There are more of us than there are of them

If you like what you read here please consider supporting Hell World with a subscription.

I went looking for something to feel good about. I don't need to tell you that there's not much left in stock of late. On Saturday morning things felt particularly grim even for this moment with the news that two Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses had been shot overnight in their homes in what appears to be a targeted political assassination by a – well I was going to say a deranged right wing lunatic but is there any other kind anymore? Those specific qualifiers are no longer really necessary.

Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed while it appears that John Hoffman and his wife have survived their injuries for now. The suspect – still at large – was reportedly dressed up like a police officer which is a costume that doesn't seem likely to engender trust anymore the way it is meant to. Or at least should not. Who wants to hurt us more than the police right now? It's also particularly confusing because we have so many real ones running around dressed up like they're not cops kidnapping people off the streets.

But I went looking anyway. Even as the local and federal cops continue to brutalize protesters in Los Angeles and other cities. Even as Israel has launched another war of aggression that could spiral out of control. Even as the administration is detaining and handcuffing senators for asking questions at a press conference. Even as the spectacle of the president's dumb shit Army parade loomed later in the day. It would turn out by all accounts to be a big fucking dud. An embarrassment.

Some of the videos are utterly hilarious.

But a ridiculous buffoon can still be extremely dangerous with enough guns behind him. Maybe even more so than a more competent figure.

What does a person do?

They said a million people showed up in Boston alone yesterday. Millions more around the country at thousands of other protests too making it perhaps the largest single day protest in U.S. history.

In Boston the No King's protest happened to coincide with Pride – No Kings Yas Queens they called it – which gave the afternoon more of a party feeling than an angry protest. Not that there wasn't also plenty of that on display.

It was so shitty out. Pissing cold rain on the march from Copley Square to the Boston Common. The skies were dark and cloudy but everyone was so beautiful. Young and old alike. Everyone was so beautiful. People sang and dance and partied and protested at once. I don't think we ended up saving democracy in the process unfortunately. Not quite yet. I don't think it's going to be that easy. But I did find something to believe in. Something I already knew but that one needs reminding of from time to time:

There are more of us than there are of them.

There are so many more of us than there are of them. That has to be worth something. That's worth something right? You would think someone could do something with that fact.

I also felt something similar to the protest from back in April.

Which side are you on

I get anxious before a protest. In part because of the ever present potential for things to go sideways via police-instigated violence. That’s not the anxiety I mean in this case. We drove into Cambridge and got on the train at Alewife the last stop on the Red Line

Welcome to Hell WorldLuke O’Neil

One of the weird things about being in a protest march is that you usually have no concept of how big it is while it is happening. You have to find out about that later. In the meantime you can only see the bodies around you. 

That is one of the best and most important aspects of attending a protest. Seeing and feeling the bodies around you. Feeling part of something larger than yourself.

Alright I'm clocking out from my shift as a lib for the day.

Maybe it's just me but do you ever think about what a privilege it is to live in a country where we have rarely known what it is like to fear being killed by any other government but our own?

I guess maybe the regular mass shootings even it out anxiety-wise.

Please stop saying "We the people" by the way. I know what you're trying to do by taking it back but it's too late. It's a tattoo font for anti-vaxxers now. Tool of the enemy. Leave it behind.

And fuck the American flag too while we're at it.

From five years ago this week:

I left America after four years a totally different person

Oh, there is Hope for our Nation again

Welcome to Hell WorldLuke O’Neil

This isn’t some late in life realization that I just had about the American flag not exactly symbolizing everything it’s supposed to I’ve always known that of course but something clicked into place for me this week when I saw an American flag on a truck driving around and I felt this sort of dark ink spill through my veins. That type of instinctive revulsion at the sight of the American flag is certainly not a new thing to a lot of people especially in pretty much every country in the world we've bombed into dust and bone but it’s still a weird feeling to see the flag and feel threatened by it. When was the last time you saw a car or a house brandishing the flag or saw someone carrying one and didn’t think Ah fuck what’s this asshole up to?

When I see the American flag now it inspires the same feeling we’ve all felt all along when we see the Confederate one. And as if that wasn’t enough they went ahead and invented an even more racist and more violent version of the the American flag with the Blue Lives Matter one.

Happy Fathers Day to one and all. As you know if you read this newsletter I had either the good or bad fortune to have had two fathers (and a great father-in-law too.) One good alive one and one bad dead one. I am pretty much the exact split of the two. One is a hard worker and musician who still does pushups every day in his seventies and one lived with chronic pain and addiction for most of his life and could be a real fucking bastard.

I have said this before but I often feel bad that most of my father writing has been about the latter. That's how it often goes though isn't it? Sometimes the ones who leave us influence so much more than the ones who do not.

I just called home and let my living father talk to me about Brian Wilson for a while which is exactly what I wanted him to do. He also told me about seeing Sly and the Family Stone at Harvard Stadium in the 60s which is pretty damn cool if you ask me. I told him I loved him after that and I meant it and I'll say it again here in case he's reading this which I have no idea if he does or not and don't particularly want to know.

I love you Bobby O'Neil. Thank you for saving us.

I've written about the other guy dying in here so many times. Here's a piece that will appear in the next book – We Had It Coming – which is not quite on pre-sale just yet but kind of is.

Then a couple of the other older pieces after that.

How it is done 

They told us that we were not killing him when it came time to turn off the machines but then what were we doing?

I do not know and I will never know and neither will you. 

They said there was nothing left to be done anymore. All potential avenues had been explored. Somberly and politely and professionally they told us that. Touching our shoulders perhaps. 

Shaking the doctor's hand like a salesman we were closing a deal with. 

And this assemblage of children some of whom barely knew each other or barely even knew him were suddenly thrown together like a ragtag group in a heist movie except what we were stealing was a life.

Not really though they said.

They take you into some room they have around the corner from where whoever the person is is attached to the machine and they tell you what is happening and you’re either the type to meticulously take notes to record what they’re saying so you can try to logic your way out of the most unsolvable puzzle we have going or you’re the kind that blacks out and everything they say dissipates into thin air. 

There always has to be a captain in these scenarios. A reluctant captain. Alright. Alright. Duty is calling. 

Probably that was me but I also remember thinking that this isn’t even my ship. I don’t know how to steer this thing. 

I do not recommend the experience on the whole. Taking someone off of life support. I don’t think I will ever get over it. Watching him die so slowly like that while still being very much alive in the counterbalance the entire time. 

I’m very sorry if you understand this.

Wondering if he was conscious somewhere down in there screaming to be set free. 

They told me that he was not. That he wasn’t there anymore. Ok man then is he out back? Where the fuck did you put him? Who is that right there that I am looking at?

If I take you at your word that we are not killing him then what are we doing specifically? 

A year later my estranged sister called on an anniversary we would now observe together forever.

Maybe we were siphoning out the suffering from his full tank and distributing it amongst ourselves she said. Each taking our fair share. 

One of us greedier than the others and stashing a little extra for later.

I finally erased it because I felt it was time

They’re boxes we carry around that store our conversations with ghosts

Welcome to Hell WorldLuke O’Neil

I don’t remember the final conversation I had with my father. Toward the end of his life he was hard to understand on the phone as years of substance abuse and failing health had garbled his voice. He’d call at inopportune times from a rehab center or hospital on Cape Cod or the home of a friend in Florida he had somehow charmed his way into and I’d hurry to get off the phone. Sometimes I’d find myself annoyed by his attempts to reconnect and let the call go to voicemail. It had been more than fifteen years since we’d had anything resembling a normal relationship and more than thirty since he and my mother had. Even in my frustration it was hard not to think of his looming existential deadline. I may never get the chance to talk to him again I’d say to myself but I always did until of course I didn’t.

On good days he’d tell me about his latest living situation calling from a flip phone with a number that changed as frequently as a drug dealer’s. He’d ask about my writing and where I’d traveled to lately seemingly in awe of all the opportunities I had that he didn’t. Even approaching 40 I’d revert to the role of a young boy eager to make his father proud despite having received plenty of love from my mother and stepdad. He’d lobby me to put in a good word with my sisters on his behalf a message I would relay. Just call the old bastard back I’d tell them. You’ll regret it someday if you don’t.

I do remember the exact day and time of our final few text exchanges though because they’re still on my phone and at least as long as the cloud exists and I stay current on my bill they’ll live there forever. There’s a photo I sent him from December 2015 just after I’d had a chance to interview Tom Brady. What Massachusetts dad wouldn’t want to see that? It kind of breaks my heart to read his reply again now: “im so proud of u my son i cant wait to show everyone tomorrow i cant express my joy dad go get the big fish son agAIN IM TO PROUD FOR WORDS LOVE YOU DAD.”

I’d been expecting him to die for so many years

This essay appears in my book Welcome to Hell World. It was originally published in Esquire. The fifth time I went to watch my father die was the one that finally took. He’d been in and out of hospitals, and hospice, and nursing homes for so many years. He’d clawed

Welcome to Hell WorldLuke O’Neil

The fifth time I went to watch my father die was the one that finally took.

He'd been in and out of hospitals, and hospice, and nursing homes for so many years. He'd clawed his way out of so many comas. We all assumed up until the final moments that this time would be no different. In fact, I still half-expect to get a phone call from him today, his tobacco-ravaged voice asking me to call him back, like so many of the voicemails he left me over the past year or two. He was only 61, but a lifetime of dogged, determined substance abuse and enough related ailments had finally conspired to finish the job he had started at a young age.

Anyway hope all of the fathers out out there have a nice day.

Here's a nice song about a great father and son relationship.

No, I didn't really want to die
I only want to die in your eyes
Grant me one last wish
Life should mean a lot less than this