Nobody actually calls it "Angelika Film Center." It's the Angelika.

1/1/95

“Nothing changes on New Years Day” – U2

“Clerks” was hysterical, though we didn’t go to the Angelika. The Village was heavenly as always. The red record place once again had an amazing deal (Achtung Baby on vinyl. U2’s 5^th member!). Second Coming provided halo one and halo six. Only missing halo ten now (haven’t seen it anywhere). Got an Afghan Whigs poster (I love these guys, esp. Greg Dulli). Claudia and Anita finally believe me that the sculpture moves. Karaoke was a blast, I could barely do the straight line thing. Handled Tori’s songs quite nicely. On the way home Anita and I saw this raver boy. She said he was better for Jenny’s (her sister’s) band but I don’t necessarily agree. Spent New Years at a “gathering” at Anita’s friend’s Marcy’s house (fun).

The Angelika = pretentious movie theater in SoHo. I had a fixation with the Angelika ever since I saw the listing for Faraway, So Close! (which I never saw on the big screen) and heard about what a cool artsy movie theater it was. And while they do show a selection of fine foreign and independent films, they also have small screens, uncomfortable chairs, subways rumbling underfoot, and audiences that are often humorless (I’ve seen a few movies there in which I was the only one laughing. Unless I’m the only person who found parts of The Good Girl funny…).

“U2’s 5^th member” = Adam Clayton’s penis. There’s a naked photo of the bassist in the mosaic cover art. It was censored in the cassette and CD album art, but not in the vinyl, so it was something of a coup to an obsessive like myself.

“Red record place” = Generation Records, one of the few record stores in the Village that is still standing the last time I checked (a year or two ago). It would go on to be my favorite NYC record store and I cobbled together much of my (decently extensive) music collection from the (mostly used) CD’s I purchased there. The walls were covered in posters and records, the cashiers were tattooed/pierced/intimidating, and there was usually punk or some other obscure aggressive music playing.

Aftghan Whigs (Greg Dulli is the one smoking, of course)

The Afghan Whigs = an underrated band fronted by Greg Dulli, who had some brief fame in the alternative scene in the mid/late-90′s. Dulli sang about addiction and tormented love affairs while ironically wailing about being a gentleman and offering such lyrical gems as, ”Since you’re aware of the consequences/I can pimp what’s left of this wreck on you/Bit into a rotten one now didn’t you/Now I can watch you chew.”

When I listened to Greg Dulli’s voice, full of arrogance and grit and fury and desperation, it was like being serenaded by the boyfriend from hell.  I could imagine an entire doomed love story playing out, replete with passion, addiction, betrayal… terribly unhealthy but terribly romantic. And I was ready to fall into dark, twisted love whenever I heard those first anguished notes. Dulli went on to front The Twilight Singers, who never had the same intense appeal for me.

“Straight line thing” = booze. My coy way of saying we got tipsy. I was still writing much of my journal in code, in case it somebody read it who shouldn’t again.

“The sculpture moves” = the Astor Place Cube, which can be rotated. For some reason, my friends never believed me when I said it does, until one late night I made them grab a side and push until they saw it does move.

Karaoke = a dorky passion I discovered at Claudia’s house. Her new stereo came with a microphone and song setting where lead vocals could be muted. After belting out a few Tori Amos songs, I was hooked and pretty much have been ever since.

Band = a term Anita and I used when we found a cute guy (meaning we wanted him in our band; that is how music-centric our lives were). The raver boy we saw was really young, which is why Anita referred to him as being more appropriate for her younger sister Jenny’s band. It wouldn’t be the last time I fixated on inappropriate choices for my band…

“No matter where you are I can always hear you when you drown” – SP [Smashing Pumpkins]

Went to the circus yesterday. Didn’t feel well most of the day. Finally on the way home I opened the car door and puked 3 consecutive times. Puked again later that night. What a lovely feeling that was. Had a dream two people lent me two different Cure tapes (or something like that).

I’m watching “The Crow” right now. Liking it a lot. The music in it (Cure, NIN) is very cool. Just going to try to keep some liquids down today.

...

I remember that circus outing quite well, especially its aftermath. I think my parents were more excited to go than I was, because it was the Moscow Circus, which they had probably seen as kids in the motherland or something. I was still looking forward to it; after all, my favorite movie featured a trapeze artist, and I figured if Russians were so good at producing Olympic athletes, they probably put on a good circus.

Mom made me an omelet for breakfast that day, which tasted strange, sweet. I asked what was in it and it turned out she had mixed some orange juice into the eggs because we were out of milk. How she imagined that would be a suitable substitute is beyond me (in later years I think she also used flavored coffee creamer at least once; we’re a family of Russian kooks, what can I say). I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I didn’t make a fuss at ate the whole thing. 

At the circus, I started to feel unwell, breaking out into that ominous sweat that leads to very bad things. The acrobats and clowns were impressive, but my churning stomach made it difficult to enjoy. It could have been a stomach flu that I caught some other way, but I blame those eggs.  I still remember the ride home, too, and my father stopping around the corner from our apartment to get something from the corner deli. When I opened the rear door to be sick, I did not see the little boy watching me from a few feet away until I was done triple-puking. The poor kid looked vaguely traumatized. 

I had this very picture hanging up in my room back in the day.

As for The Crow, I remember news stories reporting Brandon Lee’s accidental death on the set of the film in 1993. He was only 28, engaged to be married, and died at the beginning of what many said would be a promising film career, following in his father Bruce’s footsteps. For whatever reason, I didn’t see the movie when it came out in theaters, because despite the cool leather clothes and dark make-up, it still looked like a shoot-’em-up action movie geared more toward guys.

When I did finally see The Crow on cable, I was taken in by the tragedy of the story (on and off the screen), the music, and of course the gloomy aesthetic. Yes, it was gritty and violent, but at its core it about a man avenging the death of the woman he loved and I found the whole thing to be brutally romantic.  

I was still too passionate about wearing color and listening to a variety of of music to classify myself as a goth, but the foundation was being laid. Between my obsession with Nine Inch Nails, my growing appreciation for The Cure, Joel-Peter Witkin, and Clive Barker, and now movies like The Crow, I enjoyed exploring these darker themes, the drama and intensity of them.

But it’s not like I was about to dye my hair and all my clothes black or anything. That would come later.

“See faces frozen still against the wind” – U2

Ellis Island was not the huge bore I expected it to be. Mom and I had an… interesting train adventure on the way back. The blind leading the blind.

“Glitter Over Disintegration” is the title I decided upon. I made it an acronym on purpose (sort of). This one moved along fairly quickly. It’s relieving to know I can write outside of life experiences.

...

Anita and I have already scheduled our first trip to the Village, this Friday. I want these next 4 days to be over with more than anything. Anita heard that Larry Mullen Jnr was at the DRE acoustic Christmas concert. It’s a little frustrating, yes, but it just wasn’t meant to be, like with the backstage passes.

I’m in the process of dying my hair (reddish-blond, so the box says). “That tingly feeling means it’s working.”

“Destiny protect me from the world” – Radiohead (one of the bands at the DRE thing)

WDRE was a fantastic radio station based out of Long Island that used to be known as WLIR. It was known as the listening destination for alternative music, but balanced the more popular bands at the time like Green Day, Pearl Jam, and Stone Temple Pilots with 80′s alternative that was rarely heard on other stations, like The Smiths, early Cure, and Madness. Back in the day, radio stations used to give out concert tickets, usually to the caller that corresponded to the station’s ID (i.e. Z100 awarded its 100th caller). I wore out my phone’s redial button trying to win all kinds of tickets, but unfortunately, I was never lucky when it came to shows I really wanted to see, like the DRE Christmas concert. Instead, I won tickets for artists/bands I had no interest in, like Barenaked Ladies and Paul Weller. In fact, I won Paul Weller tickets twice and didn’t go to the show either time. I listened to DRE in the last years of its heyday, because a couple of years later it switched format to adult contemporary, which made me pretty much give up on radio.

boat trip, anyone?

 “Glitter Over Disintegration” was about a couple, Rob and Tera, trying to have a picnic on a boat, except for the threat of “shadows” which periodically appear to Rob and slowly drain his humanity. It was my none-too-subtle metaphor for depression. Here’s an excerpt from the last page:

I sank my teeth into my lip to hold back the rising bile and hysteria. Each time the shadows came they took a little bit more of Rob, leaving me with less to look after. I hated compensating for this gradual annihilation.

I reached my arm out but he wouldn’t let me touch him. The gnawing of my frustrated teeth cracked open my thin skin and blood poured over my lip and chin, leaving both wet and sticky. I sat back and lifted my tired eyes when—

It was as if ink was slowly staining the sky, pretty blue being eaten by darkness. The trees shriveled, becoming ash, and the water coagulated into murky gelatinous lumps. The boat spiraled into different directions, pieces of it chipping off and flying into the blackness. I started to scream then abruptly stopped when Rob took my hand. The sadness in his soft face became a resigned fear as he placed his other hand around our wrists.

We kissed as the pandemonium crashed down on us.

Reading that last line so many years later makes me chuckle at all the intense drama I was trying to invoke.

The story was inspired by Tim Wunderlich, a pen pal whose acquaintance I made via a friendship book. Tim was an alternative kid living in a small town full of people who were intolerant of him. Whether it was circumstance, biology or a bit of both, Tim had some pretty intense depressive episodes. His negative rants at the world worried me, but also added to his mystique. And also made me determined (let’s say it all together now) to be the one to save him.  Of course, sometimes my optimism just couldn’t withstand his pessimism and his letters left me depressed, but the good kind of depressed where I was able to channel it into fiction, even if it does read more than a bit melodramatic today.

...

12/10/94

Last night was amazing. Stacey (Claudia’s friend) and I were even worse than I was the first time after “something i can never have.” A song was added to the set “I do not want this.” Almost psychic on that one.

When we were leaving we saw a section of about 8 seats which were completely crushed. It was so inspiring. I’m not going to focus on how it’s over, I was lucky enough to go twice. And if those Lollapalooza rumors are true… I don’t know we’ll see what happens.

My mind is turning to academics now, there’s so much to do it paralyzes me. It’s alright, I’ll deal. Not too many options on that one. I really need to start my next story. No quotes for this one. Possible title: Eyeliner and Pandemonium. I don’t know if I could possibly transcribe the experience on to paper. Not that I’ve actually tried or anything productive like that.

I want so much for winter break to come. Anita and I will go and pay our respects to Bleecker Bob’s. I just need some vinyl and good vibes to re…something me (resurrect? rejuvenate? reenergize?). I need some more halos.

“echoing your voice just like the ringing in my ears” – NIN

After three consecutive nights of mind-blowing concerts (Killing Joke, AKA “The Concert That Changed My Life,” and two Nine Inch Nails concerts), it was inevitable that I’d have some short stories brewing. Back then, other than boys, nothing inspired me more than music and I wore my inspiration on my sleeve, whether male or musical (or both, as in the case of my Trent Reznor obsession). Most of my short stories had some sort of song lyric quoted, and I was drawn to dark themes. A friend from high school once jokingly (but accurately) described my fiction as a showcase for various fucked up characters. And it would only be a matter of time until I wrote about emotional turmoil set to some sort of gloomy, gory concert.

Thankfully, when I finally did write the story, I ditched the title “Eyeliner and Pandemonium” (an overly obvious tribute to the Killing Joke album and the single make-up product I abused in those days). Instead, I called it “How The Heathen Dance,” which was still a Killing Joke lyric, but seemed more literary to me back then, when I was unknowingly pushing all sorts of pretentiousness boundaries. The story was about a girl who goes to a Killing Joke concert at a club not unlike The Limelight and decides at that moment that she no longer believes in God. The great thing about it is that I got to relive a moment that happened to me, and provide the witty comeback I lacked at the time. Here it is:

As we squeezed past the endless wave of people I heard a guy call out:

“How come you have those lines on your face? Is it, like, some symbolic statement that you’re a prisoner inside yourself?”

“Um…I guess.”

“You know, I’m a prisoner inside my pants.” He flipped his brown hair from his face and nodded for emphasis.

“Really. Well I hope it’s a life sentence.” I poked Billie through her army jacket. “Keep moving,” I muttered.

I know, just a matter of time before the Pulitzer board comes knocking on my door, right?

Inside Bleecker Bob's

As for all the blather about record stores and halos, I don’t know why I was so gung ho about getting records when I hardly ever listened to them, but they seemed to have a longevity that cassettes didn’t and they looked cool taped to my bedroom wall. And for the non-NIN fans, every single and album that Reznor released had a halo number on it, so Pretty Hate Machine was “halo one,” etc. There was a rumor that there was a “halo zero” but I never found it.

Bleecker Bob’s is one of the few record stores that’s still around today and the odd thing is, while Anita and I went there frequently, we hardly ever bought anything. It was more about “paying our respects” to what we thought of as a musical landmark and the hope that we would one day run into Joey Ramone browsing inside, since he was rumored to be a frequent patron. Sadly, we never saw him.

[Taped into notebook]

My actual concert ticket from the Nine Inch Nails show.

NIN (set lists)

There are no words or phrases that could even begin to vaguely describe the feelings tonight. That’s why there are no quotes here. I’ll say one thing then I’ll talk about the concert. I have Trent Reznor’s guitar pick (one of them). It is now my prized possession but the story how I got it is really stupid so I won’t even bother. It’s red.

“pinion” began it but he opened with “mr. self-destruct” after it. I was so utterly impressed by the amount of non-typical-concert songs he did (“eraser,” “gave up” and “hurt.” “hurt”!!!). More importantly (sort of) they didn’t close with “head like a hole,” but “something I can never have.” All that I’m going to say is that seeing U2 (whenever they tour again) will really leave me emotional. That’s all goodnight.

Although Claudia and I didn’t get to sneak our way into the General Admission area and get trampled in the mosh pit, we did try. Since our tickets were torn from the previous night but still being honored due to the rescheduled show, they were punched with two holes at the entrance. Except for the General Admission tickets, which were punched with four holes. When Claudia and I noticed this, we tried to make two additional holes in our tickets in the hopes that a less-than-vigilant security guy would wave us through. No such luck. We wandered around a downstairs area of Madison Square Garden we had no business being in, and were finally shooed away, returning to our seats in defeat.

Trent Reznor performing during the Self Destruct tour (not sure which city).

Not that it mattered. After Marilyn Manson opened up for them (barely known at the time and booed a lot during their set) I barely sat down during the entire show. I thrashed my way through every song, a most pit of one, except for the ballads, which made me cry (espeically “something i can never have”). I like to think the tears mixed artfully with the eyeliner, adding to the false trails I drew on my face, but I probably looked more like The Crow after getting caught in a monsoon.

As for the story of how I got that guitar pick, it’s not the story that’s stupid as much as the girl who paid a guy $30 for a tiny piece of plastic he claimed Trent Reznor threw out into the crowd. Mind you, I had no way of proving it was really Trent’s, and the pick didn’t even have an NIN logo on it, but I believed the guy. He initially tried to sell Claudia and me backstage passes for $30 each, but we only had money for one, and even though Claudia suggested I get one and go in alone, I was too intimidated. But the backstage passes were real (they were identical to patch-like stickers worn by other folks being waved through by security), so I figured the guitar pick must be as well. I took the guy at his word and paid what was a lot of money for me back then to own what I believed had been used to make music by one of my musical idols.

I think I still have that guitar pick; I know I must still have it. I quickly searched the file cabinet where I found the concert ticket pictured above, and while I didn’t see it in there, I know somewhere is a piece of paper with a red guitar pick taped to it, with block letters beneath it saying,

TRENT REZNOR’S GUITAR PICK.

It’s here, somewhere.

The Limelight

12/7/94

“Nothing quite like the feel of something new” – NIN

NIN COUNTDOWN: 1 DAY

Robin sprained his finger. It bloody figures. My face got comments. Claudia and I were one of the first ones to find out (“don’t say ‘cancelled’ POSTPONED” I heard through the walkie-talkie).

The Limelight was fantastic, my ears are still ringing with Killing Joke (more likely feedback). Maybe I’ll write a story about that. Hmm… I’ve gotten over my fear of mosh pits. If we don’t find a way to get floor seats tomorrow—no we will find a way. We have to.

“Uncertainty can be a guiding light” – U2

Claudia and I got to Madison Square Garden early and lined up outside the arena. The reason my “face got comments” was because I drew three black spikes under each eye with eyeliner (inspired in part by The Crow without copying it straight out). We stood near a security guard and when I heard the words “cancelled” and “postponed” I thought I was in for one of the biggest disappointments of my teenage life. All that anticipation, only to have Robin Finck, the guitarist for Nine Inch Nails, sprain his finger and unable to play that night. However, there were two saving graces. The first was the fact that the NIN show would only be delayed by one day, with all existing tickets being honored the next night.

The second was a group of guys handing out free passes to a different show that night at The Limelight: Killing Joke. I heard of the band but was only familiar with a song or two of theirs from their latest album, Pandemonium, which were played on MTV’s alternative shows late at night. Seeing as my parents gave me a free pass to stay out late and sleep over Claudia’s house that night, I didn’t want the evening to go to waste and hoped we could still get an adventure out of it.

...

The Limelight was a converted church that played a prominent part in New York’s club scene in the 1990’s (the movie Party Monster was based on the gruesome true events surrounding the club kids and this venue, which was central to their partying). I had never been in a nightclub of any kind before and could sense the dark and debauched vibe when I walked in. Much of the church décor still remained, the pews and filigreed arches mixing with disco lights, dry ice, and metal catwalks to create a dim, disorienting, multi-leveled maze of a club.

I don’t know if it was an all-ages show, but I was just shy of 17 then and too intimidated to do much exploring, so I kept to the stage area, hoping the live show would live up to the surreal surroundings.

The opening act involved an array of sideshow performers eating glass, laying on a bed of nails, and spewing fire. The finale was particularly disturbing and featured a young woman cutting her arm, filling a cup with her own blood and then drinking it. At one point, her knees buckled a little and it looked like she would faint. This may have been part of the act, but I believed it all and was utterly riveted. It was the type of act The Jim Rose Circus, who found pop culture fame as a notorious part of the early Lollapalooza festivals, took on the road, but seeing it up close like that shook me up, in a good way. I was equally fascinated and repulsed.

Finally Killing Joke took the stage, and their metal/industrial-edged music quickly inspired a mosh pit (my first up close experience with one). I remained at the edge of it, avoided the kicking, thrashing whirlpool of bodies and felt like I was absorbing the music with all my senses. The songs were surprisingly melodic despite the aggressive guitars and Jaz Coleman’s vocals, which altered between singing and shrieking.

I had never experienced music on such a visceral level before. Between the setting, the gory opening act, and the mosh pit, there was this sense of barely-controlled chaos to the evening. And as dramatic as it may sound, there was something almost transcendent about it. I knew music was a powerful force, but that I night I experienced a whole other level to it, and even though I can’t exactly say how, I know it changed me.

The assignment was to pick someone in the room, and write a detailed description of them. Then some of the students read their descriptions out loud and the rest of us tried to guess the subject. We weren’t given any restrictions on what we could write apart from not using the person’s name. I looked around the room for potential subjects but then decided to write about myself. Go vain 16-year-old me! Now I kind of cringe at my teenage self-centeredness, but am also glad for the verbal time capsule. Then I actually read through it and cringe again.

...

[WRITING EXERCIZE]

[To this day, I intuitively misspell "exercise" because it seems wrong for the word not to have a "z" in it.]

She has long brown hair that ends 3 inches above her waist. She has been growing it for almost 3 ½ years. She has medium brown eyes (not too large or small) and rather thick eyelashes. Her lips are kind of small, she wishes they were fuller but she wears dark lipstick most of the time anyway. Her eyebrows are slightly arched and she plucks them.

[And let's not forget that the haircut I was growing out was inspired from Chynna Phillips from Wilson Phillips, and necessitated by the need to get rid of the last dregs of a bad perm. Though let's be honest, is there really such a thing as a good perm?]

She loves music and is always wearing a band shirt (usually U2 or Nine Inch Nails). Speaking of NIN, she’s unbelievable excited about the concert in 2 days. She’s going with her friend Claudia and then Friday with Claudia again and Salli too. This concert is something she has been looking forward to for over a month.

She’s really happy that her best friend Anita got Pretty Hate Machine a few days ago. They tried to listen to it in sync (over the phone) but it didn’t work. Amita is the one who got her started on U2 (which many people were ready to murder Anita for later on).

[I remember that Pretty Hate Machine listening party quite well. I had the cassette and I'm pretty sure Anita did, too. We were gradually incorporating CD's into our music libraries during our village outings, but it would be a while before compact discs outnumbered our tapes. Anyway, we spent a ridiculous amount of time on the phone trying to press Play at exactly the same time, but the whirring electronic beats of "head like a hole" always started just a little bit sooner for one of us. No matter how many times we rewound and tried it again, we couldn't get the music to sync up perfectly. I think we still listened to the whole album over the phone, most likely peppered with my enthused and worshipful commentary.]

One of the few U2 shirts I still own. Goes for $50-$80 on eBay!

Since that summer just two years ago she has accumulated quite a lot of U2 stuff. Sometimes, when she can’t sleep, she’ll go over her U2 collection in her head and has estimated it is worth $850 at face value (she underestimates these things though). 

[Some people count sheep, I counted 7" and 9" records, bootlegs, books, magazines, and other scraps of fandom. I still have a box of memorabilia at my mom's place, though I don't think it's worth is going to surpass my 401K any time soon.]

U2 have greatly inspired this person, giving her the words she lives by “dream out loud.” She has learned to accept this part of herself, this “U2-ism” and has come to terms with it in a healthy way (this NIN thing on the other hand…). She now puts together a U2 ‘zine “Faraway, So Close!” that has been doing pretty well (she hopes to complete the second issue over winter break). She’s planning a big trip to Dublin after she graduates and doesn’t really expect to meet any members of the band (such as her favorite, drummer Larry Mullen Jnr) but if she does happen to run into them…so much the better. 

[For the record, I made it through all of my various music obsessions without a single restraining order.]

One more U2 thing, she has met lots of people through penpal listings and such and so now she is in the “U2 network” and has been for over 6 months.

She wants to see if there’s some NIN network (there is On-line, but she’s not with all that).

[Remember when the Internet was this thing you could simply choose not to be part of? No doubt many of you do not.]

She thinks Trent Reznor (who writes, arranges, and performs all NIN songs, hiring people to help during tours) is one of the (if not the) most talented, fascinating people she’s ever known of. His music is so dark and scares so many people (good!) but she finds great strength and expression in it.

This is what you find when you search for a photo of Tori Amos and Trent Reznor together.

She also loves Tori Amos and if you’d ask her who she would like to trade places with right now, she’d say Tori.

[Probably because she was creative and quirky and likely got it on with Trent Reznor.]

Then there are so many other artists and bands she listens to, like The Trash Can Sinatras for the beautiful, tuneful songs. Then there’s Afghan Whigs, Moist, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam for their melodic anger. Also Smashing Pumpkins and Radiohead for the “guitar-driven angst.” And Belly and Liz Phair because she, well she just likes their songs.

[And somehow I never got that music journalist career off the ground...]

While this is in no way a complete portrait of her it is a near-complete musical portrait.

[And a somewhat dull and pretentious one at that, so if you made it all the way through, you deserve a cookie.]

Photo by Joel-Peter Witkin

11/25/94

“She had escaped demons—things of rot and wickedness—and she would have offered up a prayer of thanks for her deliverance if the sky had not been so wide and bright, and so plainly devoid of deities to hear.” – Clive Barker (Cabal)

NIN COUNTDOWN: 12 DAYS

I finally saw some photographs by Joel Peter Witkin. I only looked through the book twice but found that my knees were shaking when I got up afterwards. It wasn’t scary exactly…extremely unusual. That’s always a good quality, I suppose (as long as no harm is done to anyone). Also got some poetry by Bukowski. Taped Figure Drawing. A certain PHM lyric nags at the back of one’s mind.

“Her mind’s downward spiral of morbidity made her fearful—for the first time in her life—of her own mental processes.” – Clive Barker

[Major goth forshadowing going on here.]

More of my teenage code. I thought “Figure Drawing” was some pretentious show or movie I recorded, but it was actually an episode of Beavis and Butthead. And PHM = Pretty Hate Machine, though heaven only knows what lyric I was alluding too. Suffice it to say it was angsty and wannabe-deep.

The "Closer" video, while a decent homage to Witkin, doesn't come close to the intensity of the original work.

The interest in Joel-Peter Witkin was sparked by Trent Reznor mentioning him in an interview. It wasn’t until later that I learned that the Nine Inch Nails video for “Closer” is an homage to his work, which frequently features amputees, cadavers, circus freaks, and compositions out of an S&M nightmare. I still remember seeing Witkin’s photos for the first time. I was at the Mid-Manhattan library doing research for a school project and had some free time, so I headed over to the Photography section. I took the heavy tome to a desk and read a bit about Witkin’s background. When he was a little boy, he witnessed a car accident in which a little girl’s decapitated head rolled toward his feet, which could have triggered a fascination with the macabre. I remember looking through those photos, which I did find disturbing, but I thought I was too cool for school until I stood up to put the book away and found my legs had gone wobbly.

As for Charles Bukowski, that curiosity came from a song on U2’s album Zooropa, “Dirty Day,” was dedicated to the poet. I was a sponge for inspiration back then, and wanted to sift through the influences of my influences, to see if it sparked anything in me. I also lived a pretty sheltered life, so delving into Bukowski’s world of booze, prostitutes, and economic squalor made me uncomfortable, but in a good way.

I guess that was a running theme for my junior year of high school, stepping out of my comfort zone, exploring the things that scared or intimidated me, whether it was a song or photograph or poem, or anything that explored the darker side of human nature (Clive Barker being another good source for that). Maybe it’s because I was a bit too sheltered as a kid, or maybe it’s a phase a lot of teenagers go through. Except that I’m still going through it, to an extent.  Joel-Peter Witkin became, and remains to this day, one of my favorite photographers. I still appreciate Bukowski, too, but find a little goes a long way, and always preferred the poetry to the short stories. On the whole, while I don’t go out of my way to seek out macabre things that will make me uncomfortable, I’m still fascinated with the oddities in life. They’re a reminder that no matter how much we try to make sense of the world, ultimately it’s still a pretty strange place.

"Wise men say..."

11/23/94

NIN COUNTDOWN: 14 DAYS

“I won’t decorate my love” – Liz Phair

I got an FS from the PJ network and felt unworthy. Thanksgiving’s tomorrow. On the U2 clips video there is the sweetest story. Phil Joanou met this woman backstage and after talking to her for just an hour he proposed! They flew to Vegas soon after and were married with an Elvis impersonator present. I think that’s about the most romantic thing I ever heard, KNOWING after just an hour.

(oh my god, I just reread the first quote and almost shivered. It’s very creepy, subconsciously appropriate)

First let’s get the deciphering of my silly acronyms out of the way. FS= Friendship Sheet (like Friendship Book, but all on a single page instead of a booklet.) and PJ= Pearl Jam. It was my needlessly vague way of saying I got a peek into to world of rabid Pearl Jam fans and realized it wasn’t where I wanted to be, considering I was busy being a rabid U2 and Nine Inch Nails Fan. ‘Nuff said.

Now it’s time for romance! Oh me, oh my. The fact that I would consider getting married to someone after knowing them for an hour as the pinnacle of romance should indicate just how dangerously clueless I was when it came to matters of the heart. Forget such pesky matters as taking time to get to know somebody and gauging compatibility before deciding to build a life together. Why bother with such practicalities when you can just become instantly smitten and elope to Vegas?

This movie is many things. Romantic is not one of them.

Years after hearing this story, I came across a movie on cable called Entropy. It was written and directed by Phil Joanou, and was heavily autobiographical. Stephen Dorff stars as a young filmmaker whose life goes topsy-turvy as he tries to negotiate the pressures of being an up-and-coming director with his questionable relationship behavior (namely, marrying a woman during a drunken haze less than 24 hours after meeting her). When I was a teenage romantic, it didn’t dawn on me that perhaps Joanou was not entirely sober when this insta-wedding happened, or that the ensuing marriage didn’t endure. Seeing the film dramatization of his life years later made me reassess this whole story, and in the process, my own tilted outlook on love.

As for the almost-shivering, who knows. It probably had to do with the crush I had on my penpal, who lived several hours away. I also don’t see how it was creepy or subconsciously appropriate, since I often chose quotes for the journal that reflected my mood. It was about as “creepy, subconsciously appropriate” as things were “ironic” in the Alanis Morissette song. Perhaps the better word in both cases would be “unfortunate.”

As for my romantic views, they’ve evolved but still retain an optimistic glow. I still believe in love at first sight, but understand more time and thought should go into making a deeper commitment. I know it can take months if not years to get to really know somebody, and even then there’s usually still more to discover. I believe all the starry-eyed magic behind the first fireworks of love needs a lot of work to be maintained; love doesn’t just take care of itself.

But despite my pragmatic education of the guts and gore of love, at my core I’m still a romantic.

And I still want to elope to Vegas someday and get married by an Elvis impersonator.

...

11/9/94

“I’m drunk and right now I’m so in love with you.” – NIN

NIN COUNTDOWN: 28 DAYS

Yes, the countdown has moved up 2 days because I’m going to the Wednesday show (after Claudia the Wonderful gets us tickets). It was an up day. Don’t care about randomness too much. T.W. Wrote back, just what I need. Wonders indeed (I use that word too much. Even though I don’t use it all that often). Chorus sub looks like a Depeche Mode reject. Bad thing? Naw.

“Love comes in colors I can’t deny” – S.P. [Smashing Pumpkins]

More of my teenage code in this entry, but I’m actually able to decipher most of it.

Collecting crushes became something of an inadvertent hobby for me when I was 16. It was rare for me to go more than a couple of months (or even weeks) without having at least one target for my boy craziness, but sometimes I accumulated a few. I remember a lot of them today, but still can’t recall who “Wonderfully Random” was. If it wasn’t Neil, the younger punk kid, it was some classmate I decided was cute and crush-worthy.

However, none of that mattered because I was smitten with Tim Wunderlich from his first letter (and because of his last name, I was fond of making bad puns using the word “wonders.” Sorry.). He was frustrated and jaded and had the furious male scrawl of a teenage malcontent. Tim lived in a small town full of ignorant people, where he was called a “faggot” because he wore his hair a little long and listened to bands like The Cure and Cocteau Twins. He felt imprisoned and misunderstood, which was something I could identify with (as could just about any other adolescent, I imagine). Even though I lived in one of the most dynamic cities in the world, Hunter was a small school which felt like a microcosm unto itself, a brick prison full of kids who were smart, but not wildly eclectic or unusual–at least not on the surface. And while I had momentary escapes from the school, it dominated my social existence for a long time, and I felt more pressure to fit in than stand out. Tim did as well, but fought back against that pressure and did not pretend to be something he wasn’t. That quality in both Tim and Neil were big reasons I had crushes on them (on top of finding them generally attractive, of course).

You could do a lot worse than having your sub look like this.

Then there was, of course, the “Depeche Mode reject,” which was in reference to a substitute teacher who bore a striking resemblance to Dave Gahan, the band’s lead singer. Even though I was not a fan of the group as a kid, I did gradually like them more and more as my music tastes evolved. And while Dave Gahan was no Trent Reznor, he did have a certain physical appeal at times. And having a temporary chorus teacher who had a similar slender, dark-haired, broody, pale British look to him made me… rather uncomfortable. It was the first–and possibly only– time, I felt attracted to a teacher (not counting my girl crush on Ms. Donaldson, which had no sexual component to it). I was embarrassed by this crush, because it felt taboo to have lustful feelings for a so-called authority figure. Much like the crush on Neil felt wrong because he was so much younger than me, this felt wrong because Mr. Pseudo-Gahan was considerably older than me…  and because I kept picturing him starring in music videos wearing leather pants. I could barely even look at him in the classroom for fear of blushing. Luckily, he only subbed for a few chorus sessions.