Judging by the ol' counter in the upper left corner of this blog, readership has slowed a bit lately. Perhaps I've alienated the childless demographic with the recent Ryan saturation. Or maybe the increasing fart-jokes-per-post ratio has turned off the cultural elite. Or maybe your you're all realizing I just don't write very good well, and as a result I'm loosing losing readers.
Regardless of the reason, I'd like to see it fixed.
In theory, this bit of bad news should provide the motivation I need to improve my writing. Seek out some formal training. Maybe diversify my topics.
But I'm a lazy, lazy man.
So rather than work harder to improve my craft, I'll just look to my old friend television for inspiration. Teacher. Mother. Secret lover.
Historically, sitcoms have attempted to boost sagging ratings by adding an unnecessary character in hopes of injecting new life into their stale programming. Happy Days brought in the Fonz. Saved By the Bell added that hard-ass chick, Tory. And yes, even the critically acclaimed Itchy and Scratchy needed a shot of Poochie the dog to reinvigorate their dwindling fan base.
Typically, these characters are nothing more than caricatures, cluttering up the scene and spouting contrived catch phrases at every turn. For example, when they were creating Poochie, the following directives were issued to the illustrator:
Creator: He needs attitude, attitude! Uh... sunglasses!
Consultant: Could we put him in more of a "hip-hop" context?
Krusty the Klown: Forget context, he's gotta' be a surfer. Give me a nice shmear of surfer.
Consultant: I feel we should Rasta-fy him by... 10 percent or so.
All Three: Oh, yeah, bingo. Yeah, that's it! There it is, right there! I love it!
The result was the rather "in your face" canine you see above. But let me tell you, Poochie created quite a stir amongst the Itchy and Scratchy faithful. It worked.
Taking a page from my favorite show-within-a-show, Lauren, Ryan, Maci and I are adding a little spice to our lives this winter and bringing in some new blood. My good friend Brett "the Jet" Friel -- lifeguard, budding photog, and collector of hilarious bumper stickers -- will be spending the winter in Aspen, and we're hopeful his experiences as a 25-year old single guy in a world class party town will spice up the blog.
What's refreshing about Brett, is unlike Poochie, he's no ridiculous caricature, born from some out-of-touch corporate desire to capitalize on ill-conceived requirements for "cool" like surfing and sunglasses and bad-ass attitude. He's a real-life, grounded, guy who...oh shit....
Perhaps you should ignore that last paragraph. Yes, that is Mr. Friel, apparently doing his best Poochie impression during a recent trip to Mexico.
In all seriousness, I'm extremely jealous of Brett. And not because he's younger, better looking, and judging from that picture, significantly more Rasta-fied than me.
I'm jealous because he's got the balls that I didn't at that stage of my life. To pick up and move to a ski town at his age on a whim, out of nothing more than a desire to experience a life he's always wondered about, is an act of courage I admire.
Look, I'm smart enough to know that I've got it pretty good. At 34, I'm living exactly as I've always dreamed, aside from the fact that Lauren and I don't spend our free time driving around in a van, solving mysteries.
But by no means was this a linear process for me. It has taken many steps -- some forward, many back, a few sideways -- for me to get from a twenty-three year old CPA at Arthur Andersen in Roseland, NJ to where I am today. And I'm pretty certain that if I had only possesed the cayones Brett has, I might have gotten here sooner.
Life is fleeting. This should come as a surprise to absolutely no one. As you're sitting in your cubicle or manning the assembly line down at the cracker factory, daydreaming of a different reality, the hourglass is emptying.
I don't mean to come off as preachy. Nor am I suggesting that people should spend every waking moment of every day pursuing their wildest fantasies. It's that type of uncompromising thinking that made the poor kid from Dead Poets Society shoot himself. We don't want that.
No, real life doesn't work like that. Shit gets in the way. We have obligations and responsibilities and families and pressures that sometimes make it impossible to create seismic changes. I understand and respect that.
With that said, if there is somewhere or someone you'd rather be, and no compelling reason you can't make it happen, I'd implore you to at least have a plan. I may not have had any balls in my mid-twenties, but one thing I did have was a idea. An image burned into my head of exactly what was important to me, and what I thought I needed in order to provide the best life for myself and the family I hoped to have some day. I kept that idea, that image, with me throughout the past decade, anxiously awaiting the one thing that would spur me into action.
For me, it was all about the girl.
Once I met Lauren, everything fell into place. With her, I no longer harbored any fear of the unknown. Suddenly, picking up and moving to the mountains didn't seem impossible. If the town went bad, if my job went bad, I knew I'd still have her. She gave me courage. Unlike Brett, I didn't have the strength to go it alone.
I shamelessly admit my intent to live vicariously through Poochie Brett for the next six months. He's about to experience a winter he'll never forget, and I'm happy to be a part of it. When his life story is penned, the winter he spends as a young, single guy in Aspen won't make the first few paragraphs, but you likely won't have to flip too many pages to find it. This was his daydream, just as it was mine. And he'll soon be living it.
But our daydream likely isn't yours, and that's just fine. That's the coolest thing about daydreams: they're personalized. What's heaven to me -- living in a quiet mountain town two hundred miles from the nearest shopping mall -- would be hell to many. Maybe you dream of attending art school, or running your own business, or purchasing a really kick-ass watch. I've got no argument for that. I think it was Plato who said "The world don't move to the beat of just one drum. What might be right for you, might not be right for some." Smart guy.
Of course, these things don't come without risks. I 've taken them. Brett's certainly taking one. In all likelihood, you'll have to take one or two as well. If happiness were easy to come by, everyone would have it.
But you owe it to yourself to at least try. What's the worst that can happen?
Except for the whole Dead Poets Society thing, of course.
/As an aside, I think I've outdone myself with the Simpsons references in this post. I'm not sure there is an original thought in here. A shiny nickel to anyone who can count them all.*
* no nickel will be awarded
