End of the Century
It's 3 in the morning, and I'm watching End of the Century, the Ramones movie, for the third time tonight.
I can't sleep. In a few hours, I wake up and go to my first 9 to 5, 40 hour a week job.
I've spent the last few months... a year, even?.... in isolation, really. Yeah, some of it was drugs. I got high, and didn't wanna go anywhere, and didn't wanna talk to anybody. And didn't wanna do anything. Coke was the fucking worst for that. I hated music on coke. If you can imagine. I hated being around people and couldn't listen to music.
But it's easy to make yourself, for a few minutes at a time, this'll be great. And for a few minutes at a time, it is. Then you feel rotten for hours. Don't bother with the whys, I already know they're not good enough.
I got out of the military and could smoke pot, and I guess I really liked that, even though I still kinda wanted to keep to myself, these last two months. It was good for that. I had some money from the 90 days of leave that I'd never used - again, hibernating, not moving, not taking a vacation, that whole time - and even sitting at home for two months, just getting high and listening to Howard Stern and sleeping, it still didn't feel like vacation, you know. Vacation's where you go away. Vacation's a trip elsewhere, it marks your life. You look back and you remember those times, not like when you try to remember any other particular week of your life. Flying to England, flying to Israel, flying to Costa Rica, throwing yourself into new things, that's vacation. I was hiding, because now, you know, my life was in my hands, and I couldn't blame anyone else for whatever I did.
This hibernation process, it was this fetal curling-up, this retraction into myself when I was getting outta the military. And yeah, it's fucking scary. Okay, yeah, I know it's all for the best. Today, we drove to Shenandoah, and walked around with the dogs in the mountains, and I talked about Officer Indoctrination School, like a million years ago, it felt, and now I could look back, and laugh. Jennifer said that one day I'd miss it, but I don't miss it, it's just now I'm looking at what's gonna fill that place. Spent so much fucking time and energy hating, and resisting, and being angry and resentful, but now, it's like, I can do things, and it's exciting.... why back even further away?
And I'm watching this Ramones movie, and I love these guys. Well, not Johnny, but Dee Dee and Joey and even Richie and CJ. But Joey and Dee Dee, and these guys, they took this beautiful living they had in them and made it into something that people like me can feel like they can make something outta their lives, too. I feel this love for them like I feel for Mario, and I know he's moving away and I haven't even been able to process it, cuz he lives too far for me to see - that's bullshit, he doesn't live too far to see, it's just that I haven't been in touch with humanity for so fucking long now, and I don't think he has, either, and it's what's really missing. For a long time I felt far away from everyone but I, like, fucking forgot how to touch people. Felt like I couldn't do it. But, like, you keep getting older, ye see. I watch the Ramones, and I feel terrible, that Joey never looked like he got loved the way he needed to be.
I sat with my friend Erny, who just came back from Argentina, and he tells me that the Ramones are like the Beatles there. He also says that vanity is a flaw in the national character. Everyone is neurotic and beautiful, and the country is exactly what they've decided to make it. With no money. And around us, it's so rich, and so anonymous.
How come DC doesn't have a tremendous, incestuous, seething searing music? I think of the people I know and I know it should.
Today, for the first time in almost forever, I dragged out my old 15 watt Holmes amp. The first one I bought, not the more expensive ones that sound loud and, I dunno, distant. This one, you play and it sounds like YOU'RE playing, not your amp trying to make you sound like someone else is playing. I bought a guitar strap in Luray, by Luray Caverns, after I tracked down the last copy they had of the Stalacpipe Organ CD. And I pulled out the Les Paul Junior, the one that looks just like Johnny Thunders', that we had pulled out of my friend James' apartment after he had to go back to Iowa. That, and his TV, on which the Ramones movie is playing. And his fifty or so Johnny Thunders bootleg DVD's. And I played.
It didn't sound like the Ramones, but it didn't sound bad, either. I played alone for ten years, it's something I know. Tomorrow, I'll play more.
But I really miss Mario, the only person (along with Matt P) I ever loved playing with. I gotta call him tomorrow before he goes too far, if he hasn't gone already. We were gonna go see Three 6 Mafia together, but his grandmother died. And the tickets sold out. So I sat around the house drinking cough syrup and listening to the radio some more.
I apologize, to everyone, for not being around. I watch the Ramones movie, and as hard as it is to be with other people, I want to be with other people, to make great things. I look at the people I know, and I know we got it in us. All of us.
I really love music. My new job is easy and pays me enough to go places and do things. I can't sleep. After two months of doing almost nothing but sleeping, now I can't sleep. I don't care if I'm too ugly and too ungainly to look great in ripped jeans and leather. I can't sleep forever.
I can't sleep. In a few hours, I wake up and go to my first 9 to 5, 40 hour a week job.
I've spent the last few months... a year, even?.... in isolation, really. Yeah, some of it was drugs. I got high, and didn't wanna go anywhere, and didn't wanna talk to anybody. And didn't wanna do anything. Coke was the fucking worst for that. I hated music on coke. If you can imagine. I hated being around people and couldn't listen to music.
But it's easy to make yourself, for a few minutes at a time, this'll be great. And for a few minutes at a time, it is. Then you feel rotten for hours. Don't bother with the whys, I already know they're not good enough.
I got out of the military and could smoke pot, and I guess I really liked that, even though I still kinda wanted to keep to myself, these last two months. It was good for that. I had some money from the 90 days of leave that I'd never used - again, hibernating, not moving, not taking a vacation, that whole time - and even sitting at home for two months, just getting high and listening to Howard Stern and sleeping, it still didn't feel like vacation, you know. Vacation's where you go away. Vacation's a trip elsewhere, it marks your life. You look back and you remember those times, not like when you try to remember any other particular week of your life. Flying to England, flying to Israel, flying to Costa Rica, throwing yourself into new things, that's vacation. I was hiding, because now, you know, my life was in my hands, and I couldn't blame anyone else for whatever I did.
This hibernation process, it was this fetal curling-up, this retraction into myself when I was getting outta the military. And yeah, it's fucking scary. Okay, yeah, I know it's all for the best. Today, we drove to Shenandoah, and walked around with the dogs in the mountains, and I talked about Officer Indoctrination School, like a million years ago, it felt, and now I could look back, and laugh. Jennifer said that one day I'd miss it, but I don't miss it, it's just now I'm looking at what's gonna fill that place. Spent so much fucking time and energy hating, and resisting, and being angry and resentful, but now, it's like, I can do things, and it's exciting.... why back even further away?
And I'm watching this Ramones movie, and I love these guys. Well, not Johnny, but Dee Dee and Joey and even Richie and CJ. But Joey and Dee Dee, and these guys, they took this beautiful living they had in them and made it into something that people like me can feel like they can make something outta their lives, too. I feel this love for them like I feel for Mario, and I know he's moving away and I haven't even been able to process it, cuz he lives too far for me to see - that's bullshit, he doesn't live too far to see, it's just that I haven't been in touch with humanity for so fucking long now, and I don't think he has, either, and it's what's really missing. For a long time I felt far away from everyone but I, like, fucking forgot how to touch people. Felt like I couldn't do it. But, like, you keep getting older, ye see. I watch the Ramones, and I feel terrible, that Joey never looked like he got loved the way he needed to be.
I sat with my friend Erny, who just came back from Argentina, and he tells me that the Ramones are like the Beatles there. He also says that vanity is a flaw in the national character. Everyone is neurotic and beautiful, and the country is exactly what they've decided to make it. With no money. And around us, it's so rich, and so anonymous.
How come DC doesn't have a tremendous, incestuous, seething searing music? I think of the people I know and I know it should.
Today, for the first time in almost forever, I dragged out my old 15 watt Holmes amp. The first one I bought, not the more expensive ones that sound loud and, I dunno, distant. This one, you play and it sounds like YOU'RE playing, not your amp trying to make you sound like someone else is playing. I bought a guitar strap in Luray, by Luray Caverns, after I tracked down the last copy they had of the Stalacpipe Organ CD. And I pulled out the Les Paul Junior, the one that looks just like Johnny Thunders', that we had pulled out of my friend James' apartment after he had to go back to Iowa. That, and his TV, on which the Ramones movie is playing. And his fifty or so Johnny Thunders bootleg DVD's. And I played.
It didn't sound like the Ramones, but it didn't sound bad, either. I played alone for ten years, it's something I know. Tomorrow, I'll play more.
But I really miss Mario, the only person (along with Matt P) I ever loved playing with. I gotta call him tomorrow before he goes too far, if he hasn't gone already. We were gonna go see Three 6 Mafia together, but his grandmother died. And the tickets sold out. So I sat around the house drinking cough syrup and listening to the radio some more.
I apologize, to everyone, for not being around. I watch the Ramones movie, and as hard as it is to be with other people, I want to be with other people, to make great things. I look at the people I know, and I know we got it in us. All of us.
I really love music. My new job is easy and pays me enough to go places and do things. I can't sleep. After two months of doing almost nothing but sleeping, now I can't sleep. I don't care if I'm too ugly and too ungainly to look great in ripped jeans and leather. I can't sleep forever.