Happy Monday Life-Affirmers!
I just chugged my wheat grass smoothie with a few Gingko pills -- and I feel like I'm about to start hallucinating. So I'm at a bar called The Whistler in Logan Square with a few friends, on the flank of the main stretch of the bar, the place is packed, and I see two women around my age (I'm 29 if anyone lacks said info), one who catches my eye, and I do what I normally do in spontaneous stranger mode: I -- in Elementary School Fashion -- stick out my tongue.
Big deal, right? I've done this, and have a myriad of stock social experiments to pull off on strangers, and this one in particular usually yields hilarious results for both parties. However, this chick had a Goddamn Existential Crisis over the whole interaction. Well, I did it on the sly, and directly afterwards, seamlessly, went on talking to my company making sure I was audible, and made a point to speak succinctly and intersperse big-boy words so this person would, beyond a shadow of a doubt, infer I was a functioning, intelligent individual and my tongue-protruding-anomaly was innocuous and playful. Nope. Not the case. She got all Meryl Streep on me. Boring.
Directly after this I have to write a song for Second City: The Break-Up Song, I'm calling it. Other choices, in true Michael Simon fashion, were convoluted/high-falutin' but this requires something simple/succinct/relatable. And who can't related to breaking-up? What I'm doing though, is adding a slew of pragmatic details in both parties decision-making w/r/t not splitting up: the creature-comforts that have superseded passion in many respects. It should lend itself well humor-wise, but it's too close for comfort for many couples that'll even be in the audience I'm sure. If I shoot-up some Brain Tonic and find a way to display PDFs I'll display my sketches weekly.
Henry Miller: a kindred spirit if there ever was one. Tropic of Capricorn, Cancer, and I can't, sir, extricate myself from his core beliefs/timeline/passion/disillusionment. In fact, I'm about the same age he was when he said Fuck This! and left NYC for Paris in 1929. This is Nature beating the ever-living shit out of Nurture -- and it elates me to vertiginous heights. I want to start a Book Club (yes, a Healthy one at that)/Writing/Art-Collective where we not only examine this works -- but find a way to incorporate their salient qualities in our work/daily lives. There's an enter index of Red Tape, of reasons, of people, of mental obstacles obstructing our latent potential, our inherent power as individuals, and they're going to assign reasons How and Why we can't do the things we want, live the way we feel, shape our lives as we, see, fit: this is the Great Lie. When you're out today, perhaps inside, reading a magazine, talking to a loved one, practicing your craft, and you feel that pull in your stomach, the wave of sensory-overload wash over your spine, and you see yourself, your life for what it is, or better, what it could be, what it should be, your skin crawls, your eyes well up, and for a moment, a secular moment of clarity, perhaps the finest moment of the entire day, the real honesty we're not taught growing up -- and you want to hold on to this feeling....
I need you to hold on, amass all your anger, your infinite frustrations, your misguided passions devolving into hinderances, and simply, focus yourself, let it all out, all of it. Amidst explosions and foreign lands, the fearful uncertainties and fictionist futures we never wanted any part of, because today is the best day of your life -- and you will have what you want, what you've always wanted, what you deserve. And they're not going to go down easy, oh no, they'll stand in your way, but it's time we start hitting back. No more will you settle for mediocrity and the delusive unrealities you never asked for in the first place. So stand up, dust yourself off, pick out your favorite shirt: and Let's Go Get Some Payback!
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