Last Quarter 3 Blog Post

At the end of The Night of the Gun, David Carr reflects on his past part of life and how he managed to get where he is today. He says, "I now inhabit a life I don't deserve, but we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn't end any time soon" (382). You can tell that Carr understands what he has done and has moved past hit. As he said he is "grateful" for what he has, and in the end that's all we can do. I like how he tied in writing to life, calling our inevitable death a "caper." This seemed very appropriate considering whenever we write a paper we are reminded that our caper must leave the reader wanting more, but still have it tie everything up nicely. Since Carr probably knows this, he is also telling the reader to make sure that when the end does come, bow out gracefully and leave a nice last thought.
Carr also explains how the past can easily come up because people remember. On the way to his cabin he gets stop for speeding by a cop. Carr explains his view as, "It was the day I was to begin writing the book, and I took it as an omen that the halo of flies I used to wear could be summoned as needed" (385). Not having a very large past, I can't completely relate with this, but I take it as good warning. With a little work, the police officer that stopped Carr could see his history and all the crimes he's committed and judge him from that. You're past is always there, haunting you in away. Carr's life is the exact oppisite of what it was in his twenties, still people have memory of it, and will always remember that him. Even if you make amends, as Carr has, the past is always right behind you.

Quarter 3 Blog Post

One of the most interesting parts of The Night of The Gun by David Carr is to see how others viewed him when he was a drug addict. Since most of the people Carr interviews have gone thought the recovery process just as he has they understand the importance of telling Carr how he truly was. A shrink that Carr once went to described Carr's actions as, "You were stressed and burning the candle on every end" and goes on to say, "I just figured, at twenty-four, yeah, you could probably keep it up for a while, and eventually you would hit a wall" (67). These and other accounts make David seem to wake about how bad he truly was. A professional shrink, who sees people with problems everyday, even notices that Carr was so far that no one could save him besides himself. But Carr didn't think he needed saving.
One of Carr's old acquaintances, Steve, describes Carr a little darker, saying. "You beat yourself to death. I'd say that you are lucky to be alive at all. You didn't give a shit one way or another" (143). To act so badly to have someone be surprised that you're living must be an odd feeling. If nothing else jolted Carr, this must have. It's unfathomable to think that you were unintentionally killing yourself while thinking you were having fun. Plus, years after, you can't even remeber that you were doing this. Living in the little bubble that I do, I really can't grasp this fact.

Yet Another Quarter 3 Post

The Night of the Gun by David Carr shows Carr's and others double life. They exist both as a drug addict and as a normal human being. In the mid-eighties Carr was living in Minneapolis, doing drugs and, "breaking stories, winning some awards, and beginning to feel my range as a journalist" (75). In the morning Carr would wake up, go to work, write, then at night go out to buy/sell/do a different variety of drugs. It's like he had a secret identity. No one at his work new of his addiction. This shows that we don't really see what's right in front of us. Something that we would think would be so obvious, drug addiction, is easily covered. It also goes to show that even people with problems, drug ones in particular, can still succeed in a normal society.
The mother of some of Carr's kids, Anna, also lead this double life. Another old friend describes her saying, "And, you know, she owned a house, she had kids she was taking care of" (127). This showed me a different view of a life that I've never experienced. It's so strange to think that people actually live like this; with two totally different worlds overlapping. The children Anna has at the point are not Carr's. But when they do eventually have children, he sobers up and takes care of them while she continues to use. Still, the children she has at the time have a father who seems not to be there while she uses. I cannot judge this, I suppose, because I have never experienced this part of life, but I can't seem to wrap my head around why people do this. This opened my eyes to how blind I can be to what else is going around not so far away from me.

Quarter 3 Blog

Before reading The Night of the Gun by David Carr I knew that drug life probably wasn't the most glamorous, but I didn't notice how bad it was until Carr described a good morning for a drug addict. He vividly describes, "Mornings for an addict involve waking up in a room where everything implicates him. Even if there is no piss or vomit-oh, blessed be the small wonders-there is the tipped-over bottle, the smashed phone, the bright midday light coming through the rip in the shade that says another day has started without you" (91). This passage caught me off guard when I read it first. I had to go back and read it a couple of more times. It still amazes me that's what people actually live like. Not only do they live like that, but they choose to. Why anyone would choose this, I'm not sure. It just goes to show the true addictive power of these illegal substances. If this is how you wake up, and still, at the end of the day you can't wait to do it again, there must be something inescapable pulling you in.
Another downside of this life is what it makes you do. Carr talks to one of his old buddies who recalls running into him at the airport, "I remember thinking how paranoid you looked. I saw you a few weeks later, and you told me you had smuggled a ton of coke by taping it to your body that day" (101). The drugs capture you, forcing you to do things sane people wouldn't. When on drugs, Carr loses all power he has over himself, giving it up to the drugs. He can no longer decide for himself, he now must always consider the drugs while making decisions. His lifestyle slowly takes over all aspects of his life.

Quarter 3 Blog 2

In The Night of the Gun David Carr bluntly tells the life of a hard core drugy, his own. These means the reader is exposed to both the exhilarating and horrific sides of a drugged up life. One of the high points is when Carr tells how he and his friends would take spontaneous trips. Carr describes how they ended up flying to Chicago, "Flying down to Chicago for the night came up, one thing led to another, and we called Leaping Lenny, a pilot we knew" (71). This excursion seems exciting, you almost envy someone who can just fly off to Chicago with no worries. Anyone would love to have that type of life, it sounds so carefree. In this way, Carr's life seems glorious and as if he has no problems, but if you thought that, you would be very wrong.

We see the darker, addictive side of Carr's life. He alienates everyone around him when he is high or drunk or a combination of them. He fights those who are supposed to be his friends and is so messed up that he doesn't even see that he is doing these things. At one of his friends weddings in Wisconsin he and a couple buddies are acting as the grooms men. Even though they are under the influence of narcotics, the wedding goes off without a hitch, there are no problems until after that is. One of his friends, Ralph, believing he had crack, started playing games with him. Ralph drives closely by Carr a few times, teasing him, not letting him get in. Finally, when Carr can get at him, "I got the jump on him, pulled him through the window, and before he knew what happened, he was facedown in the flower bed in front of the country club" (63). The crazy haze Carr gets in while on drugs causing him to lose his head and to not see straightly. Instead of being logical he attacks his friend over a little crack.

Quarter 3 Blog 1

The book I'm reading this is quarter is called The Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of his Life. His Own. by David Carr. It's about Carr's journey through drugs. He interviews different characters from his past. Not only does Carr tell an intriguing story, but he also ties in philosophical questions about humans in general. In the first part of the reading he talks about how we protect ourselves from ourselves. Carr explains his technique, "There was That Guy, a dynamo of hilarity and then misery, and then there is This Guy, the one with a family, a house, and a good job as a reporter and columnist for The New York Times. Connecting the two will take a lot more than typing" (9). Coping with the some of the horrific things he has done would be very difficult because he wouldn't be able to forgive himself. So in order to live he must separate the two. This made me think if I do the same thing without even noticing it and I figured out that I do indeed. It is a human instinct to protect ourselves at any costs and if that includes ignoring our bad parts, we subconsciously do it.

Separating ourselves in to different parts works fine, that is until you must face what you have done. This is what Carr notices when he retraces his step. One of the first stories, and the one the book is named after, is one about a gun. In a drug induced rage, Carr races over to his friends house intent on hurting him for something he's done. Carr bangs on his door and when his friend threatens to call the police, breaks a window to get at the phone. Being high, Carr doesn't recall many of the details, but he does remember a gun that his friend was threatening him with. Or this is what he believes. When he went back to talk to his old friend Carr tells him the story of the gun. His friend's response was surprising, "'I never owned a gun,' he said. 'I think you might have had it'" (10). Who Carr thought he was, was false. This rattles him, he's not sure if anything he remembers is real or just a figment of his mind. If anything, this is the scariest thing; not being able to know what or where you have been. You forget your history, that's terrifying.

Last Blog Post of the Quarter

Helene Cooper recounts the events of her childhood The House at Sugar Beach. Because of the violenxe back home, Helene moves with part of her family to America. The switch from Liberia to America is a big one and some that takes getting used to. Cooper talks about the small changes that made the US so different. One of them being, "'You two are going to be taking the school bus,' Daddy told me and Marlene. We were both appalled" (215). Usually their dad drove them to school, but now it's different which makes the adjustment more apparent to Helene. She compares her old home to her new one, obviously not being to fond of it saying, "If I were riding into downtown Monrovia from Sugar Beach, I would see ten people I knew before we got to Sinkor. But here, no one even seemed to walk around outside" (219). Helene is missing the familiarity of her home for so long and now must face, not only a new country but a new school.

Helene Cooper and her family do eventually go back to Liberia and Sugar Beach and face what they had run away from. Helene is older and can now comprehend what went on in Liberia and what it means to rehash it all. Cooper conveys this feeling, saying, "...none of us who had been there the day the soldiers came, wanted to go back. I certainly didn't really want to go. Going back to Sugar Beach meant confronting that night, coming face-to-face with the death of my childhood" (339). Helene is fully aware of what going back means, but she's still willing to work through it. Since the book starts at almost the beginning of Helene's life this shows the maturity she now has compared to before. It was compelling to grow up with her and see her overcome a huge mountain, which she did. Cooper does this by realizing what her mother has done for her and finally puts her past where it belongs, "My mother had made a stand here. She had fought for us. She had fought for her daughters to remain children, and even thought that night had seen the end of my childhood, still, somehow she had won" (344).

Second to Last Post for this Quarter

In Helene Cooper's The House at Sugar Beach danger is a constant in Helene's life. There are many forms of danger and they seem to be growing as the years go by. Cooper describes a situation that happened to one of her friends, Richard, and heartmen which are men who murder the unsuspecting. Cooper writes, "The watchmen followed the heartmen, and saw two others join him just down the road. They had machetes, too. And garbage bags, presumably to carry away Richard's carcass" (157). Cooper talks about this as if it is nothing, an everyday occurrence, but reading it made me shiver. The constant threat of dying is just another part of her life, one that doesn't seem to faze her, or Liberians in general, too much. Luckily, Richard escaped and lived to tell the tale. Cooper talks about how, "The next day at school, all Richard could talk about was his escape" (157). Richard faced a traumatic experience and instead of being scared about what he went through, he was bragging about it the next day in school, making it seem like a hero. The possibility of danger is enough to make some stay away, but for Helene and her friends it is just a fact of life.

Another terrible incident that happens to the Cooper is family is when their house is raided by soldiers. Cooper describes the terrifying event, "They were brazen. They had nothing to hide from and nothing to fear, and they could come into our yard and into our house and take whatever they wanted and so whatever they wanted" (171). Helene is around thirteen years old when the soldiers come and it's just her, her sisters and mother there. She knows there's nothing she can do to stop the men and this passage shows she realizes this. She doesn't know what to do because there is nothing to do and she's afraid about what's going to happen. This has to be bloodcurdling. Just as Cooper says, the soldiers do what they want to Helene's mother, "'Those damn soldiers gang-raped me,' she said" (177). Helene and her sisters can hear the men and what they're doing to their mother, these are sounds that will haunt Helene the rest of her life, something she'll never forget. Since Liberia is revolting and her family have power in the country Helene is faced with horrific catastrophes, shaping who she becomes.

More Outside Reading!

Near where the author, Helene Cooper, lived when she was young a riot broke out about the price of rice. Cooper was still pretty young when she this happened. Although, this is no big deal to her family, it is to others who are less fortunate. Cooper describes how the violence started, "...the Monrovia police weren't quite so restrained, and quickly forsook the tear gas they were supposed to be using and started firing indiscriminately into the crowd. The planned demonstrations quickly degenerated into a full-fledged riot" (140). I can't imagine what this would be like if you were young and how you would handle it being so close to home. Also, it is difficult to understand what made the police attack innocent protesters simply because they were protesting. Cooper also feels the same way looking back at it now. She talks about it in a shocked tone. Summarizing what had happened she says, "A protest that began with some two thousand students demonstrating peacefully had degenerated into riots with foreign fighter jets roaring over the capitol" (141). Although this is horrible, it is not the worst thing that Helene will have to endure in her growing years.

Looking on the lighter sides of things, Cooper talks about growing up in Liberia and what it felt like going through puberty. This is a much more relateable topic than riots, since everyone has or will go through puberty at one point in their life. She descirbes her transformation from girl to young latdy, "I was suddenly tall. I, at long last, had acquired breats. People were suddenly telling me how much I looked like Mommee" (149). This is something all girls through and as Cooper puts it, it seems to happen over night. Cooper easily recalls her past childhood and makes the reader sometimes feel that she still is a child, this adds a very interesting depth to the story. Not only do we see the bad, but we also see that Cooper had a relatively normal childhood, just like the rest of us, this makes the reader connect more with her. She continues to talk about becoming a teenager. In one of my favorite lines so far, she bluntly states, "And during this year, the last tragic year of the Congo regime in Liberia, I finally discovered boys" (149). Again, she reminds of the problems going on, but in the same sentance she talks about what she was going through. I like the contrast of her evolution and the evolution of her country.

Outside Reading

My outside reading book The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper is very interesting and thought provoking because it takes place in a completely different part of the world, Liberia. Even so, the people there are very aware of the US. At one point Cooper says of when she was young, "Standing in my bedroom looking at myself in the mirror, I tried to relax my cheeks and drop my consonants like the American kids did, and added extra r's. 'Hey thar. How ya doin? What's up blood?'"(94). There fascination seems so odd because living here it doesn't seem like something special, it's easy to take the country's uniqueness for granted. But reading this book shows the "American Dream" is very much alive in other places. Helene strengthens this fact, but from her view as a young girl. She says, "In my fantasy, I looked fresh and hip and American or British as I swept off the plane after a year living in the States or London" (17). Her dream isn't to succeed in America, but to act and seem like one. It's a different take on the dream, but interesting still.

Even though the book does take place in a different hemisphere, there are still common things, such as Santa Claus. Cooper describes one of her Christmas experiences, saying, "Eunice and I were in my bedroom working on our Christmas lists when we heard the drums sounding in the distance, from the top of Sugar Beach road...At exactly the same time, we realized who it was. 'Santa Claus!' we yelled..." (107-108). It's fascinating to think that while children here are asking Santa for gifts, so are children across the world. It shows the unity of the world, that we are truly all connected, even though we aren't physically near. Still, we're reminded of the differences too. Later on the page Cooper describes her version of Mr. Claus, "...on stilts and wearing a grass skirt, a wooden mas with eyeholes, and a long blond wig, loped into the yard" (108). The Santa we know is old, fat and dressed in a large red robe. This is not Liberia's though. Even though we have eventually the same holiday, the takes are different. It reiterates the fact that, even in our unity there is differences which makes each place unique and interesting.