Jessy Delfino's Blog

EVERYTHING I WRITE IS WORTHLESS or
Why Did Nicole duFresne Have To Die?

Everything I write is worthless, and worthless is everything I write. Still, I somehow manage to push along through it, and keep putting more of it out there. I save this stuff, too. I have this blog - all of my words - saved in cyberspace. And if it were to fall into a black hole, well, I printed it out once last year, when I worked at Christie's, and it was easy for me to print a 200 page document without anyone even batting an overpriced-eyeshade slathered eyeball lid. But I'd lose so much if that were to happen now. And I'd go on living, somehow. Maybe cause of magic?

I always thought that everything that happened to me was very exciting. I used to blast into art class in highschool with some lame, mundane tale I'd spiff up and polish so that I could pretend that this turd of a tale was the real McCoy. An example might be a story about how on my way to school that day, I heard "Crazy On You" on the radio, by Heart. I'd then use that as an excuse to sing the whole song in it's entirety and try to get everyone else in the class to sing along. So, I guess it's not that I just thought that things happening to me were exciting, maybe it's more that my life was so boring growing up in rural Maine, and being an imaginative kid, I'd try to make it seem like my life was graaaaand. And then, it kind of became true, at least for a little bit.

But I have been really upset lately. It's probably one part seasonal depression, one part birth control pill, but a HUGE, huge part of it is the recent shooting death of Nicole duFresne. It bothers me because she was my age, she died in a neighborhood I practically call home, just a few blocks away from where I was sleeping soundly. She might as well have been me, or anyone.

I love the LES. It's so fucking dense with weirdness. There are storefronts and bodegas and cruddy little art galleries and remodeled tenements, leaning in against the oncoming, unavoidable big business slaughter that is just moments away from taking place. The neighborhood is ripe with history and smells strange sometimes, and you can buy a live chicken at a store a block away. Some of the world's most reknowned and best kept secret geniuses, artists, writers, musicians and other spent time in the LES.

But what the fuck?

I can't believe that in the place I live, people just walk up to people and shoot them. I grew up in a very small town in Maine called Damariscotta, and we left our doors unlocked. We left keys in the car ignitions. We left windows open in the summertime, and our town had two cops. When there was a murder a county over from me, the whole state freaked out! It was the first time there'd been a murder in that COUNTY for ten years. In the county I lived in, there hadn't been a murder for close to twenty, unless you count vehicular manslaughter, which I guess is technically murder, but it sure as hell ain't a robbery gone wrong.

If it weren't for the sick and twisted things that humans do, I'd be stuck for material. But, I guess this was too close to home for me. A white girl, about to get married, performer, struggling along to see her dream...and of course, thanks to the newspapers "if it bleeds it leads" philosophy, Nicole is more famous now in death than she had been in life, as was the case with art star Margaret Trigg, who died last October for reasons still uncertain.

It's just utterly depressing that just 8 hours north of here, people are leaving keys in the ignitions of there cars, and here in NYC, people are shooting eachother in the streets.

This planet completely sucks.

If you don't know any better and happen to be reading this blog: Don't shoot people. It's not nice. Don't rob people. It's not cool.

If you'd like to visit Nicole's vigil, it's at the corner of Rivington and Clinton. There are candles burning, and some books and flowers. It's a very modest, beautiful community offering for a girl who died horrifically, on the ground, in the cold.

If you haven't read or heard the news story yet, read it here: NICOLE duFRESNE

She has a website, which is www.nicoledufresne.com, but it's currently not viewable.

It's strange - when you search for her site in yahoo, her e-mail and phone number come up. They're going to catch those guys. In the article, it says Nicole wouldn't want to see her killer put to death, and this should be more about a culture where a kid can get a gun than it should be about a black kid with a gun. I think that's a fair point, but a person who would shoot someone would probably just as gladly kill them some other way, too.

Therefore, a society where murder is unthinkable is the only solution.

How to make that happen?