Posts tagged with control.
Two weeks in rez and nearing dereliction
I woke up yesterday and realized that literally every piece of clothing I owned was on the floor. Most of my dishes were there too, inhabited by microscopic civilizations. A six pack of malt liquor had emptied itself and lay sprawled across the desk, the Venus flytrap on my windowsill had gingivitis, and my textbooks had entered the witness protection program. Personal inspection revealed that a beard was trying - and failing - to grow on my face, that one of my eyeball veins had turned black, and that it hurt to move, think, or breath.
I did the math while I showered. Assuming my calculations were correct, I was at about Level 4 on the Bukowski Scale - the internationally accepted means of measuring dereliction. Level 4 isn't that bad, but it's not good, either. It's possible to sustain a Level 1 or, in special circumstances, a Level 2, while remaining a useful member of society. At about that rating it's possible to have fun without becoming a walking garbage bag. If you ever make it to Level 10, you're past the point of no return. Only one man has ever made it that far while surviving to tell the tale, and he's the one they named the Scale after.
Up until recently, there's always been some sort of domestic authority ruling my habitat. Deviation from certain standards of hygiene and tidiness has always been met with emotional/physical abuse or threats of eviction. The day I moved in to residence, I took off my shirt, threw it in the corner, and opened a beer. Immediately, the power (of the beer?) went to my head. I had eaten of the forbidden fruit. It tasted like freedom. No longer would I be ruled by reason or order. Devolution would ensue.
It seems obvious, now, that I can't handle that sort of freedom. Depressingly enough, I have the self-discipline and impulse control of a child raised by wolves. There have to be rules, directives, plans. Otherwise I forget to wear pants and start using Colt 45 as toothpaste.
After addressing the issue of my own personal decay I took the bus downtown to act in a movie. I use the term "act" loosely. Erik Horn had called me the day before and asked if I could appear in a short non-speaking role the next morning. He was the Director of Photography for David Adler, who was working on his graduation project for the Vancouver Film School. They needed a human being on short notice. Since I'm a primate, I more or less fit the role.
My impression was that I would be appearing briefly in, perhaps, a single shot, without having to open my mouth or express any real emotion. When I got to the set - an apartment in the area of Vancouver where rich people live - I found out that I'd be stripping naked and committing suicide in a bathtub.
I maintain that electrocution - a well-applied toaster or radio - would have been cleaner. But the script called for slit wrists. (Down the road, as they say, and not across the street. Don't screw up like this guy.) Most of the shots were straightforward and didn't require excess gore. I wrote a suicide note, smoked on a patio, looked in a mirror. The most interesting shots, though, involved getting into a bathtub and having india ink poured all over my bathing suit area.
I won't go into further details. This girl seems to have it covered. She was hanging around the apartment taking pictures with a high-definition camera. In case having my goods filmed for the first time wasn't off-putting, her presence would ensure I was. She took some really excellent pictures there, and by really excellent I partly mean they can't easily be photoshopped in a way that would produce scandal.
It's way more fun going to concerts, hanging out, and not worrying about things than it is to do school work. That's no good. We need to change the system somehow, so learning can be more entertaining. Has anyone figured out how to make a game like Guitar Hero, but with textbooks?
Tagged with
residence,
control,
hygiene,
parental
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BRYCE WARNES
