Wednesday, August 27, 2003
my friend alex wrote the other day about having a chance of getting the "dream job" of sportscaster....
"fan"
an enthusiastic devotee (as of a sport or a performing art) usually as a spectator
2 : an ardent admirer or enthusiast (as of a celebrity or a pursuit)
3 : a sad little person with no life of their own, who takes far too much pride and joy in the accomplishments (and despair at the defeats) of other people whom they bear no relation to and hold no friendship with.
like i want to sit around all day and talk about other men running about on some field in some state i don't live in/never even set foot in? "dream job" of a non-life time, is more like it.
i can't stand sportscasting--a bunch of meatheads (or worse, totally un-athletic geeks) in $4,000 suits sitting around some roundtable desk like they are in a fucking U.N. session, talking about a bunch of other men all day. as if you needed their help and commentary to watch a game and appreciate it.
like when you walk into a bar and want to put the jukebox on and some loser is like "hey, dude! we're watching the game, man!"--i'm sorry, can't you figure out by now what is happening on the screen which you are so fucking fixated on (why didn't you stay on your own couch?) without the play-by-play reporting from the announcer?
ever think about WHY they need a "color" commentator in the first place?
get a fucking life you couch-bound fantasy-footballing-draft-watching playing-golf-cos-you-think-it-makes-you-class losers.
and don't even get me started on WFAN or radio listener call-in shows about sports--that is simply the bottom of the barrel.
just the idea of someone listening to a game--not even watching it...why why why?
i do appreciate all sports, admire some of the athletes and their talents, and watch occassional games of most sports (save golf/bowling/nascar), but am i a fan? no, sir. no.
"fan"
an enthusiastic devotee (as of a sport or a performing art) usually as a spectator
2 : an ardent admirer or enthusiast (as of a celebrity or a pursuit)
3 : a sad little person with no life of their own, who takes far too much pride and joy in the accomplishments (and despair at the defeats) of other people whom they bear no relation to and hold no friendship with.
like i want to sit around all day and talk about other men running about on some field in some state i don't live in/never even set foot in? "dream job" of a non-life time, is more like it.
i can't stand sportscasting--a bunch of meatheads (or worse, totally un-athletic geeks) in $4,000 suits sitting around some roundtable desk like they are in a fucking U.N. session, talking about a bunch of other men all day. as if you needed their help and commentary to watch a game and appreciate it.
like when you walk into a bar and want to put the jukebox on and some loser is like "hey, dude! we're watching the game, man!"--i'm sorry, can't you figure out by now what is happening on the screen which you are so fucking fixated on (why didn't you stay on your own couch?) without the play-by-play reporting from the announcer?
ever think about WHY they need a "color" commentator in the first place?
get a fucking life you couch-bound fantasy-footballing-draft-watching playing-golf-cos-you-think-it-makes-you-class losers.
and don't even get me started on WFAN or radio listener call-in shows about sports--that is simply the bottom of the barrel.
just the idea of someone listening to a game--not even watching it...why why why?
i do appreciate all sports, admire some of the athletes and their talents, and watch occassional games of most sports (save golf/bowling/nascar), but am i a fan? no, sir. no.
what is wrong with this world? i see all these shithead business"men" on the sidewalk with those little rolling suitcase things, even when they are no bigger than an ordinary knapsack. they feel the need to put wheels and a handle on them? those shits could be filled with the densest material on earth (e.g., bush's intellect) and a 2' x 2' suitcase still can't weigh all that much. not so much that you need to roll it, rather than simply carry it.
the grey buildings rise up in the night sky
tombstones
marking the spot where dreams died
lonely
in so many hearts and minds, and little lives
lost
what fighting spirit they had inside them
struggling
against the crushing weight and absent
humanity
of a world with people living on top of people living on top of people
who are already dead
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What I was trying to get at was that people aren't "supposed" to be living on top of one another in these huge buildings. I think too much interaction with others, especially unconnected strangers, leads to a coldness and an impersonability that leads to a kind of dehumanization. People need space, simply to be "people." If you take away that space you quite often get someone who is a little less than a person-- someone that is more like an animal.
These housing projects are like permanent refugee camps, with poverty the only common bond between one so-called household and another. It squishes out one's humanity and it creates those people I hate riding the trains with late at night. If you take a young, future criminal out of a project when he is two and raise him in Montana there is a good chance that you will cease to have a criminal on your hands. Sure, nurturing is important and one's upbringing and parent's can often overcome the influence and damage that an insufficient and dangerous environment can create. But if you get these people out of the cities and give them a shot at some surroundings, something they can deal with on a smaller scale instead of this "everything all of the time" non-stop city living, they might stand a better chance at leading a more peaceable and therefore less criminal existence.
Everyone is used to the idea that in small towns people say "hello" to one another or at least acknowledge each other when they pass on the street. It's impossible to do here; impractical-- and that's bad. I know I can't nod or say "hello" to everyone I pass in my neighborhood, but I try to do that on my own block, at least. That's the problem, people only develop a sense of community in areas like mine in the Bronx when they are threatened by something.
It's like when there is severe weather, say a blizzard or some really crazy rain. All of a sudden what were previously unconnected and self-concerned people on the streets are smiling at one another as they scurry out of the weather. They make comments about the snow/rain or whatever to one another and there is a spirit of "we're all in this together" that didn't exist prior to this.
Remember those movies "Independence Day" and "Deep Impact?" Humanity was faced with a common problem and all of a sudden we are telegraphing the Iraqis and giving them the secret that will destroy the invaders. The U.S. is faced with a meteor striking the earth, and all of a sudden people are crawling out of the woodwork to offer the helping hand to one another and pulling together.
Why doesn't that go on all the time? Does it take some major calamity for people to find some common ground with one another? The Beatles might say that all we need is love, but the Bronx may need a major earthquake to set things back to right.
The immigrant experience that once tied diverse communities like mine together has defused. There are still plenty of new immigrants but they section off into there own cliques and neighborhoods even though they face many of the same challenges and have many of the same goals.
There are too many people in the cities. But that's something that, besides being obvious, is inevitable and unstoppable. And it wouldn't necessarily be evil except that not everyone is equipped to behave like a human being in such circumstances. They don't have the mental apparatus for treating an overwhelming number of people decently on a daily basis and the result is anti-social behavior, a vicious selfishness and criminal-mindedness.
The normal barriers that prevent one from doing wrong include the public's perception of your behavior, but when you are in the midst of an ever-changing and largely apathetic mass of people, there is an often irresistible temptation to behave in any fucking way you please. Hell, I've done it-just acted in a way I wouldn't normally because I was "in the city" and "it didn't matter." After all, you will most likely never see any of these people again.
And this is an especially bad forum for children to grow up in. There are often no consequences to their bad deeds, which in a more structured environment would normally be stopped, prevented or at least noted. Here, there is a freedom that is dangerous to youth. But it isn't the freedom of a field, or a riverbank or a forest. It's the freedom from consequence. The road to their self-destruction as teens is paved with the minor transgressions of their childhood's.
I don't want to put any limitations on children or limit the ways in which they can express themselves, but I think if the right environment is present from the beginning, the expressions of these children will be less severe, less violent and less dangerous to themselves and others. In the endless migration to urban areas, only the smart or lucky ones do what they have to do here and then split for more peaceable areas, for more space. A lawn isn't just a place to have a catch or set up a patio set-it's a fucking barrier and it's stronger and more important than any concrete wall, than being on a different floor, than 6 inch steel. It's a bit of air between you and the people near you and it's the guardian of your own humanity. Space is the place, baby.
It's what it's all about, and it's the only thing that's gonna turn people around, because they sure as shit ain't learning humanity in school; and they're not learning it from their caged in and defeated parents, either. They can be told the rules that go along with being human, but have no motivation other than the fear of getting caught to convince them to operate within the structure these rules create. They are missing the keys to their innate knowledge and their natural inclination to be a human; it has long ago been hammered out of them. They can go from innocents to animals in the first ten years of their life.
It's like there is simply too much world, and little children have no place to grow. Where is the safe haven for innocence? Where is the childhood protection agency? Screw the environment-that is until we can be certain it's not animals who will be living in this world we are trying to preserve. I'm not certain what the criteria is that would be used to distinguish a person from an animal. I remember in "Dune" where the protagonist first had to undergo a test to make sure he was a human being before he was entrusted with a certain knowledge and power. I wish we could have the same kind of test, just to let people be around others.
That kind of thinking could lead me to wish we actually would sacrifice a country and use it as a pen for undesirables---"Escape from New Zealand." Continuing with the constant movie analogies, look how many of the SCI-FI films portray future societies wherein the incompatible and criminal really are sequestered to some island or such place and left to fend for themselves. Do we need a new Australia? Wall it up? Reopen the shipping lanes?
Ok, so that's not really a very viable or nice solution and I know this. Reeducation? People have to be able to and want to learn first. Maybe it goes back to an innate motivation to be good. And I don't mean that everyone should go around being some kind of hippie-missionary. I don't expect people to be great nor overly friendly or nice or cool, but just decent. A simple human decency, just like Colonel Kurtz was lacking in "Apocalypse Now."
Maybe that's another side of things. Kurtz had too much space. He was" out there operating without any decent restraint. Totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct." He had no constraints on his behavior and no system of checks and balances on his actions or decrees, and his soul went mad. So there is a danger in that, too. So what is the perfect amount of space? 1 acre?-2? What am I getting into here? It's relative to what people can deal with. So how do we separate the people how can live as human beings in a major city from those who can't hack it and turn to their baser instincts for their behavioral norms?
There is also the problem of being "sheltered." There are kids kept so far out of the loop that the realities of the world prove overwhelming when they are finally forced to face them. Fuck. How are we supposed to be good parents? Some kids get life's harshest and most crude and ugly truths thrust in their faces without any explanation, guidance or support and they overcome this and even flourish--other kids sink like stones.
Ideally, I think that life's harsher truths should be metered out to children as their capacity to understand and handle them develops. That's part of the parenting job, and there seem to be a lot of vacancies. I'm not talking about R-rated movies or violent video games. I have faith in the ability of most children to distinguish between what they see on a screen and what goes on in real life. Kids see this superhuman shit on tv and they are wowed by it, but they also know that if they fall on their knee and scrape it, well, it hurts like hell. By the time they are (or at least by the time they ideally should be) out playing unsupervised, they know that what they see on TV isn't reality and can't be imitated successfully or without dire results.
I'm talking about the other things-the ugliness, crime, the misery, the suffering and all that melancholy and damaging shit. I hate the idea of a small child passing the homeless huddled on the street and not seeing them, not acknowledging the pain that is going on there. Yet I don't want them to go around with their heart breaking every time they are confronted with some new horror associated with life here, either. So what do you get? I don't think they come up very sympathetic, to say the least. I may be wrong, but I think the majority of those people working in the shelters and spooning out the soup are transplants to this city and not from the five boroughs.
I think about volunteering and I feel such a sense of futility about it. I admire those who feel otherwise while at the same time I am confused. I understand and share the need to feel like I am making a difference. But when I talk about these things with my friends I get mixed responses. One response of note when I showed a friend an earlier version of this essay was "someone has to dig the ditches." That's the kind of thing I mean. There is no sense of social responsibility for those less fortunate among many of my friends and other people that I know. They begrudge the tax dollars they pay for social service programs, which would include after-school programs and things that directly affect children's lives. I do see their point, but I have trouble taking the chance for a decent life away from children.
I do see most of the people on the street as being sort of unsalvageable. It makes me sad and it makes me angry, but I just don't see them as being able to cope, no matter what is done for them in the way of social services, counseling and treatment programs. For whatever reason (drugs, alcohol, mental illness, ignorance ) I simply don't think that everyone can carry the weight of the world. Not everyone fits in-- like it or not. I don't know what to do about that. Not everyone is made for this world, as it stands. And I have no idea how to change it. But I'd like to.
tombstones
marking the spot where dreams died
lonely
in so many hearts and minds, and little lives
lost
what fighting spirit they had inside them
struggling
against the crushing weight and absent
humanity
of a world with people living on top of people living on top of people
who are already dead
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What I was trying to get at was that people aren't "supposed" to be living on top of one another in these huge buildings. I think too much interaction with others, especially unconnected strangers, leads to a coldness and an impersonability that leads to a kind of dehumanization. People need space, simply to be "people." If you take away that space you quite often get someone who is a little less than a person-- someone that is more like an animal.
These housing projects are like permanent refugee camps, with poverty the only common bond between one so-called household and another. It squishes out one's humanity and it creates those people I hate riding the trains with late at night. If you take a young, future criminal out of a project when he is two and raise him in Montana there is a good chance that you will cease to have a criminal on your hands. Sure, nurturing is important and one's upbringing and parent's can often overcome the influence and damage that an insufficient and dangerous environment can create. But if you get these people out of the cities and give them a shot at some surroundings, something they can deal with on a smaller scale instead of this "everything all of the time" non-stop city living, they might stand a better chance at leading a more peaceable and therefore less criminal existence.
Everyone is used to the idea that in small towns people say "hello" to one another or at least acknowledge each other when they pass on the street. It's impossible to do here; impractical-- and that's bad. I know I can't nod or say "hello" to everyone I pass in my neighborhood, but I try to do that on my own block, at least. That's the problem, people only develop a sense of community in areas like mine in the Bronx when they are threatened by something.
It's like when there is severe weather, say a blizzard or some really crazy rain. All of a sudden what were previously unconnected and self-concerned people on the streets are smiling at one another as they scurry out of the weather. They make comments about the snow/rain or whatever to one another and there is a spirit of "we're all in this together" that didn't exist prior to this.
Remember those movies "Independence Day" and "Deep Impact?" Humanity was faced with a common problem and all of a sudden we are telegraphing the Iraqis and giving them the secret that will destroy the invaders. The U.S. is faced with a meteor striking the earth, and all of a sudden people are crawling out of the woodwork to offer the helping hand to one another and pulling together.
Why doesn't that go on all the time? Does it take some major calamity for people to find some common ground with one another? The Beatles might say that all we need is love, but the Bronx may need a major earthquake to set things back to right.
The immigrant experience that once tied diverse communities like mine together has defused. There are still plenty of new immigrants but they section off into there own cliques and neighborhoods even though they face many of the same challenges and have many of the same goals.
There are too many people in the cities. But that's something that, besides being obvious, is inevitable and unstoppable. And it wouldn't necessarily be evil except that not everyone is equipped to behave like a human being in such circumstances. They don't have the mental apparatus for treating an overwhelming number of people decently on a daily basis and the result is anti-social behavior, a vicious selfishness and criminal-mindedness.
The normal barriers that prevent one from doing wrong include the public's perception of your behavior, but when you are in the midst of an ever-changing and largely apathetic mass of people, there is an often irresistible temptation to behave in any fucking way you please. Hell, I've done it-just acted in a way I wouldn't normally because I was "in the city" and "it didn't matter." After all, you will most likely never see any of these people again.
And this is an especially bad forum for children to grow up in. There are often no consequences to their bad deeds, which in a more structured environment would normally be stopped, prevented or at least noted. Here, there is a freedom that is dangerous to youth. But it isn't the freedom of a field, or a riverbank or a forest. It's the freedom from consequence. The road to their self-destruction as teens is paved with the minor transgressions of their childhood's.
I don't want to put any limitations on children or limit the ways in which they can express themselves, but I think if the right environment is present from the beginning, the expressions of these children will be less severe, less violent and less dangerous to themselves and others. In the endless migration to urban areas, only the smart or lucky ones do what they have to do here and then split for more peaceable areas, for more space. A lawn isn't just a place to have a catch or set up a patio set-it's a fucking barrier and it's stronger and more important than any concrete wall, than being on a different floor, than 6 inch steel. It's a bit of air between you and the people near you and it's the guardian of your own humanity. Space is the place, baby.
It's what it's all about, and it's the only thing that's gonna turn people around, because they sure as shit ain't learning humanity in school; and they're not learning it from their caged in and defeated parents, either. They can be told the rules that go along with being human, but have no motivation other than the fear of getting caught to convince them to operate within the structure these rules create. They are missing the keys to their innate knowledge and their natural inclination to be a human; it has long ago been hammered out of them. They can go from innocents to animals in the first ten years of their life.
It's like there is simply too much world, and little children have no place to grow. Where is the safe haven for innocence? Where is the childhood protection agency? Screw the environment-that is until we can be certain it's not animals who will be living in this world we are trying to preserve. I'm not certain what the criteria is that would be used to distinguish a person from an animal. I remember in "Dune" where the protagonist first had to undergo a test to make sure he was a human being before he was entrusted with a certain knowledge and power. I wish we could have the same kind of test, just to let people be around others.
That kind of thinking could lead me to wish we actually would sacrifice a country and use it as a pen for undesirables---"Escape from New Zealand." Continuing with the constant movie analogies, look how many of the SCI-FI films portray future societies wherein the incompatible and criminal really are sequestered to some island or such place and left to fend for themselves. Do we need a new Australia? Wall it up? Reopen the shipping lanes?
Ok, so that's not really a very viable or nice solution and I know this. Reeducation? People have to be able to and want to learn first. Maybe it goes back to an innate motivation to be good. And I don't mean that everyone should go around being some kind of hippie-missionary. I don't expect people to be great nor overly friendly or nice or cool, but just decent. A simple human decency, just like Colonel Kurtz was lacking in "Apocalypse Now."
Maybe that's another side of things. Kurtz had too much space. He was" out there operating without any decent restraint. Totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct." He had no constraints on his behavior and no system of checks and balances on his actions or decrees, and his soul went mad. So there is a danger in that, too. So what is the perfect amount of space? 1 acre?-2? What am I getting into here? It's relative to what people can deal with. So how do we separate the people how can live as human beings in a major city from those who can't hack it and turn to their baser instincts for their behavioral norms?
There is also the problem of being "sheltered." There are kids kept so far out of the loop that the realities of the world prove overwhelming when they are finally forced to face them. Fuck. How are we supposed to be good parents? Some kids get life's harshest and most crude and ugly truths thrust in their faces without any explanation, guidance or support and they overcome this and even flourish--other kids sink like stones.
Ideally, I think that life's harsher truths should be metered out to children as their capacity to understand and handle them develops. That's part of the parenting job, and there seem to be a lot of vacancies. I'm not talking about R-rated movies or violent video games. I have faith in the ability of most children to distinguish between what they see on a screen and what goes on in real life. Kids see this superhuman shit on tv and they are wowed by it, but they also know that if they fall on their knee and scrape it, well, it hurts like hell. By the time they are (or at least by the time they ideally should be) out playing unsupervised, they know that what they see on TV isn't reality and can't be imitated successfully or without dire results.
I'm talking about the other things-the ugliness, crime, the misery, the suffering and all that melancholy and damaging shit. I hate the idea of a small child passing the homeless huddled on the street and not seeing them, not acknowledging the pain that is going on there. Yet I don't want them to go around with their heart breaking every time they are confronted with some new horror associated with life here, either. So what do you get? I don't think they come up very sympathetic, to say the least. I may be wrong, but I think the majority of those people working in the shelters and spooning out the soup are transplants to this city and not from the five boroughs.
I think about volunteering and I feel such a sense of futility about it. I admire those who feel otherwise while at the same time I am confused. I understand and share the need to feel like I am making a difference. But when I talk about these things with my friends I get mixed responses. One response of note when I showed a friend an earlier version of this essay was "someone has to dig the ditches." That's the kind of thing I mean. There is no sense of social responsibility for those less fortunate among many of my friends and other people that I know. They begrudge the tax dollars they pay for social service programs, which would include after-school programs and things that directly affect children's lives. I do see their point, but I have trouble taking the chance for a decent life away from children.
I do see most of the people on the street as being sort of unsalvageable. It makes me sad and it makes me angry, but I just don't see them as being able to cope, no matter what is done for them in the way of social services, counseling and treatment programs. For whatever reason (drugs, alcohol, mental illness, ignorance ) I simply don't think that everyone can carry the weight of the world. Not everyone fits in-- like it or not. I don't know what to do about that. Not everyone is made for this world, as it stands. And I have no idea how to change it. But I'd like to.
I want to write about life and souls and music and everything, but I don’t want to get too involved or think about it all too much. I want to explain my outlook and how and when and why and where and exactly what it is that’s on my mind (or at least part of my mind) when I’m not hungry or thinking about sex. I feel like I want to challenge everything and everybody. My family, my friends, the government, the cops, red lights, the little old women who go to church every single day, no smoking signs, “No Dogs Allowed!” Everything.
I want to drop acid on mountaintops in the spring. I want to throw roses in garbage cans and drive the wrong way down one-way streets. I want to piss on the front lawn and jump out every cab without paying. I want to make a grab for the gun in the cop’s holster (’cause I’ve always wanted to try it, ever since I was little). I want to hop fences and piss people off. I want to chop down trees and plant seeds and start fights and make peace and love and hate. I want to shun schools and be the most respected scholar. I want to talk about all the things I should keep to myself and not give anyone the time of day. A really fast car with no steering wheel and no brakes. Just one pedal:
GO! GO! GO!
I hate people. The ones that are so boring and the ones that are so fucking artistic it can make you puke. They’re either tucked into a numbing niche of mediocrity and TV-fed goals or burning with ideas and change, visions of a New World. Piercing and tattooing themselves to reaffirm their uniqueness. “Me, Me, Me,” or worse, “The world, save the world.” I don’t want to sit in some ultra-cultural bar, drinking dark beer, listening to jazz and talking about the “inside” all my friggin’ life. And screw that tired hippie-love-your-neighbor bullshit. It’s great to hate, too. We care about certain things, we give to certain people and everything else can go to hell and who cares. And all this kind of shit about people and who they are and what they do and how they do it that I can’t understand and makes me so angry.
And there’s a girl and she’s great, but I don’t know what I want or how much of it. Am I only 32 or am I 32 already? (“Should I get married? Should I be good?”) I feel so much and it all gets lost in the translation to words and actions, and I can’t be true because I don’t know what Truth really is or how to find it. Is it in my own heart or some external to be embraced? But I’m not denying love or commitment or responsibility or honor, I just...what? I just don’t know and sometimes I don’t care and I can’t explain it all or make any of it real to anyone, anyhow. I just feel all these things and sometimes and they hurt and sometimes they feel good and usually I’m just confused.
I try to think intellectually and I’m so naive. All this talk about busting out and doing things and going places and yelling and laughing and diving into life and who am I? I’d rather spend my time and money on dance, drink and recreation. I share a two-bedroom apartment with two friends. I lost my last job because of my “insolence,” my car was seized by the Sheriff’s department and I’m 32 and still get a pimple about once a week. (My friend calls it the panic button.) So I read books, I listen to music, I know how to buy drugs and I know how to interview with executives. So I know about a few things; I know bullshit when I see it, I’m a little more tolerant of difference and a little less tolerant of stupidity--but so what? Big deal.
It’s not LIFE. Not hot, steaming, pumping, passionate expression of my Youth and Energy. It’s realizing I am in the early stages of my mediocre career (provided one of these interviews turns up a job sometime soon) in publishing, probably trade publishing, of all things. I’m a new-school Yuppie in training diapers, shitting out the last of my exuberance and desire on the train into the city and learning how to fold the New York Times the right way. 9am to 5pm and only 38 more years until retirement. I’ll run with the bulls then, right. Tour the world and sleep with foreign women. Me and Geritol against the Universe. My ass.
I need to find a direction. Sometimes I feel like I could have all the answers if only someone would ask the right questions. It’s all inside me and I just need to find the right trigger to get it out. And it can make me crazy just as often as thinking about all of this can bore me. Whatever the hell “it” is.
I want to write more. I want to write better. But what have I written already? I couldn’t tell you. If I want it so bad, how come I’m not working at it harder. Do I truly want to write about these things? Do I want to live them? Shit, right now I’m supposed to be taking in the garbage cans. Meanwhile, I’m getting older and tired and the wind is blowing the cans further down the street, giving me more work to do to get the job done.
I want to drop acid on mountaintops in the spring. I want to throw roses in garbage cans and drive the wrong way down one-way streets. I want to piss on the front lawn and jump out every cab without paying. I want to make a grab for the gun in the cop’s holster (’cause I’ve always wanted to try it, ever since I was little). I want to hop fences and piss people off. I want to chop down trees and plant seeds and start fights and make peace and love and hate. I want to shun schools and be the most respected scholar. I want to talk about all the things I should keep to myself and not give anyone the time of day. A really fast car with no steering wheel and no brakes. Just one pedal:
GO! GO! GO!
I hate people. The ones that are so boring and the ones that are so fucking artistic it can make you puke. They’re either tucked into a numbing niche of mediocrity and TV-fed goals or burning with ideas and change, visions of a New World. Piercing and tattooing themselves to reaffirm their uniqueness. “Me, Me, Me,” or worse, “The world, save the world.” I don’t want to sit in some ultra-cultural bar, drinking dark beer, listening to jazz and talking about the “inside” all my friggin’ life. And screw that tired hippie-love-your-neighbor bullshit. It’s great to hate, too. We care about certain things, we give to certain people and everything else can go to hell and who cares. And all this kind of shit about people and who they are and what they do and how they do it that I can’t understand and makes me so angry.
And there’s a girl and she’s great, but I don’t know what I want or how much of it. Am I only 32 or am I 32 already? (“Should I get married? Should I be good?”) I feel so much and it all gets lost in the translation to words and actions, and I can’t be true because I don’t know what Truth really is or how to find it. Is it in my own heart or some external to be embraced? But I’m not denying love or commitment or responsibility or honor, I just...what? I just don’t know and sometimes I don’t care and I can’t explain it all or make any of it real to anyone, anyhow. I just feel all these things and sometimes and they hurt and sometimes they feel good and usually I’m just confused.
I try to think intellectually and I’m so naive. All this talk about busting out and doing things and going places and yelling and laughing and diving into life and who am I? I’d rather spend my time and money on dance, drink and recreation. I share a two-bedroom apartment with two friends. I lost my last job because of my “insolence,” my car was seized by the Sheriff’s department and I’m 32 and still get a pimple about once a week. (My friend calls it the panic button.) So I read books, I listen to music, I know how to buy drugs and I know how to interview with executives. So I know about a few things; I know bullshit when I see it, I’m a little more tolerant of difference and a little less tolerant of stupidity--but so what? Big deal.
It’s not LIFE. Not hot, steaming, pumping, passionate expression of my Youth and Energy. It’s realizing I am in the early stages of my mediocre career (provided one of these interviews turns up a job sometime soon) in publishing, probably trade publishing, of all things. I’m a new-school Yuppie in training diapers, shitting out the last of my exuberance and desire on the train into the city and learning how to fold the New York Times the right way. 9am to 5pm and only 38 more years until retirement. I’ll run with the bulls then, right. Tour the world and sleep with foreign women. Me and Geritol against the Universe. My ass.
I need to find a direction. Sometimes I feel like I could have all the answers if only someone would ask the right questions. It’s all inside me and I just need to find the right trigger to get it out. And it can make me crazy just as often as thinking about all of this can bore me. Whatever the hell “it” is.
I want to write more. I want to write better. But what have I written already? I couldn’t tell you. If I want it so bad, how come I’m not working at it harder. Do I truly want to write about these things? Do I want to live them? Shit, right now I’m supposed to be taking in the garbage cans. Meanwhile, I’m getting older and tired and the wind is blowing the cans further down the street, giving me more work to do to get the job done.
