Lester Bangs, Drugs, and Immortality
One of my heroes growing up, Philip Seymour Hoffman, died yesterday. Too soon, I know. It’s like Heath Ledger died all over again. PSH could have done more riveting roles that accurately capture the erratic layers and nuances behind the dysfunctions of human behavior. Y’know, roles that only few actors boldly take on and can actually do. His passion for acting is so uncompromising that you never see him not giving his 100%, even in bad movies like, Twister or Along Came Polly. It’s really breathtaking how he maintains the same vigor in all his roles.
But I guess, what I'll really miss is my non-existent teacher-student relationship with PSH. As eerie as it sounds, I really felt that I lost a fictional mentor when I read about his death.
Ever since Lester Bangs in Almost Famous said that “the only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else while you're uncool,” I looked up to PSH like I am William Miller with a vagina. I followed his films. PSH was a big influence on my taste, as well as my life.
I was in the most turbulent phase of my life when I first saw Almost Famous. I had no parents who understood what I’m going through, and I thought Lester Bangs saw through me. This may sound cheesy, but the movie saved my life. It made me realize that I'm not alone in being uncool.
I even forgot that an actual Lester Bangs exists. My connection with PSH as Lester Bangs felt so real I forgot that it's just fiction. In his official blog, even Cameron Crowe talked about his awe at PSH's soulful interpretation of Lester Bangs. Have you ever felt this way towards an imaginary construct? Now you know my secret.
If suspicions were true that he died because of heroin overdose, I'll feel less torn knowing that he was in a happy place moments before his death. Or not? Maybe he was actually in an inescapable black hole, bermuda triangulated, and was searching for solace in his punk rock medication.
I haven’t tried heroin before, or any artificially manufactured drug. I draw my knowledge about drugs from the addiction seminars I went to trying to find a way to help my dad, and from my friends who have been hooked with a bunch of underground chemicals during their experimental years.
The most eye-opening thing that I got from their stories is that people don’t get hooked because they’re depressed, emotionally battered, or any of that psychological fucked up crap that makes non-users sympathize with them; PEOPLE DO DRUGS SIMPLY BECAUSE IT’S SOOO DAMN GOOD. In fact, the German word “heroin” comes from the Greek word "heros" to allude to the euphoric, I-am-Superman high it bequeaths the (ab)user. Heroin makes people feel immortal, like Zeus or Jesus Christ.
I honestly don’t know what to make up with this discovery. Should I be hurt? Disappointed? I’m not really sure because human beings are naturally attracted to pleasure, and I don’t see anything wrong about that. Thinking about it, the religious ones delay gratification here on earth because they believe that after death, they will be in a never-ending rapture in some magical place not made of atoms. Isn't that the same?
But, then again, I had an insanely chaotic adolescence because of my dad’s addiction to meth. I am and will be forever scarred because I saw really revolting stuff in our house that a normal teenager should be protected from. Just the mere thought of his twitching eyes, shaking hands in subtle inadvertent motions, tongue moving too fast while doped blankets me with melancholic chill.
But I got over all of it with the help of books, films, music, Murakami, Rebecca Añonuevo, poetry, writing, messing up, my mom, my daughter, and the people who unconditionally loves me.
I used to hate my dad because he had the chance to uplift our family's way of life because he was so good at work, and was earning a lot of money, yet he chose a path of fleeting, artificial pleasure. I didn't consider that maybe he was so pressured to give us the life he didn't have, and was too weak to resist something that promises to take that edge off. Or maybe he's also yearning for a dad he never had to help him handle his egocentric junkie boss who's giving him a hard time at work. Or maybe he never had a taste of the good life, and he lost control. Anyone can fall for that. Even me. Who doesn't want to feel immortal, right?
My disgust of him blinded me from seeing his humanity, his thirst for help and empathy, which I failed to provide then simply because I was so young. I had to fuck up a lot myself to understand where he's coming from.
In hindsight, it was a painful journey. But, this disturbance, all the anger, denial, and confusion made me the strong person that I am now. I grew up looking for a fix to "solve" my family burden—my curse. I studied hard thinking that school can give some sort of answer. I became a scholar for 8 years. Nada. Apparently, everything just boils down to a problem of existence that no one have really solved yet.
Now, I may not have the "solution" I sought, but I've been spending a lot of days with my dad and I'm learning a lot from him. He has a really good taste in alcohol and a respectable tolerance for it too. I think I got my depth and humor from him, though he can be really corny at times. He used to be his school's editor, so I probably got my thing for words from him too.
Maybe, all we needed was to share a bottle of whiskey and a bunch of laughs to break the "curse".
Ultimately, my dad made me understand that people who do drugs aren't different from those who don't—they’re just like each one of us who are looking for that immortality fix. And if PSH died because he was longing for the same thing, I hoped I was there to tell him that he already is, immortal. He doesn't need smack for that.
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