articles are interesting
I have a habit of reflexively dismissing the creative output of people I personally dislike that both annoys me and makes me slightly, darkly proud. Mark Ebner is one of those people. I remember crossing paths with him on an AOL Hollywood chatroom in the mid 90′s, back when it really was possible for all the internet connected hollywood types to be in on a single chat at the same time. I think I annoyed him about something or other, he returned the favor, and a mutual friend attempted to relax me by explaining that Ebner was trying to become the “Hunter S. Thompson of the internet.”
Since then I’ve flipped past a few of his stories, one in particular about the downfall of actor/heroin hoover Peter Greene, and stubbornly refused to read them, but something about the story I just finished reading from Gawker’s Unspiked Files grabbed my attention and forced me to ignore my childish impulses and actually read the article. Well, scan it anyway.
Death of a Nethead is the story of an MIT superbrain and former Scientologist who killed himself by jumping from a 15th floor window at the age of 19. The piece is far from perfect. It lacks a coherent thesis and engages in many conceits, the random interjections of MIT bulletin board posts, the almost luridly detailed descriptions of scenes that Ebner could not have personally witnessed and for which he provides no attribution. It never really skewers Scientology the way the Gawker blurb implies it might, and the way Ebner clearly would like to, but it does perform one simple, heartbreaking service. It illuminates the life of a profoundly smart, profoundly depressed individual and touches on what a mess religion, particularly kooky religions, can make of a child’s life even after he shakes off all the conscious intellectual shackles previously imposed.
I once spent an entire summer eating Quiznos sandwiches and playing Splinter Cell, now I can’t play the game without tasting nasty meat and salad dressing, just like I will never be able to shake the reflexive warm feeling I get when I see George H.W. Bush, or the remaining, completely inexplicable kernel of distrust I have for weed, liberals, or anyone suggesting that man and dinosaur never co-existed. You can take the boy out of the intellectually repressive republican backwater, but you can never take the Orange County out of the boy!
Anyway, read the article, maybe you’ll see some dark nether region of your own personality in there too.