The Most Interesting Man in the World

"I fly seaplanes," said the man at the bar, in response to my query.

Of course you do.

"Where at?" I asked, my curiosity justifiably piqued.

"Oh, I fly for little island resort...off the coast of India," he said, matter-o-factly.

You had me at seaplanes, sir.  You had me at seaplanes...

The man had been sitting at my bar for about 30 minutes, drinking vodka cranberries, stoically taking in our mundane conversations, work gossip, the miniature quarrels between coworkers.  His face was red, almost sunburned, and he appeared to be somewhere in the vicinity of 40.  He wore a neat salt-and-pepper goatee that nicely accented his genuine smile, and his eyes squinted slightly as if out of habit, drawing lines at the corners.  He also may or may not have been, from the moment he sat down, drunk.

Me: How's it goin' today, sir?  (speaking with a forced Southern-ish accent because I think it makes me sound more friendly and personable and "Texan", but probably actually just makes me sound unintelligent.)

Man: Been riding all day, need a drink (smiling as he said this, his round red cheeks lifting, his eyes disarming).

Erica (my bartender-in-crime): What can we get ya?

Man: Oh, I'll have a vodka cranberry.

Me: Ahhh, a man's drink! (laughing, trying to gauge his "good sport" level).

Man:  It's detox day.  Cranberry is good for the cleansing.  (Taking a drink from his cocktail.)  My name is Rob, good to meet you guys.

Now, most of the time, when a middle-aged man comes to sit at our bar alone, we pay very little attention to them.  Yes, we are cordial - we are paid to be cordial, are tipped on our show of goodwill to total strangers - but rarely engage them in anything other than superficial "shoot the shit" sort of conversations.  Most of them have the same story anyway: There are here on business, want to know what there is to do in this town [read: "how do I get to the strip clubs?" (which reside just across the Mississippi river)], are tired from whatever meeting or convention they have been attending, are usually from Omaha or Chicago or Indianapolis.  Rob, however, would not be dismissed so easily.  The more I learned about the visitor at my bar, the more I wanted to know.

Me: So Rob, where you from?

Rob:  Oh, here and there.  A little bit of everywhere (which is usually not as intriguing as it initially seems; usually, when someone says they are from "oh, here and there," they actually mean "I was born in [insert boring, Midwest city], and now live in [insert equally unexciting, Midwest city]..."here and there.")

Me: Like, where, most recently, are you from?

Rob: Um, Milwaukee.  I was there last night, just rode in to St. Louis today.

Okay.  This is getting a little more interesting.

As it turns out, Rob was on a cross-country motorcycle trip.  He had started somewhere in the Northeast, riding his Harley Davidson alone, and was eventually to end up in Alaska sometime later in the summer.  His home, as he described it me, was where ever he chose to sleep that night.  Like other bikers I had met before, I could tell he relished his freedom, his independence, his ability to change plans at a moment's notice.  His self-proclaimed "homelessness," though, was an unexpected twist to the "typical biker"'s biography.  [Anyone that knows me is aware that I have a affinity for vagabonds, secretly wishing their lifestyle to be my own but too grounded or cowardly to ever actually realize it.]  I decided to pry further, mentally taking notes to be filed under "in case I ever want to be homeless - yet seemingly well-off - this is how to accomplish it" within the recesses of my mind.

Me: So what, exactly, do you do that allows you to take extravagant, multiple month-long motorcycle trips cross-country?  (Did I sound too eager?)

Rob: Oh...I fly seaplanes...

He goes on to tell me about his line of work:  He flies for a small island resort off the coast of India, and his job is to shuttle "rich bastards" back and forth from the islands to the mainland.  "The pay is great, and my work schedule isn't too bad either," he tells me, explaining that he works about eight months of the year - which I gather is during the vacation season - which leaves the last four to enjoy his spoils.

Me: So, how did you end up with this amazing job, man?  You ex-military?

Rob: God no.  I barely have a high-school diploma. [A dropout, he went back for his GED].  I've been around planes my whole life.  My dad owned an airport and operated a skydiving school, so I was always playing in the hangars, going up with him...it's in my blood.  I love flying.

Me: Incredible...

Rob: But the job...ahhh...it's like any job.  You love it and you hate it.  I mean, I get to live this life, so it's great.  But I'm away from my friends and my family.  It gets old sometimes.

Me: I hear ya (briefly describing my own time spent abroad, empathizing with the loneliness that comes and goes when you are too far too away to visit on holidays).

Rob: But I don't know man...some of the things I've seen and the places I've visited...I don't know that I'd be happy doing anything else.

Rob, as I learned, has been everywhere.  He has caught manta rays off the coast of Africa on fishing trips.  He has eaten his way through the Czech Republic with a buddy who got them into the kitchens of some of the best restaurants in Eastern Europe.  A few months ago, he and some friends rented a beach house in Phuket, Thailand, for an entire month and lived like millionaires without spending more than a couple thousand dollars.  Next year, he informed me, he plans on taking the Transsiberian Railroad to Moscow and then traveling around Russia for a while...

That sonuvabitch.  That was MY idea...

And what's more, he had pictures to back all this up:  "Oh, here's me on our fishing trip [flashes a picture of him on a small boat holding an enormous fish]...oh, and here I am in Prague [a photo of a beautiful waitress holding an entire rack of ribs which are nearly as large as she is]."  For some reason, though, Rob doesn't come across as boastful or self-aggrandizing in the least (as many who have led extraordinary lives tend to be, so very proud of their exploits and accomplishments - myself probably included in this ilk).  In fact, he is almost humble, choosing only to divulge a new story when pressed, even for such an eager and receptive audience as myself.  His reserve is in equal measure to his enthusiasm, which I find astounding considering his colorful histories.

Me: Man, my dad would love to talk to you.  He used to be a pilot as well.  I know you fly seaplanes...my dad is a huge Jimmy Buffett fan...

Rob: Oh, yeah Jimmy?  Met him quite a few times.  In fact, me and his copilot Randy Leslie used to get drunk together a lot when I lived down in the Keys.  We used to fly around on [Jimmy's Plane] the Hemisphere Dancer when Jimmy was on tour.  Nice guys, both of em.  

No shit.  Of COURSE you did.  (how do you like that, dad?)

However, there comes a point in every conversation with a person like Rob when you have to step back and ask, "what exactly led a man like this - obviously intelligent, good-natured, friendly - to leave everything behind and pursue a life 'less ordinary'?  At what point did he decide that the 'American Dream' was not what he wanted for himself?"  This is always an interesting question to ask the "Robs" of this world...so I did.

"Well," he said without the slightest look of remorse on his face, "I tried the married life, the 9-5 thing for a while.  Was married 6 years to the daughter of a neurosurgeon.  We had it made.  But it ended, and I told her, 'All I want is my motorcycle, you can keep everything else,' and I left with $250.00 in my pocket and my bike; never looked back.  Took me a while to get on my feet...but I've got a little bit of money now.  It's kind of nice!"  He laughs deep, the vodka obviously beginning to take its toll.  His cheeks look a little rosier than when he first sat down, his eyes a touch dimmer.

"So what about now?" I asked him, the two hours and multiple drinks between us serving to dissolve the layers of formality; we were no longer strangers, but friends.  "What does the future hold for ol' Robert?"

He grinned big.  "Just riding, man, seeing this beautiful country, meeting up with long-lost friends along the way.  Of course, most of em' are married, have kids, can't quite keep up anymore," he laughs. "But that's okay.  I wear em' out and then move on.  I think Tom Petty said it best...it's the best advice I can give a young, ambitious man such as yourself."

"What's that?" I ask.

"If you never slow down, you never get old."

All Things Go, All Things Go... (Part II)

I arrive in Union Station, Chicago a little after two in the afternoon.  The air is surprisingly warm for February, but as I walk toward Lake Michigan I am folded into the shadows of the skyscrapers and the wind, as if sensing an opportunity to strike, adds a vicious bite to the chill of the shade.  I regulate my pace with the punch of the bass drum kick in my headphones.  Though I have been here many times, the city always stirs a sense of wonderment - the panorama of human diversity, the manifestations of man's inspiring potential, the feeling of being both extremely important and dauntingly insignificant - so different, such a stark contrast from the small towns and little cities where I spent most of my childhood and adolescence.

After walking around for a few hours, Chris meets me after work and we take the train to his apartment in Wicker Park, where we catch up over cheap vodka mixers.  As always, there is an effortlessness between us, and we allow the conversation to ebb and flow organically.  Yeah, yeah, things are great.  Yeah, me too, me too.  Aw, Cherie is good, yeah.  I'm glad you came up man.  I can tell we are beginning to move in different directions, his path diverging from mine slightly, the legitimacy of his career and the seriousness of his love interest putting some space between our respective points.  But with Chris, this does not worry me.  Our friendship does not rely on the congruency of our life decisions, but solely on a foundation of shared memories and the knowledge that he actually knows me - knows the most awful, terrible shit about me, has known me at my most absolutely brilliant (is that now?); I am completely unguarded, flayed, exposed...unapologetic.

We get drunk that night even though Chris has to work in the morning, and when I wake up he is already gone.  I shower and dress, stumbling down the stairs into a chilly and dreary morning, the cold amplified by the wetness in the air.  On the train back downtown, I text Carly to make sure she hasn't forgotten about me.  I am already feeling a little nervous about everything: about seeing her for the first time in four years (what if it is weird/awkward?) and about being around for her shoot ("okay, who let this dumbfuck in here?!?") and about other things I can't define or am too embarrassed to admit (what if I get on T.V.?  Jesus, my hair looks so stupid right now...).  Why the hell am I nervous?  This is going to be fun, right?  Right.  (Right?)

I arrive at the Riviera Theater under a steady drizzle, ducking as I run across the street (as if lowering my head will keep me from getting soaked, which I already am by the time I reach the venue doors).  Of course, they are locked.  "Doors ain't open yet," says a grungy-looking man changing the marquee in the rain and wearing a t-shirt despite the frigid temperatures.  "I know, I'm just..."  Oh shit, what do I say?  I'm not really with MTV...I don't want to lie and misrepresent myself.  Does this man know who Carly is?  If I say her name will he be like, "well, hail, h'why didn'ya say so?!" and let me in?  

"I'm...uh...waiting for somebody," I stutter, looking guilty though having no real reason to be.  I realize now, being drenched and disheveled and bleary-eyed, that I probably look like a drug dealer, someone here to supply a band member with his fix.  The cops will surely be here any minute to take me away...

Carly comes to the door just as my imagination is whipping up the sound of approaching sirens.  "Tom Tom!" she says, and gives me a hug that feels like coming home after being gone for a long time.  She is exactly how I remember her, but also so different somehow.  Her smile is the same, the way she tilts her head back when she laughs, her eyes are still bright even in the darkened foyer... Is it the way she moves, more gracefully, more fluidly?  Is she taller?  I can't...quite...figure...it...out...

I follow her upstairs to the balcony where she will be shooting her segment.  The theater is amazing, everything is old and wooden, colorful and slightly decaying.  We - me and Carly, another MTV veejay named Erinn, the camera crew, the production assistants, and the producer - are the only ones in the balcony, and over the chipped metal railing I watch the roadies and techies assembling the stage for tonight's performance.  Though now on a much grander scale, the feeling of being "behind the scenes" or "somebody cool enough to be around for sound-checks" reminds me of playing in shitty punk bands in high school and college, of taking shots in parking lots before going on-stage, of dirty rooms crammed with instruments, of asshole club owners and "x"s on our hands and the feeling that we were invincible when we were up on the stage.

After a few minutes, the camera begins rolling and I try to shrink myself to nothing so as not to be in the way.  (I picture the producer yelling, "Damnit! Carly, your idiot friend is in the shot again!" and then Carly yelling "Damnit! Tommy, inviting you [or letting you invite yourself, whatever] was the worst idea ever!" and then me casting myself out into the rain, sleeping in an alley, catching diphtheria and dying a slow, agonizing, and deserving death.)  I have never been part of, or even really witnessed, any sort of production, and the process amazes me.  I begin to see why Carly was chosen for this job over, most likely, hundreds of other applicants; she is magnetic and vibrant, sucking in all the light and energy from the room and exploding it back out like a dying star.  I imagine that there are probably dorm-room fan clubs for her in Universities all over the country, girls talking about her hair and her clothes, guys talking about her...everything else...

I think I figured it out.  What?  The things that's different about her...the different thing. And...?  Well, it like watching fireworks.  They are always beautiful and colorful and you are like "ohmygod this is awesome" when you are laying in the summer grass on a blanket, looking up at them.  Yes...  But then, at the end, they always do the "finale" and it just blows your mind, ya know?  The lights just take up your whole field of vision and the endless BOOMS from the explosions and it's like a sensory overload.  So, what you're trying to say is...?  What I'm saying is, when I knew her before, Carly was like fireworks.  But now...now she is like the finale.  She is herself x100.  She is brighter than you thought you could handle...

[I wonder if I will ever find my "finale"?]

The rest of the afternoon is uneventful though anything but dull, and we spend quite a bit of time in the small, basement room that serves as "backstage" for the bands.  I don't say much, just listening to the stories being told, the names being dropped, the places that everyone has been and the places that everyone is going.  I feel like a foreigner with only a tentative grasp of the native language.  The lives led by Carly, Erinn, and many of the MTV personnel are fascinating, completely out of my depth; they are swimming in oceans while I fumble around in kiddie pools.  I am both inspired and ashamed, both motivated and humbled.  This is the cool kids table.  This is the jet set life that I have always wanted to kill me.  This is "IT".  

Hours (and a few more shoots) later, the show begins.  As kids stream in out of the cold, dripping and exuberant, Carly disappears upstairs to film from the private balcony box, leaving me alone to watch the first band, Walk The Moon.  God they are good, rock n' roll with just a hint of a Souther accent, well-dressed in Pop sensibility.  They put on a helluva show too, and I question the headliner, Young The Giant's ability to upstage them.  Before the end of Walk The Moon's set, Carly comes to take me back up to the box with her, warding off the bouncer who is guarding the entrance with a smile and a nod.  Did he recognize her?  Probably.  But who could've said no to a smile like that, anyway?

And suddenly, here I was, in arguably the best seat in the house, overlooking a sea of eager faces and a mere 20 feet from the stage.  How did this happen?  I leaned in close to Carly's ear to shout over the noise.  "You know how its really easy to look back on things and realize how cool they were, but sometimes it's hard to recognize just how incredible your life is in the moment, you know, when it's all happening?" I yelled as the stage lights reflected in her eyes.  "This is not one of those times."

photo courtesy of Carly

Sometimes it just hits me, all at once, and I can't hardly stand it.  This life is just too much to bear. 

Music: Walk The Moon

This is one of the bands I saw in Chicago in February.  I am STILL singing this song...

"We tore up the walls, we slept on couches, we lifted this house, we lifted this house"

All Things Go, All Things Go... (Part I)

Carly:  You should come up and see me when I'm in Chicago!

Me:   You mean, at the shoot?!  At a show?!  Okay, that sounds like fun.  I'll try and come.

Or maybe the conversation actually went something like this:

Carly:  So I think I'm going to be doing a shoot in Chica....

Me:  I'll be there!  Can I crash on your floor?!?

I'm never quite sure if I invite myself to these things or just assume I am being invited.  I mean, I'm a fun guy, right?  Who wouldn't want me to tag along on their various road trips, family gatherings, bachelorette parties, etc.  I have a unique skill set that makes me invaluable in any social situation or event:

• I can talk to anyone, and will in fact, in all honesty, probably lie in order to have something in common with whomever I am speaking. ("Oh, you were a Vietnam Prisoner of War, too!?  Those Vietcong sure can make a mean bamboo prison, can't they?!"  [good natured chuckle, har har, slap on the back]).
• Given enough drink, I will perform any number of tasks, from scaling tall objects (such as trees or corporate art) to throwing my body into traffic to hail a taxi.  ("Buy Jommy another shot...it's raining and I don't want to get wet waiting for a cab").  Hours of entertainment, I am...like a rubix cube or a smartphone in the hands of an elderly person.
• I will never turn down food, especially if it's free.  Or a day-old.  Or you found it under the seat of your car.  Moms love me for this reason.  ("Oh my, he ate everything!; he even made a tiny sandwich out of the decorative parsley.  That poor, starving boy," they say, feigning worry, but are secretly thrilled that they have found someone to try out their new "tuna fish and broccoli lasagna" recipe on.) 
• I can sleep anywhere, on anything, and most likely will pass out somewhere you think is strange or uncomfortable - like on the stone fireplace hearth or in the bathtub - before you have time to blow up the air mattress.  My mind is young and virile, but my ability to slip into a shallow coma at a moment's notice is parallel to an 80 year-old man with narcolepsy.  

And so (due largely because of my ability to get her a taxi, I suspected), Carly invited me or I invited myself or whatever...the point is that I decided to go to Chicago to hang out with her and see her at her "work."  The reason I place "work" in quotation marks is because, to almost anyone else in the entire world, her job would be considered an acceptable prize for the winner of a sweepstakes or a radio contest:

Radio Announcer: Congratulations!  You are the 184th caller!  You win a chance to travel around the country, all expenses paid, attending shows, festivals, and glamorous events, all while interviewing students and celebrities and looking amazing on camera!

Caller 184 (in raspy smoker's voice and thick backwoods drawl):  Ohmygod ohmygod omygod!!!  Jesper!  Pack yer sheee-iiiit!  Werr goinnuh SHEEE-CA-GO!!!!"

Carly, see, is an MTVU Veejay.  Her job - though it goes against my long-held definition that a job should be funless, inglorious, and generally soul-sucking - is to be a rockstar at cool-ass events in cities all over this great country.  And somehow, she has managed to trick someone into paying her for this!  [In all fairness, she is really good at her job.  Like, sometimes, even though we are friends, I get the overwhelming urge to ask her for her autograph].  She is, in my estimation, the closest thing I have ever witnessed to "success"; success being defined, of course, not by money or possessions or status, but instead by being truly happy and excited to be doing something that you genuinely love to do.  She is a rare case, an endangered species, an anomaly.  She is living out her dreams.  And for this reason, in her presence I am in awe...

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The new day's air is cutting as it leaks in through the cracks in the moulding around my windows making my room chillier than is desirable or comfortable.  The light spills through the glass raw and grey, pooling on the hardwood floors.  I pack my bag hurriedly, not wanting to miss the bus that is waiting to take me North, through the farms and small towns of America's Heartland, then into the suburbs which grow with each mile, resembling the "Evolution of Man" posters in science classrooms; crawling, stooping, walking, sprinting and finally...Chicago.  The pinnacle of man's existence.  I am nervous.  By late afternoon I will be in wandering the streets of the city, and by tomorrow I will be at a concert because of a beautiful girl, trying too hard to make her laugh because it's all I have to offer as repayment.  I will be contraband, an illegal alien, she will sneak me in through the side door when no one is watching.  I will not be seen, only a grateful shadow on the wall, an illusion made between light and not-light, basking just outside the soft glow of everything.  I will look on, and the music will roll me like waves...

I am ready.  (I am completely unprepared)....

[Author's note: if you want to know more about Carly, you can follow her here:  http://wecouldgrowuptogether.tumblr.com/  Or, you know, just watch her on television.  Link below for those too lazy to cut and paste.]

The 3 Lies

This blog, this...book...is largely a collection of stories, the ways in which my life - and all our lives - intersect at a million different points with everyone else's existence, the bricks that comprise the nameless tower that will stretch toward the sun ad infinitum but will never be finished.  This should be obvious by now.  However, you were warned in beginning that this may contain some philosophies, some misguided ideologies, some elements of poetic grandstanding.  I realize that some of you did not come for didacticisms, but simply for a five minute respite from your daily routines, hoping to find some humor or perspective by comparing our mistakes and missteps (like sharing scars); for those of you who feel this way, kindly skip over the following section.  It will not hold any truth for you.  But for those among you who wake up each day and feel the slightest tinge of hopelessness; for those who always feel one day behind happiness; for those who feel that they can never quite catch their breath - I want you to know that you are not alone.
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We have fallen victim to deceit.  The deceivers - our parents, our "responsible" friends, our concerned older siblings - mean the best for us, want us to be happy (they do, I promise); they cannot understand why we struggle and fight and refuse to go quietly.  They bought into a system that worked for them, and thus feel it should work for everyone, that it should have mass appeal and stunning infomercial-like results.  You're not doing it right.  No...damnit...you have to do it like this.  But for me [and here I will stress that my experience may be entirely singular and I may, in fact, be completely alone], their system is a broken thing.  It falls to pieces right out of the box.  It is not a compass or a guide; it is a poorly packed parachute, a magician at a birthday party, the feeling of getting lost in the grocery store when you were 4 years-old.

I know you are trying to help.  But please...


Just like any good philosophy, the belief system of our worried loved-ones (with their tired eyes and furrowed brows) rests on a number of premises that are taken to be true - that may actually be truths - but which I perceive as non-truths.  I have deduced that these pillars of wisdom lack structural integrity, at least in my own life, and should therefore be torn down and replaced with something terrifyingly new and different.  But first, let us consider these and my arguments against them:

The Three Lies

1.  There Is A Timeline (And You Need To Be On It)

Our lives are dictated by schedules.  We must wake up before 3 p.m. or we are considered "unmotivated" and compared to a slug by our roommates.  We must get to work on time or (our boss had assured us that) "getting to work on time" will cease to be an issue for us.  We must return Season 3 of "How I Met Your Mother" to Netflix or they are never going to send us Season 4, damnit.  There are certain things we want to accomplish in our lives, and to fit them all in we must line them up neatly on a timetable so that "this" comes before "that" and everything goes according to plan.  Here is an example of a timetable:

• 22: Graduate College
• 22-24: Travel, Kill Some Time, Sleep Around, Be Irresponsible
• 24: Begin My Career
• 25-27: Meet The Man/Woman of My Dreams & Fall in Love
• BEFORE 28!!!: Get Married
• BEFORE 30!!!: Have First Child
• BEFORE 35!!!: Stop Having Childs
• 65: Retire

Many would probably agree that this Timeline closely mirrors the one they had upon graduating from high school.  It is beautiful, is it not?; everything orderly and precise and American.  But unfortunately, for many of us, this is not how Life works.  Time, in His infinite wisdom, does not give a shit about our picayune attempts at mapping out our own destinies.

There are holes in the system.  How, for example, are we to assure that we meet our future spouses and are coupled by 28?  Are we to just marry whomever we happen to be with at this time (so as to stay on pace)?; are we to force ourselves to fall in love at the appropriate moment, like an actor taking a cue from offstage?  And what of this "career" we should be starting at the age of 24?  What if we are not ready, at 24, to begin working tirelessly for 40 hours a week (for the next 40 years) in the same office on the same street in the same town?  What if we are not ready at 30?  What if we are never ready?  (A *gasp* from the crowd.  A woman faints).

"But Jommy," the females in the room say, flustered, "what if I want to have children?  Of course I want to be married and financially secure by then and I'm kindof 'on the clock', you know?...there are risks, and I don't really want to have a baby with Down Syndrome or something...I mean, if I did I would still love it...of course I would love it...it's just, life is hard enough as it is, ya know?"  Yes, I understand.  There are risks.  But in response to your concerns I pose three points:

1. You will, in all liklihood, not be ready for your child when you have one.  You will not be financially secure.  It will come at the worst possible time for your career.  You may not even be married.  You forgot to give your baby a copy of your Timeline in advance.  Ooops.  I'm sorry.  You will love me anyway.
2. So, let's say you "run out of time."  35 comes and goes, and your maternal clock has counted down to zero detonating a blitzkrieg-style maternal bombing raid on your maternal psyche.  If you still desire a child so bad, why not adopt?  Will you love an adopted child any less than you would a natural one? (If you say "yes" then you are a bad person).  "But there is just something about having a piece of me, something I made, in the world..." you say.  Grow up, narcissist.  Paint a goddam picture if you are so obsessed with leaving your mark on this planet...
3. Perhaps we are not all meant to have children, and your timeline needs to be amended.  Everyone will be forced to make sacrifices in their lives; maybe yours is  giving up the dream of having a bunch of screaming, crying, ADD-riddled children sprinting around giving each other pink eye.  Look at it this way: You will have SO much more time, money, and measurable success than any of your friends, and your body will look great well into your 40s...

To put ourselves on a Timeline assumes that there is a "right" and a "wrong" way to go about this crazy experiment we call "living," and furthermore, that if we do not adhere to it we have somehow let ourselves down.  But this is a lie.  There is no right way or wrong path...this is not some multiple choice test we can ace or fail.  Things will happen as they are meant to, and your timeline will look different than mine; it does not mean that one of us has fucked it all up, just that we are traveling at different paces, and, in all probability, running completely different races.

...and a beautiful segue from my "race" metaphor into...


2.  There Is A Finish Line

From a very young age, we are taught that, if we persevere, we will eventually finish whatever race we have been running.  "Keep practicing and maybe you'll play pro ball someday [read: cross the finish line]," say the chorus of a million fathers to the hopeful ears of a million naive sons every spring; OR "Keep up the hard work, someday you'll be running this place [read: crossing the finish line]," says the grey-haired CEO insincerely to the unnamed intern; OR "Get a career, stick with it...you'll be retiring in no time [read: crossing the finish line]," says everyone, to me, since I turned 22.

But these, as I perceive them, are non-truths.  Perhaps they can be considered goals, mile-markers, points of interest - but they are not endings.  There is only one true ending, and that is death.  It is the only period in a 1000-page novel that has but a single, exhaustingly-long run-on sentence. (The English major in me shudders at the thought).  The idea that we can ever finish the race is a fallacy.

Take retirement, the biggest lie ever sold to the American Working Man (or Woman) in the history of time.  Nevermind that we, as twenty-somethings, will never reap the benefits of Social Security, and therefore (for those of us who have no idea what an IRA or 401K is) will work until pieces of us start falling off.  Even those baby-boomers now, who DO get Social Security and have decided to retire at 65; they do not stay retired!  They all go out and get other jobs!  The continue working!  They have finished the race, yet they keep running long after the ribbon has been broken and the spectators have left their seats and gone home for the evening.  WHY?!?!  Because retirement is not a finish line, but simply a water break, a chance to catch one's breath for a moment before continuing on...

No one wants to spend the last twenty years idle, decomposing in an armchair surrounded by a million completed crossword puzzles.  [16 down: "having no clear termination point, as in ____ story." (hyphenated word)].

I actually met a guy in Taiwan who claimed that he wrote "Retired" on forms when they asked for his occupation.  "Why would you do that," I question.  "Because," he said, "I AM retired!  Everyone does it all backwards.  Why retire when you are old and feeble, unable to explore and hike and sleep on the ground and take a shit in the woods and eat dairy products?!"  He smiled like he knew a secret no one else knew.  "I will be retired NOW, when I am young and can fully experience my life!  I know that it means I will have to work until I die...I'm okay with that.  I will pass away in my cubicle, no problem.  What the fuck else am I gonna do when I'm 80?"  "What about money?  Aren't you poor with no job?" I asked, looking for fractures in his logic.  "Of course I'm poor!" he exclaimed, "but retirement isn't about having money; it's about having freedom!  And besides, most of the retired people I know are poor anyway.  MIght as well be poor now when I can make the best of it."

Can you imagine, working your entire life, saving diligently, making every responsible decision so that, one day, you can retire comfortably, and then as you are coming home from your last day of work you are struck by a truck who runs a red light and are instantly killed?
But all of this may be missing the point entirely:  It is not about the finish line (even if there was one); It is only about the race itself.  We are not here to finish anything.  We are here to run, run in the sunshine and in the rain, run to those we love, run until our lungs are bursting and tears are streaming down our cheeks and we think - we know - we will collapse but we don't because we will never stop.  We will run forever.

...and that brings us to...


3.  The Best Lived Life is One Lived With No Regrets

If we do everything to the best of our ability, if we try our hardest and leave everything on the table, if we take every opportunity to engage life, to experience life...then we will have no regrets at the end, when it is all said and done.  We will be able to read through our stories with absolute satisfaction, knowing that we have written them in the best possible way.

This is Lie #3: There is no such thing as a life without regret.

Regret is inherent to the human condition.  It is part of our makeup, intrinsic to us, interwoven into the fabric of our beings.  This is not to say that we, as people, are regretful.  Or that we constantly harp upon the past and wonder "what could have been" or "I wish I would've have done this or that differently."  (Though I tend to find myself doing this more than I would like to admit).  No, I would never advocate regret in this form of second-guessing and backtracking, for then its persistence in our lives would mean that happiness was altogether impossible.

We live with regret because life, as we experience it, is made up of choices, an infinite number of choices that begins accosting us when we are 2 years old and does not let up into we go to sleep for the last time.  We must choose everything.  We must choose our appearances, our schools, our lovers, our jobs, our attitudes, our beliefs, and our identities.  We must make choices about what to eat that day, which way to turn at an intersection, whether to give money to a homeless man or not.  We must choose one thing, one direction, one path.  But because we choose, something always gets lost.  Something is always not chosen.

Two paths diverged in a yellow wood...


Regret, by definition, denotes loss; a missing of something.  For each choice we make, we miss out on something.  Most of the time we make the decision that is obvious, the right decision, the decision that will yield us happiness or keep us safe or prevent us from getting food poisoning [a little mold never hurt anybody, right?].  But sometimes, we make the wrong decision.  And sometimes, there is no right decision; sometimes, all options look equally valid.  What then?
I realize, to most normal people, looking at life this way would be maddening.  "You cannot possibly scrutinize every decision and try to play out how you think your life would go if you had chosen the other path, Jommy," you rationalize, because you are a rational person, "you will drive yourself insane."  And I do.  But the truth is, we all have questions about our lives, we all wonder where we would be if we would have chosen Door #2 instead of taking the money and calling it quits.  I firmly believe that even the happiest people in the world still hear that faint whisper when the house is quiet and the moon is casting shadows in the dark blue midnight: what if...
It is not about living a life without regret, therefore, but learning to live with the regrets we have.  We will have to make choices.  We will not have time to do everything, to see everything, to experience everything this life has to offer us.  We will choose to have children instead of travel the world; we will choose to have promising careers instead of starting rock bands in basements; we will choose to live in Phoenix or Baltimore.  We cannot do it all, some things must be differed indefinitely.

Happiness is possible when we realize that regret is unavoidable, but that our regrets shape us as much as our choices.  We are a product of all the things we have chosen to do and not to do.  We must embrace our losses, and then learn to let them go (because loss is part of living and confirms that "yes, you are alive.  Now, right now...this is life!").

We are all just trying to do the best that we can with what we have been given.

Music: Conditions

This is one of my new favorite bands.  The lyrics seem to mirror my own personal beliefs:

"Hey, if I'm wrong at all for living this way...I'm all right being wrong."

The Steve McQueen of Pub Crawls

The idea of a pub crawl is ridiculous, the act itself superfluous and fantastic.  Its like going shopping for ingredients to make dinner, but instead of just going to one store where you could easily get all the items you need, you spend three hours driving to Target, Hy-Vee, Trader Joe's, and even your local dirty-ass gas station because they have 99 cent slushies this week and how the hell you gonna make dinner without a fuckin' cherry/bluerazzberry mixed slushy may I briskly enquire!?  [Take note, Walmart should never, under any circumstances, EVER be patronized because it is both the epitome and the manifestation of all the is wrong with America.  I will now dismount from my soapbox because I don't have health insurance and do not want to injure myself in the fall sure to come from my wildly passionate gesticulations.]

Example of a pub-crawl conversations still using the grocery store/dinner making metaphor:

"Hey, I know this place has eggs, but I heard this other place also has eggs, so we should check out their eggs here in a minute."

"What's wrong with the eggs here?  The game is on and I don't wanna miss the end..."

"Nothing is wrong with the eggs here.  But the vegetables here suck, I mean, look around.  I'd really like to try and score with a hot vegetable tonight and these vegetables have clearly seen better days..."

etc.

Yet, whenever someone says "hey, would you like to pay $35 (the beneficiary of this money is never quite clear) to engage in the alcoholic equivalent of speed dating?" the answer is always an emphatic, "hell yes!  Just in time, too, my wounds from the last round of binge-drinking are newly healed!"  And off you go, spending no more than 30 minutes at each location, furiously soaking in each new environment while imbibing the required amount of alcohol needed to tiptoe the line between functioning and walking disaster, between remembering and wishing you didn't.

My latest pub crawl adventure was no different in form, just in content.  First, it was billed as a "Derby Day/Deliverance" crawl by Steph ("Derby Day" because it was the day of the Kentucky Derby and "Deliverance" because all the bars were in rural Illinois where silly things like eco-friendly automobiles and racial diversity don't exist). Unfortunately, I looked neither "Derby-esque" nor "I own a gun-like" in my v-neck and tight jeans; I conceded to the possibility that, in all likelihood, I was going to be dragged to death behind someone's truck before the night's end.  Take me swiftly, Land of Lincoln.

Some of the highlights of the evening:

• Being transported in - can you guess it? - that's right...a stretch Hummer limo.  I have never felt classier than when falling out of a 30 foot-long Sport Utility Vehicle that gets 4 miles to the gallon.  Nascar Nation's collective wet dream.
• Going to bars which were mostly named "Hank's" or "Dave's" and realizing that the bartender actually was Hank or Dave, and furthermore, Hank or Dave actually lived here because the bar was actually just the back of Hank or Dave's house.
• Hearing the Old Crow Medicine Show's "Wagon Wheel" no less than 16 times.  Still a great goddam song, I don't care how many times you play it.

And the highlight of the night:

Whilst at out final stop - a bar called "Big Styx" or "Big Stiks" or  "Big Stix" or some other awful mistreatment of the English language - I noticed a large group of guys, maybe 6 or 7 of them, boxing up their leftovers, which consisted of half an enormous pizza and about 30 wings, prepared in both the "hot" and "barbeque" style.  They stacked their boxes up neatly, seemed ready to divvy up the spoils, then suddenly...they were gone.  

15 minutes passed.  The boxes beckoned. 

A member of our group came by.  "Load em' up!" he yelled to me over the loud country music.  It was time to make a judgement call.  I had to act.  Smoothly, confidently, I strolled over to the boxes and rescued them from abandonment, annexing them from their lonely corner-table orphanage.  Walk quickly, don't look back, don't look suspicious, everything will be...all...right.  Out into the cool night that smelled of summer, I knew I had pulled off the heist.  I was a magician, cool liquid in my veins.  I was invisible to the naked eye.  I was Steve McQueen.

And the best part:

Me [getting into the stretch Hummer]:  Who wants FOOD!?

Ravenous, drunken pub-crawlers: Holy shit!  You bought pizza and wings for us?!?!?

Me: Nope!  Here ya go!!! (Perhaps everyone took this as a joke, or were too drunk to care.  Either way, no further questions were asked.)  

Steph threatened to expose me, for she knew the truth.  But I was untouchable, the unspoken hero of the pub-crawl, the vanquisher of hunger from alcohol-filled stomachs.  Nothing was so beautiful as watching the glassy-eyed dipsomaniacs rip the leftovers to shreds, fingers covered in sauce, happy in their satisfied ignorance.

[Author's Note: Of course, I had some too.  If we go down, we go down together.  And, for those of you who think this disgusting...well, that is a post for another day.  The illusion of cleanliness, the illusion of saftey; don't buy in. (Why do I keep finding myself up on this damn soapbox?  It's so dangerous up here.)]

What Color Is Your Blood?

The is no hockey in Texas.  I mean, there is, technically; there is the Dallas Stars and the Houston Aeros and various other small-city semi-pro teams with catchy names like "The Tornadoes" or the illustrious "Brahmas" (which, google tells me, is a truculent breed of chicken), and which all employ European and Russian players because no self-respecting Canadian is going to move to Amarillo where they have no snow (eh?), no poutine (EHHH?!?), and if you break your face with a puck (or someone's fist) it costs $allofyourmoney.00 to fix it (ehhh...fuck that).

No, Texans would prefer to smash their bodies into one another under the blistering sun, twice a day at the peak of summer, wearing the same amount of pads hockey players do but running around in weather that is comparable to a sauna.  Texans do not believe in concussions, only "stingers";  it is no coincidence that God made "water" and "weakness" both begin with the letter "w"; high school quarterbacks are stars, are celebrities, are...gods.

My father, no doubt, wanted this for me.  He had high hopes.  I was going to bleed under the bright lights, I was going to throw game winning touchdowns, I was going to get drunk and get laid by homecoming queens and make mistakes that the cops would overlook/coverup and I was going to taste the local fame that only small-town athletes can taste.
 
And then we moved to Missouri, where baseball and football still hold their place as perennial favorites, but hockey had managed to claw its way into the hearts of a small but loyal group of followers.  I couldn't tell you why, exactly, but suddenly I was obsessed with a sport I barely even knew existed before.
 
"You wanna play what?" my father sputtered, seeming to not even know what the word meant.  "Hockey!?  Why would anyone wanna skate around on ice?!?!  Don't they get COLD?!?!"  He was appalled, as any good Texan would be.  His dismay continued when, upon entering the sporting good store to outfit me for my new favorite sport, he realized that hockey is, far and away, the most expensive sport ever invented.  Except for maybe polo.  Or golf.  (A disturbing correlation between "price of sport" and "length of object used to hit smaller object in said sport" has suddenly been discovered.)

Yet, despite his misgivings, he was supportive, and over time I slowly converted him to fandom.  The St. Louis Blues was our team, of course, and throughout my childhood it was one of the ways we bonded as father and son.  Some of my favorite memories of the Boys in Blue include:

• October, 1996.  Game 7 of the NLCS between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Atlanta Braves.  My dad had somehow acquired tickets to both the baseball game and a Blues game, though one was of monumental importance and one was basically meaningless.  "Which would you like to go to?" he asked, surely assuming I would choose the baseball game.  "Duh," I said.  "Hockey all the way." He never tried to talk me out of it, never uttered a word against my decision. Later that night, as the Blues scored their 6th goal (going on to win 6-1) and the small scoreboard in the Kiel Center read: "Cardinals - 0, Braves - 15" (arguably one of the worst meltdowns in professional baseball history), I think he was happy with the call I had made.
• "Perhaps I shouldn't drive home," Dad said.  "I think I've had one too many drinks."  I had not had anything to drink.  I also didn't have a license.  I didn't have any drinks or a license because I was 15.  "You'll be fine," he said as we got into the car after the Blues game, "just head South."  I was terrified, my first time driving in the city...at night...in the middle of post-game traffic.  The windows were fogged from my quickened breaths.  All the streets were one-way, downtown St. Louis being designed with the intention of regulating the flow of traffic but succeeding only in driving people insane.  Somehow, amidst the dodging of swerving vehicles from the thousands of inebriated fans who did not have underaged, illegal chauffeurs, we made it home in one piece.  What doesn't kill you makes you...invincible.
• Brett Hull scores a hat trick on "I'm going to throw this piece-of-shit hat away anyway" hat night against the Detroit Redwings.  It took the on-ice crew 45 minutes to clear the ice.  Favorite sports moment ever.

This year, the Blues, the team of my childhood, played their hearts out.  And we noticed.  Blues fans are different, see.  We do not give up on our team the way Cardinals fans do when they are 8.5 games back with 21 to play.  We do not say "there's always next year" because goddamnit EVERY year is our year and only losers say "there's always next year".  We bleed and we believe because loyalty is about much more than winning and championships and bragging rights.
 
The Blues are my team because they are a part of my history, they are built into the walls of my memories.  They are me and my dad, the smell of the ice rink and the sound of a thousand voices ringing as I fall into a deep sleep.  LGB.  Thks Fr Th Mmrs.

Music: The Naked and Famous

So, as to preserve consistency (but more for me to adhere to a routine than anything else because, otherwise, I will forget what day it is and sleep through entire weeks), On Wednesdays I will be posting  things I deem cool or hip or just, in general, worthy of your time.  (Probably also doing shameless self-promoting, too, because I am not above this). 

I've been listening to the these guys a lot when I run.  Love music videos with fireworks.

 

"fall back in love eventually.  yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."

The Book of Jommy: An Introduction

I have heard it said that, if we manage to make it through childhood and adolescence, we will have enough stories to fill a thousand-page novel.  Can’t you picture it now?  Sitting by the window, late afternoon light falling through the curtains at angles, your thin and wrinkled fingers carefully turning the yellowing pages, reading and reliving all of the joy and pain and love.  A lifetime worth of memories, one fragile page after another.

Perhaps I haven’t realized it fully until now.  Or maybe I have always known and couldn’t see the worth in it.  But I think I am ready to embrace the idea of it now, ready to realize my potential, as people keep annoyingly saying to me (like potential is something I misplaced and need help finding, like my keys or my dignity); I am a storyteller.  It may, in fact, be the one thing I actually excel in - aside from my ability to eat, well, anything regardless of expiration date or time spent on the floor - this being from the immoderate amount of practice I have had over the years.  

Just ask anyone that has spent more than ten minutes with me.  ”Oh, yeah,” they’ll say, eyes widening, shaking head knowingly, “with that dude it’s all ‘remember the time when we drank all that [insert any alcohol that comes in a plastic bottle] and then fell off that [insert object of considerable height] and Cole broke his [insert any body part, because Cole’s bones are made of glass]’ or ‘aw, dude, let me tell you about the time I was in ASIA cause I’m edgy and adventurous’….yeah, that guy is lame.”  But I cannot help it, it is what I do.  I live for the story almost as much as I live for the experience.

I remember getting in a fight with an old girlfriend once (not old as in “golden-years” but old as in “one who has been permanently relegated to the past-tense”) who was upset because, when around my friends and family, all I seemed to do was reminisce.  ”All you ever talk about is shit that I can’t relate to because I wasn’t there,” she said in a not-at-all-bitchy tone, “and I just have to sit there and listen.”  And the more I contemplated this, the more I realized that she was completely right. I do spend large amounts of time reliving the past, laughing over the stupid shit I’ve done, remembering and perfecting the art of blending histories with fictions, swinging from the narrative arc.

But why?  

I do not live in the past [mostly true] and am not so insecure that I need to cling to these anecdotes as proof of a life well lived [also probably mostly true]; for me, these stories are how I define my own existence.  They connect me to everyone I love, and through them I can see the fingertips stretching into the lonely abyss that separates us all from everyone else.  If you are in my stories then you are forever a part of my family, eternally attached to the millions of threads extending from my chest and going forth, silent, into the blackness.  They are my currency.  Some day I may die - but probably not - and all that will be left is some dog-eared paperback books, a bank account containing $43.75, and my stories.  They are the greatest and most important thing I will ever own, and because of them I will be hungry and cold and lonely….and rich.

Hemingway: The Great Storyteller

__________________________________________________________

This blog, like all blogs, will be self-indulgent, perhaps meandering, at times abstruse, and probably contain post which are all…too…goddam…long.  Still, it is a way to tell my stories, and perhaps make someone laugh or think (or more likely, make someone say, “Jesus, I can’t believe he still ate that” or something equally horrific).  Like all good Gospels, it will have misguided philosophies and parables, flashes of truth mixed with the romance of myth.  So gather at my figurative feet, and I shall tell you a tale…