"Why We Keep Dying"

"Just what the hell are you rebelling against?" "I dunno, whaddya got?" - Brando, 'The Wild One'

For the last five years I've been a father, and I increasingly see the world from that vantage point. When Dash Snow died last week, I became so angry I couldn't think straight; I just kept thinking of his 2yo daughter, like Heath Ledger's daughter, and Kurt Cobain's daughter, and "even" Michael Jackson's kids. My gut reaction was that Dash had been a selfish, infantile **** who had left his daughter dadless while the art world jacked off…

When Dash died, my first instinct was the desire to bulldoze his spot. I didn't want him to be lionized for his death - I didn't want to watch him get the same treatment that gave Heath Ledger an Oscar and put Michael Jackson back into the top 40. I'm sick of people selfishly dying and leaving their little girls to grow up fatherless; I'm sick of rewarding this behavior by making these guys into legends.

I wished there was something I could do to make him look horrible - to bulldoze his whole ****** place so that future dads would be so goddamn scared of how they'd look if they pulled that **** - so scared of DESTROYING their legacy, rather than becoming more powerful than any of us could imagine - that they'd be too scared to listen to Lou Reed, let alone shoot up.

But I don't have that kind of power.

So Dash wasn't selfish - he was just ill. Not ill meaning "off the hook" or "crazy cool," but ill meaning sick - diseased, like anyone else who tries Heroin and happens to have the right brain chemistry to get addicted.

The very first time I smoked weed, I found out that my mom and Nancy Reagan were full of ****. The Just Say No campaign was one big pack of McCarthyistic hysterical bull**** lies. I swore I'd never ******* believe anti-drug propaganda (or the government, or my parents) again.

But nonetheless I look around, and damn, drugs are what killed all of my friends. I don't have any real friends that died of terror attacks or car accidents or plane crashes or aids - all my friends that are dead died of drug overdoses. 4 smack, 1 crack, and now Dash Snow.

The problem is this: Trying smack once, if you're the right person, is a death sentence. So why the **** do people ever do it? For the answer to this, you need to look at our culture: As a culture, and I'm talking about so-called hipster culture - YOU: The Cool Kids. Different cultures have different values, and our core value is the aspiration to "be hardcore." That's why:

We hold aloft our core value of "being hardcore" just as plainly as Christianity holds aloft its value of "being holy."

Shooting heroin is the pinnacle of what is hardcore. There's nothing more hardcore in the world - it's so hardcore that the most hardcore of us say not to do it because it's too hardcore. We see it as the forbidden fruit in the boring- *** garden of eden.

And that's the only reason people in our scene **** with it the first time. After that, you're hooked, and there's nothing you can do to stop. Rehab shmeehab, you'll still go back to it - and if you forget THE TRICK the way Dash did, then you can be dead.

99.99% of us don't have the pain of Michael Jackson's burn trauma…so there's no excuse for trying smack even once. ANY pain you have can be quelled by love…

My friends are Dash's friends, and some of them are still on dope. Some of them are gonna die. I was discussing this with one of them yesterday, and here was his response:

"Whatever, Safety Fag." Ok. I know. I get it. Just keep going and do your thing.

I'm a gay faggot: I don't value what's Hardcore. I value love and family and health and art... Laugh it up, punkboy.

WE value being Hardcore, and that's why WE keep dying young, and leaving our toddlers behind. WE rebel against a culture that worships the Jonas Brothers or Will Smith or Amerikkka or Money - but as long as we worship being hardcore, we're going to see smack as the ultimate in hardcore, and WE are going to keep testing it, getting addicted, and dying.

Taken from 'Street Carnage' (all rights reserved reproduced for educational purposed only)

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