The Dharma Bum

By Jaysen Buterin

"Has anyone ever told you that look like Jesus?"

- Asked of me by virtually every bloody person I've ever met, often on a continual basis.

Wow, has it really been a month already? That went by faster than Walt Flanagan's dog, and in these two fortnights, so much has happened. The class I've been waiting for four years to take, Studies in British Romanticism, will serve as my graduate course in academentia this fall. Much to the chagrin of my mother, a course on Romanticism does not consist of digesting the latest Danielle Steele novel, or that didactic canon of literary brilliance, the Harlequin Romance novels. Rather it is a legitimate genre and for some old-fashioned and romantic (forgive the pun) reason - much to the chagrin of Dr. Scates and Dr. Reinheimer - it is the field I most want to teach in when I finally complete that Herculean, if not Sisyphean, task of graduate school and receive the Holy Grail of higher education, the Ph.D. I am Jack's smirking revenge.

Now there's a frightening thought for some of you out there in OFF!-land huh? Picturing your little old Dharma Bum all clean cut and respectable looking, with a nice tenured position teaching literature at a university...kind of gives you the warm fuzzies inside doesn't it? It kind of rolls off the tongue...Dr. Buterin. "Excuse me Professor Buterin, but could you expound upon the literal and symbolic importance of Blake's use of the child figure in Songs of Innocence and Experience?" That's right, I could be their literary lighthouse solving their conundrums on Romantic literature, Arthurian lore, 20th century British poets, or the recognised brilliance of the writings of the Beat Generation, and the final afterthought to make any of my denigrators out there I may have tremble in their pansy red booties - I will make it happen. I am Jack's insane mind.

Of course many of you may not have gotten past the second sentence of the preceding paragraph - the part where I'm all clean cut and respectable looking? You may be asking yourself, "Self - what the hell is he talking about? This guy looks like Jesus...or maybe the bastard love child of Kid Rock and Chris Robinson (that guy from the Black Crowes). He's about as respectable looking as Riki Rachtman from Headbanger's Ball during his brief cameo in the Guns-N-Roses video, 'November Rain.' This hippie won't get a teaching job until he gets a haircut." Well you may be right about part of that although the part about being a hippie was more of a hyperbolic exclamation made for referential sake seeing as how any of you who know me instantly eradicate any notions of "hippie" once my acerbic, jaded, sometimes vitriolic and downright recalcitrant self enters the room. Besides I'm 25 now, it's time to get a professional job, join the work force, make a good living and become a respectable denizen of society. Oh wait, I already have the first three, and, well, sod the last one. So with that in mind, I'll skip the rest of my loquacious babbling, and come right out and say it. Boys and girls, yours truly, has shorn his silken locks forever. That's right, I cut off all my hair. I am Jack's cold sweat.

What grandiose and intrinsically significant justifications could I have for committing such a symbolic act? What dire or lachrymose impetus could've brought me to such image-altering acts of fanaticism? None, it was just getting too damn long. Pick a reason from the gallery on the wall: too hot in the summertime; too much maintenance; it was actually longer than most girls'; I was fatalistically tired of hearing that same cacophonic question I knew was coming once I saw the little light bulb flicker on above their head, that always started off with, "Did anyone ever tell you..." However the best anecdotal offering I have to weave my tale with is this - it's all my beloved Kindal's fault. I am Jack's inflamed sense of rejection.

No really, it's true. You would think that after all this time, after all we've been thru together, all the laughter and the tears, the good times and the better times, after seeing my inner-most inadequacies, faults and weaknesses, you would've thought that she would've known better than to do what she did. What senseless act of irreparable relationship trauma did she so mercilessly inflict upon me? It's quite simple really...she left me. I am Jack's broken heart.

PSYCHE!!! (Forgive the intrusive flashback to 1985's stunning colloquial vernacular, it just sort of snuck up on me while I was singing the Goonies theme song). I'm just kidding; I just didn't finish the sentence. It is true that she did leave me, but it was only for a weekend while she flew back to Cape Girardeau for a bridal shower. An astonishing addendum to this is that she left me for 3 1/2 days...are you ready for this...without a chaperone. I know, I know, what was she thinking? I couldn't avoid getting into mischief and trouble if my life depended on it. It's not that I make it a point to find them, they seem to know where I am at all times. I'm not even supposed to go to the bookstore (her rule) or the tattoo studio (her and my mum's rule) without adult supervision, let alone be left to my own devices for that long of a period of time. But she did and so I did my absolute best to behave under the watchful scrutiny of my dear friend Elizabeth, who Kindal "put in charge of me," knowing full well that the two of us combined have all the maturity, self-restraint, and responsibility of a 12 year old. While my baby was leaving on a jet plane, the Machiavellian schemes were hatching in my mind and before you know it, by the time I returned to that mind-numbing airport to anxiously await the return of my most foxy lady to my arms, I had cut off all my hair; bleached the rest and dyed it neon-blue; and gotten a huge tattoo of an 18th century Parisian gargoyle on my chest. I am Jack's utter lack of surprise.

In my defense however I did remember to eat at least once a day while she was gone and I did adhere to the one cardinal, albeit sardonically cute as hell, rule that she bestowed upon me and did not impregnate anyone. I also didn't burn down our apartment, didn't get arrested and managed to somehow avoid spending my entire paycheck at the comic book and record shops - so I think I did pretty good, all things considered. As for the hair I was relieved of, I have decided to donate it to Locks of Love - the organisation that makes wigs from human hair for the American Cancer Society. So the 18-inch long, 3-inch thick braid that is waiting to be mailed off, with my most sincere hopes, will be able to benefit any soul that may need it. I am Jack's raging sense of altruism.

So while I may not be clean cut and respectable looking at least that infernal question has stopped echoing in my ears. I quite like having blue hair, and although I don't think that I was ever that much to look at before, it would appear that I have gone from one end of the attention-getting spectrum to the other. I'm also three for three in getting a tattoo every month and will only get two more this year...I swear.

So as the sun sets slowly in the West, I bid you a fond and neon-blue farewell from my not-burned down apartment where I await the return of cara mia, so I can revel in "the look" and probably "the smack-down on my arse" she is going to give me when she reads this. Goodnight kids.