"Fuck Pride. Pride never helps. It only hurts." - Marcellus Wallace, Pulp Fiction.
How right is a fictional gangster? In this unforgiving world where nobody cares about you, how important is it to be proud of your accomplishments, to make yourself feel good and valid? Do our achievements even mean anything in the long run, in the scope of the universe? How much pride is too much? These questions and more in the following entry!
Being proud of your accomplishments is certainly important, if only for your own happiness. But we all know that pride leads to arrogance, ethnocentric tendencies (as evidenced throughout history, manipulation of nationalism can lead to some horrifying results, such as the Reign of Terror and Nazi Germany). I suppose that one has to strike a balance, to stay proud of oneself, for that little bit of confidence, to know you're doing well, but keep it on the downlow enough for it not to blindside everyone else with arrogance. Pride certainly helps, it doesn't hurt, but too much of it and you've got a recipe for fuck-ups.
But how can we truly ever be proud of our achievements? They have no meaning. A kid who gets an A on his spelling test doesn't matter to the rest of the world. To the universe, he's just an ant crawling on the sidewalk, we all are. Our accomplishments are meaningless. The only exceptions are the ones that do affect everyone - the scientists at CERN and their hadron collider, the expeditions to new planets: the ones that impact the universe are ultimately the only acts of consequence. But there's the thing. An achievement that is meaningless to the rest of the world holds a world of meaning to the person who accomplished the feat. That person may feel good about what they did, and who cares what everyone else thinks? While nothing we do ever matters in the eyes of Mother Nature, it matters to us. And that's how we build our happiness.
Sounds like a bunch of existentialist bullshit, right?
Yeah, that's because it is.
Ultimately my rant boils down to the simple fact that too much pride leads to bad things. Hubris, nationalism, what have you. Be proud of yourself, but don't be too proud. Don't catch the arrogant and be irredeemable to the world. Don't be Adolf Hitler. Don't be Napoleon Bonaparte. Don't be George W. Bush. Shit sucks that way.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
100th post
Surely it calls for some kind of special post, but I'm not up for that, so I'm just going to make a normal post on some abstract subject, namely depression and dealing with it. In the course of a few weeks, I have been plagued with it, but like the knickers of an indecisive whore, it's been coming and going. The combined stresses of school and the looming horizon of everything else have contributed to this, as well as mania. So maybe I'm bipolar, I don't know.
You know those Zoloft commercials that say "depression hits you like a brick?" They're only partially right. It does hit you like a charging bull, but it's also like a parasite. It attaches itself to you, slowly begins to drain you until you do a damn thing about it. That's a tall order, being depressed prevents you from doing things that you would ordinarily otherwise do. Something drastic has to happen in order to break you out of this cycle, or you could take the low road and take antidepressants. But I find it more of an experience if you can cure yourself of your ailments. It' a learning experience, and you learn how to deal with it next time.
What contributes to this? Looking at my plate, it's just the ordinary stresses of a high school senior, isn't it? Not entirely, no. If that were the case, I'd just be taking the challenge in stride, glad of the distraction and experience. It's what the completion of the challenge entails. What happens when I've been accepted to college? I'm yanked out of my cushy, comfortable, complacent existence and tossed into a dog-eat-dog world. That was kinda the case with Ohlone, but I still lived comfortably, everything was fine. On the other hand, if I get accepted to my first choice, or, God forbid, my first out-of-state choice, I'm fucking gone.
I'm gone. I've lost everything that's established. The things I've done here, my writings, my GPA, what I've done through Interact and whatever, the few friends I have, it's all gone. The slate is being wiped clean, and that scares and depresses the living hell out of me. It probably won't be the case that that will happen, but my inherent pessimistic nature automatically assumes the worst, and that makes me miserable. I know I should think more positively, but that's like asking a turtle to stop being such a slow motherfucker. It's just in my nature, and while I can certainly try, it's not exactly easy or anything.
There are other things that have made me blue as well. I look at myself, and then I look at everyone else and they are clearly superior to me. Superior in their motivation, their execution, and dedication. Comparatively, I might as well be sleeping all day. Someone who can juggle a job, a club, school, and prowl for assholes is more dedicated than I am. Someone who can have more extracurricular activities than you can shake a stick at is more motivated than I am. Someone who can keep a girlfriend, be extremely sharp, all while dealing with the same crap I have to plow through is obviously cooler than I am. Maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit, but again, I can't help but compare myself to others. Maybe it's some sort of mechanism to make myself a better person, but at the moment, the only purpose it serves is to depress me.
Lastly, I feel as though I am being excised from other people's lives, the ones that matter. I'm usually quite selective about the people I like; most people I deem douchebags, but the ones that escape my harsh adjudication are usually quite special. So it sucks when I begin to assume that I'm no longer relevant. That being said, it's probably not true. I'm probably being a paranoid idiot, and it's just temporary, which has already been evidenced. It's most likely my awful pessimism rearing its ugly head again.
It's unfortunate to see this. My pessimism and cynicism has safeguarded me for years against disappointment, time after time. But maybe now it's that parasite I mentioned earlier - the root of all my sorrows. Being sad really damn sucks, I'm not gonna lie. I lose all appetite, all I want to do is either drink or smoke cigarettes, and sleep. I really don't want it to be the case and I don't want it to be permanent. On my friend's blog, there was a very appropriate line: "Enjoy everything, so that you can miss it appropriately when it is gone."
The truth of those words are unbelievable. Life shouldn't be about brooding and misery, but it's all that I can muster at the moment. Something needs to change for the better. I can't afford to be like this. Living in misery isn't living. It's the opposite, and I need to get out of this rut.
PS. I'm coming home again. Maybe we can start again.
You know those Zoloft commercials that say "depression hits you like a brick?" They're only partially right. It does hit you like a charging bull, but it's also like a parasite. It attaches itself to you, slowly begins to drain you until you do a damn thing about it. That's a tall order, being depressed prevents you from doing things that you would ordinarily otherwise do. Something drastic has to happen in order to break you out of this cycle, or you could take the low road and take antidepressants. But I find it more of an experience if you can cure yourself of your ailments. It' a learning experience, and you learn how to deal with it next time.
What contributes to this? Looking at my plate, it's just the ordinary stresses of a high school senior, isn't it? Not entirely, no. If that were the case, I'd just be taking the challenge in stride, glad of the distraction and experience. It's what the completion of the challenge entails. What happens when I've been accepted to college? I'm yanked out of my cushy, comfortable, complacent existence and tossed into a dog-eat-dog world. That was kinda the case with Ohlone, but I still lived comfortably, everything was fine. On the other hand, if I get accepted to my first choice, or, God forbid, my first out-of-state choice, I'm fucking gone.
I'm gone. I've lost everything that's established. The things I've done here, my writings, my GPA, what I've done through Interact and whatever, the few friends I have, it's all gone. The slate is being wiped clean, and that scares and depresses the living hell out of me. It probably won't be the case that that will happen, but my inherent pessimistic nature automatically assumes the worst, and that makes me miserable. I know I should think more positively, but that's like asking a turtle to stop being such a slow motherfucker. It's just in my nature, and while I can certainly try, it's not exactly easy or anything.
There are other things that have made me blue as well. I look at myself, and then I look at everyone else and they are clearly superior to me. Superior in their motivation, their execution, and dedication. Comparatively, I might as well be sleeping all day. Someone who can juggle a job, a club, school, and prowl for assholes is more dedicated than I am. Someone who can have more extracurricular activities than you can shake a stick at is more motivated than I am. Someone who can keep a girlfriend, be extremely sharp, all while dealing with the same crap I have to plow through is obviously cooler than I am. Maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit, but again, I can't help but compare myself to others. Maybe it's some sort of mechanism to make myself a better person, but at the moment, the only purpose it serves is to depress me.
Lastly, I feel as though I am being excised from other people's lives, the ones that matter. I'm usually quite selective about the people I like; most people I deem douchebags, but the ones that escape my harsh adjudication are usually quite special. So it sucks when I begin to assume that I'm no longer relevant. That being said, it's probably not true. I'm probably being a paranoid idiot, and it's just temporary, which has already been evidenced. It's most likely my awful pessimism rearing its ugly head again.
It's unfortunate to see this. My pessimism and cynicism has safeguarded me for years against disappointment, time after time. But maybe now it's that parasite I mentioned earlier - the root of all my sorrows. Being sad really damn sucks, I'm not gonna lie. I lose all appetite, all I want to do is either drink or smoke cigarettes, and sleep. I really don't want it to be the case and I don't want it to be permanent. On my friend's blog, there was a very appropriate line: "Enjoy everything, so that you can miss it appropriately when it is gone."
The truth of those words are unbelievable. Life shouldn't be about brooding and misery, but it's all that I can muster at the moment. Something needs to change for the better. I can't afford to be like this. Living in misery isn't living. It's the opposite, and I need to get out of this rut.
PS. I'm coming home again. Maybe we can start again.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
What's happened?
It's been a while since I've made a purgative entry on my life. Dreary and boring as it may be, it's nice to let loose every so often with every typical high schooler banality you can think of. But that's okay, because unlike you, I am cool. You're just like Fonzie's friend who he ignores but keeps around to make himself seem even cooler. Or something like that.
So college is coming up, the prospect of leaving this place and starting up what is essentially a new life terrifies the piss out of me, but at the same time it's also exciting. I view it as a challenge, but I'm still scared of it. I'm scared of adapting to change, of losing people here, of becoming something different. That's me, the pessimist. I suppose the only thing I can really say about this is that I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. And it's looking to be like the Golden Gate Bridge, not the sissy Dumbarton Bridge. Sigh.
I guess school's been doing okay. I'm not doing exceptionally well in my math and econ courses, but I just got an A in my online music course (not much of an accomplishment though, to be honest). I can probably pull up those grades if I tried, but I've been afflicted with early-onset senioritis, you could say. I am, however, kicking ass at the personal statements. The first few drafts were awful, but I'm having so much fun with them. Without an English class this semester, this is all I can hope for to keep my skills sharp. And it's made even better when I actually get some damn criticism on my work too. So that's nice.
I've gotten back into gaming, kind of. I've changed what I've been looking for in games now, I have a greater appreciation for single-player stories and campaigns. In terms of multiplayer, all I need is COD4. Still addictive as ever, and the upcoming and vastly improved Gears of War 2. That's going to be the shit.
Anything else? Missing people, hating people, loving people (Stephanie Bui oh my Jesus), failing at things, it's all good. Well, some of it is good, but some of it sucks. Here begins the descent into hell.
So college is coming up, the prospect of leaving this place and starting up what is essentially a new life terrifies the piss out of me, but at the same time it's also exciting. I view it as a challenge, but I'm still scared of it. I'm scared of adapting to change, of losing people here, of becoming something different. That's me, the pessimist. I suppose the only thing I can really say about this is that I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. And it's looking to be like the Golden Gate Bridge, not the sissy Dumbarton Bridge. Sigh.
I guess school's been doing okay. I'm not doing exceptionally well in my math and econ courses, but I just got an A in my online music course (not much of an accomplishment though, to be honest). I can probably pull up those grades if I tried, but I've been afflicted with early-onset senioritis, you could say. I am, however, kicking ass at the personal statements. The first few drafts were awful, but I'm having so much fun with them. Without an English class this semester, this is all I can hope for to keep my skills sharp. And it's made even better when I actually get some damn criticism on my work too. So that's nice.
I've gotten back into gaming, kind of. I've changed what I've been looking for in games now, I have a greater appreciation for single-player stories and campaigns. In terms of multiplayer, all I need is COD4. Still addictive as ever, and the upcoming and vastly improved Gears of War 2. That's going to be the shit.
Anything else? Missing people, hating people, loving people (Stephanie Bui oh my Jesus), failing at things, it's all good. Well, some of it is good, but some of it sucks. Here begins the descent into hell.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Relativism
The notion that nothing is ever concrete - everything depends on the perspective of the viewer is a load of crap. While it's true that many things in life can be differently interpreted by others, relativists (though perhaps not all of them) believe that everything holds a different value depending on how the person in question is looking at it. For example, religion is viewed as useful and helpful in providing purpose in one's life by the religious, obviously, and the weak-willed. How do I view religion? Completely worthless, the cancer of society.
Yes, in this case, a relativist's point of view is correct. But there are solid, established fact that are indisputable. I personally believe that religion is worthless and causing the slow decay of society with its suppression of intellectualism and self-expression, and I also personally believe that it's also an undeniable fact. The religious will counter my argument claiming it provides purpose, structure, and comfort, but that dances around the issue. You can't deny that the key tactic of religion is to quell any opposing view points.
Before this brief tangent devolves any further, I would just like to state my one and only point. The purpose of relativism is only to straddle the fence, satisfy both sides without stepping over to one side. Of course, I am only speaking of the most serious case - a total relativist will never have an opinion on anything. I can understand that it's all relative, but there are things that need to be considered, and you must take a side. Dodging the issue satisfies everyone and everyone's you're friend, but you need opinions. Pick a side. Join the Dark Side. We have cocaine and tacos.
Yes, in this case, a relativist's point of view is correct. But there are solid, established fact that are indisputable. I personally believe that religion is worthless and causing the slow decay of society with its suppression of intellectualism and self-expression, and I also personally believe that it's also an undeniable fact. The religious will counter my argument claiming it provides purpose, structure, and comfort, but that dances around the issue. You can't deny that the key tactic of religion is to quell any opposing view points.
Before this brief tangent devolves any further, I would just like to state my one and only point. The purpose of relativism is only to straddle the fence, satisfy both sides without stepping over to one side. Of course, I am only speaking of the most serious case - a total relativist will never have an opinion on anything. I can understand that it's all relative, but there are things that need to be considered, and you must take a side. Dodging the issue satisfies everyone and everyone's you're friend, but you need opinions. Pick a side. Join the Dark Side. We have cocaine and tacos.
Friday, October 3, 2008
A Novel: Serialized
Provocateur: An Autobiography by Nick Washington
ONE: THE SAD LIFE
People are always talking to me, rambling, asking silly questions. What do they ask, you ask? Shit, there you go again, asking questions! Christ. Suppose that’s the point of an interview. No, but seriously, they ask me a lot of shit. “What’s it like being a gigolo?” “Are the working conditions hard?” “How do you cope with stress?” Well, I have some very simple answers, almost one-word replies. “It’s cool.” “No.” “Pretty girl named Mary Jane waiting for me at home.”
Honest to God, I’m not different from anyone else, they, everyone, the media, my goddamn sisters, everyone I meet except for my clients, treat me like some ultra-fertile savior of the human race, destined to bring the moisture back into the barren vaginas of old spinsters. I do an interview, just not like this, say some tabloid magazine, National Enquirer and I’m bombarded with a bunch of inane inquisitions. They put me up on a pedestal I’m not sure I deserve to be put up on, you know? And if having sex with women and getting paid damn well for it is something to idolize, I think some rescrutinization, is that a word? No? Some re-examination of our morals and culture needs to kick in. Nah, but it’s pretty annoying, I’m not going to lie to you. Maybe you need to look at the other side of my life to fully understand why.
My name is Nicholas Washington. That’s my actual name. No alias, no nickname. Well, I do have a nickname, but we’ll get back to that later. Named after the guy in red himself, jolly old Saint Nicholas, my parents had a sick sense of humor, they used to throw my sister in the pool just to make dead baby jokes. Anyway. Nicholas Washington. Born and raised in Los Angeles, the City of Angels, a desolate wasteland of superficial culture and ignorant hero worship of even more superficial celebrities. Everyone I knew, everyone I grew up with was obsessed with that life; glitz and glam. Never enough brains to fill an eggcup.
We were pretty wealthy; I lived in Beverly Hills with two sisters, both of whom decided to fall directly into the trap that was Hollywood. Didn’t deviate in the slightest from the goddamn masses of shallow, phony bitches that roamed the streets of Rodeo Drive searching for the chic, the popular, and the beautiful. It was enough to make someone vomit.
Judging from my tone, you obviously can deduce that I hated it all. I was inspired, somewhat, by my father. Hardworking, raised from the gutter, never a silver spoon in his mouth. I say somewhat because he did all this, made a fortune defending innocent men and prosecuting despicable paedophiles and homicidal catamites, but ended up marrying my cheap floozy of a mother. Yeah, I’m going to say that right now. My mother was just a whore, not quite on the level of a professional escort, no, that would be giving her credit. She just batted her batly eyelids at the right person. My father, Mickey Washington.
Mother was never around much, Dad was always working. I was practically raised by our butler, Dane. Nice fellow, he was. British, little sarcastic, just like how you see in the movies. He always had snippets of wisdom for me when I was in trouble, and yet he would never get mad at me when I was actually in a pickle. I looked up to Dane, both as a second father and maybe even an older brother. Emphasis on old. His staunch rationalism, biting wit, British behavior reminded me of a fictional character I had seen on TV somewhere. A doctor or something. But the important thing to remember was that Dane was the inspiration I had for not only pursuing my own interests, but making sure I did well in the not-so interesting things that would serve to further…my own interests!
I was a great student in school. By age 16 I was doing multivariable calculus, writing essays and pieces that brought tears to the eyes of stolid old businessmen who hated their wives, spoke four languages, Spanish, French, Russian, and Latin, and excelling in a variety of sports. I was the archetypal pinnacle of humanity. Arrogance aside, I seriously was an impressive specimen, perhaps they wanted to clone me. Not only that, but I was blessed with rugged good looks and a wit that matched, if not surpassed, Dane’s. He was my sensei after all.
High school was boring for me. I had finished all my classes, and more, laughably by the end of my sophomore year. But what the hell right? Even though I was a brainiac, that didn’t mean I had to leave high school, miss out on two years of fun. So what did I do? What would any kid do at that age, given that freedom, money, and prestige? Sex, drugs, and…that’s it. Sex and drugs.
Oh Jesus…if I were to tell you how many fucking girls I slept with or how many lines of blow I did, you’d need every single sheet of paper of the Congressional Library to document it all…Shit. Wild years. And that’s probably what motivated me to become what I was, a gigolo. I loved it. Sex was wonderful, liberating, and more often than not anonymous. I would just hit up a party, find a drunk chick, talk her up for a few minutes and away we would go. Of course, this was spread in between sessions of blow going right up our noses, sometimes we ate it. Time of my life. I would often have some really clingy girl who would always want to cuddle afterwards, but man, that wasn’t my thing. I wanted to get it on and get it out. That was my philosophy. Never had a girlfriend, mate. That’s for damn sure. It was Hollywood, it was Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills. Did you seriously expect anything less?
Consistency was the name of the game. Every night I was out, partying, drinking, snorting, fucking, you name it. But I always kept a cool head, even in spite of all this. I somehow managed to transcend the stereotype; high people do stupid things, I didn’t do stupid things. At least, relatively anyway. Some of the kids I was with decided one night, while on speedballs, to pretend to surf on top of a moving car. Let’s just say the poor bastard who tried to do it, Lenny, was lucky his dad was rich. Imagine if a kid from South Central lost half his face. Parents would just euthanize the fucker right then and there. Me? No. I never did anything stupid, paradoxically, while on drugs. If I had a bit of blow or dope, I would just sit there and chill the fuck out. It was my scene, but not my movie.
This shit went on for a long time, and it was the most fun I ever had, I’m not going to lie to you. Sure, you needed a fix every few hours, or minutes, in some cases, but nobody was ever around to watch me shoot up. Dane might’ve walked in on me a few times, but he never brought it up. I adored the lifestyle, I felt like a goddamn Rockstar. I was happy with it, yes. But I was stupid for drugs. Brilliant in other areas; I could translate Candide, The Aeneid, Don Quixote, and The Brothers Karamazov in three weeks, but I couldn’t go more than four hours without shooting up. It was okay though, I was never short of dope. I was fine. I was fucked up, sure, but relatively speaking, I was fine.
So for about two years, I was embedded in this shit. And then, during a guest pep speak, or whatever the fuck they call them, I suddenly realized my follies, ironically, while high out of my mind. The guy was up there on stage, impeccable suit and tie, crisp and clean, beautifully shaved, smooth composure, and suave presentation. He wore glasses, giving off an air of confidence and power. And then he spoke, his voice a powerful and compelling mixture of a bit of James Earl Jones and Martin Luther King Jr. He spoke with conviction, authority. But the thing is, he spoke mostly about bullshit, nothing really important, it was all waffle to me. But then he got the audience involved, and that’s when I began to start paying attention.
At first, I was only paying attention because I thought if he called on me, the whole school would know I was blitzed out of my mind. So this guy, this flawless, Aryan specimen points straight at me, his perfectly trimmed fingernail pointing directly over my heart, as if he was stabbing me there and hoping to steal the grams of coke I had in my pockets, asked me boomingly and clearly, “What do you want to do with your life?”
Now, Twisted Sister was pretty popular back in the day, and the situation reminded me exactly of that. Hell, that’s how the music video went. So, in my heroin-infused mind, pondering an answer to get the heat off me comes up with a perfect response. “I wanna rock!” And the shit hit the fan. Proverbially, anyway.
What this made me realize was that I was screwing up my young, nubile life. Here I was, humping away. Here I was, snorting grams of coke and shooting up heroin, forcibly conquering my liver. I wanted to rock. I wanted to be Dee Snider. But I wasn’t. There was no way I was going to be Dee Snider if I kept on doing what I was doing. Sure, Dee Snider was humping away, snorting coke, shooting up heroin, and forcibly conquering his liver. But the man worked hard before he could afford these luxuries. I hadn’t done shit. I haven’t rocked. And I didn’t deserve anything until I rocked. So back to our story.
The speaker kinda just laughed slightly and walked on, continued to talk about leadership, what have you. Admirable it was, sure. But this guy was preaching to the wrong crowd. Kids back then, most kids these days, with a few exceptions, they’re not interested in that shit. They don’t want to help the impoverished in Peru, they don’t want to build schools in Panama or deliver desks in Ethiopia. Hell, I’d go so far to say they don’t even want to read. What’s popular these days? MySpace. Jonas Brothers. I grew up in the 80’s, so you know I’m saying something when I say the music these kids listen to is just noise.
I may be a bit off topic here, tangential, but I feel it has to be said. I was part of that demographic, part of the uncaring teenager, the kind that only wants to fuck and snort. And I’m here to say I thoroughly regret that. Yeah, I educated myself, I learned a lot. But that doesn’t mean I’m ashamed at what happened afterwards. The phrase “O How the Mighty have Fallen,” immediately comes to mind. But kids will be kids. I’ve accepted that. I just wish I spent more time reading Nietzsche than going to parties.
But like I said, that speaker, man. He had some kind of power, some sort of sway over me. So obviously, I decided to clean up my act. It was just a little bit at a time, baby steps. Let me tell you that there’s nothing quite worse than going through withdrawal, it’s something I don’t want to relive any time soon. I tied myself to my bed, locked the cellar door, put out the air in my tires to prevent myself from going to see my dealer, Mitch. Mitch was a slimeball who operated out of a boutique in Rodeo. I could overdose on his floor and he’d be too blitzed to even raise a finger. Take my word for it when I say that self-rehab is almost never successful. I’m the only exception (that I know of).
Like I said, I was done with high school. I was just sitting around for the parties. But now that I wasn’t going to them any more, the gathering of massive anonymous crowds, I dedicated myself to more wholesome activities. I read some foreign literature, The Master and Margarita, The Count of Monte Cristo, Inferno, and Lolita. All in a week. I was hungry for knowledge. I lose dependency on one thing, I gain an addiction to another. Information. Stories. Themes. I ate it up.
I wrote several papers detailing key events in ancient history and their repercussions. The Sack of Rome. The Enlightenment. The American Revolution. Unrestrained capitalism in America. Contained communism in Russia. The Cuban Missile Crisis. The Oil Conflict. Not quite, ancient, more modern, but it served its purpose. It was all a distraction. Distraction from the abhorrent life I led. Distraction from the past I was trying to put behind me. I claimed to have a purpose. I claimed to want to be a smarter person. But I didn’t. I only wanted to divert myself from my problems. I didn’t want to think about it.
It helped, but it wasn’t enough. I enrolled at UCLA. With my father’s connections and pull, it was remarkably easy. My first class was something like “Sex and Sociology,” an intriguing topic. It put things in perspective, why we have sex, what elements compel us to have carnal relations with another person. Having spent a lot of time humping and dumping, learning the machinations that drive us to do what we do. I loved learning, man. I seriously did. But the thing was that while it helped me understand all of it, it made me ridiculously horny. So I was conflicted; trapped between my desires to hump and my desire to form a real relationship with someone. In the long run, it probably would've been wiser to go with the latter, rather than the former. How I managed to fall back into something I had yearned to escape, I don't know. That's the problem with trying to break your own habits. You just find a substitute habit to supplant your original. Sort of like how that guy kept collecting rocks instead of masturbating in that one Chuck Palahniuk novel. I remember that because it was funny, but outside of that, Palahniuk is an untalented hack. Sorry, lost my train of thought.
While I was at school, I cut off all friendships, relationship, connections with anyone I knew. I was a ghost. My dad knew I was at school, but he was so busy, he didn't even visit. The only contact I had with other human beings was swooping into parties and taking advantage of the drunk chicks. Yeah, it's bastardous and a dick move. But I didn't care. I needed something to occupy my spare time. I was ironically, and tragically, lonelier than I had ever been for those four years. The root of all my problems stemmed from human beings - human beings giving me coke, human beings giving me heroin, human beings giving me booze. I might as well do something natural, something God intended instead of getting high as a kite. It was the only solace I could find, to know that I was doing something relatively normal, even if my method of acquisition was less than gentlemanly.
I decided to go after my master's degree in psychology, attaining it with no problem, and then my pHD. Also no problem. I found if I put my mind to it, I could do whatever I wanted. Corny, taken-straight from an after-school special, sure, but it was true. I was one determined motherfucker. I was desperate to prove myself, to prove that those years of drunken debauchery wasn't representative of the real me. Everyone goes through that. Others judge on preconceptions, others judge based on a sole event in life, I wanted to be viewed past that. I would be getting a doctorate, subsequently allowing people to judge me by that. I was a hypocrite, but this hypocrisy tasted a lot sweeter. As long as my other hunger was satiated, I could function above normal capacity. I could go above and beyond the call of duty, and that's what guaranteed success. It was good. I could psycho-analyze people. Combine that with a sharp deductive ability and I could learn all about a person just by the way they talked, from the clothes they wear. You see that shit on TV a lot, few can actually do it. And those who can actually do it only learned so they can study the human being. And why would we study human beings, study animals, whatever? We consider them lower than ourselves. Certainly was the case here.
What did I do? Where did I go after I got my degree? The piece of paper that said I was qualified to make an exorbitant sum of money? Based on something some people saw in me? Nowhere. I stayed right there, went back to Beverly Hills and stayed in our old house. No one cared. I was a specter. So where was I going to go after this? After the massive amounts of sex, after the years of education, after the binges?
On a road trip, of course.
ONE: THE SAD LIFE
People are always talking to me, rambling, asking silly questions. What do they ask, you ask? Shit, there you go again, asking questions! Christ. Suppose that’s the point of an interview. No, but seriously, they ask me a lot of shit. “What’s it like being a gigolo?” “Are the working conditions hard?” “How do you cope with stress?” Well, I have some very simple answers, almost one-word replies. “It’s cool.” “No.” “Pretty girl named Mary Jane waiting for me at home.”
Honest to God, I’m not different from anyone else, they, everyone, the media, my goddamn sisters, everyone I meet except for my clients, treat me like some ultra-fertile savior of the human race, destined to bring the moisture back into the barren vaginas of old spinsters. I do an interview, just not like this, say some tabloid magazine, National Enquirer and I’m bombarded with a bunch of inane inquisitions. They put me up on a pedestal I’m not sure I deserve to be put up on, you know? And if having sex with women and getting paid damn well for it is something to idolize, I think some rescrutinization, is that a word? No? Some re-examination of our morals and culture needs to kick in. Nah, but it’s pretty annoying, I’m not going to lie to you. Maybe you need to look at the other side of my life to fully understand why.
My name is Nicholas Washington. That’s my actual name. No alias, no nickname. Well, I do have a nickname, but we’ll get back to that later. Named after the guy in red himself, jolly old Saint Nicholas, my parents had a sick sense of humor, they used to throw my sister in the pool just to make dead baby jokes. Anyway. Nicholas Washington. Born and raised in Los Angeles, the City of Angels, a desolate wasteland of superficial culture and ignorant hero worship of even more superficial celebrities. Everyone I knew, everyone I grew up with was obsessed with that life; glitz and glam. Never enough brains to fill an eggcup.
We were pretty wealthy; I lived in Beverly Hills with two sisters, both of whom decided to fall directly into the trap that was Hollywood. Didn’t deviate in the slightest from the goddamn masses of shallow, phony bitches that roamed the streets of Rodeo Drive searching for the chic, the popular, and the beautiful. It was enough to make someone vomit.
Judging from my tone, you obviously can deduce that I hated it all. I was inspired, somewhat, by my father. Hardworking, raised from the gutter, never a silver spoon in his mouth. I say somewhat because he did all this, made a fortune defending innocent men and prosecuting despicable paedophiles and homicidal catamites, but ended up marrying my cheap floozy of a mother. Yeah, I’m going to say that right now. My mother was just a whore, not quite on the level of a professional escort, no, that would be giving her credit. She just batted her batly eyelids at the right person. My father, Mickey Washington.
Mother was never around much, Dad was always working. I was practically raised by our butler, Dane. Nice fellow, he was. British, little sarcastic, just like how you see in the movies. He always had snippets of wisdom for me when I was in trouble, and yet he would never get mad at me when I was actually in a pickle. I looked up to Dane, both as a second father and maybe even an older brother. Emphasis on old. His staunch rationalism, biting wit, British behavior reminded me of a fictional character I had seen on TV somewhere. A doctor or something. But the important thing to remember was that Dane was the inspiration I had for not only pursuing my own interests, but making sure I did well in the not-so interesting things that would serve to further…my own interests!
I was a great student in school. By age 16 I was doing multivariable calculus, writing essays and pieces that brought tears to the eyes of stolid old businessmen who hated their wives, spoke four languages, Spanish, French, Russian, and Latin, and excelling in a variety of sports. I was the archetypal pinnacle of humanity. Arrogance aside, I seriously was an impressive specimen, perhaps they wanted to clone me. Not only that, but I was blessed with rugged good looks and a wit that matched, if not surpassed, Dane’s. He was my sensei after all.
High school was boring for me. I had finished all my classes, and more, laughably by the end of my sophomore year. But what the hell right? Even though I was a brainiac, that didn’t mean I had to leave high school, miss out on two years of fun. So what did I do? What would any kid do at that age, given that freedom, money, and prestige? Sex, drugs, and…that’s it. Sex and drugs.
Oh Jesus…if I were to tell you how many fucking girls I slept with or how many lines of blow I did, you’d need every single sheet of paper of the Congressional Library to document it all…Shit. Wild years. And that’s probably what motivated me to become what I was, a gigolo. I loved it. Sex was wonderful, liberating, and more often than not anonymous. I would just hit up a party, find a drunk chick, talk her up for a few minutes and away we would go. Of course, this was spread in between sessions of blow going right up our noses, sometimes we ate it. Time of my life. I would often have some really clingy girl who would always want to cuddle afterwards, but man, that wasn’t my thing. I wanted to get it on and get it out. That was my philosophy. Never had a girlfriend, mate. That’s for damn sure. It was Hollywood, it was Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills. Did you seriously expect anything less?
Consistency was the name of the game. Every night I was out, partying, drinking, snorting, fucking, you name it. But I always kept a cool head, even in spite of all this. I somehow managed to transcend the stereotype; high people do stupid things, I didn’t do stupid things. At least, relatively anyway. Some of the kids I was with decided one night, while on speedballs, to pretend to surf on top of a moving car. Let’s just say the poor bastard who tried to do it, Lenny, was lucky his dad was rich. Imagine if a kid from South Central lost half his face. Parents would just euthanize the fucker right then and there. Me? No. I never did anything stupid, paradoxically, while on drugs. If I had a bit of blow or dope, I would just sit there and chill the fuck out. It was my scene, but not my movie.
This shit went on for a long time, and it was the most fun I ever had, I’m not going to lie to you. Sure, you needed a fix every few hours, or minutes, in some cases, but nobody was ever around to watch me shoot up. Dane might’ve walked in on me a few times, but he never brought it up. I adored the lifestyle, I felt like a goddamn Rockstar. I was happy with it, yes. But I was stupid for drugs. Brilliant in other areas; I could translate Candide, The Aeneid, Don Quixote, and The Brothers Karamazov in three weeks, but I couldn’t go more than four hours without shooting up. It was okay though, I was never short of dope. I was fine. I was fucked up, sure, but relatively speaking, I was fine.
So for about two years, I was embedded in this shit. And then, during a guest pep speak, or whatever the fuck they call them, I suddenly realized my follies, ironically, while high out of my mind. The guy was up there on stage, impeccable suit and tie, crisp and clean, beautifully shaved, smooth composure, and suave presentation. He wore glasses, giving off an air of confidence and power. And then he spoke, his voice a powerful and compelling mixture of a bit of James Earl Jones and Martin Luther King Jr. He spoke with conviction, authority. But the thing is, he spoke mostly about bullshit, nothing really important, it was all waffle to me. But then he got the audience involved, and that’s when I began to start paying attention.
At first, I was only paying attention because I thought if he called on me, the whole school would know I was blitzed out of my mind. So this guy, this flawless, Aryan specimen points straight at me, his perfectly trimmed fingernail pointing directly over my heart, as if he was stabbing me there and hoping to steal the grams of coke I had in my pockets, asked me boomingly and clearly, “What do you want to do with your life?”
Now, Twisted Sister was pretty popular back in the day, and the situation reminded me exactly of that. Hell, that’s how the music video went. So, in my heroin-infused mind, pondering an answer to get the heat off me comes up with a perfect response. “I wanna rock!” And the shit hit the fan. Proverbially, anyway.
What this made me realize was that I was screwing up my young, nubile life. Here I was, humping away. Here I was, snorting grams of coke and shooting up heroin, forcibly conquering my liver. I wanted to rock. I wanted to be Dee Snider. But I wasn’t. There was no way I was going to be Dee Snider if I kept on doing what I was doing. Sure, Dee Snider was humping away, snorting coke, shooting up heroin, and forcibly conquering his liver. But the man worked hard before he could afford these luxuries. I hadn’t done shit. I haven’t rocked. And I didn’t deserve anything until I rocked. So back to our story.
The speaker kinda just laughed slightly and walked on, continued to talk about leadership, what have you. Admirable it was, sure. But this guy was preaching to the wrong crowd. Kids back then, most kids these days, with a few exceptions, they’re not interested in that shit. They don’t want to help the impoverished in Peru, they don’t want to build schools in Panama or deliver desks in Ethiopia. Hell, I’d go so far to say they don’t even want to read. What’s popular these days? MySpace. Jonas Brothers. I grew up in the 80’s, so you know I’m saying something when I say the music these kids listen to is just noise.
I may be a bit off topic here, tangential, but I feel it has to be said. I was part of that demographic, part of the uncaring teenager, the kind that only wants to fuck and snort. And I’m here to say I thoroughly regret that. Yeah, I educated myself, I learned a lot. But that doesn’t mean I’m ashamed at what happened afterwards. The phrase “O How the Mighty have Fallen,” immediately comes to mind. But kids will be kids. I’ve accepted that. I just wish I spent more time reading Nietzsche than going to parties.
But like I said, that speaker, man. He had some kind of power, some sort of sway over me. So obviously, I decided to clean up my act. It was just a little bit at a time, baby steps. Let me tell you that there’s nothing quite worse than going through withdrawal, it’s something I don’t want to relive any time soon. I tied myself to my bed, locked the cellar door, put out the air in my tires to prevent myself from going to see my dealer, Mitch. Mitch was a slimeball who operated out of a boutique in Rodeo. I could overdose on his floor and he’d be too blitzed to even raise a finger. Take my word for it when I say that self-rehab is almost never successful. I’m the only exception (that I know of).
Like I said, I was done with high school. I was just sitting around for the parties. But now that I wasn’t going to them any more, the gathering of massive anonymous crowds, I dedicated myself to more wholesome activities. I read some foreign literature, The Master and Margarita, The Count of Monte Cristo, Inferno, and Lolita. All in a week. I was hungry for knowledge. I lose dependency on one thing, I gain an addiction to another. Information. Stories. Themes. I ate it up.
I wrote several papers detailing key events in ancient history and their repercussions. The Sack of Rome. The Enlightenment. The American Revolution. Unrestrained capitalism in America. Contained communism in Russia. The Cuban Missile Crisis. The Oil Conflict. Not quite, ancient, more modern, but it served its purpose. It was all a distraction. Distraction from the abhorrent life I led. Distraction from the past I was trying to put behind me. I claimed to have a purpose. I claimed to want to be a smarter person. But I didn’t. I only wanted to divert myself from my problems. I didn’t want to think about it.
It helped, but it wasn’t enough. I enrolled at UCLA. With my father’s connections and pull, it was remarkably easy. My first class was something like “Sex and Sociology,” an intriguing topic. It put things in perspective, why we have sex, what elements compel us to have carnal relations with another person. Having spent a lot of time humping and dumping, learning the machinations that drive us to do what we do. I loved learning, man. I seriously did. But the thing was that while it helped me understand all of it, it made me ridiculously horny. So I was conflicted; trapped between my desires to hump and my desire to form a real relationship with someone. In the long run, it probably would've been wiser to go with the latter, rather than the former. How I managed to fall back into something I had yearned to escape, I don't know. That's the problem with trying to break your own habits. You just find a substitute habit to supplant your original. Sort of like how that guy kept collecting rocks instead of masturbating in that one Chuck Palahniuk novel. I remember that because it was funny, but outside of that, Palahniuk is an untalented hack. Sorry, lost my train of thought.
While I was at school, I cut off all friendships, relationship, connections with anyone I knew. I was a ghost. My dad knew I was at school, but he was so busy, he didn't even visit. The only contact I had with other human beings was swooping into parties and taking advantage of the drunk chicks. Yeah, it's bastardous and a dick move. But I didn't care. I needed something to occupy my spare time. I was ironically, and tragically, lonelier than I had ever been for those four years. The root of all my problems stemmed from human beings - human beings giving me coke, human beings giving me heroin, human beings giving me booze. I might as well do something natural, something God intended instead of getting high as a kite. It was the only solace I could find, to know that I was doing something relatively normal, even if my method of acquisition was less than gentlemanly.
I decided to go after my master's degree in psychology, attaining it with no problem, and then my pHD. Also no problem. I found if I put my mind to it, I could do whatever I wanted. Corny, taken-straight from an after-school special, sure, but it was true. I was one determined motherfucker. I was desperate to prove myself, to prove that those years of drunken debauchery wasn't representative of the real me. Everyone goes through that. Others judge on preconceptions, others judge based on a sole event in life, I wanted to be viewed past that. I would be getting a doctorate, subsequently allowing people to judge me by that. I was a hypocrite, but this hypocrisy tasted a lot sweeter. As long as my other hunger was satiated, I could function above normal capacity. I could go above and beyond the call of duty, and that's what guaranteed success. It was good. I could psycho-analyze people. Combine that with a sharp deductive ability and I could learn all about a person just by the way they talked, from the clothes they wear. You see that shit on TV a lot, few can actually do it. And those who can actually do it only learned so they can study the human being. And why would we study human beings, study animals, whatever? We consider them lower than ourselves. Certainly was the case here.
What did I do? Where did I go after I got my degree? The piece of paper that said I was qualified to make an exorbitant sum of money? Based on something some people saw in me? Nowhere. I stayed right there, went back to Beverly Hills and stayed in our old house. No one cared. I was a specter. So where was I going to go after this? After the massive amounts of sex, after the years of education, after the binges?
On a road trip, of course.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Poetry Part Deux
Love Rain O'er Me
Be like water, my friend.
And with it, the power to adapt, to live, to the bitter end.
In the rain, the droplets fall, flashing and fleeting bits of coolness.
And happiness it brings, to be misted and kissed by the sky.
But with time, to think, to wonder, to fester, it becomes an unknowable beast.
And the rain will not return.
Destruction left in the wake of the storm is difficult to repair, but must be fixed.
The sudden onset brings about the realization of being tricked.
Water from all high is a two-headed monster.
One seductive and beautiful, if only to feed the other.
Is it possible for the rain to return? The gentle pitter-patter of pleasure?
It can't be measured.
Be like water, my friend.
And with it, the power to adapt, to live, to the bitter end.
In the rain, the droplets fall, flashing and fleeting bits of coolness.
And happiness it brings, to be misted and kissed by the sky.
But with time, to think, to wonder, to fester, it becomes an unknowable beast.
And the rain will not return.
Destruction left in the wake of the storm is difficult to repair, but must be fixed.
The sudden onset brings about the realization of being tricked.
Water from all high is a two-headed monster.
One seductive and beautiful, if only to feed the other.
Is it possible for the rain to return? The gentle pitter-patter of pleasure?
It can't be measured.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
The Tribulations
"Hi, what's your name?"
"John."
"Oh, I like that name. How are you John?"
"I'm good. How are you, sweetheart?"
"I'm fabulous, John."
"That's good to hear."
"So why are you calling, John?"
"I wanted to talk."
"Mmmm, I like that John."
"Yeah. So let's talk."
"What do you want to talk about? What do you want to know?"
"What do I want to know?"
"Yes, John. Do you want to know anything? About me?"
"I would."
"What do you want to know about me, John?"
"What are you wearing?"
"A little nightie. Clothes are always so...constricting."
"Hm, is that right? Nothing but a nightie, you say?"
"That's right John, what do you think of that?"
"I like it. I like it a lot."
"Want to know anything else? Anything you want to know..."
"Yeah, what do you look like?"
"I'm blond, slender...horny."
"That's not something you look like, dear."
"Mmm, I like it when you call me dear..."
"You like a lot things, don't you?"
"Yeah."
"What color are your eyes?"
"What?"
"What's. Your. Eye. Color."
"Oh, why do you want to know?"
"I can know anything I want, can't I?"
"Sure. They're blue, John."
"..."
"John?"
"..."
"John....?"
"Yeah. I'm here. Thank you. Thank you for your time."
He hung up. From the tattered sofa he was sitting on, he hung up his cell phone. He stood up, walked into the nursery, and picked up his crying son. He patted him down, laid him back down to sleep. He walked back through his tiny house and sat back down on the sofa, reaching for the bottle on the coffee table.
And he continued his day.
"John."
"Oh, I like that name. How are you John?"
"I'm good. How are you, sweetheart?"
"I'm fabulous, John."
"That's good to hear."
"So why are you calling, John?"
"I wanted to talk."
"Mmmm, I like that John."
"Yeah. So let's talk."
"What do you want to talk about? What do you want to know?"
"What do I want to know?"
"Yes, John. Do you want to know anything? About me?"
"I would."
"What do you want to know about me, John?"
"What are you wearing?"
"A little nightie. Clothes are always so...constricting."
"Hm, is that right? Nothing but a nightie, you say?"
"That's right John, what do you think of that?"
"I like it. I like it a lot."
"Want to know anything else? Anything you want to know..."
"Yeah, what do you look like?"
"I'm blond, slender...horny."
"That's not something you look like, dear."
"Mmm, I like it when you call me dear..."
"You like a lot things, don't you?"
"Yeah."
"What color are your eyes?"
"What?"
"What's. Your. Eye. Color."
"Oh, why do you want to know?"
"I can know anything I want, can't I?"
"Sure. They're blue, John."
"..."
"John?"
"..."
"John....?"
"Yeah. I'm here. Thank you. Thank you for your time."
He hung up. From the tattered sofa he was sitting on, he hung up his cell phone. He stood up, walked into the nursery, and picked up his crying son. He patted him down, laid him back down to sleep. He walked back through his tiny house and sat back down on the sofa, reaching for the bottle on the coffee table.
And he continued his day.
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