2003-05-19 - 11:39 p.m.
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This is the end, the end my friend, the end
Let me tell you a story.
Let me tell you a story that took 4 years to write.
Of course, the actual WORDS to this story fits on one page, in bold, very large font, with stamps and pictures and all sorts of interesting symbols.
This is a story of many things, of many people, of a few places, but of 4 years worth of things, people and places.
Think of yourself 4 years ago to fully understand the complexities and dynamics that are involved here. Think of what you were doing 4 years ago right now. Can you? Can you determine exactly what was happening to you right now exactly 4 years ago?
I can.
I got accepted to UMASS Lowell by the end of the summer, 1999, but I didn't know what I was doing by this point 4 years ago. I didn't know if I would even go to college. I went on a tour of 5 Towns college, where the sound recording program consisted of one room with a really big, possibly really old soundboard (I was too young to tell any better, even at 4 years ago) and told myself I'd be there. I'd be at this school for whatever, for however long and I'd probably have to commute and I'd hate it.
So I didn't go.
So I went to Fredonia two summers before that, for a sound recording camp and, despite returning to find the girl I lost my virginity to had cheated on me 2 days after I left despite a year and a half of dating, I was happy. I knew it. I wanted to record music, I wanted to be there in the dark box of a cave of a studio, red lights like small cartoon eyes in the dark, knobs like rows of gravestones, sliders forming a photograph of mountains, the spinning gaze of the eyes in a reel recorder going dizzy while someone pounded on string or skin or wood or what have you and a million waves crashed with a million hairs on a microphone, spitting it into an electrical signal that is digested and regurgitated by some circuitry and pumped into the slightest flap of skin on the body - the drum for the drums. I saw it. I could see it through all the muddled haze of time, the fog that prevents you from seeing too far. I saw too far I guess. After seeing what Fredonia could offer (nothing) I looked for Fredonia copies, the essence of Fredonia without all the absolute horrid conditions. So I shopped around.
I could have gone to Florida or MAssachusetts. Ok, no, I couldn't have gone to Florida, on account that I'm a poor piece of shit. But, I did find Lowell, despite the horrid faculty in the Guidance department of Lynbrook High School at the time
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I think it was this lady Mrs. Bell, who took over for Mrs. Butler. I could be mixing names. Despite this I still hold that I could have opened my own college before either of those women helped me get into one. This is not a pompous statement, but rather one that underlines just how my school worked. I wasn't much of a "hands-on" person in school; my extracurricular activities didn't have an advisor, like a yearbook or a sports team. I did play football in Middle School, and Lacrosse till I think about the same time. After I found my guitar, I lost my sports. And as for any other non-competitive school club, I felt the only time people should want to get into clubs is when they have to show a driver's license to some sweaty bouncer waiting for the next batch of slutted up, half naked girls to enter so that his 4 friends he let in for free could actually use their roofies that night. I wasn't very social, but I wasn't anti-social.
I just hated school and the thought of "playing" in school was stupid.
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And I did get in. This is solely due to my 1200 on the SATs, as I had more or less a blank transcript from high school. I think my aside there should explain that one.
But I wanted that recording degree. I wanted to taste that degree. Not like taking it out of the wrapping and licking it, but I wanted to hold it and smell it and make sure, YUP, that's my name and that's what I worked for and killed for. This is my key to recording.
Well, would have been.
So I go to Lowell. By the time I get there, I have a different girlfriend
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with the same name as the last one and still the same amount of fidelity, but this time with a level of cowardice in regards to this infidelity. As in burn in hell if you're reading this you fucking asshole, I hope all those dicks I probably indirectly kissed tasted great. I'd hate to have you cheat with a filthy dick.)
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and a fresh outlook on life: a life spent recording music.
Now, maybe I haven't explained why I wanted to record music. In high school, I was in a band called Red Label, your average high school aged punk band who plays in the basement and puts just enough time into the band to amount to absolutely nothing. This is not a bad thing; it's just that anything short of dropping out of high school to follow your band will probably get you nothing but nothing. We recorded in a friend of mine's house for a small demo, a two day process that changed the way I saw music as a whole, both in the process of writing it as well as in recording it. I wanted to do that every night. I wanted to record every night I was breathing. Night time because in the day, there's too much to do to be locked into a studio recording. I guess it's that need for outside that prevented me from seeing a recording degree through.
So I go to Lowell, not knowing what in the hell to expect at all. And this was a bad thing, as I was treated as a music major at that point. Later, I would be treated as a musician who can hit the record button, to a composer who can wire up a board to a maestro who can make their own sound board from a tin can and some doll hair. Of course, I only got as far as a music major. I didn't even evolve into a musician who can hit the record button.
This is due to multiple factors. One of which was that I was taught classical guitar to get into the school and by taught classical guitar, I mean a brisk 5 month flash course of sorts that basically taught me how to play 2 1/2 songs in a classical fashion, but not the classical fashion itself. I was in over my head to begin with. I didn't know formal guitar training at all. I had learned basic music theory on guitar through 4 months of lax guitar lessons about a year before I started to learn the classical guitar for Lowell. I had no idea about anything solid in music, just that I loved it. I couldn't tell you what a 5th was, let alone what it sounded like. I couldn't even hum a major scale, so forget a minor scale (any kind of minor scale) or even a pentatonic scale (what the shit is a pentatonic, you may have said? I didn't know either - it just means 5 notes.) And humming. That goddamn solfege, the do-re-mi of doom that has thinned out herd after matriculating herd at Lowell year in year out. la-la-LA-la-la. do-mi-SO-mi-do. I cringed when I heard the piano ascend each time, knowing full well that when it came back down, it was like walking backwards through already stepped in snow: you're just going to end up stumbling and falling a lot. And I did. I fucked solfege up so bad and I fucked up theory so bad and I fucked up so bad in general that I couldn't be a music major anymore.
And this has a lot to do with my extra-curricular activities again. Whereas my high school activies kept me out of schools, my college 'activities' kept me out of classes and in bed. Running around till the sun came up and basically forming bonds with people the likes that had never been seen in my eyes. The Family. I don't need to discuss that aspect of school too closely. I think the countless tributes to Lowell in this diary, the actual birthplace of this diary as it were, speak for themselves.
As a matter of fact, you have the rest of the story. IT's all here. I couldn't retell it better than I did when it happened. Why think back to what you were doing 4 years ago when you can just read what happened? I'd say that, after these past 4 years, after finally graduating and finally leaving it behind, I'd have to say that it was all fun. It was all very very fun and I will miss the feeling of being alive, of knowing that I had no worries, no REAL worries, and that I could mess up really bad and it wouldn't matter. The security blanket that school was is gone for me now, and I'm out in the world shivering slightly. The coldest times have not yet come, but the breeze is brisk and is threatening frost. Plattsburgh, I leave you behind with fond eyes. I can't say that I had more fun there than at Lowell because it was a different world, a different Belmo. I was different. Bands and coffee houses and trips to Denny's and the Cemetary and Boston and the loves I had there. I'll remember every lip I kissed and every bed I slept in (there aren't that many - I was taken for a bunch of Lowell by the Bitch). Fox Commons, Durgin Hall, the dorms, the dining hall (of which I at first loathed and later on missed). All of it. You cannot recreate or beat or do better or be better than something you are in no comparison with. IT's like comparing city life to farm life. Sure, there are people and traditions and practices in each, but they are both drastically different.
And I didn't mean that analogy of city town to farm town to mean Lowell to Plattsburgh, but it works.
I left Plattsburgh today for the last time. This does not mean I'll never go back to Plattsburgh, but when I return, I'll be visiting. When I leave again, I have visited Plattsburgh. As much as I lived there for 2 1/2 school years, I leave behind a shitload of memories, a shitload of friends and a girlfriend who is still there, either waiting for me to come to her or her to come to me.
But you'll leave those everywhere.
I'm not trying to bad-mouth Plattsburgh (for once). Granted, I hate the town of Plattsburgh. Plattsburgh, your city is done up fucking stupid. Your one way streets are appalling. Your bars close way too early for a town full of drunks and stoners and your Taco Bell is in a mall. Your pizza sucks, your chinese food sucks, you have very little culture and your music scene is bullshit. I've never seen a town where the only bands there are cover bands and jam bands and jam cover bands. Your marina is a piece of shit, despite it being the moneyspot of the town, your town only gets one train in either direction, your mall is a big piece of shit, your housing is fucking ungodly, your parking is atrocious, YOUR PARKING IS FUCKING ATROCIOUS, your stores are old and shitty, every essence of civilized life is 10 years behind today. I could keep going but you suck so much that it's not even worth it. But a town is only as good as the people in it in my eyes. Every town in the world sucks and if I measured Plattsburgh by it's people instead of all the other shit I said, I'd say differently. You people are friendly and kind for the most part (everywhere has assholes so I can't hold it against you). There isn't all that much crime, even in bad areas, aside from the rampant drug busts (because when your town sucks as much as Plattsburgh does, you have to ignore it SOMEHOW). You really know how to party too. It's just that everything about your town sucks. So despite hating Plattsburgh as a town, I will still miss the people I made friends with there just like anywhere. I've gotten used to losing people and I've learned that although there are people I will never see again from Plattsburgh now that I'm gone, I got to see them, I got to learn from them, I got to either love or despise them. I got to them. That's all that matters to me. IF later down the road I see them again, any of them (which most certainly will happen) I will pick up where I left off, as if nothing had happened.
Much like I do with Lowell. Oh, and Lowell, your town is nice, but your chinese food sucks. Other than that, way to go.
I don't think of people in terms of where I met them or when I saw them last - I don't measure people at all. If I know you and I miss you, which I do if I know you and were friendly with you, when I see you, I won't have to miss you anymore because there I am and there you are. Until we see each other again, don't be upset and crushed because if you are, at this rate, by the time you hit 30, you'll probably kill yourself from depression of losing everyone you meet. You lose people everyday and don't even know it. Someone you talk to briefly about something you both saw, someone who you let go ahead of you in a store, someone you hold the door for. These are all people you have cared for, at some basic enough level that you showed them some form of respect. You don't cry for the door holding lady, so don't cry for me. I'll see you down the line at one point and, if you're reading this anyway, I'm sure you can find me and what I'm doing. Shit, my email is on here somewhere and even if it isn't for some reason, there's a guestbook for this thing and some crazy notes thing and comments and all sorts of shit that Diaryland provides. I'm right the fuck right here. I have a phone, a cell phone, an email address, an instant messenger name, a house address. There are countless ways you can reach me and talk to me. In this day and age, moving away from someone just means you get to talk through machines instead of never seeing each other again.
And when those video phones come out for real, you'll miss me even less when you see my ugly face on your phone.
So, yeah, I graduated. I moved on. I passed the test, ascended, completed, finished. I'm out of there, gone, laters, done. I'm fucking no longer a student, no longer learning about what I'll use later.
It's later.
And I'm sad. And I'm happy, and pissed and ecstatic. But the one thing I am not is scared, because whether I do good with myself or not, I will still do something and when I get there, I will know that I have put myself there and that I made what I am from what I was.
And what I am was made complete by you, all of you and everything. I am today what yesterday gave birth to. My today is based on my yesterday and my tomorrow will swing according to today and yesterday. Graduation is not an end at all. I will never stop learning, so I haven't really finished school; I can always keep in touch with whoever I want so I'm not losing friends. The only thing I have left is that place and time where it all went down, that feeling that the world is spinning for you. For all of us. The world is ready and eager to see what we as college kids could offer, what we could pull from all that time spent behind a desk wasting away and use towards ourselves and everyone else around us. Your soul should be on fire to know that. You should grin ear to ear to know that right now, right here, this is where its our turn to forge paths to follow. Know full well that the time to forge these paths will run out, as mine have, and then it's up to you to walk the path. Walk whichever path you want and tread lightly or with furiosity. Do what you want...
but DO, and never regret doing.
BMC
What did you just say? - What's he gonna say next?
