kellenthehun

My grandfather was a welder on an oil rig. Him and his buddy both had a bunch of oil on their clothes and it touched off and they both got caught full body burn for about a minute. His friend died; my grandfather, while on fire, remembered that a big 50 gallon water barrel was about thirty feet away. He sprinted towards it, felt around wildly, found it, and jumped in. He lived with horrible full body disfigurement. Both ears melted off. Lost the last joint of every finger.

He told me that it didn't hurt until he woke up in the hospital. His nerve endings were burned away so quickly. He said it felt like a deep, penetrating cold.

He lived a long full life, loved to fish and cook, and it didn't slow him down for a second. He could slay a crossword puzzle faster than anyone I ever met.

My grandfather didn't fuck around. I miss that dude.

Was it hard to convince your parents to let you do the show?

Hey man, I have real world experience here. I wrote a coming of age novel almost exactly 10 years ago, when I was 18 years old.

I have since written two others--one I hate and don't distribute in any way, and another that is my pride and joy. Growing pains in writing are a very real thing. At your age, I can almost garuntee you that you haven't found your voice. I can see traces of it in my first book, but it's more fragmented and less consistent.

I try to appreciate my first book for what it was: a learning experience. But I can't promise you you'll never look back and cringe. There are some chapters that are seriously hard to get through today. What I do love is, my first novel has a lot of heart. There is something special about committing that many words to the page so young. There is something pure and vulnerable about it that I think my writing today lacks. I think you see the same kind of growth from any musician. Perhaps they learn how to sing much better, but then, there's something intoxicating about that low-fi, amateur, voice cracking, isn't there?

They are different, because you are different. Will you cringe? Of course you will. But there's more truth about love--about honesty, the human condition--in that first book than the next two combined.

People love them because they confirm beliefs they already have.

Kratom is just another drug my man.

Source: had six years clean off heroin. Relapsed on kratom three months ago. Just quit cold turkey, still sick on day 20.