in grade seven I had to do a project on my hero
it was the most ridiculous assignment I've ever had to do
I couldn't think of a single person, and knew that I never would
in the end I chose Bill Waterson,
because I really like Calvin and Hobbes
and I had to choose someone.
my teacher didn't like the project,
because there were no pictures of Mr. Waterson (just comic strips)
and the information was scant (because I made it all up)
what a piece of shit memory
had I known of Bill Hicks at the time, I still wouldn't have used him
I can't think of him as my hero, because I don't have heroes
it doesn't make sense to me
if I ever came across a person so flawlessly wonderful
that I could sit around idolizing their accomplishments
above all else
I'd blow my useless head off
no shit
my adoration wouldn't be a tribute to them
it would be a symbol of my inability to be their equal
some kind of sick admission to my own lack of potential
which is something I will never have.
when I was a little kid, I didn't see any limits to what I could be
if I wanted to become a rocket scientist, I'd just have to study
if I wanted to clean elephant shit at the zoo
I might not have to study quite so hard
but I knew that I could do it
most of the people I talk to these days seem to take it as a given
that they were born unequipped for certain tasks
doors have closed for them out of simple necessity
rather than due to a lack of effort and persistence
on their own part
it's like everybody wants to be a brain surgeon
but fundamentally believe that they are incapable of becoming one.

what I'm getting at, however,
is that I can think of Bill Hicks as a hero
heroes aren't as hard to find, in that context
my 7th grade french teacher probably
wouldn't understand the difference
Bill Hicks is definitely a hero
a hero of freedom, buried in the ground
he looked for the truth, and presented it as he found it
his words make me glad to be alive
I wish that he were still here
though if he were, my words would be somewhat more conservative
I'd say that he's on the brink of hero-dom
but it can't really be said, until a person is dead
because there's always that chance that they'll blow it
not by fucking up, because fuck-ups can be fixed
but by giving up
once a person has given up, they're useless to me
their past accomplishments become null and void
but Bill never gave up
and I can never quite understand that he's dead
the idea that I'll never meet him has yet to harden in my mind
because his work is still here
his message, his voice, his words
I've never believed in a life after death
at least, not in the sense that most do
but Bill Hicks is still alive, in the form of a product
most people take that sort of statement the wrong way
but it isn't a bad thing
he is still a force on this planet
his time as Shiva is not over
and nobody's using his face to sell soft-drinks.

So I was sitting at my computer, feeling strangely miserable
when I decided to try warding it off
by searching for Bill Hicks pages
I read a fairly long and very informative article that I hadn't yet seen
finding my good-humor returning rapidly
and then, to my great surprise
I found a page with a pile of sound files I'd never heard
new Bill Hicks!
or new to me, at least
I had meant to go to bed hours ago, but I'll be up all night now
I've been downloading for about two hours,
writing this in the space between
it'll take another few hours yet on my shitty modem
and then I'll be up all morning recording them to tape
I guess I'll have to take a nap at some point
I did the same thing when I found a page
with all of the old Mr. Bungle demos
Mr. Bungle is my favorite band
if you ever see Disco Volante at a used record store
buy it
(just planting seeds)
hearing the old demos was another one of my goal-posts
and it was great to finally accomplish it
though now that I've got them I don't listen to them much
they sound like hell to begin with
and The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny...
well, if you've heard it, you know what I mean
my new goal is to get better recordings of them
I've got dozens of these little tasks
movies and music videos I want to see
albums I want to hear
comics I want to read
people I want to meet
they're all mentally indexed, in terms of importance
I like to think that I'll do them all before I die
but I'll never be able to
everything will not stay put until I have the means to reach it
and new goals pop up all the time.
man, I'm tired as hell, but I can't stop downloading these files
I'll listen to them, tape them
and lend them to my friend Terry
because he's the only other person I know
who seems to truly understand Bill Hicks
and when he calls I can tell him that I've got a surprise for him
new Bill Hicks
this is how human interaction should work
deciding to give something to someone,
out of a shared understanding and respect
not a law which forces you to treat all of your "brothers" as equals
I'll decide who is my equal,
and I'll give them the time and support they deserve
while the others
the people who chose some baseball player as their highest ideal
in their hero project in the seventh grade
and who haven't grown up much since,
what happens to them doesn't matter much to me
they're the ones who've been coming to me all my life
wanting things
when I was little, they gummed up my house to play with my lego
when I was older, they used me as a means
of venting their adolescent frustrations
pretty soon, the unsuccessful ones
will be gouging me for welfare
while the more successful ones will get government jobs
in order to gouge me in a more efficient and direct fashion
I'm not just bewailing my own situation
I'm talking about you as well
what I've just described is unhappiness
being forced to support, physically or mentally,
those who you don't respect
happiness, on the other hand, is finding things that you love
and, equally important,
finding people who understand and love them with you
it's that easy
I've never understood those who wonder at the meaning of life
I've got it nailed, and I'm what now? 18.
somehow, millions of people are getting horribly derailed
too busy looking at the wrecks of others
to notice their own mess
and fix it.

"I guess maybe I was having a bad day..."

I had a dream last night
about the woman I have most recently fallen in love with
I held her hand as we walked together through a quiet park
talking to each other and smiling
later we curled up together on someone's couch
I brushed the hair away from her ear
and whispered that she was the most beautiful girl I've ever met
and that I loved her
I guess I don't have to mention how hard it was
to get out of bed that morning
having to accept that it was over.
all day I felt a happy sort of sadness
but worse, I could see her
everywhere I went and everything I did
I could imagine her there with me
I could see her face perfectly
I could hear her every word
she's so devastatingly beautiful
that it locks up my mind just to think of it
though it only locks away the unimportant aspects of life
and forces me to think in the clearest ways
of only the most important ideas
all day long
all the while wishing that she were somehow here with me
it's the most incredible, painful torture I can imagine
though in another day or so she'll be gone
only a dim outline that I'll recognize as attractive
but who I won't be able to see properly
because ultimately, I don't know enough about her to feel this way
I've taken the things about her that I recognize and admire
and exploded them, likely beyond their actual truth
but something in her eyes suggests that it could be true
in her movements, in her manner
it's the same in all the girls I've ever fallen in love with
an understanding, however inacute,
that life is amazing
that the world is wonderful
and that people are what make it this way
I know that some women I've been attracted to
would be baffled by these statements
they wouldn't understand them in those words
but in their best moments, on their best days
the truth of these ideas is impossible to ignore
and if those days can be captured just once
by a photograph, a movie camera
or my own roaming eye
it's more than enough
to set my mind to work
at driving me crazy with a desire to find out if I'm right
to see if my appraisal is accurate
or, at the very least,
to wish that I could just dream about her again.

I read over a bunch of this book the other day, and I was a little disappointed. I think it's great, but it's not as good as I thought it was. There are things that I know need to be fixed, but I don't seem to have the ability to fix them. Not yet, anyway. That's the weirdest thing, to see something and to know that it's not quite good enough, but to be at a loss as to how to significantly improve it. I never figured that would happen to me. But I'll work through it, and as the years pass it will happen less and less. It's been about two years since I started this book, mostly taking so long because I'm fucking lazy. I suppose it was inevitable. When you sit around thinking about how you're like a second Jesus, only with a better message and less parlor tricks, there's nowhere for your ego to go but down.

I can't let my perception of my ego grow larger than it actually is, because that causes my actual ego to shrink, and when I finally notice the difference I feel bad for awhile. That is not to say, though, that I should maintain a small ego. An ego should be enormous, as large as possible, not by being an arrogant jerk (as that would demonstrate a small, weak ego) but by building the ego through thought and positive action. Have you ever felt your ego encompass the entire planet? It feels good. But it's important to understand that the ego does not give anyone the right to boss anyone else around. That's a weak ego, a small ego, a non-existent ego. A strong ego won't let a person force another's hand, but it won't stop anyone from expecting a certain standard of behavior, a certain amount of respect. Respect, though, is another word that has been misunderstood. So many people who say they deserve respect mean that they deserve unearned praise, they deserve to be congratulated for having done nothing. When I say I respect people, I respect their right to live their lives as they choose. I respect the fact that no one has the right to command any other human being. Any respect beyond that is not a human birthright; it has to be earned.

Disagreeing with someone is not the same as forcing them to behave against their will. To leave others unobstructed in their pursuit of personal happiness does not mean that one has to sanction every action that a person might make. I know far too many people who are unwilling to make any personal judgment on anything, or who make erratic, arbitrary decisions about everything. They accept, they reject, they remain passive without any sort of reason at all. No matter how great the injustice, they just can't come to a definite conclusion. They can either stand behind nothing, or stand behind something different everyday.

Once I found examples, examples of the reasonable and the sensible, I came to realize why a lot of my decisions had been missing the mark, why they carried no steam and I had trouble sticking with them. The process of rational thought is not something anyone is born with; it has to be learned, and it's a whole lot easier with a few teachers. That's why I do all this writing; the act itself gives me a kind of pleasure, but the real idea is to help others like me to stay the course.

Have you ever really sat down and thought about the Holocaust? It happened yesterday. It's true. Fifty years, that's nothing. In terms of human history, it only just ended. I don't mean to say that any of us are in any way responsible for what happened, but we really can't ignore the fact that it did happen and that it could happen again. All that shit they tell you in assemblies at school, all the information they try to convey at cenotaphs with the minute of silence and the fake red flowers, they're important messages, but they're being ruined by boring, pointless routine. Every important message in this world is getting butchered by comfortable ceremony.

I talk a lot about how school didn't teach me about the important things in life, which is true, but even things such as the holocaust – which they couldn't seem to shut up about – failed to get across any real message. It wasn't until I went out and did some independent study that the magnitude of it really hit me, and it doesn't surprise me that that's what it took. Why would I have paid attention to a bunch of people who demonstrated on a daily basis that they couldn't tell the difference between right and wrong? Hundreds of teachers, all throwing their lives away by deciding not to try to change the school system they are employed by, merely accepting it as "good enough".

Most of my teachers could have become Nazis, had they lived in World War II Germany, and yet they're the people telling me how horrible the holocaust was by showing me videotapes of corpses being bulldozed into giant pits, over and over again. They missed the point. They missed the root of the problem, because they're part of the problem. They gave me a lot of numbers and dates, but not one of them understood how Hitler thought or how to protect themselves against it. If any of those teachers or administrators could understand, just for one moment, how much I hate the school system and how much I wish I could change it, their heads would explode. Boom. When you've been primed for lies instead of truth, it's hard to turn around.

But we did our job, Keith! We showed the movies! We announced the figures! We assigned the reading, we wore the poppies, we listened to the trumpet! What more do you want from us?

I just want them to sit down and think once in awhile. They need to learn that some ideas you just don't pop. You can't just throw your entire life to the dogs. Forget that shit about losing the selfish ego. Try building it for a change. Build the selfish ego. 'Cause that's another word that's been mangled: selfish. If you constantly want and expect people to bow to your every whim, you're not selfish. You're just a needy fuck. If you were really selfish – concerned with the self – then you wouldn't need those people. When your very language takes your best words and turns them against you, there's not a hell of a lot more you can do. Just because every non-thinking mother told you never to be selfish, and just because every non-thinking professor told you to annihilate your ego doesn't mean that either idea is a proper course of action. The ego's got to win back some supporters, and quick, because it's fading faster than you can say Never-Ending Nation-Wide Advertising Campaign.

"Advertising". I bet that very word makes some people salivate for a Big Mac. Welcome to planet earth. Enjoy your stay. Smile = free.

You can't afford to save your life?
Well I can.

I was sitting on the couch at the comic store
reading some Thieves and Kings
waiting for another customer to trickle in
on a slow, slow Monday...
in the story the notion of reincarnation came up
Heath is Katara
Aunt Jay is Jenny Porter
somewhere in human history
there was almost certainly a person
who looked just like me...
suddenly, from somewhere deep in my mind
I was struck, with a force I've only experienced a few times before
by the fact that I am going to die.
I bolted up from the couch
feeling a desperate need for action
an unstoppable urge to create
but then, in mid-bound, I stopped
my arms came up, and I stretched, very slowly
and I found myself understanding, with a new refinement,
an idea that I've known for some time
an idea I've mentioned before
the idea that understanding death
is the first step toward understanding life
seventy years from now I'll be dead
a corpse in the ground
it hardly bothers me at all
though it used to, quite a lot
it used to seem baffling and unfair
but now, attached to that knowledge
is the knowledge that in those seventy years
(give or take)
I'll have accomplished everything I could ever hope to do
I'll write books
I'll draw comics
I'll play instruments
I'll make movies
I'll have ideas
I'll experience a countless amount of genuine laughter
and I'll find people to share all these things with
it will be an amazing life
and at the very center of it all is the base fact
that people like me are not born and are not bred
we are self-taught
everyone could be like this.
someday, at some point after I've died
there will be enough of us to change everything
can you even imagine it?
a city, a country,
a continent full of people who aren't just dead men walking?
paradise on earth is possible
not only that, but easy
the first step is to remember, every once in awhile
that you'll be nothing but a memory someday
it's no tragedy
you get what anyone gets
you get a lifetime
use it
achieve your potential
then think for awhile
and understand that you haven't reached your peak
even more is possible
then more
and more
you won't need to worry about spending your life carefully
because your every moment will be used to its fullest capacity
death will not be a slow decline
but a single, sudden jolt
right between the eyes, and you'll hardly even see it coming
because to understand death is important
but after a point, it serves no further purpose
it's a condition of the game, that's all
and the least important part
a hard idea to argue, in some ways
but the truth.
The Truth!
what a grand claim!
but don't take my word for it
think it through
humankind's primary tool of survival is the mind
superior to all of the teeth, claws and wings in the entire world
snap a branch in half
punch your hand against a brick wall
over and over again, if you have to
until you notice that it never passes through
and that it will never pass through
then build from there
every truth behind every mystery in the entire world
is there to be found
and easiest among them are the ones which stop so many people
"what am i doing here?"
"what's the point of all this?"
"what is the meaning of life?"
these are the questions that should have been answered
the first day you were old enough to think.
by the time you were a toddler,
you should have known about the world
but almost nobody knows it
and almost nobody tries to learn it
they all wander around
secure in the idea that it's all right to waste their lives
it's okay to die confused
because no one was there to teach them
no one was there to show them
and the effort to find a teacher would be too hard
too weird
'cause they don't see anyone else doing it
they're only as lost as everyone else.
this information may be nothing new to you
you may already have this figured out already
because few people will find this book by accident
it's all connected
the work that lays below the mainstream
the grid-work that holds the planet up
I found the edges of the web in the ninth grade
and I've been slowly working my way in ever since
following one book to another
one album to another
jumping across years and mediums
following certain names
until their trail died out.
when one artist makes a connection to another
I follow the new strain, to see how far in it goes
it's a scientific process, in a lot of ways
it's how I can tell, with a large degree of accuracy
whether it will be worth my time to read a given book
to catch up on a given comic
to go see a given movie
to buy a given album
I think, if I were to pinpoint it down to its very base
it would all begin with the Dark Knight Returns
that I bought from my friend Tim in the ninth grade
and the used Anthrax and Megadeth CD's I'd bought
the summer before that
weird starting points
but that's when I first discovered comics that I really liked
and that's when I first discovered
that metal music, while driven by anger
still has a melody and a chorus and all of the usual stuff
it's not just a jumble of unlistenable, grinding noise
as I had always been led to believe.
from those two points I moved inward
deeper with every year that passes
and the work keeps getting better
and the trail never stops
it would cost me thousands of dollars
to buy all of the work I'm still anxious to check out
there are dozens of little branches that are on temporary hold
while I gather the resources to follow them
and dozens that I'm actively following right now
it's a never ending process.
it has seemed, sometimes, that I've almost missed something
as though only some small coincidence led me to it
but it was no coincidence
and even if I did miss it, it'd come around again
through another branch
there may be things that I would have liked
that I'll miss in my time on this earth
but not many
and none of the truly significant ones will pass me by
though admittedly, I'll never know if one did
but one isn't likely to.
I still buy things I've never heard of before
if I like the name, or the design
but for the most part I need a reason to check something out
it's only logical
it surprises me how many people I know don't work this way
even if they like a given album
they make no attempt to find that artist's earlier work
and often don't even buy new albums that artist might put out
because it might not be cool anymore.
I don't just mean teenagers, I mean everybody
the terminology may change,
but hordes of people spend their whole lives just trying to be cool
trying to impress some nameless mass of people
who are only trying to impress them back
(this is not new information, I know
but I'll write it down anyway
maybe it'll give some future historian
a window into just how shallow most people are right now
and if any historians of the future are reading this
go look up "laugh-tracks"
that should be good for a chuckle)

if you're still confused about the world
if you still haven't determined the meaning of life
and by that, I mean the meaning of your life
then start by remembering
that death carries only one consequence:
the condition of never having to worry about anything ever again
it isn't so comforting anymore, is it?
the idea of having no problems?
of never having to worry again?
without options, none of this means anything
without the possibility of failure, your triumphs mean nothing
I don't know why so many people look forward to heaven
'cause it just sounds boring to me
your life is a gift
but you don't owe anyone for it
no mother gave birth to you without her reasons
no parents decided to raise you
without their reasons
and no god created you with any expectation
but that you enjoy it!
you were given life!
true life;
not plant life
or animal life
but human life
the option of choosing "yes" or "no"
concerning anything and everything
any creator who only wished people to serve it
would never have given us this ability.
if that were the case, the ability to choose
would not have been included in the deal
(but then, I suppose you could claim
that the devil is the one who gave you the ability of choice
but if that's true, then you should become a Satanist right now
because that's more than that garden of eden imprisoning
"don't you dare eat that apple" god ever gave you)
I can't say that I believe in the existence of higher beings
because even if I did, it would only be belief
and of no real use or consequence to anyone
but if there were a higher power
I'm sure that it would feel baffled, and somewhat uneasy
at all the people who live only for its sake.
I mean, it's god, for christ's sake!
god doesn't need slaves!
why would any god bother creating unnecessary servants for itself?
why would god be a dictator?
but still, people build their lives around following this thing
waiting for god to tell them what to do
and relying on god to fix the world's wrongs
when it won't happen and it can't happen
because we already have the tools we need to fix our own problems
and if a god did create us
then it knows this already
it's not going to undermine its greatest creation
by stepping in as referee
any and all hell on this earth is self-created
or thrust upon us by others
others who have made the decision to behave incorrectly
because they have that choice
and they will always have that choice
because they are free
in the truest sense of the word
free to do whatever they want
if you don't like it, you're free to stop them
and if you can't, you always have the choice of trying to reach others
to resonate with their minds
until enough of them understand your ideas about the world
to change things
either that, or the entire process is pre-empted
by a bullet in the head
it happens
because no person is born
without the ability to kill you, the ability to help you
and the ability to ignore you completely
we've already got it all
all the abilities we'll need to create anything we want
so don't put your trust in "god"
because even if god really exists
its job is already done
and there's no excuse at all
for expecting additional help.