The Hipster Hillbilly

    A hired blade, a ronin, masterless and wandering.  For the Japanese samurai, it was a curse.  For me, a blessing.  With boning blade and scimitar, I have the opportunity to wander like Himura Kenshin, only with my blade fixed to the front to slice, cut, dice, and otherwise draw blood (or at least myoglobin).          Each summer my company offers a seasonal, internal hiring process to work in booming tourist town stores along the coasts of the Carolinas.  Agreeing to such an adventure comes with an equal set of perks and downsides.            The PERKS:          $2/hr. raise.  Guaranteed overtime of 10+hours a week for four months.  Room and board provided by the company.  Plus you’ll be living at the beach, which is a perk in and of itself.  Also, I would be a short drive away from Eva.     The DOWNSIDE:          Roomin...

  “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!” —Hunter S. Thompson     After leaving work early for chest pains and dizziness, I wondered if it was all worth it—the decades of excess, substance abuse, hard-partying, chain-smoking, fist-fights, workaholism, general hedonism, sacrificing my body at the altar of Dionysus, and praying to porcelain gods.  In my defense, I never planned for this.  Thirty six…that’s 14 years passed the first time I thought I would die, three years longer than I expected to live, and have always considered anything past my 29th birthday to be “living on borrowed time.”  I never planned to live this long.  Yet here I am, having survived long enough to deal with the repercussions of youth and vice, dealing now with high blood...

      I do not believe in a God or gods.  I’m not sure if I’m still an atheist or if I’m agnostic.  These categories and distinctions meant something to me once, a long time ago, but now I really couldn’t give a shit.  I mostly just explain to people that I’m not a Christian.  But sometimes life gets rough.  Where do you turn when you don’t want to burden your friends and can’t seek a higher power for comfort?  Therapy?  That’s a fucking joke.  I went to therapy once.  Ok, twice.  I flunked out of therapy the first time.          The first time, I talked to this woman about depression.  She gave me a workbook with exercises to work through this low point in my life.  I lost my temper.  “I am not child!  I’ve experienced things in this world that would destroy a lesser man.  And you’re handing me a crayon and expecting me to color in the lines like a fucking child?  Tha...

      Samuel Clemens, the infamous Mark Twain, never wrote about it, never discussed it, perhaps it was a secret kept amongst ex-Confederates along the Mississippi river; something hidden from Yankees and carpetbaggers flooding the deep south like swarms of mosquitos coming off a swamp.  Now it is everywhere, plastered in every search engine and on every stay-at-home mom’s blog: the Mississippi Pot Roast.       A stick of butter.     A pack of aus jus.     A pack of ranch seasoning.     A jar full of pepperoncini peppers, with juice.     Chuck roast.     Nothing could be simpler.  So it would only make sense it came from Mississippi where children still can’t spell their own names by the age of twelve and wear velcro shoes well into their 30’s.  Mississippi is the state that makes all the other shitty states look good.  When they’re number one, it’s for something like institutional racism...

      As of May this year, I’ve been in the meat business for eleven years.  During that tour of duty, I’ve worked for many different Market Managers and Meat Specialists, all with a wide range of personalities, pet-peeves, leadership styles, varying degrees of work ethic, narcissism, mental disorders, and vacillating levels of substance abuse and alcoholism.  What pleased one greatly annoyed the next.  I learned many lessons as to what makes a leader not only successful, but also respected and admired.  I also learned a lot about what makes a poor leader and an overwhelmingly shitty boss—those who demoralize and belittle as opposed to inspire; those who betray loyalty and dedication for grandiose and selfish ladder climbing schemes.     Here’s the lot of them and what they meant to who I would become.  And an introspective analysis of the part of myself that I brought with me on the path, along with and despite the lessons learned from ...