Then The Letting Go...

I did something this past weekend that I needed to do for a long time; I let go. For the past 5 or 6 years, I had spent a lot of time harboring feelings about people that ultimately mean nothing, and stunted my progression as a human being in all respects to try to impress people and to be something I'm not. My soul has been marred by envy, hatred, and low self-esteem, and for a long time I thought that there was a good reason for all of this. I thought that there was some poetic recourse for this, and my mindframe during my fits of rage was that "I'll show them!" and then vow to write pages and pages and pages of verses I can mold into the next "Rid of Me" but only to find myself not writing much of anything, and just pacing around my house being pissed off for no good reason, and just flat out bitch about it, and have people kind of boost my ego for some lame reassurance for something deep down I already knew, but my neurosis needed to hear it again and again to keep my self-image at bay for the time being.

My tale of self-deprecation began in middle school. I had spent the better part of elementary school as an outcast because I knew I was different. I preferred reading over sports, and Nirvana to Naughty By Nature. I was bullied a great deal, and beaten up on several occasions. Come middle school, I finally met a few people who had the same interests as me, and I had hoped that it would solve all my problems, I can create some sort of identity for myself, maybe form a band, and be "cool" (whatever the fuck that is). My best friend was a guy, who I shall call Kenneth (his middle name). From early 7th grade to about the first half of 8th grade, we were inseparable. We were the yin to each other's yang, we related to each other, we wrote songs together (bad ones, but still, better than nothing), and I honestly felt that I had found a guy who truly identified with me, and me with him. It was great. But, for reasons I still don't know to this day, he just... changed. I don't know if it was drugs, or influence from his other friends to latch away from me, or he was afraid to tell me if he didn't like me or whatever, I'll never know. Around this time, he started to pursue a career in acting, which was fine, but he would make plans with me then blow me off all the time with no phone call/email/IM beforehand, leaving me in the cold for that day or weekend or whatever. If I had a nickel for every time this happened, I'd have enough money for 2 years at NYU. I guess it started when we formed this bad metal/hardcore band called Endorphin, which splintered apart, and by all accounts, Kenneth quit. But he never told me, and I didn't find out until someone sent me a link to this new "band" he had formed, and I had gotten questions from some friends about what happened to our band, Endorphin. I felt betrayed like I never felt before. But I forgave him, and lived in denial that there was discourse in our relationship, probably because I was afraid of going back to the isolation I felt in elementary school, and I figured that this was better than nothing. Sure, we'd still hang out on occasion, but he would make plans with our friends without me several times, and canceled me out of many conversations.

This sadomasochistic friendship carried on into high school. One of the defining moments of this time period for me was when he formed another band with this kid named Alex, who had been a bassist in Endorphin briefly in 8th grade. And he resurrected the name Endorphin, and gave me a cassette demo of a song they had did. The song sucked, but I thought it was really good at the time, and I wrote this lengthy diatribe to him, saying that I was hurt that he had used the name we had came up with without my consent, and that I wasn't considered at all to be in the band. And he just wrote it off. He did let me in the band for like 3 days, but I was just a guy who would program their shitty drum machine for demos they redid over and over again, and I did some spoken word thing for a song at some lame show they did. Nothing came from this band, they never went anywhere, and I'm glad of that, but I guess I was, and still am, a man of principle, and the principle of the situation was beyond shitty, and what he did was something I would NEVER do to someone I considered a close friend, which says a lot about Kenneth. We would write stuff together on-and-off for a few years, we went to shows together until 2004, but by then it was truly a friendship of convenience at this point. It was me hanging on to a friendship that was diagnosed with a fatal tumor in early 2000, and me putting every resource I had into keeping it alive when really it should have gone out gracefully and without unnecessary suffering.

What really infuriated me for years was that Kenneth was a major part of my identity in the eyes of other people. He dropped out of school in the 10th grade to work on his acting career full-time (and his credits include a deleted scene in a cult movie, an indie movie that garnered about as much attention as a pig taking a shit, and a few walk-on roles on a few TV shows; some career, ay?), and I guess to be weird, and artsy and unique, or whatever. So I would get questions from almost EVERYONE in my class who knew me and him, and ask me questions about what he was doing, why he dropped out of school, and all that shit, like I was his spokesperson or something. They would rarely ask me how I was, or what was up with me. It was all about Kenneth. And for years that stripped me of any identity I had. I still had a group of friends I went out with, and played pool and all that shit, but I still had this phantom to try to cope with as well. And a new identity I'm still trying to carve out (aren't we all?).

I'm not exactly sure what was the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to our friendship. I know it was in 2004. I had gotten him a ticket to go see Rush, and he never showed up, something he had never done before. He had been late plenty of times, but never blew off a concert. He paid me back, but still... That year, he also formed yet another band, but by that time, the cloth over my eyes on his supposed "talent" and "brilliance" was starting to unravel, partially thanks to me dating someone who wasn't impressed with him at all. His band made a CD. To review it briefly, it was just ordinary but it was trying to be weird. He tried creating a few Can-esque sound collages, and wrote songs about infanticide and "acts of pure, pure color" (yeah, that's right), and there was nothing compelling about the composition of the songs. As far as his vocals... he would do fine if his vocals were laconic, and I always told him that, but his vocals were beyond histrionic. He would try to channel Neil Young, or Kurt Cobain into lyrics that had as much substance as a kernel of popcorn. I went to a couple of shows he had, and I just was tired of his shit by that point. I was tired of being his fanclub and not being appreciated. I hated his asshole artist friends, and all the insufferable pretentious girls he dated. I realized that most of his writing flat out sucked, and little by little cut ties with him. I talked to him briefly once last year, and never spoke to him again after that, for no reason except the fact that I had no desire to.

However, not speaking to a person doesn't mean they vanish forever. I still felt like I had to compete with him somehow. I still felt like I had to impress people by stuff like traveling or going to shows or by materialism, which Kenneth did nonchalantly. He came from a pretty well off family, so going skiing, or having good musical equipment and the original pressing of Blonde on Blonde on vinyl came almost naturally to him. That, and the people I know talked of him as if he was this great person who is immensely talented and all that, and they were more interested in him than me. I also befriended a couple of other people briefly who were "unique" but it seemed forced, and they were just pretentious shitheads. What I mean is people that write bad poetry, worship Wes Anderson, and list things such as vegan peanut-butter milkshakes, and exploration as interests on their myspace pages. Now, I'm not saying that all people who watch Wes Anderson movies are pretentious assholes, but it's an almost-constant pattern in life. As for listing obscure and esoteric interests on your myspace page (i.e. airports, vegan peanut-butter milkshakes, spontaneity, etc) is just plain old pretentious, and self-righteous. It just screams "I'm so goddamn unique, worship me!" and in the process, makes you seem like you're better than everyone else, except the few you've allowed into your self-important world, and have those that don't look to you like you're an emperor, and they're your tailor. I was a tailor for many an "emperor" (they only were emperors in their own mind) for many years, and I sewed my last stitch last year with some other girl I tried in initiating a friendship. She was one of those people, like Kenneth, who had to fill her life up with being busy for the sake of being busy, and would only hang out with you if she felt like doing you a favor, like if you were free to hang out once in a while, you're a loser with no life. The last show my band played in 2007, she said that she'd come, but never came, yet went to college in New York, formed a "band" and then texted me at 2:45 one morning while I was sleeping and said "Come to NYC on this day and see my band play!" And I was like "fuck you!" She couldn't be bothered to come to my show, so why should I spend money on a train ticket to New York, when I can't really afford it, and see a folk duo who isn't all that good anyway? I never said this to her, and probably never will, but... this is turning into a tirade against people I used to be friends with.

For a long time, I wanted to be like one of those people. I bought into that "High Fidelity bullshit," as Henry Rollins put it, and envied people who were snobby like that (at the time, I thought it was "profound"). I wanted to fit in somewhere, with some clique (I guess "hipsters," for lack of a better term). But, I hate labels, and the personifications of labels are complete snobby assholes who take you for granted. My conflict for a long time is that I was too weird for the "normal" preppy kids, and too "normal" for the arty people. My point is; I don't need to try to impress people anymore. I like the music I like because it appeals to me, and not to be cool. I don't measure my success because I go to all the latest shows to see the latest hip bands, have 30987 pictures (and almost that many friends) on my myspace, or whether or not I traveled to LA at age 17 and lived there in squalor for 3 months. I have a few close friends who accept me for who I am, and honestly, the most fun I had was with my girlfriend and two other friends, and all we did was watch movies and drink beer. We didn't feel the need to discuss the latest Stereolab record, or poems by T.S. Eliot (shit, most of my friends don't listen to Stereolab or read T.S. Eliot, but that's more to prove my point about the people I desperately tried to fit in with). It was just fun. I have friends I talk about music with, but I don't get too close to them a lot of the time. I don't force it neither. If I hang out with them, I hang out with them. I learned my lesson of forcing friendships that weren't meant to be more than what they are sometimes. I'm in a band with two people who don't share the exact tastes as me, but we write good shit and we have a creative energy that eclipses any connection I had with Kenneth.

I also realized that as a writer, and as a person, I was perfectly fine the way I was, with the usual developmental flaws everyone has growing up. There were moments where I didn't think of what others thought of me back in high school, and I was content with not hearing from Kenneth for weeks at a time, and being really happy. Granted those moments didn't come often, but happiness like that comes in short doses. I'm a likable guy, when all is said and done, but a guy who also lets his emotions, fears and anxieties get the best of him since the age of 8. I was also depressed the past month or so because I lost my job at Starbucks. But, so the fuck what? A lot of the people I worked with revolved their lives around Starbucks, even outside of work, and I didn't fit into that mold. Why should I feel like a loser because I left work-related stuff at work, and I wasn't a walking and talking Starbucks manual? I'm getting too old to worry about other's perceptions of me, and I should only concern myself with those who do care about me and have earned my trust, and friendship, instead of being a groupie to those who dispose friends faster than toilet paper, and take people and connections for granted.

To sum this all up; if anyone feels that I'm not cool enough to be their friend because I'm not a clone of you, then FUCK YOU! I don't need you! There, I said it.

You all probably feel like I'm silly and stupid, and childish, but I'm sure that everyone has their own humiliating story of trying to fit in and force yourself to try to fit in at a great cost to yourself. It's human nature, and for everyone dealing with it now, the best advice I can give you is not to care. It'll only end up hurting you in the long run. Live for yourself, and carefully evaluate the people you know in life, and sort out which ones mean the most to you, and which ones are expendable and you can picture your life without. It took me 23 years to do that. So the younger you start doing shit like that, the better off you'll be. Thank you, and goodnight.

Postscript:

I almost forgot something. Kenneth always said that I was a better writer than him and a better guitar player. Whatever I wrote came naturally, and my playing had soul, according to him. He also told me in a few moments of weakness that he had a lot of respect for me because of dealing with a shitty family life, yet managing to keep my shit together, and he wished that he had the same composure. I don't entirely agree with him still, to this day, but he must have had to be somewhat jealous of me in that respect, and I'm not even trying to be arrogant. I was always told I was a commendable writer, and I could do whatever I put my mind to. Hell, one of my lasting friendships was with a guy no one liked because he was weird, overweight and unconventional. But he didn't give a shit. I always think of this at times, and then forget it, because I let myself be duped by people who long to be the center of attention, and who feed off of attention stupid people give to them. OK, enough already! You made your point!