1982

I turn 30 in two weeks.

I'm pretty sure that I'm supposed to be filled with apprehension, dread, regret, and perhaps a mania to accomplish some sort of bucket list before my twenties die a thrashing, gnashing death.

More than anything, I've just been thinking too much. Not about "it" so much as cultural relativism and the fact that I may just be some sort of late bloomer. Just like the Ugly Duckling, except I started out bloody adorable.

"Twenties are the new teens." Or so they say. I can't imagine this staying the norm forever, what with the economy/country/civilization collapsing around us, but it certainly felt like standard operating procedure amongst the majority of my peers. In days of yore, whenever you completed whatever level of schooling you deemed appropriate, you went off and started a career or family or what-have-you. Nowadays, there seems to be this messy period of "finding oneself" and "self-growth." I blame those damned hippies.

By thirty, my folks had two kids. My mother was Supermom, juggling more than seemed humanly possible. My father was running his own business, squeezing in time for some seriously awesome art. By thirty, my grandparents had three kids and an auto shop. While I know a lot of this absolutely wasn't easy, it always felt that hard work and accomplishment just came naturally to them.

By thirty, I... hrm.

I guess that that's not really being fair to myself. I've been self-reliant since graduating college. I've managed to eke out two degrees in something I love, even though the second took me longer than it ever possibly should have. I've finally gotten my feet back on stage where they belong. I've read too much, expanded my palate beyond "cheeseburgers," and botched a few relationships, and I believe that I managed to remain a reasonably "good" person through it all. I can certainly say that I've "done stuff."

Have I done as much as I'd anticipated? I suppose not. Looking back, however, I'm not really sure what I was hoping to accomplish by this milestone. I knew I that I wanted to still be singing (I am). I knew that I wanted to be surrounded by family and friends that I loved (I am). I knew that I wanted to be a gigantic rockstar, melting faces across the country (hah). I haven't really accomplished a whole lot in the career and/or family department, but that can comfortably be attributed to the fact that the thought of making a living off of music is a more terrifying prospect than the thought of trying to sit through Nudist Colony of the Dead for a second time. Oh, and I'm real bad at dating.

Honestly, I can't look back and say I have that many serious regrets.

So: here I come, 30. I'm not really sure what life has in store for us, but let's try to keep it fun.

If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough

Reason is one of the those things that boggles the mind when the mind can be arsed to boggle about it. My collegiate Cartesian adventures in Philosophy 101 weren't amongst my proudest academic moments, but those textbooks are the ones still lining my bookshelves. I can't claim that Nietzsche makes the best subway reading (unless you're trolling for attention on a mid-day L train), but it's comforting to return to the older stuff every now and again. It satisfies the mind when thinking about thinking becomes too overwhelming.

When you get down to it, the ability to process a complex situation, weigh all variables, and make a reasonably informed decision is remarkable. Slather on a layer of basic intuition, and you've got the decision-making machine that has made us, as an animal, all self-important and stuff. I don't often take the time to mull it over, but it's a massively entertaining nugget of thought.

Far more entertaining: the human ability to follow that exact process and then actively choose to take the direct opposite course of action.

I've always pondered the gentle art of the purposeful bad decision. It's hard to imagine someone that hasn't made at least a few of these in their life; I'm pretty sure that damning the consequences is a general symptom of being a teenager. Rich mentioned this idea the other day: you know you're a grown-up when you actually start to think past the next few hours/days/weeks/etc.

But what of those of us that continue to flip the proverbial "bird" to courses of action that actually make sense? Those of us that acknowledge a solution to a problem, and then idly glaze over it while making things somehow worse? And, making it even more personal, what happens when you tack on a heapin' side dish of indecision? If one is going to spend so much time waffling on a decision, what reason can there for choosing what is clearly the "wrong" one?

Luckily, I've been able to relegate most of these bad decisions to the trivial. My wallet is thankfully devoid of wooden nickels. I've never improperly responded to shady gentlemen with a jacketful of eights. I know enough to not poke sleeping bears, but I've this dreadful habit of poking sleeping bunnies. Sure, they look cute and all, but those little buggers will go for the throat if you ruin their beauty sleep.

Despite their relentless adorability, bunnies require a whole lot of beauty sleep.

So I ask: why the follow-through on losing battles? Is it a wretched combination of following one's gut and morbid curiosity? Or, more likely, the vague hope that one can twist a bad decision into a positive result? Wouldn't it make more sense to just ignore the big red buttons that say "Don't Push," the wooded thickets filled with irate badgers, the nagging tickles on the back of your brain plainly letting you know that you could make life a whole lot simpler if you just paid a bit more attention?

Sure. But it would probably make life a bit less interesting.

Wherein Ed has had a crappy few weeks, and decided that the best course of action was obviously to whine about it on the Internet...

"Why are you so nice?"

I've kind of been wondering that myself.

Every so often, I have a quality sit-and-chat session with myself to ponder the merits of being a "nice guy." People, on the whole, are shit. Still, few things seem to draw sneers as quickly as the notion that nice guys finish last. I suppose that this sort of statement is as close as your average milquetoast will come to asserting himself, and that in and of itself is rather annoying. And often, these lackluster finishes can likely be attributed to an individual confusing "nice" with "doormat."

It can be mighty fine line.

That said, we live in a society that doesn't just embrace douchebaggery - it rewards it. Being a generic dickweed is like punching a cheat code into life. Our fine, fine media directs attention to the Newt Gingriches, the Kanye Wests, the Charlie Sheens. While nice guys might not finish last, it seems rather unlikely that they're going to be finishing first, if only because nobody is really paying them any attention.

So I ask: why bother? When "nice" is synonymized with "boring" at best and "stepping stone" at worst, there seems to be little impetus to take the high road. Is life more enjoyable when lived as a gargantuan toolbox? Or at least a little bit easier?

2011 in Music

Oh hey, it's February. This was my last year. Much love to y'all.

Man Man - "Knuckle Down"

Foster the People - "Waste"

Zilla Persona - "Slither"

Willie Nelson - "Crazy"

Patsy Cline - "She's Got You"

La Roux - "Not Your Toy"

Oasis - "Don't Look Back in Anger"

Tom Waits - "Hope I Don't Fall In Love With You"

Roger Alan Wade - "If You're Gonna Be Dumb, You Gotta Be Tough"

Velvet Underground - "After Hours"

Wherein Ed and Justin prepare for the holidays...

Justin: I want to start trying my own punch recipes, but I feel like I need to like... write out ingredients and mentally process it before actually buying it. I figure if I stick to the "1 sour 2 sweet 3 strong 4 weak" I should be okay.

Ed: Like, proportions?

Justin: Yeah. That's the traditional saying for making punch.

Ed: Grapefruit juice, honey, Rumplemintz, Coors Light.

Justin: ...yeah. Yeah, you've just about got it.

Wherein Ed remembers why he shouldn't read comments sections on the Internet...

"That was a pretty good movie, but it didn't have enough Citizen Kane in it."

As of late, I've taken to finally wading through Goodreads reviews, just to thumb through other folks' opinions on things I'm reading. It's the closest I can usually get to talking to someone about specific books, except for that rando time when a bunch of my friends read The World According to Garp at once. Or when Luke convinced me to give The Fountainhead another shot. In both cases, much literary symposium was had (in the passive voice) and it was lovely.

Anyways, the vast majority of the reviews of one of the books I'm currently slogging through boiled down to "This book is pretty good, but it doesn't have enough Bible in it." I don't think I get it.

If "not enough Bible" is your primary critique, what's the point of reading best-selling popular fiction? It's like sitting down to a game of Checkers and commenting that it's not enough like Chess. I get that the novel is essentially about a man's relationship with God, but it's trying to tell a story. If you'd really rather that not be the case, why not just read the Bible in the first place?

All I've taken from this experience: when I get around to writing The Great American Novel, it will be jam packed with Ezekiel 23:20. My public demands it.

Pumpkin faces in the night

Last year, I learned that the fastest route to a sad Halloween is affixing a shoddily constructed M.O.D.O.K. helmet to your face with Krazy Glue. As such, I wanted to celebrate All Hallows' Eve in a considerably lower-impact fashion.

If things got any lower-impact, I'd've just gone as Kevin Smith again.

Sure, I made efforts to secure a complete outfit of shining yellow, and even had made plans to fashion a tail out of some fabric store findings. As it turns out, they don't really make an extraordinary selection of yellow clothing for fat guys. I found a thirty-dollar pair of yellow sweatpants, some overpriced tracksuits, and t-shirts with designer labels that apparently add twenty dollars to whatever a t-shirt should actually cost.

By that point, I was too lazy to even schlep up to Queens for some yellow fleece.

Still, I owe many thanks to the lady on Etsy who fashioned an extra-large Pikachu helmet for my enormous dome. It's so warm and fashionable! And I managed to dress it up just enough to make me adorable for our first Scale of Six gig. Pika-pi, indeed.

Thanks again to everyone that came out last Friday, and a belatedly Happy Halloween to all!