Lamentation

May 12th. July 18th. December 16th.

If I were to create a cult, these would be my high holy days. As it is, with my hatred of religion, they're nothing but personal holidays now. On these days, I will take off school or work. I will turn off my cellphone and put away my computer. I will unplug my cable and take the batteries out of my radio, and I will be dead to the outside world.

These days, to you, may seem to have no meaning. I will put them in perspective, in my cryptic way, and you might understand.

On May 12th, I will read Brain Droppings. I will listen to Life is Worth Losing.

On July 18th, I will watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I will read Hell's Angels.

On December 16th, I will watch Relentless. I will listen to Rant in E-Minor. And I will read Love All The People.

Enough for you? Can you know, now, why I will stock up on liquor and cigarettes, and as the day goes on, I will get progressively drunk until I can either no longer drive, or until I run through the streets proclaiming that the country, the people, and the world, are all going to hell, no handbasket involved.

You can call whoever you want a personal hero. Your grandfather, your presidential candidate, your favorite film director. These men were my heroes long before I knew who they were; their words were just waiting for me to find them.

These days are the birthdays of MY heroes. If it's fair for the Christians to celebrate the birthday of Christ (even if it's on the wrong day, hell, the wrong SEASON), I think it's fair for me to celebrate the birthdays of MY saints, of MY sages, of MY three wise men.

May 12th, George Denis Patrick Carlin.

July 18th, Hunter Stockton Thompson.

December 16th, William Melvin Hicks.

George Carlin died in June of this year. I heard on the radio and nearly ran my car off the road. My only thought was, How can HE be dead? We still need him. It's not fair.

Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide in his home in February, 2005, three days after my birthday. What a present. My thought then was, Why now? The country is failing. The Constitution is getting raped. We still need him.

Bill Hicks was dead before I knew who he was, before I knew who I was. I learned, coldly and impersonally, through the internet, that he'd died in February, 1994, when I had just turned six years old and had no idea how terrible things really were in my world. My thought, when I learned, was There is no justice, and no mercy, for the truthful. At least we still have Carlin. Ah, irony writ large.

These men taught me how to be me. They shaped who I am, and what I feel, and how I think.

Carlin taught me to question everything. Every belief, every value, every law, and that cynicism should be the watchword of the wise. Hunter taught me passion for my country, and about righteous anger, and about fighting back, however you can, when someone is wrong. And Bill Hicks taught me that none of that matters, that NOTHING matters, unless you love something, and that even the bitterest man among us is capable of caring for everyone in the world, all at once.

And they all taught me the greatest thing that I, or that anyone, can ever know. Each in their own way, they taught me, that nothing matters, and that everything matters, but that which matters most (and least), is freedom.

Freedom to question.

Freedom to fight.

Freedom to tell the truth.

Freedom is not given. It is taken, by force or by guile. The law will not give us freedom. Death will not give us freedom. Any bit of freedom is priceless, even if it's only in your own mind.

Never give an inch, never ignore the truth, never simply do as you're told. Never let anyone take what is yours, and never take from anyone what you have not earned. You deserve nothing, and everything, and the trick is to strike the balance. Give back more than you take from the world. DO something. Tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and don't swear on anything, just DO IT. Pick up a pen. Pick up a mic. Pick up a gun if you have to.

But the longer you do nothing, the longer you remain complacent, the country and the world that Carlin questioned, Hunter loved, and Bill laughed at, is falling around us. I'll do all I can to help, and I expect you to help where you can. It's YOUR world, YOUR future, YOUR right, and YOUR responsibility.

But it's your life, too. I won't ask you to do anything you don't want to do.

But I will ask you a favor.

For those three days, when I'm dead drunk, dead to the world, and dead to my own mind...

Can you pick up my slack? Can you tell the truth, and fight for it, and love it? Can you remember that everything, EVERYTHING, is funny somehow? Can you question authority, and society, and yourself?

Can you channel your anger, your rage, your compassion, into something greater than yourself?

Three days out of the year, to be angrily happy, cynically kind, and to laugh in the face of all that can bring you down.

Three days out of the year is all I ask, if not for me, then in THEIR memory, and the memory of your heroes, and of the heroes that are, and of the heroes that will be, and even of the heroes we will never know existed.

Three days out of the year...

and I'll do my best to take care of the rest of 'em.

"I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately." -Carlin

"Buy the ticket, take the ride. Mahaolo." -Thompson

“I left in love, in laughter, and in truth, and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit.” -Hicks