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Fri 2 Jan, 2004 10:34 pm
January first, two-thousand-four. And I wish for something more. More than this rough terrain, woodsy, pot-scented small town social life.
What is it about parties like this? Why do we all go? It's depressing, really. All I see is corruption, corruption, corruption. I see a clean-shaven, nice looking guy. He's holding a bottle of Vodka. I see an adorable little boy who looks like he's twelve. He's holding a Corona. I see a familiar face hardened by partying... stringy hair, glazed look... once upon a time she swore she'd never submit herself to drugs. She's holding a flask, a cigarette, and she's got the white stuff in her bag. Why can't we let ourselves be corrupted by innate insolence? Some people drink potions and smoke concoctions to obscure their insecurities, so they have the courage to have fun and do something crazy. And nothing ever happens. There are only about fifteen people at the party who are truly having fun. Everyone else is standing around struggling to look cool and mask their boredom. Nobody is actually doing anything, save drinking and smoking. The music is so loud that nobody can have a conversation. So why do I go? I'm not sure. I guess I'm waiting for something to happen. These are supposed to be the best years of my life, are they not? Is this it? Is this **** supposed to be a good time? I'm only staying this long because I promised my friends I'd drive them home.
Eleven fifty-nine. A room packed with sweat-shirt-clad stoners. There's no countdown, but merely a full minute of screaming preluding chugging beer and passing joints. The guys around me tilt back their un-washed heads and nurse on their joints with the constructed conviction that they are really enjoying being alive. The screaming will continue on for five or six minutes after midnight. I push my way out of the crowd, go outside and count the stars.
Don't get me wrong. I don't think pot and cigarettes and alcohol are evil substances that no one should ever partake in. I have a glass of champagne or a Sublime now and then. What saddens me is that so many of us need it to have fun. Here on the Cape, it's a lot of what the teenage social life revolves around.
It's not like I'm just some prude who doesn't want to have fun. I love having fun. But I just can't see the appeal of high school parties.
What I need, see.. I need a seventeen-year-old Jeremy Sumpter who's too stuck up for **** like this... and he'll teach me how to fly and we'll go to Neverland... and he'll come back with me and we'll travel the world and live happily ever after. Or something to that extent.
I think you are going to okay.
So..... how did the stars look?
When you are an adult, and not among good friends, the parties aren't much better, but the canapes are.
I am going to come back here after some sleep and share some high school experiences. While hardly the best years of my life, we did manage to make our own fun.
What was the alternative to that party? Staying home and watching TV?
I used to love to go to desert parties. We'd all go over to the outskirts of town, down a dirt road running along high voltage power lines in an area of the desert that's part of a military range. Somehow, we'd almost always wind up with a keg or two, usually through a favor from an older brother. There would always be pot. Someone would break into an auto shop and steal tires to burn (what a bunch of idiots I think back now). That used to be the tradition here until someone showed up with a gun, shot someone else and killed them. The desert party tradition died very soon after that. Especially after the MP's started cracking down on that kind of thing. It was fun for what it was worth--getting high, and getting drunk, and listening to music with other high-school wannabes.
Don't rely on anyone taking you to Neverland. It'll only be yourself who can take you there. You will find someone who will just die to go with you, though. There are probably quite a few who would die to go with you right now, and most likely they're right under your nose, but you're oblivious to them. But that can wait right now.
You're too young for these years to be the best years of your life. Your twenties will probably be the best years of your life, especially if you go to university.
The twenties?! Hahahahaha!!! All that searching and angst? All those bad jobs? Oh please, the only thing you have enough of in your twenties is time.
Nah, the forties are the best years of your life. That's when you accomplish the most. You finally have enough money and friends and solid ground under your feet to do what you want.
At least, that's true so far. In a few years, I'll let you know if I should have said the fifties. I could be wrong. In fact, I hope I am.
Be thankful you've got some friends to have a party with.
Lots of folk feel that way - here is Eliot's take on the eternal theme:
The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot (1925)
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Thing is - it will prolly get to be a lot more fun!!!!! New Year's is a strange, bifurcated thing at the best of times. If you really care about the folk you are with, or if there develops a real, intense, group ritual thing - then you are ok. If not - take a deep breath and go wit the cynicism, or decide to immerse yourself. It is the half and half that gives trouble.....
(LIke - I would know! LOL!)
Re: what pathetic "time of my life" memories
Rella wrote:January first, two-thousand-four. And I wish for something more. More than this rough terrain, woodsy, pot-scented small town social life.
What is it about parties like this? Why do we all go? It's depressing, really. All I see is corruption, corruption, corruption. I see a clean-shaven, nice looking guy. He's holding a bottle of Vodka. I see an adorable little boy who looks like he's twelve. He's holding a Corona. I see a familiar face hardened by partying... stringy hair, glazed look... once upon a time she swore she'd never submit herself to drugs. She's holding a flask, a cigarette, and she's got the white stuff in her bag. Why can't we let ourselves be corrupted by innate insolence? Some people drink potions and smoke concoctions to obscure their insecurities, so they have the courage to have fun and do something crazy. And nothing ever happens. There are only about fifteen people at the party who are truly having fun. Everyone else is standing around struggling to look cool and mask their boredom. Nobody is actually doing anything, save drinking and smoking. The music is so loud that nobody can have a conversation. So why do I go? I'm not sure. I guess I'm waiting for something to happen. These are supposed to be the best years of my life, are they not? Is this it? Is this **** supposed to be a good time? I'm only staying this long because I promised my friends I'd drive them home.
Eleven fifty-nine. A room packed with sweat-shirt-clad stoners. There's no countdown, but merely a full minute of screaming preluding chugging beer and passing joints. The guys around me tilt back their un-washed heads and nurse on their joints with the constructed conviction that they are really enjoying being alive. The screaming will continue on for five or six minutes after midnight. I push my way out of the crowd, go outside and count the stars.
Don't get me wrong. I don't think pot and cigarettes and alcohol are evil substances that no one should ever partake in. I have a glass of champagne or a Sublime now and then. What saddens me is that so many of us need it to have fun. Here on the Cape, it's a lot of what the teenage social life revolves around.
It's not like I'm just some prude who doesn't want to have fun. I love having fun. But I just can't see the appeal of high school parties.
What I need, see.. I need a seventeen-year-old Jeremy Sumpter who's too stuck up for **** like this... and he'll teach me how to fly and we'll go to Neverland... and he'll come back with me and we'll travel the world and live happily ever after. Or something to that extent.
I am the farthest thing from a racist so please do not take this the wrong way. Personally, in my somewhat limited forays into the world of rural white people, I find the entire social scene to be both annoying and depressing. The 'stoner' music especially - which usually consists of angry yelling white people. Again, this is from my limited experiance. I can understand your boredom.
What is stoner music?????
Music for stoned folk????
It has changed a lot then.....
Rel:
Life gets better. Unless I am guessing real wrong, you will soon go off to college and meet lots of interesting people.
You may even someday think about some of those kids, and your town, with something other than contempt.
That's a bit too far off now to contemplate (considering your expressed state of mind) so encourage yourself by perusing a few university catalogues.
deb:
Judas Priest (at least in my time, anyway).
Rella -- That does sound like a bad party, but I'd like to point out that you've written about it in a way that makes us all feel it. (You are an excellent writer -- full of fresh images and strong feelings!). See, some good has come from it. You've dabbled in that overly-hyped scene and come away with your spirit intact. Savor that.
The stars are better company! And you are better company for yourself than any of those others, at least right now. Maybe some who were there also feel as you do, but were too caught into being like everyone else. Maybe not... but I imagine they are the friends you have right now, otherwise why would you bother to drive them? Try to forgive them for being jerks.
Sadly, you'll find throughout life that only a select few will be truly good companions. There are a lot of "hollow men" and life can be lonely. Don't worry though, you will find true friends because they will also be searching for you. Be ready for them.
As to the nonsense about this being the best time of your life... oh please. How can you write so well and then buy into that? I think it is exactly the opposite -- the teenage years are the worst.
dlowan wrote:What is stoner music?????
Music for stoned folk????
It has changed a lot then.....
Again, based on my limited experiance.
Judas Priest? stoner music? Violent biker metal? Priest is quaalude/cocaine/fighting/f**king music.
In a strictly cathartic way of course....I'm peaceful by nature....
Bi-Polar Bear wrote:Judas Priest? stoner music? Violent biker metal? Priest is quaalude/cocaine/fighting/f**king music.
It's all the same to me. Yelling, jumping, white people, black clothes, breaking things, anger, and somehow, they always manage to work in a few skulls. And, often, leather.
Like I said - my my, how it has changed....
No wonder I haven't paid attention.
(But I'm sure I'd make an exception for the bear..)
IronLionZion wrote:Bi-Polar Bear wrote:Judas Priest? stoner music? Violent biker metal? Priest is quaalude/cocaine/fighting/f**king music.
It's all the same to me. Yelling, jumping, white people, black clothes, breaking things, anger, and somehow, they always manage to work in a few skulls. And, often, leather.
And in Rob Halford's case, a wee bit of gay angst.
(Not that there's anything wrong with that...)
IronZionLion wrote:
It's all the same to me. Yelling, jumping, white people, black clothes, breaking things, anger, and somehow, they always manage to work in a few skulls. And, often, leather.[/quote]
As opposed to reggae, the same three chords with the beat on the two, over and over and over?
riiiiiigggghhhttttt.......
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