Rev Left Radio - At Least the Pain is Cheap...

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

A book of poetry dedicated to the human experience of the working class poor in the American Midwest... Buy and/or review At Least the Pain is Cheap HERE Get a free copy at: [e-mail]

Hey everybody. I just wanted to pop on here really quick and let you know about something that I think is really cool and really exciting. My friend and co-host of our other podcast, Shulis in South Dakota, Dave has just released his first ever book of poetry to the public. Not only did he release this book of poetry called At Lease the Pain is Cheap, but I wrote the foreword to it. So I wrote a very short but concise little forward to this book. of poetry that is centered on the themes of working class and poor life in America. The lower classes in American society dealing with addiction, the health care system, living paycheck to paycheck, the emiseration of the day-to-day life of struggling people. And it's not something he's writing about abstractly or from an academic point of view. This is something that he is and always

has been immersed in himself. For listeners of Shoelessness in South Dakota, you'll know. that he struggled with addiction and alcoholism for the last 15 or so years, if not longer, and is on his recovery journey, as bumpy as that ride may be. And we talk about that in the show all the time. But he's lived this life. And writing has always been something that him and I have connected on since we met each other at age 15 in high school, but something that he's really carried forward throughout his life, despite the difficulties that he's faced with his addiction. all of the things that cascade from addiction, including poverty, you know, bouts of homelessness, you know, rehab, recovery, relapse. So this is written from a place of

experience and it speaks to the experiences of lower class, poor and working people in the belly of the beast of this brutal empire that robs its own people and plunders the world. So it's not as political as something that I would write, but the themes are completely political in the sense that they are experienced from the perspective of the lower classes in American society. And my foreword is titled the American Abyss. And I'll read the forward right here just to sort of spark some interest. But I do want to say that you can buy the book for $10 on Amazon. You can support Dave and his poetry and his art, which would be absolutely amazing. but he also is willing to give free PDFs to anybody who can't afford the $10. So he wanted me to make it clear that if you email him at at least the pain is cheap at gmail.com, he will send you over a free PDF of this entire book of poetry, including my forward and everything else. But regardless of whether or not you buy it and support him or you just get the free version, if you could leave a positive review for him on Amazon, that would be really cool.

and that would help him out a lot. So this is the foreword that I wrote to this wonderful book of poetry, and the four word is titled The American Abyss. In modern American society, we are besieged on all sides by a cascade of stimulation. Our phones glow almost radioactively in our hands, drawing our scattered attention into the open maw of the vertical monolith, reminding us just how inadequate we really are. Our televisions, our horizontal monoliths, always on in the background, humming with a cacophony of voices trying to sell us something, insurance or pharmaceuticals or laughably impractical pickup trucks, but they come fully equipped with the Punisher logo already on them, so the other middle-age guys at Costco know you mean business.

We pop our AirPods in and are blitzed with songs about love and money and sex, things we don't ever get enough of and probably never will. We walk through cities full of steel erections, shooting airy glass architecture into the skies, reflecting the clouds, conveying the almost otherworldly dominance of capital. But everything in America is a facade, a glittery, glamorous, gadgetized facade. We sell this facade back to ourselves and we export it to the rest of the world. Staring into the facade is also staring into the abyss. It's hypnotizing. It's like looking at the sun during an eclipse, always squinting, accumulating damage.

The lifestyles of the rich and famous are there to remind us what we could have had. The superstars and athletes are there to remind us what we could have been. Cable News is there to keep us angry and scared of our neighbors, and the commercials never stop coming. And yet, when the phone dies and the TV gets turned off and the AirPods need to charge, we are left with ourselves, with our ceaseless thoughts and with our real lives lives that never quite measure up underneath the gilded shining facade of 21st century american life peeled back like a dry scab on a wet wound we can begin to see the truth this shining city on a hill shines via artificial light and the hill is actually a mountain of corpses for every main character with one million followers and a bank account with lots of zeros

there is an army of regular Americans, real Americans, if you will, checking them out at the store, delivering food to their doorstep, sleeping in that tent next to where they parked their Audi, pumped full of fentanyl and trauma, drifting into a dreamless sleep. For every CEO with a private jet, a higher net worth than most small countries, and blood dripping from his fangs, are an army of regular Americans, real Americans, if you will, being suffocated by debt, putting items back on the shelves at the grocery store,

staring at their ceiling at night, wondering how they will make it to the end of the month, going without dinner so their kids can eat, being bankrupt for the crime of getting sick, and being dog-walked every morning to a job they hate with an invisible gun to the back of their head. When they walk past the homeless sprawled out on concrete so hot you could cook an egg on it,

they feel the invisible gun being pushed a little harder in the back of their skull, the freest people to ever exist. Love it or leave it. Don't tread on me. It is this America that concerns the author of the following poems. It is this America, the real America, that the author comes from, was shaped by and aims to reveal. The America found in the break room of a Walmart. The America found in the dingy corners of the shittiest dive bars in towns you've never heard of.

The America found in psych wars and plasma donation centers. in county jail cells, and cheap rehabs, and trash-strewn gutters. The America found in broken relationships, broken hearts, broken skin, and broken psyches. There is no glitz and glamour here. No influencers and nice cars. No champagne flowing like rivers and dollar bills falling like rain. Just life. Life as it really is for those who are shuffled out of the way for the ribbon cutting. Life as it is for the beaten dogs and stray cats with human hearts. Life as it is from the perspective of those looking up while they fall into that abyss.

That uniquely American abyss. But hey, at least the pain is cheap. All right, go support my friend. At least the pain is cheap. A book of poetry by David Isonogel. I'll link to it in the show notes. I really be so happy for anybody to support him, reach out to him. leave a positive review, et cetera. That would make my day, and I know it would make his.

Congratulations, Dave, from the bottom of my heart that you've got this book put together and published. It's a great accomplishment, and I salute you, my friend. All right, love and solidarity.