From the Trenches: Notes from my Cruise

This vacation seems to have been a progression of sorts. A progression of my thoughts, my social development, and - I should hope - my maturation. I retreated into myself the first couple of days, since I only JUST got done with school, and had to come to grips with the fact that I failed precalculus this semester. So I read. I caught up on books that I'd bought during the school year but never had time to finish... "Proust Was a Neuroscientist" and "Next: The Future Just Happened" by Michael Lewis.

I also read an editorial in the Wall Street Journal by Amy Chua, a.k.a. "The Tiger Mother." In her piece, she gave an update on her eldest daughter, who was a freshman in college like me. She said that she was the most hands-off college mother one could have - and for good reason. Mrs. Chua is the opposite of a helicopter mother: to paraphrase her, she brought up her children very strictly, with an emphasis on academic performance, so that her children would learn discipline. She wanted her children to develop a sense of resilience, so that even if they fail at something the first time - say, picking up a foreign language, or an instrument, or an introductory college class - they would know that if they worked hard, they could do ANYTHING. That piece struck me quite a bit, because I had railed on the Tiger Mother the first time I heard about her. I never read her book - though I'm going to now - and I thought that her approach to parenting was the antithesis of encouraging creativity and self-reliance in her children... but time has vindicated her, and I give her three cheers.

So I've been reading. I've also been tanning, thank god, because I was bleached so pale by this past semester that I was afraid of my own skin color... ultra-white is not natural on a human being, and I am not nearly enough of a computer-nerd to justify it. So several days of napping in the sun has given me some color back, and with it, a profound sense of well-being. After the first couple of days on this trip, I threw away my lighter and said "screw it. I'll quit smoking." Well... in addition to the other habits I quit recently, it was like giving up on one of my last remaining pleasures in life. Or so it seemed at the time.  Then I discovered running. Or... re-discovered it. I started out with a mile, then two miles - exercising every time I got a craving to smoke. The pay-off was enormous, I gotta tell ya. A runner's high is damn-near incomparable to any other sensation you will ever experience. It is clean, it is natural, and it is one of the greatest mystical experiences you will ever have. If you pray to a God, you can find him through running. 

Dear me, where was I? Ah. I was MEAN those first two days after quitting, despite the 'quick fixes' of running and tanning. I was jonesing for something - anything - that was fun and NOT repetitive. I mean... I was on vacation, wasn't I? I needed to do something special.  So I did Karaoke. First by myself, then with my family... my uncle Bernard sang with me one night; here's a recording of it below (INSERT FILM CLIP HERE). And while I've sang in public before, it reaffirmed for me that YES, I'm a decent singer, and YES people like to hear me sing. And either my Grandpa or my Uncle Sam suggested that I start singing at bars in New York for money. That'd be pretty fun... and I certainly need the cash. At any rate - people started coming to that lounge, "The Cabinet", because they'd heard there were good amateur singers there. Talk about an ego boost!

I also re-discovered pleasure in eating.. each thing I eat now, I can taste it fully, and as I taste it, I know how good or bad it is for me... I know how it will affect my body. At the beginning of the cruise, I ate nothing but sugary/calorie-dense foods because that was all I could taste. With time, my tastes became more subtle... more refined. I became more in-tune with my body.  As such... I payed attention to much, and I recorded nearly everything I learned. However - it's pointless to overwhelm you all with data, so enjoy the update for now - I will post more SOON, including pictures and that video I mentioned. These posts are often rough drafts and the like, but hey: if you want to know more - or less - about a certain happenstance, just ask me! I'm happy to re-post, edit, whatever. Selah.

The Phoenix

Golden droplets splash onto my neck in the glowing sunlight
as my body lights its flame anew, and yesterday's ashes pass through the drain.
While there is more wood to be burned, this child will not be consumed.
He bears scars, some visible, some not, But he wears them with pride.
For they remind him that his troubles are gone Now that he has learnt their lesson.

Christmas: quite awesome as always

Found me some HISTORY

19

 So I've been browsing around Listia.com, this auction site, and I found some interesting coins I thought I'd grab. I like collecting things, and to me, these coins represent moments of history that shouldn't be forgotten.

 

Those coins on the second row from the bottom are from 1903, 1904 and 1906 respectively

 That gold Susan B. Anthony is from 1979, and the dimes are from 1926, 1942, 1943, 1953 and 1958

The penny on the left is from 1913. I've never seen a wheatpenny that old before! The others are from 1936, 1940, 1946, 1952 and 1958



I don't even know how old those buffalo nickels are, but to me, the coins represent more than just the dates. They're tokens from our past that span the entire 20th century. From the 1900's to the '20's, the First World War, the Great Depression, The Second World War and The Cold War: they represent our moments of greatest triumph - and our greatest failures. I may keep these, but I wanted you all to see them. Maybe someday, they'll end up in a museum. That way, everyone can get a glimpse of our past. I hope so, because it seems like all too often we keep forgetting where we came from.

And that's what ends up biting us in the ass, collectively and individually.

Never forget where you come from.

The Search for Correspondences

Marcel Proust, by writing In Search of Lost Time, was on a quest for truth. The truths he sought were diverse, and to some extent, undefined, but his overarching goal was to become a “seer” who could discover universal truths, or concepts that everyone can understand, by searching extensively through his memories for them. The poet Charles Baudelaire was an inseparable companion on his quest, for he, too, wrote based on his memories in search of the same types of truths. Both writers succeeded in their quests by scrying through their mundane lives for hints and glimpses of the truth, and discovered that that their prize was often found by remembering the very saddest moments of their past.

Above all in Baudelaire, where they are more numerous still, reminisces of this kind are clearly less fortuitous and therefore, to my mind, unmistakable in their significance. Here the poet himself, with something of a slow and indolent choice, deliberately seeks, in the perfume of a woman, for instance, of her hair and her breast, the analogies which will inspire him and evoke for him

            the azure of the sky immense and round

and

            a harbour full of masts and pennants (VI, 335).


Those analogies, which Proust describes as “transposed sensation”, relate moments where one sensation begets another (VI, 335). Like the Madeleine scene in Swann’s Way, they are powerful experiences that provide a link between the present and the past. The ability to relate these memories in a way that readers can identify with is the essential task of the writer, and, Proust and Baudelaire would argue, is the goal of any work of art.

Writing about identifiable experiences is what both authors termed “correspondences.” It is a difficult task to search for such correspondences, for the breadth of human experience spans time itself. However, they can be found with sufficient effort. This is illustrated well in Swann’s Way, Proust’s most widely recognized novel, with a description of the wedding of a minor character’s daughter.   

“...and the sun... shed a geranium glow over the red carpet laid down for the wedding, and covered its woolen texture with a...solemn sweetness in the pomp of a joyful celebration, which characterize certain pages of Lohengrin, certain paintings by Carpaccio, and make us understand how Baudelaire was able to apply to the sound of the trumpet the epithet “delicious.”” (I, 251)


Whether or not one has read Lohengrin or seen a painting by Carpaccio, by the end of the paragraph one knows exactly what Proust is talking about; the sun’s glow on the red carpet of the church was like the “delicious” sound of a trumpet. That sound is part of what makes classical music beautiful, not the least reason for which is that it can paint images in our minds such as the glow of the sun.

Proust’s description of this sound is but one example of a correspondence. The author’s quest for truth lead him to discover many correspondences, and when one takes note of them, one realizes that each correspondence is a universal truth, even if it is a small one. One of these states that writing about the generalities of grief does for the writer “what is done for men of a more physical nature by exercise, perspiration, baths.” (VI, 310) It is a transposition, not of a well-known sense, but of the cathartic experience of writing. His assertion, while it may seem rather grandiloquent to generalize in this manner, it also appears to hold water. Writings of this nature are cathartic, which is why many writers, including Proust, Baudelaire and Fitzgerald, wrote about the darker moments of their lives. It is a ‘cure’ for their mental troubles, as is exercise, social events, music and other forms of artistic expression.    

Proust knew that these cures came with a price; in 1857, Les Fleurs du Mal, a volume of Baudelaire’s lyric poetry, came under scrutiny of the French courts, and was subsequently banned for its obscenity (Burt, 19). Baudelaire and other symbolist poets faced censorship because their subject matter was, on the surface, nothing but sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Having learned about the public backlash against Baudelaire, Proust subsequently avoided talking about sex in blunt, graphic detail, although he did discuss it at length. He paid homage to his predecessors by acknowledging both the “refinements which had lead a Baudelaire, a Poe, a Verlaine, a Rimbeaud to sufferings” (II, 418), and the difficulty of writing “the exquisite French of Henri IV” when “one’s mind is troubled by the ideas of Kant and the yearnings of Baudelaire” (III, 689).  He believed that the public outrage against these writers was unjustified, as was their criticism of composers like Wagner, because they made no attempt to decipher their works. Proust may have felt a kinship with these writers, because he knew that his message, which he hoped would be “worthy of the pains which I should have to bestow upon it”, would be lost on many. But he also knew that, like his predecessors, his message had enough gravity to justify it. To that end, when writing about sex, drugs and rock and roll, he cloaked it in the language of his target audience, giving it enough refinement for his readers to appreciate the message while overlooking the ‘obscene’ content. 

Proust wrote about sex and love because, like Baudelaire, he knew that that they, too, contained correspondences. When Baudelaire writes about beauty in Les Fleurs du Mal, he writes that beauty is the progenitor of love.

I am fair, O mortals! like a dream carved in stone,

And my breast where each one in turn has bruised himself

Is made to inspire in the poet a love

As eternal and silent as matter (Aggeler, 116)  

Beauty inspires eternal love, and even though beauty is a temporary state of being, the love it produces is permanent. This verse is powerful because, like many poems by Baudelaire, it produces synaesthesia in its readers; the words “stone”, “breast”, “bruised” and “matter” all conjure up memories of sight and touch in its readers. This provocation of memory enables readers to identify with both the subject and the message of the poem, thereby bringing it to life through its correspondences.

Proust wrote his love scenes in In Search of Lost Time  in the same spirit; attempting to derive from them the laws of nature that mathematicians and scientists overlook. He knew that these laws, once they are understood, help provide a framework for his readers that they can find ‘surety’ in. Thus he wrote about even the most intimate moments of his life, such as in Sodom and Gomorrah where he describes the emotions felt as he made love to Albertine. For Proust, these emotions were incredibly complex, because they were associated with both Albertine and his mother.   

Albertine’s neck, which emerged in its entirety from her nightdress, was strongly built, bronzed, grainy in texture. I kissed it as purely as if I had been kissing my mother to calm a childish grief which I did not believe that I would ever be able to eradicate from my heart (IV, 715). 

Proust frequently associates Albertine with his mother; his love for one is inextricably linked to the other, and when he deals with problematic aspects of his relationship with Albertine, he often consulted his mother about them, such as when he made up his mind to propose to Albertine at the end of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is held that this intertwining of relationships is a correspondence, both in the moment, as he was kissing Albertine, and in the meta, when he was apart from her. Both correspondences are immediately identifiable to the reader; men often associate the objects of their affection with their mothers, in the same way that women often associate theirs with their fathers. Proust was describing the Oedipus Complex and the Electra Complex at the same time that Dr. Freud was developing these theories.

    These correspondences are the foundation of the works of both Proust and Baudelaire. They attempt to describe the world using a vocabulary that everyone can understand, and although this vocabulary is often difficult, it is rewarding for both writers and their readers to have a common language with which to describe the “delicious” sound of a trumpet, or the “childish grief” of a lover’s kiss. This language is difficult to pinpoint, because it must transcend the barriers of time and culture that cause many audiences to belittle the efforts of ‘modern’ artists. However, both Proust and Baudelaire found their audiences, because their works did transcend time and culture, and even language thanks to the men and women who translated their literature from French to English. These authors, whom like Vermeer and Richard Wagner have stood the test of time, are a testament to the importance of seers in our society. Although at times they have been perceived as passive, indolent beings, their ability to look through the chaos of this world and discover hints of an underlying order, of systems to which even chaos is beholden, is invaluable. It is invaluable because, as all artists know, we need reassurance that our experiences, our moments of happiness and our sufferings, are not unprecedented. This is the task of all art; be it music, painting, theater or literature, we artists are searching for reassurance that we are not alone in the world.





Works Cited:
http://jstor.org/stable/1566350?seq=1&Search=yes&searchText=Search&searchText=Time&searchText=baudelaire&searchText=Lost&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DIn%2BSearch%2Bof%2BLost%2BTime%2Bbaudelaire%26gw%3Djtx%26acc%3Don%26prq%3Dcorrespondences%2BIn%2BSearch%2Bof%2BLost%2BTime%26Search%3DSearch%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=2&ttl=3112&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=null (Burt, 19)

http://fleursdumal.org/poem/116 (Aggeler, 116)

Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time.

The Ultimate Storyteller

(This here is a re-write of the essay I published earlier under the same name, here for your perusal)

Hunter S. Thompson was a freak, and proud of it. In post-World-War-Two America, Thompson was a born rebel who sided with nobody and everybody at the same time. As one of the founding writers for Rolling Stone magazine, he developed a method of reporting called “Gonzo Journalism”, which he described as “a style of "reporting" based on William Faulkner's idea that the best fiction is far more true than any kind of Journalism (24).” Using this style, Thompson’s articles switched freely between the first-, second- and third-person perspectives, writing in an informal manner that established an intimate rapport with his readers. His subject matter ranged from politics to sports to the art scene, always favoring people who were underrepresented in society. Relentlessly fighting for what he dubbed ‘freak power’, he combined fact with fiction in elaborate stories that, while they told uncomfortable truths, had the brevity to win over his audience. Thompson’s synergistic blending of journalism and narrative was so powerful, so far-reaching in its effects, that he became the ultimate storyteller. 

   

One of Thompson’s truths was that freak power had a real voice in America, even if it was rarely used. In his essay Freak Power In the Rockies, he retells his experience participating in a political campaign for the mayor of Aspen, Colorado. Candidate Joe Edwards, a 29-year-old lawyer, bike-racer and user of amphetamines, ran on the platform that freaks should have the run of the town. Upon hearing about Edwards’ candidacy, the retiring mayor had broadcasted stern warnings over the radio that there would be “phalanxes of poll-watchers for any strange or freaky-looking scum who might dare show up at the polls.” (74) To demonstrate their power, the “scum” retaliated in kind:

We had mustered a half-dozen of the scurviest looking legal voters we could find - and when the Mayor arrived at the polls these freaks were waiting to vote. Behind them, lounging around a coffee-dispenser in an old VW van, were at least a dozen others, most of them large and bearded, and several so eager for violence that they had spent the whole night making chain-whips and loading up on speed to stay crazy (75).

Freak power asserts itself when threatened. Just as the hippies did during the summer of love in 1969, which incidentally was the same year of this campaign, the druggies, dropouts and barroom brawlers of Aspen had gathered to show their strength. This strength came from their numbers, since the mayor deployed no phalanxes of poll-watchers other than himself and his office staff, and in their ferocity towards the establishment that sought to marginalize them. Although Joe Edwards lost the race, he lost by an incredibly slim margin (77). The narrowness of that margin, totalling a mere six votes, vindicated the campaign by proving that the power of a minority group is not to be underestimated - no matter how small.
 
     In addition to proving the existence of freak power, Thompson also gave evidence as to why this power exists in society. In his essay Strange Rumblings in Aztlan, Thompson recounts the murder of Ruben Salazar, a prominent journalist who was covering a series of demonstrations against police brutality, by a policeman in 1970. Salazar became a sort of martyr for the Chicano community, both because he had alerted the mainstream media to its plight, and because his reporting was directly responsible for his death. Upon investigating the incident, Thompson discovered that although Salazar’s death was not a police conspiracy, it was no accident.  

Maybe so. Maybe Ruben Salazar’s death can be legally dismissed as a “police accident” or as the result of “official negligence.” Most middle-class, white-dominated juries would probably accept the idea. Why, after all, would a clean-cut young police officer deliberately kill an innocent bystander? Not even Ruben Salazar - ten seconds before his death - could believe that he was about to have his head blown off by a cop for no reason at all. When Gustavo Garcia warned him that the cops outside were about to shoot, Salazar said, “That’s impossible; we’re not doing anything.” Then he stood up and caught a tear gas bomb in his left temple (103).

Salazar’s death was premeditated. Worse; it was covered up by the Sheriff’s office who attempted to pass it off as a “police accident”, and without reporters like Hunter S. Thompson to sift through the mountains of newspaper coverage surrounding the incident, the truth may have never been made public. The murder of Ruben Salazar provoked a massive backlash against police brutality towards the Chicano community, the echoes of which are remembered today with the phrase, “viva la raza.”  Without this public backlash, the policeman who killed Ruben Salazar, would never have been held accountable for his actions. The Chicano community’s forcing of Wilson’s accountability was a demonstration of why freak power is so important; it enabled them to resist marginalization so well that their plight was brought to the attention of the state governor, Ronald Reagan (106).

Writing so extensively about Freak Power, be it in Aspen, Colorado or East Los Angeles, it’s almost as if Thompson is trying to justify his own freak power; his writing style, his subject matter and his deep-seated mistrust of authority. It’s as if he was toeing the lines to see exactly how far he could go. We see evidence for this struggle in The Ultimate Freelancer, an essay he wrote for the magazine The Distant Drummer in 1967. The essay is a memoir of the death of his friend and fellow freelancer, Lionel Olay, who, like, Thompson, had a deep-seated mistrust of authority. Olay’s death signified for Thompson that while the questioning of authority is good, an outright rejection of authority is not. "More than anything else, it came as a harsh confirmation of the ethic that Lionel had always lived but never talked about... The dead end loneliness of a man who makes his own rules." (55) Lionel was the type of person who listened to nobody but himself. While this might sound like a positive trait in theory, it caused Lionel to lead a rather solitary existence, for a man who only marches to the beat of his own drum is not a popular fellow. Thompson recognized this, and although he was an independent spirit, and a freelancer to boot, he knew that there were forms of authority worth listening to. 

It is also apparent that the authorities Thompson recognized, as rare as they were, were the kind of people who practiced what they preached. When he wrote about football in Fear and Loathing at the Super Bowl, he had many choice words to say about advertisers, the NFL, and his fellow sportswriters. However, he also gave Al Davis, the owner of the Oakland Raiders, credit where it was due - even though the relationship between the two men could at best be described as strained. 

This is my last real memory of Al Davis: It was getting dark in Oakland, the rest of the team had already gone into the showers, the coach was inside speaking sagely with a gaggle of local sports writers, somewhere beyond the field-fence a big jet was cranking up its afterburners on the airport runway... and here was the owner of the flakiest team in pro football, running around on a half-dark practice field like a king-hell speed freak with his quarterback and two other key players, insisting that they run the same goddamn play over and over again until they had it right (128).

As bizarre to Thompson as Al Davis’ behavior was, his willingness to get onto the field and drill his players personally earned him a measure of respect in the journalist’s eyes. That isn’t to say that Davis got anything more than due respect; his team was still “the flakiest team in pro football”, and Davis himself was still both a “bastard” and a man who acted “like a king-hell speed freak” (128). Here, the style of Thompson’s writing tells us something about the journalist; he was anti-authority through and through, but he was also a dedicated storyteller and a man who believed what he wrote. Both of these qualities are rare enough these days, but there is another component to them: that Thompson didn’t shy away from all authorities, rather, he only listened to those who earned their right to be leaders.

    Given the political atmosphere in America during the 1960’s and ‘70’s, Thompson had every right to be that skeptical. 1973 was the year that the Watergate scandal broke, and Thompson weighed in with his opinion of the matter in Fear and Loathing in the Bunker. Richard Nixon, with his army of lackeys, thugs and fixers, was not a man who had earned his right to lead. Because he had managed to swindle his way into office, and because he had successfully covered up the affair for so long, Hunter S. Thompson was forced to ask the question; “Is the democracy worth all the risks and problems that go with it? Or, would we all be happier by admitting that the whole thing was a lark from the start and now that it hasn’t worked out, to hell with it ” (15). Admittedly, the question is rhetorical in nature; both Thompson and the American people were having major trust issues with the concept of democracy, and they wanted reassurance that the ideals that gave birth to this country hadn’t been totally forgotten.

    Thompson is doing more than just questioning authority for the sake of argument; he is attempting to establish who or what are the legitimate leaders in this country. This is a big job, albeit a thankless one; for every Al Davis in America, there are ten incompetents who hang on to their leadership by a thread, and it is Thompson’s role as an investigative journalist to separate the one from the other in the public view. That way, eventually, America can begin to trust its leaders again, for it will be certain that there are people like Thompson to watch the watchmen.
   

Thoughts and Ramblings at the end of the Semester

Praise the maker; I'm DONE. Well, not completely done, there's still the little issue of the pre-calculus final exam to take, but I'm confident that I will do well. For one thing, I'll have the time, motivation and circumstances necessary to study effectively, and get enough sleep to retain the information before Friday. What's more, I have now completed the last pieces of work for the other three classes this semester, which means that now I can focus on ONE last thing before checking out of education for the year.

When I was working on my term paper last night, a friend of mine emailed me saying that Kim Jong-Il was dead. I didn't know what to make of that; of course it's a good thing, I mean, maybe North Korea stands a chance at peace with this happenstance. Then again, maybe not. If the Dear Leader's son is anything like his father, we haven't seen the last of cold-war-era standoffs this century. And that's AFTER the U.S.S.R. collapsed... dasvidaniya rodina.

I will say, I learned quite a bit this semester. I do believe I'll post more on these subjects later, but I slept three hours last night and my brain is giving me shit for it. My last thought for the day is; I believe it's possible for there to be a one-world government at some point in the future. Not an illuminati, oligarchic or dictator-style gov't, but more like a republic: think the U.N. with legislative, executive and judicial power granted by the U.S., the E.U., and other participating countries. It'd have a bicameral legislature, a supreme court, and a system of checks and balances to make sure that no one man, OR one branch of that gov't, would overstep its boundaries.

The implications of this? Well, In some way it would be a major step towards world peace. The end of world hunger. Hell, if this government lasted long enough, it could spell out the end of monetary systems, because there would be so much wealth, distributed so effectively throughout the world, that there would be no need for money. Yeah, I'm thinking as if it'd create a utopia. Guy can dream, can't he?

At any rate, I promise you all more coherent, well-sourced thoughts in the future. I just felt like getting these down before crashing, and hope to get some feedback on them from at least one of you. Then again, almost no one comments on this blog, so whatever. Selah.

The Ultimate Storyteller

It is becoming more and more clear how outdated the old media is: CNN and Fox News are prime examples, followed closely by the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and even relatively new establishments like "The Huffington Post". Why are they outdated? In an era where any schmo can whip out his cell phone to document events such as the hanging of Saddam Hussein, there is no need for such monolithic sources of news. Today, we can tailor our news feeds, whether on Facebook, Tumblr or Google+, as we see fit.

Because we can customize the news, the types of ‘credentials’ we accept from reporters has now changed. We read blogs and joke-sites like Cracked.com and Reddit that, rather than giving us sober accounts of Occupy Wall Street and the Economic Crisis, use forms of Gonzo Journalism to spread information. What's Gonzo Journalism? According to the coiner of the phrase, Hunter S. Thompson, "It is a style of "reporting" based on William Faulkner's idea that the best fiction is far more true than any kind of Journalism (53). Using this style, the writer shapes his story in the first-person perspective so that the audience doesn't see the "mask" of the journalist. the reader listens to your message as if you were his own father or grandfather. 

That doesn't mean you should stretch the truth - your memory already did - it means you should pay less attention to "factual accuracy" and more to how you experience an event. It also means that training yourself to pay attention to your experiences is the best journalism school possible. The world's getting smaller all the time, and if you want anyone to listen to your story, you'd better give the audience your personal account PLUS your press badge. That’s why any author, myself included, has to write, blog or vlog for a long time before getting any recognition for their work; his or her body of work IS the press badge.

What can a writer do with that kind of freedom? Say you wanted to memorialize a friend who just died; you can either write an obituary OR you can relate your memories of them like Thompson does in "The Ultimate Freelancer". The essay was published in a tiny 'zine called "The Distant Drummer" in 1967, and the liberties taken allowed Thompson articulate the exact message one should take from the death of his friend, Lionel Olay: "More than anything else, it came as a harsh confirmation of the ethic that Lionel had always lived but never talked about... The dead end loneliness of a man who makes his own rules." (75)

Lionel was one of the few freelancers of his era who never "sold out." By refusing to sell out, he never made money from his writing, and he ended up dying alone. Thompson WAS an admitted sellout, since he wrote for Rolling Stone in its formative years, including his most well-known work; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. 

His message in this essay was that all artists must either choose their audience as everyone, as some one or as no one; Lionel chose the latter. This message was delivered solely because it was written Gonzo-style for a select audience; the hipsters of the sixties. Thompson was very careful in choosing who he sold out to, allowing him to write some of the best essays of the 20th century. But reflecting on the lesson itself, there is a clear yin and yang to choosing the rule system one abides by. If you obey no authority but yourself, you can end up just as powerless as Lionel Olay, but if you ignore your own authority you will meet the same fate.

    This is a very powerful form of storytelling because it lets you tell the truth without getting punched in the face for doing so. Thompson’s dead friend may not have been able to retaliate, but the scummier readers of “The Distant Drummer” could have. They ultimately weren’t aggressive because they understood the point of the article; that profiteering, especially from symbols of “rebellion” such as those of the beat-nik generation, helps no one. That money spent on a Warhol painting or an original Velvet Underground record is a waste unless you have sentimental value for it.
 

The Ultimate Free Lancer was a calling-out of record labels and producers such as Tom Wilson who were ruining fringe art. (contrasting these two ideas) Hunter S. Thompson recognized authorities that practice what they preach. While he had many choice words to say about advertising agencies, the NFL and his fellow sportswriters, he respected men like Al Davis, owner of the Oakland Raiders and Coach John Madden, who were personally invested in their work. It wasn’t because of the man’s status or wealth; it was because he took it upon himself to train his players. 

“This is my last real memory of Al Davis: It was getting dark in Oakland, the rest of the team had already gone into the showers, the coach was inside speaking sagely with a gaggle of local sports writers, somewhere beyond the field-fence a big jet was cranking up its afterburners on the airport runway... and here was the owner of the flakiest team in pro football, running around on a half-dark practice field like a king-hell speed freak with his quarterback and two other key players, insisting that they run the same goddamn play over and over again until they had it right.” 

Our author did not mince words for anybody. Previously in this same Rolling Stones essay, he had called Al Davis a “bastard”, describing their relationship as “strange and officially ugly”. While this appears dissonant with my claim that he respected Al Davis, it is not; Thompson gave the man credit where it was due without kissing up to him in any way. This is the fundamental difference between the nature of Gonzo journalism and NBC Nightly News; Walter Cronkite would not be allowed to say such things about Al Davis. His producers wouldn’t let him; if he tried, he’d immediately be censored and blackballed from television reporting for the rest of his life. You see, Wolf Blitzer, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings are inherently part of the old news paradigm. Like politicians, they are faces that must give a coherent, on-topic message that appeals to ninety percent of America every night at 6pm. Gonzo journalists have no such deadlines or standards beyond themselves and the immediate chain of command.

Let’s get a clearer concept of what we’re discussing here: the Encyclopedia Britannica is a great book. It’s thorough, well-sourced and pristinely edited, and is published in both print and online. But who has time to go to the library these days just to look something up? Nobody at NYU, I’m fairly certain. And the contents of Britannica.com are a disorganized mess. Contrast this with Wikipedia; many articles are not thorough, lack adequate sourcing and face spontaneous flame-warring between competing editors. But it’s still a great body of knowledge for us students. Why? Because all of it can be edited in an instant. Any mistake can be revised as soon as it’s found, and this pancake-style chain of command is exactly what makes it viable today.

Time is a precious thing. More and more, we see time slipping through our fingers, and with the passage of every year, of every month, things seem to speed up ever so slightly. Whoa, hang on, why am I getting so philosophical here? Bear with me.

We no longer need ‘faces’ like Walter Cronkite to tell us the truth. We crave the truth so badly now that we’ll look for it wherever it can be found. So instead of waiting for the news at 6pm every evening, we turn to word-of-mouth for our information. We ask our friends, look at blogs and scan Twitter for up-to-the-second data on the world around us. This is not a bad thing. We still have newspapers. We still have television when we want it and have time for it. We have not forgotten everything in pursuit of the future. Keep in mind, also, that the Twitter paradigm isn’t as old as you’d think. If you were around in the sixties and seventies, you could get information that quickly via the associated press. The question is, what kind of information are you looking for?  Do you want sheer data, or do you want to listen to a voice that has digested and processed that data to some extent? This is why today you can get everything from Twitter to the WSJ to everything in between. The question is; how badly do you want the truth? More importantly, are you prepared to handle it?

Fear and Loathing in the Bunker is the first essay in The Great Shark Hunt; the collection of essays that this assignment responds to. It was written on January 1, 1974, as a year-end reflection of 1973; the year that the Watergate scandal broke and Richard Milhous Nixon stood to be impeached by the senate. Given Nixon’s army of fixers, thugs and lackeys, Hunter S. Thompson was forced to ask a rather pressing question: “Is the democracy worth all the risks and problems that go with it? Or, would we all be happier by admitting that the whole thing was a lark from the start and now that it hasn’t worked out, to hell with it.”

The essay doesn’t attempt to answer this question, and neither will I. The point of journalism is not to give definitive answers; it’s to ask the right questions. This concept may be difficult to grasp, but mind you, all works of literature have their own defined boundaries. The boundaries of this essay are similar to those of Fear and Loathing in the Bunker; they are limited to posing the right questions to be pondered by our readers.

    Some parts of this essay are edited; others are not. I leave it to my readers to ponder which is which, but more importantly, to help me - and themselves - think about where they get their news from. I salute your efforts to obtain truth, whatever they be, because that’s exactly what I’m here to do. This class, this university, and this intellectual community shares the unstated goal of obtaining knowledge wherever it can be found. That is why we have chosen to read authors both mainstream and fringe; popular and obscure. My final thought on this subject is a brief explanation of why I find it important to read the news; communication is what gives us knowledge. The more we communicate, the more we know, the more ready we are to act when the time comes. But when it’s time to act, don’t think. Internalize what you can so that you can act in the moment. You’ll be surprised what you can do in a moment of instinctive action. My instincts are to write, to learn, and - more recently - to treat life like a game.

What are your instincts? Are you ready for Gonzo?

Benediction

I don't 'do' art too often, but I was reading Charles Baudelaire's "Benediction", among other poems from the symbolist movement, and as it turned out there was an art class going on. I joined in; here's the result.




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Maybe this time I'll remember what it's like to be on top of the world. Letting my fingers fly over the keyboard, virtual or not, not giving a good goddamn about where I am or why I'm there. I am a camera. I am here to give you all what I see and what I feel. My life is a show; I accept that. If it'll entertain you, even a little bit, it would give me solace.

Can I inform you, too? Can I show you what I know? Maybe someday. But first I have to earn my press badge.

Today is December 5, 2011. I want to go home.




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In the Dungeon

It's been five days of sleeping, eating, and lying in bed trying to figure out why i'm here. Yes, I asked to be here, but I didn't think it'd be this hard. I nearly wrote a 72-hour letter just to get out early, but then I remembered that you gain nothing without effort. So I'll stay right here. I'll do my schoolwork, I'll turn in my assignments, and I'll work out. I'll walk, run, do pushups and sit-ups, and I'll wait to be released with bated breath. Yes,I hate it here, but it's also one of the best things that ever happened to me.

Slowly, ever so slowly, it's teaching me to live again.


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