storymilo

Who turns on the radio at 2:40 A.M. to listen to a piece-of-**** call in radio station that also plays stirring tunes, preaching that they “don’t want to miss a thing?”

When you’re awake a 2 in the morning trying to write a parody of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and somehow connect it to a non-hallucinatory desert experience your father had 10 years ago it’s easy to find other things to do. Never mind the other homework that hasn’t been done, because it’s the inactive internet forums and 90% feedback radio stations that are calling. Forget even sleep; that would be giving up, because as long as you’re awake there’s still a part of you screaming “I’m going to finish this! As soon as this Good Charlotte song is over!” and who are you not to believe it? Why couldn’t you stay up all night and magically turn an overdue drama assignment into a satirical masterpiece? Didn’t Nick Drake supposedly write all his songs in the middle of the night?
Well his mother said he did, and that’s good enough. A musical genius is someone to be copied, but not so much that it becomes obvious. Just make some art while you’re awake, and it could turn out to be brilliant. A brilliant mess of cave drawings most likely, but brilliance all the same. Who doesn’t feel inspired past bedtime? I think what I come up awake is far weirder than anything dreams could serve me.
It all comes with a healthy dose of narcissism of course. No one wants to think that they’re staying up and producing **** worthy of a flush. Even if it is, a belief in subjectivity and the idea that you’re smarter than others goes a long way in preventing you from realizing this. “This is art,” is what goes through your mind. “This is abstract. This is what Vonnegut wishes he could have written.” And who knows, maybe it is.