Sam Paul - Why I Committed Suicide

New Orleans was still New Orleans. We ate beignets at the Café Du Monde, sipped their strong coffee and watched this teenage mime full of angst literally go fucking postal on the crowd that was watching him. He started yelling at the people (so they CAN fucking talk!) and he even decked some senior citizen before some jocks in the crowd held him down for the cops. It was one of the strangest things I’ve seen in my life. I’ve seen the street performers fight each other for intruding on pan-handling turf, but I’ve never seen a mime get violent, I just thought they were all gay, gentle-spirited boys.

A lot of daylight hours, a lot of walking trying to show Kirk everything in the city. If we hadn’t been slightly high and if Kirk had been gone it would have been very romantic for the two of us. One day we’ll get out here by ourselves. Not every journey can be comfortable; the most memorable ones often are not.

Sweet morphine dreams erratically lulled me into sleepyland last night. It gave me an odd feeling of peace and happiness that washed over my pinched body today. It’s like everything feels the way it should feel. It started with an amazing dream I had this morning and on our drive home I realized what it was. Somebody has died recently and they are watching over me. They are at rest and I am tuning them in as they watch the world as a whole entity for the first time in their existence and embracing it in them. Like a giant bear hug on a fuzzy dog, the world is right today.

I’m sorry that this person died but they are happy… I just wonder who it was. New Orleans is one hell of a wicked city with lots of ghosts. I’m sure glad we came this year.

David, Bryce, Kirk, Jenifer, Gabe, Dan, Jerry and I all went to the Lollapal-ooza concert today. I went to the first one back when I started college, during that awkward summer transition from high school graduate to college freshman. At that time Lollapalooza was the motherfucking shit. I was finally out of hell school and I got the chance to see Jane’s Addiction and a whole day full of other cool bands. That first tour pretty much raised the bar for concert achievement in the nineties, after that, paying $20-$30 to see one or two average bands stumble through their hits on tour was tame and weak. Lollapalooza set the standard that should have always fucking been there. At the end of “Gift”, there’s a tour highlight of Perry and Ice-T standing in each others face singing “Don’t Call Me Nigger” by Sly Stone. Where else do you get to see the Butthole Surfers shoot a shotgun out over the crowd while busting beer bottles over their heads? Where else do you have 50,000 white kids screaming “Fuck the Police” in unison for one day? Where else do you get to see the Violent Femmes play a quick daytime set? It was one of the great ones. That first concert influenced and opened my mind nearly as much as seeing the Dead did. In fact the festival environment was obviously patterned after the Dead shows.

Since the first tour, the bill has generally declined to feature more flavors of the month than established quality, but I’ve been to every one of the shows so far and I had a fucking blast each time. I was starting to think I might have to quit going to the Lollapalooza tours altogether but this year featured the Beastie Boys along with The Smashing Pumpkins in a double headliner show and it was totally awesome. Following tradition we all tripped. It was the first time Jenifer and I had done acid in a long time which made a lot of the opening bands we didn’t know much about more interesting. We got to see George Clinton and his P-Funk and The Breeders who I really wanted to see since I’m a big Pixies fan from way back. Nick Cave was there too and it was an really odd experience to see him and his band playing out in the sunshine; it made Bryce’s acid kick in and the whole scene was freaking him out until Jenifer grabbed him by the arm and said “It’s gonna be ok sugah.” To see the effect that her words had on him, to see the relaxation come over his face as his brain came to grips with the possibility that “yeah, maybe things were gonna be ok”, reminded me so much of why I love her and the amount of goodness she has inside her. I try to write down what I can but as much as I try and gather the best details of my day, those unimportant details that mean so much when I’m out with my friends are ultimately best left to memory and imagination. My words can only serve as my reminders to scenes that I can’t replicate anyplace but in my own head.

Towards the late afternoon Kirk, Jen and I snuck off to the second stage where it was rumored either The Flaming Lips or Verve were going to do a special set but it turned out that The Smashing Pumpkins came out in all their indifference and put on a pre-concert. They just played all their old stuff out of appreciation for the fans. Not even for their fans necessarily. They came out on the second stage without anybody in the audience having any idea who was even going to play—they just wanted to play music for fans of music. It was really cool because you can no longer see the Pumpkins in an intimate environment. Their album I raved so much about finally took off, they’ve been around and won all the awards and now they pack arenas full of screaming fans. I’m glad I saw them at the Bomb Factory way back when I could still afford to get close to the stage. By the looks on the other band-mates faces it seemed like Billy Corgan, with his Uncle Fester baldhead, was making them come out and play in the hot sun for us, reinforcing my image of him as an old geek that used to love going to concerts just like me. It earned my respect and they were very careful to end their small show right as the B-Boy’s came out on the main stage.

I ran like hell through the crowds of people and joined the rioters, making a desperate plunge to get close to the stage area where I found some cuties near the front and proceeded to stand with them and sing along to the songs like an annoying fuck while I danced like the funk master I am. It was an incredible set, a cornucopia of hits that even included a tricked up version of “Eggman” off Paul’s Boutique. Now that I have seen the Beasties in concert I truly can die a happy man.

After sitting in the sun all day, drinking beer and frying our skin and brains, we could only stay for the first half of the Pumpkins main set when they finally came back out to finish the concert. They started playing after dark and this time when they played it was the total opposite of the private show we got from them earlier. The whole band had on silver suits and rock star gear with full stage lights and amps that could make your ears bleed. It was pretty awesome to feel the power chords rip the place apart and the energy they put into everything, but by that time Jerry was feeling pretty ill from the day and it was time for us all to go. I don’t blame him. I was pretty much running on adrenaline by then since even the acid had worn off a while back. Gabe had already gone a long time ago. He’d managed to sneak in some syringes to do in the bathroom; and after that, he wasn’t very interested in the shows.

We all piled into Jerry’s car and left with our “Aloha, Mr. Hand” tour shirts, memories, idle minds and ringing ears. Jerry drove about 90 trying to get us home and got stopped for speeding through Farmer’s Branch for his efforts, about a ~ mile from where I grew up. I pretty much thought Jerry was going to get arrested when he got pulled over, he had been drinking all day long so I figured he was going to jail and I was likely fucked too since I was stuck in the backseat riding bitch between two people who were likely holding drugs of some sort. After a long and freaky ordeal to convince the officer he wasn’t drunk, including having to walk a fucking straight line along the highway, Jerry got us all home without another incident. I took some roofies, ordered a pizza and did bong hits until I passed out, letting my tense muscles relax into sweet oblivion.