blastedgoat

Never Apologize, Never Explain [version II]
The first time I watched that Las Vegas film I was right in the middle of a trip. Some ordinary summer night we got together and it just came up. Shrooms. How much? About twenty five a person, if you share. So I said, sounds fun. We, being myself, my roommate at the time, her boyfriend, the fellow that brought the drugs, a friend of mine and her boyfriend. We all started getting glazed looks. Someone was on the floor, laughing hysterically. I rolled around with him, admiring our green sectional couch. We found a glorious space between the back of the couch and the wall. We heard news that the bathroom walls seemed to breathe on my friend while she was using the facilities. This startled and confused her. She wished to leave and I, being a sensitive host found great horror in this revelation. But why, it was only breathing. I couldn’t find the harm. Now she was to leave, what would become of her then? Where did she go? And where was I? Dancing in the kitchen? God, like an idiot. Then, I realized she had gone while I wasn’t looking. A great wave of terror clenched at the back of my throat. Oh God. I think I’m going to have a bad trip. Calm down said the man who brought the drugs, look at this. I looked at the television. It was moving and turned such bright colors. That was the first night I ever played Guitar Hero. That was swell but nothing could prepare me for what was to happen next. Someone asked if I had ever seen something called fear and loathing. Those words seemed strange, my brain didn’t capitalize them. It’s all about a drug trip they told me. We began. I had no idea what the hell was going on but that didn’t matter. I found myself asking over and over, is it supposed to look that way? Is this really happening? Are they on drugs? What’s happening? I loved it, and hated it when each of us began drawing into ourselves. First we are all laughing and talking and turning to each word as if it were sunshine. Suddenly the room becomes heavy and you start to feel your body move. You are pulled in a soft lulling circular motion of conversation. You focus on one thing at a time. Television. Floor. Couch. Poster. Wall. Hand. Pants. Arm rest. Person. Television. Is this really happening? Yes. I mean, is everything supposed to look like that? Yes. It’s about drugs. Ok. And I was off again staring at the couch. That was the longest night of my life, and the night I drank about a whole bag of orange juice to myself. Yes, orange juice can and does come in bags. I know it is very odd, but delicious. The point is, if the extremely talented and somewhat slightly disturbed Hunter S. Thompson had never entered my life I might had never realized what is important about writing. Self-amusement. Nothing more, once it becomes something more, you’ve ruined it. Now writing can do a lot of things, it’s not all about amusement but at least one person (the person writing) has to take some interest in the subject. If there is no interest, there is no topic. If there is no topic there is no book. If there is no book, there is no record, and if there is no record it might as well not exist at all, in fact even if it did, it won’t in the future. In a way, legacy is all we have. If in ten years everyone in this room forgets me, I no longer exist, if I die, so does that memory with me in it. It’s sad, sometimes it makes me really fucking sad to think I might be remembered as some weird overweight girl but it makes me feel worse knowing I might not be remembered at all. I’ve learned more from watching the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas than I have in entire semesters of certain college courses. It took watching this film at varying levels of consciousness over several months before I was able to watch it completely sober. I found myself becoming obsessed with the way Thompson wrote, the way words start bleeding together. Thought becomes dialogue and you can’t separate fiction from reality anymore. I can’t continue my education until I know I can make it as a writer. I would just be wasting my time, but I can’t really write with my life going the way it does. The lifestyle of a starving artist isn’t appealing to someone like me, who likes to eat every now and again, I will always be an artist but I am down to earth enough to know that I’m going to have to work for what I get. This mentality served me fine for the first few years of college. Then, I realized my writing was “spit up,” writing generated (manufactured) with research, detailed lecture notes and a natural way with words. I am tired of regurgitating paper after paper of more of the same. A few classes challenge and intrigue me, this gets me by until I realize I’m never going to be able to use this in the real world because the real world is just like college, which is by default a “fake” world. Now people go to college to make money, and I thought people went to the job market to make money, well now they go to business school. Those people really irritate me. What are you going to do with a bunch of people who don’t know how to do anything but run a business? There are only so many businesses and the work seems really dull so why be a business major? It sounds a little better than a “general studies” major but not by much. Either Mommy and Daddy are wasting their money on a degree or you’re going to have fun paying off your college loans with a job at some shitty restaurant where people five and ten years younger than you talk about going to college and majoring in business. And you don’t say a word you bitter prick. You cry inside because you know those loan bastards are laughing all the way to the bank. Don’t forget everything else that sucks in your life, like the high cost of health care and the fact that everyone told you to “wait til you’re in college” to experiment with drugs and when you finally get there you are surrounded by loud alcoholics. All that from watching movies and wishing I was born in a different decade. I mean it’s really not fair at all, I love music but I haven’t heard a good new song on the radio in ten years. Maybe I’m exaggerating but I grew up listening to Nirvana when people were listening to Britney Spears. What’s even more sad is the fact that her music seems tame and nostalgic compared to the gems I’ve heard lately. The only thing that is worse than extremely irritating pop music is old people who listen to it and think it’s good. You should fucking know better and give your children better musical sense, you assholes. Many of you were around when some of the most influential music of all time was created, act like it please. Stop selling out, it embarrasses everything you stood for. Earlier this semester a rival publication, or rather an “alternative publication” (for all you pacifists out there) called the Slate was started by a small group of students. The project has thus far turned out two issues with more planned for next semester. I got help naming the thing from a VHS tape I bought for $1 from Goodwill about Berkley in the sixties. I learned about the student organization that fought to enlighten fellow students about political issues. The group was met with great resistance by the faculty, which is not something that we have yet inherited. Anyway, I have become quite intrigued by the idea of Gonzo journalism, or any kind of alternative journalism. I simply cannot remain invisible and easily forgotten by my fellow classmates and professors. I would rather flunk out of college and be remembered as a great writer than graduate and write glorified bullshit I can’t make myself be proud of. I just want to be free, for one short time in my life to write what I want and to receive the kind of education I want. I want to experiment with art and literature and theatre. I want to make films and study astronomy and read everything Gogol ever wrote. I want more than it seems I am going to receive and so I’m taking matters into my own hands. If I have to fail a paper, I will. I have never, in my entire life, just not done a paper. I’ve never had a reason not to. This time, I have a reason, but it’s not a reason I can tell you. I can’t apologize and I can’t explain, but I can tell you the events that led to that discovery. It was Thursday night, just before 7:00 p.m. I didn’t check the ticket. 7:00 p.m. stuck clearly in my head. It felt oddly quiet and empty inside the theatre but I walked in anyway, I knew as soon as I had it had been a mistake. I saw people I knew, they welcomed me by asking if I was there to help. Not realizing I was entirely too early before that time I certainly had then. I said no, I am not here to help; I was merely confused about the time of the performance. I felt like an idiot with the printed 7:30 p.m. sneering at me from the ticket I held in my hand. I began to bend the ticket nervously wishing the ink would run and rearrange itself to 7:00 p.m. I wanted the night to be over. A girl I didn’t know felt it necessary to usher me out, as if I could feel no sillier about bursting in before the house opened, I have a theatre background for God sake. I was unsure of what to do next. My first response was to leave, just for a bit. To get a bite and return at a more appropriate time. Fight or flight, crush some skulls to get to my seat or run away. I was assured that my ride was turning around and would be back to pick me up shortly, I decided to wait. It was raining. As it rained I got a brilliant idea. I daydreamed about writing my play review in the style of Hunter S. Thompson. I was sent to cover the play and instead I freak out and leave and write about everything but the play. It’s either the best idea I’ve ever had or the worst. I decide to have fun with it and jot down some notes. When my ride arrives we decide to grab some fast food so I can make it back to the show. I was very happy, I heard it was a long show and I was very hungry. The plan seemed to work well until we sat down in a McDonald’s at 7:20 p.m. I don’t think you’ll make it in time. We could leave now. You wouldn’t want to walk in late. You’re right. I thought of my embarrassment earlier that evening. I’m supposed to write a review. Don’t worry about it, I’m sure you could make something up. I roll my eyes, I have been bullshitting a long time but surely even I couldn’t bullshit writing a review for a play I didn’t see. I didn’t even try, I believe in being honest as much as it is possible…