Earlier today, I had a random encounter, as does happen in my life from time to time, an encounter with a celebrity, of sorts. This will appeal to others from Generation X, who grew up watching horror flicks, particularly the Friday the 13th movies. Do you remember the very first Friday the 13th movie? If so, keep reading. If not, spoiler alert, so keep reading at your own behest. Ha, the GIF below I made maybe…ohhhh…12ish years ago, something like that. I had to dig it up(pun intended), from my Friday the 13th GIF collection, & it looks like it’s the only one that was left after GIPHY removed about half of my entire first channel when the Great Purge came & went, like a tsunami, washing nearly my entire social media persona away, leaving me permanently exiled in the digital gulag.
In the first movie, Jason was NOT the killer, & eventually you discover that his mother was the murderer, but Jason still makes an appearance, when he comes out of the water to grab the girl who thinks she’s safe. The dude who played the original Jason, a guy name Ari Lehman, came into my dispo, with one of his mates from his band, a band known as First Jason. I obviously had to do some research, & when I did, I discovered that Ira has had quite a life. I dig it, to have a life like that, getting to act, then performing in a band, living the dream, so to speak, so it was an honor to meet Ira, & as I mentioned at the beginning, it was totally random. Yes, it happens randomly but regularly in my sordid life, when I cross paths with celebrity types, people who have crossed the line between us & them, & it’s a strange feeling every time it happens, because it reminds me of a life I could’ve had, had I not fucked my own life off into the hell I awaken to everyday in this current existence.
I know, I know, I know…it’s a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing to compare one’s self to the lives of others, especially those who found the golden ticket early on, but such is the way my monkey mind works. It’s as if the Universe has to constantly remind me, “You lost it all, everything you’ve ever worked for, everything you ever dreamed possible for yourself, YOU lost it all. No one else lost it, YOU did, you stupid fuck,” & that goes on in my head all day, despite me knowing that it’s unhealthy to think in such a manner. If the butterfly had only fluttered left instead of right, or maybe vice versa, who knows? Somewhere I’d like to believe there’s another me, in some other dimension, that’s living the “correct” life, the one where I didn’t fuck up, or the one where the world didn’t fuck me over entirely, or maybe no, maybe there is no other me, & this is it, singularly stuck on this one miserable roller coaster ride, that jerks so hard it’ll whiplash you at each hairpin turn, on loops that seem to go around & around & around without end, until the sickness comes & there’s puke centrifugally flying all over the rest of the theme park, & I end up cleaning up the after-mess. Oh yes, I could go on & on with the analogies, but why? What’s the point?
I’m just here to illustrate the day I met Ari Lehman, the original Jason Vorhees. Yep, just documenting the meet & greet, as it were. It would’ve been cool to bullshit with him longer, because like I mentioned, he was a really cool guy, & the world of acting has always fascinated me. It’s my one other pseudo-talent besides writing this drivel that I pen every day, but like everything else in my wasted life, I never pursued it the way I should have. There was always something in the way I guess, something in my head, or perhaps a lack of something in my head, I don’t know. Maybe I just needed some encouragement, or opportunity, or something that derived from a place not my own, to teach or guide or sign-post me as to where to go, what to do, etc…but sadly, for yours truly, there was none of that, & in retrospect, I would’ve just had to get lucky enough to find it all on my own. How rewarding that would’ve been, right? Nope, none of that though, none of it, a life of nothing, a life of sweet sleep to just barely cross the finish line when I get to the end. I’ll be crawling like a beggar, puke dripping from my grizzled chin, skin dried from a lack of life-giving water from the well, barely squeezing my way in, as is par for the course, when I finally get to that last hurdle between life & death.
As always, due to my incessant narcissism, I have successfully turned an article about a new friend into a diatribe about my own destitute situation. It cannot be helped, for when the fingers start flying, the monkey mind turns off to let the words come through the frequency I dial into. I’ll be sure to leave a few links to some of Ari Lehman’s work. He may not be a super-celebrity to some, but to me, he’s done it well, quite well in his adventurous life. He had a role that will live forever in the horror genre, as nostalgic as it gets, & he never had to succumb to that Hollywood world because he did things his own way, for the sake of fun, for the sake of art, NOT for the sake of fame. Until next time dear readers, be sure to read the links provided, because I do this for all of you, & for none of you at all. It’s an arguably futile attempt to bridge the divide between those of us who lost, & those who are winners. Me, I’m a loser, born to be such it seems, & it’s a hard pill to swallow, possibly the hardest, the “born-loser” pill. Make no mistake, I’ve tried, tried to be successful, tried to be a “winner,” but what have I won? Nothing, nothing but a lonely loser life in my own solitary cell. Wunderbar. There is no “try;” there is only “do,” or “not do.” I most certainly “did NOT do,” & although the pill is hard to swallow, I have to swallow it every day I wake up back here in this 3d prison planet comic tragedy, just to get out of bed. These stars that occasionally shine & twinkle in my moonless night sky, come & go from time to time, so I thought I’d share this last encounter with the waning twilight. If you have nothing but the night, the blackest of nights, you only have the stars as your streetlights, & the marquee, your moon. So sayeth FisH™…🎏