Kill Will

I can honestly say that I am probably one of the few junkies out there who is in love (platonically, I am neither Gay nor a Necrophilliac) with William Shakespeare. Nobody with the exception of maybe Quentin Tarantino can intertwine love and vengeance like he Shakespeare. Mostly, I like the fact that everyone usually dies in the end. Like all true junkies, I am fascinated with death. Perhaps this is because I have danced with my own demise on so many occasions. I think any tale where all the main characters are dead by the end of the story has the potential for greatness. Success depends on how trite the story is prior to their demise.

Romeo and Juliet is a fascinating play because it portrays a type of love that probably does not exist. I have never seen an everyday example of true love. Shakespeare was smoking some serious dope when he said that “it is was far better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.” You can forget that jive. I say that it’s better to get laid and never have to screw with it again. But you had to be eloquent in those days to get a girl in bed. Now it just takes a six-pack. Poetry worked wonders for old Will back in the day. He was quite the womanizer, so I hear. But despite the bullshit that comes with ‘falling in love’, I like the idea of it. And before you get the wrong idea of me, I can honestly tell you that I have never slept with a girl that I did not intend to marry. And I honestly want to believe that…

“Love is the only thing worth dying for.” – Anonymous

I love that quote it because it is so poetic. It sums up Romeo and Juliet in a nutshell. It is the kind of love we all wish we had, the kind of love we imagined as a child but never found. Unfortunately love is better reflected by following quote from Frank Miller’s Sin City:

“Priest: ...ask yourself if that corpse of a slut is worth dying for.

Marv: Worth dying for.
shoots priest

Marv: Worth killing for.
shoots him again

Marv: Worth going to hell for.
shoots him again

Marv: Amen.”

If I had to choose a favorite it would have to be Romeo and Juliet but when it comes to tales of violent-bloody revenge, not even Quentin Tarantino can outdo William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet is a story that any arrant knave must love. Hamlet has it all: It begins with an incestuous affair leading to a murder (shit you got my attention already). And then the ghost of Hamlets own father shows up to start some shit. When young Hamlet hears news of his father’s untimely death he begins what went on what the movie advertisements refer to as a “roaring rampage of revenge” (Kill Bill 2). But first he has to discern whether or not his vision was madness or prophecy. And so young Hamlet feigns madness and begins his murder investigation. But there is method to his madness and we are led down the primrose path of death and deceit. And once again everyone is dead by the end. It’s so true of life. Shakespeare’s motto for writing should be: Everybody dies no one quits, you don’t do your job and I’ll kill you myself.

And then you have Othello and Macbeth. Both are pretty much rewrites of Hamlet but they aren’t bad. Macbeth takes a turn for the surreal and Othello is almost as good as Hamlet. Many of you are probably asking the question, why Shakespeare would rewrite Hamlet. I will tell you. Late one night after smoking some really good dope he had a prophetic vision that there would someday be motion picture devices and that I would get to see that guys head in Macbeth’s bounce backwards up the steps (we played the projector in reverse). Funniest shit I ever saw in my life. Othello is nearly as good as Hamlet and it was well worth it just to hear Laurence Fishburne say “Good Iago” in his deep tones. Lawrence should make audio books or something. If James Earl Jones ever died, I am confident that Laurence Fishburne could totally replace him as Darth Vader.

A Mid Summer Nights Dream is any junkie’s fantasy. You accidentally snort some fairy dust and pow, poof you awake in some sort of funky faery land. I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me. Unfortunately my adventures in fantasyland usually sent me to jail or rehab. But I have danced with Satyrs and made love to the Dryads.

“Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll, Shakespeare had it all.” You can quote me on that one. I can’t believe no one had thought it up. Well, listen folks I could drone on about Shakespeare all day but my short attention span is leading more towards other work. I am feeling the need to read. I am definitely in withdrawal. The only question is; what literary work will sate my needs?