Excerpt: The Eighth Plot: Cacophony for the 21st Century

“The pleasure of the senses is always regulated in accordance with the imagination. Man can aspire to felicity only by serving all the whims of his imagination."
Donatien Alphonse Francois Comte Marquis De Sade

Introduction
This is not a love story. It’s a story about obsession, compulsion, devotion, an all-encompassing need for someone and the quest for emotional release. No, this is definitely not a love story…

I started self-mutilating fairly early, in fact the first time I really explored the issue of trading emotional pain for the physical was on my 12th birthday. I grabbed my Swiss Army penknife my father bought me when I joined the Boy Scouts and headed out not knowing what I was going to do or where to begin.

At first, while I was sitting alone just rubbing my arm contemplating the Earth, my mind, and the universe. I wanted to transcend my emotions I wanted to turn off the pain I felt inside.

I started to scratch lightly along the skin of my right inner forearm with the main blade of the Swiss Army Knife. At first I didn’t feel anything as I dragged the blade across the muscle of my arm. At this point I didn’t dare to break the skin. I was afraid of the pain a cut would cause. I followed the white lines on my skin in inch long scratches.

I liked the buzz I felt in my brain caused by the infant sensation of pain that grew as I dug deeper in the flesh of my arm. Although the buzz became louder and the adrenaline caused the fuzziness in my brain to grow intensively louder and louder. Until the buzz cancelled out all other noise from my external world. I like the white noise inside my head that stemmed from the twingeing sensation in my arm. I kept going, my jaw clenched as I thought of every little biting comment I had heard through out my brief life uttered to break to my soul, to hurt my overly tender heart and as each thought echoed through my mind I found a rhythm to my thoughts as they became lost behind a wall of perfect white noise. I cut to the quick time rhythm of my thoughts. I cut through hoping to find an answer, hoping to find a clue as to who I am.

At first the cutting caused minor damage and the little beads of blood that formed there where like the remnant of a cat scratch and nothing more. But in seeing the blood there along the lines of my careful exploratory surgery was not enough.

I wanted more, I wanted to see the blood cascade down in fine streams of crimson gore. I wanted to scourge myself of all the pain I felt inside so I dug deeper and deeper until the pain screamed through the white noise in my brain and rang out notes like a Beethoven symphony.

I could feel the power of the pain cause my brain to ring out under the pulse of tympanis that maybe was my racing pulse behind my ears and rose into a beautiful crescendo cresting on the endorphins released into my body. What a rush that first real cut was, what a rush.

I carved my initials deep into the flesh of my arm so the scars that formed there would always remind me of that special birthday and my new discovery. The white silvery scars would always remind me of that perfect symphony composed of white noise and pain.

It was stirring watching the blood flow out from the deeper cuts like a gift of a mad propulsive final chorus. Certainly this chorus were more powerful then the slender notes created by the thin scratches of the Overture and when left to stand on its own and build into a body of the sheer music lost in the perfection of pain.

I have seen myself, though young as I am, as an ethereal figure of a ruin of what at one time was a man some might recognize as human, ambling exhaustedly and somewhat drunk on the power of my own blood and pain, traveling to the theater inside my lost soul for a performance of Beethoven to witness a symphony of blood and perfectly formed searing notes of pain.

In regards to my own life I am a critic first and I am the most passionate fan of Beethoven. The identities of my own youthful life and old Ludwig Van were so closely entwined. I understand Ludwig’s primitiveness , the rawness of his music and the perfection of his concertos. I have it myself, primitiveness and rawness but without the perfection which I can find in my mind clouded by white noise and pain. And even now as a child I just could not be bothered with the common man who might look upon my stories and poetry as bedtime tales.

Or as one teacher once judged my earlier writings as “Nice”. There is nothing nice about what I write, nor is the way I view I view the world. Even as a child I would poetry that cast a shadow over the students in my English class. The essays and stories I was forced to write we dark and corrupt and clearly disturbed most of my private school teachers.

As I sat lost in my world of white noise and pain, I thought briefly of Beethoven. I knew that in 1798, Beethoven had begun to experience an incessant whining and whistling in his ears that progressively grew stronger, eventually these sounds prompted Beethoven to the agonizing realization that he was slowly going deaf. Eventually he would be forced to chop the legs off his piano so he could still compose by sitting on the floor and feel the vibration of each perfect note.

I can such pain, understanding that soon he would never again truly hear the complete utter perfection of each single note, and how that that simple perfection joined to create the melodies of his music, while I on the other hand found perfection within my own world of pain, the perfection of that white noise that blotted out the world which I hated so much as much as it hated me. Like Beethoven how could I ever attempt to understand that I never experience again the mundane and ordinary world in which my future had condemned me.

In 1802, in a state of desperation he like me contemplated suicide; thankfully neither of us succeeded. But in the case of Beethoven, he retired to the isolated village of Heiligenstadt and addressed to his brothers a statement expressing his agony of losing his hearing completely except for that incessant whining. The Heiligenstadt Testament marked the start of a new period in Beethoven's productivity; during the next ten years he created one of the most extraordinary outpourings of musical masterpieces in history.

By 1812 he had completed Symphony 2, 3 Eroica, 4, 5, 6 Pastoral, 7 and 8, Piano Concerto No. 4, No. 5 Emperor, the Violin Concerto, his opera Fidelio, the three Rasumovsky String Quartets and a wealth of piano sonatas and other works.

Unlike his contemporaries, Haydn and Mozart , Beethoven demonstrated how melody alone, no matter how beautiful, their music could not hold an audience's attention for more than a minute or two and mastered the principle of using harmonic tension to sustain large-scale structures.

Yet for me my symphony of pain held my attention like nothing ever had. I would remember this event forever even as long after the scars faded, but they never did.

Like Beethoven’s concerto’s my scars have a complex brilliance consisting of the thick silvery straight lines of , but they should have calmed me down instead they stand as a monument for my scorn for classical themes. Through my pain I could wash away all the horror that led to this point and as Beethoven challenged his contemporizes I will challenge mine.

Beethoven went further; with the first movement of the Eroica Symphony (1803) he created a single span of uninterrupted music of unparalleled length. Of this I take note, I put the knife away under my seat, the lights dim. No longer would my contempories dictate my life I would be come the sole conductor of my future. I approach a small pit of my would be orchestra, and let the first notes of the overture of my life begin, dark, cumbersome, profound and ominous.

Once I felt a little bit calmer I set off home and cleaned myself up. The release at the time felt good to me but it didn't come quick enough. With all due respect to Beethoven -- creator of landmark piano sonatas, gripping string quartets and iconic Ninth Symphony -- opera was not his forte. "Fidelio,'' his sole incursion into opera, has its sticky patches, Beethoven so eager to highlight his points about the value of freedom and selfless love he belabors the ideas and gets lost in the themes. Weak spots were easy to overlook, given the powerful musical and theatrical deciding on channels, there is the irony of watching bombs rain on Baghdad, or Monteverdi's "Coronation of Poppaea," both dripping with corruption the polyphony of intrigue. In both, the precision of attack separates approval from disgrace, the performance viewed a success only when the right notes hit.

I didn't fully understand then why I cut, and every single person who found out about it kept telling me how wrong it was. I never quite understood why it was so wrong because to me it felt so perfect. They always described it as damaging to myself and hurtful to my loved ones. I was told it's a poor way to cope with life's trials and tribulations. Yet I could only hear the beautiful symphony of pain. Each searing note as dreadful as the last. Each blessed bar bringing me closer to the ultimate climax of Death’s sweet embrace.

Somewhere in my life contains the secret lesson that might have prevented the other, art often the Blakeian prophet trumpeting truth, ignored like Cassandra, who watched her land cancelled-out beneath the heels of a well-intended gift.

If I now could consider myself as a person of worth who cannot be developed when a child never feels that his worth is never good enough, when in my existence, I must choose which opera I might be a part of as possibly a spectator sport, a mezzo in trousers. I always opt for Nero and his bride circling each other, tigers ready to kill: fiddling as Rome burned just as I could hear the notes of my symphony of the macabre play as my innocence burned in a pool of blood and pain.

In my world there is not the pretense of civilization here, while Beethoven’s melodies are superior somehow to the screech of mothers watching their children shred their arms in quiet solitude.

I feel my loneliness deeply, but in a strange way, the isolation suits me as it suited Beethoven, Mozart, my ancient friend from Long Island, Walt Whitman. I won’t be bothered by anyone if I just mind my own business, and keep to myself. I have much to think about; I need to get lost in the music, not as a full time critic of my life but as a connoisseur of the music that only I can hear.

“A man needs his own space, and Terror,” the word comes. “How terrifying—to love, then not be loved back.” The words float by: “fantastic terrors never felt before.” ” I explain to my inner-minded critics who have always attempted to control my life and who are now trying to convince me this might not be the way to go. But I disagree, it is one of those stand-and-deliver moments that all the stage directors’ in my mind dread. Having chosen to hurl myself in front of the evil knife would I lose my soul after I had all but collapsed into the ecstatic duet of pain and blood.

Moving on and upward into my pain as I try to keep awake in the overheated theater of my mind, nodding, nearly napping, trying to take in all the musical mural full of Germanic banter, the sweetness of blood and shivering pain. When they would only lead me to a dark room, perhaps a castle, long, dark corridors outside the prison door where there’s darkness and ‘nothing more.

Suddenly I am aware of what I have done, overcome by my own daring, my knees buckled as I swoon with relief with the emotional intensity which prevented my lofty, idealistic outpourings from bringing the dramatic action to a grinding halt. I am riveted inside my own thoughts, each character that pervades my soul occupies the same space but entirely different emotional universes full of unearthly beauty and insight. I know you might find problems with my dramatic structure yet under my inner orchestra I have found moments of celestial beauty and gripping drama. With its slow pace and simple outlines, the pain and vision of the blood took me to parallel worlds: one overflowing with joy, the other plunged me into deep sorrow.

My first occurrence began with strong feelings of anger, anxiety, panic; and other feelings too intense to ignore. I was always interested in blood and the tender pain, I always picked at the scabs on knees and watched the crimson nectar trail thinly down my arm staining my shirt sleeves. Yet I am deeply entwined with the sweet warmth of an equally forceful tenor, the blood’s golden vocal line was both an outpouring of joy and the release of pent-up fear. And then there was the BLOOD……

Blood… The smell.. The texture…..And then there was the taste, the combination of wet, dry, sticky and hot, and the sharpness - that first hit of bitter metal that it feels like a blade, then turns to warm, liquid honey . The taste The first lick is fast - just a taste, a tiny ambrosial morsel that makes me close my eyes and smile, blood and saliva mixing and running down my throat like a fine red wine which when spilt it might stain crisp white linen sheets like a first-time virgin fuck.

I remember when throwing an object, breaking something or knocking something over. But the blood, calms and enflames all my senses at once. The blood is the life. God, can there be a drug in existence that could give me the rush that drinking my own blood gives me combined with the sweet song of ripping pain?

When I rub it between my fingers, over my lips, into my skin, is interesting, exciting, and sensual. It is the very stuff of human life; it is what pumps through our beating hearts and carries itself to our vital organs, carries oxygen to the brain, it is what clots to save us from losing to much of that precious potion should our skins be breached by accident or by deliberate force or by act of God.

Now I might allow the blood to drip onto my antique glass desk, and I found the image to be quite artistic. So I held a candle underneath the glass and snapped some photos of the bright red droplets contrasting against the darkness.

It reminds me of my friend Ron who made a moving sculpture based on the motion of a simple machine and greased by the lubrication of body fluids. In one section there was blood smashed between two pieces of glass that rotated around vials of urine and semen. Some might consider this sculpture quite disturbing but I found it fascinating.

Internal violence used to settle me down, and I would use that violence like a full-blown temper tantrum a child might throw in order to achieve some ill perceived goal. I would go into a frenzy of punching my head and face whilst the tears where streaming down my face. It hurt a lot but the physical pain felt a whole lot better than the emotional pain, but then again I was only child with no weapons yet to turn against myself or society.

Through time, I became overwhelmed, when none of these “remedies” helped settle the turmoil inside me. Until I found my true way of expressing my feelings onto my skin, until I gained control of my body. Up till that point I might plunge a fist into a wall or through a window, bang my head against a wall, and until finally take a sharp weapon to use against myself.

Soon the blade of the Boy Scout knife lost its edge and I wanted to explore how to control the pain, the scars, the blood and my destiny. So, I went to the supermarket and bought some razor blades, not the safety razors but the old fashioned razors my grandfather used to shave his face in the morning. Each blade had two edges and were hard to control without cutting my finger tips but then nothing worthwhile has no consequences.

As I had long wanted to kill myself, and thought about suicide often and how Death might be kinder then life. However I don't feel that really does Death justice, after all James Barrie wrote in his children’s classic Peter Pan, “that death is the greatest adventure”(Capt. James Hook)

For the preceding three or so years, my thoughts had been constantly dominated with suicidal ideation, or ways in which I could land myself in hospital or hurt myself beyond repair. After awhile no one really cared they were just thoughts not real plans. My immature attempts on suicide made my mother joke to a babysitter once, “If you smell gas, its just child trying to kill himself again. No need to make a fuss, he hardly ever burns the house down.” You’d think she’d pay more attention to my cries for attention.

After I had succeeded in obtaining the razor blades, I took each one out its wrapper and admired the sear beauty of the edge and the gleaming metal. I put one in my mouth to taste the steel. I took a razor and made four deep cuts on my left wrist and forearm. I made sure that I went deep enough to cut through the superficial veins in my wrist, and sliced through some layers of muscle as well. I'm not sure that I could deal with that kind of pain, but at that point in time I was so numb and unable to comprehend my own state of emotion that I remember feeling absolutely nothing. The doctor who sewed me up said it was amazing that I missed every major artery and admired my skill with a knife. He actually suggested that I might consider a career in medicine, but I think I am destined for something greater then a mere surgeon.

I watched myself bleed, and found myself drifting into a state of ecstatic delirium and realized that I didn't want to die. I drove myself to the hospital and had over fifty stitches put into my wrist. What I really wanted to illustrate was that in hurting myself, and almost killing myself.