Chapter 3: If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

The birth of apathy leads to a life of indifference...it's ironic to care so much about the uncaring of others.

 

IFYOUCAN’TBEAT 'EM, JOIN 'EM

 

I had always had a problem with I what I like to call the Unaffected American. I suppose other people called it that too, but I just never really heard anyone else use the reference. Anyway, I was always annoyed with the ignorance of the people in this country, but having never really been exposed to any other cultures (outside of Hawaii, which doesn’t count on most levels), I could never really make an argument. Nonetheless, I found myself asking silly political questions about the necessity of the Gulf War and the relevance of Clinton’s f*****g cigar (again I use the term not only as a mere vulgarity). I realize that some of this is more recent than we are in the story, but you get the point. 

            I got caught up in the ignorance that was so fervent in the nineties, the point of my life when I didn’t know I was being [Un]affected by everything around me. I was retaining that dear carelessness of the eighties that I never really knew anything about, but conversely seemed to understand on a multitude of levels. I was starting to grow into my sexuality, which I will admit, was questioned by a few people—But I always took it as a complement, as the stereotype allows gay men to be well-kept, polite, and quite intelligent. I was quickly losing my country-side/suburban-ite idiosyncrasies and replacing them with the cold heart of the city. I even moved to downtown Seattle with Ray, the lead alto of our A Cappella group “1 A.M.” We used to sing in the parking garage at the dormitory at one in the morning, hence the name. 

 

            I had become what I hated most, an ignorant misanthrope with a flair for the eccentric and all things superficial. I went shopping when I was bored; after all, the stores were only two blocks away. I would visit Pike Place Market on Saturday mornings, and buy sticky buns and triple grande lattes from Cinnamon Works because it was the fashionable thing to do…wait, where have I heard that before? I worked at an upscale mall, in a movie theatre for Yuppies who needed their parking validated because they didn’t want their BMW’s towed, and they forgot to get a stamp at Club Monaco. Too bad we didn’t validate. 

I would spend the greater part of my workdays meticulously picking on the habits of the “American Consumer” as I liked to call them; feverishly criticizing those ignorant lemmings who just so happened to provide me with a paycheck—biting the hand that fed me, so to speak. I was even going to write a book called: “Customer Service and the American Consumer.” I used to use the word “American Consumerism” as though it were studied throughout the Ivy-League schools. There was going to be a chapter called “Presentational Condiments” about the tedium of merchandising… all the f*****g mustard packets for the hot dogs had to face the same way, only to be strewn casually about moments later—Ahh the beauty of permanently potential entropy…chaos theory…

There would have been a chapter on illiteracy—you don’t know how many times people come up and ask what movies are playing after staring for fifteen minutes at the marquee. You’ve probably done it yourself, but just weren’t aware—but you will be now. 

            I wanted to talk about the idea of “Customer Service” in the sense of “repair”—like when you get your car serviced. Every day I felt sorry for the people who came from their lame, routine jobs and would just get lost in the world we have created for ourselves-the ones both on the fantastical screen as well as in the redundant red velvet seats-never considering to actually think for themselves. I wanted to know what kind of service is available to fix that…or even if such a thing exists.

            Then I would get home every night after trying to get the corner-store-guy to sell my twenty year-old-a*s some beer, and realize that I wear a uniform and a nametag, and I do what I’m told just like all the helpless suckers I ridicule on a daily basis. I would go to work and come home every night and shower in an attempt to rid myself of the repugnant pattern of repetition; and change from my purple work uniform to the suit of my secret identity-humble, mild-mannered, simple-minded ignorant fool; and raid the fridge and drown my sorrows and go to sleep to dream of a life that doesn’t so closely resemble Hell…

 

I hated everybody, especially women… those femi-nazis who daily stabbed at spoiling my years, even though I consider myself a sensitive male, if there is such a thing in this ostensibly emasculated society. I had been screwed over so many times by the opposite sex I could vomit if I saw one on the street: a mother who never seemed to care and countless potential mates who never seemed to notice. Understand too, that this is right after Eminem came out and started talking all that anger towards women who cause him pain and all that other Johnny Cash s**t, and when before I began listening to Tom Leykus—and I was thankful I wasn’t the only one… 

 

There are many perfect examples of my attitude at this point in my life that could be found in contemporary media. I read and enjoyed Eric Bogosian’s subUrbia, and Sam Shepard’s The Tooth of Crime while studying theatre at UW, and only now, after looking back at my demeanor during that low[ly] transitional stage, can I understand why. Films like Requiem For A Dream, and the dark and twisted The Cell, dared to venture into parts of the human soul and psyche that most people, in their trim and trite trepidation, try no to take no notice of-parts I could only hope to forget…

 

Although I didn’t know it at the time, I had an Oedipus and Hamlet complex simultaneously: obsessed with what kind of torture I could experience due to women. It’s all Freudian theory. I hated my mother and loved my father, but was somehow drawn to women that would undoubtedly drive me to my death. I was attracted to whatever it is in my mother that makes her so unbearable sometimes—most of the time. I didn’t realize this until recently, which of course will be explored a little later. This maternal discretion has brought upon incessant misogynistic tendencies…which explains the abuse of Allison.

                                   

            That sounds like a good title for a book…

 

            I hated people because they were all ignorant vessels for corporate whoring. I saw a world devoid of love and I hated it, and wanted nothing to do with it, but instead of finding my way out, I just gave up. I didn’t want to be just another number in the system. I didn’t want to just do my job…unless, of course, my job was to change the world. But, alas, it was not, and I found myself daily wandering aimlessly through the streets of Seattle with a waning desire to carry on. At least my depression had finally found a scratching post. I just wish it wasn’t my determination.

 

So I would up get every day and bus to school, if I felt like it, and work two jobs, just to pay the bills. I would rarely eat, and rarely sleep. I was addicted to late night television, even if it was People’s Court and Leno re-runs. I couldn’t believe that people would allow themselves such abuse on national television, just over silly domestic disputes. Who really f*****g cares if he paid you the rest of the $250? It’s $250! Is your dignity worth $250? Apparently not. And don’t get me started on Leno. I guess I suppose it’s my own fault for having nothing better to do but wallow in my own facileness, but the punch-lines became more and more predictable…and his approach, with the repeating, and the arms-either in the pockets or out-it was getting to the point I could teach a class on his act…and I’d do it to. On late night television. For only $250!

 

I would spend my weekends down in the U-District, hanging out, getting drunk, smoking weed. It had reached the formality that I would stay at my friend’s house on Mondays and Wednesdays because I only had Music Theory on Tuesdays and Thursdays and (seeing as I was a genius and all) I never needed to go to that class anyway. We’d buy 40’s of Mickey’s Premium Malt Liquor and order pizza from Papa Johns and play Goldeneye and Mario Kart all night long. I remember one night my best friend Josh and I got so extremely baked and recorded the whole night on micro-cassette and we wrote this strange freestyle blues song in drop-D, and we were so high that after I erased the tape (on accident) it took my a year to figure out what the hell we wrote that night, but we knew it was called “Single Man Blues.”

            That little tape recorder got so much action. I pretty much only used it at parties or when we were searching for beer. I recall another night, Jack and I wandered through the upper reaches of the Greek system trying to find someone to buy us beer and we ran into these girls outside their apartment. They’re going to a party later and invite us…Three girls, the two of us and free booze…F**K YES! we’re in. So we begin the descent to the lower part of campus, but first the girls want to stop at this Fraternity house-I don’t remember which one, but it doesn’t really matter-and we waited there like a couple of chumps until they finally emerged and escorted us to the University Condominium pool house. Nice Choice. We ended up going back to the Pike house (Pi Kappa Alpha) two hours later when the party ended with some Frat boy so we could imbibe Rainier Ice from a mini fridge just before sunrise.

There are so many stories just for that little recorder alone. Like the time I went to visit my high school buddies in Puyallup and we spend almost the entire length of the ninety-minute tape talking about how Shane and I conned the AM/PM guy to sell us beer and then we hid it in the “secret spot” back at the apartment. It was a f*****g cabinet, and it wasn’t a secret for long. Or the story of the time when Jaime and Chris and I stole liquor from “the fat b*****s.” Or when I was so depressed, and I needed someone to talk to and I would just hit record.

 

I spent the majority of 1999 either getting drunk or trying to. It was my life goal, pretty much, for the whole of the two years I was drinking before I became legal. The only drugs I had tried were alcohol and marijuana, and I was fine with that, but the f*****g Millennium was coming, and we needed something good for the big night. For New Years 2000, some friends from work brought some Ecstasy to my apartment and we rocked Seattle all night, drunk and high and young and stupid. It was called UC. I only did half a tab and was f*****g rolling all night long into the wee hours of the morning of the New Year. That was when I knew I had just broken the seal. I willingly swallowed a pill, unsure of its ultimate effects (which is why I feared Prozac), and loved it. [The second time I did cocaine was with the same guys from work, a few months later.] I consequently found myself surrounded by something new and foreign and incredible and it made everything go away, and I could sleep for a change. I found myself thinking, “Okay, drugs are the way to go….Death is not the answer to my life. Drugs are.”