Not that this matters, but I now have a FAQ.
From netsoup@hotwired.com Wed Apr 12 12:38:40 1995
Subject: may we reprint your post?
Hello Adam Rifkin,
Greetings from HotWired, the World Wide Web cyberstation brought to you by the same folks who produce WIRED magazine. We loved reading your post to the Gen X mailing list, and we'd like to include it in *NetSoup*, HotWired's daily showcase of the best (most interesting, funny, eloquent, etc.) writing on the Net. If you give us the go-ahead we will re-post your writing for one or two days in NetSoup (along with your name and email address -- again, with your permission) If that sounds good to you,then please reply with a message granting us permission to include your post in NetSoup (place an X in the brackets below).
[X] I grant HotWired permission to use my post in NetSoup.
Thanks in advance.
June Cohen
Editor, NetSoup
Net Soup, specifically, is at
http://www.hotwired.com/Signal/Soup.
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 199
From: Adam Rifkin (adam at xent dot com)
To: Multiple recipients of the Generation X List (gen-x@phantom.com)
Subject: I'm not too sure, and I'm not too proud.
I noticed in many peoples' descriptions, they include height and weight but not age. Curious thing, that fourth dimension.
But it made me wonder how I would describe myself. And I just can't. I might have to call upon my imaginary friend Dobbin to describe me for everyone here.
Well, let me try myself. What am I? Pop goes my mind.
I am blinded by science, blinded by delight, closer to fine, saved by zero, silent all these years. I'm a loser baby, a basket case, nothingman, nowhereman, everyman. I do dirty deeds dirt cheap, spew white noise, am stranger than fiction, born in the USA, licensed to ill, and have a rubber soul. I'm a cosmic thing, I seek higher power, I'm a pleasure victim, I shake my money maker. I am slippery when wet, my life is pretty plain, and I shoot rubberbands at the stars. I like pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain. I'm in pieces, running on empty, to the quick, up to my hips, raw like sushi, with difficult shapes and passive rhythms. I'm unplugged, an atomic dog, mad, bad, and dangerous to know. I'm a brutal youth, with a kerosene hat, just like heaven, insane in the brain, adrenalized, 3 feet high and rising. I know of some great reward, I remember the golden age of wireless, I am a broken wind-up toy. Fly me courageous, without a sound. I am fearless, a funky diva, with shepherd moons, on my watermark. I have see the kamikiriad, know there are three sides to every story, am raw and cooked, bigger, faster, harder, more. I'm a naughty girl in the pleasuredome, big time, with an invisible touch. I believe anything is possible, with emotions in motion, and I am the normal, when I come around. I'm a cereal killer, on cloud 9, 2 legit 2 quit, building the perfect beast, knowing the way it is, grinning myself to death, a sweet child of yours, down in it. I've got a full moon and a dirty heart, off the wall, caught stealing, cause I love my new mistake. I'm the angry young man, the stranger, the innocent man, living in glass houses, under the bridge, with a storm front coming. I sing the last song, as I put dreams into action, in the white room, in the white lodge, when that gum I like is coming back into style, as I buy the stairway to heaven. I've come to kill the rooster. I know no cure for cancer, I bop, on my misty mountain top, throwing my copper, feeling so alive, pretending I'm dead, borderline, and life is so strange when you don't know your destination. I pump up the volume, as I'm fumbling toward the ecstasy of an international pop overthrow. I'm a bat out of hell, counting down to extinction, tasting like chicken, raining on the scarecrow, with business as usual, the master of puppets, riding the lightning, Dr. Feelgood, down with OPP, down with OOP, hangin tough, killing in the name of, smelling like teen spirit, speaking in class again, getting down on my knees to pray, downward spiraling, bo day shus, canoning in D. I do not want what I haven't got. I've got full moon fever, can't buy what I want because it's free, exiled on main street, tearing down the wall, comfortably numb, now and zen, wishing you were here, on the dark side of the moon. I'm looking through patient eyes, waiting for Herb, watching you with every breath you take, pure, lovely, the last of the independents, a jet city boy, being the best man that I can. I rage for order, in the purple rain, and I love an adventure. I'm a creep, what the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here. I feel like I have a soul to squeeze. I think that everybody hurts sometimes. That's just the way it is, baby. I joyride, am living in the limelight, hormonally yours, very necessary, the glittering prize, with diamonds on the souls of my shoes. I have siamese dreams, and join the grave dancers' union. How soon is now? I have a pocket full of kryptonite, I'm a divine thing, my emotions are in motion, and these are my soul cages. There's sand in my vaseline, I live in a blind man's zoo, I chew troublegum, and I have a little birdhouse in my soul. Could have been so beautiful, could have been so right. Fully completely. Something's always wrong. I'm as ugly as I wanna be, and show pride in the name of love. I run with the devil, to the extreme, dope, fly, 99.9 fahrenheit degrees, solitude standing. I know that all of this will go down on my permanent record. You wanna dance with me? I'm a hobo humpin slobo babe, an ordinary average guy, a weezer, a seether, knocking them out with those American thighs. I'm tangled, setting the world on fire, an electric youth, the mayor of simpleton, stone cold rhymin, upstairs at Eric's, the rump shaker, saving the best for last. I Babylon and on.
That's just what I am. As you wish. Oh well, whatever. Nevermind.
Sigh. I may as well not even try.
Adam
You mean I have to take classes??!!?! But I just came here for the beer...