I remember working for a company, 2012-ish, and every morning the leadership of the company would have their “Princes of the Universe” coffee meeting. Truth be told, it felt good to be invited to that meeting, to sit down, and grab a cup of Joe. If you were on the outside of that congregation, it was a bad feeling. I found myself on the outs for reasons that are completely my own—I earned my exile. One morning, I hear them talking about the song “Friday” by Rebecca Black, and how the youth didn’t care for the song. White men, between forty, and eighty, discussing pop music as if they had influence on popular culture. Now, I may have still been raw from being frozen out, but the concentration of audacity felt like it was going to give me tumors. Those men were completely oblivious to the fact they were no longer relevant. I was about twenty-eight years old, and I felt irrelevant from having an opinion on what influenced popular culture. There probably should have been a nurse at those meetings, to determine if it was testicular cancer, or just ego.
Do you like professional wrestling? Of course you do, we all do. Professional wrestlers are some of the best storytellers on the planet. Now that the curtain of the business has been drawn, and it is public knowledge that professional wrestling outcomes are predetermined, you can watch a lot of interviews about older guys not wanting anyone to take their spots. Hulk Hogan comes up a lot, not wanting to make way for the younger guys coming through. In these interviews, guys will say things that equate to people having no concern about the future of the business, they are just trying to grab up everything they can for their own good. Older athletes refusing to cooperate with younger people, trying to suck everything they can out of the situation, for themselves.
Does that sound familiar to you at all?
I’m not trying to turn my blog political, but as someone with a Circle A in his logo, I’m sure you can gather my thoughts on politics. My work has always been about people, specifically the undercounted. “Broken Promise Records” was a book about the ugly side of rockstar life. “Days of the Phoenix” was about a congregation of counter-culture. Hell, “A Law of Constants” was about the very fabric of reality being saved by an outsider. When I sit down to write my blog, I’m doing it through a lens of how it looks for people. What I see absolutely sucks.
In the news as of late, I feel like I’m reliving 2001 all over again. In 2001, seeing the aftermath of the most abhorrent, inhuman acts perpetrated in my homeland, my seventeen year old brain thought the sacrifice of sentience for security was a sound choice. At the time, I would have rather had a few decisions made for me than have to worry about missiles falling into my yard. What the seventeen year old me wasn’t aware of was that not everyone shared my naive sense of community in terms of safety. I was a junior in high school, living in a small mountain town that had more teeth than culture, and I didn’t know any better. Forty year old me sees the fear mongering, the panic selling, and the old regime sucking the resources dry with no concern for a future.
In 2025, it feels a lot like 2001, and 2012. The apparent truth is that it feels good to be on the inside of the power circles, but there is a sobering perspective to be gained when you’re on the outside of it: no matter how much you gravel, pander, or rub shoulders with those Princes of the Universe, they are only going to act for the interest of their pockets, not yours. Those Princes of the Universe are not concerned for your future, because they are preoccupied with their right now. As for me? I’m just trying to get voices heard above the noise.
Thank you for joining me on this long overdue trip across the Millerverse; I’ll see you next time.
A.P. Miller 