Take the Ride

I have been waking up obscenely early since moving into Clark House.I am trying to find good ways to fill the time that I should be sleeping.This morning I watched "Buy the Ticket,Take the Ride".It could have been a real downer,but instead I thought about how I was influenced in my youth by the man.I remember reading his books when I was in junior high.I borrowed them from this boy that lived a few blocks away from my grandparents.He was in highschool and he would get me high in the rumpus room of his parent's house while playing Rush and old Pink Floyd. He got me hooked on two things.....space music and Hunter Thompson's writing.I was probably too young for that type thing,but in my home town,you are really never too young for anything.
I remember being so impressed with the wide open narrative...the immediacy of these events that had happened when I had been only a child,or the thought of a child.Granted,it seemed alot more recent back then,seeing as it was about 20 years ago.I realized that literature was not just what I was given to read,it was whatever I could get my hands on.His books were the ones that led me to read so many other works that changed the way that I saw my life ahead of me.He and Henry Miller were the authors that allowed me to walk away from childhood with no illusions about the nature of man.

I guess that I don't really begrudge him the way that he died.I guess that it's a rather roman way to think about the concept of life and death.I think that he knew when he was done.I think that it is your right to die off when you choose,if you truly believe that you have lived a full life. It's paradoxical though,because on the other side of the coin,when someone chooses to die because their life didn't live up to their expectations,I see it as cowardly and pathetic.It's all about the perspective,though it cannot be broken down into right and wrong.

**I have to say that I believe that my itunes (which stays permanently on shuffle) has some kind of higher intelligence.about halfway through this entry,it spewed out "Lawyers,Guns & Money" by Warren Zevon. But then,it does this shit all the time.****