-known songs into some sort of seemingly incoherent (but only seemingly) jazz.

Boos even started to go up here and there in the crowd.

I almost went over and told one guy to shut his fucking mouth.

I was ready to tear his head off if he didn’t listen to me.

But I restrained myself.

It was like some puny little fool in a football jersey standing there hurling rotten eggs at Mount Rushmore (even tho’ the dude was six feet three).

Because that’s what Dylan is: he’s as big as Mount Rushmore.

And maybe bigger. (Even tho’ he’s only five feet seven – or less.)

They say that when Dylan and Cash used to hang out together, they didn’t even talk.

As the great American fiction writer Barry Hannah (RIP Barry; your two greatest works are the short story “Water Liars” and the short novel Ray) once said: “I don’t need to meet Bob Dyan. He’s already shaken my hand.”

END NOTE:

For an answer to a full-scale nuclear war (which is becoming more likely by the hour, however unlikely that sounds), listen to “Let Me Die in My Footsteps” by Dylan, 1962. (And read the Bible and the Tao Te Ching.)

(Faulkner rightly said: “All it can do is kill us.”)

ONGOING NOTE: For a great song about public heroes dying, see and hear Waylon and Willie’s song “Heroes” (2:46) off their 1982 album WWII. Not to be confused with “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” – which is also true.

(All images provided–brilliantly–by DWB)

A Bard of the Old School by Dale Williams Barrigar and “Bonus” Material by the Goatfooted Balloonperson

(Note–Bob Dylan’s 85th (!) is tomorrow. A Great many words have been written about him, but I feel that this essay by Dale, which first appeared in Literally Stories UK, is as fine as anything you will find in print!-Leila)

Bob Dylan is a bard of the old school, and also of the school that never gets old. Long after every single Hollywood movie ever made will be penned by androids, computers, zombies, vampires, and “AI,” scattered humans everywhere will still be searching out the work of Bob Dylan, whether to read or listen to it. When Dylan released “Murder Most Foul,” his longest song, in the middle of the Covid Pandemic, he proved every critic who’d ever said he didn’t deserve the Nobel Prize in Literature wrong.

With a terrifying title from Shakespeare, this long song and short fiction is a mini-novel about the Kennedy assassination. And all assassinations, and all murders ever committed, now and in the future. Almost as if to prove that he’s a poet and story-teller more than a musician, Dylan doesn’t even sing this song. He speaks it. He tells the tale like an ancient bard, maybe even going as far back as Homer.

Dylan is often compared to Shakespeare, and for good reason. It could be that a more apt comparison is with the older writer. Homer, like Bob, spent his life traveling from town to town and speak-singing his story-songs to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument. This image of Homer has been accepted for so long that it’s become a fact of fiction that tells the truth, as real as any other Greek mythology, from Zeus to Athena.

Dylan has always cited literary writers as some of his most important, if not his most important, influences. He claimed that “Blood on the Tracks” was inspired by Anton Chekhov’s short stories. He listed his two favorite writers as Emily Dickinson and Arthur Rimbaud. He read T.S. Eliot and James Joyce in high school. He resurrected Charles Baudelaire in “Idiot Wind.” He said that all writers and artists should read John Keats and Herman Melville.

He acknowledged Walt Whitman’s genius. He went to the grave of Jack Kerouac and read Kerouac’s poetry aloud with Allen Ginsberg. He wrote his songs on a typewriter. He created an absurdist book of prose poems, and he composed a memoir that isn’t his best work but is highly readable, filled with signs of the times, then and now.

Someone once compared Bob Dylan to Ernest Hemingway, another writer for whom Dylan has expressed his approval. Both writers diagnosed their times, and fought the wars of their times. While Hemingway went to Italy as an ambulance driver, Dylan went to Mississippi as a liberal Jew who stood out in an open field and sang Civil Rights protest anthems, surely as dangerous as Hemingway heading to the front as a non-combatant who wanted to help injured soldiers.

Dylan has already entered the canon of great American authors. When we look back at history, we see that there are many authors who did not deserve the Nobel Prize, and many authors who did deserve it who didn’t receive it (James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy, and Jorge Luis Borges are a famous three of these). A hundred years from now, Dylan will be seen as a writer who deserved this prize, and then some. His humanity, and his ways of expressing it in English story-language, will last a very, very long time, even, or especially, as the rest of the mainstream world continues to become more and more robotic, tyrannical and inhuman.

The forewarned Bonus Material

Happy Birthday Bob D a Prose Poem

I believe that the first two dorky looking guys to make being dorky looking guys cool were you and Buddy Holly. Can’t imagine Steve Reeves singing Peggy Sue on AM or Dash Riprock getting all Positively Fourth Street on the weird radio. Thank Zimmerman you have traveling angels on your side. Seems an obscenity that all that time flew by. But if I could play God and select people to have it all to do again, far off, in distant years, to clean up the future, amongst such I’d have you and Buddy headlining a cold winter night concert in Clearlake, Iowa. And I would replace the airstrip with a seven star hotel, a temporary home til just spring, inhabited by goatfooted balloonmen and bellboys, fey and wee.

Stroke Out by Dale Barrigar Williams

(All images produced by DWB)

“It was just like a song being played on the radio in my mind.”

– Richard Brautigan

One of these pictures is the countdown: less than sixty minutes until STROKE time two years ago.

Another picture is a view from my hospital room in Chicago. Without access to the futuristically good health care services of the Second City, I would probably have ended up quite a bit worse off than I was and am.

Another pic’ is me contemplating my situation and reliving many memories, since I can see the University of Illinois Chicago from my window, the place where I taught for fifteen years and completed my PhD in English and Creative Writing. And I’m realizing again that I possess a certain fearlessness, and have always possessed a certain fearlessness.

Another pic’ is one of the verses that helps reinforce my so-called certain fearlessness, a fearlessness that is not without its failings and is not always as evident (to myself and even others) as I might want it 2 B.

But many people are afraid of me, especially on the street when they see me and the wolf I walk around with (and sometimes a second wolf and a pit bull).

Picture five is the REUNION: I had an incredibly vivid nightmare while in the hospital that he would forget me while I was gone. I was wrong.

At one point I said to/asked one of my doctors, “I had a MINOR stroke, right?”

His answer was (and I quote it directly): “There are no minor strokes.”

I was in the hospital for one week; one neck surgery; a million tests, pokings, and proddings; and tons of gratitude about being alive with zero paralysis or facial drooping or any of the other horrors that often come with a stroke.

(I also have Stage One Emphysema, which I can sometimes feel burning a little bit at the tops of my lungs. Quite an accomplishment for 59.)

The nurses and various attendants (and some of the doctors) who took care of me were like human angels.

One wonders why the ones seemingly working the hardest were also the ones being paid the least (or at least too little in comparison).

The same was true the last time I was in the hospital for a week twelve years ago (same hospital, different issue, what they sometimes euphemistically refer to as a “mental breakdown”). (I recovered quickly then too and ended up smarter than when I went in, both times.)

But this pay issue $, or lack of good pay issue, it’s like the so-called leader of the free world at the moment, who spends (obviously) the vast majority of his time golfing and re-posting total crap on the internet; or re-posting total crap on the internet while golfing; or telling endless lies about how he won the 2020 election and didn’t start an insurrection; or consuming vast quantities of Mickey D’s and diet Coke while viewing propaganda TV featuring none other than himself.

Hey people who like this guy! The free world really needs a president who’s willing to do a little real work around here once in a while.

The best you can say for him is that he both does, and does not, back down.

He makes Dick Nixon (Nixon the dick) look like Abraham Lincoln.

His actual presence in a room is overwhelming, especially to weak-minded sycophants.

He isn’t a racist in the sense that he values absolute loyalty over skin tone every time.

He hires some really good-looking women.

He’s married to one who appears to want to have zero to do with him (can’t say as I blame her).

He falls asleep in the meetings all day long because he stays up all night long posting crap on the internet and talking on the phone if he can find anyone who will answer.

He NEVER shuts up.

Him and his pals are the ravenous nihilists Dostoevsky predicted.

Sometimes he’s kinda funny and almost likable for some reason!

The uniform (or costume) he’s concocted for himself is hilarious.

I just wish all these other fools wouldn’t keep wearing the same thing.

If he invited me to the White House I would probably go and try to talk some sense into him, not that I would hold my breath about the results.

But I would never travel the country singing his praises like Kid Rock, who I used to think was a kind of genius. Same with Snoop Dog. Come to your senses y’all!

A hundred and forty-six years ago, the great Russian saint-and-sinner Dostoevsky wrote: “Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself, and others. And having no respect, he ceases to love.”

Except for the love of money.

Solvitur Ambulando y Dr. Dale Williams Barrigar

(All images taken by DWB)

Solvitur ambulando: it is solved by walking.

Kierkegaard, the great Danish philosopher, Christian Existentialist before there was such a thing, and wild-hearted comedian bachelor, said: “Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts; and I do not know of any thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”

The fact that he also, quite literally, collapsed into the gutter and died while walking at the age of 42 in 1855 has nothing to do with it. He died while he was out doing what he loved. What better way can there be to expire!?

He was writing to his sick sister-in-law who was having trouble getting out of bed because of clinical depression. He was throwing down the gauntlet in an effort to try and get her to do something to save herself.

His most famous quote comes from a private letter.

Because that’s the kind of writer he was.

All dogs in all times and all places and of all sizes and all kinds, obviously agree very heartily with these sentiments, at all levels.

Dogs literally possess the wisdom of philosophers (maybe without knowing it but don’t be so sure).

It is said (and I have seen it) that they can also accept their own bodily deaths with perfect equanimity; because they know that this too is only part of the world; and they love the world – but not too much.

End Note: Thanks to the great Michigan poet Jim Harrison from whom I first heard this quote some time in the 1990s.

And, of course, co-starring, the one and only Boo!

Dr. Dale Barrigar Williams

F ICE by Dr. Dale Williams Barrigar

I deeply respect law enforcement because I deeply know that when the shit really hits the fan, it’s them who you have to call for assistance.

But when it’s them you have to start barring and blockading your door against, worrying that they’re going to barge in for no real reason in the middle of the night, times have changed around here for some of us.

Such things have happened in my neighborhood too recently – and there are many who say such things will start happening again soon, in earnest.

The world has never been a safe place for anyone – just ask all those folks who used to have to spend so much of their time keeping their eyes peeled for saber-toothed tigers around every bush, tree, rock, and boulder.

It was so hard to spend time scrolling on your phone when the big cats were out to get ya.

No wonder we find cats’ eyes to be so weird and eerie (as well as cute and cuddly).

Even now, too much comfort and complacency is a great killer in the good ol’ USA.

FUCK ICE indeed – especially if you have a heart of ice – no matter which side you’re on.

END NOTE/S:

I was born in Dearborn, Michigan, USA, which is the town where Henry Ford invented that thing we now call “the car.” In my birth town currently, over fifty percent of the population reports Middle Eastern or North African ancestry, which means it has one of the highest percentages of that type of population in the entire country. I very much embrace such diversity, even though I also know it can cause problems, especially for the ones who get kicked out of the place/s they used to live, which happens here in the USA, just like anywhere.

Regarding ICE barging into my apartment in the middle of the night, mostly I’m worried that if they did so, my Siberian would attack them and they’d shoot him dead.

That is why I bar and blockade the door/s in the middle of the night, so I can hear ’em coming, if they want to come, even though I’m very much an American citizen, born and bred, and hardly ever left to go anywhere else but here.

Because my Sibe and I would die for each other without thinking twice, if that’s what it took.

Dr. Dale Williams Barrigar

Mona Lisa Street Scene by Dr. Dale Williams Barrigar

“Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues, you can tell by the way she smiles.” – Dylan

The Mona Lisa Street Scene series arose on the West Side of Chicago, along Madison Street.

Sketchy people were wafting about there and here, buses were pulling in and out of the hulking garages, the El tracks were shaking with trains, cars going by, seagulls soaring above all in from the lake looking for chicken bones in the gutters, grass blowing in the vacant lots, garbage rotting in the alleyways, food smells floating from nearby hot dog stands (Chicago has more hot dog stands than McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King combined, even though McDonald’s was invented here and has its world headquarters here), leaves fluttering on the trees, weeds coming up from the cracks in the sidewalks, cats climbing on stairways, buildings groaning with ghosts, rats baring their fangs and claws, doves cooing and gently moving their wings without flying, but dreaming of flying, which is, after all, only – another kind of flying.

Because I’m feeling silly and I like to celebrate my city, these are the names of eleven comedians who are from Chicagoland, i.e., Chicago and environs: John Belushi, Jim Belushi, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Betty White, Steve Allen, Jack Benny, Chris Farley, Robin Williams, Redd Foxx, Bob Newhart.

Blue or Blue Bucket by Dale Williams Barrigar

(Note–We begin a new week of fresh looks at life by our own DWB with a study in blue–LA)

This little photo series attempts to illustrate William Blake’s justly famous phrase “to see a world in a grand of sand.”

It is like when Horton hears a Who!

Inside a clover.

Thank you Dr. Seuss!

With Picasso and Dali, you make a third as the greatest artist of the Western World in the twentieth century (say I, or says me).

It takes decades of patient and periodic study (including years away) in order to tell who’s better and one still doesn’t know: and will never know; but will never stop returning to the question (for a million different reasons)…

I do not have a favorite color because I heart all colors, but whenever someone has forced me to choose (yes, these are the things we used to discuss) my immediate answer has always been BLUE.

That answer has sprang (or sprung) so often to my lips that I think it must be coming from the depths of my being, a place so mysterious to me that I consider it more mysterious than the rest of the universe.

By far.

I don’t have much (including my pride) any more but that is mine.

I associate Blue with water, the sky, baptism, the word dale and all it implies, Dali, Picasso, Van Gogh, Rimbaud, Easter (the crucifixion), melancholy, sex (blue movies), and my (if forced to choose) favorite music: The Blues.

(Weirdly, some of us avoid sex for a decade or more because the aftereffects are always a drained melancholy; and we are too busy putting our energy into something else, like art; God knows why!)

I live not far away from the graves of both Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf.

McKinley Morganfield and Chester Arthur Burnett.

RIP.

And: in my mind, you are still alive.

I do not know all the reasons why that fact is so comforting (quite) to me.

This picture series has three (3) titles, which is key: Blue; Blue Bucket; and Blue or Blue Bucket.

Signed,

The Photographer Because Everyone Does

DWB

Why I Heart Eminem by The Drifter

(Images by The Drifter)

“But don’t you place the blame on me / As you pour yourself another drink, yeah.”

– Eminem

I heart Ems because he talks about, explores, and explains what it’s like to be from Michigan, which means, of course, what it’s like to be from the American Midwest: “flyover country.”

It’s kind of like America’s greatest rock critic (by far), Lester Bangs, who always loved to wear his “Detroit Sucks” T-shirt while living in, and loving living in, the Detroit area, which is known as both Motown and Rock City among other monikers. I can’t believe he was only three miles down the road co-creating Creem Magazine while I was living there as a rebellious little kid. And yet, such is (weirdly for me as a person) true.

There is a simple four-part formula for understanding the essence of Eminem as an American artist, I say!

I speak here of his best, most mature, and most fully developed work, not every single thing he’s ever done. He is a very profuse, honest, sometimes dark, and prolific artist, and if I wanted to slam him, I could choose lots of things to slam. He’s also a very self-aware and self-critical artist – anything anyone can say about him, he’s already said about himself a million times before (much like the poet Charles Bukowski).

The four-part formula goes like this.

One: What it’s like to be from the state of Michigan.

Two: What it’s like to be from the American Midwest (“flyover country”).

Three: What it’s like to be an OUTSIDER.

Four: How the figure of The Outsider, in his work, becomes a symbol of the modern Human in general, plain and simple, and also not simple at all.

Someone once asked him if he believes in God; he said, “I don’t go to church, but I do pray.”

Such an answer shows how he is a kind of modern-day Everyman who modern-day Everywomen can also relate to.

Every place in America, and I mean every place in America, has great heroes and heroines who lived there in the past or are living there right now. By “heroine” and “hero,” I simply mean someone who can be looked up to in some kind of way; someone who proves that humans are, somehow, worth it; and can act as a representative figure somehow (which is also much more of a burden than it might sound like at first blush).

Because if we don’t question the fact of human nobility sometimes, we are blind and mad. And if we don’t ultimately believe that humans have that noble strain within them, we become someone like the current president of the USA, who believes that everything, and that means everything, comes down to nothing more than a monetary transaction, one way or another. Think well of other people – without being blind – and eventually you start to think well of yourself, too.

Eminem’s gated KMart mansion is fifteen miles away from where I lived for the first ten years of my life.

My parents were young and our neighborhood was modest and I often find myself back there in my dreams or in the smell of rain or snow or grass or in the warmth of the sunshine, all of which I learned there first.

We lived in the area where Eminem’s film 8 Mile is set.

Five of Eminem’s greatest songs are from his 2013 album The Marshall Mathers LP 2.

When this album came out, I was separated from my wife and broken up with my truly-beloved, soul-mate girlfriend (who I took up with only after my wife kicked me out and I also kicked myself out even more, which she tended to forget (about the girlfriend) a little too often, since we never lost regular contact while taking care of the kids, in front of whom we always retained a friendly family demeanor in between the poison barbs we regularly aimed at each other; see the quote from Eminem himself at the top of this essay for an example). Two people I deeply love were battling cancer (they got over it, but I didn’t know if they would, at the time; and one of them was her). And my mother had recently passed on. And I was losing my job, a process that took, on and off, two years. Unlike the cancer/s, I knew how this one would pan out from the start, but I never stopped fighting (even though lost in a fog-of-war confusion most of the time, at the time) until it was over (when I immediately plunged into a periodic three-year depression that almost killed me lots of different and exciting ways).

The Marshall Mathers LP 2, and especially the five songs I’m about to list, provided me with great, deep consolation, comfort, and inspiration at the time. For some reason, the album cover has one of my favorite numbers hidden in plain sight upon it: 946.

My two kids, who are forty years younger than me almost to the day, also love/d these songs, then and now, as do most of their friends.

This album was/is one of the rare times when great art and the American mainstream actually come together these days. Lana Del Rey, at her best, is another example of this; as is Taylor Swift (at her best); as is Lady Gaga – at her best.

“The Monster” (co-vocals by Rihanna). ALSO SEE THE MUSIC VIDEO WHERE RIHANNA WEARS BLACK LIPSTICK AND EXTRA-LONG FINGERNAILS!

“Legacy” (co-vocals by Polina).

“Headlights” (co-vocals by Nate Ruess).

“Stronger Than I Was.”

“Bad Guy” (the sequel to Ems’ great song “Stan”).

Remember the spirit of the 1960s (even if you weren’t alive at the time) and play it loud!

These songs are not really rap or hip hop per se; they are more like rap rock, like when he sampled Black Sabbath or Nick Cave on earlier songs; and even more like something one-of-a-kind in a genre of their own, a genre of Eminem’s own invention. Like all great art (including all great essays), these songs don’t really fit into any pre-conceived categories: at all.

But these five songs are so great, they can, very rightly, be compared to the best of The Beatles; Bob Dylan; Nina Simone; The Clash (London Calling); Nirvana. Yes, it’s true: Eminem, at his best, is that good.

Another thing many folks don’t know about Eminem: he took better care of his little brother than their parents did; and he took better care of his three daughters than their mother/s did (two are adopted, from his ex-wife with another man and from his ex-sister-in-law).

Unlike everyone else, he stuck around.

Exciting End Note/s:

I can also recommend Eminem’s powerful 2010 album RECOVERY.

Especially these songs: “Cold Wind Blows,” “Love the Way You Lie,” “Not Afraid,” “Going Through Changes” (one of the songs where he samples Black Sabbath, brilliantly), “Space Bound.”

This essay was written in a single burst while sitting in the car outside Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio in Oak Park, Illinois, USA, on May 12, 2026, which is right around the corner from Ernest Hemingway’s boyhood home. I do not use, and have never used, and will never use either grammar or spell check, believing my brain should be the one to do the work instead of any sort of a computer for a multitude of reasons some of which I can’t even explain. I believe that any typos or mistakes (if there are any) are deliberately made by something else. Therefore I let them stand if I catch them after a certain point (after my brain says “Finished”).

SEE THE QUILLEMENDER OF MY CO-EDITOR LEILA ALLISON!

(Borges rightly says that the real writer is never afraid to write a bad page.)

I saw seven GIGANTIC wild rabbits in Wright’s yard while writing this!

They were running around chasing each other because they know that it’s SPRING.