Thursday, July 12, 2018

The Graduate

That guy in the picture there is a guy i used to know on the morning of his college graduation. As you can probably guess by looking he didn't exactly don the cap and gown and walk up for his degree, in fact he never even saw his degree until some two or three years later when his father laughed and asked if he wanted to see it? He had forgotten all about it by that point but he took a look and his old man told him maybe he should take it but the guy told him to keep it for now, what the fuck was he going to do with it? nuffin. On this particular morning there were many bong hits, coffee, the odd beer. In those days he was just the usual 22yr old psychonaut, ingesting large amounts of mushrooms and acid, drinking malt liquor and 7 and 7's, always with a bag of weed in his pocket, he was constantly reading books and writing awful poetry but the combination of the two somehow paid off in doing well with the ladies, his nuclear family may have been falling apart but life didn't suck, how could it? waking up next to naked women who wanted to feed him or save him but mainly just fucked him, spending his days debating philosophy and music, listening to records, doing a college radio show, dealing weed for the first time, being good a dealing weed, harassing his slumlord, and generally just living for the three inches in front of his face... and it was only just beginning, having turned down "real" jobs to be a half-ass surfer poet, it was a beautiful departure point on this road to nowhere, he had done exactly what he was supposed to do and then turned the thing backwards and upside down. So congrats graduate, twenty-five years later. The second person to attain a college degree in his family and the only one to never use it. Somewhere his old man is smiling...

7 comments:

tony said...

.. living for the three inches in front of his face....... is how it should be.
Fine blog you got sir!

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater said...

But at least he always stopped to smell the roses. And those mutton chops! Fantastical.

Who does use that undergraduate degree? Mine is history. And I don't shit about history. I get smoked on Jeopardy when there is a history category. I'm always praying for the 1980's Metal Music category that they never, ever have on there.

Those sounded like good times, man. You seem to have a wealth of stories from those days, and that keeps those days alive within you.

Exile on Pain Street said...

If time could be frozen this would've been a pretty good spot.

looby said...

Are you related to William Burroughs? :)

savannah said...

His old man was probably smiling that day, too. xo

Kono said...

tony- thanks for stopping by!

Dr. Noieswater- they didn't suck that's for sure, lol!!! you should see the degenerate stoners when Jeopardy is on, we're surprisingly good at it considering the state we're in.

Exile- Alas, but time marches on.

looby- Uncle Bill? how'd you guess? Bill may have had an influence on the young man in that picture...

Savannah- i found that picture at my dad's place, i'm quite sure it amused him to no end and he knew exactly what state his son was in when it was taken, think you might be right about that smile.

daisyfae said...

the only construct where 3 inches is exactly enough... ;-)