Current mood: AMY’S RIGHT...
Category: AMY’S RIGHT... Religion and Philosophy
So, I've just finished reading a book called
You'll Never Eat Lunch in this Town Again By Julia Phillips
Written the producer of films such as Close Encounters, The Sting & Taxi Driver, it's a spin of a read around the life of a Hollywood producer, and it's taken something in the region of 5 months to wade from cover to cover....
At times blatherous, difficult to follow and drifting; at times incisive and brave, I'd recommend it if you've got the time to go through 629 pages...
If not, here follows my favourite bit
'AA people will tell you that every junkie is the same. That every drug is the same. That there are rules principles, steps that everyone who is addicted to something can take that will help to stop the addiction. I know a lot of people, alive as well as dead, who have cleaned up behind AA. They do seem to get somewhat addicted to AA, but over the years, I have decided that this is quibbling....
I do really have a problem with the 'same' concept. If every junkie is the same, that is essentially saying that every human being is the same. That denies out specialness, our uniqueness. AA aficianados will tell you that you haven't really 'gotten it' if you don't surrender to the concept of sameness. You're the same as the wino on skid row. I'm the same as you if I love coke and you love smack, but those choices bespeak antithetical personalities. AA will tell you that you don't want to feel real feelings, so you take drugs to avoid them, but I think that is discounting a whole bunch of drugs that do take you further. Inside. Outside. Upside and Downside. In the feeling department. In the thinking department. In the sensation department. As it were.
As a thir generation astheist, I have serious trouble with the Higher Power precept upon which AA so heavily relies. See, I think that you take more responsibility for yourself if you don't believe in God than if you do. The I'm-one-of-God's-children-He-will-forgive-me concept has become so much more popular than the I-am-unique-and-possibly-alone-therefore-accountable-for-myself-and-my-behaviour school that it really should not be surprising to us that we have become so greedy and unethical and immoral.
People who don't believe in God are stuck with believing in Mankind. As they get older, if they have an IQ over 120, they come to realise what a colossal waste of time that is. Also as they get older, more and more of their friends die. They start to believe in mankind less. They then go one of two ways: either they get better with themselves or they go back to God. I get better with myself. And worse with Mankind. But I am forty-four and have smoked all my life, not to mention all those dangerous drugs.
And fuck it, I am just a speck of sand under the fingernail of a larger being, who is just a speck of sand under the fingernail of a larger being, etc., in a universe that is either expanding or contracting and is probably random.
'Christ it's beginning to feel like an alternative religion,' I say to Brooke one day, complaining.
What is it with these kids anyway? I want to tell them, Fuck, I got to shoot off a pretty good wad, professionally speaking, before I decided to retire into drugs full time. Where do you get offshooting smack behind three episodes of McGyver?
'Please, in Hollywood it's a dating service...'
'It's certainly a career step....'
 | Currently reading :
You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again
By Julia Phillips
Release date: 2002-04-02  |
