They don’t make lies like they used to
I will read anything left in the break room at work: True Story Magazine, which features the utmost in outrageous tales of domestic debauchery (fictional); out-of-date Rolling Stone magazines and obscure romance novels, with brittle yellow pages that have been left untouched for years; Entertainment Weekly, whose faux-New York variety editors churn out articles and lists—lists of anything—to validate the fact that yes, they are young and urban, and into indie-rock; or even Sound and Vision magazine, which panders exclusively to the bourgeoisie and whose featured “entertainment systems” cost more than my annual salary for the last five years combined. Advertisements, brochures, bulletins and obscure addiction pamphlets, with hilarity-inducing drawings accompanying descriptions. My job is so mind numbingly boring—such an affront to the senses on every available level!—such an assault to mankind in general!—clear out some knitting magazines from your recently deceased 84-year-old grandma’s coffee table and I will probably check them out for at least ten minutes of total sensory overload.

Today I am reading the Daily Gazette, which is a Schenectady, New York newspaper that saves you ten cents over the leading newspaper subscription. The only people I’ve ever met who actually subscribe to this paper are my dad and some chumps who live out in the middle of nowhere, so that the leading paper (e.g. The New York Times) does not deliver there. In any case, it’s a pretty worthless piece of trash, and I’m pretty sure you can read the entire thing, cover to cover, in no more than 15 minutes. Today I am reading, perusing like a motherfucker—actually going so far as to read the obituaries, because I have nothing better to do. Most of the obituaries I’ve ever read go to great lengths to point out the definitive life-moments of the individual, what schools they’ve attended, where they’ve lived, etc. In the case of some momentous trauma the editors at said paper and the respective families usually go the distance of providing such vagary that you, the reader, have no idea of what actually happened as the cause of death. But today I am reading and this obituary actually points out that this young person was a DRUG ADDICT, and that it got the best of him, in the end. It wastes no time in pointing this out either, not even sparing the proverbial five lines of lifetime dogma. It seems unreal to me. Can they actually get away with this?? I want to know. Can your family actually defame you in such a shrewd manner? It seems crazy, but it is real and it is true. Die doing something your family wouldn’t want you to, and they might chide you for your death-style (as if they actual living wasn’t hard enough—hence the existence of illicit drugs to begin with—now there’s all this to worry about). It stresses me out for about ten minutes, during which time I scroll my own obit, pointing out all of the finer achievements: Ryan Kemp, many memorable hairdos, unfortunate sneaker collection. I get uptight about it, and then I realize: it probably won’t matter too much in the end.