I have been experiencing a certain amount of dispair and misdirected rage recently. It may be the general gloominess that accompanies winter, but I've become grouchier than even I usually am. I find myself taking revenge for the pettiest reasons: kicking cars that cut me off on my bike, yelling at customer representatives, email-bombing companies that have offended me etc. Will made me think yesterday. We were talking about taking off these punk nails that I wear as a necklace when I sleep, and he said "that would make a great headline: 'cynical bastard killed in his sleep by punk jewelry.'"
   Am I really such a cynical bastard? I have always seemed like a pessimist on the outside, but I was always certain that I was just playing devil's advocate, that people really were basically good. Now I might just be cynical all the way through. These last few years of getting shoved around and taking my own turn shoving in this cut-throat city, losing friends to the constant siren song of money and leaving others behind as the class differences between us became chasms, seeing frivolity and intellect banished from the music and art world that I love have left me a lot more bitter than I'd hoped to end up.
   Here's what I've done wrong: I've made too many enemies. When people remember me, I think that they recall an asshole, that more accurate word for iconoclast. I decided to stop trusting anyone, and lost what ability I ever had to make lasting friends. I've given up on forgiving people. one of the most fantastically difficult ideas that Jesus came up with for his first novel was the idea that we should forgive others and welcome them back after being hurt. I have yet to see any christian do anything of the sort. I don't really pay attention to people who have pissed me off to hate them,but I have permanently written them off. I've spent to much time (as has everyone else in the city) acting on mercenary impulses rather than leaving calculation out of the most important parts of life.
   Some things still inspire me - SPAM records, the SF kids, Iggy Scam-, but I still witness these things with their mortality in mind. I have seen so many others pass on that I can't get the taste out of my mouth.
   Here's what I want: I want a new sense of wonder. I want to step being fooled by the fleshy substitutes for reality that we're fed by the media every day. I want to enjoy bands and artists who have guts just because they do, not because of their polish. I want you to start producing art and music with guts. I want to take back the sense of a mission that I started out with. I want your help. To form secret synd-icates and pledge to perform at least one criminal act a week against the real criminals. I want to find intellectual stimulation among my peers. I want you to hold salons with your partners in crime and talk and think and pass your ideas on to one another. A band on tour is not a merchandising machine, it's a missionary from the underground. Act like it. I want to forget that money exists, to realize that life is only shortened by money. I want the rest of you to do the same, to stop selling yourself and your time because 'you have to' and start living. I want to treat everyone as if I could understand their world. I want you to start paying attention to other people's worlds so that you know what it feels like on another sides. And, I want a pony.