"The game is fixed but there is no one to blame, Heaven and Hell; they are one and the same."
---Dave Brockie
Yep. Another quote from that guy. Why? And why use his real name when most people would know him better as Oderus Urungus, lead singer of GWAR? Hm. Easy--he's a genius no one takes seriously because he hides what he knows behind the tears of a latex clown. And the art is awesome, so is the music, as far as I'm concerned. Agree, disagree, OK.
I discovered them in my first year of high school. I was just a fat A student that the adults said had "potential." I revelled in that but after a few hundred ass-kickings I decided potential did not mean a thing unless I could back it up with some sort of defense. I did not make masks. I did pick up a guitar and as readers and friends know I learned how to fight. Also, I listened to GWAR. A lot of GWAR. I read the lyrics and I noticed something no one else seemed to...the guy writing these lyrics was a fucking genius! Anyone able to wade through the hip-deep filth of out-front absurdity and comb the sewer of this lunatic mind for the pith in the subtext, well...fuck.
Yup. That's exactly what I thought. Fuck. No one ever would. Over the years I tried explaining this to folks but only heard laughter in return.
Then I read his biography and laughed. My theory proved correct. And I'm not going to explain it here. Read it yourself if you care to. After that I read his novel, WHARGOUL, and again saw what the reviewers themselves did not--"GORE FILLED AS ALL FUCK!" reads the review on the front cover. Well, yes, that is true, but it is also the tale of a demon who hates himself for what he is and eventually decides that utter chaos and the destruction of his creator is the only thing that can save him from the banality of immortality. For this demon really IS immortal, not like a vampire who can be killed by various means, but jump from soul-to-soul at whim fucking IMMORTAL. Chop, slice, dice, blow the bastard into tiny little pieces and you may find you have his face. SPOILER ALERT: The poor fucker fails. He cannot die. After eons of being hated and hunted and misunderstood and eviscerated to the point where pain itself is nothing but a bore his defeat of the Master leads him to find that the whole mess is nothing but a tiresome bunch of worthless bullshit and he commits his body to the deep.
I realized I have a similar face. I'm not immortal, hell no. I'm just flesh and blood like any other human or animal aside from the ones with exoskeletons. I can die.
Before I reached this age--not young, yet not old, I feared death. Often I welcomed it and tried to bring it to myself--my wife has a wonderful story she'd love to tell you about my old hobby of train dodging. A few weeks ago I concluded that now I really do not give a fuck if I live or die.
"You always have a chance as long as you're alive." I've heard that platitude over and over again in books and on film. I guess it is true. But the question is, a chance to what? To play sycophant, pleasing everyone you can, gaining fame and popularity applying an intangible mask of bullshit indifference? To make a shitload of money and spend it on toys, be they child or adult? To have sex with a million partners? Kick ass? Get your ass kicked? Do a bunch of drugs? Become a cop and try to save the world or become a politician and work to destroy it? To feel good about yourself, as if you actually fucking DID something and weren't a waste of sperm and egg? To procreate? Squeeze out a puppy or two and then spend the next quarter-century or so trying to satisfy the replica in a mad dash to repudiate the hate you inevitably feel for that reflection of you and that bitch you once loved who is having sex with the pool guy while you're having sex with the neighbor's 18 (we hope) year old daughter?
A chance to make GOOD? To prove all that cynicism I just barfed on the page wrong? A chance to change the poisonous resin on the Newspaper Spoon (as William Burroughs called it) with its pictures of horror and death and corruption and failure and the very fall of this species at its own hands--not God's--its OWN--into something fantastic and rainbow-y before you nod off on the euphoric smiles of models promising happiness if you just buy...this...thing.
Do you hurt?
Do I?
Does it matter?
I hurt, and I hope. Today, some of that hope and all of this work I've been doing, call it what you will, kicked a tiny crack in the underworld that has been my 36 years on Earth. A tiny crack. But I think I see the light. And if I reach just a bit further I may feel the warmth. I wish the same for all of you.
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