you can make the sun turn purple...

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1 june 1997

1:49 a.m.

Dear diary, Sean, Mary, Derek and I went to the 50th State Fair tonight. The same long lines, the same bad music, the same overpriced food, the same paroled serial rapists running the rides... and, as usual, I managed to have a good time. We discovered that Mary, to my relief, is just as big a chicken as me. Finally, I wasn't left to stand alone, like a dork, looking up at whatever contraption my friends decided to subject themselves to, holding their drinks and hoping they won't die. Instead, we got to snicker at our screaming, hooting men together. A lot. They ended up going through at least twenty bucks each in ride tickets alone. In what had to be some sort of testicular affirmation ceremony, they rode the "Zipper" twice. And the same went for a new ride, called "Chaos." I bet you could put the name "Tornado of Death" on a merry-go-round, and men would line up around the block to ride it. Of course, Mary and I didn't boycott all rides. We dragged the men -- kicking and screaming -- onto the huge ferris wheel... then showed them exactly why couples like it so much, lame or demasculating qualities notwithstanding. By the time we were through with 'em, they wanted to get back on a second time. Ah, making out while being swung sixty feet into the air... that twinge in the pit of your stomach -- is it love, or is it vertigo? Mary and I sipped our $5 Cokes while The Men ran about trying to exhaust the remainder of their tickets. They got on something that was pretty much a mini version of the "Music Express." Then, wholly unsatisfied by its lack of sheer terror, they scrambled for the real thing. They decided to call it a night only after getting that satisfying, "I'm gonna puke" feeling. Derek offered to try and win me a stuffed Tweety Bird before we left, but given the way he was wobbling, I didn't think putting a set of darts in his hand would be a good idea. I love fairs. Being there, though, made me think about the last time I went. Has it really been a year? It seems so much like another world. I mean, in that universe, people still called Nate "Gonzo." It's rather depressing. Apart from Greg, I've lost touch with just about everyone I hung out with back then. Some left, some just drifted away... Actually, I was probably the one that did the drifting. Eighteen months ago I was pretty much the social director for my group of friends. "Are we doing anything this weekend?" someone would ask. "Not sure, call Kat," would be the automatic reply. Then I started working. They started graduating or moving... Man. What the hell did happen? Why didn't someone tell me Allen Ginsberg died? When I get my "news" from Rolling Stone magazine, you know there's something askew in the universe. Worse, I first read about it at work. Among fools. Among some people who were lucky enough to be a part of his generation -- Burroughs, Leary, Kerouac -- and were pathetically, horribly clueless. "Oh my god," I said, stunned. "Ginsberg is dead?!" "Oh no," a nurse gasped in empathy. "That's terrible!" "Sometimes I swear I was born twenty years too late," I sighed. After a confused look, she said, "Who was Ginsberg?" I looked around the room, aghast, expecting to see every other face equally horrified at such a statement. She might as well have said, "Who's Gandhi?" Instead, more blank looks. I questioned, for an instant, which planet I was on. "Federal Reserve, right?" she offered, meekly. I could feel a look of utter disgust creeping across my face. "No! That's Greenspan... Alan Greenspan, you idiot!" Well, I didn't say "you idiot," but it was pretty much conveyed in my exasperated hand gestures that bordered on threatening. I just put my head down and sighed. Ginsberg. Greenspan. How do you get them confused? How could you possibly think the souls behind "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night." and "Clearly, sustained low inflation implies less uncertainty about the future, and lower risk premiums imply higher prices of stocks and other earning assets. We can see that in the inverse relationship exhibited by price/earnings ratios and the rate of inflation in the past." belong to the same person? Aaaugh! Nothing but a bunch of savages in this town! I'm willing to concede that I'm not cool enough to possibly understand every nuance of the beat poets, of what they saw and felt -- Berkeley in the 50s, World War II -- let alone identify with everything they said. But when I meet someone who had the chance, and instead probably wasted their college days in a library, I just want to cry.