A dude who scratched a derogatory term on his enemies locker in retaliation.

Absolutely, yes. 

Because it resonated for Dylan deeply and painfully.  Feeling old in his shoes as that gifted, advanced little boy that felt like a freak  that couldn’t find his place in this world. He mentally grew so fast he was already weary in a state of existential crisis in his tweens.  That sense of feeling alone and abandoned, left behind in the dust, as others moved forward and experienced happiness, love and fulfillment. And that hidden pain concealed by his deceptive smile – So much pain and hurt and loneliness that he wants to send it over to you – The killer in him is the killer in you, who made him.  Dylan even specifies it as song to represent “My Thoughts” on his website layout.  The song itself sounds as though it is one long, whimpering child’s anguished cry in as state of misery rather than being sung by an adult. The song is Dylan’s wounded inner child.

Disarm lyrics

While it may be Tom’s point-of-view that Dylan was his best friend, that doesn’t mean the feeling was exactly mutual from his son’s perspective. Dylan does not even address his father at all in his last Basement Tape good bye message. This is telling.  

If you feel he does not sound arrogant, you’re entitled to your opinion, of course, but keep in mind, so am I.  I don’t agree with your ‘harsh’ comment in relation to all that I’ve said regarding Tom. Just fairly reporting how I feel is all.   

Only when he was angered and the pent up frustration to which he regularly held back on and often denied and suppressed himself, had compounded and, suddenly feeling in a state of critical mass like a volcano about to erupt. Such violent, impulsive urges and fantasies probably only welled up within him like a violent act of passion in the midst of a argument that had escalated when he was about to lose himself to his temper.  Sue had described to us in a few of her interviews regarding the heated confrontation she’d gotten into him with him where she’d pushed him up against the fridge and waved a lecturing finger at him. Dylan realized he was feeling so much blind impulse to lash out and possibly get physical with his mom, perhaps push her back hard, or worse. So in realizing he was close to completely losing it – losing all control – he warned her in a low, soft voice that he was unsure if she kept provoking him as she was doing, that he was not sure if he would be able to contain his anger any longer. It also seems to me that when it came to expressing his anger and more negative emotions that he felt it was more acceptable to let himself blow in front of his father than with his mother, who rather, seemed to tell him how he should feel instead of simply allowing him to just purge his feelings.

After he’d been arrested for the van theft and went and took a walk with his father the next morning, Tom relayed to Sue that Dylan was very angry and beside himself about the whole thing. Yet, when Dylan had his talk with Sue, he was more careful to keep himself in check and just go through this whole reasoning process with her about how what he’d done was morally wrong.  If you look at how Tom was with Dylan over wearing his baseball cap in the restaurant on vacation, it speaks to me how rigid and overbearing Tom could be.  I tend to think Sue has minimized these types of incidents she’d likely witnessed on more than just one occasion between her husband with her sons.  I really think she’s only given us but one account of the type of arguments that occurred between Tom and Dylan. I think she decided to keep it at that for her ex husbands sake especially since he not supporting her stance to come forward and openly discuss intimate details about their family.  But I would wager there was a whole lot more father and son strife going on in that household with these little power struggles of Tom trying to assert his authority over Dylan and Dylan, growing older and so more obstinate and individualistic, not wanting to automatically comply to his intimidating, arrogant, over bearing father. A lot of this type of head butting is just typical father and teenage son growing pains where the older son is finding his own sense of authority which no longer automatically falls in line with his father’s wishes. I do think that Dylan often would find himself capitulating to his father’s wishes and then minimizing it as he’d done with his mom over the ball cap incident as mentioned in her book.  He’d brush it off and act like dad was being an ass and then shrug and say despondently ‘it’s just not that big of a deal’ but really, inside, Dylan was seething and stewing about it and then swallowed his upset. I tend to think the bottled up anger would continue to build over these petty run ins with his dad causing an emotional chasm between him that Tom had no clue about. Another slight would have been when Tom had betrayed Dylan’s trust and confidentiality by confronting Byron after Dylan had finally given in and confessed to his parents that it was his own brother that introduced him to weed. I think this caused a rift in their relationship, and that Dylan continued to stew a lot about his dad within that bumpy Junior year of his.  When Dylan was in the middle of confrontation with his dad lecturing him, I’m sure he was often seeing red and probably having visions of wanting to get physical because he couldn’t assert himself and it was impossible to win an argument verbally particularly with dad.

Would he physically act out violently with his parents?  Yes, I suppose it’s possible, in the heat of the moment, if things continued to escalate in a confrontational sort of way, Dylan could become potentially become enraged and physically violent with his parents.  I would not put that past him. Dylan’s personality type was such that he was slow to anger but when external influences were coming at him, hounding him, causing him to work himself up to the point where he’d be in a ballistic fit of blinding rage anything could have happened. When he was at that tipping point, his brain would blow a fuse so that verbally the angry words would come tumbling out all jumbled (something along the lines of his impromptu rage-filled rant in Hitman for Hire at 6:52). Yes, I could see him potentially resorting to physically acting out when he felt pushed to his absolute limits with a emotional inability to fully express himself verbally in a constructive manner.  Had Dylan lived to 18 and beyond, it’s possible his father and himself might’ve gotten into a massive confrontation. However, since Dylan was packing up for college the fall of his graduating year, maybe that would’ve been the only saving grace to prevent such a combative confrontation to occur.  I realize that according to Sue’s perception in her book that she tends to paint the family life dynamics as largely very harmonious  but that in itself is suspect to me especially concerning the relationship between Dylan and his father. I really just get the sense that we do not have the entire picture and that the ball cap incident that Sue does divulge in her book is the tip of the iceberg. Here is a previous post I’d written over a year ago as to my speculation of dynamics between Dylan and his dad.  I still largely feel this way even after Sue’s book. 

When you can tell him you forgive him and no longer feel conflicted and in turmoil over it. It has everything to do with yourself finally being able to let go and understanding that Dylan was struggling and lost his own battle by deciding to make such a horrible, permanent choice,  In accepting that he was in such a dark place that he felt this vile act of killing others and himself was the solution to having revenge against this world of which he never truly felt apart of and a way for him to break his bondage and private misery from it. 

Seems to me the easiest, most conspicuous place would be on the inside of his hand, on the inner palm area near the fleshy part of his thumb. Possibly sometimes he do so on the typical locations such as his forearm, the underside of his forearm, in which case he’d be wearing a long sleeved shirt under his rainbow Setting Sun t-shirt like he did in Frankenstein roast which was filmed in the fall of ‘98. That’s not to say that he necessarily was cutting on his arms at that particular time – only that it certainly would’ve been much easier to cut liberally and conceal it all during the chilly months while wearing layers.  

Lost Highway and Disarm

I think that given the boys’ goodbyes were taped about 30 min before NBK, they video taped it rather hastily amidst gathering their supplies and gearing up. Dylan’s energy seems to be almost like that of a horse at the start gate before the race. He’s antsy, pumped up and ready to go..looking forward to it being his very last day on earth, the day he would die. He’s firmly ready to leave this world – so much so, that he does not spend time to reflect and give too much thought on his goodbye speech. Eric turns the camera on him and says ‘go!’ And so Dylan impromptu, free forms his speech and so basically addressing ‘Hi mom’ is just what slap dash comes out of his mouth in a rush of things to be said in a short span of time. That said, I do think there was a part of him that held his mom in a bit more high regard than his dad, who he had friction with and so he casually omits from his goodbye acknowledgement (see the ball cap incident in Sue’s book as I tend to think that Sue avoided telling us about more of these types of head butting incidents that likely occurred between Dylan and his dad). Dylan also omits Byron because even despite what Sue’s perception is of her two sons- that they got along famously – according to Dylan himself on one of the Basement Tapes, Byron and his friends ‘ripped on him and treated him like the runt of the litter’. I think Dylan still held a hidden resentment about his brother so that is why he too, is not included in his goodbye. Only mom gets the acknowledgement. But only mom held his scratchy face between the palms of her hands on the stair landing and told him what a wonderful person she thought he was, and how proud of him she was and that she loved him. She loved and believed in him though he could not find it within himself and I do think Dylan felt badly and unworthy and undeserving of her words in that moment. And this is why I feel that his goodbye was specifically reserved for her and her alone. A mother’s love holds highest rank.

A book by Dutch author Tim Krabbé’. The title is based off of one of Dylan’s quote in the Basement Tapes “we are but aren’t psycho”. Which is actually a very mind fuck kind of statement if you think about it. 😏

Junior year was the bumpy year when the bad things began to happen to his perfect track record as the ‘Shiny Penny’ and he slowly became resentful, bitter, despondent and apathetic. So, yeah, that’s when he would’ve been more openly externalizing his frustrations by acting out and retaliating in gym class as well as the alleged hitting incident. So, Junior on through Senior year.

“Don’t worry about it, man. It happens all the time..”

😏

Close in some ways, in their mutual interests as well as their mutual hate, but not very close at all in others. I do not think they shared a whole lot of personal, private stuff together at all. So, not the way you wonder though, no.

Yes, unquestionably. They might not have identified it amongst each other as “dude, I’m really feeling depressed..” but they talked on the phone together each evening and there were times when the two got choked up and in tears in their discussions. I went into some detail on this here.

Sue is an amazing writer, tbh. She tried to be as candid and honest and of course, given that she is Dylan’s mother, there will always be a bit of a bias on her part. It’s impossible for her perception to not be colored as Dylan’s mother. It’s an unrealistic expectation for some to find fault with her over this. At the same time, she walks a fine line of trying to be super aware and conscious of how others might be perceiving her every word and so simultaneously she tries to be respectful and openly pondering so as to consider all angles and not just her own personal perception colored by her unconditional love for her son. I do think at times she sanitized certain aspects of her family dynamics. I wondered if she glossed over some things about Tom or Byron, in relation to Dylan, out of respect to their wishes of not wanting to be scrutinized or be involuntarily involved in her personal decision and pursuit of going public. All and all, as a first time author, she did a beautiful, thoughtful job of this book and I was satisfied though admittedly left still longing for more details.

Though, I must say I’m pretty grateful for that recent open ‘free-flow’ interview called Tell Me About Dylan". I feel like we gleaned that little extra mile from Sue just ‘rambling’ on in more detail about her son because the interviewer basically gave her permission to just talk about Dylan without holding back or feeling like she has to be wary of what/how she says things to most people. I am really looking forward to Pt. 2 of this interview!

I have hopes that this is the first of a few books by Sue Klebold, and I definitely think she will become more of a presence at mental health conferences and other public concerted efforts toward mental health awareness based on her tragic personal experience with it and also because of the many mass shootings that have happened since Columbine. I think she’s felt a great onus to help others for a very long time and now that she’s made a breakthrough publicly and has received support and encouragement and even been bestowed unexpected gifts of absolution through some of the victims families, she is buoyed to continue on in the same direction – to help herself heal and reach greater understanding through her reaching out and helping others – all in the memory of beloved, lost son.

Thankss. 😊 It was a rented tuxedo and when it got returned to the store, I’m sure someone else rented and wore it. It probably got retired with all the other worn out rented ‘90s tuxedos. The tux didn’t fit him well either. Dyl complained that the arms were a little too short so he was occasionally tugging on the cuffs, adjusting them downward to cover his wrists better.

Dylan didn’t seem to have the nerve to go through with suicide all on his own. I think he fantasized a great deal about all the ways he could die and he writes about wanting to “get a gun and use it on a poor SOB..his name is VoDkA..Dylan is his name too”. We know he had his sawed off double barreled shot gun stored in his room for some time based on Robyn Anderson’s testimony; he had a few pipe bombs in his bedroom and also he collected knives. He may have have played with each of those weapons while feeling in a despondent mood such as where he considers slashing his wrists while having the pipe bomb Atlanta strapped to him and then the playing around with the knife instead became cutting or sticking the double barrel in his month or the Tec to his head..ultimately, though he couldn’t seem to bring himself to do it all on his own, alone in his room. Dylan very much needed to have a partner to go out with. At one point Dylan was hoping that Zack would be that partner since Zack was depressed too but then Zack’s life starting turning around as he’d found happiness when he begun to date his girlfriend Devon. Dylan then fantasized that he’d find the right girl who’d want to possibly go NBK and leave with him but by Jan ‘99, that didn’t pan out either. He was still here, alone and in pain and still unable to just kill himself. Dylan knew what Eric wanted and eventually Dylan realized that the only way he was going to leave this place was by letting Eric be his catalyst to make sure he’d go through with it because they’d both be signing up for death together and going NBK and having revenge on the school was the icing on the cake to sweeten the deal. Once they’d gone NBK, there was no way of backing out of his suicide period. There’d be no way for him to chicken out as he’d probably done numerous times on his own in his bedroom, half heartedly toying at ending his own life. Dylan knew that walking into that school one last time would mean that his death was a certainty and that there was no wavering or backing out once their mission had begun. Going NBK with Eric was a way to break free because in killing others it was insurance that they too would also have to die. There was no other choice and prison was never a viable option. With their backs against the wall, there could only be one way to break free, in mutual suicide.

Only the claims of friends which sound a lot like an embellished story as to how he acquired his nickname. This was answered before here.