The Truth Files

Stephen Colbert/Daily Show Love. House, Hugh Laurie, Black Adder, BritCom obsessiveness. Eddie Izzard quoting ad naseum. Self loathing. Other people loathing. Anything else I can loathe-fit that in there too. Tales of alcohol and dogs. The occassional night at the bar causing trouble. Mis-treating brain cells...Who needs them? No sex. No drugs-usually. Much rock'n'roll. Just trying to survive in 615. Y'know. The usual.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Gethsemane

I only want to say
If there is a way
Take this cup away from me
For I don't want to taste its poison
Feel it burn me,
I have changed I'm not as sure
As when we started
Then I was inspired
Now I'm sad and tired
Listen surely I've exceeded
Expectations
Tried for three years
Seems like thirty
Could you ask as much
From any other man?


"The thing is they're going to ask me what I think about something I hate like material culture. I hate material culture-it brings...it drags..the problem is it takes something that's dead and tries to revive it that's all material culture is, you know?"
"No kenz, I have no idea. You're not making any sense, you are so immersed in this thing that you're unable to communicate without lapsing into language that only makes sense to you."
"That's true. I know. I'm immersed in something I have no interest in at this point. I don't want to be a folklorist. I want to use folklore, but folklorists work long hours for very little pay. I would like to do the oppositte if possible....Do you ever listen to This American Life?"
"Of course."
"Well, to me, that's what I'm supposed to be doing. Not that specifically-but the sort of thing that David Sedaris or Sarah Vowell do."
"Or Chuck Klosterman, right?"
"Right. If someone were to ask me what I want to do I'd say I want to write along the lines of Chuck Klosterman or David Sedaris. It's not about telling other people's stories to me."
"Creative non-fiction, that's what you want to write. It's true, but it's also artistic."
"I'd forgotten that, that is such a great explanation of what I want to do. Creative non-fiction, it's the intersection of fact and story. That's it-it's memoir and research."
"So hit them over the head with that-put it in yr resume, mention it in yr descriptions of what you're including in yr portfolio."

I'd gone up to school today. I am tired-but can't sleep. Can't study or sleep. Almost fell asleep at the wheel. Can't do anything but be awake and fight doubt and worry. All I can do is have fight "How do you expect me to do this?" "What do you expect from me?" I ask. And sometimes, I get an answer, and sometimes, I'm not sure the answer is from me. I got there, asked a question, passed T in the hall (unfortunately since I skipped his class later), then went down to the cabin.

I am not in any way saying that I've gotten a raw deal. I have, I think-but not because of anything but that I haven't used the experience to my own best interest. That and how I was treated like a non-entity by DTM-but that's old news. Still interesting old news, like the sinking of the Titanic or something but old nonetheless. Bitters only enhance the taste of whisky anyway. So there I was, in the cabin with probably the only two people goin through the program with whom I have had any significant contact (and only because they were so open people, and I appreciated that-and reacted accordingly, you'd have to have just disembarked the greyhound to think it's because I pursued a friendship-I prefer gravitational forces myself). We were chatting-I was browsing a website put up for April Fool's about that claimed that Webster was the best TV show ever and claimed that Bob Saget told a version of The Aristocrats at the end of every episode of Full House. Periodically I pretended to study for comps by flipping through a notebook with the mysterious label "Comps Study Guide" compiled by someone in the bygone era of the early 90's. I can only assume the person that put together this notebook has returned to her/his home planet by now and that's why the notes are no longer needed. That or death from over analyzation.
I read these sample questions that were posed to the students of that mysterious era of the Clinton administration and realized that I could answer 80% of them. The other 20% I couldn't even fake, but 80% I could answer with ease and comfort. Or bullshit-as I like to call it. That means that unless something has changed drastically in the discipline since that time (hi John Dorst-nice facade! Did you do that yourself?) I will am facing only a 1/5 possibility of being faced with a question to which I have no answer. Since my life is proof that Satan is real I am prepared, but not preparing (why bother?), for just such an occasion.

"You are just full of self doubt right now, you need to stop that."
"Yr right, It's all very Gethsemane."
"I know."
(She does? Where did she get her training in religion? I got mine on the street, in the back alleys, online, and in the dustiest section of public libraries. It was all very disturbing and covert my foray into my own private idaho.)

so full of self doubt and so powerless to change the outcome. I've thought about going out and doing SOMETHING after the test-but I remember-if I fail, I will have that SOMETHING to remind me of my failure as opposed to reminding me of my completion of a task.
Too bad-cuz the SOMETHING ideas are pretty kewl.
Or I'm delusional.

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