Whatever happened to Jeff Key?

Well it’s come to this has it? Okay, today they turned off my phone. The IRS is after me. It seems I made the mistake of making a little bit of money a couple of years ago. Actually, the money I made was more than offset by the business expenses I’ve doled out over the last six years of art and activism. But to have kept good records and had the sense to set up my speaking and performing as an actually business would have been oh-so-much NOT like me. For me to get paid for what I do is almost unheard of but I will empty my pockets over and over for a good cause. Now it’s come to the end. I absolutely can’t go on doing this. Over and over, “Hey Jeff, we really need your help with this could you….” and “Jeff you just don’t know what good you’re doing with all your efforts. Please, please keep going.” and “You have made such a HUGE contribution to our efforts.” I just can’t do it any more. If nothing else, it’s not fair to Adam. Our agreement is that he pays the rent and utilities and goes to med school and I buy the food and household supplies and keep the house. I’VE FAILED! The poor bastard’s eaten his weight in Macaroni and Cheese. Just so I could show up over and over and perform my play and speak at activist events. Well I just can’t do it any more. I can’t. I’ve done four readings so far of excerpts of my play looking for investors for the New York run. You just wouldn’t believe the nice things people say! “Oh this is just going to be a HUGE hit in New York.” No it’s not. You know why? Because it’s not going to New York. Because people who are actually able to invest (even at the five thousand dollar mark) have refused to do so. So it’s over. But who the fuck really cares? We’ve still got American Idol and that is, after all what’s important. Fuck socially conscious theatre! Fuck making a difference. The time has come for me to go get a j-o-b. I’ll join the system and work for slave labor doing something I’m not good at so they can take my tax money and fry the skin off kids the American people will never have to see. Welcome to your empire. Am I bitter? You bet your sweet ass I am.
The IRS is not the only ones after me. Chase has my student loan now. I don’t know how that happened. Somebody called me from India yesterday, making less than a living wage to ask me why my student loan payment is late. Isn’t that a riot? You want to know why my student loan payment is late Lady-from-India? It’s because my country’s economy is in the shitter. Because we are involved in a long well planned process of making the only jobs available to non-owning-class Americans THE MILITARY! So we can take over more countries. So the ultra-wealthy can get even wealthier. Because you, Madam work for a company that came to the taxpayers with their hand out last year for 25 billion dollars and the head of your company, your boss, makes 40 million a year! That, sweetheart is why my student loan payment is late. ’cause when you (try to) make a living doing good for other people or presenting non-mind-numbing-TV forms of entertainment to a populace that NEEDS to stay stupid and fat, your salary is the first to go in a “bad economy.” I don’t even know what that means! This is not a bad economy! This is what happens over time when money is siphoned from the working class masses to keep the wealthy elite living like royalty. And the best part of this sad, sad comedy? Half those ignorant fools will vote to keep the wicked in power, believing all the while that the labor unions destroyed the American dream and God will never love America again until the queers are in concentration camps and abortion is punishable by death.
I tried, boy, I tried. It’s sad to say that because my dumb ass what just too, too, too whatever-I-am too say five simple words over the last six years. “I need to get paid.”
WAIT. A. MINUTE. What am I thinking?!
I’ve changed my mind. I’m NOT going to go work at Wal Mart. I’m NOT going to join the system. I’ll sell every stick of furniture I have (and this fag’s got some nice antiques honey) and I’ll keep feeding us with the money until the money runs out and hopefully he’ll be a doctor by then. And I will sit at this fucking computer and I will write. And when it’s done, I might leave behind a skinny corpse but I will have also left behind a body of literature that spoke truth to force. Because that’s what it is, force. They want to force you into slavery and it’s up to you whether or not you’re going to let them. The next time you here somebody use the term “speak truth to power,” you correct them. Because that ain’t real power. It’s just brute force, motivated by greed and deception. Real power is reserved for those who understand that there is such a thing as universal spiritual law and that if you think you can abuse the poor forever and continue to enjoy great wealth, you’re crazy. Sooner or later, somehow it always happens this way, divine justice is exacted. In the same way that God is no respecter of persons, God is no respecter of nations and a country that thinks that it can get away with the things we’ve been up to will ultimately find itself on its knees.
What happened to me is just one more example of what has happened to millions of people by now.
We have a saying in the Marine Corps, “Death before dishonor.” We’ll that’s me brother. I will continue to do what I know is right whether or not anybody is willing to support me in it or not, until I die. And if there is a God, he or she or it will make a way for me to continue it. But for now, my art and my activism and my participation in the solution (such that it is) will be happening from this desk. Do not ask me to show up for free no more. I just can’t.
Adam’s home and is ready for his macaroni and cheese. Anybody want to buy some antiques?