Swill Street Stories – The Passion of The Lohan.

Lindsay Lohan – the greatest entertainer of our time.

- JackfnBurton, May 25, 2010.

Yes, you read that right. I have not gone insane.

When you think of the greatest artistic minds in history, who pops into your head? Da Vinci? Rembrandt? Michelangelo? When you think of the greatest actors of all time, what are the first names to surface? Olivier? Hepburn? Orson Welles? Meryl Streep? Ask yourself – if one person in all of history could by their very existence define the word “art”, could embody the concepts of ingenuity, vision, passion, daring and all that is utterly kick-ass, who would you name? I will give you that name; give you one word:

Lohan.

Yes. Lohan. Just let echo for a moment. Lindsay Lohan is the greatest artist of our time, and perhaps the single greatest creative genius the world has ever seen. She is perhaps the very nexus of art, life, death, suffering, ecstasy and infinity itself. Do you think I am wrong?

If so, then you are a fool. You understand nothing. But Lindsay gets it. What do I mean? I’ll explain, but forgive me if I succeed in only scratching the surface of transcendence, if I manage to penetrate only the most distant horizons of the glorious and abstract. For though I believe I have a faint grasp of her brilliance I am nothing compared to The Lohan.

Nothing. And neither are you.

The Chosen One.

We all should have noticed back when The Lohan starred in Disney’s The Parent Trap. Taking over the role that made Hayley Mills a household name, The Lohan proved even then that she is more than the sum of her parts. She proved that Haley Mills sucks rocks. She proved that schizophrenia can be adorable – and what irony! In one fell swoop, The Lohan did not just play the part of identical twins – she became two people. Look at her eyes: on the left, precocious innocence. On the right…koo-koo for Coco Puffs. This was only a hint of things to come. The Lohan had only given us a glimpse of her abilities, one which we hardly deserved. Who was she? What was she doing? Why was she here? Over time, The Lohan would try again to communicate with us, in her own, Immortal way.

The Rebel

After years of trying to illuminate us with her innocence, The Lohan began to transform. Even here, we see the same duality of being that we saw in The Parent Trap. Is she smiling, or is she baring her teeth? Are her eyes full of joy, or full or wrath? Yes – to all. And her clothes bear a warning – we did not heed The Lohan, whatever the hell she was trying to tell us, to warn us about. It was time to put reality into a blender with pineapple, vodka and ice and gulp down a fruity blast of liquid insanity.

From here on out, we were going to get the Full Lohan.

The Phreak

Any girl can party. Anyone can destroy themselves. But how many of us can make it a spectacle worthy of the ages? How many of us can achieve immortality through or own annihilation? What is shame, but inhibition, and what is inhibition but weakness? And what is weakness but a Living Death? The Lohan tried to show us that there is an answer to Living Death – Living Yourself to Death. Yet…we were all still unconvinced by her message. It was time for The Lohan to get all Freaky Friday on our asses.

The Artist

Enlisting the help of an equally hot and barely legal friend, The Lohan attempted to flirt with the very edge of madness itself. Is death an end, or a beginning, or is it just…really fucking sexy? Perhaps it is all three. Perhaps that is the lesson. Perhaps…we were all still too foolish to see. All Prophets eventually find that their greatest foe is not the insouciance of their flock, but their own inability to overcome it. As with all great Soothsayers, The Lohan quickly realized that the conveyance of her message would require more than personal sacrifice, it might require her own very destruction. The Lohan would not be an artist; she would become the art. Her life itself would become a Masterpiece. In the Spirit of the Bard, the World itself would become her Stage. Soon, we would all bear witness to a Celebrity Flameout so remarkable, it would enforce its greatness upon us all.

The Enigma.

All great artists encounter a period of subtlety. Picasso had his famous Blue Period – the passion and angst of youth gives way to a desire for understanding, and the reflectiveness of middle age. But for some it comes early – The Lohan operates on a different time line than the rest of us. Her world is accelerated, beyond the speed of light and the puny boundaries of our little universe. There is not time enough to allow the world to catch up to her genius, it must be forced upon us. As The Lohan entered her own period of Reflection, she was mocked by those who still did not understand – but can you deny the elegant simplicity you see above? What is she trying to say? Perhaps that rest is an illusion – that life is a chase, a dance, a struggle against the Self? Or perhaps that it is best to eat something before you hit the clubs?

One can only wonder. And marvel.

Many were converted but there was still much work to do.

Infinity and Beyond.

Only by despising one’s self utterly can one learn the true meaning of Love. This is the message of The Lohan – or…is it? We can’t be sure. Ours is not to understand, but to wonder, wander and eventually pound down as much Tuaca as we can stand in 30 minutes. Have you visited the gates of Death? Have you seen the Portal to Hell? Have you carved your name into the pedestals of Oblivion itself? Of course you haven’t. And it means that you haven’t lived, and you haven’t even come close to the Wondrous Mystery that is The Lohan.

What the fuck does she have to do to convince you? Die?

So be it.

Loneliness is the Penance of the Prophet. What is The Lohan paying for? Who knows. Is it a past life? A future life? Are they our sins, are they hers? Maybe she’s just paying for trying to slam 10 shots of Patron in ten minutes. I am not worthy to speculate further. But if there is greater pain than suffering alone, it may be the pain of sharing your suffering with the world. And this, The Lohan is more than willing to do.

Also, she probably shares the pain of spending eight hours slamming Long Island Iced Tea made with Bacardi 151. That shit will blast your brains right out your ears and give you a four-day hangover.

What’s Next?

What will come next for The Lohan? The more important question is what will come next for us? When the End comes, she will not be destroyed, we will because she will no longer be around for us to contemplate. Think about THAT for a minute. The next chapter is coming, but don’t try to prepare for it…The Lohan is preparing it for YOU.

She risks her life for you - because you have nothing better to do than sit there on your couch and in front of your PC and watch her do it. Rejoice, for if not for The Lohan, you would have to watch something equally depressing but far less realistic – like The Hills, or Fox News.

What does The Lohan have left to teach us? Like an Irish Car Bomb, we cannot anticipate it; we must merely embrace it when it comes.

My friends, you have not gone insane. You have gone über-sane. Only now can you truly begin to understand The Passion of the Lohan.

The next installment of The Chronicles of Lohan can be found here.