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.

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The Day that Houston Stood Still

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The Price of Free Rent