1984 – 1985

May — I am fifteen and determined to lose my virginity by 17 at the latest! I went to see Koyaanisqatsi at the Falls for my birthday. My friends were all into it. I love being able to go see art films with my cool new art friends. We also rented Eraserhead. At first I thought it was kind of boring but I watched it two more times on my birthday and started to fall in love with it. The lady in the radiator. The baby. All of it. So weird. I never knew people could make films like that. It was made at the American Film Institute which seems like the coolest, most experimental place on earth. I want to go there someday.

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June — I went to Georgia for summer break and realized that my cousins do not like me. First of all they’re really religious and got upset when I told them that the Bible was mythology. They kept saying that I was going to go to hell for being unsaved and I laughed at how dumb religion is. They’re so into it! I guess they don’t have anything else to do in the podunk towns where they live except church and school What a drag. My Grandfather is pretty sick and they don’t think he’s going to survive much longer.

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July — After Georgia I went to spend the 4th in Oklahoma with my dad. We bonded over fireworks. He has a lot of interesting friends — sort of cowboy scholars. There’s this one guy who worked on a 3D movie in the fifties called Bwana Devil that’s kind of famous for kicking off the 3D movie trend in the 50’s. I’m very much into the technology and even wrote away to join the American Stereoscopic Society. They sent me a box of red & blue glasses (Anaglyph glasses as the professionals call them.) I really want to go see Jaws 3D or Amityville 3D or even Metalstorm The Destruction of Jared Sinn in 3D with none other than Molly Ringwald as a space urchin. But these are all R rated films and my mom is not into it. I bought a bunch of fireworks to take home with me in my suitcase. You can do that, you know? Pack your luggage full of bricks of black cats and M80’s and just get on an airplane like it’s no big deal. I mean, what could go wrong?

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August — Last few weeks of summer before school starts and man oh man has my sister blown it. She’s been getting wasted way more than usual and last night she locked herself in her room and drank a whole bottle of tequila and passed out. My mom was trying to get her to come to dinner and we couldn’t get the door open so we went and peeked in the window and could see her face down in her own vomit. The Doors “This is the End” was playing over and over on her stereo so naturally we figured she’d killed herself. She hadn’t. I picked the lock to her door and my mom took her to the hospital to have her stomach pumped. My mom’s friend, Jack Stephan, came over to help me clean up before my mom got home. He told me something that I think will stay with me for the rest of my life, “you’re not stupid but as you get older you’ll discover that 90% of people are stupid. You won’t want to believe it at first but slowly and surely you’ll come to realize it’s true. Most people are just too stupid and you’re outnumbered all your life. That’s why the world will always be a mess. Most people are too stupid to realize they don’t have to be stupid.” Then we poured pinesol on my sisters vomit and cleaned it up.

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September means back to school. My 9th grade history class focuses all year on the Civil War. Which seems like a lot but whatever — the two guys who teach 9th grade history at Arvida Junior High are civil war re-enactors. The first thing they told us on day one was that the war was not fought to free the slaves but rather for economic independence. Now this did not sound right to me. They went on to explain how happy the slaves were and what a good deal it was for them. I was sitting next to my friend Nevil and he was looking at them like he wanted burn the school to the ground. I asked the teacher why if the south wasn’t fighting for slavery did they include slavery in the articles of confederation. And then I showed him the articles of confederation that were right there in the text book. He hemmed and hawed that they had to do that for all these weird reasons that still don’t make sense. I asked him about Robert E. Lee’s opium addiction and Jefferson Davis surrendering in his wife’s coat and shawl to the Union Army. He didn’t know how I knew all this stuff. I told him it’s in the encyclopedia and I’m all the way up to the M’s at this point. Long past “C” Civil War. He asked me to stop asking so many questions. I’ve had this before — mostly with Sunday school teachers I’ve confronted with evidence of the fossil record. I just don’t like lies on the curriculum.

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October and another Halloween. Barry says that even though we’re 15, we’re not too old for trick or treating — we just have to go later and be scarier. Makes sense. My first costume was to go as Kenny’s dead brother. Kenny shot his brother in their garage last year so that’s pretty scary. That’s what happens here — kids find their parent’s guns hanging on a nail behind the bedside table and they shoot each other. That was my first plan but my mom said it was mean and I had to be something else. So I went as the victim of a chemical accident. I did fake burns on my face and arms then cut open a glow stick and poured it all over my T-Shirt.

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November — It looks like gross grandpa Reagan wins again. My mom’s happy. I don’t know why — there’s a huge homeless encampment downtown. They call it a Reaganville. It’s so weird to watch Reagan pal around with Michael Jackson on TV. They both seem really out of it. Pilled up. I’m doing all my homework on my Commodore 64 computer now. I kind of love it. I got really good at typing. One of the things I found out is you can get all these free long distance codes and call other computers all over the world. Sneaky. Peter’s the main computer expert in our group. He likes to listen to Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream and do all this stuff on his Apple II.

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December — All the wrong things. I got all the wrong things for Christmas including a pair of Sergio Valenti Jeans. My mom and dad got in one of their annual Christmas fights and so he took off early to stay in a hotel. Pretty normal stuff here. I don’t know why he still comes here every year for Christmas. I think it is because Susan has been in therapy for having been black out drunk the night before she was to start her senior year. She had to stop going to the therapist though because he got arrested for molesting some of his patients. Susan is glad that he didn’t try to molest her but my mom thinks that this will hurt her ego and is insulted he didn’t find Susan attractive enough. I’m sure it wasn’t that. It’s that my sister is really scary. You’d have to be crazy to try to get her to do that — she’d break your face.

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January — well it’s cooled off to the low 90’s for a couple of weeks. This is the only month where Florida is barely tolerable. This whole state smells like a giant fart. I hate Florida so much. Sometimes I get so depressed I want to die. Which is easy here because the murder rate is sky high! If I were living my life correctly I would have some sort of plan to get out of Florida. My sister is going to Stetson College in Deland Florida next year. I have no idea why they’re sending her to an expensive, religious, university but whatever. She’s gonna blow it, I can promise you that. And by the time it’s my turn to go to college there won’t be a penny left. I know how this works.

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February — My dad and my Aunt are here and they’re both black out drunk. I have no idea what’s going on but they got into a fight about me. Which is weird because I try to be invisible all the time. Basically they were both bossing me around in the kitchen. My dad wanted me to respond to him first but my aunt wanted me to respond to her first. It was like some kind of fucked up loyalty test — like having a judge make the dog pick its owner by having two people call its name. My dad got furious that I hesitated at all and punched me in the chest, knocking me over. I left the kitchen and went to sulk in my room. I looked at Mr. Pasco’s picture in my yearbook as I’d done many times before. He wrote, “you’re the kind of kid I wish I had as a son.” So do I, Mr. Pasco. So do I.

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March – I really used to like the Eurythmics but it seems to me like they’ve sold out. Their last album, the soundtrack to the movie 1984 was amazing but this new one, “Be Yourself Tonight.” Ugh. It’s so cheesy. All the edge is out of it. There’s a harmonica solo. What happened to them? I blame Dave Stewart. Clearly he is trying to get them to sell out. He’s been doing all these side projects with other LAME musicians so I guess that’s just the way it goes — I gotta find some new musicians to get into. We were at the record store in Coral Gables and I heard this music by a band called “The Cure.” Very interesting. When I get my allowance…

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APRIL — UGH I wish I were better at drawing. My friends all won the Gold Key at the county youth fair and I can’t even get into the competition. Oh, so get this, my grandfather died. Which wasn’t a big shock. We had to go to Georgia for spring break. There’s this family, “the Browns” we know who live in Atlanta and they’re whatever — but two things: they have a basement rumpus room which was super cool. Then there’s also Ben Brown. He’s like 19, I think and has feathered hair and wears cut offs that are so short his pockets hang out. I am fully aware of what gay means and I’m on board for that. Ben’s not gay though so I have to just be cool around him and not weird him out. I told him how I was getting out of shape and wanted to go swimming like all jock-like and he took me swimming and we jumped off a rope swing into this dangerous lake where people drown all the time. Then his dumb girlfriend Rhonda showed up in her tube top and ruined everything. SO, back to dead grandpa. We were going through his stuff up in Rhine and my mom screamed and pulled out a full on Klan hood and robe from his footlocker. Grandma was all sheepish and quiet like “oh I forgot all about that. That was before you were born.” My mom started crying because she was so mortified to find out her dad was that trashy. Duh. I knew he was trashy.