The Obscure

Life is like spending all the money you have on a one-way ticket to a place that you never wanted to go to in the first place.

Rock and roll is surely dead, boyo; and no degree of defribullation can resuscitate it.

As surely as genius may be mad and twisted; as surely as genius may grow bountiful, guided by a Swift, Sure Hand, with some sort of defining purpose, I ask all of you: where does thought come from?
Now, stretched thin by the awful, unspeakable devices of time, I can see that all fertile ground for original thought has been scorched from my body. I wonder, is it the same with all humans? Were we all dropped on this rock containing some intrinsic knowledge from which to draw upon? Or did we create the loud cacophony that surrounds me ourselves?
Completely rhetorical. I couldn't possibly ask for an answer.

My brain is swelling to a monstrous size, and it is all I can do not to hurl myself down into the darkness between my own jaws and gnaw to pieces the object that pains me so.
Do I understand?

"Out of the blue, and into the black." he says, knowing full well that the ramifications of such things are fully lost on we mortal men, with the audacity to walk on two legs.

I read "It" again just now, for the first time since I was many years younger and many inches shorter. After finishing it I was filled with this crazy sense of thoughful nostalgia, which is kind of amusing, seeing as that is kind of the tone of the novel. Once again, I became unthinkably outraged at one Mr. Stephen King, for creating such an incredible web of fancy and then shitting all over it with the completion of one poorly written novel. Dark Tower VII, fie on you!
Stephen King had damn well better not die before writing some kind of capper that puts a sufficient ending to this whole sh-bang, or I'm going to desecrate his corpse.
The reason behind my present fury is undoubtedly lost on most of you, with the exception of my mother, my sister, and possibly (if by some mischance he remembers my ranting from long ago) Tim. I will not attempt to give you a short form, I'll save that for when I am more lucid and can compose an essay on it, or something. That would be interesting to attempt...

Anyway, so that my posting this isn't entirely meaningless, let me crack it to ya' this-a-wise.
Before the beginning of time, there was a giant turtle. This turtle was so big that the largest thing you could ever possibly think of would be invisible next to it, it would look smaller than the smallest hair on the back of the smallest virus in the body of the smallest germ in the veins of the smallest animal. The turtle was infinite, dig? I refer to when Moses (was it Moses?) got a look at the backside of God and aged fifty years, or whatever. That kind of thing, Mankind can't comprehend it. Then this turtle gets a stomache-ache, and vomits up the universe. (As in, "I created the universe, but don't hold it against me. I had a tummyache."<--not quoted ver batim.)
Sounds kind of Norsely Mythological, doesn't it? I know. But it's the design of the universe that gets my panties in a bunch.
See, in this here story, (I may be wildly inaccurate about this. Remember: John+Late-Night Reading Frenzy=Temporarily Insane [inane]) our world, in the vast perspective, is like a fragment of an atom, see? And our world is surrounded by millions of other worlds that make up that one atom. Then, that atom is surrounded by an unfathomable amount of millions of other atoms each containing millions of worlds. Then you pull back farther, and you see more and more universes on top of universes, until you think that contemplating anything larger than that would completely destroy your mind. Then you pull back even further, and see that all those universes, that enormous number of existences that was so large you thought it would drive you mad, is all stuck together to create the form of a single red rose, on the corner of a crumbled down abandoned lot in some forgotten section of New York.
And through the center of each of these unnumerable worlds is driven some version of The Dark Tower, which is the axis upon which all of these things turn. So then you have this guy, the Crimson King, who is using all of the horrible things at his disposal to take down the seven beams that hold up the Dark Tower so that the "macroverse" is plunged into black chaos. Pretty shifty.
But on the other hand, you have Roland of Gilead, the last and the greatest of the gunslingers of Gilead (who were like the Knights of the Round Table, in that universe. "There are no gunslingers left. John Kennedy was the last gunslinger."<--not ver batim), and his three companions, who he drew out of our world and then trained to be gunslingers with skills that rivaled his own (in "The Drawing of Three", very original title, I know). Then they wander around for a while, fighting the Crimson King and trying to find The Dark Tower so that Roland can climb to the top and find out the truth about the universe and defeat the Crimson King once and for all. It was all extremely exciting, especially when you read all (almost all) of Stephen King's books and realize that wonderful little fact: that he has been tying almost all of his novels into that one idea since his college days.

And then the final book comes out.

Now, I'm sure it wasn't as bad to me, seeing as I only had to wait a couple of years to get my hands on it. But some people, i.e. my mom and to a somewhat lesser degree my older sister, have been waiting many years (in some cases, decades!) for this thing to "finish," and are given one of the least fulfilling stories of his generally well-written career. Oooh, it ticks me off something fierce.
After my mom read it she gave it to me and didn't say a thing about it except, "I want you to read it quickly so that I can talk to you about it." I should have known from that, that it was a lost cause.
Don't get me wrong! I advocate reading Stephen King with all of my blackened and sickening hate-filled heart; I'm just preparing anyone who does read it and gets anywhere into the Dark Tower series that there will be an eventual let-down, and it will burn you to your very soul.
Except for "the Dark Tower VII" (and "From a Buick 8," I didn't like that book very much for some reason.) though, ol' Stevey has got some good juices flowin'.

Tomorrow I am going to read this post and not remember writing it and be very frightened and embarassed. Until then, I leave you with this...

"See the turtle of enormous girth,
On his shell he holds the Earth,
His thought is slow, but always kind
He keeps us all, within his mind." <---Not Ver Batim.

Suddenly I am, once again, massively aware of the amount of hats I am wearing.

For one reason or another, I really like to say that. It's not that funny when it is in context, and it doesn't make any sense when it is taken out of context. I guess now I will use the phrase, "Suddenly I am massively aware of the amount of hats I am wearing." whenever it becomes apparent that I look like a jackass.
I think it fits quite nicely, don't you?

My mom just set some steak on fire, I had to take down all of the smoke detectors because they kept beeping and the reset button wasn't working on any of them.
Hopefully the steak isn't ruined, I was looking forward to that steak.

That's really all I have to say right now, my mind is kind of blank today. I'm trying to get myself to start writing again (again, again); hence the recent posts. Who knows? Maybe this time I will actually get somewhere.

I've been blowing my nose far too much lately, every morning I wake up with dried blood and snot encrusted on my upper lip.
It used to be that I would go over everything I wrote and proof-read it so that I wouldn't seem like an idiot when someone happened to read it; but it has been a long time since I gave that up in favor of spouting long monologues with spelling and grammar errors included rather than short soliloquoys that are put together with all the precision and delicacy of swiss clockwork. It's easier to get my brain out and to devil with the rules than it is to leave my brain where it is and abide by them. Do you understand?
It turns out that I have mono. A terrible turn of events, to be sure. But it does give me an excuse to lie around the house all day doing nothing. Up until very recently I have lacked the energy to do things that normal people do. Then, whenever I have attempted to do those "normal" things, too much blood starts rushing to my head, until I feel that it will explode. Then, the narcotics.
But as long as I have mono, which is to be at least another three weeks, I'm allowed to stay in and do nothing as much as I need to. Which is great, because my normal lackluster existence has grown even more dull recently. I guess one could attribute that to the disease.
I've read many a book in my day, too many, if you ask me. It has gotten so that I can't think a single thought without a phrase from some long-lost story butting into the foreground of my consciousness and befuddling me. I walk around all day saying obscure things very loudly to people who have no possible way to comprehend them.
"Raskolnikov is a madman!" I say.
"What?" They reply.
"Nothing." I say, suddenly massively aware of the amount of hats I am wearing.
Then I must apologize to them, taking a very long and awkward time to say that I was quoting something they have never read or seen or heard of. Or it goes the other way, they just give me a funny look and I turn away and go about my business. Then they get to talking, talking about things that are way outside my sphere of influence (to use a term very badly), and I have to sit there in awkward silence and not comprehend what is going on in the slightest.
Since my first doomed and confused attempts to make friends when I was in grade school, I have endeavored to keep my mouth shut the best I can so that I do not alienate myself. It doesn't work very well, even when I keep as quiet as I possibly can, I am still far louder than most people; at least when I am either relatively comfortable or extremely uncomfortable (which happen to be the two worst times to make an ass of oneself.)

If I tried to average out the amount of times I have thought the words "Mother-Fucker." silently in my mind, I estimate that it would be around 175 times a day. Then if you add in all the times I actually say it outloud (be there people present, or otherwise) I think I may top 250. Then you average in all the obscene humour and other strings of terrible profanities that come out of my brain (unintended, I assure you) and I am the single most horrifying human being on the face of the Earth. Funny, seeing as I don't approve of bad language and obtuse humour in a general sense. I think there is just another person inside my head, pulling the strings and making me act in these ways that I never really intended too. Smoking too many cigarrettes, alienating myself from my friends, writing long, boring, self-examining journal entries, and never making enough bread to get by. Is this where I thought I'd end up five years ago?
Frankly, I thought I'd have killed myself by now.
I guess I'm better off living, though. At least I have room to improve.

Fink.

I've spent the past few days sicker than anyone else has ever been. Last night I developed a fever, the fever was bad enough that I became very delirious and started thinking things that are bad for a delirious easily frightened young man to think to himself while lying alone in the dark. I convinced myself that I was going to die, and I began to pray that when I died my soul wouldn't go to hell. It's very surprising to see how quickly one can develop a steadfast faith when faced with one's apparent impending death. The strange thing was, while I was silently praying, strange thoughts kept interrupting the flow of my prayer. I don't remember exactly what they were, except that most of them were profane. I'd be praying along, and then some horrible thing would jump very loudly into my consciousness out of nowhere and then suddenly disappear as quickly as it came. Each time this happened, I'd quickly think, "I apologize for that, God, I'm not really in my right mind."
I'm sure God understands dementia. I can only hope he does, anyway. If not I probably did more harm than good.
I've been taken these extremely potent antibiotics, but until this afternoon I was convinced they weren't doing anything, seeing as how I was getting sicker by the day. They were supposed to help by the second day, but today was the third and I spent most of it feeling like hanging myself would probably be easier than swallowing anymore robo-cops. Then I went to Taylor's house to pick up my pills, and when I got home I said to myself, "I feel like awful." so I took a very large dose of percocet and inhaled some albuterol. Half an hour after that I began to feel much better, and I decided to shave, as I hadn't shaved in almost a week. After shaving I took a look inside my throat to see if the weird yellowish-white bacterial growth on my left tonsil had gotten any smaller, and to my surprise I saw that, while still the same size, it had started to come off of my tonsil of it's own accord; it was hanging on by a disgusting string. So I started to gargle warm water furiously, thinking I could rid myself of the horrible glob in that fashion, but to no avail. In desperation I opened my mouth as wide as I could, stuck my thumb and forefinger down my throat (Luckily I don't have much of a gag reflex. Call me!) and yanked the vile thing off of my tonsil. I dropped it in the sink ran hot water for like five minutes till I was sure that it went about a mile down the drain, and rinsed my mouth out a thousand times. Now, hours later, I feel ten times better; and the glands on the sides of my neck are almost back down to their usual size.
Thus is concluded the story of one of the most disgusting things I have ever experienced. I'm glad I could share it with all of you.
It seems this kind of thing always happens to me, I told my dad about it and he said he has never heard of that ever happening to anyone before, ever. He works at a hospital! And yet this is the fourth or fifth time I can remember something awful like this happening to me. Though, it is the first time I've pulled at colony of bacteria out of my throat. I hope it is the last.

I've had a lot of time to think lately. Though I remain convinced that in most respects I am as dumb as a post (I don't think that anyone could look at the myriad of idiotic things I've accomplished in my lifetime and not concede that.) I have decided that somewhere deep in the dark recesses of my mind there is probably something worth educating. That, and the fact that I really need to get into a school soon or my insurance will be cancelled, has forced me to take this college thing my mom keeps talking about more seriously. I don't know what I'm going to do with that yet, though.

Anyway, I'm out of writing juice for now. Goodnight ladies and gentlemen.

What child is this? I awake from a 6-month long stupor and find myself back on my parent's kitchen floor, contemplating putting a bullet through my brain to end the ceaseless pain and incessant confusion that is all living seems to bring me.
Standing knee deep in a pile of shattered bones, congealing blood, and other more grotesque unmentionable filths, I wonder to myself, "Was this my doing?" I ask myself, "Did I bring about this despicable devestation?"
I would gladly tear my lips off of my face, I would cheerfully chew them to pieces and swallow them, I would laugh as my body gave involuntary jerks as those immense lances of pain shot through it. I would rub broken shards of glass into my eyes, I would hurl myself into a pit of razor-wire and human shit, I would cut all of the fingers of my right hand off individually with a hacksaw, and I would eat them raw; and I would do all these things with a mad grin on my face.
I have been as a stranger in a strange land. It takes a strange man to face up to his insanities. Behold! I am a son of man.
There is little to be done about it. Truly these are the incongruent ravings of an inferior mind. Why is it that when a family emergency strikes I find myself blaming myself as the soul cause? My father has a bad heart because I have spent the majority of my life as a bad son.
String me up. String me up, I say! String me up and hack out my eyes, hack out my tongue and feed it to the dogs, hack out my entrails and dangle them around my body like a gory christmas tree. Attach car batteries to my teeth and to my genitals, douse me in gasoline and set me aflame. Fire purifies, my friends, and it is only in this way that I can be cleansed.

And if this confuses you, consider yourself blessed. It is far worse to understand it.