Why I'm Listening to Goth on Thanksgiving

Generation of Death, or Why I’m Listening to Goth on Thanksgiving

I’ve believed for some time that I will die young. I just keep revising the meaning of “young” periodically as I continue to survive. I also worry for the world, for my daughter, for the future. I’ve been wondering, today, on Thanksgiving, as an atheist, as a punk, as a cultural and historical critic, as… a whole bunch of things not known for their gratitude, why I celebrate Thanksgiving when I feel this way. I love holidays, birthdays, and the like, but one that passes seems like one more step toward the end: For me, for the world. That sounds awfully depressing, but that is true only if you greet doom with surrender. I do not.

But I can’t help but think that my parents’ generation, riding the coattails of the “Greatest Generation” comprised by my grandparents, have left us in a game that is unwinnable. I grew up under the threat of nuclear war and rumors of environmental disaster. I grew to the age of majority in the Reagan years. Kids today grow up with the threat of so-called terrorism (stupid, messy term) and the emergence of a frightening ecological juggernaut headed their way. They grew up in the Bush years and the Clinton years. My parents grew up believing that the world was theirs, the final war was won, and then Vietnam happened. In the midst of material abundance and spiritual and intellectual complacency, they took what was offered, little realizing that their way of living carried a burden to paid in gold by the next generations. So, now, every time I see some grandfather type driving an RV, I long for a civilian model Stinger missile. There you go, old man, might as well burn a little bit more of the commonwealth. Might as well consume just a little bit more. Might as well go out in style and leave your kids and grandkids the bill.

I don’t believe in god. I don’t believe in the afterlife, as such, since it sort of relies on the existence of a spiritual realm. At the same time, I believe in ghosts, so let’s just say I’m conflicted. Jesus, though, I’m not so sure about. So this leaves me in a peculiar place. I’m pretty sure things are fucked up, but not so sure if they can be fixed. I fear for my life, but I hope for my daughter’s future. It’s hard to say why I’m not more depressed, but I still cling to hope that striving for life, for all that is good and honorable and worthy and free and human and flawed and true and absurd, actually means something. I want my death to be bought dearly, if you get what I mean. When the eagle swoops down to get this little mouse, I want to be giving it the finger. Have you seen that poster? It’s stupid, really, but it stays with me. A mouse, middle finger extended, looks up at an eagle. The eagle is swooping down to kill and eat him. The caption reads, “Defiance.” I don’t own a copy, but it’s sort of a long-term goal for me. The image is inscribed on my heart, as is the sentiment.

So, embracing doom, I am free to live. Do you ever feel that way?

So, today’s playlist includes Collide, Christian Death, Sisters of Mercy, Lords of the New Church, The Misfits, AFI, Front 242, Elvis (Blue Moon of Kentucky), Lords of the New Church, The Fuzztones, and others. The death of seasons, doom and gloom, an the freedom to hope.

Bare trees, falling leaves, winter’s breath upon my neck. In my heart, forboding is intertwined with love and hope. If you’re doomed anyway, then best to die dancing on your own grave, a sword your hand and your child held close in the other arm.

I don’t often put my poetry out in public, but just this once I will. Here’s one I call “Is There Life in the Universe?” Published this freeverse poem in 1995:

Is There Life in the Universe? (1995)

What if there were aliens? No, I mean really, what if there were? Imagine them parked in orbit, like a '72 Olds Cutlass sitting at the gates of the universe's largest trailer park, looking down at us. And here we sit in our planetary double-wide, with genetically-engineered pink flamingoes and a polluted wading pool on the dying lawn. Eve's sickly, inbred children are locked up inside, each one in its own narrow closet of beliefs and experience. There's a fat man on the porch, wearing a spaghetti-stained Armani suit over a gut that no amount of creative accounting could hide. He's got a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a twelve-pack of Lite-Dry-Ice-Genuine Draft sitting next to his Lazy Boy. From above, it must be funny to see the crack of his ass hanging halfway out of his pants each time he reaches for more. He lets out a belch and tosses his scraps to the five billion starving mongrels on the lawn. They fight, a life-and-death battle, tearing at each others' throats for a piece of the pie. Some say it's evolution in action.

Some of the dogs have given up; they are too old, or too weak, or too disillusioned to fight. One of them is dying underneath the porch. His ribs are prison bars for a heart that once chased warm and fuzzy cat-dreams. But that was long ago. . . He is dying. And maybe the little green men wonder how he, without hands, can tie off the vein and get a needle in it one last time. Dogs don’t have thumbs and fingers, but perhaps he doesn't really believe that. Artificial warmth suffuses his body, numbness settles in, and he is a statistic like the rest, clocked out forever.

From above it must seem distant and unreal because the actors no longer care for their parts. From sterile, airless space, it is only entertainment, a soap opera with real sex and violence. But maybe somewhere, underneath the porch, among the vast piles of history's dead and dying dog's bodies, is an altar where they pray. The thirsting pray for rain, the violated pray for a cleansing, the lost pray for a way. And even mad dogs pray: for a tornado to come and blow it all away.


Oh. Happy Thanksgiving, by the way. I’m thankful for you reading this. I’m thankful to be alive. I’m thankful to have food. I’m thankful for my family. I’m thankful for how my life has gone. If I died today, it would have been a good life, much better than most.

Hope and despair. There is no real choice. Embrace them both and be free.