Come in J9,

What's going on? I'm trying to write a short story about a young man who goes to school in Canada where he knows no one but a dozen or so baristas by the name of "Sarah," and one barista who spells her name with a number. The boy moves away from Canada for the summer to "get rich in the least possible amount of time," but can't seem to convince his stingy boss that he is worth more than $10 an hour and has to work a night job as well for a portly gentleman who isn't willing to climb extension ladders. Even though he heeds his doctor's warning to "quit drinking coffee or deal with the unbearable nausea," he grows poorer by the day and is forced to take on even more work and attend fewer social activities than the already meager once-a-month schedule. While in the past, it would seem that divine intervention kept him from attending the TOM festival (200 punk bands/five days), he narrows his eyes to slits, ignores the bill collectors who hover about him, takes a sip of his grande, almond, Maalox, and consults his dizzying intellect.

I don't know Janeen, it just doesn't seem believable enough. It would be nice if I could write a story that wasn't a gothic. A gothic short story written by a sharp-as-a-whistle like me is generally about as disturbing as a J. Crew catalogue, or a diet Pepsi with a lemon slice and a bendy straw. I'll leave you to make up your own mind about it I suppose.

9:00PM is late for this old boy so I'm going to stop confusing you for now. Did I mention that I went to Radiohead at the Gorge? Very good. You were probably there--you're so hip and all. Drink a Grande, Almond, Latte for me.

Josh Duff!

This comes from a short story I wrote years ago. The poem was written by a rather wordless character named Jeff, for a girl named Amanda who had just slit her wrists. He loved her. I think there were elements of autobiography when I wrote the story. But, just hints.

My head is spinning with a billion stars tonight. It’s late, it’s late, and I’m full of life. the moon is both-ways round, I see this clearly now. The darkness begins to fade, and I muse at the fact that I don’t want it to stay. I think of you, I think of you, and the words you spoke tonight. The way I think has changed--I’ve changed all around. I can’t remember the way I was just hours ago, and I think of you.

Regarding Rocker Cars:

You are perhaps wondering what I and my alter-ego (as it were) Adam drive. Perhaps you are not--I am almost certain you are not--but here it is. You may judge for yourself who is better off.

Josh: silver ‘83 Honda Accord .
Transmission: 5-sp.
Engine: running.
System: tape deck/four speakers-multiple speaker holes.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
I bought the “Silver Bullet” from the brother of the original owner shortly after the original owner died of cancer. It is a major smoke’s car, of course, which is ok because I like small, fresh-scented trees swinging all around me while I drive. It’s pretty much always run nominally, except for that time--just as the sun was setting--just as I was getting near (within a hundred miles) of a town. Oh well, hitchhiking 70 miles in the dark is easy for someone who can fake like they have to walk with their arms. Aesthetically my car is not what it used to be. I was telling the guy at Les Schwaab today that my car was the “race car” and he laughed--almost a “you poor dummy” laugh. I am not a dummy. I am a sucker however because my car has four dents in it and all of them have been put there by friends who have managed to maintain their third-grade fascination with karate. I could use a little money for that, thanks. Sucker.

Adam: tan ‘82 Datsan something or other.
Transmission: Irritable.
Engine: I-4.
System: “tape deck”/one blown speaker and one really blown speaker.

Adam didn’t buy his car at all actually. He got it from the girl who made mistake of letting him drive it. He wrecked it which resulted in the right side doors being smashed in. She said he could have it. Adam’s car, which we may call “Target” after the large red target the new owner has painted on the side, still drives but you have to get into it from the drivers side no matter where you’re sitting. It is a three speed. 0 while the brakes are firmly applied, 34 up hills, and 77 down hills. Adam did mention that he got a ticket--I think it was for going downhill in a 55. I don’t know, ask him. Adam’s car isn’t all bad however, it is the only car I know which can go forward, reverse or shop abruptly while in “N,” which I am told traditionally stands for “Neutral.”

www.adamatlast.blogspot.com and I have several things in common. I have taken the liberty of writing out a list of these commonalities, assuming that you are interested enough to warrant me spending the time. The following list should establish the fact that Adam and I are in fact one and the same person. Are we? Are we?

1. Our undying affections for a girl our friend is dating.
2. An infatuation with Starbucks coffee and the women who serve it.
3. An unhealthy commitment to the Simpsons.
4. We are the only two people in the world who have four copies each of the Ninety Pound Wuss single, "In Silence (Whom Can You Trust?)."
5. We are both rock kids in the obscure tradition of dark romantic post-punk experimentalism (although I am more rock than Adamatlast could ever hope to be).
6. We both wear pants.
7. We share the belief that because we don't have girlfriends right now that we will spend our summers surfing, camping, fishing, etc., rather than mope around in the city, going to shows, and engaging in dialogue about why we need to change our lives.

For those of you who never really got into C. S. Lewis, here's his best:

As the Ruin Falls

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love--a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.
--C. S. Lewis "As the Ruin Falls."

Thought for you to consider and answer for me in complete sentences:

“How do Chinese college students type out their papers?” I mean, traditionally there isn’t an alphabet so there would have to be hundreds if not thousands of keys. And what if the student wants to fool the teacher into thinking he or she is really intelligent—how would they make up their own words? Please respond immediately. Thank you.

I come back to my car today after a walk with a friend in downtown Bellingham, WA and there’s a note on my car from this chick named Jonina. In her grammatical goodness:

Outside:
“Open Me.”

Inside:
“Hi—I dont think you know who I am and I am not sure if I am even writing this to the right person. W [crossed out] I think I have seen you around the ridge when I lived in omega last quarter & I sometimes visit friends up there frequently. I think this is your truck. I once say ya loading stuff into or our of in the winter (you were carrying lots of stuff & I asked if you needed help). Well [crossed out] I think [crossed out] I just remember the little soccer ball! Anyways I’d like to meet ya & hook up sometime. I was parked right nexttaya & though I’d be fearless & write this. So you can call me @ XXX-XXXX, or e-mail me @ XXXXXXX@XXXXXXX.com.

Yeah, well I don’t know her.

Rocker IV,

I am beginning to listen to punk again which may be for two reasons (not including the "I suck" explanation):

1. I am simply engaged in a nostalgic attempt to bring back the feel of those by-gone days in which I listened to pop punk bands like Ghoti Hook, MxPx, and the Huntingtons. This may be because I am rejecting this year of school--the year in which I started to move away from punk altogether.

2. I am actually reverting back to a more primitive self. I am not who I was, but I am--as Sartre asserts--the consciousness of who I was. Thus, I am trying to become once again who I was out of rejection of the self I have become.

At any rate, I am listening to Saves the Day, and the Huntingtons and I find myself nodding my head up and down saying "yes, yes, yes," and occasionally mixing it up a little by shaking by head and saying, "no, no, don't stop a rockin'." I suggest you try the same.

Punker LXVI

PS, it does suck to be them. They don't get to spend the summer talking about going camping while desperately searching for women in the city.

A letter of reply to Adam Wygle:
What would camping without girls be like without the poetic justice of knowing that the girl we were unable to secure is now dating a man who is balding at a rate infinitely greater than us? Good thing we don’t know what girls really think of us.

Message Recieved.....Errors with Page:If I were to describe my current condition with one single sentence, it would be like this: I've been doing a lot of thinking, and homework, and thinking about why I'm thinking too much to do homework, and why I'm not drinking to keep from thinking long enough to do some homework, and thinking about what it means to think and why it is that while homework requires thinking, it requires a kind of thinking that I, a thinking thing, tortured constantly by thinking thoughts of many kinds hasn't the ability to do anything with his homework other than think about why what he is thinking about is keeping him from thinking about getting down to it--more or less. I guess that's a long sentence but what are you going to do. duffontap@hotmail.com.

Regarding the Unachievable Nowhere Prison of Time:

Every really good story about people begins in a cemetery. Cemeteries are the sole location of that blessed finality that we are driven toward whether we are conscious of it or not. It is the place where the chaff of careless and dispassionate living is blown away to where it will not exist, and only that which is worthy of being a memory is made really real. Any amount of value may be applied to life as it is, caught in the present. In all my prodding I have not managed to get one person to agree with me when I say that life has no value—except through the sponsorship of a necessary Being. Life as we know it just has that undeniable feeling of worth, a feeling of a worthwhile end. All the living however cannot compare to the reality that is made upon the moment of death. Nothing in the future is as significant—for eventually everything is a memory. That is the destiny of everything that is known. And so it is with a husband and wife who lie side-by side in the cemetery plots that their lives have served to fill. They must have lived good lives. A poorly lived life is likely to lay with strangers on all sides. The stone may read: “Donald Evans, Born: 1894. Died: 1967,” and nothing more. That is a tragedy. Only what is written in the memory, or engraved on a headstone is of lasting value. A eulogy may contain the few most profound lines a life can own.

Live in the present. Live in the now. I write this, trying to conceptualize “it,” that present that they are talking about and it eludes me. The idea haunts me, and it eludes me. I am not experiencing a “pure” present even now. Concentrating on the present I find that it is characterized by, rather, that my mind is overwhelmed by, two things: Memories and Anticipation of future Memories. I wrote this to you and you will receive it. I will remember you always. Your picture is here, a gray memory, and I remember the first time I saw you. I don’t remember you coming in—you were just there—lovely. I remember thinking, “she is lovely.” I remember California. I remember coffee-shop conversation. I remember snow, and always you there. I wrote this to you and you will receive it. It will never be outside of Memories and Anticipations because this is the world that it is being born into. Like you and I it is becoming a bundle of memories—two-dimensional gray memories.

And what shall we do to this end? Webster found this present no easy task to define it would appear as he tacks the word “now” into the definition several times, almost as if the now he had just mentioned was no longer valuable in explaining the present. The irony is that we would wish to believe that the present is just that—now—not the future and not the past. But what is the significance of now? If we are to concentrate on the exact moment of time that we are experiencing, than such a measure of time would be so small that it would be impossible for anything significant to have occurred in it. Instead, the significance of the present must be seen as a stage in time—a stage of variable lengths characterized by similarity—in which the past and future are balanced in a certain way.

We were walking in the rain. At any given present, taken as itself, we would not have had this friendship that we are so engrossed with. It is in the moment that a single raindrop, and no others, of all the torrents may have been absorbed into a body—each of its molecules scattered, orphaned, losing their identity and then finding it again in the context of the whole. It is so with us, thoughts, moments, cares reaching toward infinity, have found their identity in us, as we have met—and called each other “friend.” It is when we live in the past—remembering that we have walked and talked so many times before, and that our hearts have met on so many of these times together; and living in the future, anticipating the pleasant memories we will have of this occasion, that we can be who we are in the present—and now that present is so terribly significant, as that location where our hope in the future and our good memories of the past have met in this pleasant balance.

Regarding emphatic statements about my own identity, or trying to build a semiotic profile of myself:
It’s Thursday and I have found myself to be located in Langley, British Colombia at a Value Village—I’m told it’s Canada’s favorite thrift store. The parking lot is full. I pulled in ten minutes ago with my little sister Kristin, who insists that I hear her opinion about everything I wear. I am wearing something that I have found suitable in clothing myself with….not something that is relevant to me in any existential sense. That is why I return to Value Village two times a week. I need to replace all the clothing that is doing nothing but cover nakedness. Some clothes speak for the very core of the existential center of my being.
Men’s Shirts, Large. I go to the section marked thus. One of the particular reasons I shop mostly at Value Village and not at Zumies, or J. Crew is that the sections are marked by gender. There is nothing absolute about clothing, gender and myself, except that I absolutely do not want anyone to think for one moment that I think I am defined by women’s clothing. Perhaps I would be but I still dress as a man—I am fairly sure that I am most perfectly described by men’s clothing and so I continue on in this vain—dressing as a man. I move down the line of shirts. There are perhaps two hundred shirts, although I have never counted, not even once. All of these shirts have been worn by someone before, probably a man, who probably stood in front of the mirror one day and realized that not only was the item of clothing not speaking about him from his very existential center, perhaps it was no longer worthy of covering his nakedness, or her nakedness—though I hope not. Or, perhaps the spouse or significant other of this person standing in front of the mirror that day had a very different view of who the shirt-wearer was that the shirt-wearer himself had and had the power to get the person to take this shirt off, put it in a box marked “Value Village.” At any rate, I am looking at clothing that has spoken for someone, covered his or her nakedness, and finally found unsuitable for doing either.
I fly through the shirts. I’m not looking for just any shirt, I’m looking for a special shirt. I’m looking for a shirt that’s going to speak for me. Speak for me from the very center of my being. I’m looking at the front of each shirt. I pause, look at the buttons, and move on. Fifty shirts, a hundred shirts, and there it is. Pearl buttons. That’s me, I say. This is a concrete statement about who I am. For a moment, perhaps for a day, perhaps for ten more years, I will be the one who wears navy blue, pear-buttoned western shirts, with light blue piping. I will put on the shirt and say in effect, "I am.”

Hello friends,
I'm sorry I haven't been good at keeping this sight updated. I've been writing like it's my only friend but it takes a while to get it to this page for my own reasons. This is another entry from my journal on existentialism and my relation to it. I have a few more coming in the next few days so please do keep checking up on me if you find anything here interesting. I have some ideas that I've been working on in the area of dark, romantic existentialism on the way. I think anyone should like it if they want something to think about. Anyway, here's something that's not too dark or depressing for you. It's about Angst--funny thing. Write me with any thoughts: duffontap@hotmail.com

Regarding a very important German word that no one knows how to pronounce:
In the first and only fiction writing class I ever completed in college on short story writing, the teacher had us go around the room and share our favorite words with the rest of the class. I had one favorite word to offer: Angst. I had undoubtedly heard the word used in connection with some of the unbearable noise I listened to in those years of—relatively speaking—lesser artistic enlightenment. It is undeniable that this word has been slung around by the existentialists to no small degree. Angst, feeds existentialism, it is the air the existentialist breathes, or the glasses the existentialist looks through, or something of equal importance. I for one, welcome this unexplainable feeling of dread at all times. As egocentric as I and others seem to be, it makes perfect sense that we would want a feeling great enough to carry with it our own obvious importance.
What is remarkable to me about Angst, is that when we consider the great importance of it for living a life of good faith, and authenticity and all these things that existentialists (I include myself in this crude generalization) are so bent on grasping, that it seems to be so tied to geography. I spent a summer in California working with the youth group of a well-to-do but small church in Bonita, California and I am dumbfounded in hindsight at how few were the good existentialists down there on the sunny beaches I visited daily. I don’t know if I met one person who really had any grasp on what Angst is. Sure, a bad day was bound to roll around once in a while. Maybe it would get a little too warm and sunny—Heaven forbid it—or maybe a cloud would shed a few drops of rain and people would feel a little upset and perhaps confused as to why their world had turned against them when it was usually so pleasant. But all in all, there was no grasp of Angst in Southern California—“So Cal! Yeah!” I think they called it.
Two long days drive north and you’re in Seattle. It’s best that you skip Portland all together and go straight so Seattle because Portland is not known for expression of any kind—at least not the kind that you would be really proud of. You never know exactly what Portlanders are thinking and judging by number of “adult” bookstores, I’d wager a guess that you wouldn’t want to. In Seattle there are countless bands, and countless concerts in which you will get the idea that your average teenage Seattleite has a good grasp of what angst is, and they may even know the word and how to pronounce it. But why?
After months of careful consideration, I am still at the fist conclusion I came to when I first thought of the northwest and the southwest—and their relationship to angst. Life in Seattle and the northwest in general, is such a painful state of affairs it is impossible to forget for more than a few minutes that life is unexplainably miserable. When the outsider band comes into Seattle, Vancouver, or even Portland—let’s say, Jets to Brazil playing “All Things Good and Nice,” the northwesters will nod their heads and smile. “That’s really nice,” the northwesters will say and they will be sincere. But there is something about cold rain that never lets you think that life can be described in songs like “All Things Good and Nice.” But, perhaps we could live very pleasant lives of bad faith and inauthenticity in “So Cal! Yeah!” and never know the difference.