I must assure you...

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I am ugly inside.

But some days it doesn't matter, rising to the tone of a phone crackling nonsense in your ear. I owe the American taxpayer some credit. I guess social debt is the best one now and then.

So we've been talking about the Beat movement lately, been going over Allen Ginsberg and I must say, for a bunch of pre-historic emo bastards, I got their idea all wrong. It's a bit romanticized, snotty rich kids wanting to play the down trodden part of society as usual, belying unto us with sugary sweet words of suffering and woe.

But that's just the ones that fell in line when they saw they got to smoke cheap, trendy cigarettes in back alley bars while a boy in a beret exclaimed his hatred of the oppressive capitalist pig-dogs, and for those conformist fools who dress up in their suits and ties and go to work for the MAN...

...exclaimed his hatred in a bar full of black berets and shitty mustaches and secret trust funds.

It's amazing how quickly things have come full circle.

Being downtrodden, stripped down, filthy, 'non-conformist' if such a thing exists...it's hilarious to watch the imitations that people try so desperately to get away from when they don't have the choice.

But, their choice to make, eh, whatever.

Anyways, the Beat movement. Not too shabby. So a kid who's evidently fucking brilliant, graduating from Columbia University with damn good marks, decides to just kinda hit the peyote payload and live life to it's suckiest.

While this is willful 'beat down' I must give the man commendation for getting into print shit that even Walt Whitman had to hide deep within his verse.

"With dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls,..." (11, Howl)

1950s here.

"Who copulated, ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness,..." (41, Howl)

1950s. Holy. Shit.

But anyways, enough of my bitching about how damn near all of history's writers are fucking frauds.

It's been an insightful quarter so far, learning of the various styles of writing, how the perception of acceptable prose and poetry have evolved,

from the Romantics dripping sugar all over everything,
to the Victorians and the unbelievable sticks up their asses,
to the Modernists who spurned letting emotions cloud their work,
to the Futurists riding the big steel phallus to the future,
to the Confessionals, instilling their shame and agony into their work.

These and many more.

The reason this has all been a wonderful is that it's very reaffirming to see one's work validated in the past. How one's style could have been / maybe will be accepted. And I think this follows through in all walks of life. Radical ideas leading to radical inventions leading to radical, and I mean fucking radical money.

Ooooooh radical money.

But it's really fun to witness it evolve through each of my classes, the changes in acceptability in literature. To see the MAN being fought in every generation.

So I guess cultural movements are kinda lost on me. Shit's hilarious.

It's a little depressing when you think that there's really not anything purely original anymore.

But the Irony. Oh god damn does the Irony kill me.

Some things are good being old and cliche though. Like bubble baths. If there's a single one among you who hasn't ever had a bubble bath, I will god damn well ship you a bottle of that stuff. No matter how old or bitter or cynical or rich you are, I don't see how a bubble bath won't make you relive your childhood.

Foam beards and hairstyles and the gentle sensation of miniature explosions all over your skin as you reach above the water line.

Of course, some things do change...



But my god do you feel like an amazing, original, fresh soul when you're done.