My depression wore argyle,
which I thought was not very
representative of the times,
even though I was a child
of the 80’s, or as I say, a
child of the 90’s, by the
time of which I could
legally drink or go to
war, had received
an undergraduate
degree and had
attended a
Motley Crue/
Whitesnake
concert and a
Depeche Mode
concert, not to
mention others
(like, for example,
much I was hoping
to get to mention that
I got to attend a Huey
Lewis & The News concert
in Memphis, but my depression
says that we don’t have time for
that). I found that at these concerts
(as well as others) my depression would
dissipate if not disappear for the entirety
of each and every show. However, both
before concerts and directly
after them, depression would
show up again, often bigger
and badder than ever. I
never saw Nine Inch Nails
in concert, and Trent Reznor
was basically my hero. And any
of you who are acquainted with the
band or with the musical genius of its
lead singer, who, around the time of this
poem’s recollection (somewhere near the
transition of the 1980’s into the 1990’s,
that is), would probably know that
Mr. Reznor, during this time, was
essentially Goth’s anointed king. He
was also recording an album at 10050
Cielo Drive in the west-central part of
the Beverly Crest Neighborhood of Los
Angeles, where some members of the
Charles Manson family had committed
the Tate murders in 1969, when I was
two years old. Reznor had purchased
the property in 1992 and immediately
built within it a recording studio, which
he dubbed “Le Pig.” For years, Nine Inch
Nails would blare incessantly from what
ever headphones I would use at the time,
into my ears at whatever the maximum
possible decibel level. His anthems, filled
with complex riffs, punk remnants, heavy
driving beats, Reznor’s screamy voice and
ultra-depressing lyrics would uplift me any
time I was able to play them. A few years
later, an emergency room doctor would
write me a prescription for Prozac and
say that I suffer from depression (I
had taken a three or four question
“test” and it had been determined)
and that I would probably need to
take these pills for the rest of my
life. This was in Toledo, Ohio,
where anyone can get quite
depressed without the least
bit of encouragement. There
was no real connection between
my depression and listening to Nine
Inch Nails so incessantly, of this I am
almost a hundred percent certain. I had
been crying for some time, previous to
that prescription being written in a
very long hallway within a massive
apartment wherein I lived by myself
in the Old West End, which was a somewhat
newly gentrified area near downtown Toledo.
The area had apparently known much worse
days, and my renting of the most massive apartment
within which I’ve ever lived probably played very little into
this gentrification (I left without even giving notice, certainly
owing a big of back rent), but it is often the case that
individuals fall rather vehemently on one side or the
other of the whole gentrification thing. I was quite
simply depressed, that’s all. It was all thanks to
a breakup more than anything else. That was
all it really was, to be honest. I picked up
the prescription for Prozac and took it
religiously through two or three refills
and then i stopped taking them. And
I’ve not taken Prozac since. I began to
feel quite a bit better, thanks especially
to this medication, and soon, I piled
everything I owned into an Audi
Quattro and drove it to Boston,
arriving there New Year’s eve,
the night before 1997 began.
And it was here that I would
live a mostly happy exist
ence for three and a
half years. By the
time I left Boston
for San Francisco
in the summer of
2000, I had thrown
away all of my by
then outdated
and really quite
holy argyle socks,
of which I had
previously worn
quite an extensive
collection. These
are mere facts.
