I’m in my early fifties now, and escape from my dungeon on occasion to relive the better parts of my past. What do I miss the most about days gone by? That’s an easy answer. New York City.

Now retired and living in the heart of Dallas, I inadvertently find myself concocting precarious situations to recall those Manhattan weekend journeys. Here, I hop public transit to do the most menial tasks without much of a gameplan. Today, I’m going all the way to the other side of the city to test out some Fender Strats.

I own a nice truck, but it’s hard to write and drive at the same time. I wanted to get out into the heart of the city to feel the vibe they won’t show me on the evening news. There’s no better way to do that than public transit. 

It’s late August and scorching hot. Glancing up from time to time, I realize I’m somewhere I’ve never been. It’s exhilarating, really. A cackling woman under the influence of who-knows-what reveals her presence from behind me. When did she get on? Was she there the whole time? I don’t recall flinching when I heard it. The pandemic made me numb.

Yes, this is just like NY, but on a more microscopic scale. I need to up the ante a bit so, next stop, I’m whipping out ‘Old Man Proto’. Temporarily warping reality should even the playing field more to my liking.

I look up again and see I’m still in unfamiliar territory. Luckily, trains and busses run on loops so I can hop off whenever. I recognize the street names from some of the worst reports in Dallas history, but I witness zero of those infamous, hood-esque shenanigans. Perhaps violence erupts in all neighborhoods, but the news gets more viewers when the stories contain the less fortunate.

I feel just as safe here in this rattling death-trap as I do sitting outside my own home surrounded by weapons and booby-traps because safety is a point of view, folks.

What feels safe to me may feel threatening to you.  Dallas “safe” is equal to NY “meh”. So, the next time someone asks, “Is it safe?”, how do you respond?

“I don’t know; is it?”

I look up once more to get a glimpse of my bearings. Sure, I could stop writing and fondle modern technology long enough to see exactly where I’m at, but that’s no fun. How do you know what’s safe if you don’t experience danger? What’s a god if you’ve never met the devil? What’s death if you choose never to live in the first place?

This is how I did it back in the day; long before I penned fiction. I placed myself in precarious situations – whether that be natural, geographical, or metaphysical – and wrote in the dangerous moments; the barbed birth canal of true gonzo journalism. Tell how the other half lives by seeing it with your own eyes. I think the misinformed would find more love existing in the pits of poverty than in the billionaire banquets televised via right-wing cable media.

Now I know exactly where I am on the route, I think. I recognize the apartment complex from one of those “worst ‘hoods in Dallas” videos on YouTube. I see zero gangs of thugs or hoodlums. They must be invisible until filmed through a camera’s lenses or seen through special glasses like the classic haunted house film “Thirteen Ghosts”. I’m not saying these places aren’t chaotic from time to time, but all neighborhoods are. Have you ever been to an impromptu monster truck mud bog out in the sticks? Same thing, just whiter. Those parties don’t run 24/7 either.

All right; I’m going to pull myself out of the zone for a second to gather my bearings. The bus driver just took his break and left me on the bus alone. I had a CDL license for the better part of a decade, but I don’t wear orange well. Makes me look like a fat pack of Zig-Zags.

In closing, the loudest and most obnoxious of every bubble is the one who receives the most camera time, thus developing the viewers ever-evolving point of view. THEY tell us what’s safe and unsafe, but why do we even listen? Safety is a point-of-view, like the interpretation of art in a museum or the ferocity of the family pet toward strangers. The only way our current government administration can tell us something is collectively unsafe is because they’re the ones who drew the safety lines in the first place.

How can we be courageous when the gatekeepers control the fear-cage? How can we be less hateful when they tell us who, what, when, where, why, and how to love?

That’s the easy part in all of this, ladies and gentlemen. We heal our world by becoming deaf to the mainstream. Get out of your comfort zone and see what life is doing without you. Preach truths, toke jokes, and shoplift Amazon. Where am I? Forget the guitars. I’m hungry and going home.

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