Adventures in Television

"Paul Rieckhoff told me to blog, so blame him"

Live fast, die young, fuck you to everyone you know.

I’ve been tossing around a whole bunch of ideas about what to write next on here: California stuff, politics stuff, stuff about stuff and stuff.  But the untimely death of the late Amy Winehouse kind of forced my hand.  My rationale comes in two parts: 1) in my past life, I’d probably be on live TV right now parsing the semiotics of a public casualty and 2) if there has been any recurring leitmotif in my life over the last few years it’s been friends dying young.  Unfortunately, on this topic, I’ve got a thing or two to say.  So …

About two years ago, my friend Lucy decided to tear a bed sheet in half and hang herself from a loft beam a few days shy of her 29th birthday.  I happened to be in Berlin at the time (Lucy lived in Paris) and because of the time difference with the States, I had the unfortunate task of calling mutual friends in New York and LA to deliver the bad news.  It was one of the most miserable days of my life.  I’ve lost friends young before.  Usually it was to cruel tricks of fate: bout of cancer, bad drug cocktail, a subdural hematoma no-one noticed, ambush on a tour of duty.  But what made Lucy’s death so totally, utterly, heart-breakingly unnerving is that she had a hand in it.  At first, I was distraught.  I don’t remember most of the weeks after she died because I tried to stay drunk as much as possible.  But a few months later, when her sister came to collect her things from New York and spent most of that trip wearing Lucy’s clothes and chasing her ghost while weeping, my sympathy and sadness turned to bitter disappointment and anger at my friend.

Chronic depression and chronic addiction aren’t apples and apples.  Each has it’s own unique causes and the battle to overcome both is very different for those who have to fight it/them.  But the worst possible result in both circumstances - suicide and overdose - strike me as fraternal twins.  Both situations are deaths that can be mitigated.  Which is not to say that I am blaming the victims.  I am a zealous pluralist when it comes to the pain of facing disease and things like sensations of isolation, paralysis, terror and powerlessness.  From what I know of those who have fought against either/both, it is one of the worst experiences a human can have.

But as solitary as that battle feels, letting it run to its bitter end is a profound fuck you to everyone you know in the most damaging possible way.  And it deserves to be regarded as such.  This is not a separate idea from lionizing someone cut down in their/before their prime.  This is not a separate idea from being sad for those who succumb to a clinical disease, even if by their own hand.  It is simply a recognition that there is a cost to doing yourself in - quickly or slowly - that should be used to pare away any romance hailed by that fetish cult that builds temples to those who die young.  Look at it for what it is.  Take it as gritty, raw and wrong.  And then spit it out of your mouth at any and everyone you know who is considering that end as a destination.

Fuck the existentialists.  There is no solitude.  21st-century social field theory is harrowing proof that none of us, no matter how much it might seem, is ever even close to alone.  We are the product of and belong to other people all throughout our lives.  So.  Help is close if you need it and if you need it, please seek it.  But if you say a prayer tonight, don’t say it for Amy Winehouse, tragic as her loss may be.  The dead are beyond deaf.  Say it for all the people in her life who now have to walk that nasty walk through the stations of the cross of grieving.  That road is horrible and hurts and only the living ever experience tragedy.  Death is something else entirely.

Also, if you ever should find yourself getting sucked out by the bleak undertow, please remember, even if hope is a tougher concept to get a hold of than despair, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.  Sometimes, even if you can’t find it in yourself, it’s worth looking for in other people.

http://youtu.be/Ll7UFxqI2pM

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