Pat Green-Author

July 18 of 1984. It sticks with me for some reason. It was the San Ysidro McDonald’s massacre. Maybe it was because it was a few days after my 14th birthday? Maybe because something like this was beyond imagination in the scale of horror... back then.

An angry white man who owned a lot of guns whose life was falling apart walked into a McDonald’s in a largely Hispanic neighborhood and decided strangers should pay for his rage and his problems. Over 20 people were killed, 19 were wounded, and families were destroyed because one armed red white and blue loser decided his pain mattered more than everyone else’s right to live.

For those younger than Gen X, you have to understand something. Mass shootings were not part of our daily routine yet. S**t like this never happened. This stopped the country. It horrified us. It made adults weep and kids realize the world was less safe than we thought.

This morning I keep hearing U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday in my head. It's not about this event, but it carries the same exhausted questions. How long do we keep singing this song? How long do we keep pretending this is impossible to solve? How long do we let angry men turn public places into graveyards and then act shocked for exactly fifteen minutes before moving on? Apparently it's more than 40 years.

I wanted to keep things upbeat with my coffee today, but some memories make me ask what kind of country gets used to this? What kind of people stop being horrified and ashamed that we got used to this? And what the f**k can I do? This shouldn't be right vs left. We should all want less dead people in public spaces because some guy couldn't get his s**t together and had easier access to guns than therapy.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Today I turn 56. I was 16, in 1986 when Ferris Bueller looked at me and said, “Life moves pretty fast.” Back then I thought it meant skip school, hit the gas, kiss the girl, listen to the good music, and believe there would always be another summer waiting.

At 56, after a stroke, ER visits, doctor appointments, medications, another procedure coming up... s**t carries a different meaning.

Life does move pretty fast.

Fast enough that you can spend years trying to prove yourself to people who were never going to give you the love you needed. Fast enough that love can go unsaid. Fast enough that dreams can sit in a drawer never opened. Fast enough that one day you are sixteen with a mixtape and great hair, and the next you are fifty-six, grateful to still be here, wondering how the hell you got this lucky AND this bruised all at once.

Getting older is finally understanding what's worth keeping.

The music, stubborn hope, chosen family, stories. the people who stayed (thank you), and the people you love loudly because silence already took too much from too many of us.

So happy birthday to me, I guess.

Fifty-six candles, no apologies, and still here.

Life moves pretty fast and I'm trying like hell not to miss it.

Before you share something online, what do you do?

Gen X had misinformation before the internet. Some kid at school said his cousin knew a guy who saw a thing....

One I remember was little Mikey from the Life cereal commercials "died" after eating Pop Rocks and drinking Coke. Total BS. But we believed it, repeated it, and watched it move from lunch table to lunch table and some kids were not allowed to eat pop rocks because adults believed it too. General Foods had to issue a statement saying this never happened, some still did not believe the truth.

BS moves faster and people who should know better are hitting share.

What is your Fact Checking 101?

I want to take a moment to thank you for all the lovely messages of encouragement and support lately. Not just on my walls, but in DMs and emails too. I honestly cannot remember the last time I received this much kindness in one fell swoop and I do not have the words for what it means to me.

A few people have asked about Book 3. "Hearts of Glass: Die Young and Stay Pretty" is moving forward, and my publisher and I have set the release date for January 1, 2027. So a mild delay. Should that change we will let you know. Ultimately my health is more important than the next project.

On the health front. My doctor and his team have been reviewing the battery of tests from the ER visit, and we are talking Tuesday. Virtually every day I am still having periods of double vision, balance issues, and other not so delightful bulls**t, and I still have the procedure scheduled for July 21 to install the heart monitor. Hopefully that gives us some answers and keeps my ass out of the hospital for a bit.

A few people have also asked what they can do. You are already doing it. You care, check in. support me, and love me. I have a birthday in four days, and I am sliding into 56 feeling cared about and recognized, and that means more than I can probably express without getting emotional.

If you want to give me a birthday gift and cannot swing a Tag Heuer, Rolex, or large sums of cash in small unmarked bills, there is one thing that would genuinely help.

The thing I cannot do very well right now is market my books and the THRIVE zine, and the sales show it since the stroke. Letting your foot off the gas sidelines everything on the unforgiving dystopian algo owned by billionaires. So if Hearts of Glass has meant something to you, please consider leaving a review, sharing the books with a friend, posting about them, or telling someone who might need a hopeful story about trauma, found family, survival, love, and weird beautiful Gen X mall kids trying to save each other.

That kind of word of mouth matters more than people realize.It works better than the most expensive ad campaign.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for giving a f**k.

Stay totally awesome.

Stay true to you.

On July 11, 1980, My Bodyguard premiered.

For a lot of Gen X kids, that movie got us because we knew adults were busy, distracted, divorced, working, absent, or just not paying enough attention when we were going through hell. Bullies did not get stopped by speeches and adults.

Bullies make you smaller and a friend makes you feel like you matter. In my Hearts of Glass book series the character Doug was inspired by Linderman. Ultimately, Linderman and Doug did not own Clifford or Ford's fight. But they stood with them providing cover until they ultimately could stand on their own... and had to.

There is so much cruelty out there right now. It is no longer lockerrooms and alleys. It is comment sections, groups chats, and outside the school phones are in every damn hand.

That feels like a lesson worth carrying forward now, when so much cruelty has moved from locker rooms and alleys to comment sections, group chats, and school hallways with phones in every hand.

Be the person who stands beside someone today. Remind them they are not alone in this hellscape.

I was 6 when the Bicentennial happened. I have so many wonderful memories of that time. If you were there, hop on Mister Peabody's Wayback Machine with Heather and Nicole and rediscover some of that wonder. If you were not around for it or had so much fun a few brain cells are damaged... hop on and listen to Likewhateverpod.

And tell em Pat Motherfukkin Green sent ya so they know all my yapping about them is not in vain.....

America turning 200 in 1976 got weird fast: souvenir spoons, Freedom Trains, Tall Ships, and nonstop red white and blue. We break down why the Bicentennial felt like national therapy. Want the wild details? What do you remember?

https://www.likewhateverpod.com/podcast/episode/7d1d156e/two-hundred-candles

Photo 1. Acid Wash jeans and me circa 1988 Waist 32, inseam 31. Photo 2. 2022 Waist 38, inseam 31. Photo 3. Acid wash jeans size 32 inseam 31 (circa yesterday).

Bonnie Tyler is gone.

For Gen X, that voice was thunder coming out of the radio full of gravel and heartbreak. It was the soundtrack to gymnasium dances, movies and many a dramatic moment in our lives.

Rest well, Bonnie.

You had one hell of a voice!

SHORT VERSION: Constant internet rage does not destroy the thing you hate. It destroys your peace, health, and how people experience you.

TLDR LIFE LESSON:
Three months ago I had a stroke, and the other night I was back in the ER with related symptoms, and later this month I have another procedure coming up. So I have been taking stress a lot more seriously lately.

And holy f**k, stepping back a little has made something painfully clear. Creatives, progressives, artists, writers, activists, and people who claim to care about building a better world are absolutely losing their s**t online every single day.

Every take is the end of civilization. Disagreement is betrayal. Every headline is a reason to pour gasoline on the inferno. Every position is an absolute and there can be no nuance ever.

Constant rage does not hurt the thing you hate. Most of the time, it does not even reach the thing you hate. It just moves into your body, rewires your nervous system, and burns through your relationships in your now shortened life span.

There are horrible things happening. People should care and silence is complicity. But if your activism requires you to be furious every waking hour, that is not sustainable.

I am saying this as someone who has lived with trauma, rage, grief, fear, and a body that finally said, “Enough, dumbass.”

Care about the world. Fight for people. Speak clearly. Protect the vulnerable. Make art. Build community. Tell the truth.

But stop confusing constant emotional combustion with moral high ground. Being that i am not a self helt guru and I have dug myself a stress hold that may shorten my life, i do not have much insight. I dunno... Log off sometimes? Breathe? Drink water?
Touch grass, pet a cat, kiss your person, take your meds, make the thing???