Author: jkonrath

I woke this morning (well, it was about 11:45) to a strange condition of light outside that I can’t describe. The same thing happened yesterday; it’s like the almost brown-orange color between when it’s very sunny and when a storm suddenly dumps hail out of the sky, an eerie rust-colored available light that’s still full sunlight, but maybe when it’s obscured by a giant storm that hits and vanishes like the Viet Cong. But thismorning it wasn’t just this light – in the half-awake state between the last cycle of sleep and the first moment of being awake in bed, my mind was fully convinced that it was 1988, even though I was a 28 year old adult (?) living in Seattle, and not a kid in high school back in Elkhart, Indiana. I completely thought Ray Miller drove a grey Citation and Larry Falli had a cow’s skull on the hood of his Cordoba and I worked at Montgomery Ward as a master paint specialist for $3.65 an hour. This wormhole lasted for about two seconds, like when you have a dream that you knocked your teeth out and you wake and think for a split-second that you have no teeth. When this temporary portal slipped past, I felt an intense burst of depression that it really wasn’t true, or maybe that I couldn’t go back to sleep and exploit it further. After a half a minute of that, I realized how stupid the whole thing was, and started looking for the remote controls to the TV, stereo, and VCR.

Here’s another dumb thought that happened today. It takes forever to set up, and maybe I just want to ramble about the past more, so bear with me. It also has to do with Pearl Jam, so don’t freak out on me.

I wasn’t a big Pearl Jam fan from the beginning. I wasn’t really a fan of anybody from the whole Seattle movement, because I was too busy with my Motorhead collection and whatnot. When I met Tanya back in the spring of 1993, she initially started emailing me because my process name on the VMS mainframes was always “Doctor X.” (Process names: on VMS computers, you can set a 16 character label that will appear next to your userid when someone looks at some or all of the users on the system. Many people set them to everything from “NoBlood4Oil” to “BoKnowsUnix” to “Sid Lives” to whatever other music-related or depraved things you could think of on a college campus.) Doctor X was a Queensryche reference, and we had that in common. She was also very into Pearl Jam, and I was reluctant, but I heard Alive or Jeremy or something on the radio once, and it wasn’t too bad – it was more metal-based than Nirvana and I thought that maybe I could be into them. One Friday night, we were sitting in her loft in Willkie Quad after a typical dinner/movie date, and she played the whole album for me. Although I wouldn’t call myself a Pearl Jam fan, all of the songs deeply cemented that evening into my head. The relationship started so sweet, innocent – walking across campus, holding hands, being in love and beautiful April days, and the eleven tracks on that album were and still are a direct condiut back to those days of spring 1993.

So she went away for the summer, so did I. We both came back, things went on, but were different, and it ended at the end of October. If you need more details than that, you can read any of the 400 journal entries or short stories I’ve written on the subject. Needless to say, when Pearl Jam’s second album came out, I was pretty anti-Eddie Vedder. And the breakup wasn’t exactly smooth. She tried to politely and distantly be friends, and immediately got into another relationship. I wallowed in episodes of psychotic bullshit that were entirely my fault, and created a huge rift between us. It was the kind of situation where I didn’t feel I could win. I couldn’t have her back, but I couldn’t pretend it never happened. But I couldn’t have her back.

There were drunken, suicidal phone calls, new medications, rambling emails, and other mind games. Then the process names started to change. Even when you aren’t talking to someone anymore, the process name wars will always happen – I found that out with the astrology chick. These were not of the “JKONRATH=dick” sort, but much more subtle – obscure musical references that 1 in 10,000 people would catch. During that time, when we weren’t speaking, one of her process names was “rearviewmirror.” I knew it was a Pearl Jam song, from the new album, but I dismissed it and went on to my chaotic, singular path to destruction.

Fast-forward to July 1, 1995. Everything I own is in a U-Haul truck. I said goodbye to A and Liggett after they helped me load the last of my stuff, and then said goodbye to the city of Bloomington. I’d drive up to Elkhart, say my parental goodbyes, and then head west to Seattle. On the way, I stopped in the Karma records in Kokomo, about halfway through the 250 mile trip. I had a fat wad of money in my pocket, and I figured I’d buy every used tape they had that I could endure. I found the entire Anthrax discography, and a copy of the second Pearl Jam tape for $3. What the hell, I was mostly over her, I thought. I’d had sex with two other people since her, so that qualified as over in my book. I got the tapes, and during the 40-some hour, no-sleep drive to Seattle, I must’ve listened to it a couple of times, but I didn’t pay attention. It seemed marginal, and not as good to me as the first one, so I went back to Henry Rollins or whatever I was listening to on that trip.

I got to Bill’s house, slept for 8 hours, took my first shower in about three days, and got ancy. His wife and kid were in Indiana, visiting relatives, and he was at work, which left me in Mountlake Terrace with no car, a U-Haul full of shit, and in a strange house. I needed food, a walk, and some exploration. I grabbed the walkman and the Pearl Jam tape, rewound to the song rearview mirror, and went walking to the Dairy Queen about a half-mile from the apartment.

So, two thoughts were going on in my mind. One was the knife turning in me over her process name, and how it had to directly do with how much of a dick I was after we split. But the other, less predictable response had to do with my own interpretations of the song, the first song (in theory) that I listened to whhile in Seattle. The relationship aspects hurt, but it made me think about how Indiana was in my rearview mirror. Since my breakup with her, things went downhill for me in Bloomington. It wasn’t her fault – it was that everyone was graduating and moving away, and it made the whole scene more alien for me. Seattle was my start over, and the song was oddly appropriate.

Today, I was about a half hour into the 4 minute trip from my house to the Taco Bell, and for some odd reason, I put in my copy of Vs. and rewound to the song. It won’t be long until Seattle is in my rearview mirror, and the ramifications of this were like a sharp blow to the sternum with a huge weight. I’m not scared of leaving, but it doesn’t seem like too long ago when I was walking to that Dairy Queen and listening to this song on my walkman. My memory has been fucking with me so much, snapping me into brief but chaotic periods of confusion, nostalgia, and depression. I’ve been in Seattle for my whole life, but two minutes ago, I was talking to A about Leonard Maltin in Simms’ old apartment while he was making Indian food and getting ready to tape Duckman. It’s all very confusing sometimes.

That’s enough shit to stew over for now. Hey, when I move, my dates and times won’t be 3 hours off anymore. How’s that for a solution to my stupid problem?

Watching reheated Chinese food cool to an edible temperature, listening to Shadowfax. Track ten of their CD The Odd Get Even is on repeat. “One Heart” is the name of the song. It’s soft – ethereal guitar, dischorded piano, and eerie reeds, the kind of thing you listen to when it’s four in the morning and it’s been raining for a month straight. It reminds me of 1993, when I was all alone in my mom’s basement, everything I owned temporarily stacked against the walls of an 11 by 11 cement cell. My girlfriend was temporarily in Tampa; my social life was temporarily in Bloomington; my zine was temporarily on hiatus; my posh computer job was temporarily on sabbatical while I ran a punch press third shift and unloaded trucks first shift. It was one of those situations that needed definition: a song, a smell, an anthem, a t-shirt, a car that would always pull my life back to it. This is one of the songs, albums that does it. Maybe in five years, it will also remind me of this moment. Who knows.

It’s time to go public with a fairly big secret. I think I know all of the people who read this journal (and if I don’t, you should drop me a line) so this isn’t a surprise to any of you, but here goes. My days in Seattle are numbered. On March 31, I will get in a car and take a two-week voyage across the country which will end with me in New York City, which I will call my new home.

First, I should explain the plan. I’ve quit my job, but I will continue working until the second week of March. Oh, I will be in New York for about a week next month, visiting Marie and maybe laying some groundwork for the move. I’m moving in with Marie, in Washington Heights. I’ll be shipping books, records, electronics ahead of time. Basically everything but my clothes, my computer, my music, and the stuff I’d take on a two-week trip will be going through UPS. My third-hand furniture will be chopped into bits or abandoned at Goodwill. My car will be sold for scrap. Some other stuff will also be given away or sold. And I’ve been dumping a lot of shit I accumulated over the last four years. I’m hoping this move will be a little cleaner than the last, although that wasn’t too bad.

And where will I work? From my computer desk, creating fiction. The pay’s not much, but it’s what I need to be doing. I have some money in the bank, and I will probably pick up some freelance work here and there, but from here on out, my full-time job will be novelist. I need to get Rumored to Exist off the ground, and start other stuff. I can’t do this weird dual-lifestyle thing anymore. I’ve known this for a while, and I thought my only way out was to work a day job and save money to retire at 50 instead of 65 and then write, or maybe go back to school. Marie has been very gracious about this, and I think the time and the change in environment will mean an incredible Rumored to Exist and an even better next book.

I’m anxious to be with Marie more. And Mungo and Henrey – I really like cats, and having two of them to hang around with will be great. I’m anxious to be in New York, the city where everything’s there – every big record store and every famous street and corner and building and every bookstore, and every publisher, and everything. Seattle is very second-tier – it’s thirtysomething, people going to little league games and competing with the Joneses and Working Hard / Playing Hard ™ and driving SUVs. There’s some counterculture here, but even that needs more counterculture. Seattle is a stereotype, where New York is everything. Maybe I’m just guessing this stuff, but I feel like I need the change. I can’t stay here forever, I’ve decided that.

I feel like I could write about this forever – what I see ahead, what I don’t like about today. It’s not that I hate Seattle – it sure beats Indiana. But there are many things that make it impassable for me. I hate the traffic. I hate the rain. I hate the parking. As of right now, I feel very alone in this city, probably more alone than I did at the absolute low in Bloomington, which was the period between when Larry left (5/95) and when I left (7/95). I have no friends in Seattle – no regular friends. I have a half-dozen friends that I see once or twice a year. One calls the other out of the blue, “it’s been forever, let’s do something,” and then a dinner or a movie happens. There’s nobody that I could just call out of the blue here and say “let’s go to the mall.” I don’t want to short-change the couple of people that I do see a few times a year – I love to hang out with them. But I have no default friends, like Ray or Larry, and I would never expect to meet one here.

I don’t expect NYC to be filled with people interested in meeting me or anything. But I need the change. I think being out of college has killed my drive to talk to others. I used to meet new people every semester, and now the only people I see are my coworkers. I’m sure I could go to somebody’s kids’ soccer game, but I need people like me. I think being on the loose as a writer, going to readings and workshops and stuff, might help me. Who knows.

This has gone from an announcement to a bunch of whining drivel, so I should wrap this up. I’m sure a lot more stuff will be discussed about this move, and I’m glad it’s out in the open so I can mention it. I’d like to avoid making this into some sort of countdown to the move (“day 7 – I bought some boxes.”) but I’m sure it will come up again. Drop a line if you have any questions, as always…

I don’t know why I haven’t been writing, except that things are odd and busy and it once again seems like the days are only eight hours long. I am (falsely) hoping for a good weekend. I got my bonus from work, and I plan on putting it all in the bank, but I’m sure within 24 hours, I’ll be shopping for something stupid, like an underwater CD player.

I’ve been working on Rumored, and it’s slowly progressing. I used to be amazed when I could write for three hours a night, every night. Now I’m amazed that I meet my writing quota in 12 minutes and then start watching TV or something. I promised myself that I would finish the first 150 parts of the 256 in the book by the end of the month. It is the 29th, and I am on #148. I should be fine. Now, I want to finish all 256 by the end of March, which might be impossible. Maybe I’ll sell my TV.

The new Kevin Canty book has made me think about a lot of Summer Rain, and how I need to eventually finish that bastard. I think I’m going to go back and rewrite a lot of the sex scenes, or rather insert some. There’s one implied in chapter 3, and one in first person in like chapter 41 or something, but neither really tell what needs to be told. Overall, the protagonist isn’t supposed to get laid, except for the girl who dumps him right before the book starts, and the girl at the end of the book. (And no, it doesn’t have a stupid happily ever after ending – it’s more of a ‘once you get what you’re chasing, you realize it’s not what you want’ sort of thing.) I guess I’m still worried that someone out there will sue me because they think that the fictional characters in my book are based on them. They are, but at least I changed the names.

I don’t think I have anything to talk about today. Just wondering how many feet it will rain over the weekend. I’m glad I live on the fifth floor.

I watched the Ramones video for their last concert (or one of the ten last concerts, rather) and it’s really fucking depressing. Okay, there’s a lot of funny stuff, like when they were on Sha Na Na, and tons of rare and/or old footage, but the whole video is like watching a divorce. Everyone they interview is like “The Ramones are the best band in the world and gave it 20 years of their all, but too bad they never got a big break or huge record sales like any of their flash-in-the-pan imitators.” And everyone in the band was like “we’ve run our course and don’t want to be doing this when we’re 50, but we have no idea what to do outside the band.” The performances were great, but the big finale was Eddie Vedder? Jesus christ. It is a very well put-together video though, and it has tons of stuff I’d never see otherwise. And Lemmy plays on a song, so it’s a must-have.

Last night while writing, I couldn’t think of the word “smoothie” while writing something about Orange Juliuses. I spent an hour trying to figure it out, and then started calling people. “It’s like a fruit drink… it’s like, fucking… it’s got ice. Made in a blender… freezie – slushie – slurpie – icee –” The whole piece wasn’t even that important, but I get locked into this missing-word freakout because I’m convinced that years of antidepressants have completely destroyed my mind.

I’m on day three of the AC/DC marathon. I wish they made a 600 minute MD, so I could record all of my AC/DC stuff into one giant mix MiniDisc, and antagonize everyone in my general vicinity. I think there are few people that could listen to six live versions of “The Jack” back to back without some form of restraint. I was going to post a bunch of AC/DC lyrics in my journal, but lyrics.ch is down.

I haven’t left the house all day (except for a quick trip to the post office and bank) and I haven’t eaten either, so I better shove off and go out into the grey shittiness and find a relatively kid-free McDonald’s or something. Later.

01/23/99 20:30

Guns N’ Roses is allegedly in the studio recording their next album, according to a rumor I heard. The only original members are Axl Rose and their touring keyboard player – everyone else is new. Their assorder resumes sounded reasonable, but there were no big names (i.e. Tommy Lee won’t be playing drums or anything, not that it was a rumor.) I don’t remember the producer, except it wasn’t Mike Clink and it wasn’t Moby. (Moby was really a possibility, I heard from a friend who knows him. It was just a scheduling problem.) Anyway, I expect that in a few months or a year or whatever, everyone will be listening to a new Guns N’ Roses album, and they’ll be headlining Lollapalooza, and the songs will be all over radios and MTV and millions of people will be saying “I’ve been a fan all along.” I hate this shit. I have been a closet Guns N’ Roses fan for about ten years now. Over the last five years when everyone was talking about how Axl Rose was an idiot and would never put out anything else, I still listened to the albums. I don’t know if that’s something to be proud about or not, but it bugged the fuck out of me when 100 million people jumped on the Metallica bandwagon, the same ones who gave me so much shit for listening to them back in high school. The whole music industry is idiotic.

I still haven’t done anything today, except for going to McDonald’s. It’s cold and I 100% know the traffic is bad on I-5. I did get a book from Amazon today that’s a walking tour of many beat generation landmarks in New York. Michael had a copy when I saw him there, and I intend to take some walks and pictures when I’m in town next. And it’s cool reading in the meantime.

I think it’s Nintendo time.