Sam Paul - Why I Committed Suicide

If I ever decide to write a book, that Great American Novel we all have inside us, I sure hope I don’t prostitute it out by hiring somebody to write “compelling” or “spellbinding” or “a real page turner” or “Mr. Paul is a master storyteller” just so I can slap quotes on the cover and induce some soccer mom into buying it. Maybe blurbs are needed to sell books to the average American but it sure gets repetitive and hokey when I go into a bookstore and I’m barraged by all the quotes taking up space on the covers. They yell out at me like a circus ringmaster hucking fifty cent peeks at a five-legged elephant. I think saying that a book is “a real page turner” bothers me the most because what’s that really telling me? That I want to turn the pages quickly? That could be good or bad I guess, but it all seems fucking hokey to me. When I write a book, I want to hire somebody to say, “This book is a nasty evil piece of shit and you should not buy this rot under any circumstances.” That would be much better. I found this great quote about Abe Lincoln the other day that I absolutely loved.

“Filthy story-teller, despot, liar, thief, braggart, buffoon, usurper, monster, ignoramus Abe, old scoundrel, perjurer, robber, swindler, tyrant, field-butcher, land-pirate.”

I think maybe those words helped inspire me today. Sometimes it’s my day to sit and vent about all the stupid things that are out of my control in my life, so please forgive my tangents. Thank you and goodnight. Elvis has left the building.

“I have always loved marijuana. It has been a source of joy and comfort to me for many years. And I still think of it as a basic staple of life, along with beer and ice and grapefruits—and millions of Americans agree with me.”

Greetings sports fans. Welcome to the wide and wacky world of occasional journal writing. Apologies to me for not writing for the past few months but various important things are occupying my life right now. Things that are SO damn important that if I wrote them down I would have to shoot myself after forcibly ingesting this paper. Okay, okay, I’m really just slacking, I admit it, but my life has been stuck in the doldrums of ennui due to familiar routine. Interest lies in the everyday details but I just can’t justify taking the time to write down what I’ve done each week when the majority of my journal entries would just read: “Smogged out on pot, went to class, went to work.” (Repeat and combine in any order)

No, really though, school is school es una escuela. It IS getting more interesting now that my basic bullshit classes are out of the way and I am strictly focusing on my major. I chose the RTVF major after seeing the type of assholes I would be working with for the rest of my life if I’d kept going after my Business degree—the frat jocks with jobs already lined up at their daddy’s companies, whose butts I would be kissing for the rest of my fucking life just to reach middle management. RTVF is also the major I chose after suggesting to my parents I was likely going to take a semester off (while secretly already in the middle of taking a semester off) and suddenly seeing their over-the-top willingness to financially support me with school rather than see me descend into gradual blue collar hell. If I had known the threat of dropping out would make them help me pay for school I would have tried that tactic much earlier. Who says the caste system is dead? The long and short of it is that in the midst of figuring out why I was happy, I personally concluded money is not as paramount to my happiness as I thought it was and with the renewed financial support of my family I’m taking classes that I not only excel in, but also enjoy. Except for the technical terminology textbook aspects of my classes, most of what I’m doing seems too elementary to me to be viable for a practical career application, but who knows?

The television studio production course I’m enrolled in now is fun because I can rely on my raw creativity to cover up my laziness, just like in high school. Our last project was the production of our own 15-minute TV show and mine was titled “How To Carve A Pumpkin” because I had limited resources (no money) and it was right after Halloween so I could steal some pumpkins for props. It was very bogus but I pulled it off with aces.

Keeping with the pumpkin motif, Jenifer and I went to see The Smashing Pumpkins the day after Halloween at this place down in Dallas called the Bomb Factory. Her ex, Kristoff, was there back from hobnobbing around Europe but it was cool because we became fragile friends after he realized that I treat Jenifer with more love and respect than he ever did. The new Pumpkins album, Siamese Dream, is totally bad ass. After working all night at the Tomato on Thursdays and Saturdays, we crank up the jukebox and play their whole disc. I think it’s so good that this might be the last time we’ll ever get to see them in such a small venue. Of course being the pre-stadium gods that they are, they completely rocked my dick off. To kick off the show they played that one song by Arrested Development over and over until the whole audience was pissed off and ready to rock. Jenifer did her own thing and watched from her own little world, letting the waves of sound give her orgasms, producing that humming buzz only live music can generate. I stared and danced like a white boy on ecstasy, just having a good time. It had been a while since a worthwhile concert came through Dallas and we really enjoyed ourselves. Jenifer’s 21st birthday was on October 23rd and it was about as uneventful as mine, even though I racked my brain trying to come up with something special for her. I made a point of asking her what it felt like to be 21 on the morning of her awakening into true adulthood, but her only response was a beautiful smile for my asking and remembering or reminding her of the awaited day. It was a dumb question but I wanted to see if anyone else thought growing older was as anticlimactic and indifferent as I did. Maybe we should relish this time together because youth is fleeting and 21 is a great marker for our midway point, if we can even last until we’re 42. We’re an official part of the big bad world now, the odds are against us, we don’t know what we want, our suicide pact is firmly in place, and we’re deeply entrenched in the typical generation X notion that hard work equaling happiness is a bunch of bullshit.

I heard an advertisement the other day that summed it up for me. “Tell me what it is, what it does and don’t play the fucking national anthem while you do it.” Well it was something like that anyway. I suppose I could go off on the whole philosophy of my generation but I won’t. The truth is everybody thinks differently but there are a lot of us who are depressed by it all. We’re tired of being classified by the clothes, drugs, religion, race and wealth that don’t seem to bring anyone happiness. Hey, I don’t mind being marketed to or exploited by you, just please remember I will never be you.

I’m an American adult with the mind of a teenager that’s jaded like an old war veteran. I’m the descended bastard child of multiple European countries. I have no fucking ethnic pride so I don’t feel the burden of cause placed on me by my ancestors. Pride is a crutch of the insecure. I’m an amalgam; you made me and now I make you. The end is the beginning is the end. Ad nauseum.

My diversity is often shown through the use of my offensive vernacular. My favorite word right now is “FUCK” and its many uses. I really don’t even consider it a swear word anymore unless I substitute “FREAK” or “FRIG” which sounds worse to me because then I know I’m drawing attention to the fact that I meant to say “FUCK”.