Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").

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   dorky ravers who like goths
Friday, March 14 1997

Sad thing to say today: I swerve my car to straddle the squirrel in a feeble effort to lend him some dignity after his death.

I was out of bed at around 3pm. Soon Monster Boy showed up and showed me some black and white pictures we'd shot last month. They mostly featured the antics of the goth girls in a graveyard and in Monster Boy's apartment. There were some pictures of me in this mix. Perhaps some will end up on a web page some day.

Persad came over briefly during this process. In case I haven't mentioned it, Persad and Theresa are BACK TOGETHER again and Theresa's laying off the booze. Nothing too bad can happen if she can control her alcohol consumption. The same applies to me.

Ideally I'd excercise restraint with that drug, as I used to do.
But not this night. I started off by killing off what Molsen Ice remained in the Dynashack refigerator. Then Monster Boy and I smoked an enormous amount of marijuana. We sat watching the videotape shot this weekend while pretty much losing our minds to the extent that marijuana still has the capability in either of us. You see, marijuana no longer causes me many adverse symptoms. But it's not as much of a drug to me anymore either. Ideally I'd excercise restraint with that drug, as I used to do.

We went to the Corner and I deposited the large insurance refund check into my bank account. I didn't even go to Comet to pick up a paycheck; I'd run across Dave the artist and he'd said something that had discouraged me.

But in actuality, ravers and goths are like matter and antimatter.
Monster Boy knows a couple of raver kids who work at Little John's. It's a funny story. It seems they (I don't know how many of them there are) are sort of dorky and want to have more friends. They have apparently decided that goths are "cool" and would like to know more of them. This may be a consequence of the fact that ravers are happy all the time, to an extent that is as pathological as the morbid sadness of goths. By hanging out with goths, perhaps ravers can become more firmly grounded in reality. The happiness of ravers, meanwhile, would have a similar effect upon goths, I imagine. But in actuality, ravers and goths are like matter and antimatter. They have similarities, to be sure. They love drum machines, musical samples, taking drugs, dying their hair, assuming temporarily shocking identities, dressing up and making love. And they are both reactions against dominant social trends of the 80s. Still, the world of the raver seems like froth to the "deep" concerns of the goth. A goth will never have any real respect for a raver. The reverse isn't true, though. Ravers are not exclusive like goths since their goal is world unity through decadence. The goths meanwhile strive for isolation from a depressing world they do not understand. They exclude non-goths from the world they create, and their decadence is a sublime waiting room outside the office of Dr. Death.

The best way into a guy's affections is to offer him the basic bodily needs.
Now back to the issue at hand, the ravers that Monster Boy knows. Well, they apparently told Monster Boy that they were interested in hanging out with more goths. The idea resonated with Monster Boy, mostly (he admits) because of two things they have to offer: one of the ravers is an attractive girl and the other has offered to fix him free food from time to time at Little John's. The best way into a guy's affections is to offer him the basic bodily needs.

So Monster Boy and I went into Little Johns and had the purple-haired/purple-goateed/multiply-pierced raver dude fix us each a sandwich. I thought that asking for two sandwiches was a bit excessive (especially in my prone-to paranoia marijuana-induced state). But the raver dude fixed them up and we took them to go. Yes, we got sandwiches for free and then didn't even hang out with our benefactor to eat them. I felt like we'd been terrible exploiters. Monster Boy felt more pragmatic about the situation, but I think even he felt funny about it. I told Monster Boy that such unjustified generocity is always foolish. You see, now the raver dude has made an investment in Monster Boy (and me as well) and if he should decide later that we actually suck, there will still be an incentive to continue with his generocity, or else risk losing all of the investment he made up to that point. Theresa's generocity is totally different. She knows when it is her time to collect. And no one imagines for a moment that Theresa needs to be generous to have friends.

"behold, Ethel, a happy goth!"
Having been paid in this way for my "coolness," I suddenly felt more gothic than I had felt. The raver guy had obviously made the assumption that I am part of the cool gothic scene. And my sandwich was my payment for being cool in this way. Thus I felt it my duty to act more gothic in order to "earn my pay." But such a thought was obviously ridiculous, and I revolted against it by loudly musing how happy I was, hoping straight passersby would see me and say, "behold, Ethel, a happy goth!"

SQUEAMISH PEOPLE... PROCEDE AT YOUR OWN RISK OR CLICK HERE TO BYPASS THE GROSS STUFF.
What follows is a graphic description and depiction of the results of an allegedly deliberate penis amputation by a non-transexual heterosexual man.

Monster Boy drove me back to his house and we smoked yet more pot and watched a new videotape that Monster Boy has obtained. He'd told me about it some days ago, so I was naturally rather unnerved to have to sit and watch it. I might seem like a robust person who is capable of withstanding any sort of unpleasantness, but truth be known I am rather squeamish and have great difficulting looking at mutilations, human oddities, birth defects, accident victims and the like. I normally avoid pages about such things that I discover on the Web. Of course, I'd be the first to defend anyones right, regardless of age, to post or view such material.

an actual frame of Blood Sex and Mutilation: the roots of the penis have begun to swell.
...the simplicity of his testicles hanging from a ragged hole in his abdomen.
Now back to the issue at hand, the videotape that Monster Boy showed me. It was called Sex, Blood and Mutilation and it is by a sicko film maker/artist/musician named Joe Christ. The video is a sort of documentary of various kinds of extreme body alterations, narrated by the christ-like Joe himself. The alterations get progressively stranger, starting with a guy who has extremely over-accessorized genitals and continuing through Tattoo Mike (who has tattoos all over his body and face and who can drive nails through his tongue and eat buckets full of worms: it's rather unnerving to gaze upon a man who can never rejoin straight society). The most disturbing part of all was an interview with a heterosexual man who supposedly sliced off his own penis as a voluntary body alteration. During the interview the camera was kept intently focused on what remained of his genitals: the simplicity of his testicles hanging from a ragged hole in his abdomen. Meanwhile, the truncated guy spoke in a computer-altered monotone that sounded for all the world like the voice of Satan himself as the tissues around the urethra gradually swelled in a sorry indication of sexual arousal. My personal opinion is that this guy probably lost his penis in a tragic accident and is now, after the fact, claiming it was a deliberate body alteration. Monster Boy (whose own organ has metal horns sticking out of either side of it) believes that the penis-free guy is none other than Joe Christ himself.

The process of urination was a completely different experience the rest of the evening.

Monster Boy drove me back to the Corner and we went to visit Theresa at Goth Central. She was just then entertaining a number of guys, including this one guy who works for Studio Art who has a distracting bar-bell piercing of the skin on the bridge of his nose. Monster Boy wasn't hired at Studio Art due to the opinion of this individual, a fact he revealed once the bar-bell piercing guy had left.

Theresa joined Monster Boy and myself on a ramble around the Corner and back to my place to watch more homemade videotapes. I was feeling very tired and Theresa seemed to be in a foul mood for whatever reason, maybe because she was sober. At least she is gentle when she is in a bad mood!

Cecelia the Brazilian Girl came by before 10 pm, and right away she started complaining about being sober. So we went and picked up some overpriced white vino at the Corner Market.

Theresa left after awhile, but then Leticia the Brazilian Girl showed up, having gotten off work from the C&O. Monster Boy did a lot of videotaping here and there in my room whil Helmet or Tool played from my stereo. Cecelia is making me a mix tape of a variety of non-English goth/thrash/punk music, and we listened for awhile to what she has recorded so far.

Monster Boy with tape on his face in my room at the Dynashack. Some of my paintings are in the background.
Leticia the Brazilian Girl and Monster Boy crashed out in my bed.
There was a phase of craziness in which Monster Boy wrapped his head with toilet paper and then put masking tape all over his face while I grimaced, contorted and yelled "I'm crazy!" at the camera.

Monster Boy was becoming bored, sleepy and cranky as he came down from being high, so I rustled up some pot for us to smoke. Then Cecelia and I played music together: her on keyboard and me on a now three-string guitar. The music was either hypnotic or annoying and made the others sleepy. Thus, after a fashion, the Brazilian Girls, Monster Boy and myself all ended up in bed together in a comalike condition. The girls soon saw the folly of this, though, and set off to see what conditions were like in the Horrid Crash Pad. About this time Deya showed up, having just gotten back from Warren Wilson College for Spring Break. In her company was Dan Kappus, the guy who maintains a subversive anti-Warren Wilson web site while still being at the college. He has had to move his web site to another machine though, since he has run into trouble with stuffed-shirts in the Warren Wilson administration. Dan has very short hair and appears to be rather punk rock, if you know what I mean. Contrary to statements made in the journal entry referenced above, Dan is not overweight.

Since I'd already drunk a whole Mickey's 32 oz, much of the white vino and was now working on some gin & tea extract, I was pretty drunk at this point, but I was pleased to finally meet Dan Kappus. I was being rather extoverted and cardinal (meaning I was initiating activities; no doubt an influence of my Saturn in Aries and my Venus in Capricorn). I wanted, despite Monster Boy's feelings on the matter, to go to the Horrid Crash Pad. So, in slavish obedience to my edicts, we all set off down Wertland Street. We ran across the Brazilian Girls, who reported that no one was at the Horrid Crash Pad. So I tried to get us all into the Orbit billiard parlour, but the guy at the door checked Cecelia's ID and wouldn't let an 18 year old in and we all ended up hanging out for awhile outside on 14th street. Since I needed some sleep and sobriety before my 9am Saturday Comet shift, I went back home after a second pass of the Horrid Crash Pad turned up as little life as the pass before.

Wisely, I drank lots of water before going to bed.


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