Come Hell or High Water
This is a spoken word I performed at A Time for Action: Curated by Sixto Wagan, an exhibition held at the Blaffer Art Museum.
My performance runs from 0:40-7:40.
Picture this:
You’re on a boat
sailing through the river of life
When suddenly, because of a surprise storm, lightning zaps your ship ablaze
You call the emergency hotline for help
Ring ring ring
“Sorry we are busy, please try again never.”
Ring ring ring
“You have called this number in error, and should try the following number instead: 1-800-GIVE UP.”
Ring ring ring
“The number you have called is never in service.”
…
Guess you’re on your own!
Or in other words
Welcome to trying to get any assistance from the Unholy State of Texas!
---
This past year has been a wild one for many of us
like many Texans, my ship had capsized, and I was unemployed
So, I thought I’d try applying for unemployment insurance
You know, that thing where the government
Ideally fixes or gets you a new boat
Or at the very least
Throws you a lifejacket to keep you afloat
Contrary to popular propaganda, it’s not a “handout”,
Remember that the government is literally funded through your taxes,
To build roads, utilities, and a myriad of other services
This lifejacket was made with your name on it,
and by golly, you deserve it!
Alas, we live in Texas, sigh
Where, forget extending a hand,
Texas instead lifts its boot up high
As you reach toward land
and kicks your face deeper into the water
---
Texas Alamo enthusiast Davy Crockett famously, supposedly once said to his enemies,
“You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.”
…But joke’s on him, hell and Texas are one and the same!
How else can one describe the current state of affairs?
Where our ruling party refuses to solve a single actual problem we have.
From the pandemic induced recession
to the aftermath of the Texas Freeze
It’s enough to put someone into a depression
Hell, they won’t even expand Medicaid for those in need
Instead, with a sinister glee
They go after their political enemies and enrich corporations
Such is the way of the devils at the Texas GOP
From trans kids to teachers to, quite frankly, anyone with a uterus
Republicans have perfected the art of zealous plutocratic terror
And just this past week, Archdemon Abbott
ended federal unemployment benefits for those who are still jobless
while his party is working to extend billions of dollars of welfare for their corporate overlords
So you see, despite what the fiends would have you believe
the government can and does have the ability to do quite a lot
they simply choose to leave us to fend for ourselves while robbing us
and if you possibly thought you want to vote them out…
Texas is already the hardest state to vote in,
and there’s a good chance that the demons at the top
are about to make it a whole lot harder
---
One thing we see time and time again when many of our boats sink
is that we Texans come together in dramatic, heroic ways
Mutual aid is the norm when you live in a failed state
And with hurricane season is just around the corner
there’s little doubt that the ghouls running our State
will do little but leave us to our fates
But as we wade through floods to come
Let us remember that our fates
are inextricably bound up in one another
And furthermore,
even when Texas refuses to pull us up
It’s up to us to pull it down into the water
And make it into the lone star lifeboat that it was meant to be.