Sweet dreams, Pantopon Rose. (Day 221)

This is a quote from Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs. I think out of all the beat writers, this guy definitely might have lived the hardest life, although he wound up living longer than most of them.

Beat writers, while the whole spirit and genre really are my favorite period of literature, really divide me in a lot of ways. As much as I love Jack Kerouac or William S. Burroughs, part of their legacy tends to bother me. Kerouac wound up dying at 47 penniless from cirrhosis. That doesn't bother me too much, honestly, because heavy drinking comes along with the territory. At least he died as a product of himself, unlike that coward Hemmingway.

But being a part of the beat generation, helping be it's pioneer, he was also one of the first to abandon ship becomming a conservative catholic.

It's just that juxtaposition. One moment you're about personal freedom and the next your about personal restriction, even going so far as to support the Vietnam War. Ironically a lot of the people who were against that particular were directly influence and rooted in the foundation he laid.

I understand people change, but something that drastic...don't you always hold on to a little bit of yourself? I don't know. That kind of extreme change of character really bothers me, and I'm not really sure.

Burroughs is a different story. His er, relationship with Ginsberg and both of their work for NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) really just bothers me. I think that's pretty self explanatory though.

And i think about this because the course I've laid out for myself with school, in advertantly appears to be going down the road of English/Writing. This was mostly at the behest of my counsellor. I have no idea what kind of application English could really have in the world if you're not going to be a teacher, which I honestly couldn't stand unless I was teaching in a college position. Otherwise, I just couldn't.

Writing is so unrealistic. I don't have what it takes to survive on it, and even if I magically gained that over night, my ethos prohibit me in a sense to actually want to make any money. One of the last lines of the book I wrote says, "May this book never make one fucking dollar."

That pretty much sums it up, I think. I don't know how I would be able to handle making money off of my own words. It's really enticing, and super fun to fantasize about, but I'm just trying to become realistic these days is all.

Right now I have my fingers crossed I can get into a work-study program at school, I applied for it with my FAFSA application today. I need monies for the Fest, and am not too proud now to accept donations whatsoever. I'll tell you what I told my financial aid person the other day when I approached her at her desk.

"Need money, gimme gimme, now now." While having my hands outstretched.

This was obviously the best route.


-Until tomorrow.