We'll Be High and Dry

***DISCLAIMER: While you probably cannot tell by simply reading my text, at the time of this writing if I close my eyes, the room is spinning, and if I keep them open too long, well, the room starts to spin, too.  Luckily I cushioned all that nasty Sailor Jerry's, Great White and Mirror Pond with a greasy slice of pepperoni-bell pepper pizza from APD, so I don't think the vomitations are coming quite yet.

There is something so beautiful, so eternal, so innocent about taking the classic trot from the downtown Arcata area back home to my parents house in the wee hours of the morning.  That 25-30 minute walk (depending on the inebriation) I have taken literally hundreds of times in my life. I've done it drunk off my ass; sober as the Pope; frying my mind away on some LSD; coked out of my mind; stoned as can be. I've taken that walk with old friends long past; with random girls I've brought home; with complete and utter strangers; with one of my girl friends on a drunken impulsive whim (yes that was GIRL FRIENDS, two words, as in female friends, you asshole).

I know all the short cuts; all of the connecting routes; every possible way to get from Point A to Point B.  Take the Sunset shortcut from the Plaza to home? Sure! How bout straight down Alliance through Bloomfield? Okay! Maybe LK Wood blvd for a change? Why not?! I have walked this path so many times I could, and have, gotten myself home with my eyes closed in an unconscious daze.

Walking through the neighborhoods is quite honestly, both figurative and literally, a walk down memory lane.  Every other house or apartment I remember at some point going into to drink a beer, smoke a bowl, or play fucking video games.  Every other house at some point or another has thrown a huge party that I attended.  Memories so clear of some notable conversation or moment at some specific street corner it is as through I relive the experience each time I pass.

Dropping doses of LSD on sushi at some girls birthday party at one house; making out with two girls at the same time because one of them wanted a cigarette from me; planning a trip to San Francisco to see Lou Reed at 4am the day before the concert spun outta our minds; damn near coming to fisticuffs with my best friend over a girl; drinking Ancient Age under the bridge; drinking beer down on the train tracks; drinking, drinking, drinking... drinking.

Walking home in this state is timeless.  It's like each time I do it, I'm not walking alone, yet with myself all the other thousands of times I've done it, and all the potentially thousands of times I will continue to do it.  Living in Portland, the one thing I really missed - and could hardly wait to someday do again - was take this walk.  There is so much history, so many memories, both good ones and bad ones, that come from the walk; it's like reliving my entire life in 30 minutes.  I vividly remember specific nights and exactly how I felt at the time; I remember crossing Foster Rd on Alliance some years ago and I remember EXACTLY what I was thinking at the time - not something I want to tell you now, but it was very memorable and I don't think I will ever forget. Perhaps one day when we get to know eachother better I will tell you what I was thinking about who and why...

When I walk the streets, the town is all mine.  I see my history - my entire being of existence, as I look around.  They're not just specific memories, it is my life.  Who I am or who I will become is molded during these walks. In truth it is the only time that I feel I really come alive.  And it isn't just myself alive, it is everything: the plants, the stray cats (great band by the way!), the cars that whiz by, the man who installed the STOP sign at that one intersection eight years prior, the fellow drunkards that I pass, that shining little star and the millions that progressively grow more and more dim... it is no coincidence that all this is there in the moment. It's something that I've created. Not only is Arcata mine, but all of California. The McCain-Obama election is mine. The terrorists supposedly in Iran are all mine. Cornwallace's surrender at Yorktown was my doing. Why? Because if I wasn't right here, right now, in the moment, they would exist NOWHERE.

The world really does revolve around you. And not you, specifically, but an individual human being, because without that one person, everything from the colony of ants living under my house to the sun burning in the sky to the Big Bang all those (10 x n^googolplex) years ago CEASES TO EXIST. And why? Because without us, the individual living in the here and now, there is NOTHING. If we were to die, the Universe and everything in it dies with us. Get it? These things exist only because they exist within ourselves; if we surrendered that existence, what would happen? That's what the fucking Scientologists do: they surrender all reason and truth to the point where they no longer are alive, they are just mindless automatons apart of the same collective, because they sacrifice not only their individuality but their entire existence because they just can't live with all the decisions themselves.

And so maybe in the moment the last thing I would want to do is spend 30 minutes stumbling home, but once the trek begins it evolves into something so much more then just a walk. It becomes not only a walk down my teenage years, but a walk towards my future, and a walk inside my soul. And the final destination is the same every time: paradise. The utmost comfort in the Universe; a fluffed pillow, comfy matress, and utter peace of mind, body and soul upon drifting into unconsciousness. And if sometimes that paradise comes with alcohol poisoning, acid-induced mental paranoia, marijuana-caused insomnia, or simply a toilet bowl full of puke, well, so much the better.

Dream on my brothers and sisters.

Burr v Hamilton : Duel of the Millennium

July 11th, 1804 marked the infamous conclusion of the most notorious political feuds in American history. Vice-President Aaron Burr and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton had hated eachother for years.  Stemming from the Senate race in 1791, Burr, a Democratic-Republican, won the Senate seat from Hamilton's father-in-law Philip Schuyler (a Federalist). There Burr served as Senator until the election of 1800, when he was one of a handful of Democratic-Republicans running for the Presidency.  One of his party rivals was Thomas Jefferson.

During the times, The Party nominee would not appoint someone to run as his Vice-President as is the case today.  Rather, back then each elector was allowed two votes to cast as to who should headline their party in the Presidential election.  The nominee who recieved the most votes from his party would run for President, and the one who recieved the second-most votes ran on the ticket as Vice-President.

Jefferson and Burr were the two frontrunners in the primary season for the nomination on the Democratic-Republican party ticket.  When it came time to vote, the party fell deadlocked with an equal amount of votes to both Jefferson and Burr.  In case of electoral deadlock the tiebreaker is always sent to the House of Representatives, which at the time was majority-controlled by the Federalists.

Alexander Hamilton, the sitting Secretary of the Treasury and himself a Federalist, knew his Party's animosity toward Jefferson would ultimately lead them to choose Burr as the ticket leader and Jefferson as Vice-President. Therefore, out of resentment of the Senate election nine years previous, Hamilton used all the influence he had in Congress to pursuade the Federalists into appointing Jefferson President and Burr Vice-President in the tie-breaker.

He succeeded, and the Democratic-Republicans took the White House for the first time.  Though throughout the 36 Congressional elections as to who the ticket-leader would be and the general election campaigning, Burr's indifference and haphazardness estranged Jefferson and come the 1804 re-election campaign, he dropped Burr as his Vice-Presidential nominee.  In the mean time, the 12th Amendment to the Constitution had been ratified to avoid the same disastrous confusion regarding electors' allowed two unspecified votes for President (nowadays electors still get two votes, but they are specific to President and Vice-President)

Burr, aware that Jefferson was dropping him from the ticket, started campaigning for a Gubernatorial run in New York for the 1804 elections.  Running as an Independent rather than on his traditional Democratic-Republican platform, Burr found himself up against New York State Attorney General and fellow Democratic-Republican Morgan Lewis.  Hamilton, once aware of this, vigorously campaigned against Burr, writing multiple articles in the New York Times bashing Burr and supporting Lewis for the office.  Again, Hamilton's cunning proved successful, as Lewis beat Burr in the general election for the Governor's seat of New York.

The last straw in their bitter rivalry was a letter written by Charles Cooper, a Democratic-Republican who had attended a dinner party featuring Hamilton, conveying all the harsh words Hamilton had spoke in regards to Burr.  The letter, originally written to Hamilton's father-in-law and current New York Senator Philip Schuyler, made its way into Burr's hands via a leaked publication in The New York Times.  Aaron Burr sent a formal challenge to Alexander Hamilton, who accepted.

In issuing a duel challenge to an opponent, the challenger does so for feeling that his honor has been unjustly taken by the challenged, in an attempt to regain their honor.  The general rules for dueling state that the challenger may discontinue the duel if he feels his honor has been returned, or the challenged surrenders and thus honors the challenger by dishonoring himself. Duels can be to first blood, or to the death.  Some are fought after each party, backs facing each-other, take an even number of steps before turning and firing.  Others are done with both parties a far distance from each-other, in which they take turns firing a single shot. Burr and Hamilton agreed on the latter. 

Each dueler brings with them a "second", whose task it is to make sure both parties are on level fields and that neither fires prematurely.  Burr's was William van Ness; Hamilton's was Judge Nathaniel Pendleton.  Both agreed to travel via rowboat from Manhattan to a specific spot in New Jersey on the morning of July 11th, 1804.  Hamilton, being the accepted challenger as per dueling rules, chose the duel formations.  Arranged so that either second would not be legally accountable, the duel was conducted with the seconds looking away as to claim plausible deniability.

After one of the seconds announces "present", the duel began, with Hamilton taking the first shot.  Custom during a duel is the act of 'deloping' in which the duelist fires a shot at the ground before his opponent's feet, as a sign of courageous and respectful surrender for reasons of avoiding murder or acknowledgment of a superior skilled opponent.  Hamilton's shot missed Burr completely, flying far above his head.  Burr, seeing the shot fired in his direction and hearing the bullet flying past, in turn mortally shot Hamilton.  After being taken by Judge Pendleton to a house off the Manhattan shore, Hamilton died the next day.

Burr was charged with murder in both New York and New Jersey, but was acquitted in both instances. After fleeing to South Carolina, he returned to Washington D.C. a few months later to finish the remainder of his term as Vice-President.  His political career tarnished beyond salvageability, Burr went into a self-imposed exile to Europe before finally returning to New York some years prior to his death in 1836.  The famous incident was the main catalyst for the nationwide outlaw of dueling.  And perhaps the most earth-shattering result of the duel was the effective destruction of the Federalist party, as after the death of George Washington a few years prior, Hamilton was the only strong leader left in an otherwise fledgling party.  Without Hamilton's charisma, the Party soon ceased to exist.

Historians tend to argue about who really fired the first shot.  Either Hamilton deloped to Burr, or Hamilton's airball shot was in response to being shot himself by Burr, the only thing that is agreed upon was the time between the two shots fired, generally believed to be between two and there seconds.

Interesting is how civilized a formal duel to the death between two enemies really was, and while Burr was shunned for the practice (no doubt losing what honor remained in his attempt to regain that very honor!) he suffered no legal retaliation.  Consider it in context: just more than two hundred years ago the Secretary of the Treasury accepted the challenge of his arch-rival, the sitting Vice-President, in a duel to the death.  Now consider the same situation in a contemporary setting.  It's hard to imagine either perpetrator able to "quietly flee to South Carolina."

Also of note are the individuals involved in the duel and their resulting place in history - the Vice-President, man who "won" his honor back by killing the Treasurer, more or less faded into historical obscurity, remembered mostly for the duel, while his arch-rival, the "loser" who died, is the one we all know and remember.  Perhaps sometimes the initial victor isn't always the winner.  Next time you have a $10 bill, take a look at it and know what I mean.