Sam Paul - Why I Committed Suicide

So I usually just bite the bullet, drive around lost and find my way to wherever I’m going eventually.

Anyway, it was in the fourth grade when I was introduced to the fierce competition that always goes along with, and is encouraged heavily in, Texas sports. I probably thought at first that the extended summer had something to do with the drive for constant abusive outside activity to these slow talking folks, but after experiencing the summer seasons’ heated oppression it had to be something more primal that drove the natives, some sort of blood lust that would motivate them to worship high school football and fierce competition in general.

My favorite sport of choice in the fourth grade came from the enraptured feeling of pleasure I got playing kickball. Kickball: all the rules and physics of baseball without the legal liabilities of children hurtling small rock-hard objects at each other. I’ve always been moderately swift, moderately coordinated and uncharacteristically strong for a wiry white fella, so sports like baseball, volleyball, track and especially kickball were my bitches. In fourth grade Physical Education class Mrs. Keys would make us play kickball ALL the time. I became a kickball expert and knew how to exploit the weaknesses of my classmates to excel as much as anyone truly can in the pre-baseball sport.

One of Mrs. Keys’ children died when I was in the fifth grade. He was riding in the back of a pick-up truck and bounced out. I remember thinking that was a really terrible thing at the time and I remember my friend James telling my mother that at least Mrs. Keys had other children so it wasn’t a total loss. James with his amped up hyper-intelligence was always very pragmatic and callous because he was raised in a large Catholic family.

Anyway, we had a substitute for a while that led the P.E. class and she knew absolutely nothing about physical education of any sort. I’m sure it isn’t particularly hard, you either give the kids free reign or organize them into teams and let them beat the energy out of each other. This substitute had us playing kickball one time and when it was my turn I booted the ball way off into the distance, determined to go for the homerun. My competitive spirit was in full bloom and I was a blond-haired golden god who could run like the wind. It was close but the ball came in as I was rounding third base. I was running towards home plate and saw the kid catch the ball and try to get a grip on it to tag me out. Going full throttle I ran at him and as he prepared to tag my chest I went under him, hitting a patch of gravel, and sliding with my bare skin over the hot blacktop into home plate for the run. It totally fucked my shit up. I was crying and had to go see the nurse and tolerate her dabbing my entire fleshy leg in peroxide. I got patched up and sent back to the field only to find out that the sub had called me OUT, despite effectively avoiding the tag while sustaining my injury. I argued. I showed her my bloody leg. I practically pleaded with her as she just moved the game along to making my run’ count to no avail.

As I sat tripping in the field of the final dead show in California I had an epiphany watching the Grateful Dead’s graphic displays on giant television screens, while they played something or other I didn’t recognize. In that split second of time I remembered everything about what I just wrote down, finally realizing why I hated sports so much for all these years. What I thought was an unbiased educated dismissal of an entire community was actually only a response to an inadequacy from my past. I realized every bad sports memory I have was a device of my own creation as a result of my feelings from one single stupid incident. I would never have associated disliking sports with childhood trauma but once that thought was acknowledged I couldn’t turn away from the truth. I have been playa-hating, literally, for most of my life based on an elementary school memory so deeply rooted only the perfect combination of meditation and hallucinogens could have brought enlightenment to the surface. How can I hate something that simply is? All the experiences of my life have immersed me in the joy and complex simplicity of life so why am I devoting my angst and ire to something I have no control over?

So, I guess maybe I’m probably the only person in the world who learned to re-appreciate sports at a Grateful Dead concert.

The “Steal Your Face” with the San Francisco Giants logo in it. Everything finally made sense in that one instant, like I had made a connection to the world. It gave me a lot of things to think about. It helped let me give up my fear and wrong thoughts concerning sports. The bitterness left me. I even understood I didn’t need any more LSD. I had used it to get where I needed to be and now I have a bit of things to think about.

Looking back, I think maybe I was soul searching a little when I decided to take this trip, but it turned out to be far more enlightening than I ever expected it could be. Ever since coming to college I’ve been aware that there is so much more to life than just dreary old Texas towns. This is a knowledge that has motivated lots of different road trips and mini-adventures, each of which has helped to expand my consciousness and make me a much more well-rounded person. Being poor and willing to travel unaccompanied by the comforts of home (that’s a laugh) has helped me to avoid the Teddy Roosevelt method of exploration where everything becomes sanitized. I’m a firm believer in total immersion and this trip has been exemplary. I’ve done and seen so many cool new things and I finally got the chance to let go and fall truly and deeply in love with reciprocation. So while I’m sad my vacation is nearly over, I’m tired and looking forward to being wrapped in Jenifer’s loving embraces again. It’s a good feeling to know that somebody is waiting for you at the end of a long hard road. Like a soothing shower after a long day of manual labor, a small slice of heaven. (Cue the Crue here) “I’m on my wayyyyyy…”

The last show for the season in California was excellent but I’m beginning to think too much of a good thing might spoil me. I didn’t want my tired body hardening my brain against everything I should be appreciating and enjoying so I feel we’re heading back to Texas at the perfect opportunity. Besides the summer shows are all over now, so there’s really nowhere left to go. I wonder what happens to the caravans in the off-season?

John S’s girlfriend is heading to Austin to see the Phish shows and she did her best to talk us into going too. I can tell my three traveling companions wanted to go and I felt like a dick for having to be the voice of reason and explain how we are all out of money and energy and there’s no guarantee we’ll even get to see the shows. I could have probably been talked into attending also (those wily hippie chicks!) if I didn’t have the sense that Jenifer is waiting at home for me in anticipation. Besides I’m afraid my experience seeing the Dead will dilute any experience I have seeing Phish and I’ve heard they are worth appreciating.

Winding home has been very, very strange. Police are always a problem for a van full of long-haired people but I’ve been especially nervous because not only are we still stoned silly, but now I’m transporting the leftover ten or fifteen hits of acid from the shows with me. Instant felony, just add police.

Nobody paid much attention to the gas gauge because we were all so fucked up on the last of the kind bud and hash we smoked in New Mexico, so we ran out of gas and came to an awkward stop on the highway in the middle of butt-fuck Egypt. Everybody just kind of looked at each other in disbelief and things were looking kind of bleak because there wasn’t anything even remotely like a man made construct as far as we could see and nobody was stopping to help four smelly hippes. Then a cop car pulled up and started fucking with us. Pushing us around, the officer was asking what we were doing (ran out of gas, duh!) and the kinds of the questions that usually preclude wanting to search the car. Things were getting way serious when all of a sudden, this crazy Christian man, wearing overalls and driving a beat up blue pinto, swerves around the highway and zooms onto the scene. He gets out and immediately takes over the situation, thanking the officer for stopping to help us even though it was quite obvious to everyone that’s exactly what he was NOT doing. Then from some magic Pinto place in his car he pulls out an extra can of gasoline that he just happens to have with him to help us get down the road to a gas station. While we’re putting the petrol in our tank the bible beater actually gets the pig to leave by intimidating him with Bible verses and that psychotic faithful intensity only a true believer can posses. If the guy weren’t so obviously loony tunes I would swear it was divine intervention. God is good and he surely works in mysterious ways. If I hadn’t been so loopy, the situation would have been a lot scarier and John B was so grateful that we didn’t have to go to jail he gave the guy his last $20 for helping us out.