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Neko's welcome
--------------
Hey everybody. It's been awhile, hasn't it? Six months, to be exact. Well,
I'm going home on Saturday, and I wanted to get something out before then.
I actually started this issue a lot sooner than I said I did. I solicited
submissions from the punk-list and have been compiling things for awhile,
but it's really going home that has gotten my ass in gear. I haven't
gotten the web page entirely done yet, sue my lazy self. By the time this
issue comes out, the web page should be located on a different server as
well as having an official (tm) mailing list. We'll see how all that works
out over the next couple of days. My year in Russia is almost over, and
I've had a real good time. I'd advise any and all of you to go somewhere
on an exchange. There's not a lot by me in this issue, but that's okay,
cuz I think that the stuff that is here is pretty good. Dummercon is
coming up in July, and all the information about that is in this issue. I
guess that's pretty much about it for now.
later
john
Index
-----
01 ... Neko's welcome
02 ... Dragged down
03 ... 5 September, 1996
04 ... Drunk and debauched in Tver
05 ... 6 September, 1996
06 ... Dummercon 3
07 ... 7 September, 1996
08 ... Further to fly
09 ... 8 September, 1996
10 ... A girl, a lizard and some other stuff
11 ... 9 September, 1996
12 ... John the III - part 1
13 ... 10 September, 1996
14 ... Racism fucking sucks...
15 ... 11 September, 1996
16 ... Goodbye, sexy
17 ... 12 September, 1996
18 ... Ye
19 ... 13 September, 1996
20 ... Konets
Dragged down by Nate Ganglehoff
-------------------------------
I still remember distinctly the weekend Bert fell apart; I remember it
and saw it coming. The whole situation with his life had finally reached
it's boiling point, and we all were going to have to watch it spill over.
Admittedly, at the time I didn't really care anymore since I figured it
was all his doing in the first place. We all tried to warn him every now
and then, but he was taking his chosen path at full speed, his head firmly
lowered, so I doubt he would have even heard us had we told him directly.
Besides, Bert was the type of person who would have taken offense to an
accusation that his life was falling apart -- his forehead would bunch up
in an angry glare as he'd say "What the hell you talking bout, Mark? Yeah,
you got it great man, just perfect. You don't have any problems, right?
Prick..." or some other garbage, completely missing the point. I mean,
Christ, I don't want to sound like somebody from Alcoholics Anonymous or
whatever, but he really couldn't admit to ANY of his problems; they simply
didn't exist. To imply that they did was pointless, so no one even
bothered. Now, everyone's kicking themselves and feeling guilty about the
whole thing, which is ridiculous and disgusting. I suppose I feel a tinge
of guilt, yeah, but that's just my mind messing with me. I remember how it
really happened.
At the time, we still hung around Bert a little, so we were going to pick
him up that Friday night, get drunk, and drive around town like maniacs.
It didn't bother any of us that we had to stop at a bunch of places first;
we were in no real rush to get Bert anyway. Most of us wanted nothing to
do with him at this point, but we were literally scared of him. To
understand this, you have to realize that Bert was a pretty intimidating
guy. For one thing, he was just huge, built like an ox (I always thought
he had the body of a football player and the face of a stoner), but his
attitude was just as frightening as his physical appearance. Even when he
wasn't pissed, he'd have this sneaky, sinister smile on his face like he
was about to plunge a knife in your back and then say he was just joking
around. But his grin was just an extension of his brain -- the muddled
thought process that controlled the mechanics of his mind was something I
didn't even try to understand. No one did, really, you just hoped you were
across the room when he flipped out. It was just crazy, I mean I wouldn't
even believe any of it, but it happened to me a few times. Jesus Christ,
the kid punched his mom for forgetting to buy Coco-Puffs! He got suspended
from school when he pulled a knife on the gym teacher- "I'm not running
the fucking mile". I'm not kidding! The kid was a maniac! It obviously
begs the question "why'd you hang around him, then?", I realize, but you
have to understand my relationship with Bert was like a bad, long-term
drug addiction: it created a need for itself. Once I was in, there was no
way I could blow him off; he'd take it too personally and come after me.
He was like a parasite to his friends, needing their constant (false)
support to stand up. The only difference was, in this equation if you
eliminated the host, the parasite wouldn't die. It would be the other way
around. Yeah, we were that scared of him, but believe me, it was all
warranted.
But we weren't thinking about Bert as we wandered around the convenience
store that night, trying to steal cigarettes. The vaguely sleazy little
store was home to a whole horde of silly little goons, and a bunch of them
were hanging around now, snickering as we walked down the aisles. I
recognized one of them from school, his name was Neil, I believe. His
face was reddened with tiny little zits, matching the color of his jacket
and shoes. Blue eyes, gelled blond hair...the whole bit. Neil was always
smiling, which made it strangely uncomfortable to look at him, given the
fact that he'd giggle and nudge his buddies if you did. All three of us
walked right past their little group, and I was a good ways down the aisle
when I heard the smack and long howl of laughter. Turning around, Jake and
I both saw that Neil had tripped up Dave, who was now sprawled out on the
floor, his hair covering the dirty tiles like a grimy mop.
Right then, I just wanted out of there, out of the whole stupid situation.
I had felt like crap emotionally for a few weeks, and stupid little
incidents like this just added to my condition. So I just stared at Dave
as he got up, pushing his hair back and rubbing his forehead. He was
pretty pissed, but not big enough physically to warrant showing it, so he
just walked over to Jake and I. There were two groups now, face to face,
like a couple of street gangs. It was silly.
"What you boys doing tonight, eh?" Neil snickered. I shrugged without
emotion.
"Nothing". I moved for the door, but one of Neil's buddies, I don't even
remember his name, stuck out his arm to stop me. I glared at him as hard
as I dared.
"I bet you boys are going off to make out at the drive-in, eh?" Neil said,
prompting another round of piercing laughter. I felt my face getting a
little flushed, and mook #1 was still barring passage, so I turned to
Neil. He was broadly grinning, his arms crossed, his eyes raised in a
little "what, did I do something to make you angry?" look. I hated him,
yeah, but I also envied him. It was a no-win situation for me, but I was
pissed, so I tore into him.
"So you still gonna be in the NFL, Neil? High school's almost done, buddy,
are the colleges lining up yet?" He paused, but didn't frown.
"What the hell you talking about? I can do whatever I want, faggot. You're
just a stupid pot head anyway." I smiled, but felt pretty empty inside. My
face was about to get caved in. After making a few derogatory comments
about his mother, I started again about his professional football
aspirations. He was shaking now.
"It's pretty sad that you're not that good at the only thing you do well,
I mean it mu-" I felt his fist crash into my skull as I tumbled to the
floor, landing hard on my arm. My brain didn't feel connected to my body
as I huddled on the ground in a fetal position, but I could feel him
kicking my back in, screaming like a maniac. I didn't even waver for a
long thirty seconds, the pain wasn't registering yet. My thought process
was completely clear; I realized this was just another bad situation for
me, one of many, so I might as well sit back and take it. The
store-manager must be too scared to do anything, I figured, cause this was
taking awhile. The blood was soaking through my shirt now, I could feel it
spiderwebbing up my back as I tried to roll over on my side. Just as I
was about to finally scream for mercy, I heard a high, scary shriek emerge
from above me. Rolling around, my blurry eyes saw Neil grabbing
frantically at nothingness, face twisted in confusion, writhing around in
front of Bert.
No one made any noise -- if it wasn't for the refrigerator's low hum it
would have been dead silence. Bert was holding Neil in a cheap wrestler
hold, and looked completely out of his brain. He had stumbled in, messed
up on whatever drugs he was doing, saw Neil kicking the life out of me,
and jumped the poor kid. That shouldn't have happened to Neil -- it wasn't
a bad wound anyway -- but he didn't deserve it. I was fully aware my face
was going to get pounded in; no help from Bert was necessary. Now the
stupid oaf had dragged us into a whole other mess.
I watched Bert throw a rather shaken-up Neil to the floor, and pull out a
thin blade from his belt. "What the hell are you doing?!?" I shrieked,
stumbling to my feet, but it wasn't necessary; the manager had already
tackled Bert, who was too drugged-up to offer any legitimate defense. He
laid on the floor perfectly still, as the manager slowly backed away,
having grabbed the knife.
After a moment of silent confusion, we all started screaming at him
simultaneously, telling him just how much of an idiot he was. Bert
groggily looked up at me, confused, his mind trying to comprehend the
yelling.
"Wha the hell....ya man, I saved your life! Wha you pissed bout?"
"You didn't save my life, you idiot! You got us all in trouble with that
crap, you don't have to pull out a damn knife if someone's getting
kicked!! What the hell are you thinking?!?" Jake and Dave chimed in with
other insults; it felt good to have the upper-hand on Bert -- he didn't
even bother defending the accusations of idiocy. At one point, I thought
he might try to come after me, but he just put his head down and walked
toward the door without a word.
"Stop right there!" the puny twerp of a manager ordered. Bert turned and
stared at him, not looking very hostile. He shot him a warning glare, and
the manager backed off. Even though he had a knife, the guy didn't want to
take Bert on face to face. I suppose at this point he didn't even care-at
least the psycho was leaving his store.
So Bert just left, without saying a word, his head lowered. Good riddance,
I figured. The weak friendship had finally been severed after wavering for
far too long.
I swallowed my pride, apologized to Neil and the manager, gave Bert's name
and phone number, and retreated home extremely depressed to clean up.
The news was surprising at first, but the once the initial shock left it
was actually pretty easy to explain. At noon the next morning we found
out that Bert had killed himself when he got home. They found him laying
on his bed, overdosed on a variety of pills, having left "no note or
apparent reason". But now I know the reason, everyone who knew him does.
Bert had expired, basically. His energy ran out, the fun died, there was
nothing left. He was gone. Non-recyclable. Game over. Bert aged 30 years
in 18, and he wasted every one of them. I didn't even care, unlike
everyone else who got dragged down with guilt. Bert was going to die one
way or another, that's the way his life was plummeting, so I didn't feel
guilty. However, I did feel generally worse, in fact I don't think I ever
felt so horrible in my entire life. That's the way Bert was, I guess; he
brought me around when we hung around together no matter how much I
loathed it. There was nothing I could do about it. It's just like I said,
it was a friendship similar to a drug addiction, or a bad disease with no
practical cure. Even when he died he had to drag me down with him.
5 September, 1996 -- 22.21
-------------------------
Dima said he would meet me at home to take me to the AFS meeting. At
16.45, he wasn't home yet (the meeting was at 17). So I set out on foot to
find the meeting place. After walking for an hour, I found it. No one was
there. When I got home, 2 AFS volunteers were waiting for me to take me to
the meeting. So a bad situation turned out to be good.
Drunk and debauched in Tver
---------------------------
Last Friday was Victory Day. 3-day weekend. But no! My weekend started
Thursday!@ The shit went down like this:
Thursday. The stupid old ladies here wanted to close early. No problemo.
Vadim, Misha and Kostya wanted me to come out for a beer with them. I told
them I had no money. It was not a problem, I was told. Kostya had money.
Okay, so we first go to Spring Time bar, and Kostya buys four bottles of
Miller for us. We go stand around outside to drink it. After we finish, we
go to Uncle Sam's. He buys us Shavarmas, and beer. We eat and drink, then
leave. Walk up a street. We go to a small cafe. Each get a cup of white
wine (all with Kostya's money). Then we go to another cafe. Much more
upscale. Order food and beer. Refill the beer. Kostya smokes. We don't.
Then we do. We chain smoke. One after another, right down the line. Then
we get the vodka. First shot is okay. Second, I think it went down wrong.
I'm starting to feel sick. I stand up to head to the bathroom. Got to go
talk to the ladies who work there to get the fucking key. Okay. Done. Head
out to the bathroom. It starts coming up while I unlock the door. Little
bit starts dribbling out on the floor. Finally, the door opens, and I run
inside and let it out into the toilet. Then I look at the mess I made.
Need to clean it somehow. No toilet paper. Okay, I look in the garbage
can. I see some paper scraps in there. I take them out and wipe up what I
can. Then I wash up and go back. When I return, there are two girls I know
sitting with the guys (Galya and [I think] Ira). I wonder what they saw...
Misha seems to be macking on Ira, and Galya and Vadim seem to be an item,
so it's just Kostya and me that are alone. We go out to get some more
alcohol. Come back with a bottle of normal vodka and cranberry vodka.
We're sitting there, smoking away, and two young women come in. They are
trying to sell something, but nobody would tell me what. Eventually, we
leave. We walk down the street towards the River Volga. On the way, we
pick up two big bottles of wine. Walk along the Volga, walk, walk. Come to
a stop where some other people we don't know are. Go to talk to them. They
learn I am American and offer me vodka. Drink it. Someone else does the
same. Drink it. Don't remember anything else after that.
Friday is Victory Day. I wander around most of the day, looking for
someone I know. All the whole city is outside, but I see noone I know
(that is worth mentioning). Call my British friends to see what their
plans are for celebrating V-Day. They're going on the Volga Volga disco.
So, I decide to tag along. I arrive at the park WAY early, so I just
wander around. Two guys walk up to me and say 'What is your name'. I reply
in Russian, 'Menya zovut John'...Turns out they already know me
from...LAST NIGHT! So, I am reintroduced to [I think] Vladimir and Zhamal.
We wander around, and then I ditch them to just sit near the Volga Volga
to wait for them. Some old guy comes up and asks if he can have my bottle
when I'm done. Sure, I say. He waits and when he sees me finishing it, he
returns to take it. He starts to make conversation. So, I talk to him. He
was an okay guy. Was happy that he had enough bottles to recycle to get a
loaf of bread. Still haven't seen Alison and Joy (British, er, to be more
specific, English and Welsh, respectively). Do, however, see a
foreign-looking girl wearing one of those dumb 'Soccer is Life' shirts and
sandals with socks. Definitely foreign. I edge closer. Hear English. Say
hi to Paula from Canada. She's a missionary or something. She's meeting
Melinda and Bart from Inter-Contact are meeting her to go on the disco
boat. Well, Alison told me they were meeting Melinda and Bart, too, so I
go along. On the boat are Alison and Joy already. Don't know how they got
there. So, 3 bottles of champagne, 1 bottle of vodka later and the boat
disco ends. So, after walking Alison and Joy home, I decide to go to the
dormitory. I figure, hey, it's a holiday, there'll be free alcohol, and a
disco there, too. So, I go. No free alchol. Decide to leave. Walk by the
disco. hot hot hot Natasha is there, with no boyfriend in sight. I decide
to go dance with her. We're slow-dancing, and I do the ye ole 'can I kiss
you' thing. She says no. Oh well. After the dance is over, she introduces
me to a friend. So, I dance with her for awhile, but she leaves before the
next slow song. Feeling dejected and depressed, I go over to wallflower
it. Vadim is there. He expresses surprise at seeing me there. I tell him
that life sucks. He encourages me to just walk over to this group of girls
standing around and take one. So, I do. Don't remember her name, though.
We dance, and then in a little bit, we, another girl, and two guys go to a
room. Got some vodka and beer. There was another girl in the room. They
started playing slow songs. Lights turned out. Sveta asks if I want to
dance. Okay. We dance. We start making out. She tastes like cigarettes,
but anything is most decidedly better than nothing. Start to feel her up.
That's okay, but everytime I try to move underneath her shirt, my hand is
moved away. Eventually, they decide I need to go home. That's at about
4am.
Saturday I got up at sometime or another. Played around on the Internet
for awhile and then went to visit Alison and Joy. Brought gifts of
Newsweek, CDs and Mac+Cheese with me. Hung around for awhile, this guy
Andrei comes. Drink a few beers, make the mac+cheese. After dinner, Alison
and I go out to get a bottle of vodka. Drink that after watching Dinner
for One in English (great sketch). Andrei leaves shortly. Joy goes to bed.
Alison and I stay up drinking the vodka, talking, and then drinking
Hooper's Hooch (alcoholic lemonade, goooood). At about 3am, I left to go
home. Stopped at a kiosk to get some chips. Some lady comes up to me. She
has blood on her face. Middle-aged. Rather scary. Tells me that she is bad
and could I buy her a bottle of beer? I say okay and get the cheap stuff.
We sit down and she starts to (I assume) tell me her life story. And how
she ended up drunk at 3am begging for alcohol. I didn't really care. Her
husband left her for another woman. Aww. She is a doctor. Now **that**
scared me. There were two guys nearby trying to bum cigs off of us. They
heard my accent when I told them no, and they started talking to us.
Distracted me from the middle-aged drunk doctor lady. She kept telling me
where I lived so I could come there. Never did that, and don't plan on it.
She then wanted me to do something...don't know what, I didn't recognize
the verb nor do I remember it to look it up. I think she wanted me to come
home with her. But I don't know if she wanted me to come home with her or
//come home\\ with her. So, I got out of her armlock and left her there,
telling her that everything would be okay, and no, I don't have any money
to buy you a bottle of vodka. Then I went with these two guys to their
flat, and drank more vodka. Went home at about 5am, and learned how to
puke while walking.
Sunday nothing interesting happened. No drinking ;) ... However, when I
came home that afternoon, one of the girls from the cafe on Thursday night
was there with some guy. They wanted to make an appointment to talk to me
about something...I don't know what, but I'll find out tonight at 6.
6 September, 1996 -- 21.52
--------------------------
I went to school by myself today -- I made it with time to spare! My legs
are beginning to hurt from all this walking. I suppose I'll give them a
rest this weekend. I have nothing planned, but am open to suggestions.
Today was the first time I conciously ignored my teachers and wrote some
lyrics. CR/LF! The English teacher wasn't here today, so we had that
period free. Some of my classmates took this opportunity to teach me to
swear in Russian -- which, like most other things I'm taught to say in
Russian -- I promptly forgot.
Dummercon 3
-----------
============================================================================
============================================================================
doomed to obscurity, radioactive aardvark dung, Grill,
and WESN 88.1 FM proudly present the k-rad event of the year...
pgq
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