Vandermolen: The Artist? The Lier? The Lover? The Past.

Game Over: This Blog

2010-12-29T20:55:00.000-08:00

If you somehow stubbled upon this blog, well, dude, don't waste your time waiting for new stories. Not no more. Not ever...on this site. You see, I decided to stop turning my computer off, and have instead turned it way on, and over to a new Tumblr. There I post even post videos! So after you read about my past at this site, read (and watch) about my present and get freaked out and scared.

My new site is:

vandermolen.tumblr.com

Oh, I got a new website were you can buy my books: www.nanbunan.com

Later.

Self-immolation Part 3: The Disorder

2009-06-28T18:41:00.000-07:00

I’ve been searching, trying to figure out why I am the way I am - why I seek self-immolation…why I choose torture over pleasure, loneliness over community, death over life. And in my heart of hearts my soul screams for the simple things, rest, video games, food, pleasure in its most innocent ways, the old church I used to go to. Yet, knowing what my heart yearns for most, I choose that which will make me feel at my worst.

I say, “I’m trying to level up…I’m gonna beat this game…I’m on a mission.” I play off my self-torment like I’m working under some divine right, communicating with God himself and questioning my torment would be to question the very will of God himself. But in reality, my excuses…what do they mean – nothing. Abstractions, when a concrete answer is needed. Superficial fluff, paradox I hide behind like a coward, verbal manipulations to get people to see me, to look at me, to want to be me.

What made me like this? What made me want constant attention? Who taught me to live like this? As far as I have been able to discern after 18 months of writing this blog, I came out the womb this way, but it has been in only the last year where I have been able to hone this skill by mirroring the two types of people I think about most: famous people and children with special needs.

As I’ve written about before, I work at a therapeutic day school for special needs kids. It’s a bear, and I’ve been hit, spit on, and demeaned in every form imaginable. I spend more time with these children then I do with my own friends, family, and any other people my own age. Of these children, there are a few who stand out among the rest, and it is these children that I emulate.

There are a select group of children at my school, broken in so many ways, who run purely on instinct and move instinctually toward their deepest desires. In their lives they may shoot the winning basket and get a pat on the back or a high five, they may ace a test and get a little sticker on their paper, they may have a day without an outburst and earn a piece of candy or a cup of hot chocolate. They’re given love by teachers, assistants, staff, social workers, and secretaries. They earn prizes, food and extra time at the computer. These children get more attention and more help then any child in the normal school setting…yet for some this isn’t enough. Even with constant attention they still feel alone, their hearts are not filled, and their minds still craves contact attention of any kind – and when they don’t get constant and ever increasing love, they lash out. They spit, and kick, flip desks and punch through glass. They swear and threaten the ones whom five minutes earlier gave them affection. They cause a scene.

In their moment of rage a teaching assistant rushes over - from his crossword puzzle or magazine he was discretely reading in the corner – he puts his arms on the child’s waist to pull then away from endangering other or themselves. The teacher – who was checking her e-mail and daydreaming about what she was going to buy after school – swivels on her chair to press the intercom calling for crisis. When the three burly crisis workers run in from the hall – putting aside their conversation about last nights late night escapades - they try to talk the student down, “Come on man, let’s just go to time out, let’s just make this easy,” as the teaching assistant struggles to hold the boy in place. One crisis worker ushers the rest of the students out of the room as another begins moving desks and chairs, clearing a way for the eventual moment when the child has to be dragged from the room. It is the eye of the storm, the calm before the violence – and then the child bites the teaching assistant’s arm, and kicks over a desk that wasn’t moved in time. A crisis staff has to wrestle a pencil out of his hands, and another one has to hold his legs. The child screams and cries and in front on his entire class, who is now waiting in the hall, is carried out like a prisoner to a time out room across the hall. In the timeout room the child violently shakes and says obscenities of all manners. He fights and forces himself to be put into facedown prone – a restraint outlawed in many states because it has killed kids. The three crisis staff and one teaching assistant, pack into this small room no bigger then a walk in closet, and do as told in they were trained and gently bring the child to the ground, place him on his stomach and lay across him. One across his legs holding his arms at his wrists, the three others across any place they can find room, not to smother but to restrain – protect the child from hurting themselves. A nurse comes to the timeout room every half hour to see that the child is still breathing. For as much as two hours the child screams, cries, swears, shakes, spits, sometimes even pisses, pukes or shits.

And behind the child’s venire of anguish, their mask chiseled out by years of abuse and neglect, they are smiling. They are filled with joy not pain, because the world around them, the only circle of existence they know has completely ground to a halt…for them. At that moment they are kings because the entire class, the staff and students had to look at them, touch them, speak to them. At that moment the child seemingly out of control, was completely in control, every person around them fulfilling their rolls to a t, the entire school their puppets.

What’s a pat on the back or a sticker on your paper when a few swear words and a flipped desk can get you out of a test and two hours of skin to skin contact by four living breathing human beings.

These are the children I see everyday…I’ve learned a few things.

Then there are the people I fantasize about, the people I strive to be like someday – the actor, the writer, the artist, the exocentric, the hero…the famous.

I’ve watched them, read about them, searched for them. I’ve read gossip mags to learn about their private lives, industry mags to see how much money they make, and searched naked mags to see what they look like when their having sex. These are the famous people, a pantheon on people who to us normals are more then men and woman, more then the name of their profession, individuals who, “leveled up, beat this game, and found their mission.”

These more-than-men neglect sleep to workout to their highly regimented workout program designed, keeping their body in mind, by their own personal trainer. They neglect taste and sweets to sustain their pre-pubescent thinness. They forego families to write the next page or practice their latest role. For three months a year they travel the world living out of a suitcase answering the same questions, posing for pictures and playing the same songs…lather rinse repeat, later rinse repeat, lather rinse repeat. Cosmetic surgery, self-denial, loneliness: these are the sacrifices they make for us – the mere man.

These are famous people, the elect, who have given up the ‘normal’ life, and chose a miserable existence forgoing things they wanted, things you can’t buy, things you can’t order, things you can’t be given, to get that one thing, that one thing that makes them feel any pleasure at all. Worship. They make these sacrifices because the thing they want most is to be like you…the mere man. And since they see themselves above you, they can take the one thing from you that they can’t buy off of you, your worship.

A few days ago when talking with Rick he told me a story about famous people. He said, “So when Dustin Hoffman was real young, like before he was in The Graduate he went out to dinner with Laurence Olivier. During dinner Dustin asked, ‘Why do actors do what they do?’ And Laurence Olivier leaned across the table and got nose to nose with Dustin and he said, ‘Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me…”

A few days ago I read an interview with Shia Labeouf (star of the new movie Transformers 2) from Parade magazine. He said, “The good actors are all screwed up. They’re all I pain. It’s a profession of bottom-feeders and heartbroken people.”

The famous – these are our modern pagan gods, our on screen idols, our mirrors, the people we…I want to be. Broken men and women going through the motions to gain some intangible feeling of love or want or need. These are the people I model myself after, broken and needy people who need people to look at them so they can crack a smile. They need a sea of nameless faceless people clapping and cheering their name so they can feel even the most minute of pleasure. They want to be like everyone else, but they won’t let themselves be a mere man, because everyday they look in a mirror they see a god. And they rationalize their sacrifices, and they put up with their loneliness and sadness because it gets them that one thing…love.

And both of these groups of people, the broken, abused and unable child and the rich powerful and famous person both want one thing – love. Weathers it’s by acting out or acting like someone they’re not (one in the same), they want people to drop everything and look at them. But in neither case, do people love them for them for who they are, only for some fabricated actions that resemble their own humanity. But at least they stopped the world around them, and everyone, even if only for a brief moment, had their names on their lips.

And I too am the broke child. I too am the fallen famous. I too look in a mirror and see a god. I press my face into the faces of others and say, “Look at me, look at me, look at me…” I fill your e-mail with spam – pictures and sayings, trying try to peddle my wares, excrements from my own tormented mind. Every time I leave the house, I take my shirt off and listen for someone to honk their horn or slap my butt as I walk by. I want to be objectified and abused. I walk in bad neighborhoods so that I’ll get beat up, because at least someone’s touching me. My goals are to be on every webpage and be written about in every teenage girls diary. I work towards totally control of human life, and playing with people like they are puppets – puppets that repeat my name day and night, day and night, day and night.

This is my plight and disease I willingly let infect my mind and body. And like Martin Luther I abuse my body because I feel sorry for my sins…no! I abuse my body so that you’ll look at my scars and say, “Oh poor baby. Let me bandage your wounds. Let me rub your back and feed you. Let me put you on my shoulder and burp you. Oh poor baby.”

You see, I’m not like you mere humans. I’m less then you. I’m mentally deficient. I have a neurological disorder. Why am I the way I am? Because I have histrionic personality disorder.

Check it out, here is what wikipedia say about histrionic personality disorder:

Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is defined by the American Psychiatric Association as a personality disorder characterized by a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking, including an excessive need for approval and inappropriate seductiveness, usually beginning in early adulthood. These individuals are lively, dramatic, enthusiastic, and flirtatious. They may be inappropriately sexually provocative, express strong emotions with an impressionistic style, and be easily influenced by others.

Also:

People with this disorder are usually able to function at a high level and can be successful socially and professionally. People with histrionic personality disorder usually have good social skills, but they tend to use these skills to manipulate other people and become the center of attention. Furthermore, histrionic personality disorder may affect a person's social or romantic relationships or their ability to cope with losses or failures. People with this disorder may seek treatment for depression when romantic relationships end, although this is by no means a feature exclusive to this disorder. They often fail to see their own personal situation realistically, instead tending to dramatize and exaggerate their difficulties. They may go through frequent job changes, as they become easily bored and have trouble dealing with frustration. Because they tend to crave novelty and excitement, they may place themselves in risky situations. All of these factors may lead to greater risk of developing depression.

Do these things not describe me? I use my speech to manipulate. Have you read this blog, it’s an over dramatization of my life. I crave excitement and need contestant stimulation. I am an attention seeker, this is my life’s goal.

I fulfill all the criteria.

Diagnostic criteria (DSM-IV-TR = 301.50) for Histrionic Personality Disorder:

1) Is uncomfortable in situations in which he or she is not the center of attention.

I have rehearsed and honed stories to tell at parties. Stories ranging from the time I made my own business to the time I pooped into my own pants, not all of them faltering, but all of them about me. I look at every group of people as a chance to spread the gospel of Nick Vandermolen. At parties I seek out who is the most popular, who sticks out the most and plot at a way to dethrone them, how to divert the party away from them and onto me. If I cannot be the center of attention, I sulk, hate and blame the “Real World,” for my problems – say, “they’re not sweet enough.” The only reason they weren’t sweet, was because they were not completely and irreconcilable in love with me.

2) Interaction with others is often characterized by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior.

I still have some shred of my rote Christianity left in me, and I still don’t have sex with the ladies. But that doesn’t stop me from being an exhibitionist. For many years I wore short-shorts under my pants so, “I could party at a moments notice.” I constantly walk about shirtless despite my unflattering physique. And when ever I can I show off my skin, stranger or not, I want you too look at my body, touch my body, be next to my skin…skin to skin. But, I don’t show off my wiener because I don’t want people to look down on me when they see my unit, because to me, I have, as it’s commonly described, a small wiener. Despite this, wearing only short shorts, pieces have fallen into people’s field of vision.

3) Displays rapidly shifting and shallow expression of emotions.

Michael Jackson just died, aren’t I supposed to care. I fantasize about death and destruction. My utopia is a distopia where I have to shoot people to survive and live in the ruins of a fallen city for warmth. When people die I don’t flinch. I walk past homeless people and could careless. I don’t think about hungry Africa or the plight of the needy. My mind is focused on one thing. Myself. Either how awesome I am, or how much I hate my current state of existence. Constantly fluttering, back and forth between the two. I am expressionless as I write this piece.

4) Consistently uses physical appearance to draw attention to self.

I think the correct term is peacocking. I am always wearing ridiculous cloths so that people are looking at me. I have a sleeveless jean vest that has the Ripley’s 4 gang symbol on the back. I have spray painted cloths, sleeveless shirts, tight jeans, short shorts. When it’s hot I wear pants and when it’s cold I am exposed. I use my style to get people to see me, to look at me, to admire me. Since moving to Chicago, my number of crazy clothes has diminished, many of them I threw out when I left. I often feel down and naked now that I have less pair of “sweet’ cloths.

Aside from cloths I write on myself with magic markers, covering my eyes with a bands of blue. Make-up, anything to get people to look at me.

5) Has a style of speech that is excessively impressionistic and lacking in detail.

Have you read my writing; it’s all flighty pictures that don’t mean anything. I write about the geosoul and the metaphysical, the fourth dimension, and the things unseen. This doesn’t mean a thing. I write and talk in a way that hides my true intention showing nothing but verbiages and the flexing of my lexiconical muscle. As I wrote above, “I’m trying to level up…I’m gonna beat this game…I’m on a mission.” What level, what game, what mission…who knows, because it doesn’t mean a thing.

6) Shows self-dramatization, theatricality, and exaggerated expression of emotion.

Look at the way I have to write tens of pages about self-immolation and post it on a blog for you all to see. Look at the way I flip out over “the real world” or “lame people.” In college when school got hard I laid on the floor for hours, not in my room, but in other peoples rooms, trying to get them to see how hard my life was. In Chicago, I stopped eating and wrote books and blogs about it. I tortured myself to show you what I was feeling.

7) Is suggestible, i.e., easily influenced by others or circumstances.

Look I just read about this personality disorder on wikipedia now I’m convinced I have it. Is suggestible? Yes, I read occult (government conspiracies, ufology, mystery religions, mind control) and believe it. Everything I hear I assume is true.

8) Considers relationships to be more intimate than they actually are.

Everyone is my friend, because I want them to love me. Once a friend, always a friend. That is why when friendships naturally deteriorate, I get angry and sad. When that happens, I call into question the entire relationship. Were we ever really friends? Was it all just a sham? Like marriage I see friendships as for life, and when I don’t get their constant attention like I used to get, it’s like a break up. And it hurts like hell. Because friendship is more then just knowing facts about each other, it’s knowing their deepest darkest secrets, knowing everything about them. Being able to be clingy. I love my friends, I would follow them to the ends of the earth, but would they do the same for me. This calls into question friendship for me. Do my friends love me the way I love them. But is the reason I love them because they unconditionally love me, and fulfill my histrionic personality disorder needs?

It wasn’t hard to come up with examples for each point of criteria. It was simple because I’m fully and complete immersed in the throws of this histrionic personality disorder. These last three blogs have been about discovering the psychology of who and why I am the way I am. Not to feed my own personality disorder, but this time, for the first time, to solve my personality disorder. To alter my very motivations – create brain change.

Now after three blog entries of trying to discover why I have been destroying my mind and body for the last 10 month in Chicago, I have an answer. I have a personality disorder called histrionic personality disorder. I read the remedy on wikipedia. Group therapy is not the answer. Talking to you like this is not the way to heal my mind. You see, this is just a way to get you all focused on me. I’ll write anything if you’ll just thinking about me. According to wikipedia the only thing that fixes this personality disorder is ECT – better known as electro-shock. The process involves me being strapped to a bed, have high voltage wires strapped to my head and having thousands of volts pumped into my brain fundamentally altering and rewiring my brain in a way that is completely irreversible. You see, only a thunderbolt from God can change me now. To be honest, and maybe this is my disorder talking, but this seems too drastic. Can I now change my motivations myself, can’t I go through this cave of darkness. I have found the thorn in my side, now all I have to do is a little self-surgery.

So now I enter a new phase in my life, operation: Thunderstruck. I have to start living like I have been struck by lightening, like my mind has been altered. I must way every choice I make, am I doing it for the spotlight, or am I doing it for you. It’s time to stop acting like the special needs child who craves more and ever-increasing attention. I need to stop acting like the famous person who sees themselves as a god, as something more then man.

A few days ago a friend asked me, “What happened to you. You’re so different. I don’t like the new nick Vandermolen.” I told her, “He’s dead. I killed him.” I have to kill the new nick Vandermolen and create something new. I can’t bring the old Nick Vandermolen back to life, just like I can’t bring the Basement back to life, I have to create something new. I must reform, I must find a home, and I must start over.

I self-immolate, not as a cry for help, but as a way to get you to look at me, “Look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me.” That is why I must stop my self-destruction.

…and sadly, that is why…I must end this blog. Can’t you see, this entire blog has been a manipulation, a way of controlling you into reading about me, seeking me out, and praising me. I have to stop this blog so I can live like the human being I am. I am a human being, not a god, a man. Stop reading this blog, as much as I want you too continue on, it’s hurting me, it’s killing me, it’s destroying me. My true self-immolation is everything I do to get you to love me. My seeking after your affection is my self-immolation. It is an abuse I must put to an end. The manipulation ends here.

If you really love me, do as this blog’s website address aand, turn your computer off.

Nickvandermolen.com

2009-06-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

You ever try to make a website? Well I've tried and failed like a million times. I'm a failure, but today I've found redemption. Check it out, I got a website now.

Nickvandermolen.com

Now you can buy my books, check out the sweet events I've done, and see a lot of hott pics...of me.

If you have any questions consult these videos:

1. Snow Kids

2. Ah Recording

3. Mike's Story

4. Lombardo Barnyard on Nickvandermolen.com

5. Pain

If you wanna, e-mail these vids to your peeps.

Now go send me money at: Nickvandermolen.com

Self-Immolation, Part 2: I am Diana Christensen

2009-06-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

Heres a conversation I had with Jake Brege over g-chat.

Does this tell you who I am?

Jake's Dialog is Left Justified.

Mine is justified to the right.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jabber IM with Jake Brege 6/9/09 5:52 PM

JAKE:

word it up

7:46 PM

Jake Brege is now online.

8:01 PM

i lost rick

8:50 PM

VANDERMOLEN:

rick's dead?

graveyard dead, dude

dang

you lost him? Why, How? Explain

it was earlier on line

he's back

oh, his internet went out

i got it

yup

dude, i just got an, "Are you dead" e-mail

because i'm such a recluse now

my reality is going down the tubes

I think i'm in a nose dive

prove it

i'm working on a blog right now about it

so it will be posted at some point

sweetg

nosedive, in writing

good

I'll keep you posted

also, i've been getting really into disney pop songs - is that weird?

yes, perv

i'm listening to Demi Lovato right now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmjO1p9Oxrk&feature=related

perv

dude, have you listened to the words

9:01 PM

nor do i want to

perv

9:45 PM

Jake Brege has gone offline.

10:15 PM

Jake Brege is now online.

did you ever get a chance to read 'simon the stutterer

i thought i read everything you send

sent

but i was talking to rick about it last night and turns out i never read it

he told me about it though and it sounds sweet.

i'll send you a revised draft tomorrow

yeah dude

i thought it was garbage

maybe not?

well, he said some parts were lame, but i think theirs definatle something their

but i never read it yet

but the idea sounds sweet

totes

totes?

short for totally

nice

what are you working on?

a blog entry

about self immolation

i think i'm leveling up

in writing

i leveled way down in life though

i think that's part of what this blog is about

how did you level down in life?

well, you;ll probably just have to read the blog

but

in a nutshell, everything i once was and loved about myself is gone

ok fine

but instead of moving on

i've tried to live in the past, unable to find a grip on the current reality

so instead i live through projects and punishment

unable to live with stability and comfort

like a former opiate user who experenced the perfection of chemical joy

now even in sex they can't feel, nothing is stimulatiing enough

so they engage in violent and harmfull sexual acts, because only the site of blood and rareness of pain can cause an emotional respose at all

so i write about that and how that relates to things like survival week, and my current state of reculseion

i see

what is the 'opiate' lost

what?

what have they lost

what have you lost

in the analogy

well, opiate uses don't lose anything

infact they had to much

they got overloaded with chemicals that made things too awesome

so now, normal things aren't enough

what mountain can compare to mount everst

okay

so you are the opiate user

what is the opiate?

lowebrook, Alpena, the basement, Lombardo Barnyard

all those things that made me unique and differnent and a specail little flower

those things that i was leading, creating, dictateing

now, in chicago, i live in an empty apartment, sleep in a closet and even make a website

not to move on

but simply to be different, to 1) relive and revivafy the past and 2) try and recreate the leadership and creative roll i once had

that is why it's such a hardship for me to do things like get a bed

a bed is not a luxery

it's what everyone has

and that's exactly why i can't by one

i have to be differnet because i was different for so long

hmmm

the essays something like that

i think you need to be doing more projects in a group setting

ie even large scale

i try, and i discuss that in the piece

like sending to publishers even

a larger circle of peers

i puttting on picnics

only a few people came

do i hate the city because no one wants to party

do i use the city as an eleborate excuse so i don't have to hang out with people

look, i want to play video games, i want lowebrook, i want group and community, and tons of friends

move to aa

duh

i don't want to have to write books, and start a publishing company, and make business cards and "level up"

but i won't let my self

i can't not self immolate

because i see what i do as somethign that has to get done

not doing these projects is the flip side of destruction

it's self centered joy

so i tell myself

where as both view points are self centered

but i also can't quit either, like i was telling you earlier

because once again it's a self centric view of reality and in the end what will i really have

at least a book will last forever, at least someone can read a book, at least i can effect someone,

if i jsut quit, i'm no better then the frat dudes and the Real world

and by the way, at what point

do you circles of realirty, ie. you, your friends and family, your peers, you job, life

all these bigger and bigger concentric circles of reality turn from your cloystered reality into actual reality

at what point are you "in the Real World"

several things:

one: it is not advisable to determine between courses of action based on what is or is not self-centered

it is impossible to prove either way

true

that was sort of a side bar

or is that just an excuse

two: the scar truth is that we very likely are NOT better than the frat dudes and the Real World.

i don't want to believe it

but what do i have to show to the contrary?

my friends think i'm sweet?

swimming!

so do everyone else's

perhaps isolation springs first from an assumed superiority

three: when you are not in college it takes a LONG time to set roots in a community.

~5 years

in retort to part 3

i have no patiance

as for frat dudes

we are worse then them

way worse

they are the norm, the accepted reality

but we, we are isolated, and exactly as you are saying

as isolater, we have an assumed suppuiortiy

D-mob, they suck

but they had a website, and videos, and fans

i have nothign

yet i feel say i'm better

but i don't feel better

look

but our reason for being sweet, is still paced on product

on waht we can create

what we did, have done

i can't sepperate myself from my projects

my writing

at what point am i a person sepperate from my writing, my projects

i see myself as my creations

so if i don't create

i can't see myself

i'm invisible

yeah, but that leaves no place for connection

so i hide and create

hidden from everythign

only oneway projection

so i can be seen to myself

exactly, look at JD salanger

who's seen him lately

here's my angle

i've now lived in new york, new jersey, and massachusetts, and i'm moving to ann arbor. wanna know why? cause fuck it. life is too short not to live near my sister and brother and deacon and brent and to live somehwere where I have no friends trying to make myself a winner or the best or applauded.

i know

i'm going to die

i'm not convinced i'm going anywhere afterward

you don't think i don't want to live with jarmo or simon or brent or yu

that's what i want

i want to give up

i want to stop mission i'm on, that even i am no aware of it's goals

i want to just party it up

i bet

i'd even create more that way

but, i can't

something inside of me, won't let me leave

self-immolation

is it because i know that this is tempory

simpler dude

it's pride

probably

i always write about the heros journey

but did you read,"your book...about chicago"

don't worry no one did

but, that book is this struggle in a way

because in the end, i chose that the best path, is to live in the shit

that's the point of the book

why is the shit the best place?

in the end, that even though it sucks, you stay

(also i never really realized that there was a story inside the book)

oh yeah, i don't know if it comes across

but its definately a journey in the book

i see it, but i wrote it in dispair of a differnt sort

so i never had it checked by others

but to me it makes a lot of sence and it helped me figure it out, why i'm here

but the point it

live in the shit, because 1) you know that it's only temporary and 2) you got a job to do - tell people about Jesus

but the second part depends on community

adn this was a part i loved about myself

my ability to party it up

but here, i jsut live in my room

i tried to party it up, meet lots of peopel, infact i ahve

but still, nothing was done, no goals accomplished, the mission still stands

I don't know

i think 2) is kind of a smokescreen

yeah probably

because you don't need to be bible translator or a missionary to be a christain

no diff

but i can't stop that gnawing feeling deep in side that says do something

do it

what?

my heart, my sinful heart that says party, or my sinful head that formulates a mission, they talk to me all day long. Run through pros and cons, figureing out plans and details, coordinating the future

you have it

when you have a story idea in your head

you have to write it

if you don't you think about it, jot notes even when your driving or at a movie

and then if you don't you regret it, and all the video games you played, and the friends you hung out with, you still think, i could have wrote that story

what could it have been

but it's gone now

for me it is like this

my goal is to win the pulitzer prize

this is the concrete goal

or the nobel

i'll take either

it is formulated

it is a line in the sand

it is a destination for my journey

i may never get there

there is a 99.99 percent chance i won't

but that's where i'm heading

what is your destination

you only get five words

leave chicago, make family, die

but

inside each other these are hundreds of side quests

that's six

name a sidequest

i have the plan, it's written on the walls of my apartment, on notecards and charts

i'm in act 2 right now

that has 2 parts

website, business cards

these are the main parts

i aslo have a buy list and a writting, side quest sheet

act three is: release some books, garner a following, get in writing circles

act 4 is: get agent, get published, speaking tour

act 5: bank / leave chicago

their are also a number of side quests for ehac

Jake Brege has gone offline.

Jake Brege is now online.

did you type someting?

what act did you get to

'these are the main parts'

these are the main parts

i aslo have a buy list and a writting, side quest sheet

act three is: release some books, garner a following, get in writing circles

act 4 is: get agent, get published, speaking tour

act 5: bank / leave chicago

their are also a number of side quests for ehac

okay

act 5 is tenitive to change

why does this have to happen in chicago?

but if i deviate from the plan, when does that stop

well, it's like this

i wrote about this too

all the answers are in

"your book about chicago"

i moved for community

i know the most people here

i know tons of people here

the most of any other town in the world right now

yet

we don't hang out

etf

wtf

it's not the city though, it's myself

so i learned in "you book about Chicago"

what about you?

the city is not the one holding me back from community

ibecause then i'm making excuses

excuses: possibly why I won't leave, because i don't want to make excuses, like i think everyone in the city makes

But, is it me that stops myself from hangout with people

but still, i ahd a huge picnic, i made 75 PBJ's, free pop and chips

still, few came

the city, omg, i hate the city

but i hate running

i've been studying story plots

and i hate movies like, "into the wild" and thing

in those movies, and plots like that

it goes like this, someone can't fit in, they hate reality, blah blah blah

so they leave

totally

and thats that story

they are whiny bitches

but envitably, they come back

the world didn't change, jsut like coffee (see chicago book)

the world didn't change, they did

they left, and developed a new coping mechanism, to at least cope with reality

and then they come back, and their year behind because now they are trying to live by the rules of the "real World"

douchers, lame dude, they just live in the world and they get far

but hate too

there is a third alternative

the hard path

enter in, all the way in, and using their rules and their obserdities, destrow them

and then, in razed city that is the Real World create a new world

but not by running, by overcoming

i will walking into destruciton, and where so many's will has been destroyed, mine will stand

the overcomer, the destrower, the only left standing after the weight of their own wants and needs has crushed them

okay

but that means it is you vs. the world

literally

yup

which means you will be alone forever

you are satan

i know right

reason, pride, life in chicago is destrowing me

i am destrowing myself

this game is tuff

here is a question:

in plain terms

what does it look like to "enter in, all the way in, and using their rules and their obserdities, destrow them

and then, in razed city that is the Real World create a new world"

well, i've been thinking about this idea for a while

and this is what drew me to it

the book, "atlas shrugged" is all about it

except, in the book, the mind of the world, the intellegent, run away

but i can't just leave

i don't want to leave every behind

but i also want them to destrow themselves

it like the sweetness litmus test

this is not plain terms

this is near-allegorical jargon

when i go to a party, i act crazy and say dude if your sweet enough you'll get me

but in the end i just push everyone away

oh, you want goals

actual ways to let them destrow themselves

literal

well, i got to get famous

so, i have to beat act 1 - 5 of chicago

gain a following

use my undering of mind control to alter get follers

followers

use remote veiwing to dicern the future

famous like whom: ben stiller or Ghandi?

both

infiltrate something, get people to mess it up like 1970's scientology or Fight club

and then, dismantle

but it's for their embetterment

so your archetype is L Ron Hubbard?

have you seen Tom Crusie on the Today show

yes

it's on youtube

so check it, he's talking about people taking drugs

although it masks the symptoms, it doesn't solve the problem

i understand tom here

for ref: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc_wjp262RY

i understnad tom

because check it, i'm sick of everyone masking them selves in the world, so by dismanteling it's cogs and framework, and misconception and reality

people can live in a new way

ie my way

give me one example of this in action

you see, i have gone to far

and i live alone in an empty apartment, i sleep in the closet, and i'm a recluse

their is no one example

the pipedream of a man lost in his own mind

if you're lost, you don't know it though

i know right, did you read Your book about Chicago

it tells of those like me

chapter 4 states that those truly lost do't know it

and the only way to save them is to go their your self and drag them kicking and screaming to the life you know they lost

i can't know it, i live here, i'm to close

i can't save myself

here's what i hear:

you want to be famous

you want people to listen to you and applaud you

you want to be important to people

but you're afraid to admit it in such stark terms

so you mask it in a larger lexicon of world domination and mission

but it just makes it more murky

it makes it harder for you to get what you want or at least to evaluate what you want and how to get it

oh yeah totally

i've been battling this in all my writing

look at LB level up

it's about becoming famous, and loving it to much

i know what i want

i want people to love me

i want to be fmaous

but, i self sabatage becayse part of me, doesn't want to be to prideful, or better then God

but, because of my sinful nature, i can't rid of it

i think that's more jargon

not that it is not true

but that it hides the basic truth

which is?

you are ashamed of what you want and afraid you won't be able to accomplish it

but it is what you want

and you can't escape it

belittling it as 'my sinful nature' gives you an out if you can't accomplish fame

sanctifying it as part of a larger world mission gives you license to pursue fame as if noble

but it is niether

it is simply what you want

whether it is bad or not is up to you

and that's why i want the past, because i don't want to confront failure

thats why i work on stuff all day but never get anything done

so i don't have failure

that's why i write in code and riddle, and jargon, so i can always say, "you don't get it" and then look down on them

i want to give up, but i also don't want failure, so i can never quit, and only self sabatage

but i want fame, i want love

but i've had that, and that sucked to, because who were these people that loved me, fans, who are they, they aren't my friends, many of them, just people i fooled into buying my books

i think the key is that love is not fame

and love pulls you in one direction and fame the other

both are okay

love it for someone else

fame is for your self

they are both for you

and either is fine

just don't confuse your thinking or speech about which you are doing

it will only keep you from leveling in the end

write an article about your straights

but without reverting to any hyperbolized language

see if it clears things up for you

i probably should

but as i read this

i literally said out load

"that will suck"

now i have to write it

dang man, this was a good im converstation, i'll have to rethink my evils of vol 1 essay now

haha

i'm going to post this on my blog

word it up

it's the only way people will know to save me

i've been writing a lot of self depricating pieces on my blog and no one has come to save me yet, or date me

maybe now

but, also, it's jsut another ploy to get people to love me

i think i have to get a new angle

ad maybe that angle is to focus on my strengths

rock some hemingway style sentences

never read'm

he probably sucks

nick typed on the computer. he looked up. he said, hemingway sucks. he got a beer. he sat down to write. he wrote about himself. etc. etc.

just the facts, mam. that's hemingway

i'll try and write about my strenghs

at the same time

what a novel idea

also

write one piece

more than five pages

less than twenty

about a character that is nothing like you

impossible

ok i'll try

hahaha

all i do is write about me

anyways, i'll write those articles

bling bling

i just wrote somethinga bout my insanity but i erased it

ok i gotta go play flash games

do it

and watch tv for a while before i go to bed too late and not get enough sleep for my job in the morning

yup

its the way i roll and then shroud it in suppuriority

ok later dude

boom jsut saved the converstaion

lades

awesome

later

i'll talk to you tomorrow

ching

beautiful

love for life

if we need

we can always move close to each other and give hugs

that would work for me

me to

in conclusion: let's hug

*hug*

*Smooch*

Self-Immolation, Part 1

2009-06-09T16:45:00.000-07:00

Last month Simon called me up on a Tuesday and left a message saying, “Vandermolen, we’re going to sleeping bear dudes this weekend.” A demand; can you turn Simon down? I called him up, and left a message on his phone, “Simon. See you at the dunes.” Two days later, on Thursday, the night before we were to meet up, I called up Simon and said, “We going or what?” 25 minutes later, Survival Week 4: Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was planned. Most people I’ve talked to seem to spend a good amount of time planning for a camping trip – coordinating schedules, devising meal plans, maximizing gear, charting and plotting hiking trails and camping locations, buying special shoes, lighters, and rain gear. Not us, not the Pipe Crew: Simon, Jarmo, Brent and myself. We love to just go, just do, no copping out, not wussing out…we’re just too lazy to plan I guess. We just pick a spot…no, Simon just picks a spot, and within days, with no tent, only a tarp, and with now food, only a knife, and with no special boots, backpacks, or expertise, just the perceived idea of some special knowledge, we’re in the woods – this is survival week.

I called Jarmo before we went, “Jarmo, we don’t have any gear man, look at us, we don’t use tents, we sleep on a tarp. Have you even heard of REI?” The rational will of Chicago had been swaying my old “logic.” Like an older brother giving his misguided younger kin guidance, “Vandermolen. Stop freaking out. Survival week is about training for the end times. You think when the worlds blowin’ up, your gonna have time to buy a tent, or a pair of boots. We need to buy more guns.” And this was our logic – sound. The next day: I left my place of employment at 1:30pm, got on the train and left Chicago at 3:00pm, was in Flint, Michigan by 9:30pm, met up with Simon and drove to Grayling, Michigan to meet Brent (the Rectangle) and Jarmo at midnight; after leaving Simon’s truck in a Glen’s parking lot, the four of us squeezed into one car and drove to Sleeping Bear Dunes arriving at about 2:30am, parked in a gravel parking lot in the woods somewhere, told dirty jokes and razzed each other until 4am; went to sleep in the car, with the exception of Brent who went fishing, and by 5am we were on the road, starting the hike known as Survival week 4: Sleeping Bear Dunes.

The Trip went like this – woke up at the butt crack of dawn. We walked down a road until we got to “the dunes” – a mysterious mountain range of sand some huge glacier dropped off in Northern Michigan (lower peninsula) some 10 millions years ago. I had never been to the dunes, despite it being only a little more then 2 hours away from the town that I grew up in. Standing at the foot of this mountain of sand was quite an exhilarating experience. The sun was just beginning to rise and a mist enveloped the trees, the precipice, and even the very sounds around us. Not an animal could be heard, for who could live in the desert mountains before us, not a person was seen, because who’s up for adventure at 5am, not even the waves, the shoreline of which was said to be, “just over that next ridge” was heard. It was silent at the foot of sand, quite ‘cept for the whispered put downs passed between each member of the Pipe Crew.

I felt like we hustled up the mountain of sand. We had to move fast, each time our foot came down, the sand gave way and we slip down the hill a foot or two. One step up, a half a step down, one step up, a half a step down. Running was walking, and walking was crawling and standing still was sliding down the hill, it was a natural escalator, a machine rarely seen in northern Michigan. I soon fell behind. From the back I yelled, “Guys we got to get to the highest point by sunrise…that’s why we woke up so early.” “It’s just over that hill!” The answer to everything in the dunes. My quads burned and after only a few minutes of climbing my legs felt like jelly and I wondered if I was going to be able to keep up.

Sand blew in our face, wash from the crest of the slowly eroding peaks, and as the sun rose the mist that clouded the peaks, rolled in thicker and darker, erasing our footprints, and veiling our trajectory.

“We have to make it by sunrise! Let’s keep moving.” No one said a word of rebuttal we just walked, despite the fact that the fog before us had blocked the sunrise from being visible…and that Sleeping Bear Dunes was on the sunset, not the sunrise side of Michigan. But no one disputed our current mission, it gave us an expiration date, an excuse to keep moving, a reason to not simply sit down and die. We didn’t walk on a trail, or hike toward a destination; we were purposeless directionless wanderers of the desert. Awake while man should sleep, moving forward where most would turn back, lonely where among friends we should have felt loved.

Then it began to rain.

We didn’t’ pull out our rain ponchos at first - in the same way we kept walking, never stopping for a break, even after we were sure the sun had risen, still looking for the perfect sunrise peak - none of us stopped to protect ourselves from the elements. Instead the rain just blew up over the peaks and mixed with the fog of sand, mud found its way into every corner of our gear, in our ears, hair and eyes. We trudged further, following the gray vapor encircling us. Our compass pointed in the direction of our next footstep, and it wobbled with each stride. At some point, only after our clothes were fully moistened through, and a second layer of minuscule droplets encased us all, and our hair dripped like we had just walked out of the shower, we put our 59 cent ponchos on. Brent, carrying a gallon of water in one hand, and an unsheathed hatchet tucked in his belt, didn’t bring a poncho, his silence was his protection.

For the next eight hours we walked through a torrent of rain and sand: sometimes alone the shore where the waves spit flecks of ice and rocks and our feet tricked us with level ground, at other times we were climbing up vast slops toward goals in the heavens while stream of water from above pooled in the rungs of the mountains acclivity, once we were in what Simon called the elephant graveyard, a network of roots and limbs where life could have been said to exist, but like prehistory, it now only existed through the remains of the preserved dead.

As our lips lay silent, and our faces grew sullen and hard from frost bite, our legs and minds shut down, and we moved like the walking dead – feet moving under convulsion not volition, mouths chattered not chatted, our minds shutdown frozen from ataxia. And in this state of near-death, this pre-morbidity we called our current condition, we took no rests, no waters breaks, no respites, no sit downs, no muscles relaxants. Each motion was another movement toward immolation, an iteration of our current state of being. Our bodies, ached and blistered, kept moving not toward hospice, but into the storm, darkness, and further depreciation.

For those eight hours, in that state of waking death, we were experiencing the embodiment of Survival Week – torture.

“So now what? We gonna sleep in the car again?” Jarmo asked as we changed out of our wet closes behind the shadow of his used police car.

Brent’s naked feet bedded with the gravel of the parking lot. In only his underwear, drying himself off with a blanket behind the open trunk of the car, he said, “Na, I say we just go back to Alpena. Beat Chee Peng (Chinese Buffet) before Vandermolen has to leave.”

“Wo, ahh wait, what about survival week?” I whirly said knowing that everyone was ready to go home. I was more broken then all of them, but my pride wanted me to at least beat that game – finished the weekend we called survival week.

Simon spoke up, “We could still go camping at Empire.”

Jarmo answered, “Let’s go home, we walked everything already. Do we really want to camp anyways.” We all agreed with him, none of us wanted to camp. We just wanted to walk, journey, destroy ourselves. The point of this survival week, as well as the previous incarnations was the trek, the trail of tears, the closeness to death. It was always an unspoken understanding between us four boys that survival week was not going to be a simply exercise in outdoor comforts, experiencing the great outdoors, garnering a closeness with nature, or even getting to know each other better. It was suicide without guns, blades, or pills. It was about putting your toes over the edge of the gorge of death and leaning over, looking into the vastness of the deep black forever nothing.

“Yeah, let’s just go to Alpena.”

I hadn’t set foot in Alpena in over two years, not since I was scene scouting for the misstep of a movie that was “Gay for a Summer.” (for more on GFAS read, “Lombardo Barnyard: Tell All.”) I was excited to see what the town had become, even though I vowed never to return until I was ready to take over and rebuild, or until it was my final resting spot. As we drove past Wal-mart and Applebee’s, down Ripley’s Blvd and M-32, through the heart of downtown, and around the Northside, I couldn’t help but think of the first survival week. It was like the first time we returned after somehow surviving the week, friends packed in a car, tired and smelly, wet…homecoming. Nothing has changed, not a brick had been turned since I left and I couldn’t help but feel like it was home again. I was literally living in the past.

I was only there a night, but for those few hours, nothing could be more like home. Us four boys laid out watching crappy action movies and eating beer milk shakes (we got destroyed: 1 part Stroh’s ice cream, 1 part Stroh’s beer). Inexplicably, all the former stars of Alpena, my childhood friends were all there, each ones plotline tying themselves to that time, and that place. It was 2003. I made calls and moved from party to party, house to house trading stories and hugs, and each hour was so packed with joy and a renewal of spirit that I felt a if…I could go back to the Basement (ultimate childhood hangout location, my basement), and see everyone, the pantheon, all my friends, in all their former glory. We got calls to pick up some friends from a bar, and when we picked them up, one of them, whom I haven’t seen in years, punched me in the face. At that moment, I couldn’t have been more at home. Parties were everywhere and friends abound. In that small northern Michigan town, I went more places and had more fun that night, then any one night in Chicago, heck any one week. This was heaven on earth. And the next day, as the sun rose over lake Huron the mists of the beach dissolved like vaporous spirit of the past - and the fondness of the night floated into a distant memory.

It took nearly a day’s journey to get back to Chicago. As whatever transit I was in at the moment sped down road or track, my face slouched on the ball of my knuckles indenting themselves into my cheek bone as the outside, actual reality, changed from forest, to field, to concrete to skyscraper; life to anti-life. I wasn’t excited to get back to my cozy room, or my nice new computer. I didn’t care that I was returning to my day job with kids, or my nightlife with friends. I wasn’t happy that I was going home, because 9 months after living in Chicago, Chicago is still not a home. But do I call Alpena home? No! It’s dead to me. Alpena was perfect, and that night in Alpena exemplified as much, but it was simply reverberations from the past, a ripple in the waves of time that finally made its way to shore. But it’s still an image I cling to, a cloud I grasp at every night. Chicago is no vacation, it’s the judge’s sentence.

And on that bus back to Chicago, I felt more at home - with my legs pressed up against the seat in front of me, and my face vibrating on the pillow that was the ball of my knuckle, the sound of whaling babies and homeless groans all around me - then I felt anywhere else in the world. Uncomfortable transit is the closet thing I could discern as a home.

The following week I planned a picnic by my house. I had become aware that Chicago wasn’t my home, and not only that, but that I had no home at all. I sent out e-mails to everyone I knew in Chicago, which is a lot mind you, and I exclaimed about free pop, chips and unlimited peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. Who could pass this up I thought. So the night before, I sat by myself, living in solitude wiping peanut butter and jelly on slices of cheap bread. I used a hardcover book about Scientology as a counter, and a spoon I licked after each sandwich as a knife. Carefully and with love I placed the sandwiches in little baggies and placed those in a box for transportation. But, as I partook in this autonomic swiping and spreading of pastes and jellies, I got to thinking, and when I get to thinking, and being lonely in my apartment, thinking is not always the best thing. I thought about the nature of my friends and my place in the city. In my minds eye I saw myself as a helpless babe, needing a mother to bath and feed me. This is who I am, I wrote about it before. I’m afraid of doing real life things: driving, paper work, talking to strangers on the phone, etc…Because of this I rely on my friends to do these things for me, to drive, feed, and be my personal sectary…mother. Without them I would be dead. So as a plea for their continued service, I wrote a speech for them. It probably wasn’t the best use of the picnic, but I wanted them to know how much I loved them, and how much I needed them; but in a backhanded manner, I also told them how much I wanted them to be like my friends in Alpena, and how I wished that they would be my arms and legs, servants instead of friends. I looked those people in the eyes and spit on them – vomited on their clothing.

And I read:

“Nine months in the Metropolis and this is what I have conceived. The credo of the modern man:

‘I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.’

The act of the city dweller/the modern man - to live. And what does this entail: Eating, drinking, sex, career, taxes, and death. At no point does, another person factor into this equation. Sure, there is the lover, the other woman, but that just satiates the animal lust in us, and quells the burning desire to feel loved. She does not exist. What of the friend, the ally and the wingman? Where for to have they gone?

In my life, I can’t live like the modern man. Though I try: I live in an empty apartment, have no land and no guns, and I have a job souly to pay the bills. I put career before family, and I take public transportation. Yet, I still find no independence – and the more I try to be the one. I find I need the many. A dinner on a Tuesday night, a car ride to work in the morning, a borrowed boom box, or seat filler at an event. I rely on others for these things. I need people in my life to sustain my very act of living. I fear driving, forms of any kind confuse me, and instead of cooking, I eat a bologna sandwich everyday for dinner. Don’t you see I need you?

Now, as I find myself running the Real World’s marathon. The work a day run to lifes everlasting edge, I see that – instead of unity and teamwork, amongst us all – our lives instead diverge. Following the code of the Metropolis.

At what point I ask you, do we converge?

One week ago I found myself at an unexpected place in time. My hometown of Alpena, Michigan. Untouched by my eyes for over 2 years, I expected never to return. But while there, I saw what once was, what does not now here happen, and what ought to be.

And what I saw is this. A collection of people working for and with, each others needs. Moochers and looters in our own right, we each, the lot of us, drank from the souls of each person around us. While we spread out at times about Alpena, we were still, collectively as one – pulling and tugging on each other, emotionally, financially, and even physically.

They say: “Well, that’s what happens among childhood friends.” Excuses: The cry of the metropolis. Her lips only spew excuses. Is this why so many did not come today? Or why get togethers can only happen around a pitcher of cold beer? Or why we take naps, and go to bed early? Or why none of us work toward something great? Are her words, our words?

Weather it’s a symphony or a coal mine, all work is an act of creating and comes from the same source: a sacred fire - determination embroiled with in each of us. For some it shines like a campfire toasting marshmallows under a half lit moon. Others a spotlight shining toward the future for all humanity. Most, nearly all, do not have or do not use this spark and instead stubble around like blind bums under a bridge vomiting and spewing out the remaining days of their existence – neglecting the good work they could be doing. (being sweet)

There are those that call me an artist, and those that call me a business man, and as each being the same I have but a small spark, a rapid and tiny flash hopping out of an electrical outlet - limitless energy that jolts into existence for but the briefest of moments, powered by parts unknown.

I may not be able to fill out a tax return form, or drive anything with wheels. But at least I don’t make excuses. Anything I can’t do I get done by going to a friend. I get stuff done, not on my own, but through the collective nature of the unified peoples around me. I can do nothing on my own, alone, I live in an empty apartment and sleep in a closet. Together, we can be anything, and do everything. Leave the ideals of the city dweller and the modern man behind. Forget credo of man. The time for excuses, of any kind, is over. You have had you time to nap.

I want you to know. The only thing stopping you from being great, from being anything at all, is yourself.

All I have to give is a spark and some Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches. Do you need power, a jolt to life. Plug into me as I must continually plug into you.

I have a spark, feed off me.”

Only a handful of people came to visit the picnic, most of them I felt out of pity. When I read the speech, only a few listened and it came off as a joke, some hyperbole of jargon and grammatical errors. The speech did nothing but diminish the central idea of the picnic as an event, and when I walked away from the picnic that afternoon, I felt that I had in no way bolstered my connection to the city, nor have I moved away from my constant glorification of the past. My speech in fact only served as a way for me to hate the city more, because by showing hate to it, how could it love me back. I walked away unhappy and further saddened by my current state of living.

In these depths I sit alone in my apartment most nights. Working on projects, writing my new book, or thinking of new ideas – after a little self-reflection saying those words about my time in my apartment is simply comical. For I have done nothing but rot. In fact a few days ago I got an e-mail from a friend who lives here in the city. And I quote. “Are you dead?”

My current reality is in such an abysmal state that my friends see me as dead. I function as one who is deceased. I look at my life and I feel dead. All the things I once loved about myself, the characteristics I saw as making me special and unique are gone. My flamboyant energy and personable attitude have been exchanged for a sluggish gut and a sneer that turns people in the other direction. My nightlife of bouncing from hott party to crappy club, taking over a dance floors with sweet moves and elbows has gone away and been replaced with nights sitting on the floor of my empty apartment or pacing in circles rubbing the carpet raw. My unique style, speechcraft, and loving attitude has hardened and now consists of a total disregard for others and the human condition. Where there was love is hate, fun now sadness, energy now sloth, life there is death.

I am a dead man walking – one ready for the grave.

One of the few connections I have left to life is through a small window on my computer, a video chat screen to my friend Rick. A recluse by choice, this fellow artist, Alpena alum, friend of the Basement, and co-writer of “Gay for a Summer,” still calls me by name, “Vandermolen.” Each night he chats me up, and he feeds me doses of my former reality, “Remember the dead possum…the planetarium…the Stolen Socks Magazine,” a time before this age, the avalanche of human existence. Or, with motherly touch, he rubs my sweaty head, “You got something, I can feel it in the fourth dimension. They don’t get it man, they don’t get it. The problem is we’re too sweet and we have no connection with the common man. Instead of writing about reverberations from the forth dimension we need to tone it down…The problem is we’re too sweet.” A drop of cool water in the fires of hell.

And then one day he got to thinkn’, “Why don’t you have a bed?”

“What. Oh I don’t have the money.”

He paused a moment, thought about it, “Bullshit.”

“…Well, yeah I just don’t need one right now.”

“Bullshit.”

“Um…I’m telling you man, I don’t need a bed. I’m too sweet for that.”

“Bullshit.”
“…”

“Stop bullshiting man. Why don’t you have a bed?”

I was as trial by one of the few men who I would allow to take me to court, “Ahh. A. Hmmm.”

He watched me squirm through the window on his computer. “You’re a afraid.” He stopped me dead – because I was. “You’re a afraid of getting a bed.”

“No.”

“Stop it. You’re afraid. You’re afraid of being part of the Real World. You’re afraid of being a doucher…You say you want to write stuff to impact the world, but you have know idea what the world is. You hide in your room and sleep in the closet so your not one of ‘them.’ You need to level up, come on it’s 2009, full custody. You are a great writer, but you can’t connect with the common man if you distance yourself, if you think your better then them by not having a bed, or eating food, or have furniture. You’re wrong. Not having a bed does not make you a martyr. Stop pulling a Martin Luther.” He said it like a true friend.

“No no. I…But. Hmmm. Fine. Your right.”

“That’s all you write about. Not having a bed. You’re using it as a crutch. I know you’re afraid you’ll get stuck in Chicago. I know you’re afraid of being an adult. But guess what, you’re an adult. Guess what, you’re in Chicago. Deal with it, it’s part of life.”

“I’m not af…I’m afraid. I just…” I hesitated to say what I already knew. “I just want to be different. I want to be special. I want to be loved.”

“Vandermolen. A man once said, 'real gansta's don't flex nuts because real gangsta's know they got'm.'" It hit the mark. "You’re loved. You’re unique. You’re special. You are next level, one of the best and more creative people I know. You shit ideas that most people build their careers on. Having a bed is not going to make you like everyone else. Status does not make you who you are. This isn't Lowebrook. You don't have to prove yourself anymore.”

“But…”

“It’s 2009. Get full custody. Buy a bed.”

My throat was dry and I looked at him with little doe eyes, and knew he was right. As I slept in my closet that night I couldn’t instantly fall asleep, and for the first time I noticed the discomfort of my situation. I wondered if this made me less of a person.

Over the following days I fixated on not having a bed, wondering why it was so hard for me to buy one. Even the mere thought of getting a bed seemed almost too painful to visualize. If you stopped by my house today and left a mattress outside my door, I wouldn’t accept your gift, not out of pride, or friendship, but out of fear. Fear, that I would be in someway like the world around me – Chicago that I hate, the Real World I participate in with disgust, others whom I feel more superior too. I found myself teetering on my own self-appraisal. Was I better then each and every person I set eyes on because I don’t need a bed, or am I bordering on insanity because issues like war, starvation, and epidemics don’t bother me; but getting a bed - something most don’t consider a luxury but a necessity - is what makes me toss and turn in the middle of the night. And in these times of indecision and mental torment over a seemingly easy choice, I found myself thinking of Survival Week 4: Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

The moment I would relive over and over in my head, the fantasy my mind would wonder too, to escape the chores of reality, was a scene from a trip where I felt most destroyed, where my body was closest to death. In my mind: I was walked the course terrain of the dunes in the torrent of near freezing showers; with inadequate gear, no food to speak of, an empty canteen and shoes that caused rather then prevented blisters - I looked over at Simon, water pooling in his eye lashes; Brent, trudging, shivering and silent, while bearing the weight of water logged clothing; Jarmo, broken outside as well as inside; at the crest of a hill, body needing rest, water, and warmth - I said, “Boys, this is the best day of my life.” And those pure bred Alpeanins looked up at me from their own whirlpool of misery, and each in their own way, using what control they had left in their face, smiled. In pain and in unison they said, “Yes, this is heaven on earth.”

In my moments of bitter and utter discontent for my life in Chicago, and my current place in reality, I fantasized about my proximity to death, my own self-destruction…my own self-immolation.

Punishment and pain. I am the self-immolator. The writer of my own death sentence, the blade and the bullet. The hooded executioner. Punishment is what I seek, pain is what I do to myself. My life is a created situation where I can and will only receive pain. Chicago? Even after writing a book about why I moved here, I have no reason to be living here. Alone? Since when did I ever think living alone was a good idea? Food? Bed? Furniture? Are these really too much to ask? Are they really that much of a luxury? Video games? The only other fantasy I have, and the most heinous punishment I heap upon my head.

Survival Week – a way to feel pain.

Leaving Alpena – a way to feel pain.

Writing and reading a speech formulated to push people away – a way to feel pain.

Exile – the product of pain.

I used to live the good life. In fact, I used to live the best life. The friends, family, a perfect town, and a perfect basement where we all could party in front a wall of TV’s and a fridge full of pop. I was slim and beautiful, and I had ten times the amount of energy as someone my age. I even owned my own business. I have written about it a many times and in many books, in my little pocket of the world I was king. For that time, and for that place I was at the foot of the Holy Mountain, I camped on the slope of God himself. I experienced heaven in a way no man and no woman has ever experienced it before. How could reality, the Real World, compare?

I’m like an opiate user. An opiate user injects the drug into their veins and if only for a brief moment experiences the bliss of substanceative reality. A moment of pleasure where the entire frame work of problems melts away and the dark spots become light, and the memories of wrong fade away, and the king dragons and upright lizards become their greatest of friends. After years of mingling with altered states of bliss and relief, how can reality compare? For these people, sex, earths greatest of joys cannot be felt. Climax cannot be reached, and in these people, the only feeling that makes their blood boil, is the inverse of pleasure, pain. So it is these people that strap themselves to beds of nails and have high-heeled women step on their engorged shafts. Victims of too much pleasure, these people must have a plastic bag over their head to experience an orgasm. Or be raped by a cattle prod. And it is these people who for only a brief moment of time experienced true and perfect pleasure, if only a chemical mask. But what about me, a man who was the epicenter of pleasure it self. What then must become of me?

Do you see why I can’t buy a bed?

Do you see why I am happiest on the desert dunes of Northern Michigan?

Do you see why I hardly eat, have no furniture, and live alone?

Do you see that I am a self-immolator?