So dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago.  Picture an advanced alien species living on a planet that is 65 million light years away, and these aliens have incredibly advanced telescopes that allow them to see with such detail that they could spot an ant on planet earth.  What would these aliens see, if they were looking right now?  They’d see dinasaurs roaming the earth! 
       This is why every so often you’ll see me lift my head to the sky and scream, “The dinasaurs are extinct!  Humans are now the dominant species!”  (just in case they can hear me.  And, ummmmm, just in case sound travels faster than the speed of light….okay maybe I should rethink that.)
       Anyway, so really if you think about it, although dinosaurs have long since died, and all of us will die, a “photograph” is theoretically sent into space for all time, a tiny wave that will travel through space forever. And YOU’RE in it. 
      (just watch out for black holes)

Generally, when something stinks, it’s a good indication that something or someone is in the wrong place.  For instance, if you have a dog, and you come home and your house smells like shit, your first assumption will probably be, “Oh man, my dog shat in the house again.”  Which is, of course, the wrong place for your dog to shit.

Conversely, if you walk into a bathroom after someone has just taken a massive dump, and the stench is so bad that it wraps around your face like a wet towel, your first reaction will be, “I am in the wrong place. I need to go.”  You know there is nothing inherently wrong with the bathroom, because bathrooms will sometimes stink (although depending on how bad the smell is, there could be something wrong with the previous users’ digestive system).  Anyway, in this case the problem is yourself.  You walked into the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Same thing with jobs, relationships, mindsets, perceptions, desires and dreams.  If it stinks, something is in the wrong place.  If you want it to stop smelling, you’re going to have to move some things you don’t want to touch.  If you leave the dogshit in the living room, it’s going to stink.  Sure, you can spray Febreeze and light scented candles, but that only goes so far.  At the end of the day, you’ve still got a pile of shit on your floor.  I know it’s messy, but you’ve got to pick it up. 

Or to restate differently:

Like on a map at a rest stop, You Are Here.  Physically, emotionally, spiritually.  But sometimes you make the rest stop your home.  You bring in a bed, you wheel in a TV, you start using a hotpot to cook Raman Noodles in the bathroom.  You forget that this place is a rest stop on the interstate.  You forget (maybe you never knew) where you wanted to go in the first place.  But deep, deep down, you want to be somewhere else. Meanwhile you’re eating dinner every night from the vending machines, scrubbing yourself with hand sanitizer in the bathroom, reading pamphlets about theme parks and campgrounds like they’re literature, and telling yourself, “This is good.  This works.”  But this is not good.  You Are Here.  But you don’t have to stay.

Or to restate differently:

You walled off the door to your basement, maybe a long time ago.  You forgot you even had a basement.  But now the wall has come down.  You stand at the foot of the steps.  It is dark, and you’re scared to descend.  It’s okay.  If you want, you can take the hand of someone you love.  They can go with you (to an extent).

I’m writing this for myself, to remind myself.  To listen to that Voice, the good voice, the One who whispers but rarely screams.  It speaks of hope.  When I listen very closely, it tells me

I can be truth
I can be love
I can be beauty
I can be
I can shake the foundations of stagnancy and deceit, wherever I set my gait and gaze. I can walk through myself (I have, and will again) to discover, to praise, to condemn, to nurture and to raze, and yet always know that I can be

I don’t always know what is good, and never what is best, but I understand that there is good.  And I believe that I can be 

I suppose the point isn’t to fix yourself, bit by bit like some poorly-built machine, until finally you can say to yourself, “I flawlessly operate.”  No.  No.  But to move, to always move, with courage and the best of intentions, with of a vision of God (albeit often faint) as a light in the distance, and a light inside yourself.  To fuck up. To hurt. To feel moments of rapture, and sorrow, and loss, and unimaginable gain. To operate, not flawlessly, but with as little preprogramming as possible.

This is what I have to remind myself.  Cus, you know, it’s easy to forget.

“I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel.  I focus on the pain, the only thing that’s real.”

After about 15 seconds I wondered what the hell was wrong with me.  Who in their right mind begins their day with this song?  A day that starts with “Hurt” ends with you chained to the floor in a Slovakian Hostel.  So I quickly changed it to Baba O’Riley by The Who.  Ecstatic synth, then comes the booming piano chords!  Then the drums!  And then

“Out here in the fields!  I fight for my meals!”

Yes!  When you start a day with Baba O’Riley, you embark on a life-changing journey where you make two best friends, fall in love, find a hidden treasure and learn some poignant lesson that echoes through the rest of eternity. 

It’s important to start your day with the right song.  Now if you head to work feeling miserable every morning, there is either something wrong with your job or something wrong with you.  Probably the best thing to do would be to figure that out and fix it, but this is a lot of work.  So as an alternative, start your day with really great music, and keep listening to really great music all day long.  It won’t actually fix anything, but it will temporarily trick your emotions into feeling happy and hopeful.  Then, by the time you realize that you’re actually miserable, it’s time for bed. 

And repeat.

But music is actually very powerful.  One time I felt depressed for like two months and I couldn’t figure out why.  Then I realized I had been listening to nothing but The Counting Crows and Damien Rice.  I immediately went home, put some Gin Blossoms in the CD player, and I was cured.

“Tell me do you think it’d be alright, if I could just crash here tonight!”

The problem is that we’re so overexposed to music (and crappppppy music), that we forget how powerful it actually is, how it’s been around for thousands of years, how it hypnotizes people and even certain animals.  I’m so convinced of this that….well, let me give you the following scenario:

Pretend you’re standing in an open field in African wilderness.  Suddenly a lion is running at you full speed.  You pray to God and God grants your prayer by giving you one item of your choosing to save you.  What do you pick?  A rifle?  A jet pack?  A lion suit?  “Hey lion, it’s just me, another lion.”

Not me.  I pick a CD player blasting “Peace Train” by Cat Stevens.  Because nothing bad can EVER happen when Peace Train is playing.  I guarantee the lion starts rolling around in the grass, playfully batting at butterflies with its gigantic paws.

“Now I’ve been happy lately, thinking about the good things to come! And I believe it could be, something good has begun.”

That’s all I got.

I feel the same way about people.  Now normally I don’t like to judge someone by their appearance, but when the guy sitting next to you on the subway has a spider tattooed on his face, clearly he has problems.  This is not a guy I’m thrilled to strike up a conversation with.

ME: How about this weather?

SPIDER FACE: Ksssssssst!!! [scary spider noise]

Also, there are some book covers you can absolutely judge.  For instance, if the cover is a picture of the author’s face wearing a big, toothy grin, you know that the book is going to suck.  This is a universal law, and you can depend upon it like gravity.  The only possible exception would be in some crazy future where Spider Face writes a self-help book titled something like, “Eight Legs and All: What Spiders Taught One Man About Love.”  That book could be cool.

Actually, I’d kind of like to write it myself.

CHAPTER I
It was a rainy Saturday morning.  I sat on the porch, watching the driveway fill up with puddles, already on my fourth beer.  My next door neighbor, an old woman with an afghan draped over her shoulders, shooed her cats out with a broom.  Her screen door slammed shut and she stared at me for a moment, silently judging, before returning to her soaps or crossword puzzles.  She had probably heard the fight last night, the shouting, and maybe even seen my wife drag a suitcase to her car, and the headlights, and heard the engine rolling over, and the crunch of gravel beneath the tires as she drove off into the night. 
    Last night I had been furious.  But now, more than anything, I was scared that she would come back to me.  And if she did, and I knew she would, we would begin the whole process anew, where we slowly, unintentionally, ruin each other’s lives.  I knew it was coming, but I was powerless to stop it from happening.
    That’s when I saw it, a wolf spider on the railing, front legs raised into the air as if it were taunting the rain.  It occurred to me then that she was terrified of spiders.  And if I were to tattoo one on my face, she’d stay away forever.

Boom!  First chapter, done.

Actually, on second thought, maybe it is never a good idea to judge someone based on appearance.  I mean, even Spider Face turned out to be a decent enough guy.  Plus, it never feels good when someone judges me like that.  For example:

A few years ago I managed to get courtside seats to a Detroit Pistons playoff game.  At the end of the first quarter, their star point guard Chauncey Billups went down with an ankle injury.  Insanely, they had no backup. At this point, in desperation, the coach turns to the crowd and yells, “Does anyone here know how to play basketball???”  I shouted, “Yes! I do!  I’m really really good!”  But you know what?  That coach took one look at me, saw that I was short and white, and he passed right over me. 

Okay, that maybe didn’t happen.  Who can say for sure?  The point is that we shouldn’t judge people based on appearances.  Although I think we’ve established that there are certain books we CAN judge by their cover.  And also many things you may purchase at a store, you can judge those based on their packaging.  That’s a safe bet.  For instance, if I want to buy a toaster I go look for the box with the word toaster on it, and usually a picture of a toaster as well in case I can’t read.  Also, certain events you may experience in life can be “judged by their cover,” metaphorically speaking.  Like if some guy in a ski mask puts a gun to your head and says, “Give me your wallet,” it may behoove you in that moment to take him literally.  Although later, if you were to develop PTSD or something, I guess you could look back on that event and say, “He took my wallet, but metaphorically he took my courage.”  So I suppose it’s not cut and dry…

Yeah that’s all I got.

READER: No, you loser!

ME:  You don’t understand. 

READER:  You’re right, I don’t understand.  Who in their mid (to late) twenties watches Larry King? And loves it so much that he searches for more on YouTube?  Freak.

ME: No listen, it was about aliens and it was really cool!

It was about aliens and it was really cool.  He had all these reputable people on the show, like former military officers, pilots, and even a senator, testifying to having encountered UFOs.  They were very convincing.  They started to convince me.  I began thinking, how can there NOT be aliens? Which is a confusing question to try and answer.  Go ahead and try.

How can there not be aliens?

Anyway, then this scientist came on the show via satellite because he was too good for them or something, and he ripped them all apart.  He said, (paraphrasing) “We still have no evidence.  This is all anecdotal.  I’m sure you believe you saw UFOs, but you didn’t.  I’m really smart so I know.”

Then one of the army guys was like, “Dude I touched it with my bare hand.”

And the scientist shot back,”You touched yourself with your bare hand.”

Just kidding.  But anyway, I really hated that scientist.  I started to fight him in my mind, you know?  Like I’m picturing him sitting next to me on the couch and I’m verbally thrashing him. 

You think you know everything because you’re a scientist?  Well check it– about a hundred years ago all these know-it-all scientists thought that everything wasn’t relative.  Then some guy came along and proved that it was.  Maybe you’ve heard of him.   

Then, in my mind-fight, he gets all flustered and eventually gives up.  He says, “You’re right.  You, a lowly social worker, have humbled me.”

[By the way, this is how I win all my imaginary fights with scientists: I invoke the name of Einstein to somehow prove my point.]

Anyway, after I watched Larry King, had the imaginary fight with the scientist, and spent a few minutes thinking about how cool Einstein was, I was fairly certain that aliens exist.  I walked outside, narrowed my eyes, looked up into the clouds and whispered, “Where are you guys?”

But as the day progressed, I became less and less sure of my new found faith.  Everyone I encountered that day seemed to know that I believed in aliens now, and they were mocking me.  Even the clerk at the gas station.

ME: 20 bucks on pump 4 please.

CLERK: No prob.  Will you be paying with American currency or Space Bucks?

I even passed a guy on the road who looked like a fat, docile version of David Duchovny.  I swear he mouthed to me, “The truth is out there,” but he was being sarcastic.  He probably turned to his wife in the passenger seat, who was a Chinese version of Gillian Anderson, and they shared a good laugh on my expense.  ”Some people, right?”

Well regardless, I’m glad that in the fat, Chinese version of X-files, Scully and Mulder finally get together.

By the end of the day I had given up altogether.  It’s too much pressure, you know?  I can’t be one of those guys who walks around spouting the truth about Area 51, government cover-ups, and religously watches UFO documentaries and the made-for-TV film Fire In The Sky (starring Gary Sinise), which is an underrated movie, by the way.  I mean, I’m already the guy who looks up Larry King on YouTube. 

Sorry aliens, you’ll have to find somebody else to take the torch. 

All that being said, I remember as a little boy I asked my father, “Daddy, where do babies come from?”

And he said, “They come from mommies.”

So then I said, “Daddy, where do aliens come from?  From mommy aliens?”

And he said, “No son, they come from up.”

Which is true.  Aliens don’t live among us.  They are always, perpetually above us–looking down, knowing more, saying things like, “Foolish creatures, their hatred will one day destroy them all.  If only they could see their potential.”

Kind of like Optimus Prime from the Transformers or something.  They are up, up, always up.  They are what we one day hope to be. 

Except for the movie Independance Day.  Which, thank God, we vanquish the aliens on July 4th.  Can you imagine if we had killed them on like January 7th?  I can see Bill Pullman saying, “Today…..is…..our Independance Day!  And so is July 4th.  We have two days of independance!  Hooray!”

Whatever.

I immediately thought, Well what about backwards?  Wouldn’t that be the right direction?

At CVS I saw a sign that read, “If you look to be under the age of 38, we will card you for tobacco products.  We are truly sorry for the inconvenience.”

This sign has so many weird aspects that I spent 10 minutes pondering it.  First of all, the word truly strikes me as very odd.  Are they really, truly sorry?  Are the CEO’s of CVS in spiritual anguish over this policy?  Are they taking long walks, tears streaming down their faces as they think about all the customers with youthful faces who will now be forced to show their IDs?  I mean, why put the word truly in there?  Maybe Walgreens has a sign that simply says, “We apologize for the inconvenience,” and CVS thought, we can do better than that. We can be truly sorry!  We can passionately mourn this inconvenience.  We can rip out tufts of hair and gnash our teeth over how f–ing tragic this whole situation truly is!

Secondly, why pick 38?  How do you even tell, definitively, if someone looks to be older or younger than 38?  I mean, some people you could, like babies or Mr. Miagi, but there is a huge demographic of people out there who could go either way.  So, following this logic, as a cashier you’d have to say, “I can’t tell if you look like you’re under 38, but you do look like you don’t look like you’re way older than 38, so I’m going to have to card you.”  Then your brain explodes. 

And when that happens, CVS is seriously, honest to God, truly sorry for the inconvenience.

“Carl’s rockets never work.  Guy can’t calibrate worth shit.”

Everyone thinks they’re smart.  The few people who say they’re not are just too lazy to argue the point.  Ask anyone if they’re smart and they will either say yes or “What do you mean?”  They’ll want some clarification of “how smart,” but invariably everyone thinks they are at least just smart enough to not be stupid.    

Nobody thinks they’re stupid.  And everyone knows someone who is.  Interesting. 

Once a week I ask all my friends if “I’m the stupid one,” just to make sure.  They all say yes, but they’re all idiots, so…not exactly reliable sources.  

     [Don't get upset...I'm not talking about YOU.]

I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, but I wouldn’t consider myself stupid.  But how can I know for sure?  I wish there were a reverse IQ test, one that tests how stupid people are.  If such a test did exist, it would probably look something like this:

Please read the following statements and circle True or False:

1) I watch a lot of reality TV.     T        F
2) I am a huge fan of the Twilight Series, and I am not a 13-year old girl.  T     F
3)  People are consistantly baffled and/or horrified by the choices I make.    T      F
4) I love Rush Limbaugh.    T      F
5) I own a T-shirt that says, “I’m with stupid.”    T     F

Now please answer the following multiple choice questions:

5) The best way to describe me would be to say “I am…”
             a) Stupid
             b) Not not stupid
             c) Not not not stupid
             d) None of the above
             e) All of the above, including d

6) The saying, “There is more than one way to skin a cat,” implies that:
            a) There are usually multiple ways to achieve a goal.
            b) There is only one way to achieve a goal, and that is to skin a cat.
            c) Animal cruelty is socially acceptable.
            d) Cats are stupid.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is that none of us are stupid.  We’re all smart in our own special way.  At least that’s what my mom told me….many, many, many times. 

Are you stupid?  Click here to find out for sure.

But sadly, the 3D trend is back, albeit not for long.  Here is a list of some of the recent stuff:

My Bloody Valentine 3D
Bolt 3D
Mummies 3D: Secrets of the Pharaohs
Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience
3D Super Bowl commercials
 
Clearly, the target market for 3D entertainment is kids 12 and under who haven’t yet figured out how stupid they look in those glasses. And this is how it should be, because as stupid as adults are, they aren’t so stupid as to give two shits about 3D movies.  But there’s some 3DCEO out there who doesn’t understand this, who is convinced that 3D is the next entertainment medium or something. That’s why R-rated horror films are being released in 3D and why CVS was handing out millions of 3D glasses to customers for the Super Bowl.  

The worst thing about 3D movies is that 3D is always in the title.  It’s obnoxious.  Like the guy who makes six figures a year and constantly reminds people about it.  Or the guy who is always trying to be the deepest thinker in the room.  We get it–you have an extra dimension.  Great.  

The 3D movie is the film that all other movies think is stupid and feels sorry for.  Die Hard is sitting with Steel Magnolias and talking about The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D.  

“No, I’m serious, Sharkboy really thinks he has a third dimension,” says Die Hard.

“Give em more credit than that,” replies Steel Magnolias.

“Steel, listen, just last week he refused to come to my party because it would be, quote, teeming with two-dimensional bores, end quote. Yipeekiyaa mother f—er!”

“Why do you always say that?”

“Why does Julia Roberts die at the end of you?” 

“Touche.”

Anyway, I think the entertainment industry’s next move will be to skip a dimension and go straight to 5D, the dimension of pain.  Not only does it look like a fist is coming at you, it actually breaks your nose.  Every theatre has medics on standby.  Of course, when they rerelease Saw V in 5D, the MPAA might have to step in and give the film a brand new rating, which would be “WE BEG YOU NOT TO SEE THIS FILM AS IT WILL LITERALLY TORTURE AND KILL YOU. PLEASE. PLEASE.  THIS IS IN NO WAY A JOKE. WE WASH OUR HANDS OF THIS.” 

Of course, you’d still have millions of people who watch that preview, then turn to the person next to them and whisper, “That looks good.”

A dragon breathes fire
A human does not breathe fire
Dragons are better

When I spilled my milk
I couldn’t stop crying–so
I stopped drinking milk

Trees don’t run, even
When you close your eyes and ask,
“Where did the trees go?”

The world is made of
Little Haikus that rarely
Count their syllables 

Fly too high and your
Wings will melt–then you’ll have to
Take the bus to school 

People are always
Falling in love–forgetting
Directions at home 

The traffic was an
Old janitor who made us
Walk to class. Bastard. 

Feel free to send me your own haikus.  If they’re good enough, I’ll print them out and bury them in a time capsule.  Then I’ll write a poem about it:

I buried all your
Haikus. I don’t remember
Where. Please help me dig.

a) I was driving behind a school bus when it stopped at the railroad tracks, because a school bus “STOPS AT ALL RAILROAD CROSSINGS.”  Stupid.  This wasted a solid twenty seconds of my life.  

b) I went through the McDonalds drive-thru to get a plain double cheeseburger.  There were four cars ahead of me.  Four cars!  Go home people!  Don’t you understand that I want what I want the exact moment I want it?  

c) I was walking through downtown Indy and all these other people were walking, too.  Are these thousands of idiots actually going somewhere?  Or are they just walking in circles around the block, wandering aimlessly, taking up space I could be using.  Go home!  I want to be able to walk in a straight line without ever having to move for anybody.  I want to be able to walk a zigzag pattern with my eyes closed.    

It’s getting worse everyday.  People are “doing it” (having sex for the layperson) and making babies at an unprecedented rate.  Take a look at these statistics:  In 1609, the world population was at 127 people.  By 1909 this number had doubled.  But today, in 2009, the world population has risen to 6 trillion (this number includes people and insects).  Overcrowding is happening everywhere.  I fully expect in a couple years to see droves of people just standing on my front lawn, looking at each other.

“What are you doing here?” asks one guy.

“This is the only spot left to stand.”

It’s gotten to the point where I watch “I Am Legend” like it’s a future utopia.  I get jealous of Will Smith: look at how much space he has! Those infected zombie creatures are scary, but at least they won’t be standing in front of him at the gas station, buying lottery tickets.

But the worst is when one specific person continually gets in my way.  The other day I was at CVS to pick up a few items.  I wanted to get some cough medicine and this stupid woman was in the way, reading the backs of boxes, comparing ingredients.  She was exactly where I needed to be.  So I had to wait to her left, pretending to examine the Tylenol.  I didn’t need Tylenol.  She was forcing me to live a lie.  Finally she moved, but about three minutes later, on the other side of the store, the same thing happened again.  It was like she knew what I needed and was intentionally trying to slow me down.  Lady! Get the hell out of my life!  

I’m going to start carrying a sign around that says, “You are in my way. Move!”  But people will probably think I’m picketing something and join in.  Then I’d be surrounded by protesters holding signs that say things like, “Make way for us!” and “Move the Man!”  And I’d be saying, “There is no us.  This sign is about you.  Get the hell out of here.”

“Yeah!  Get the hell out of here!  That’s what we say!”

Whatever.

Step 1) Don’t go to the dentist for 7 years.

Step 2) Go to the dentist.

I’m sure there are other ways to go about being tortured, but this is one of the few where you get to pay for it. 

First they took x-rays of my teeth.  Then they examined them one by one with a mirror and scalpel.  The examiner would say things like, “Number 29 needs an M-O-2,” to someone who recorded it on a computer.  And I would be thinking, “M-O-2?  Is that bad?  That sounds bad.  Maybe it stands for molar obtrusion.  And maybe the 2 means it’s twice as bad as a typical molar obtrusion.  Oh number 29, what’s wrong with you?”

Then the dental hygienist sat beside me and told me all my problems.  Not just dental, either.  “Your self-esteem is too low.  You use humor to deflect from serious issues.”  Just kidding.  But seriously, my teeth are messed up.  I had five cavities, needed one crown, I grind my teeth when I sleep which is wearing them down, I need three wisdom teeth removed, I have a periodontal infection (or something like that), and one of the cavities is so deep I may need a root canal.  “But good news, you don’t have oral cancer.”  That is good news, but considering I never even contemplated the idea of ever having oral cancer, it doesn’t do much to soften the blow. 

“Good news!  Your grandma’s house isn’t on fire.”

Awesome.  Anyway, then they did a cleaning.  This mostly consisted of someone stabbing my gums with a scalpel.  It wasn’t supposed to hurt so bad, but because I hadn’t been to the dentist in seven years my gums were inflamed. Consequently, a typical cleaning felt to me like I was chewing on Hellraiser’s head.  This took over an hour.  I felt bad for both myself and the dental hygienist.  She was probably experiencing something similar to what a janitor might feel when he walks into the bathroom and sees that somebody took a shit all over the floor.  But she did a good job and when she was done my teeth were all the same color.  Which is nice. 

At this point I thought I was about done.  I was wrong.  She took me to another room where she told me the dentist would fill three cavities and put a crown on one tooth.  She said, “The hard part’s over.  You’ll be numbed for this so you won’t feel a thing.”  She was wrong.  The dentist gave me two shots, then started drilling.  Ten seconds later I screamed in pain.  So she gave me another shot and started drilling.  Same results.  ”I’ve never had to give anyone this much,” she said.  She ended up giving me somewhere between five to seven shots.  I lost count after the entire right side of my face went numb.  I couldn’t feel my temple.  My temple!  I don’t think you’re ever supposed to lose feeling of your temple. 

Of course that drilling sound is terrible, but I don’t know if it was because I’d been novacaned into half-retardedness or what, but a sense of peace came over me.  I thought, Wow, the high-pitched noise of the drill against my teeth sounds like seagulls on the beach.  How lovely.  Number 29, isn’t it lovely? 

By the time they were done I had been there five hours.  For the last two I had been asking them, “Are we almost done?” in a sad whimper.  “Please?  Please, I don’t want to be here anymore. Take a hammer and knock me out.  Hit me in the temple, I won’t feel a thing.”

Well, as long as it’s safe…

Me, Johnny and Seth followed her as she climbed up the valley wall, and then slowly we made our way across the railroad bridge.  We were stepping carefully from board to board while Helen was doing cartwheels (not literally).  She seemed to be in a constant state of testing the fates.  Like that scene from Forrest Gump when Lt. Dan is sitting on the perch of his boat during the hurricane, screaming, “You call this a storm? Ha ha ha!”  That was Helen, only she never left the perch.

Now from the ground, 40 feet did not look that high.  I could raise my hand and fit the gap between two fingers and laugh. “Pshh. That’s it? 40 feet? I could jump off that onto a slab of concrete.  Head first.”

But actually being at 40 feet, and looking down, my tune slightly changed.  Oh my God this is so high.  How is this so high?  Why would anyone ever want to be this far from the earth?  The people look like ants.  And the actual ants I can’t see at all.  I want to see ants again! God, let me see ants again.

About a quarter of the way across, Seth stopped moving.  ”I can’t do it,” he said.  

I was immediately envious of him.  He was escaping.  However, I was not so envious of him later that day when he confessed that, up there on the bridge, he was so scared he peed himself.

“Like, literally?”

“Yes. Literally.”

Anyway, we made it to the halfway point, minus pee-pants of course, and Helen began climbing onto the outside of the rail to jump.  ”You guys coming?”

“Right behind you,” I said.  But Johnny said, “Screw this,” and started making his way back.  Another one down.

Within less then a minute Helen had climbed to the outside, and immediately jumped without hesitation.  By the look on her face you’d think she was jumping two feet onto a stack of feather pillows.  By the look on my face, you’d think I was jumping 400 feet into a pit of flaming spikes.  I was terrified.  I very carefully climbed to the outside of the rail, and now there was nothing between me and the jump.  All I had to do was lean forward, do a little hop, and I’d be on my way.  But I couldn’t make my body move.  To  jump would be to defy every instinct inside me, and so my body was in mutiny against my will.  

People below began to shout encouragements.  ”Come on!”  You can do it!”

No, I can’t.  My body refuses.  But finally, after a few minutes, I was able to jump by telling myself, and this is really embarrassing, that You’ve only got one life to live!  Not only is that incredibly corny, but it doesn’t actually make sense.  If I’ve only got one life to live, I shouldn’t be needlessly risking it. But whatever, it did the trick.  I jumped.

Now I had never jumped from a height of this magnitude before, and two things happened.  The first was that I kept expecting to hit the water every quarter-second.  I felt like I had time to pour a glass of wine, read a novella, then look up and say, “Still falling?  Seriously?” And the second thing was this: when I jumped I naively assumed that my feet would stay below me, where they belonged.  This was not the case.  They began to float out from under me against my will.  I couldn’t stop it.  I felt like there was an air-god, who controlled all things in his realm of falling, who demands that all humans in his world must bend to his will and become parallel with the ground.  The result of this was that I hit the river at a 45-degree angle and smashed my face into the water.  

It really, really hurt.

I came to the surface and someone said, “Oh my God, are you okay?”

“Yeah I’m fine,” I replied, but I wasn’t.  I had one of the worst headaches of my life.  In fact, just in writing about this I can a feel headache coming on.  It felt like I had taken an uppercut to the face from Kimbo Slice.  It felt like my skull was a prison, and my neurons were rioting.  Kicking down doors, lighting rolls of toilet paper on fire, shivving guards in the kidneys and throwing them off balconies.  

We got back in our rafts and it didn’t take long for her to suggest another fun activity, which involved jumping out of the raft and riding a rapid that was three times as strong as the last one.  But we were all defeated.  Johnny had chickened out.  Seth had peed himself.  And I was beginning to wonder if I had a concussion, considering all I wanted to do was find a cozy spot to lie down, close my eyes, and slip into a coma.  

The rest of the trip was uneventful.  We mostly sat in silence. She had broken us.

Yeah, just the other day I was standing on the edge of a cliff and thinking, man, I wish the sun wasn’t out right now, so I could leap headfirst into the darkness. What a rush!

My brothers and I stiffened just a little when she said that she had ”fun” stuff for us to do along the way.  I didn’t know what this fun stuff was, but I quickly overcame my fear and decided that I was down for whatever.  And who knows, maybe one of the fun things she had in mind was sneaking off into the forest to make out with me.  (SPOILER: This was not one of the fun things she had in mind).

After about 20 minutes of little to no rapids, the river opened up into a still inlet. We brought our rafts to shore and Helen pointed to a large rock on the shore that rose up about 10 feet above the water.  ”A lot of people get a kick out of jumping off that rock into the water,” she said.  ”It’s real fun.”

Well hell, I thought, that’s nothing.  My mom jumped off first, laughing and yelling on her way down.  We all did it, including Helen and Poopdog.  I was silently relieved.  Little did I know her fun activities would escalate in insanity.  

We started moving down the river again, and not much later we came to our first substantial rapid.  As we approached it she said, “You know what I like to do?  Get out of the raft and just ride it myself.”  

That’s what she said.

Me, Johnny and Seth all looked at each other.  This certainly didn’t seem like a good idea, but who would be the one to chicken out?  We could all say no together and save face in our solidarity, but if just one of us said yes….

“Let’s do it,” I said.

We all jumped into the water.  The rapids were (rapidly) approaching. I looked over to Johnny and I swear I communicated the following words with my eyes: 

Dude, we’re all wearing life jackets.  You can’t drown in life jackets, right?

To which he responded (with his eyes): Yes, it’s possible.  Start praying.

Then we hit the rapids and it was fun for about five seconds.  Then I got sucked under.  I told myself to stay calm, to literally go with the flow, that I’d have to come to the surface eventually.  That lasted for about 10 seconds.  Then I panicked.  I started flailing my arms aimlessly as I was tossed and turned.  I didn’t even know which direction was up.  If need by though I would swim to the river bottom and dig to China.  I was NOT going to die!  

Then I popped up to the surface, with a look of complete terror on my face.  Seth and Johnny popped up, too, equally terrified.  Helen was wading in the still waters and I immediately attempted to change my expression to one of joy and elation.  I think I ended up looking psychotic.  

“Are you guys okay?” my mom called to us.

“Yeah, we’re fine!  Just having some fun!” I reply.

To be concluded….

1) Is it physically possible for me to do this?

2) Will this jeopardize my life?

3) Am I an idiot?

If the answer to any of those questions is yes, you probably should not do what you are about to do.   The following story takes place roughly 5 years ago.  It is all true, and the names have not been changed (except for mine, which I will change to John McClain).  And also people’s names I forgot. 

I (John McClain) once went on vacation with my family to Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  During this trip we went white-water rafting.   Since there were like eight of us, they gave us two rafts and two guides.  The first guide was a young man who was not only very ripped and handsome, but also polite, humble and charming.  We will call him PoopDog.  The other guide was a beautiful young woman, roughly my age, with dark hair and mischievous eyes (you know what I mean by that? Like she’s got this secret and she’s not telling you).  Anyway, we’ll call her Helen. Naturally, me and my two brothers, Johnny and Seth, opted to ride in her raft.  I remember thinking that Johnny and Seth were too young and weak to pose a threat, and so it came down to me and Poopdog.  I must destroy Poopdog and impress her with my wit and courage.  I also remember thinking, in the back of my mind, there is a small chance that I’m a complete idiot, and I’m soon going to prove it. 

We took a van to our launch site.  On the ride there, Helen began talking about how much fun we’re all going to have, but how a lot of people, even ”big strong men,” get scared by some of the bigger rapids.  I responded with, “I never get scared.”

I meant for it to sound facetious and self-deprecating. You know, I could be the guy who has a sense of humor about himself but who is also very handsome and manly, and who is not vain but has a humble sense of humor about how handsome and manly he is.  (Yes, I was attempting to convey all that with four words).  Instead, for some reason, I said, “I never get scared,” with a completely straight face, so that it looked like I was being serious.  I ended up sounding like a cocky, delusional asshole.  Of course I get scared.  Everyone gets scared.  To say you never get scared is absolutely ridiculous.  I might as well be one of those guys who tells people they can bench press 800 pounds.  No, you can’t, and it’s sad that you feel the need to lie about it.

She responded with, “Oh, wow, that must be nice, never being scared.” 

But she was slightly sarcastic, and I got the impression she was saying it for the benefit of Poopdog.  After work they’d get together and laugh about the loser who never gets scared.  I felt the need to clarify:

“I don’t never get scared.   I mean, sometimes I do.  Ya know, I mean, some things are scary…”

This was followed by a profound silence.  Honestly, what could she say to this?  I guess she could ask, “Oh yeah, what kinds of things are scary,” to which I could reply, “Lots of stuff; monsters, angry dogs, ancient Indian burial grounds, evil clowns, normal clowns, people with gigantic eyes, certains types of snakes like that huge anaconda from the movie Anaconda,” etc.  Thankfully she changed the subject.  Poopdog: one point.  John McClain: zero.

To be continued….

That’s a total of $22,800.  For a Honda Civic. 

Here is how it happened.  Approximately two years ago I was in desperate need of a reliable vehicle.  I was fresh out of college, had bad credit, and no dealership would finance me.  So I bought a ’97 Grandam off my stoner friend, the day before he moved to Portland.  Three weeks later the car was done.  At this point in the story I am Jabez, roaming around muttering, “I just can’t catch a break.”  Enter Mr. Scratch, AKA, Tom Wood Honda Dealership.  They told me all about this great program they have, whereby they help finance recent college graduates with bad or no credit.  All they needed was to see a copy of my transcripts.

Well I bring them my transcripts and the assistant manager looks them over, like actually studies them.  He points to one class and says, “What’s this F here?  That’s not good.”

“I failed that class on principle.”

“I’m just joking with ya! You’re fine!”

Okay, why do they need my transcripts?  And why is this guy examining my course load?  Do they increase my interest for every C?  If I had gotten a 4.0 would they give me a car for free?  Anyway, while talking to this guy, a salesman emerges from the shadows, cloaked as an angel of light.  He is only slightly older than me, so immediately he adopts this “Us Vs. Them” mentality.  The world sucks.  Life is hard coming out of college.  Let me help you out.  He never stopped talking or asking questions.  I couldn’t even get one moment of silence to think a rational thought.  He asked me if I liked to party.

“Do you like to party?”

“Sometimes.”

“That’s cool.  I went to this party the other night… [blah blah blah] Anyway these Civics can drive for 300,000 miles without a hitch. You know?”

No.  I didn’t know.  I didn’t even know how we got outside, standing over a Honda Civic with 60,000 miles on it.  He was weaving an intricate web of facts, emotions and stories, and I was powerless to stop him.  When he showed me the inside of the vehicle, he said things like, “It’s got power-locks, power-windows, the works.  It doesn’t have power-seats though; Honda believes in keeping things simple.”

Keeping things simple?  Why didn’t they believe in keeping the locks and windows simple?  Are they morally opposed to only certain forms of complexity: like seats that move with the push of a button? And why is he referring to Honda as if Honda is an actual person.  Like there’s one guy making everything.  Like E. Honda from Street Fighter 2 is locked in a manufacturing plant, rapidly punching cars into existence. 

Anyway, before I even knew what was happening I found that I had agreed, in principle, to purchase the vehicle.  They took me back to some office where their finance manager would hash out the details and I would sign the paperwork.  This guy wouldn’t stop talking, either.  He explained to me, in detail, approximately 3000 added services that I needed to purchase.  This service is essential.  This one is a matter of life and death.  If you don’t purchase this one, your future children will suffer an excruciating death at the hands of a merciless foe.    I think I only managed to reject a couple of these services, and one of them was something ridiculous like, “If the world ends before you’ve finished paying off your car, we will cut your interest rate in half.” 

Whatever.  The total came to $380 a month.  Everyone said it with such large smiles on their faces.  The assistant manager.  This finance bastard.  The evil salesman.  $380 a month didn’t seem like that much money.  I can afford a measly $380.  Hell, my rent is like $200 and I pay that no problem!  They gave me the keys to the car and, here’s the kicker.  Every single employee stood in a group and applauded for me when I started it.  They took a Polaroid picture of me with the car.  They were so happy.  I was happy! Yaaaah for new cars!  I drove away into the gorgeous colors of a peaceful autumn day, the new car smell in my nose, glad to be alive. 

“Hey moon!  Seriously, come check this guy out!  He just agreed to pay $380 a month for a Honda Civic.  A Honda Civic, Moon!  And he’s happy about it! Oh I can’t wait to burn this guy again!” 

What I didn’t know was that $380 is a lot of money every month.  A lot.  It was twice as much as my rent.  It was more than both my student loan payments combined. $380 was insane!  Al Pacino in Scarface paid less money per month for his coke addiction than I do for my car.  Escaped convicts who recently filed for bankruptcy pay less money per month after financing the Batmobile.  Anyway…

That’s the deal.  Feel free to contact Tom Wood Honda as a preemptive measure and tell them to F-ck Off.  All that being said, I do get 39-miles-to-the-gallon on the highway, which is neat.

Or something like that.  Then WAM! The devil appears with his hand cupped around his ear.  ”Say what?”

Jabez ends up trading his soul for 7 years of good luck, which of course is an awful deal.  Why?

1)  7 years (of good stuff) compared to infinite years (of bad stuff) is simply not comparable.  It would be like someone offering you a delicious cupcake in exchange for a billion flesh-eating ants.

2) Someone who possesses the ability to actually purchase your soul should not be trusted.  Or at least be subjected to a vigorous background check.  Once again, if some guy offers to give me a billion ants, one of my first questions is going to be, “Why does this guy have a billion ants? Do I really want to do business with a guy who owns a billion ants?”

                                            (actually I kinda do, anyway)

3) Good fortune on earth is not as good as torment in hell is bad.  If Jabez really wanted a fair deal, he should have bargained to spend half his eternity in heaven and half in hell.  But as we all know, dividing infinity by any number still leaves you with infinity.  Thus Jabez would have to spend two separate eternities in both places.  Meaning Jabez would have to rip his soul into two pieces.  And ripping one’s soul into two pieces does not sound like a good idea. (It sounds like something the ant guy might do)

There are many lessons to be learned from this story, but the most important I think are: Don’t make hasty trades, don’t do business with a creature who is inherently evil, and leave your soul out of all business transactions.  Unfortunately, I broke all three of these maxims a few years ago when I made what historians will one day deem:

THE WORST DEAL IN RECORDED HISTORY!

Only they probably won’t use that exclamation point, because historians don’t use exclamation points.  Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia in 1812!!!!    Not very scholarly.

Anyway, in Part 2 I will reveal this deal, and you will think I’m so stupid that you won’t feel sorry for me at all, not even a little bit (maybe a little bit).

“Is it possible?  Can I get you up those stairs by myself?”

The couch gave me a blank stare in response.  Its buttons were tiny, vacant eyes.  Its cushions were gigantic tongues too lazy to speak.  What couches want more than anything, I realized, was simply to stay put.  Moving is a traumatic ordeal, and any move involving stairs is utterly terrifying.  Lucky for them, their size and shape discourage humans from doing this very often.  But maybe a stair-move is a right of passage for them, like buying your first car or spending three days alone in the jungle.  Like maybe three couches are sitting in a room conversing about how terrifying the outside world is.  But couch #1 says, “What? I don’t think it’s so bad out there.”  Then couch #2 is about to vehemently object when couch #3 interrupts, “Hey, don’t waste your time on him…. he’s never been on stairs.”  

But like it or not this couch was moving.  I picked it up by one end and dragged it to the base of the steps, positioned myself just right and began yanking it upwards.  And it got stuck.  I repositioned the couch and tried again. Still stuck.  I could picture the couch screaming, “No!!! Not the stairs!!” And gripping onto the sides of the walls like his life depended on it.  After about five minutes of this, and out of breath, I stepped back and surveyed the situation.  It became clear to me that in order to get the couch up the steps I would have to take the railing off the wall and the basement door off its hinges.  And even then there was no guarantee it would work.  

The other option was equally troubling.  I could drag the couch through the basement door leading outside, around the back of the house, up a hill (covered with snow), up some steps onto the deck, past the deck and into the patio, through the patio to the dining room (whereby I’d have to move a table), through the living room (I’d have to move more couches), and down a hallway that turns at a 90 degree angle before leading to my room.  And because I lack the physical prowess to lift the couch up over my head, the journey may cause significant water damage due to the snow.

The short route (up the stairs) may be physically impossible, and the long route, while technically possible, would most likely ruin the couch itself.  I was in awe at the symbolic force of this predicament, and I was enamored (not discouraged, weirdly enough) by the following thought: there may literally be no way for me to do this on my own.  

I patted the couch.  ”Don’t worry.  You’re not going anywhere.”

It’s not that the couch will never have to face stairs again (it probably will), or never have to move at all (it must).  But in the meantime, when there’s no good way, rather than sicken itself with anxiety, it just needs to relax.  And that’s what I needed, too.  So naturally, I laid down, stretched my arms and legs, and the both of us took a nap.

Notes:
*The couch never made it to my room.  Instead I filled that empty space with a recliner.  
*Part II of this story is an pathetic homage to the incredible poem, A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island by Frank O’Hara.

Changing a bulb on a ceiling lamp in the dark is no easy task.  Especially since the first bulb I replaced it with didn’t work.  I was so mad I wanted to resurrect Thomas Edison and punch him in the throat.

“Moon, seriously!  Look at this guy!  He’s, ha, he actually replaced the burnt-out bulb with another burnt-out bulb! That’s too much!”

Anyway, after numerous other complications, I finally got my light working.  What I saw was not encouraging.  A precariously stacked mountain of mail on my coffee table.  A pile of dirty laundry in the corner.  Books in milk crates.  In milk crates?!!  Who am I?

“Moon! Get your ass over here!  This guy is using milk crates for a bookshelf!  Yeah, milk crates! He’s pathetic!”

I got to work.  I ditched the milk crates, did my laundry, moved some things around, and before long my room was almost complete.  In my soul I could feel that it lacked something essential.  But once I discovered what, once I found the last missing piece, I would have actually….completed….something. I would have accomplished a goal.  I would have changed.  I walked in circles around the room, holding my hands out like Monk at a crime scene, until my attention suddenly came to a rest at an empty spot by the door.  I narrowed my eyes.  I knew.

“Something’s changed, moon.  He’s got this crazy look in his eyes.  No, the milk crates are gone, man.  I’m tellin you, he’s like, different now.  He’s got motivation now.  Purpose.  Moon!  I think he’s the one.”

To be concluded…

On this Saturday I spent the entire day home alone. I didn’t call anybody. I didn’t answer my phone.  My intentions were to sip coffee, read, write and reflect.  The writing was especially important to me.  See, lately I have had to face some harsh truths about myself; namely, that I lack the necessary perseverance and dedication it takes to become a successful writer.  In my lifetime, I have probably started around fifteen books and ten screenplays.  Each time I begin, I’m exhilarated with the possibilities. I think, “This is going to be the best book of the year. NO, of the decade. NO, of the century!” But it doesn’t take long for discouragement to set in, and soon I’m thinking, “This just sucks.”

The band Motion City Soundtrack has this song, Can’t Finish What You Started.  The lyrics feel like a slap in the face. “You’re too afraid to face the outcome/Quite likely you’re a failure/It’s a shitty thing to say, but hey man, the clock is ticking.”

So I am left with some vexing questions: how do I develop these qualities in myself?  Can I pull them out of thin air? Can I create them from nothing?  Essentially–how does a person change?  Skynard sang, forcefully, defiantly, almost like he was trying to convince himself, “And this bird you cannot change.” Adam Duritz sings, in a shaky, vulnerable response to a lover, “We’re always changing.”  They may be saying opposite things, but the heart behind it is the same: a lament that we don’t have any control over who we are becoming.  Wind-up toys that move thoughtlessly, not even to a hoped-for destination, but rather, until the last bit of kinetic energy fades into nothing.

So anyway, Saturday, two weeks ago, these thoughts floating around in my head,  feeling anxious about the new writing goals I had made for myself (will I actually complete them?), but also excited, (What if I actually do?), and after writing for about four hours, I was suddenly compelled to clean and organize my shit-hole of a room.  Little did I know it would end in an epic battle, lasting 90 minutes, between me and a couch.

But that night as I was laying in bed, I started thinking about how I WAS going to die someday. And it could be any day. It could be tomorrow. I think a part of me has always believed that I’m invincible, but of course I’m not. Unlike Bruce Willis in Unbreakable, I’ve broken my wrist, I just sprained my thumb, I’ve gotten pnemonia and chicken pox and food poisoning, I’ve stubbed my toe and it really really hurt. The list goes on. I’m not invincible.

And I’m going to get old someday too. I could be one of those old men that take itty bitty baby steps; the guys that literally take 10 minutes to walk from their car (which their wife drove) to their table at Bob Evans. Now granted, I’m normally not sprinting into Bob Evans or doing cartwheels down the isles or anything…..but 10 minutes!??? I’m in an interesting predicament here because:

I don’t want to grow old
AND
I don’t want to die young

Of course no matter what I do I’m going to die Young (get it, because my last name is Young, ha!). See what if I get old and lose that beautiful sense of humor…..

I started thinking about the worst part of dying. This is maybe kind of selfish, but the worst part is that everyone else keeps living! It reminds of times when I was a kid and I’d have to go to bed early while everyone else was still up having fun and playing games. That’s what death is like.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I want to take everyone with me when I go. “If I go we all go!” type thing. No. But it’s just so sad, don’t you think? I want to keep telling jokes and laughing and crying and feeling and stupid bike rides and great movies and silly romance and a kiss and a thunderstorm and a fucking sunrise! Pardon my french but a SUNRISE! Never again???

And all of my memories.

I know when you die you don’t get to take anything with you, but what about memories? Cus I want to take them all, everyone last one of them. Well…most of them. (A few I may conveniently forget to take with me.)