The Single Most Glorious Thing I've Seen in My Life

For some reason, I've been reading some of my old short stories and creative non-fiction works. FYI, it's always a trip to read things you wrote a long time ago. One thing that was especially a trip was a half-baked, more or less free association piece I wrote over a year ago, after I had seen the New York Dolls. Man, I was one depressed mf back then. But aside from that, I was reminded of something that transpired that night that was fierce and glorious, and blindingly amazing. I was so impressed with it even then that I wrote this piece around it. I'll just take a snippet from it, as follows.

Johansen made a joke about it. He administered some liquid drug (whose name I missed; I didn’t get the joke, therefore) to himself with an eyedropper and said, “I have a good reason for taking this. The reason is that I’m so fucking depressed it’s not fucking funny.” He smiled and shook his head.

“Dave, I don’t think they got it,” said Sylvain.

“I didn’t want them to get it,” Johansen cried. “Because every time they don’t laugh, it makes me STRONGER.”

And THAT right there is a diamond. The reason why David Johansen is a god, and why I, in my vain and childish insistence on cosmic justice, will never be anything more than a man (= human). I will be drawing inspiration from this moment for many years, I know.

Pain doesn't exist simply because, without it, we couldn't know how to appreciate pleasure. Pain exists because, as Heidegger says, it IS existence. In the strong sense, because pain is iconoclastic; original because it's not planned or controlled. In the weak sense, because it's the seed of all things funny, and derivatively, of all pathos. If it weren't for my pain, I would become what I despise: boring and putrid. A plastic trophy of no purpose.