Those Real Heavy Hitters Showed Me!

Ok, so life is garbage. I understand that. Poor kids on deviant art having to put up with hobbyist with less than stellar tastes in music and sinus infections. Whew. If you're going to say someone's tastes in music isn't all that great, at least do the world a favor and not mention Tool, Mudvayne, Nine Inch Nails, or Korn. I kept my absolute favorites off the list. Music is a matter of tastes, but you know something? ... Loud, fast, shitty, angry music is way the hell overdone. Overdone!

All my friends were into it when I was in high school and college. One of the NIN fans I knew told me it was good music to help remind you of why you should be angry. I thought, but didn't say, "If you have to be reminded to be angry, you have no right to be angry."

Life sucks--get to know this well. And get over it.

A List of Sucky Shit Which Has Happened to Me
1. I spent the first six years of my life on a street where raw sewage would run through our yards after a moderate rain.

2. In the same neighborhood, and after those same rains, raw sewage would bubble up through every drain in the house.

3. In 1977, probably because of bathing in a tub, and eating off dishes washed in a sink where raw sewage bubbled up, I nearly died of the flu. I had a temp of 106, and went into seizures. Thankfully, I survived to the next catastrophy in my life.

4. I had a Principal in Second and Third grades that ignored my parents' directive that he not use corporal punishment on me for not turning in my homework. For the longest time after that, I trusted neither my parents (seeing as I didn't find out until much later that the principal had violated my parents wishes), nor anyone an authority.

5. Becuase of the treatment I got from the principal, I got depressed and gained a lot of weight. I haven't lost it yet, but it no longer bothers me. Plenty of people in my life have looked beyond it.

6. We moved around a lot when I was a kid, and always to crappy little neighborhoods. If it wasn't raw sewage, it was dumb-ass rednecks cranking their country music stations until the small hours of the morning during their loud, rebel yell parties. Try waking up to that on a school night.

7. Once I got to High School, life turned around. I still sucked as a student, but I felt the future was bright. All the shit was behind me, so to speak. Wrongo! I fell in love. But, that wasn't the problem--my terrible, awkward shyness was. She was shy as well, and probably surprised that anyone would want to care about her. I got to know her as a human being and friend. I finally worked up the nerve to tell her how I felt--that I loved her--and then asked her to the Senior Prom. One month before Prom, she dies in a car wreck.

8. College. The whole first year was shadowed by losing the love of my life. Nothing really bad happened there, other than I flunked out (owing to a mystery ailment known as ADD that I was diagnosed with, but not treated for!, in 1981)

9. I fell in love--again. This time with an artistic type. I like artists--I think they should be encouraged to create. I took every opportunity to tell this new lady that she should not listen to the people around her who meant well, but weren't encouraging her. Turns out that she ignored me and listened to them. Being with her became unbearable; she was unhappy, and nothing I could do could make her happy. I, then, became unhappy too. I left her, and eventually got to the point where I didn't look back. I was living up 'til that time on my own, which brings me to point number;

10. Moved back in with my mother. She had not only been having an alarming variety of health complaints, she was also having trouble keeping her bills up. I broke a lease to live with her and help her out (to the tune of 440 dollars a month) until she could rebuild her savings. There was a positive trade off--so long as I promised to return to college, she would drop the rent requirements down to half. I held up my end of the bargain, and she held up hers. But, I've come to find out that she was diagnosed with Schleroderma. Try researching that. Maybe it'll harden the skin on her knuckles and elbows. Maybe it'll harden everything and she'll waste away as I care for her to the end. I don't know which will happen, but I will say this; she's already having the digestive problems associated with the more severe kind of Schleroderma.

So, any of you little college kids care to step into the ring now? Keep in mind that I've kept positive through all this. I've read your comments about me, my art, and This Space for Rent. I've also read some of your other stuff. You kids are pretty typical yourselves. People are out to hurt you, screw you over, and make you cry. None of that is new to me; I've lived through it too. Somehow, whether it's surrounding yourselves with truly lame, loud, uninteresting and angry music--or it's just that you simply have your heads so firmly up your own asses--you can't see that everyone else is in the same boat. That, dear kiddies, makes for truly 'bad art.' Art that you all don't want anyone connecting with. Art you want to think of as superior simply because you're the ones who created it.

Guess again.