Night of the Living Nick (with puking)

Someone out there points the figure at me and calls me hypocrite. They sneer at my lifestyle choices and daily activities that I make public, but not consider why I am making such activities public. Did they think my intentions and goals were as obvious as to be as they appear?

Here is a bit of history for you: Way Walker Industries was established in December of 2011 as the concept I am bringing into fruition now. That seed of an idea has been nurtured, cared for, and cultivated for 12 years with a singular intention and clear goal that I have set out to accomplish. Consider the kind of documented record of my life since then. Five years of honorable military service modestly decorated for such a short time, and unusually varied in experience- surface to sub, both as a sailor and a swimmer, from the deck all the way down to the waterline to the sail and the top of the antenna.

There were some other minor activities that were less significant in my regular duties, but activities I learned and experienced from none the less, like coxswain— piloting a small boat for naval operations, bartending school in Connecticut where I learned a lot more than I expected there was to know about that noble profession, a bachelor’s degree in business, acceptance into a collegiate fraternity, choir volunteering, ship’s library salvage and donation to a charitable cause simply because I knew it was going to be entirely discarded when the ship decommissioned.

Nobody told me I had to do that, nobody was even planning on doing that, and in fact I had to go through some normal bureaucratic hoops just have permission to take charge of those assets and have a plan to do with them. Renovating another ship’s library not only by organizing it, creating an index of titles and simple system of borrowing to know who last checked out a book in case you’ve been wanting to read it, and petitioning the crew, officer and enlisted, to use shared monetary resources entirely for fun and games to receive a stipend of purchasing requested books before deployment. If you are an officer, you are allowed to use the ship’s library along with the enlisted and use the special preloaded reading devices the navigation senior chief got for the library too. Officers and enlisted are both included in the ship’s crew, and I don’t know why I even have to explain that. What the hell else would you be? Passengers? Stowaways?

Anyway… do you know why I did that stuff? Not because I wanted to be recognized for doing more than my duties. I did that because I know people want to read books but they rarely find the time to do so or think about it when there is an opportunity to make time. I wanted to make that easier for people because of how important reading is to me as something I enjoy, so I asked people what books they’ve wanted to read, but never got around to it, received some funding, purchased those books at used book stores, and stocked them in the library so if they decided to do so, they could read them. I know personally how much a book can improve a person’s life, but also how difficult it can be to read through the best ones, which is why I wanted to encourage people to do that.

That’s my point. I did not do all that extra work for self-interest, but that does not mean I was not self-interested, because I am interested in my own personal development and that means cultivating virtue within myself that one day experience may nourish into wisdom. That doesn’t happen by missing opportunities to do some good and make the world a better place when you can. You have to go out of your way for that kind of stuff, sometimes to great and exhaustive lengths, and also keep on track with your original purpose, which continues to be Way Walker Industries for me.

I tell you that stuff now not to boast about it, but because you people are judging me poorly, uncharitably, and wrong—I am upset by that not because I do good stuff I want to be recognized for, because that is not the case at all. You are doing to me what is intolerable to do to any person. You apparently didn’t think it was possible that I was real, but I am, and the documentation to prove it is already in your systems and should have been examined before you condemned me. Maybe whoever decided to throw away something as important as a human life decided to not go through the steps of reviewing his file before doing so.

Gundecking is always wrong, but if you gundeck vital maintenance and fuck up a mission when that vital equipment fails because you didn’t change the filter, oil, do the cleaning, or whatever— the Navy probably couldn’t smash you harder than what they will do. That doesn’t mean it is the end of your life, but if you try to hide it and make things worse about all kinds of other fucked up shit you’ve done, lying about it, and showing that you are Timmy Binladen, Sailor of the Bilge, instead of security clearance, straight laced, petty officer Bylotissimus, your life may as well be over, because that is the other worst crime you can get busted for.

That’s just what they say about me, alright. If you were in my division you would know that my uniform was faded, dirty, my mustache exceeded regulations when I didn’t hold my mouth just right, and I fucked stuff up too. Lots of stuff. The worst kinds of things, and the trivial kinds of things. As far as I can tell, that’s life, because everyone did that at some point with all kinds of stuff. We make a mistake, get smacked, take it like a man, and don’t let it happen again. If that wasn’t the way it was like for you in your div, then you probably are a rare exception, because I’m sure everyone fucks up once in while. What matters is how you respond when you make a mistake, not what your mistake was.

What I am attempting to illustrate is the kind of industrious, dedicated, proactive, hard working, and capable person I am, while also being realistically flawed and human like anyone else, because that humanity is the plain truth that is clear as day and obvious with no reason to deny me. I am not handed anything in life, I do not get special help, I do not have special powers, or Devil’s luck. I work my ass off and don’t complain about it. At least not until the job is finished and I can get a little drinking done. So… that’s the kind of cultivation, nourishment, and work I have been putting into Way Walker Industries for 12 years now.

I’m not going to abandon all that and just start over as if my entire life’s work was pointless when everything is going according to plan. No… I’m going to get back to the line, lower myself into a strong stance to make every ounce of my well-trained body effective, and hit harder than I did the last time. You are not going to get through me, and as a matter of fact, I am going to put you on your back before you even realize what happened.

I am not the quarterback of my team, nor am I the running back, wide receiver, tight end, or kicker. I do not score the points or carry the ball. I snap the ball and make the pancakes. Just when you think you had me figured out, I won’t be there anymore, because I’ll be the jaws of the springing trap, or blocking the ends from the outside, because I play all the positions of the line whenever the coach decides to shift the roster around.

I don’t complain about not getting what I want, like that time I was turned down cold that year I wanted to learn running back. Sure, I was mad as hell, because it didn’t seem fair since I didn’t even get a chance, but I got over it in a day and never held a grudge. That’s just how teams work, and honestly, I’ve always had more pressing concerns than games. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be polytheistic in a monotheistic world and share how good that is. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to explain that there are other gods and goddesses than just the one— explain that to my grandpa anyway.

Dude was like a dang saint on fire, booming, and preaching the good book, having all creation praise the Lord with him whenever he stepped through door after a day inventing at the machine shop. I didn’t even know who the heck Jesus was or why the hell I should care, nor did my parents, but he sure seemed to know and I liked that cartoon with the talking snake and fiery sword and that was good enough for me when I was five.

My bro and I both would get back from Arizona after one of those summer vacations when we’d go stay with our dad and stepmom and be like… “Grandpa is something else about God isn’t he?” Then I played one of them Dos computer games about resurrecting some goddesses in a buried castle and fighting a dark lord named Khuul Kume, who gloated too soon, and was like… “man, bro. How the heck am I going to explain to Grandpa there are more than one god, with goddesses too?”

Anyway… he passed on when I got back from seeing the world, and by then… the world I left was not the same. Not like any normal way, but like… fucking-crazy-nightmare-reality not the same. Like suddenly Nazis had secretly taken over everything and people were hypnotized and paranoid of each other, the media was spiraling downhill, and everyone was afraid to speak their mind! I’m like… what the fuck happened while I was gone? Wasn’t talking shit kind of the thing America did? Why’s everyone so afraid to cuss each other out or talk about their dicks? Back when I was a kid, that was never an issue with any of us, no matter how prim and proper the girly girls may have been.

Was I isolated in a random pocket of South Park profanity and innocent mischief down in El Paso Texas at public school and nobody else’s childhood was like that? The kind of mischief that lands you with manual labor holding a spade and using concrete to repair a stone wall you broke. What the fuck happened to you between those days of yours and now? Do you think the kids these days are any different than us?

We need to set a good example, but we aren’t going to do that by pretending like we care about shit we don’t while not caring about what matters most! So far as I can tell, everyone is all worked up over bad words and insults, that they don’t notice our right to say them is going away! You think it’s going to stop there? Every other freedom is going to disappear if you let them take away your right to tell them to “fuck off”, “shove it up their ass”, or “eat shit, dickhead”!

Just because we got our rights doesn’t mean it’s chaos or anarchy! You think I didn’t fear the wrath of getting caught shooting spit wads in class or coming up with new cuss words? I did fear punishment like any normal person should, even though I was pretty much in detention half the time anyway. I still did my best on my homework, was polite to my teachers most of the time, and did what I was supposed to when I was supposed to do something. The thing is that despite all that may be going on, there ain’t nothing to do but spin tops, kick a hackey sack, and pool hop at the hotel when we get a chance, and its those times we need our freedoms protected for, not when we are on the job if the boss doesn’t allow it.

That’s why I work for myself, started my own business the way I want it to be, and run things how I want. Just because politicians are walking on egg shells to keep from letting an f-bomb slip, doesn’t mean us citizens enjoying our liberty need to be concerned with that crap! In fact, they should be able to talk to us on any level because they are so skilled with walking on egg shells and knowing what to say without breaking the rules. Supposedly at least.

You think any one of us believes you crusty old geezers and whores are clean, little lambs with fleece as white as snow!? Get real for a minute before the shit hits the fan, because nobody wants to endure the storm that evil will bring upon us all in every nation. Those kind of shit storms are pretty much guaranteed to happen if you don’t stop whatever plans you have when there is an emergency to deal with the emergency.

You old folks in the Congress and White House are not so different from people I partied with as a teen. None of us are the same kids we were and that’s what makes being a kid so special, but that doesn’t mean that isn’t still who we are. There is drama in every school, and kids aren’t always the best to each other, but usually that’s relatively harmless and nothing we can’t deal with on our own as kids or with the help from our friends or an adult talking some sense. Horrific things can happen, but life has always been like that and that will never change, so don’t even try.

Learning how to live with that reality is part of growing up, and why all of us always need to be looking out for each other even if we are total strangers, social enemies, or rivals. Everyone should know when something has crossed the line of what is tolerable to everyone, and they should not have a problem calling a time out, and setting aside our differences on the cul-de-sac to help with whatever is happening in real life if there is an emergency. Even if you are going to stand out and interrupt a lot of fun when you do that, making people mad at first, they will recognize that the problem is an emergency just like you do and games will be the least of our concerns.

There is an emergency going on in the government, and they are trying to hide it and pretend like they have things under control, but because they are not talking about the emergency as though it were an emergency, we know they do not have the situation under control. There were all kinds of signs leading up to that day Congress was attacked to prevent a presidential election that were red flags— riots, pandemic, migrant caravans, and more— but that event— the attack on Congress is not just smoke we are seeing— it is the flames of a no-shit fire in the engine room.

Do not try to bull shit the poor people like you never went down to our neighborhood and partied at one of our homes. Just as I know you rich folk with all that you do for your special exclusivity aren’t criminals laundering money from human trafficking or selling kilos of coke you paid someone to smuggle up their ass from Mexico to get your money. Nor are you evil minded cultists trying to cause World War 3 and the deaths of billions of people while risking a nuclear war that could in fact result in planetary collapse and human extinction.

You should know that just because we wear hand-me-down coats, shop at the thrift stores, and can’t afford new stuff as often as we’d like, especially not the Lacoste polo shirts with the alligator symbol our girlfriend thinks looks good, doesn’t mean we don’t have brains in our head, or the ability to decide for ourselves what is best for ourselves. As a matter of fact, you should know better than to ever try to tell us how poor we are, how sloppy we dress, or how uncultured we are as reasons why you think you can tell us what to do, because we will chop you down to size with a burn that singes your hair and scorches the earth of your entire fantasy world you pretend you live in.

Now… when I tell you people you are uncultured, uncivilized, and out of line, you’d better listen because I didn’t grow up on the other side of the fence, nor am I over there now. There is something terribly wrong that you do not realize, and if you did, you would address it immediately and be embarrassed that you had to do anything at all. I am not telling you something smart to show off or make you look dumb. I’m telling you something smart because that’s just the kind of street kid I am, and you probably know someone like me. Just because we took different classes at school, doesn’t mean we aren’t cool when we party at the pool and the coke goes around.

This problem I am telling you is an emergency— a 9-1-1 emergency on the Apocashitstorm Scale of recorded in the U.S. history books forever to be taught and written about in countless essays by teens who couldn’t care less. Essays that are read by teachers who couldn’t care more and will bury the knowledge so deep into their heads with a catchy rhyme about sausage and bagels that they’ll totally forget until 20 years go by when they need to know and find it there after all that time and as fresh as if third period humanities with Ms. Leese ended five minutes ago.

It is an emergency so embarrassing that nobody will want to make fun of you about it because we are all embarrassed to see something like that happen. We all want to do something to take care of it anyway because it concerns us all, and when we are finished, then let’s get back to the game like nothing ever happened, but not a moment before we are sure everything is back to normal the way it should be.

I don’t care if you aren’t a doctor, a priest, a nuclear physicist, or Neil DeGrasse Tyson astrophysicist— there are instructions. They are written in the English language which even though may be hard to read because they were written by people three hundred years ago when a screw was still a screw, and we can figure it out anyway. Be real with me for a minute. How many of you read the instructions anyway? Or do you just start putting planks together, feeling your way through the nuts and bolts and eyeballing how the pieces compare to the picture, and still get it right in the end? Even if you had to open another beer halfway through.

These kind of things are what people cooperate to do that makes human beings what we are. It is not war, entertainment, or good nachos. It’s what we can accomplish when we cooperate. We made it this far from the cave-days, we can figure out how to use our smart phones and propane king 5000 grill masters to keep things from falling apart entirely and taking us back to the start, even if we need to do a montage or two in our free time to catch up to speed with everyone else.

I don’t care how badly you fucked up. This emergency is infinitely worse than your life and whatever your mistakes are. Quite literally, the entire future depends on whether or not we can resolve this crisis before its too late. As far as I’m concerned, something like that affords no time for anything else, least of all games and entertainment. That's more directed to the people in government who seem to be trying to use games and entertainment to get the public to do something, and I’m pissed off that they are even trying.

Pick up the god damn microphone, use the president’s special camera, and tell us what the fuck you want from us. We have lives to live with more important things to do than decoding your weird messages about our behavior, ideology, politics, or whatever the fuck. If you have anything important to say, say it first with plain language— the stories are for after the war is over, the smoke clears, and the rebuilding begins because we learned whatever lesson there was by experiencing the final act!

You cannot frame an true historical event into a story to teach a lesson until everything is over and we can talk about it from outside what is happening. That will not happen until the public is made aware and agrees that it is over. If that happens and everyone agrees except one person from out of nowhere who goes all Adolf Hitler on everyone else and is like: “Mark my words!!! This is not over yet!!!” this is what you do:

First, be like Fonzi. Chill. Cool. Don’t panic. Second, say “okay dude, what’s the problem? You can say whatever you want, use whatever language you want, be as inappropriate, obscene, rude, and hateful as you feel like, and it is okay as long as you make sure we understand how you feel, and we will do our best to understand patiently and without interrupting rudely.” Then, talk about the problem for as long as it takes until we can live with each other. If we all want to have the freedom of a private home to ourselves, then we should all be able to find a way to cooperate in public cheerfully and in a good, neighborly spirit.

If you want privacy, then we all need to find a compromise with each other about how we will live our public lives, and nobody can be left out because you find it convenient to do so. I for one am telling everyone what the single rule of law is that we all have to agree on without exception. This is not an opinion, this is not an ideology of faith, nor any political agenda. This is a law of nature that makes civilization possible: Good is loved, and evil is reviled, rejected, and hated to annihilation. Do not do evil. That is the basis for law and order itself.

The compromise that all of us, Gentile, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindi, Satanist, Scientologist, atheist etc… is how we define what is good and what is evil. Surely, we can agree on that, and if we decide that in the USA, it should be applicable all over the world too! Not that they will have to do anything about it, but that agreement should be universally applicable. Before you start making drama, set the stage. We will work out the conflict, drama, and resolution after the stage is set and not a moment before, because that must happen on stage for people to see.

You cannot predict what I am going to do as the new variable of an identity group, because I don’t know myself what that is! I do know this, and I am happy to share it with everyone as a gesture of goodwill: I know how I will respond to the situation on stage with the existing characters, plot, and scene already in motion—and that is morally good, cooperatively, selflessly, and rationally to achieve the best results possible while not compromising my honor and virtue.

That much I can promise everyone and you can hold me to those words, and call me out if you think I am deviating. With all due respect, I’m not on stage right now. I’m not in my attire for the scene, I don’t have my stage makeup on, and as far as I can tell, all the other cast are trying to keep me locked outside the playhouse even though the show cannot happen without me. My arrival to the scene as a new character is the catalyst for the rising action that will be the entire plot!

The show is not about me. The show is about what happens when I make my appearance and shock everyone with my stunning and glorious revelation of supreme awesomeness and rugged good looks that is the role of true love I got called back for. Don’t blame me, take it up with the director upstairs if you have a problem.

That much is certain, and as far as I’m concerned, we should have started the show some time ago. Their hostility to my role is uncalled for because everyone was already aware of the part I have since the beginning. In any case, I won’t know what that entails exactly until everyone else makes their moves according to what they are supposed to be on stage, because this is an improv. The Christian will be the Christian, the Jew will be the Jew, the Buddhist will be the… etc. I represent the Story, in case you wanted a label to put on my assigned seat at the banquet. We are the most hardcore LARPers in all of time, and don’t you forget it. Just because the fireballs and lightning bolts we throw at our enemies are imaginary, doesn’t mean they won’t strike true and devastate an entire world.

Right… so what all these diverse groups including myself have in common is that we all want the freedom to live our private life the way we want. We all want to be the master of our own home and personal lives. That is true about the characters on stage at the very least. The USA’s Democracy makes that possible as long as we abide by the doctrine and spirit of its founding, even if we need to make some revisions to keep up with the times, and we certainly do.

For that to be possible for all of us, even though your private lives are protected, if you are found out doing evil by any means— even if by accident because someone was unexpectedly at the wrong place at the wrong time and saw you red handed with a waffle iron in the kitchen and Professor Plum dead at your feet, be willing to face the law for what you did, because you are caught and you know it. Do not try to flip over the entire board in a temper tantrum and plunge the entire world into World War 3 to kill everyone with a nuclear apocalypse because you want to take everyone else down with you. To prevent that from ever happening again, ensure that no person is in a position to do that—money, political office, fame, or whatever— without having the least amount of class, honor, and dignity; none is unacceptable.

That public accountability to the law is the agreement we are all making with each other. If you brazenly defy that law or corrupt it, you are disgracing the very game itself and all who play it from the throne of the emperor to the throne of the hobo. Both the emperor and the hobo will rise from their seat to strike you down if necessary because of the offense you are causing to the court. Do not ever make that mistake or allow someone to make that mistake again, or I swear to whatever god or godless faith you have, that I will come back from the dead and murder every castmember on or off the stage like the Phantom of the Opera. Not only that, but I will take your scalps for my belt before I do, because I’m an American, and I stick to my word.

Now… because this is my first time on the set and I have not had a chance to introduce myself yet, I may be willing to forgive some of the offenses that occurred, but that is not going to change what has to happen. If you are so stupid as to be doing evil in public like the USA government appears to be doing openly— we need to stop the game and figure out what the fuck just happened, because that’s… the most inappropriate thing possible and uncalled for no matter what may be happening in context.

Let me put it this way: you simply do not hire strippers to go to an elementary school and give lap dances and strip teases to all the children while doing lines of coke in the back of the room with the teacher getting head under his desk. That’s the kind of inappropriate lawlessness I am telling you is the emergency we are having. The situation would likely be comical if this was a movie, but this is not a movie. This is real life, and we are in a war. A real life war. At any moment everything could boil over into World War 3 in the blink of an eye.

Take a breath. I’m going to bring it full circle and to a close now.

Although the situation may seem disasterous beyond repair, hopeless beyond redemption, catastrophic without salvation, do not lose heart yet. This is just the kind of thing I created Way Walker Industries to be able to do for people. Not because I was expecting a disaster of such calamity, but because the kind of crisis we are having is of a nature that is my professional expertise as a pilgrim. This is not so unusual to humanity, but there are less people like me in the world now than was normal a hundred years ago, or even fifty years ago. I may have started with the awareness of a religious perspective, but identifying with that religion was never my goal, intention, or what I have been looking for. On top of that, I have in fact found truth outside of that religious concept and in harmony as well.

That is the Story, and I can teach about it to everyone if they want—but that’s not necessary because that was a personal journey and I cannot convert people into being me nor should anyone want that because you are beautiful the way you are, so I am not even going to try! For now… take this document and use it as a pipe patch to seal the flooding in the government.

In addition to the document, use my life and all you know about me according to fact, record, and verifiable truth as the tools necessary to apply the patch securely and stop any other problems as needed. Whatever that may require, you will be able to explain after why that was necessary, how, and what was done, and I likely won’t hold against you whatever you did to stop that crisis. Do not hesitate to do what is necessary at the expense of the person you have recorded on file as me. That person is a real person and is truly me, but I am I different now, purified… I laid down that life long ago with the intention of losing it—death— for the work of the Story that was my resurrection to new life…. it was that mysterious act which resulted in my call back for the play. That is not a matter for mortals to decide or argue about. Who is, is, and who will be, will be, but do not concern yourself with them, because you already have enough on your plate to be concerned with just for yourself.

Just make sure that what you use me for in there is legally admissible in a court of traditional law in the current system we have in the event that the disaster was caused by a crime. That justice system, however unreliable, is what we have and we are going to use it until we have something better. Even though I laid that life down, that was the real me, and I am not faking anything about who I am. Those records are most likely true about me as long as you can verify their source legally. There was likely a bunch of shady, evil bull shit to put false information out there to try and slander me, but if they have no proof, facts, or anything, then it is most likely total horse shit they made up. If you doubt that, ask me about whatever it is they are accusing me of so that I can explain whatever they think they saw if they saw anything and didn’t just make up some random lie.

The last knot in this example of the trusty and traditional sailor’s y-knot is the further utility of Way Walker Industries as a trustworthy business proxy for all that needs to be done to rebuild. Do not think of it like a company under my direction, because that is not how it works. I am the owner of Way Walker Industries, but the industries are independent unless otherwise stated because they want to be further identified with Way Walker Industries.

There are two current products I offer in that regard at this time: An “approved as good by Way Walker Industries” seal, and an “official product of Way Walker Industries” seal. As you can see, one of them will be vetted and that’s all. The other will be working closely with my team and sharing our resources and talents to do their best work.

So, do you think I am slothful because I boast about laying around playing video games, napping, drinking soda, and being lazy? Then you fell for the trick, because I work at home. I am not at all slothful, even if I am lazy. Do not expect my work to look traditional because my personal way of doing things is one of perfect chaos, and I am always on call. That means that when I am not busy working, I make the most of it, because at times I can be working non-stop for day on end and never be “off the clock”. Also… come on! Give a guy a break, already! How many people does it take to run something like Amazon?

I’m not on that scale yet, but how many departments do they have just to ensure everything is happening— hiring, maintaining, brain storming, networking— and in accordance with business laws. Holy hell! I need a partner who can live with me and share this dream for life. I need a maiden to marry who truly loves me for who I am and not what I have or what is limited to my body. That is very important to me and I will not risk betrayal because of how many times I have suffered the worst kinds of betrayal in the 34 years I’ve been alive. I have to know I can trust her, and I will not be meeting any demands of hers, least of all a needless flesh sacrifice to prove myself when I have nothing to prove ever again after proving what should never have been demanded of a mortal man such as myself. I’m good for all time now.

My bill is paid in full, and I have the deluxe penthouse suite of the king of the world for the rest of my life with all expenses included now too. They said it couldn’t be done and gave me up for dead, but I was only hung over from a night of heavy drinking. I had been downing Silverhand Specials with a PBR on the side one after another without end while letting my hair down at a Latter Day Skanks concert and smoking a pack of American Spirits. Tbh, I did think I was dead for minute there, but I guess I still had some work to do and here I am, alive and kicking like I never even took a hit. That’s the power of Pepto-Bismal. Never leave home without it. I mean it, because I was out of pink potion that morning and so was the store. It was night of the living Nick and puking in the street while looking for a place that sold it, and find it I did.

To be continued…