Go ask Orge

[vicarz]

30 April 1987 I'm in a very hating mood! I'm hating. I really don't care about anything at this moment and that's scary!

Finished "gang leader for a day" which I'll rave about later

Started reading "Go ask ogre" which starts as a series of letters written by a "17-year old cutter" who wrote a series of letters to Nivek of puppy start in 1987. I was 19 in 1987. For some reason, hearing her inarticulate rants, seeing the titles of songs from that era, just seeing the dates, has me spiraling into my memories.

Part of me died with Kelly I see now, good. Kelly was my first love, and while I can't imagine how she wanted to come to my house and have sex with me every day, then to watch thundercats, when she did I felt that I could be loved at all.

Before that I had dated Kay Ford, briefly. She dumped me for Steve Ludenfeld, a jock across the street. She wanted to make more friends and I couldn't do that for her. Her little sister told me that he fingered her (we never broke up). I walked up with a bunch of my stoner friends - they were sitting on his front step. I yelled something "I don't know why you're with him - he has no balls" and my friends laughed while they both ran in the house. My friends provided me with a knife - one of my first, this one had about a 6" blade. I carried it everywhere with me for months. He stole and fucked my girl - that made it the proper thing to do, killing him. We met later, in the paths behind the apts. He said "I heard you were talking about me," and I laughed and said yes, same thing I said to his face. It was a rare moment when I wasn't scared, but I also had this big knife in my pants. He threatened that if I didn't stop he could do something, and that while he knew I had my friends he had friends too and some of them were on the football team. He pushed me, but it didn't phase me - didn't feel like stabbing him, was flattered that I was competition at that level. I felt good, and it was strange.

I can hear my voice still, it was...I know so much more today, but I can imagine the way I felt, the morality was all wrong and good god dangerous, but nothing came of it - here it feels like yesterday but it was over 20 years ago - a lifetime or more for some. I know those feelings, remember the thought patterns and they still all make sense to me, even if I know better now.

Can't sleep now with all these memories. Are they accurate memories - do I really remember how I felt or is it as artificial as...? Am I still that person, how much so? The stupid things I did, I cared about, the way I still carry it with me, the memories, those feelings - what does it mean today? Could I help someone else through that, can I help myself?

I miss hoping there was more. This was the thought that drove me out of bed. Living in the basement of a townhouse of gaithersburg, I rarely got glimpses of this station 99.1 WHFS which sometimes played weird music. I just heard of skinny puppy, kraftwerk, screaming blue messiahs, bauhaus - glimpses from this radio. When I discovered the weird music on 120 minutes (MTV) I had hope. When I saw punks in movies I had hope. I thought there was this wild world out there, with crazy people doing insane things. It was like a dream I aspired to. There was something out there more than this life I knew, more than the jocks that ruled my school, more than the freaks I didn't really belong with who just let me tag along, more than just being laughed at for the rest of my life. I knew it because I heard this music.

Once, and I think it was 1987, for a summer I had a group of friends. I dated, was romanced by more than one person, the phone rang and I got messages, I belonged. It didn't last but I never forgot that feeling - always wanted it before then, always missed it since. That led to Kelly too...

Wishing...the music, I don't think I would have articulated it as such at the time, but it gave me this hope that there were others like there, that there was this group that I belonged to out there somewhere. I miss that hope. Today I've been to the crazy places, I've done the crazy things, and they're not that crazy. You do anything long enough and it's cozy - those girls knitting in Murky, they're crazy. Putting on eyeliner and making out in nightclubs is just saturday. Now, I've done crazy and it isn't anymore. I know the coolest kids, and they're just people with problems like me. I've been seen as one of the cool kids and know it means nothing. I've seen everyone get old, get better and worse. I've been accepted and still not fit in, cared less. I've been weirder, wilder, stronger, better armed than I ever imagined. And it means less than nothing. It's just more people with different music, but nothing is really all tha different. There is no solution out there waiting for you.

There is no group out there. There was no group, not for me. There is no easy solution that makes the past make sense. You can give up that dream. Perhaps you can make your own dream, make your own dream reality. For yourself, for someone else, with someone else. I miss thinking that I'd run into some pre-existing solution for all my pain and problems, sure, but the follow-up thought is that now more than ever I have the power to make my own solutions and even form my own dreams. Make me what I want, make what I want, and know that it never stops but that's not necessarily a bad thing. You keep hoping, wishing, dreaming, making, and growing.

Comments

[kelowna.livejournal.com]

There is a really solid piece of writing stuck in the middle of this piece that is truly captivating. You float and pull back along the edges but right in the middle you let it all out. Impressive. Thank you for sharing. Wish you had pulled it all out right until the edge, right until the end, but I guess you had to sum it up.

It is interesting.... it is true. It is, in part, the reason why I am gravitating out of the goth/industrial hanging out area and into a more broader rock/independent scene. A broader group that isn't as niche.

--k

[vicar.livejournal.com]

What's funny is I don't feel like I wrote it - I dug up my teen self and gave him a pen. To me it's an incoherrent ramble from my younger self, with some perspective thrown in at the end from me today.

Thank you for the compliment and comments. I might ask you about that in IM later.

[have-inner-lady.livejournal.com]

I agree, except that the writing at the end hold strength, too. It just changes form a bit.

Which is fitting.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

THANK you! Muchly :)

Way Back When...

[american-arcane.livejournal.com]

I remember 120 Minutes and I remember being wholly interested in the aesthetic and ideas that came through in those late night videos.

But it never grabbed me quite enough to pull me out of the rural small town prison I'd been born into. Maybe I was too busy lamenting my not fitting in during those formative years. Maybe I was subconsciously learning to be strong enough to actually be myself, to exist outside of any bounding definition.

In college I did find that group--that group where everything just clicked and most of those old worries and problems went away.

Of course, there were new ones that came up. And, as time moved on and things changed, some of the old ones came back.

That group is long gone and scattered to the four winds. I've wandered a bit lost since then. Though I know there is a place for all of us, I can't even begin to tell anyone where that is--let alone myself.

It does, indeed, never stop.

And that's probably for the best.

[alumiere.livejournal.com]

there's some good stuff here (and it's bringing back some strong memories)

as for the group thing - you're right - you've got to make your own community - sure i still go out to the g/i clubs - because i like the music... and a lot of my friends also go (or did at some point), but that's one of many things we have in common; maybe i'm lucky in some ways in that i'm good at reading people and once i start talking to someone friendship comes easily and rarely does that give me drama (occasionally we all make mistakes, but by and large...)

anyway, point being - i figured out a long time ago that pre-determined sterotypes don't mean shit, not all freaks are good people, and you can't change the world... all you can do is make the best choices for yourself and your own happiness, trust your judgement, and make the corner of the world you occupy someplace you're proud to be

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Learning that not all freaks were good people was a painful lesson like learning of the derision amongst the stoners. Seriously - learning that jocks listened to pink floyd and rush was something I had a hard time getting over.

[alumiere.livejournal.com]

yeah - not the easiest thing in the world to accept

[kitteblue.livejournal.com]

"Today I've been to the crazy places, I've done the crazy things, and they're not that crazy. You do anything long enough and it's cozy - those girls knitting in Murky, they're crazy. Putting on eyeliner and making out in nightclubs is just saturday. Now, I've done crazy and it isn't anymore. I know the coolest kids, and they're just people with problems like me. I've been seen as one of the cool kids and know it means nothing. I've seen everyone get old, get better and worse. I've been accepted and still not fit in, cared less. I've been weirder, wilder, stronger, better armed than I ever imagined. And it means less than nothing. It's just more people with different music, but nothing is really all tha different. There is no solution out there waiting for you. "

Or maybe you're just not at a point yet to find where you need to be. A lot of of our views on the world are our own filters.

(Probably trite, but I can only take so much teenage angst, no matter how well written.)

[vicar.livejournal.com]

That was kind of my point, perhaps I didn't express it well. I might be mistaken, but I got the impression you enjoyed your teenaged years. For some of my teen-reflections, I've received some comments that the feelings and images I evoke resonate with others. Of course it is obnoxious angst, but many never make it beyond those stages and it is never a bad idea to look forward, to others, or even your own past to understand how the emotions and associated feelings evolved. The goal is eventually forward motion, even when toying with a bit of nostalgia.

On the other hand, perhaps it's just interesting to me because it's mine. I also can't stand teen-oriented movies anymore. When it comes to media, I have no interest in trying to imagine the pain of the prom...

teen angst

[kitteblue.livejournal.com]

There's enjoying or ENJOYING. No one gets out without angst that's what beeing a teenager is all about.

"I have no interest in trying to imagine the pain of the prom" - and you shouldn't WAYYYY overrated, pretty boring and how many years ago...

[joanarkham.livejournal.com]

Fitting in/not fitting in is a powerful thing.

I've been thinking about it myself, lately. My theory is that America is really a tribal society, but with a veneer of "classlessness". Therefore, if you don't fit in, it's because there is something wrong with you. Buck up, pull on those bootstraps, and get an SUV and a McMansion, son!

We're all just muddling through.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Wow, I really like that theory as applied to USian culture. I may puruse that!

[cweaselle.livejournal.com]

I have more trouble making sense of the past than most people. I can only read about mine.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

I try to tell you a little, but you also move on in a lot of ways. Yeah, you have worse memory than even me... ;P

[antarctico.livejournal.com]

Your teen years were much more eventful than mine -- I worked a full-time job as soon as I could get one (16) so I could have money to build stuff with. This kept me mostly away from knives and teen drama, and I was fine with this. My early years were so full of distress and emotional upheaval, that a structurally simple, predictable routine was a shelter of sorts. It wasn't fun, but it was stable and safe. I rationed my chaos carefully, in deliberate doses, so it would never overwhelm me.

It amuses me the import you put in WHFS. For me the radio station was WGTB, Georgetown University's college radio station. It was here I heard my first Ramones, my first Devo, it was where I first heard "Rock Lobster." The Station got sanitized in 1979, and I turned to WHFS which was always my backup station (the signal was ass in Rockville until the moved their transmitter to Annapolis). By the mid-eighties, most of the fun had been scrubbed from the station accept for Zoltar (The Brother From Another Planet), and Neecie, both with very late shows. After the Einsteins sold the station, and the new owners refined their polished, play list driven college-radio-lite sound, I lost interest.

There is no group out there. There was no group, not for me.

I feel this way also. I never feel like I fit in, and I'm fine with that. I think of myself as a group of one and from time to time, my group of one intersects with other groups, we have a fine time, and until the next time, I take my group of one and go home. I think part of the problem I have with feeling like I fit in is I do not perform the mental trick most people do where they internally supress the realization of differences between themselves and others in a group, meaning they create an internal homogenization that makes it easier to create an instant sense of community. Another way of putting it is I do not do groupthink willingly.

I think friends and circles and groups are the most ephemeral of things. Some people put such emotional investment in their friends and circles, but circumstances have to shift in only the most modest directions to blow away even what was thought of as the strongest of bonds. All it can take is a new job, a marriage, a break up, the birth of a child, an illness or injury, financial distress, or even something as random saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Not looking clearly at the temporary nature of human bonds, not accepting it as it is without any comforting fictions, can lead to all sorts of personal devastation and emotional hell. Perhaps if I accepted some comforting fictions as reality, I might feel less social dislocation, but if I did this then I would feel an internal dislocation with myself.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

I think I was working full time around then, part of that time. Drama was bigger at work - higher stakes.

Group of one, army of one, sociopath?
Guns, guns, guns...fire! Fire! Fire! Augh!

Yeah I wonder what I'd do or care about with kids. A lot changes when your priorities are shared on that level.

[antarctico.livejournal.com]

Group of one, army of one, sociopath?
Guns, guns, guns...fire! Fire! Fire! Augh!

Naw, my sense of empathy is too strong to be a sociopath, but I do love me some guns.

[virgogirl.livejournal.com]

wow, you seriously nailed some stuff there...that feeling that there is something "out there"

there was a charater on "fame" who i had a huge crush on who was this artsy guy. i think he wore a headband; he had that sort of sandy blonde long-banged skater hair, it was cute. but anyhow there was some stuff in there about "blue daisies" which admittedly was very queer but like, he was the blue daisy instead of a yellow daisy: different, but still beautiful! get it? but anyway, i figured i would go to the fame school one day and meet him and be his girlfriend and stuff.

one of the first illicit thrills of hearing dark music: tainted love played just loud enough for me to hear it at the head of my bed, in the dark, except for the glow of the radio light.

seeing the video for "love cats"

a dance routine by a duo from canada called lalala human steps featured on a bette midler variety show on HBO (lol!) (which i actually youtubed recently...extremely weird to see again after so many years!)

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Aw (gush) yeah youtube is a quick dirty way to flashback, no doubt.

Called you guys last night!

[virgogirl.livejournal.com]

crazy, i almost called you either yesterday or the day before. let me check my phone, or have kris check his. i don't recall either of them ringing pretty much ever yesterday :( ????

[virgogirl.livejournal.com]

lol k got your message, his phone was off, lucky you ;-)