-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
dotdotdot
I knew the Afropunk/ Saul Williams show would bring up thoughts of Hiram. It's still hard to accept that he's dead. I keep thinking oh, Hiram would think this is funny, oh, Hiram would get into that, but he's dead and we can't talk to him in that way anymore.
Saul Williams kept repeating "Even death is a part of life" like a chant for awhile, it was almost overwhelming. I kept thinking Hiram should be up there rapping, he should be up on stage. He is one of the few being in this world that when they were gone, I felt a genuine and unending loss. Usually people don�t contribute anything worthwhile to life, but he did, and he was going to even more, and it�s just plain sad that it got cut short.
When he died, everything changed for me, and for this town. I had my beliefs, what I would like to have happen to �us� after we die, but when he was gone, it was just a fact. He was part of everything. Walking to work, I could feel him humming in the electrical wires, in the cars on the street, in the street itself. When the wind blew, it was him, when the trees bent in that wind, they were him as well. He was part of everything and everything was a little part of him. Matter does not end, it merely changes form. I always wanted to think this, but I knew it then.
Maybe I�ve watched too much Star Trek in my life, but I firmly believe that what we small humans think of as reality, and time, is just one aspect of the whole. Hiram (and all the dead) exist as we knew them, exist as part of everything, and simultaneously, move on to take their essence as something entirely new.
I felt Hiram�s presence at the show, strongly. I know Pat did too, but it�s not something we can talk about much without crying. There are still too many emotions about it. He hasn�t been gone even a year yet, it�s still painful sometimes.
The person we knew as Hiram is gone, and as a human, that�s just hard to accept. We won�t look into those eyes, shake those hands, hear that laugh anymore. I hope that we will meet him again, not as just particles of energy in the world around us, but as a physical being. He was just too big for this world, not well equipped to handle it. He was in bad situations. He felt too much, got overwhelmed, and had no support structure there to help him through it. We tried to help, but he needed something stronger than just friends. His mom was a crack head, his dad was gone, most of his friends were coke addicts, he had no good influences, no one to show him how to live.
I still feel guilty about being so closed to everyone, not helping when I know they need help, but these last few years have left me so drained and so defensive. Everyone I have tried to give genuine assistance to, helping them off drugs or giving them a place to sleep in the middle of the winter or trying to get them to be decent members of society, it has all come back to stab me in the back and I just can�t do it anymore. Not right now, and not then, when Hiram was hurting.
He withdrew himself, especially after he got his girlfriend pregnant. His life was over, and he knew it. He fucked up, literally and figuratively. And she said, no more hallucinogens. No more weed. And what did he do? He overdosed on Klonopin and alcohol. And why did his doctor keep refilling his prescription? A month�s worth of pills gone in less than a week and the doctor didn�t question it? The doctor just kept giving him more and more? Hiram just kept getting his legally acceptable drugs and he kept taking more and more at a time and drinking more and more as he did less and less psychoactives and then he just did too many pills and he didn�t wake up.
And while I feel guilty about not being more forceful about it, not getting in his face more about abusing himself, I really get more angry at the doctors, and his girlfriend.
People�s attitude about prescription drugs really pisses me off. They are hard drugs, there is no denying it. Not to say they don�t help sometimes, because I know now that they can, if they are the right drug for the situation and person and if used properly. But they change your brain chemistry FOREVER, and they should not be taken without complete consideration for the consequences. And they kill. I�ve known so many people who have died purposefully or inadvertently from prescription drugs, and it pisses me off to no end that Hiram is one of those now. Considered a suicide, I know that he didn�t really mean to die. He was just being stupid. And that makes it even more sad.
I hope he works through all his pain and guilt and problems and we can meet him again. It was good to see him at the show, but it was painful too. Death is a part of life.
Aside from the show, I learned a lot over this last �weekend�. Anything that inspires and motivates positive change is well worth the effort, pain, and the money spent.
And Saul Williams. He�s quite the character. I�ve never gone to a non rock genre specific show, and I�ve never gone to a show where the headliner wasn�t �white�. But, you know, good music is good music, and although different races have different ways of looking at life, it�s all the same story.
10:21 AM - Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------