blastedgoat

dangle your body like rotten berries deep red and starting to reek i am not mesmerized by your high-pitched whine or bleach
blonde brain cells, deadened like the nerves in your jaw but am repulsed by the slack in your thigh, the line of your orange mask that peels like moldy fruit skins and falls to the floor i am unamused by this musing so i give it up in exchange for musical experimentation, a stellar stoner-action flick and a family consisting of a smoky black-and-grey purr-box, a manic man band (my name minus m and
my hunny-bunny) i take rock-n-roll videos and close-up photos of things that fill the finished basement….

I will provide specific examples of various social and political commentaries from Hunter Thompson’s article “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved.” I will examine Thompson’s place and importance within the culture he was critiquing as well as within the realm of journalism itself. Although he was most often under the influence of one or a variety of substances his words and insight have influenced many who knew or read him. He dedicated himself, compulsions and all, to the craft of journalism. He has personally been one of my favorite writers since I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas several summers ago. What drew me to Thompson was his ability to make the ordinary remarkable. I feel his style is reflective of the subjectivity that has seeped into our culture, beginning with the rise of New Journalism, a style that had many similarities to Gonzo Journalism.

Thompson’s article is immersive due to its exploration of the surroundings and the writer’s obsessive practice of the continual, unquestioned traditions and indulgences in question. Steadman calls this going “native,” which they do, becoming the “real beasts” they have come to see perform. Many of Thompson’s generation sought to expand their minds, they often achieved this by pushing their bodies to extremes while the upright citizens of the day deplored their degrading behaviors. Thompson was perhaps speaking out in opposition to some acts of depravity but lived his life according to his own moral code. I identify with his tactics and works because I too notice a trend of alienation, of increasing anti-social tendencies and isolation. Thompson spoke for his generation because while he felt his views were important he felt equally responsible to point out any biases he had as a journalist. Thompson achieved this with his over-the-top style.

Thompson’s judgments are meant to be humorous at first glance however; they contain relevant cultural critiques and provide readers insight of the times and of the widely different levels of experience that were available within a famous southern tradition. One of the most intriguing aspects of the article was the attempt of the journalist and illustrator to find a proper caricature, a representative face of the entire culture: “He had done a few good sketches, but so far we hadn’t seen that special kind of face that I felt we would need for a lead drawing. It was a face I’d seen a thousand times at every Derby I’d ever been to. I saw it, in my head, as the mask of whiskey gentry–a pretentious mix of booze, failed dreams and a terminal identity crisis; the inevitable result of too much inbreeding in a closed and ignorant culture” (Thompson 5). Thompson and Steadman were seeking more than just an illustration for the piece; Thompson wanted a symbol “of the whole doomed atavistic culture that makes the Kentucky Derby what it is” (Thompson 5). In the end, journalist and illustrator hit the bottom of the barrel but somehow make it out alive. Thompson wakes after consuming mass amounts of alcohol, admirable by even Derby standards and doesn’t even recognize himself in the mirror at first, he has transformed into the caricature he was seeking.

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Feet pound erratically on uneven stairs that I take at top speed, flashing a jagged key, twisting an oval knob, heart racing past a pile of summer shoes. I bolt the door behind me. This reminds me of a recurring dream I had when my window overlooked Broadway and the train tracks. The creature was snarling with black matted fur and cold eyes. I pushed my brother inside and saw it going for my mother. Her foot caught on a stair and she fell forward. Someone inside slammed and locked the door. I stared through glass and screen. I saw my mother’s eye disappear down the dog’s throat. I tried to scream and move. I tried to shake the bed. I saw the ceiling and heard a familiar voice.

The wooden floor is hard against my head. Colored lights
crawl across the wall warping in the cob-webbed corners.
In the next room ending credits play. The babysitter opens
the screen door. I hear my mother’s voice but not
what she says. I’m pretending to be asleep.

This is a comment I received on a message I sent the University of Northern Iowa where I am currently a student and employee. My original message was about the declining quality of the education at UNI and my personal dissatisfaction with a proposed $100 surcharge for the spring semester (after financial aid has been established potentially causing the extra fee to come out of student’s living, food or transportation budgets with only a few months warning). Feel free to react to anything, I do not discourage people who disagree with me as long as they bring up valid points. I have considered the following and don’t really see eye to eye with the author.

Keeping that in mind, I invite you to read my response to this gentleman named Mark: Our student tuition is still lower than all the other regent universities in Iowa. UNI has an excellent educational program for the amount we are lucky to pay. $100 surcharge is quite small and I was actually shocked to hear they weren’t going to increase tuition by $500 or even $1000. UNI receives less private and federal money than the other two regent universities, and so cuts like these place an added burden on our institution.
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I am disappointed in my school and their decision to charge students a $100 surcharge when the nearest community college has found a way around a similar fee at their institution. This surcharge comes with additional increases in fees and tuition totaling over 6% for 2010-11!

“As a senior and a student employee (for most of my time at school) I have to ask you to not make us pay a surcharge. I read in the paper today that HCC students wouldn’t be charged a fee for their spring semester and they are suffering with the same cuts that we are. I have been following our school in the paper and am ashamed that students with sports scholarships are protected with a 2 million dollar donation to “preserve” only certain non-academic activities on a university campus when whole programs could get the axe. Shame on you for going ahead with all (even unnecessary) planned building projects plus the demolition of Baker hall (coincidentally the building my department is in.) I am under the burden of classes (which could be two weeks sorter with longer meeting times next semester) that are going to cost me more even when my bills are skyrocketing, the student loan companies are breathing down my neck and as a valued university employee I didn’t get my promised raise. I make a whopping 7.45 an hour, thirty cents less than I was making in food service. I understand that everyone is having difficulties but my point is that UNI should be a place for education, an environment where students can learn and work and not have to worry about footing the bill when departments and individuals insist on using more than their fair share. I just ask that my school do the right thing, before I am forced to leave it. I can not afford and REFUSE to pay for an education that has for the most part NOT BEEN WORTH THE MONEY OR EFFORT!”

pomegranate thoughts drip from

my mouth to the ears of a provolone-ly

moon-faced man with gaping

wisdom-tooth-sized-cavities

(with roots deep in impracticalities)

like the inevitable nature of  sleep,

and dreams. my pillow sours, a flushed

cheek turns cool wondering at the thing

(the monster lurking near the drinking

glass) a tinge of a dream that singed a lash

as it fluttered fully open…

i slid in the mud–voices on t.v. floated out the window, my owww

an unnoticed howel to the hungry hangnail-moon.

AIM yrs l8ter: OMG WTF EVER HAPPENED 2 BRIAN HALL?

but that night broken glass was embedded in my foot. a long deep cut,

bloody foot gushing on wet blades of grass…he chased me

around the house in circles, we rode out bikes with0ut touching handlebars.

we picked up broken window-shield glass, pretending the shards were priceless diamonds.

we pulled hairs from giant green men, single strands at a time or in chunks connected to roots

and dirt. once i broke a branch off a tiny tree his dad had just planted, i grabbed it

and put my full 60lbs into a swing, landing hand in hand with wrinkled leaf and bending limb.

i am envious of the lens that saw him moments before he died–

he smiled. kids rolled down hills, their screams were the things of dreams…

i tumble and feel wet grass, growing around his gravestone, a place that marks

the letter sealed inside. words eaten long ago by worms–scorched on a sidewalk,

split in half for the world to see what’s inside him and inside me.

nothing feels right

until i watch this tape.

i can’t be sure how many times i have been half expecting to see him

turn a corner.

instead he floats further down river…

i never saw him, i wasn’t there when they pulled him from underneath a bridge

after days of searching and seeing dated photographs

on the channel 7 news. i didn’t see his smile, we never kissed at all…

a picture someone gave me after your funeral makes my fiance jealous,

jealous of bones and a seven-year-old-conversation late in to the night

one summer i spent the night at home alone.

trees bend and wave, flowers remind me of running

through bushes with purple bunches, floral and lush until

the snap–a swing-set unmovable-cemented haphazardly

in the backyard with all its knobby trees and rotten leaves.

apple-core eyes are smokey and coiling under an invisible

chain-link fence for dogs, cutting the bandit’s neck staining

bare feet like crab-apples–ghostly presence in the long

shady patches of lawn… a black cat crosses a toe-headed boy.

he stretches his stubby fat fingers and yawns as a woodpile

splinters, sparks, and burns to the ground.