Lunatic Ravings!
By Stephen Johnson
I have been asked many
times why I am so "negative" and if there is a certain point in my life when I started seeing the dark
side.
I thought about it for a long while and came up with two answers. The first is that I saw the dark side when I
first saw "Star Wars". See, that's a joke. Not a good one, but a joke nonetheless. This proves I am not
"Mr. Negative".
But there was a definite turning point in my life that made me look at everything in a different light. I was 14
years old, and the only thing only thing on my mind was having enough money to go to the local record store to
buy a shitload of new music.
My weekly allowance didn't cut it so my dad got the wise idea to enroll me in some type of youth job thing. This
would "build my character" plus it would give me extra money that always seemed to be "burning a
hole in my pocket".
One of the jobs I had was to clean up an old ladies backyard, along with some weeding and general lawn care. I
did this job to the best of my ability and after 3 weekends of cleaning and weeding and trying to find "Life's
Been Good" by Joe Walsh on my transistor radio (hey, the song was bitchin' cool then and still is now), I
received about $30.00. I was rich!!
A gentleman down the street saw what a fabulous job I did and asked if I wanted to cut his lawn every weekend.
He invited me over to check out his lawn so that I could quote him a price.
I wasn't much of a monetary genius at that point of my life. All I knew was that for every lawn I cut or worked
on, I should make enough to buy one album at least.
I went to his house and he showed me that I would be using a riding lawnmower which meant that cutting his lawn
would take no time at all! I checked out his small patch of grass in the front of the house and then was shown
the backyard which was at least 2 acres.
I thought about it for a moment then told him it would cost $7.00. He asked me if I was sure and I told him yep,
$7.00 was my price. He looked at me a bit strangely but accepted my offer and I told him I would be by the next
weekend to cut his grass.
I showed up at 9 am the following Saturday and started to cut the grass. I figured would take me a couple of hours
tops, but I obviously wasn't too smart when it came to judgement of time back then either because I was finally
done at 3 pm. I guess my employer felt bad because he paid me $13.00 instead of $7.00, so I didn't feel too bad.
I went back the next weekend but was ill prepared for what happened. There was a large tree with droopy branches
at the very end of the backyard. As I drove closer to the tree, it seemed that the branched were moving.
I drove under the tree and looked up and saw billions upon billion of cicadas hanging from the branches. I was
disgusted and scared because I had never seen these creatures before. As I looked up with my mouth open, one of
the cicadas decided to jump and jump it did, right into my open mouth.
I tried to hack it up but it started to burrow its way up into my head. I jumped off the mower and ran screaming
to the house. The owner took one look at me and immediately called my mom as I lay on the ground convulsing as
the cicada burrowed its way deeper and deeper into my brain.
My mom picked me up and rushed me to the hospital. The doctor checked me out and told my mom that there was nothing
he could do because the cicada was lodged too deep in my brain and, if it were to be removed, I could quite possibly
die.
They decided to leave the cicada in my brain because they figured it would eventually die and rot causing very
minimal damage to my thinking nodes. I was sent home with a vial of Tylenol and strict orders of complete bed rest.
So, there is the possibility that the cicada in my brain has caused me to turn out the way I have.
Or maybe it was because I smoked some marijuana and went to see "Andy Warhol's Frankenstein" in 3D. That
also could have fucked me up.
But, who really cares?
COMING NEXT: I bitch and
moan about something new and improved.
Look for a new "Lunatic Ravings" each Monday and Thursday.
