Gonzo

I saw the Gonzo documentary at the local pizza and brew theater here Monday night. HST still inspires today with his affinity for random gunfire, honest politics, and a (little utopic, i think) belief that the only thing drugs gateway to is World Peace. On his search for the American Dream, he inevitably came up short, burning out young in a blaze of glory and sticking it out long enough to bag himself a hot young wife before his untimely end. With his death, a legend was cemented. Perhaps this is the American Dream. Even more than the Great American Novel or riding the bucking, infernal stock market. HST found a way to live big and die bigger. His mystique will grow with the passing of time. With all trends pointing the way they do, we are in for belt tightening and moral strengthening. Chances are, HST was one of the wildest of the wild of men in the (soon to be) old west.

Ode to my ipod...

I (heart) you.

Funny how things always seem like a movie when you've got a soundtrack. Plus, I think this is the closest I will ever get to having my very own, superpersonal and yet quirky / intelligent / tearjerking theme song.

The conundrum of decision-making and all that...

I realized something this evening, and thought I'd share. Granted, many of you are much smarter than I and already have this wisdom. It was just one of those many, many moments I have had recently where, having chosen a particular path for a section of my life, two days later, I am overcome with chooser's remorse. I want back my decision, because it's obvious that I am not going to succeed at that particular career (in this case). And, as I was busy trumping up the decision and talking all poetically in my head about how I was on a precipice and had to decide NOW what my life was going to look like for the next 40 years when suddenly it hit me:

Once you choose something, you always have the option to recant.

(Barring, of course, such choices as giving away your kidney, adopting a child, or being romantically linked with michael jackson, you're kind of stuck with those.)

I know, I know, this isn't exactly rocket science (is it B?). But this seriously blew my mind. What? I can back out of something at any given time? I don't have to plan everything down to the smallest minute detail and agonize over my imminent failure/doom? What the hell am I going to do with all my free time if I'm not envisioning being stoned in the street for failure to live up to my impossibly high standards? I'll probably take up canasta.

Fact is, human beings are flighty, inconsequential creatures and we spend more time messing up and goofing around than actually being great, or whatever. Those with a fear of success/failure need to just take a valium and let ourselves be essentially human rather than talk ourselves out of it. If I decide not to follow this direction of life sometime in the future, I can pretty much guarantee that I am not wasting my time now. Because, it's not like, in abandoning what I want right now I am going to go out and initiate world peace or fight evil in a shiny suit of spandex. if I wasn't pursuing my half-assed dream, chances are, I'd just be watching reruns of firefly.

So I hereby give myself permission to be monumentally selfish with my time, dedicated to a [potentially] lost cause, and subsidize the local coffee shop with my daily patronage. Thank you coffee shop. [you're nice]

Some advice...

Dear M Jaye,

My boyfriend is an idiot, although I think I am as well, since I believe I have been snowed by him for approximately seven years. He won't take me to meet his mother because he believes some guy named Darwin says he is higher on the evolutionary scale than I am. Should I dump him or take a frying pan to his head?

-Not a monkey

Dear Monkey,

See, a long time ago there was this scientist who liked turtles and crap and he was paid an exorbitant amount of money through some bet with Genghis khan to convince everyone that man was made from monkey turds or something. So he went the Glapaganos islands which were so crappy no one else ever went there and smoked a lot of ganja and wrote this book called Origin of the Species which is dedicated to his muse – Theodore “Tiny” Roosevelt. Check it, I’m sure its on Wikipedia.

Given that the information spewed by your troglodyte boyfriend comes from such an untrustworthy source, I vote the frying pan. Then sleep with someone more evolved than him, write a tome about it and get on the Times best sellers list.

- M.