For an event not too long ago I decided to really dress up, so I put on a tuxedo, along with a black shirt. Everything from my shoes to my bow tie was black in color, which for a formal event can look quite fashionable. On me it looked absurd. The combination of my gringo pale skin and light colored hair on top of all that black made my face look sick at best, or like death at worst.
Upon seeing all that black, a friend of mine laughingly asked me, “you going to a morticians dance, or have you gone ‘gotico’?”
“Got?” I inquired laughing, “Me? No way!” I said, quickly grabbing a red carnation and affixing it to my lapel.
“There” I said, “now all the black serves as a palette on which the red carnation can really shine. What do you think?”
“Still look like a mortician to me!” he said without hesitation, laughing still.
“Yeah, but do at least look like I’m a mortician with some hope?” I replied.
Looking in the mirror, I had to admit, apart from the red carnation and not having black fingernails, I did look like I was a follower of “got” - which was definitely not something I wanted to look like. Not because of the color – I happen to love black. Black is what painters use to show light, what designers use to accentuate bright, and what the sky uses to reveal stars. Without black, we would not understand white.
No, my aversion to “gotico” wasn’t because of the dark clothing. It was because of the dark philosophy behind it, and the fact that it was robbing the youth of Chile of its most valuable asset for the future - hope.
Danni was a typical youth here in the North of Chile who through peer pressure and the temptations of the Bohemian night-life, fell into trouble. Over a period of months, her parents watched this formerly happy and healthy young teenager transform herself into a dark, dour, teenager of the night, complete with black nailpolish, black clothing, and a black attitude as well. Both the light, and the hope, and disappeared from her eyes. Danni didn’t really understand all that she was getting into when she decided to go “gotica”, but she did know from the music that at its core was death and Satanism.
One day while riding on a bus in Iquique, Danni found herself face to face with the death that she had been ignorantly worshipping. As the bus cruised down the hill on Avenida Chipana, its brakes failed, and suddenly all the passengers realized they were facing instant death. Hitting the curb at the rotunda completely out of control, the micro went airborne.
As the van was flying through the air, upside down, Danni had a revelation that changed her life forever. She realized that she had been playing with fire, that no one dances with the devil without getting burned, and that she had made a huge miscalculation. Envisioning what usually happens when a van tries to defy gravity and lands upside down on the concrete, Danni offered up the most sincere prayer of her life, and waited for the impact.
Those who seek sex, drugs and rock and roll do not spend too much time praying. Youth come here daily from the south who have only heard the sugar-coated, utopian promises of Bohemian living, but eventually, like Danni, they come face to face few with the terrible consequences of this deadly weltangschauung.
Let me admit that I am intimately familiar with this movement, because I was a Bohemian in the 1970’s. No, I didn’t call myself that – back then it was more popular to use the term “hippy.” I had hair all the way down my back, I believed the lie that said “free love and sex” was a healthy life-style option, and I made the world revolve around me like I was a god.
I had a girlfriend from the Haight in San Francisco who introduced me to drugs and promiscuity, and for seven years or more, I drank a full bottle of Chivas Regal scotch, and smoked three pitos, every day, 365 days a year. Our heroes in the EEUU during those days were the modern Bohemian founders Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. These were the pillars of what is known today as the “Bohemian Lifestyle”, and we sucked up their poetry and propaganda like it a bowl of Caldia de Congrio.
Unfortunately, like Danni getting into “got” we never really dug very deep to see what these men represented, what they really believed, and what was behind their flowery words. Unlike one of my favorite Chileno poets Pablo Neftali Neruda, who wrote to make us feel good, these three Bohemians wrote out of depression, alcoholism, and nihilism, to make us feel bad. The problem is, no one explains that to the youth. By law, most poisons are required to have warning labels on them, yet no such warnings are given by those who promote the bohemian philosophy. So, with no desire to offend any Bohemians, let me summarize the biographies of these three men, and what they actually believed:
William S. Burroughs was born in 1914 to a mother addicted to amphetamines and a heroine addicted father. An avowed homosexual who preferred lesbian bars, had to flee to Mexico for five years for forging drug prescriptions.. Famous Burroughs quote: “The ONLY ethic is to do what you want to do.”
Allen Ginsberg was born in 1926, and advocated hallucinogenic drug use and homosexuality between adults and children. He also publically defended NAMBLA, a pedophile group that advocates sex with children as young as 3 years old. Famous Ginsberg quote:
"My own experience is that a certain kind of genius among students is best brought out in bed."
Jean “Jack Kerouac” was born in 1922, and was considered the founder of Bohemianism. Wikipedia says he “Died of hemorrhagic esophageal varices, the classic drunkard’s death.” Kerouac followed the “Diamond Sutra” a Buddhist text, and before he died at age 25, admitted he was drunk and depressed most of his life. Famous Kerouac Quote:
“I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.”
So the question for parents today is, if a drug addict, a pedophile, and a depressed alcoholic showed up at your house saying, “we’d like to speak to your daughter” would you invite them in? Or would you unceremoniously throw them out?
In that brief nanosecond flying through the air in the van, Danni decided to through the rascals out. She wanted no more of this lifestyle. As the van crashed to the ground in an orchestra of breaking glass and crushed metal Danni had time for only one quick prayer. She said simply:
“Oh God, I don’t want to die.”
What happened next many would consider a miracle. Although the bus crashed into concrete, flipped on its side, and threw all the passengers around like dolls, no one was injured seriously – and Danni escaped with no more than a few scratches!
Today, like most Chilena youth with that gorgeous full head of dark raven hair, Danni looks great dressed in black. But today there’s a difference.
There’s something different about her, even in dark clothes. When Danni wears black today, you can see it. It’s evident in her eyes, and in her smile.
Like a single red carnation, there’s something new in Danni’s wardrobe today.
She’s wearing hope.
