In Memoriam: *Kurt Vonnegut

I started to write this the day you died, but life and bullshit got in the way of its completion. You know how it is: things can't be avoided, and the past tends to get pushed in the back where it belongs. Had I been more focused, I'd have gotten out my eulogy to you much sooner than this.

Now, it almost seems trite. And a little late. No one has, or could, sum up your loss quite like this. So I won't even try. Not only because I couldn't be nearly as eloquent, but because my sardonic humor doesn't quite match Adam's, nor would it do justice to your masterfully satirical memory.

Like Adam, I am embarrassed at my pathetic grasp of your brilliant novels; to say I am a "true fan" (knowing that my Vonnegut reading history stems sadly from The Sirens of Titan to Slaughterhouse Five to the first half of Galapagos) would be more insulting to your memory than if I attempted to compare you to other literary greats who have left us. Even my pathetic, illiterate brain knows that nobody—not ever—can be put on the same plain as you. Nobody had the balls you did. Nobody had the words, the poetry and the wherewithal to point out just how stupid, petty and ignorant the human race is; not just once, but dozens of times. And nobody, in doing so, could have been so funny, so witty and so enlightening that we forgot the joke was on us and had ourselves a gay ol' time with your book(s) in tow.

You held up a mirror to humanity in a way that's never been done. An endless hallway of Fun House Mirrors, distorting, but not masking, our reality.

You allowed us to understand that nothing was more human than death, and more inhuman than pretending that everything was okay.

You told me the meaning of the Universe. A big Fuck You to A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy—a number? That's it? That's all you got?? Not so. Get your sorry ass to a bookstore and pick up The Sirens of Titan, and then you'll know the reason for your existence. How much easier it is, now, for me to sleep at night.

Your writing of Life—the kind every one of us knows—became trips to other worlds, to distant places and unfathomable times.

With every word, with every sentence, with every grand and perfectly executed thought and stylistically consistent opinion, you slyly drew a penis on the face of humanity while it slept and you made out like a mother-fucking bandit.

You will be remembered. I am filled with saddness that no other words of yours will be penned for the enjoyment of self-depricating, wouldn't-it-be-nice-if-we-could-all-just-be-satisfied-with-ignorance-is-bliss, world cynics like myself. But you weren't afraid of death. You make me not afraid. Adam ponders your arrival in Hell, making She-Devil Anna Nicole understand her inadequecies with an oh-so-necessary kick to the groin (okay, so I elaborate), but I think different: If there is a God—if you are unfortunate enough to be proven wrong about the Powers That Be with a Heavenly bitch-slap to the face in your hours of Judgement—I am pretty certain that you will reign supreme in the City of Angels.

God wants so desperately to laugh. They need you up there, more than the sinners down in Hell. And I know death isn't going to stop you from making someone else realize how pointless being serious really is.

You will be missed, *Kurt Vonnegut. And so it goes.