Originally an exclusive for subscribers of the print level on our Somatick parcel service, The Feck Up Manifusto is now available for wider release. This zine is old school. 32 Xeroxed pages, hand stapled with care.
The official description-
Eric J. Millar and We the Hallowed Press presents an anti-work manifesto for those who have grown sick and tired of shit jobs and the absurd hierarchy they embody. The insights contained within were culled and conjured from nearly twenty-five years of jobbing the capitalist death trip and trying to find a way beyond that bleak horizon.
From the introduction:
Most of us will happen upon a crossroads on our path of life, just before the cascade of maturity hobbles us in new and interesting ways. Once there, we are expected to make an arrangement with one devil or another. There’s no turning tail, no running away. A choice must be made and a deal must be struck.
It’s a tragedy, but it’s life.
We’re always too green when we arrive. Too young, too dumb, too full of hopes and dreams. We wish for more time, so much more time, but a choice must be made and a deal must be struck. The devils won’t wait so we have to act fast. Operators are standing by.
The heaviest gravity pulls us toward the professional path, one that leads to money and student loan debt and a family and that house in the suburbs with a clean white fence and an invasive HOA. It’s what’s sold as the responsible choice, the comfortable choice, the choice where all our dreams come true if we just do what we’re told and switch off our morals and ethics for the next thirty to forty years, just until we’ve built a really solid credit score and a healthy 401k. It’s the path all the billboards and neon signs point toward just a little brighter than anywhere else, coaxing and cajoling us to take that furtive step toward integrating ourselves into a more “mature” world.
Like any proper crossroads, there’s a variety of directions and choices. Most of those don’t have quite the public relations budget of that first road but they certainly try. There’s the path of middle management ascension or tradecraft apprenticeship. There’s the whole Timothy Leary trip of tuning in and dropping out. The paths are so plentiful that it can give you decision paralysis for a future we are absolutely ill-prepared for.
It’s a lot to expect from youth. Hell, it’s a lot to expect of anyone.
Then there’s the road that they want us to forget about, the one overgrown with sharp, leafless branches that scratch away at our exposed flesh and isn’t illuminated by the light of possibility and hope. It’s the one for those who don’t get much of a choice in the matter at all. Those that come up too poor, too abused, too addled by life or plagued by anxieties and depressions. That particular matrix of circumstances can make the crossroads into a straight line pretty goddamn easily with all the roadblocks they can build.
That narrowing is what I best remember when I think about my own personal crossroads over twenty years ago. It was a fog of sadness and anxiety back then. I was in no condition to make my choice or strike any sort of deal. I couldn’t see a future, let alone develop strategies to suss out a life of productivity and success. It didn’t matter, though. The choice had to be made and the deal had to be struck. I made my mark on the dotted line and ended up on the path better left forgotten, ignored, and avoided.
It was the Fuck Up path. There’s no two ways about it.
I absolutely and unequivocally joined the Fuck Up path from that day forward and I’m still a card carrying, bonded and certified Fuck Up to this day. Make no mistake and accept no substitutes.
I’ve been a burger flipper, a shelf stocker, a till jockey, a distributor of comics, a machine operator, a label printer, a part sorter, a wire cutter, a button pusher, a cable winder, a car washer, and a lot arranger. I have had twenty five years of history and experience in nearly every flavor of shit work available and I probably have just as many years of the same to look forward to.
The Fuck Up is who you see stocking shelves and pumping gas, well into middle age. We populate the warehouses and the shambling corpse of the manufacturing industry. You can find us sitting by kiosks at the mall or on the other end of an unwanted exchange with a telemarketer. If there is a shitty job to be done you can find us there with calloused hands and a look of pure, cold disinterest.
What follows is a manifesto for those of us who made one hell of a sour deal at our crossroads. It’s for anyone out there that finds themselves feeling angry, desperate, sad, chewed up, spit out, yanked around, or just straight fed up.
If what you’re looking for is a scholarly book on labor and working then you’re in the wrong place. What I’m trying to do here is plot a slightly more spiritual or philosophical vector to set our coordinates by. It’s my hope that this can be something that I wish I had back when I needed a map for these yet to be charted territories.
The Feck Up Manifusto is available through the We the Hallowed Bandcamp page. We’re hoping it will be the first of many releases from our micro-press.
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