Not So Happy Hunting Ground

So I feel like a real asshole.
After a quick moment of remorse on learning of Hunter's demise, I asked myself what would Hunter do and then proceeded to broadcast the news on all channels. What I didn't do was my research which would have unearthed the fact that Hunter had not only died, he had died of a "self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head."

Now, to indulge in a further (furthur) excercise in bad taste, let me just say that if you have to go (and we all have to go) and you happen to be the King of Weird and a Notorious Gun-Freak, maybe a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head isn't so bad. Even in death, the legend continues.

Suicide. Last resort of cowards? Not bloody likely. When a man like Thompson pulls the trigger, you may question it, you may wonder why (and I have a feeling that Thompson's final tale will remain untold, an eternal mystery that will be forgotten by most in fifteen minutes) but you don't doubt his courage.

I am a great depressive - paralyzed by life, saddened by death, scared. That is not to say that I am not sometimes happy - sometimes very happy - but I no longer deny that there is a subtle disease that lingers in the corners, waiting for my guard to drop. Lately my guard has been dropped, and the disease has feasted. I let it, because one thing is much like the other, it whispers.

Suicide remains outside the pale of options. Perhaps it is only because when measured on the relative misery scale of humanity, I am blessed beyond measure (was it God or luck? Should I kneel beside my bed at night and thank Jesus I'm American? Couldn't do that. I'm Jewish.) and I know it.

On the other hand, I remain human and I do not believe in Heaven. I cannot bring myself to doubt the troubling hypothesis that while the soul might exist, it remains mortal. Twenty-two with an eternity ahead, but I know that one day that eternity will come to an end. I am less scared of dying tomorrow than I am of dying in fifty years. Dying tomorrow would take me by surprise.

The fear of death and age can only be conquered through suicide, the last resort of heroes. But you need not worry about me. I'm no hero.

Happy Hunting Ground

Hunter has died.
It's strange. The death of my drug-heroes have been relayed to be my Internet now for the past three years. Kesey died three years ago. (Four? I think it was closer to three.) I believe he had just been published in Rolling Stone, writing about the New War (as CNN was still calling it) looking a lot like the old. I was up late, roaming the back-alleys of the Web, when I got a breaking news email all about it.

Now I roam blogs, and that's where I heard about this.
Free at last.

Thought I should mention it. The man himself, Poet Laureate of the Weird.

Behind Your Face

In what way can the dead be said to exist? I drove past my uncle's tree, like I sometimes do. It's better than a gravestone but it doesn't really cut it. God, you Bad Cop, I'd blame you if I believed. I believe in God like I believe in Hamlet - a good story, one that might even be able to change the world, but lacking something essential. Gertrude is getting married on Sunday. We're all entitled to happiness, I guess.

I've begun to consider the possible ramifications of being alone forever. It seems like no way to go through life - I suppose the question, the true question, is whether we believe in fate or choices when it comes to other people - though of course, this (like everything) is not about other people. It is about me. Even so, life might still be inevitable. Death surely is.

Take a moment and locate your place in the world, your actual real place. You might be surprised to realize that it is behind your face.

Then again

Then again, my brother recently purchased GTA: San Andreas. So I may be here awhile.

One Step Forward . . .

As I slip back into my old house, with my old parents, and old brother, slipping into the same jokes, the same banter, I realize how easy it would be to never grow up.

I had two different friends who used that stupid quote about growing up being optional for their yearbook (what's it from, the Dazed and Confused movie poster?) and its inaneness is only rivaled by the reality, which I have to say, isn't good.

Not that I'm not happy to be back. Or that I've really made an effort yet to up the maturity level on my part. I use funny voices with my mother, call my brother names, and generally look down on my father.

Dad. Good guy. Real smart. Pretty cool back in the day. But then again - he told me he was going to make a bumper sticker, saying "Support our Troops - Bring Them Home." Get with it, Daddio, that bumper sticker's been made. You gonna be a part of the revolution, you gotta stay ahead of the game. We're cruisin' the postmodern - if you haven't heard about it in the first five minutes, you're already too late.

Speaking of too late, there's an article in the New Yorker (right next to Seymour Hersh's Pentagon Spy Ring expose) about these college kids who struck it rich selling penis jokes on the Internet. They mention how college humor (the name of their site) revolves around inside jokes, such as the SNL sketch "More Cowbell," of which they sell a T-Shirt. I smiled to myself when I read this, because I had been selected out of the preterite (that's an inside word)
masses. I've seen the sketch, knew the song, then sat in a car for forty hours listening to a remix that played up on the joke. So I know about "More Cowbell." And you know what - it made me feel cool.

The New Yorker, august publication of the intelligentsia, mentioned an inside hip college joke, and I knew it! I'm hip! I'm with it! Awesome.

Of course I'm not actually cool (the evidence being that sometimes I think I'm cool) but it's nice to know I can pass as that in the bifocaled eyes of my elders.

Which brings me back to my original point which is how I feel like I'm fourteen again, or sixteen, or something like that - the lie is given in that I see myself acting fifteen (fooled you, went in between) - couldn't do that when I was actually that young.

So what's going on? Am I regressing? Or playing? It feels right, it doesn't feel right. Hard to say.

But now the fun begins. I took my Boho Semester, now it's time to join the Bourg - assimilate or die. Like that horrible Mastercard commercial - get a job. Hey, my Mom loves her job. Then again, she went to bed tonight at 8:30. So its tough to say.

But. But. But.
If I don't get a job, I'll never move out, never take a girl back to my place, never marry, never have kids, never get fired, never get promoted, never get the big retirement party, never take the trip to Vegas, but still die.

So, when you look at it that way...
it doesn't really matter...
so you may as well work...

At least then you don't have to live with your mother.
How do kids do it for as long as they do?

First Thoughts on Last Thoughts on Elsewhere

It's 2:57 in the morning, and in six and a half hours I'll be gone. I've been in North Carolina since the end of august, when Phish exploded into an apocalypse of mud and I ran away in the night from unemployment and my parent's couch. Seems I traded one couch for another. Even so, I'll be sad to go.

I return to Philadelphia bored and bearded, ready for the next adventure. The Eagles are in the Super Bowl, I'll be spending nine hours on a train, and its only been a week since I kissed a girl. For a guy and a city whose had decades long dry spells, these things aren't so bad. (Decades? I'm only 22. What do I know of decades? Still, if life so far has been such an eternity, I may have to reexamine my fear of death. Then again, not really.)

Messages in a bottle. Blogs. Stupid things. You begin hoping someone reads it. One day you'll worry about someone reading it. I found myself in a blog not too long ago. The girl who kissed me. She said some really nice things. Sort of a haiku, almost. Sort of freaked me out. (But of course, I got a big kick out of it. Who wouldn't?)

I got mine so I could write on someone elses, elsewhere's, intentional accidents, elsewhereelsewhere.blogspot.com, ongoing chronicle of the mad adventures of G Scheer Naval Passage, and Stephanie Allenburger, the artist formerly known as the embarassed blogger, before I showed how much more embarassing it was having a handle (I believe that's the jargon they use in this crazy business) like that one.

I fucked up the website today. Spent my last day in Greensboro trying to solve a problem of my own making. Classic gumption trap. Darndest thing. It works now. elsewhereelsewhere.org. Check it out. I really like the text page the most. Made it myself. Work of art, maybe. In parts.

So.

Nine hour train ride. What will I do? Suggestions? Perhaps sleep if this insomnia continues. Last time I was on a train I felt real weird about getting up and walking around. Up to Vermont. Beautiful little railroads over forests, creeks, mountains. Tomorrow I go through the steelyards of Virginia, the refineries of Baltimore. Back up to the cold. Cold cold Philadelphia, you murderous city. Sometimes you have to go back to move forward. Forwards and backwards are irrelevant orientational conventions in a three dimensional / six directional universe. Though add a dimension to your model, and suddenly forwards and backwards start looking a lot more relevant. Forwards. Only option really.

Except when we sleep. The opening of Swann's Way talks about how when he sleeps, he remembers. I haven't gotten past the opening. It puts me to sleep. I'm not looking for Swann's lost time.

I find it difficult to end these things. The temptation to sign off lazily with swagger is great. You have to catch yourself before you do it, and then it generally works out okay.

It's 3:19 in the morning.