Self-Portrait

Sketches '83

Proposal to Run for German Club Secretary (draft)

Hi!  My name is Sharon Porter, and I'm running for German Club Secretary.  I wish to become Secretary, because:

1) no one else is running

2) Maria and Patricia are running for President and Vice President, respectively

3) it sounds good in my records

4) it gives me a feeling of accomplishment in life

5) I know I can win, because no on else really cares about it

6) in general, it's a total blow-off

I hope you will support me in the elections.

Your friend and mine,

Sharon Porter

(approx. 1983)

Letter to Simon Le Bon

Dear Simon,

Have you ever had a vision, and then not been sure if it was a memory, or from a dream, or perhaps even if you had ever experienced that vision before in your life?  That's what I call fluid time -- where everything is a memory, yet nothing has ever happened to you before.  All existence has a subconscious connection.

Have you ever waken from a dream, left only with the bare emotion, knowing no source?  Has the feeling plagued you all day?  To know something - to feel it; but not be able to grasp it?  The pain of the memory is how close you come to the answer.

If it is so, then here, we are alike.  I have had fantastic dreams!  Fantastic states of consciousness!  And they seem to relate to your lyrical style, in that they carry the same three-dimensional reality.  You are a master of the sub-conscious mind.  Today, I still feel like a slave.

 

(approx. 1983)

One of the Girls Tonight

I don't wanna go out and pretend that you're my boyfriend

I don't wanna get laid and pretend that it was fun

I don't wanna act cool and get into the back seat

I don't wanna be walked all over by anyone

I just wanna be one of the girls tonight

I just wanna be one of the girls tonight

hey hey you say I'm crazy

what's gotten into me?

you say "don't tease me"

but I just wanna be

I just wanna be one of the girls tonight

I just wanna be one of the girls tonight

(approx. 1983)

1983 sweet-talked me up the stairs, then got me drunk and trashed my hotel room

It all started okay. I was in love with everyone secretly, including

all of the members of Duran Duran. My best friend, Carrie, spent

most of her time time wrapping both of us up in her shit, but at

least it kept me occupied. At least she was around, then.

While my previous summer was spent going to church camp (even

though I was an atheist) and getting high on the adrenaline of

sitting next to a boy in the dim light of the bonfire while we all

sang "Kumbaya" (literally), the summer of '83 started in Carrie's

basement, experimenting with every "gateway" form of rebellion

we could find. We listened to the Sex Pistols, "Never Mind the

Bullocks, Here's the Sex Pistols", Psychedelic Furs and The Tubes -

or Robin Plan on our local radio station, WRBA. We smoked

menthol cigarettes, popped caffeine pills and diet pills, and tried

altering our hair color with bleach, peroxide, and lemon juice.

And we decorated ourselves with safety pins like rhinestones on

Elvis.

I made progress in the pursuit of boys - even had a real boyfriend

for a while - but it didn't exactly come with harp music and fairies.

By then, I was already too punk for love. Besides, the field was

too wide. It was hard for me to distinguish between the guys

right in front of me and all the other shiny objects that sparkled

in the distance. Adding to that confusion was a brush with fame

on the set of "Grandview U.S.A.", a motion picture that was

filmed in nearby Pontiac, Il. I was hired as a dancer for a music video

scene, and spent three days on the set. A real kiss, off-camera,

between myself and up-and-coming John Cusack, reinforced my

belief that all things were possible. It also shot my head so far

up into the clouds, it was impossible for the other, (hopefully)

more grounded people around me to get a lock on my coordinates.

By the end of the summer, everything started changing and falling

apart. My brother headed to college in Urbana, leaving me alone

in the house with my dad. That was okay, but ultimately pretty

lonely. Carrie dropped out of school and took off for Urbana as

well. That was the beginning of the end for us. So I started

making my own trouble, instead of living vicariously through

her. For entertainment, I had moved on to clove cigarettes, pot,

and alcohol -- mostly in a weekend warrior sort of way. I still

held my own in school, to varying degrees of success. True, I

had alienated some friends, but I had no trouble finding others

who were willing to dance in altered dreamtime with me.

By November, however, depression had taken root. Too much

had changed, in too short a time. Then the poems came. Different,

this time. Much more raw. And every day, just pouring out of me.

The vision had arrived. It held me, consoled me, screamed for me,

witnessed me, and carried me through to a better day. 1983 had

come in as a unicorn, dancing on a rainbow of Dionysian pop

fantasies. It went out on the razor's edge, in a haze of confusion,

at a loss for explanation, but not a loss for words...

Thoughts on Hiroshima

I don't know much about the wars of our nation, and I wasn't there to experience them.  I've seen all of the documentaries, the articles and the film clips.  I've seen the interviews with victims and the books they've written.  But I wasn't there.

Hiroshima.  When I think of the name of that city, I get a feeling so dark and solemn.  It's a cold feeling, like I could cry for each of the victims, and an inward hatred towards the coldness of heart that our government had when they dropped the bomb.  Like children who find gadgets in their parents' closet - a gun, perhaps.  The child knows just enough about the gun that you don't point it at yourself, but not enough about life and humanity and danger to put it back.

But what of the country that is staring down the barrel - a barrel far more dangerous than that of a gun?  Once dead, you can't negotiate.

I feel sickened by it all, and I can never know how bad it was.  That is, hopefully.  Nowadays, it isn't crazy to ask yourself questions, like whether there is any love in the world, or whether there is any compassion for others.  Perhaps we ought to have politicians who know how to live first, before determining who is going to die - or who could at least tell us that they know anything at all about this bomb they are dropping.  Because I'm not sure they do or did or will ever completely know.  The worst question is, whether or not they care.  It wasn't like killing any of their personal friends, was it?  Of course not.  If that were the case, they'd think again.  If they were thinking to begin with.

What they crated was a plague that's happening yet today, and there is no way we can ever be forgiven.  But I had no part in it.  I wash my hands of it all.  However, it doesn't escape my conscience.  I still feel so guilty, so enraged and so empty, because I know that the gun is still there.  But now, every country that is pointing the gun is also looking down another barrel.

And the very cold feeling comes back as I wonder if the next Hiroshima, the next Nagasaki is just around the corner.

(Aug. '82)

(presented at a remembrance gathering on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima)