Our childhoods will all be gone soon, in matter if not in heart and mind. Surveying the remaining artifacts, I can see only transience.

This morning I found that my rope swing is gone. I say my rope swing because it was mine. It belonged to me in the same way that it belonged to everyone else who enjoyed it when there was nothing else to do. In this suburb, where the best use of space that thousands upon thousands of people can find is to fill it with houses, manicured trees, concrete, emptiness, that swing was something special. It was my own. It was somewhere to go. Somewhere without straight lines. Now it's gone, because someone thought it was dangerous for children.

At home, I composed half of "An Open Letter to Scripps Ranch." I want people to see how lifeless they are making this place, how flawed is their manufactured perfection, how alienating. I want them to know there is a better way, to live together, to trust, to cherish, to grow and build and collaborate. I want to take them all to the rope swing, where there was some small bit of freedom, awkward and spontaneous intimacy, the simplicity of holding on to a stick thirty feet in the air.

But I know how easy comfort is. I know that people want the alienation, the appearance of community, the substancelessness. I didn't finish the letter.

I have always tempered this thought with the idea that what appears as empty to me is rewarding and stimulating to others. I have often thought that people may find real comfort, real community in Blockbuster, McDonalds, Safeway, endless streets and sidewalks, curfews, God Bless America, "Country Living," the Chargers, shaved mountaintops, stucco and stucco and stucco, but I am beginning to doubt.

And I see it all perpetuated. I see it in little acts of thoughtlessness. Like cutting down the rope swing. Like alcohol, cigarettes, Marijuana, Cocaine, Ecstasy. Like not caring. Like squirming at words like "love," "empowerment," "kindness." Like giving up.

I'll be leaving soon. I am thankful for my home, my life and the people who share it. I just hope people will remember that freedom is as simple as a rope and a ladder.


The Rope Swing
By Matthew Louv (3rd grade)

grab hold of the rope
run like the wind down the hill
hold on very tight
hope to god that you don't fall
and swing like never before
swing as high as trees
fly as high as high as a red-tail
don't ever look down
twist and turn and glide and fly
and land with grace and beauty
and then look around
the teenagers stand in awe
and then the applause
stand there, bask in your glory
hope you can come back again

The results of your analysis say:

You fill every waking moment with activity.
You are a social person who likes to talk and meet others.
You are negative, fearful, resistant, doubtful, and/or selfish.
You are not very reserved, impatient, self-confident and fond of action.
You enjoy life in your own way and do not depend on the opinions of others.

This Thursday, it happens.

I will be getting my driver's permit.

Here's to picking up ugly old battered coffee-stained books and spending hours reading them:

Henry Miller is incredible. Love it love it love it.

I watched Grizzly Man last night, and I think everyone should see it. I fell asleep thinking about it, I woke up thinking about it, and it becomes even more profound as time passes.

Sometimes I forget that it's
not silent here all the time,
then at 10:20, an hour after
I was supposed to be asleep,
I hear the sound of gunshots
from where the soldiers are training.

They must be out on late maneuvers,
roused gritty-throated from their beds.
"When yer in the shit,
Killing Or Being Killed
will not wait for you to drink yer
got-dammed morning coffee."

Soldiers would say things like
"In the shit."

I picture them,
ropes and bars
bright in the halogen darkness,
weaving and dodging,
preparing for Killing Or Being Killed.

Some day, I will do battle with this man.

Hello all. Sitting around feeling all Hunter S.'y with nothing to do.

There's going to be some new content on this blog soon as I get adequately mopey and/or pissed off.

I recently had a dream that I was walking the streets of London after hours, yelling in a cockney accent about how I was a prostitute to try to bait Jack the Ripper into attacking me.

Favorite dream ever.

I got a call from an army recruiter just now. He asked me about my plans for the future and I told him I didn't want to divulge any personal information. He pressed me and I said that I have major objections to the military as a whole and I don't want the army to play any role in my future. Then he accused me of sounding "anti-government altogether."

The thought that this phone call could have put me on some list is as frustrating as it is frightening.

I have had a string of waycool dreams the last few nights.

Last night, I dreamt that I was a disenchanted Bruce Wayne who had put up the Mantle of the Bat to escape all the hype that surrounded Batman. I lived on a hill and had an amulet that allowed me to transform into a squirrel or Andre the Giant at will. The house across the street was inhabited by criminals, and they had kidnapped a girl and were holding her for ransom. I decided to invent another superhero alter-ego by the name of Spook who was bound by none of the shaky morality that Batman had to adhere to; I took Andre form, dressed in lots of sweaters, wore two beanies and a mask. I picked up a big stick, swooped down upon my antagonists and proceeded to kick ass for half an hour.

The same night, I had a dream about reformatting The Hello Sequence. That wasn't as cool.

Just wanted to share.

OOPS.

I've created another webspace in which to lurk.

The Hello Sequence

It is an online index of my best writing. As I write a lot, it should be updated a lot. The layout is spartan for two reasons: 1) I think the internet is too cluttered with irrelevant graphics and 2) I'm bad at web design.

Hope you like.

HOLY SHIT.

He puts on an old record
and the needle goes up and down
and blood runs into the grooves
and turns around
and around and around.

Why has everyone stopped dancing?

Woops, murderers own the planet.

I was walking back from the library, listening to songs, I looked up and there was an elderly man coming the other direction. I was in a fantastic mood, ready to greet him with a grin.

When he saw me, he was about twenty feet away and crossed Scripps Lake Drive to avoid me.

Shortly thereafter, I passed a family who briefly made eye contact, broke it and didn't return my greeting.

I'm sick of this. One moment of baseless fear renders a vegetarian with a backpack full of poetry into a bearded menace.

As nice as Scripps Ranch can often be, I'm getting claustrophobic.

An excellent music video.

Last night I met Death in my sleep, a prolonged nightmare, surreal and vibrant. I dreamt that I had terminal cancer, massive and rotting somewhere hidden.

And so intensely I felt the sadness, an immense anger at having life stolen from me, so early.

I sat with my parents, weeping, thinking, "Now I have less than a year to come to terms with everything." Alienation, tangible mortality, a nauseous funeral dirge.

And in a hazy twilight I saw a group of small dragonflies. Letting one land on my finger, I think "Their lives are so short, so fleeting, but they don't care. All I can do is simply live, simply die."

Then I wake up, dazed, startled, relieved, laying for a while in the darkness, staring at nothing. I think about the millions for whom the nightmare is not a dream.

Air has tasted solemnly sweet today.

Be With Those Who Help Your Being

Be with those who help your being.
Don't sit with indifferent people, whose breath
comes cold out of their mouths.
Not these visible forms, your work is deeper.

A chunk of dirt thrown in the air breaks to pieces.
If you don't try to fly,
and so break yourself apart,
you will be broken open by death,
when it's too late for all you could become.

Leaves get yellow. The tree puts out fresh roots
and makes them green.
Why are you so content with a love that turns you yellow?

-Rumi

I decided to pester Rushkoff some more.

My letter:

I just read your June article in Arthur. Sorry, maybe you've already heard everything I'm about to say.

Basically, I think if people in your position, who have the means and the eloquence to spread awareness about the sketchy nonsense perpetrated on us by the media overlords, unplug and throw in the towel, you're going to leave an entire generation out in the cold.

I'm still reading Playing the Future, and it pointed me to an interesting realization. People my age communicate with a very refined lexicon of media references; pop culture defines a huge part of our identities and even the semantics with which we communicate. I would even say that the scattered deconstruction and reorganization of media tidbits into cohesive images and ideologies, much as a hermit crab gathers detritus from the ocean floor with which to decorate its shell, has led to a valid and nuanced culture. After thinking about this for a while, I looked down to realize that I was wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt, and as shallow as it may seem, I feel like these pop culture entities that we've all grown up with constitute a vibrant and important new pantheon in American mythology. True, our gods would rather sell us cheap shit than help us improve the world, but the media space is nearly as tangible to us, as inherent a facet of our collective consciousness, as the physical. And yeah, sometimes it all seems like wolves herding sheep, but it's our medium, our vehicle for collaboration, innovation and evolution. Daddy just hasn't handed over the keys yet.

I do, however, agree that the physical space is ripe for the freeing. Just standing around in a group is now grounds for suspicion. My friends and I have gotten kicked out of public parks at six in the afternoon just because we were there. Whaddya gonna do?

-Matt


His response:

If you, the kind of person who has equal access to the tools of media as anyone, don't quickly realize that you are in a position of greater power and leverage than I am, then we are lost.


So, young people, I say it's time for an extended montage as we all find the power within us to rise to the occasion. I plan to run up mountains holding boulders and try on funny hats. But I jest, the man has a point.