mushinnoshin

Apparently it was August 20, 1991 when I drove up to Orlando for the first lollapalooza, which I bring up to tell again about the pre-show activities, when I ate some acid with a random hardcore freak I met in line — who actually said his name was Gonzo — who gave me a copy of Fear and Loathing and told me it would change my life.

Of course that’s just one of the weird anecdotes I’ve got stored in the old files. Have I told you about the time I pedaled around through one of Ft Lauderdale’s roughest neighborhoods at some ungodly hour of the morning with a crack whore on my handlebars trying to help her find her, umm, provider? Yeah. When I later got jumped in that same neighborhood, I mostly just felt betrayed because I thought the word was out that I was cool. I guess not.

Anyway, I stuffed Gonzo’s book in my back pocket and worked my way towards the front of the crowd, to wait for the festivities to open with the blues-punk growl of Mr. Rollins and friends. And by the time I left, some god knows how many hours later, that quiet, unassuming paperback in my back pocket had turned into a brick of dried sweat and garden hose relief. So, Dr. Gonzo, I’m sorry to say I didn’t get to read that book.

But I most certainly read another copy some time later. By which time I suppose it was too late to say that it might change my life, as I wast most assuredly already living the life less normal. I did enjoy it of course, but it probably wasn’t until I read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail and The Great Shark Hunt that Hunter Thompson would really worm his way into my soul.

Well really all this is just to say that the Belcourt’s currently running a biopic called Gonzo: The Life And Work Of Hunter S. Thompson, which I saw last night. Eh, I’m not going to tell you it’s some amazing movie, I mean, fuck, it’s a documentary about Hunter Thompson. If you like Hunter, and you like documentaries, or can find some reasonable median between the two, you’re going to love it. Otherwise, maybe not. All our lives will go on.

Well, except Hunter’s of course. He had the sense to get out while the getting was good. It’s sad though. I wonder what the man who may have had more to do with both the nomination of McGovern and the election of Carter than history will ever credit might think of Obama? I really don’t know, that’s why I ask. Would the mantra of hope we hear today rekindle the glimmer of optimism that kept Thompson going all those years? Or would the good doctor be the first in line calling shenanigans when the Senator strays? Or, as with myself and so many others — both? We’ll never know.

A great Thompson line, used well in the movie —

“The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others- the living- are those who pushed their luck as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later. But the edge is still Out there.”

Yeah, I remember the days when I pushed my luck and peered into the precipice. I swore I’d be dead by thirty and just figured that’s how it was, that’s the way it was meant to be. But I slowed down, and I pulled back, and I survived — but at what cost, for what point? To live the ordinary life that Thoreau says masses lead in quiet desperation? Well actually I’d be ok with that, if it were still possible. But it’s too late for that, for me. So I just live here, barely on the wrong side of the tracks, too close to the edge for convention, but too safe and far away to find greatness.

I guess I’m just sad. Sometimes we meet people with the capacity to see what we see, and in our loneliness we convince ourselves that they see it.

But maybe they just haven’t eaten enough acid.

Or maybe I’ve eaten too much.

Either way, it’s all the same.

how do I explain
when I in pain
fail to refrain,
as even yet
it remains,
that I at best can claim,
to be insane?

No, the gaping whole, the vacuum abhorred,
the discipline — bored;

Oh sure, I agree, superficially –

I just wish I knew
how to share with you

the frozen crystal tear to which I cling,
my only rock within this thing.

Heh, awesome:

more cheezburger

So big congratulations to my dear little sister who ran off and got married last week! Nothing fancy, they did a little private pseudo-eloping thing, honeymooned for a week, then had a family lunch reception today. Met the new in-laws and my new step-niece, they all seem nice.

This of course leaves me as the last single of the siblings. I just hope my parents aren’t holding their breath or things could get ugly. Because frankly, I’ve just about given up. I had an almost funny train of thought about odds and lightning striking on the very day you win the lottery, but I’ll try and spare the pessimism. I’d really like to be more optimistic, but history speaks for itself.

It’s not even like I really have a right to complain, there have been plenty of opportunities. But after spending the first fourteen or so years of my life watching my parents engage day after day in a miserable, bitter, loveless cold war, I learned too well the lesson, and find myself today completely incapable of sustaining any sort of relationship with another human being that isn’t founded in a great friendship.

And how often do you make truly great, life-changing friendships? So far I can still numerate them on my hands.

With someone to whom you’re also physically attracted? Well I think I’m up to about four on that count.

With someone who also finds you attractive, and isn’t already spoken for or otherwise unavailable?

Sigh.

What might be the worst part is that it always seems to lead to losing the friend, too. And soon enough you’re afraid to make any more of those, either.

So, yeah. Here’s looking forward to the day when my sister and her husband build an apartment over the garage to take in her half-crazy alcoholic brother, his piano, and his cat.

weirdness

everything is just — unsettling. I’ve got a nice buzz on — partly vodka, partly oxycodone.

But I should be nearly unconscious, which as you can see, I’m not.

It’s been a weird and shitty week, as you are aware.

tomorrow, things should start to get back to normal. I suppose I’ll go back to karate, though that’s going to be an ordeal unto itself. It’s times like this that I really wish classes were on Tuesdays’s — the drama of being Monday sometimes makes it harder than it needs to be.

The doc wants me to start physical therapy tomorrow. I don’t know that I can afford it. Besides, i think that encroaches on sensei’s territory.

I’m not sure that I want to go back to karate. I *will*, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not sure I want to. It hasn’t really been *fun* for a very long time, and I’m mostly fueled now by having the goal, and by not wanting to fail. Which is a poor motivator when you lose the will to give a shit about anything.

Which I haven’t *entirely* lost. But it took a severe blow this week.

Somehow, last night, on the way out of the Schermerhorn after hearing a masterful performance of Verdi’s Massa da Requiem, I sliced the fuck out of my finger. I have no idea how, i just felt a throbbing and noticed I was bleeding. The gauze on my finger now does as much if not more than the booze to make this typing difficult.

By the time I noticed my finger bleeding, I had bled a good bit onto my sortof-white pants. So I did a whole dance to wash the pants and get the blood out before the stain set. Meanwhile I played with Genghis Kat. Then I pulled the pants out of the wash, and there was all this new blood on them! Shit, the cat got my wrist. Gotta wash the pants again. So much for being green and efficient.

Saw a trailer at the Belcourt today for a movie about Genghis Khan. Haven’t decided if I should let the cat see it. He’s already mean enough without giving him any ideas. Yet, he really should know his roots.

Boarding Gate is sort of a stupid and pointless thriller. But the scene where it all goes down? Fucking HOT. And I’m not even into any of that shit. [Heh. Ridley says basically the same thing. Only he says it much better, of course.]

Jon Stewart was excellent Friday night. As I said to Kate, “not 80 dollars worth of good, but still very good. Easily 50 dollars worth of good.”

Disturbing, retarded, racist screeds about fearing an Obama presidency on the grounds of not liking gangsta rappers? Yeah, I was a little shocked to see one on the Nashville Gothic board of all places. I thought goths were supposed to love all things black.

Remind me to buy a back yard compost bin

Bah. I’ve had Carmina Burana on in the background and it’s over. Seems like a good excuse to pour another drink. Let’s try to make this one stiff enough to knock us the fuck out.

Seems to help get you out of my head.

Named in deference, of course.

OK. Background: wasted. watching Koyaanisqatsi, first time in this, erm, state of mind.

Probably for only the second of at least 3 spins tonight.

Meanwhile, a late snack, undeserved but having it anyway –

I take one morningstar southwest veggie patty, plus one of their sausage links. Why? Because they were the end of each respective box.

30 seconds I think it was in the microwave, wrapped in a common paper towel. Take them out, cool for a moment, light spray with an aerosol cooking oil (I had canola, olive would probably have been better). Touch up with crushed red pepper and a shake of basil, shake of salt. 10 more seconds in the microwave.

Meanwhile, that little tiny front slice on a Cobblestone rye, give it a quick run in the toaster. Real quick since the toaster sucks.

Put the slice of rye on a small plate. Take two halves of a slice of soy swiss across. then the veggie patty & sausage. spaced out across the plate, not as if to make a sandwich. Then, cover with a handful of some Kashi honey wheat crackers I got from Target. Then a slice of jalepeno chedar soy, broken up by hand and spread across the plate. 15 more seconds in the microwave.

Use the crackers to dig the gooey parts of the patty & the sausage. Leave the heart of the patty to eat as an open faced half with the rye crust bread. *maybe* splash some stoneground mustard on there. I didn’t, but I wish I’d thought of it then. soul food, meet synth food.

Wash it down with 1/3 Sprite (thx K&K :), 1/3 Water, 1/3 Mad Monk.

And Koyaanisqatsi.

You can’t be BOTH an intellectual elitist AND someone who actually pays attention when a pastor is speaking.

Besides, I should be the only reverend wright. But of a much weirder church. Maybe I’ll start calling this guy “cousin Jeremy”.

Awesome, in one night I can give example and counterexample to the ancient question of irony;

it’s not ironic that my knee injury forced me to miss karate tonight.

It is ironic that this leaves me home on a night the television happens to deliver both a show called “Bones”, and Doc Opera about an alcoholic curmudgeon with a bum leg.

I add, “I think I threw my knee out playing piano”.

Got my 2nd Degree Brown Belt today. It was actually pretty late, I should have been there in January, but I had my sabbatical in December which set me back a month, plus another month or two to get back where I was. Still not there really, but enough so to pass.

Anyway, onward.