We live in a world of lies. I'm tired of them, so I'm going to tell the truth right now. The entirety of my truth. Warts and all, so buckle up.
Why would anyone embarrass themselves like I'm about to? We'll get into that later. Trust me, this post won't be for everyone. I wrote this for the people who need to know that they aren't alone.
So let's tell some truth.
Truth bomb 101: Though I don't tend to make mistakes twice, I seem to be guilty of finding every mistake possible.
Besides the fact that I once contracted Chlamydia for being the sluttiest of slutties, in one of my most shameful moments, I also once blew a .10 into the breathalyzer. My DUI was reduced to a wet-and-reckless in court later, but I still ended up in jail that night. I slept on the concrete floor because there were no seats left in the drunk tank. If you think I'm taking this lightly, I'm really not. I still feel disgust for myself in that moment.
This should be a good start point to rev up the truth.
Truth bomb 102:
I usually tune-out when I hear woe-is-me crap online. That's one of the main reasons I left social media. It's not that I don't care, but it's not in my nature to feel things that aren't necessary. The truth is, I have a tendency to feel too much. So, I click it off. It's a defense mechanism that I developed as an abused child. Add to that, I just don't want the entirety of the Internet's sadness or anger to bleed onto me.
Now the hardest truth. Truth bomb 103. And this one has fucked with me for years.
I didn't want the collective people's sadness and anger to bleed onto me anymore because it already had.
I just recently fixed my depression. I hated even typing that sentence. It feels simultaneously weak in my mind and somehow grossly inadequate. It's been so long since that emptiness in my gut—more specifically closer to my heart—wasn't torturing me, that I don't know how to act anymore.
I'm actually content again like I used to be. Since before all this shit happened to all of us. Yes, the people and the governments were screwed-up beyond recognition before, but these last five years have been a whole other epic level of shitshow.
So, Chris is back now. The real Chris.
What changed to heal me? I don't know. I asked God for help. The Universe. Whatever. I'm non-specific when it comes to the Creator, but I'm telling you my life changed exactly one day after I asked for help. And as my wife knows, I won't ask for help unless it's absolutely necessary. And help was sent in many forms the next day.
For clarification, I don't go to church. I have several life mantras. One of which is, never trust anyone who stands on a pulpit. Or any stage for that matter. I've stood on way too many stages as a musician and writer to think otherwise. Now, if you find something in church that helps you treat your fellow man better, please go. Many of my friends are there right now. Many of my friends are atheists, too.
Church for me is like watching a Turner Classic Movie marathon. You're kind of bored. You already know the endings to the stories. Then they want money after each movie. How about no? I'll just give the cash directly to those in need.
My behavior and words are not manic right now either. Any person experiencing the end of depression has to be aware that you might be fooling yourself in these situations. It's been years since I've felt this good, so I've spent months considering that my reprieve might not be real. There is no manic here. Things are truly different, and I think it's because I've stopped living in the world of lies. It was a slight change of perspective that somehow turned out to be seismic in nature.
So, I'm just going to tell more truth from here on out. I think truth is what's been missing from my life. Let me embarrass myself further.
I was never Christopher Allan Poe. Yes, that name is on my birth certificate, but I totally spelled it wrong until I was thirty, and I used that name mostly as a construct to sell books. And it worked. Yes, I am related to Edgar, and I share his name, but so fucking what?
As a castaway orphan, blood relation matters exactly for shit in my world. Sorry to Edgar and my father, but it's true. I'm not Christopher Allan Poe. I'm Chris to everyone who truly knows me, except to my daughter. She recently stopped calling me Daddy. I'm just Dad now. She hasn't hit peak teenage-ness, so the eye-rolls aren't super-pronounced when she calls me Dad, but I can see the writing on the wall. That one hurt a little, but I'll be alright.
Point is, my Poe-blood-relation mattered nothing to me, and a million-billion authors and entertainers and thinkers on earth are more talented and more brilliant than I ever could be. Octavia Butler existed. She was a literal genius. Stop what you're doing and go buy her books. George Carlin. Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying. William Gibson. Lyn Alden. Eighty-years ago, George Orwell wrote a book, 1984, about the bullshit we're going through right now. That's how brilliant he was. Those people told real truths.
I always haven't. Take this next paragraph for example.
My blood relation to Edgar Allan Poe changed my life, but I've always been just Chris to my friends in the same way that Stephen King is called Steve by his friends. I never met Steve, but he's a hero of mine.
While everything about that last paragraph is true, it's simultaneously also part of the Lie. Yes, I love Stephen King, but do you see how I did that? I literally put my name in with Stephen King and Poe. And now you can relate with me because I'm just Chris. Now we're all friends. Even at that point, I wasn't finished. I still the used the words, Stephen King. Steve, friends, hero, and mine. Now, unconsciously, we all know Steve and I are buddies, and we hang out in the graveyard at night with Edgar.
For clarification, Stephen King and I are not in the same ball park or even in the same galaxy in terms of success, but that's how the Lie works. I've subtly weaved my name in with his. It's a bending of truth. A careful craft of language, and if I'm being honest, I'm pretty fucking good at it. It's not necessarily positive or negative in most situations, but the world has changed recently, and I think that was what messed me up so much.
The bending of the truth has been weaponized so well against us as a people, that we as a people can't see it anymore, so we are not inoculated against its effects. How do I know that? Because I'm totally guilty of firing that gun, too. Christopher Allen Poe (I thought it was spelled Allen for years, until I looked at my own birth certificate). So stupid.
I think my depression started when I noticed the lies came from everywhere, all at once, all the time. You know what's the stupidest thing? The powers-that-be are not even good at the Lie. It's Joe Biden thinking he's slick, but he gets caught on camera talking about how he's managing narratives.
Or how about when Donald Trump couldn't complete a full sentence without contradicting himself? Yet, I watched folks line up to drink their red Kool-Aid or their blue. I lost some of my best friends behind their personal anger because they weren't able to see the Lie. Their ideologies were too interwoven into their lives. And man, I get it. Those ideologies for them were like that last life-raft driftwood from the movie, Titanic. Remember that scene when Rose kicked Jack's monkey-ass off in the end, even though he loved her. Then he froze to death. That's how I felt.
But it wasn't Rose's fault, either. I get that, too. I think that's how propaganda works. It's like the Colorado River. It carves into you slowly, and pretty soon you forget how the Grand Canyon in your chest was created. But if we're all expected to collectively get out of this chasm, I think our only weapon to weave through the narrative is to drop real truth bombs.
This list will be less cathartic for me than mentioning some of my sins, but let's see which one pisses everyone off the most.
1) No, natural gas isn't responsible for asthma. That's some stupid shit they made up so Americans would use less natural gas. The United States blew up the Nord Stream pipeline, and now we're shipping our natural gas to Europe. Hence, the narrative.
2) No, the World Economic Forum billionaires aren't fixing global warming. Their greed created the problem in the first place. They just want to maintain control. Nuclear is the only real sustainable solution to the problem of the earth being overpopulated, otherwise half of us might need to go. And the powers that be will actively make that happen too, if they feel so inclined.
3) Why does anyone continue to fuck with viruses? Sorry Dems, but you're the baddies on this one because you still refuse to see the C*V!D truth, even though it is right in front of your ridiculous faces. As John Stewart eloquently spoke, "The name of the virus is literally the same as the name of the lab."
Ooh, this is a good one. It's not gonna win me any fans from the Right.
4) Jesus was very specific. He did not like white people. Remember that one time when the gentile lady went to him and asked for food, and he said, "Better to throw it to the dogs." He did end up giving that white woman food though, maybe after she proved she wasn't just an opportunist and a bigot. Fair enough. I'm cool with that.
I'll keep going.
5) We talk about how horrific the war in Ukraine is, but the U.S. has been actively engaged in more war than any country on earth ever. Twenty years in Afghanistan. Fifteen in Iraq. Millions dead. All so we could mine precious minerals and oil from third-world countries. Is Vladimir Putin any different?
Man, that felt good, but I feel like even Dave Chapelle is saying in his most expressive Dave Chapelle voice, "Goddamn! You're not supposed to say that shit out loud."
Final truth and my most cancellable. I just made that word up. Cancellable. Trademark, fools.
Dave Chapelle is the Einstein of our generation. Nothing Dave has ever said made me think otherwise. In the land of lies, people don't understand that truthful genius comes alongside nuance. If you have a problem, I'm sorry that you don't have the computational power to understand that Dave doesn't speak in soundbites, but that's on you. In addition, he has spent his life refusing to bend the knee to corruption or coercion.
You can't take Dave from us. He can't be cancelled. You're not allowed. In the words of Bob Marley, 'How long shall they kill our prophets, while we stand aside and look.'
We won't allow you to kill one more genius because you want to prove that the earth is flat. He's ours.
I can be cancelled easily, however. So might I offer up Marjorie Taylor Greensly—or whatever her name is. Take her in my stead. Take shitty Will Smith or his shit son and wife. Cancel me if you must over that last statement or any of them. I honestly don't care. That was part of my healing too.
To all the collective governments, we're not going to tolerate your lies anymore either. Your narrative is so stupid. We all see it. You think you're getting away with something, but to all of us, it's like finding a toddler with chocolate smeared on his hands and face, but he's telling us, "It wasn't me. It was the one-eyed chocolate monster."
We don't like being lied to.
Maybe the world was always this way, and maybe the internet exposed certain human behaviors that were always present, but now we can see the lies in real time. Sure, we could all blame Trump, but let's not forget that Obama helped set up our current surveillance state. Did he shut down Guantanamo? Nope. He was too busy usurping our civil rights to privacy. He also de-regulated the banks. Interesting truth, Obama's presidency directly led to policies that will currently allow the banks to enact what's called a bail-in instead of a bail-out. It's in the Dodd-Frank Act.
Don't believe me? Look it up.
FDIC is a joke. The next time the banks go down, and they will, they can literally seize the money in your account and give you their worthless bank stock in return. Will it happen? I don't know. Maybe. But Obama did that. Sure, he probably didn't read the entire legislation when he signed it. But if we're being honest here, Michelle was always the brain-trust in that relationship. She would've at least read the damn thing.
But I digress...
See, that's the rub. This Lie isn't necessarily a lie. It's a subtle manipulation of facts. If you just say things that are mostly true, or worse, say things three times in a row, people will believe it.
When Gilbert Gottfried joked in Bob Saget's televised roast that, 'Bob Saget raped and killed a girl in 1993,' rape wasn't the joke. The joke was that he made that statement so many times that people would naturally believe something so ridiculous. It was also one of the most brilliant comedic moments in human history.
Chris Rock did the same thing when he just called Will Smith a bitch eight times in a row in his new Netflix special. Chris is my damned hero. To the end of time. All the Chris's unite. And to Chris Rock, Will used to be one of my heroes, too. I hate his guts now, and I shouldn't. If I'm allowed to make my idiot mistakes, shouldn't that be true of him? The truth is, I hate him because his apology was scripted, and we all knew it. I hate him because his idiot son tweeted out, 'That's how we do.'
That whole Smith family is filled with liars. Jada has always just been the spark plug for their liar engine. I used to love them, but I had to let them go. I had to let a lot of people go recently because they couldn't see the lies, and they got mad at me for it. Then in their efforts to be correct, they punched me. I would've fixed those relationships in twenty seconds if they knew how to issue a real apology. Saying sorry and meaning it matters.
You know what's the worst thing? I've actually seen the lies at work. My wife was a television journalist. She was literally one of the last people to truly fight for honest journalism. That messed with me, too. She left a career that we both fought for, because like Dave Chapelle, she couldn't and wouldn't bend the knee to false narratives, no matter which side they came from.
That's not say we didn't have moments when we compromised. Everyone does. Apparently double-d's were required to fit the look of KTLA in Los Angeles. She was asked to go clothes shopping on her second day of work, where they leaned on her to get a push-up bra. Subtle lie. She's a solid size-C, but that wasn't enough for them at the time. And Jesus, all the blush and eyelashes they suggested she wear. All that fake shit that she had to remove daily before she came home to our daughter always just looked so sticky to me.
See, I fought just as hard for Brandi's career as I did for my own. I used to go shopping with her at the mall. We had to plot and plan, because we never had enough money for the fancy people who worked at these big city news stations. They drove BMW's, and most of them looked down on us, so we used their arrogance to outsmart them. They talked about their expensive necklaces, plastic surgery, face creams and nonsense. Most of them wouldn't have known the truth if they had to pay it alimony.
SIDE NOTE: Mad respect to Leslie Sykes. She's the real deal, and you don't want to get into a scrap with her :) I appreciate her for her honesty.
All that aside, my wife Brandi and I found ourselves in the middle of a shitstorm we didn't ask for. See, even though we were one of those other people for a second, we were never those people. Brandi purchased her on-air dresses at consignment stores. Sure, they had a designer label, but they cost forty bucks because they had already been worn by someone else.
Why did we participate in those subtle lies? Because Brandi is also a journalist who flew into Afghanistan. Her story was about the human cost associated with war. She spoke truth to power. She interviewed injured American soldiers flying home on C-17's. Many were clinging to life. She did food drives for those in need. She mentored high school and college students. In our minds, the padded bra trade-off didn't even compare to the soldiers who'd lost their limbs. It made our lame sacrifice worthwhile, I guess. Until it didn't, and maybe we pushed it too far. I get that now.
I think over the years, those pieces of my soul that I lost started to add up. I know many people feel that way now. I hear it in the anger from the streets.
From my perspective, the only way out of this governmental, religious, and societal corruption is to realize that it's us against them. They've got money and power. Our greatest weapon is truth, and that weapon is easy to attain if we sacrifice our collective egos and realize that we don't know everything.
So here we are, final truth. I'm telling you that you're not crazy. Almost everything you believe about the corruption is true. I've actually seen it. These last few years have been a lot. This is coming from the kid who once slept on a dirt-basement floor with his sisters while our mother tried to commit suicide. You're not crazy. It's been a real fucking lot. To my brothers and sisters out there, you're not alone. We've got to get back to speaking truth.
So let me start the group. I was never Christopher Allan Poe. I'm just Chris. I'm sorry for my part in this idiocy, and I'll fight by your side if you'll have me. Ask anyone who knows me. I fight harder than the Wolverine. My daughter is X-23. Also, Brandi's dope, too.
We're here if you need us.
-Chris