The Runny Pen

I went to a very ‘Este-like’ seminar when I was twenty four years-old held at The Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. At that time I worked as a teacher of after-school programs (soccer/hockey/cartooning/calligraphy) at Sonoma Country Day School and they paid for me to attend the seminar. As with many new experiences I thought, “what the hell, I’ll try it”.

I caught-on very quickly that the seminar was an LSD conversation for people who’d never taken the drug or for those who hadn’t tripped in decades. Much of the weekend was hysterical hogwash. But a couple of productive things materialized.

One was a perspective nobody had ever articulated to me. There’s things we know we know (for me it’s hacky-sack, fishing Deer Creek, film history, BBQing). Then there’s things we know we don’t know (I am definitely not the guy to answer your quantum physics questions).

But the most exciting thing about staying alive, even when we’re exhausted by the chore, the pearl in the oyster is WHAT WE DON’T KNOW THAT WE DON’T KNOW: that acquaintance from fifth grade who finds you online and the strongest friendship of your life develops, your favorite steakhouse has closed and you escape the rain into an Indian restaurant and wind-up having the best meal ever, that jazz concert you reluctantly attend with your sister only to passionately fill your iPod with the trumpet of Wynton Marsalis afterwards.

When my brother-in-law handed me his copy of “Infinite Jest” by David Foster Wallace he wore a cunning smirk. He passed me the book and my hand dropped a few inches from the sheer weight (pounds not profoundness) of the 1,079 page novel. Before I could speak he cut me off. “You’re gonna love it.”

I did love the book and was intimidated by it. The prose is beyond original. Wallace had the ability to completely inhabit characters from diverse backgrounds allowing you to totally understand their perspective as if their thoughts were your own. I laughed out loud. I cringed. I cried. I was frustrated by the footnotes but intent on reading each one. I threw the book across the room three or four times but found myself soon picking it up, taping the torn pages. 

I’m sure I’m not the only writer to envy his gift. I relate to Wallace the way I was told I was supposed to relate to Sallinger. He is my generation’s voice. I began reading his articles for Harper’s. I bought ‘Broom Of The System’ and I am currently reading ‘Brief Interviews With Hideous Men’. Yesterday, I wrote e-mails to six friends with a link to David Lipsky’s Rolling Stone article about Wallace. It is one of the best magazine articles I’ve ever read and anything else I could hope to write about the man, Lipsky does better.

David Foster Wallace hung himself in his Pomona, CA garage on September 12th, 2008. After a suicide people often chastise the person in order to distance themselves from the possibility of ever making the same decision. ‘How selfish’ ‘what about his family’ ‘what a pussy’ etcetera, etcetera.

But if you’ve ever found yourself stressed-out, overwhelmed, hung-over, lovesick or just plain angry, can you imagine these emotions combined 24 hours a day? Depression leaving you chemically unable to turn-off this radio static, the dial permenantly stuck halfway between stations.  

Most of us don’t care to slow down and try understanding the emotional experiences of others. Judgement is such an easier short-cut. Homeless loser-get a job! I guarantee Tom Cruise understands Brooke Shields’ postpartum struggle as much as I understand the joys of Scientology.

Maybe Wallace’s ability to withstand his electric war of cross-firing mental synapses for 46 long years was nothing short of heroic. I am sticking around to experience what I don’t know that I don’t know because even if I never discover the pearl, I fucking love oysters.