Friday, May 22, 2009

Hey! Hungry Ego Here! Feed, Please!

Sanity seems to be hanging around lately. Not sure why; plenty of stress/fatigue, so it must be all the support from family and friends. Now if I could just convince myself I deserve it.

Ha, never said the neuroses were gone.

So much to be glad about, so much to be tired about. So if I get hyperbolic in any direction it’s almost certainly personal, but maybe only unilaterally. I yam what I yam, and so is Lola (oops, mixing Popeye and Kinks references – I’m not sure this sobriety thing really helps, my mind itself is fucking drunk.)

I wish I had an appreciative audience for everything that passes for wit in my mind. I may have blown it by not going into the bumper sticker industry. That and not going for it with my idea for mistletoe belt buckles, which I saw advertised years later in the back of Easy Rider. That one doesn’t bug me too much, I had someone willing to back me on it if I did the labor, but it was a moneymaking scheme, nothing to feed the ego – essentially just another bumper sticker.

For today I need nothing but a general feeling that I want everyone who’s been there to keep being there, and I know I’ve got people who aren’t going away. Shit, I’ve always been a hippy-dippy motherfucker in some regards: commit to people, stay with them, give everything and get everything. And like everyone else, I don’t always follow up.

But… I believe that absolute commitment to those you care about is the best way to live.

And when I talk like this I don’t trust myself. I’m sending a message to who – to myself, as affirmation of my ideals; to people I love and care about, who don’t really need this but if they read it will probably like it; to people who don’t know me as well or at all and who I’m trying to impress.

Anyone could be reading this. Taking my word for who I am (not something I’d do, but I’d actually recommend it to others – if you don’t actually know me, you’re unlikely to analyze me more closely than I analyze what I write. Hell, I can’t even help noticing every fucking time that the word analyze starts with the word anal.)

6 comments:

Allison Landa said...

Popeye and Kinks references. Rest assured this has not gone unnoticed, nor has it passed unappreciated.

Lutz said...

Rob, I've not known you very long but I'm quite certain that you would have made zillions in the bumper sticker business. I'm also quite certain that the first time I saw the word, I pronounced it anal-eyes. Sort of the same thing? Hmm...

robp said...

Ok, how about this this one - "I'm the fox you been waitin for" - That's the Runaways back when Cherie Curry was their singer, and however long they may have waited, that was not the fox most folks got.

Sean Craven said...

Dude, the philosophy you state here is pretty much central to my own approach to life. Hell, I'm writing a book where that's the central theme.

That given, it's interesting to look at the icons on display here. Allison has a picture where we see more of Adam than of her. Warren has a piece that I'd bet money was done by one of his kids. You have the cover of the magazine we do. And mine is a fucking self-portrait. Wah-wah-wah...

(As an aside, I've always thought Joan Jett never got the respect she deserved, partially because she never released a really solid album and partially because she's a gu-rull. But if you look at how she handled her post-Runaways career, she epitomized the punk ethos a lot more clearly than many so-called punk bands -- and when you look at what was going on musically when Cherry Bomb was released it starts sounding protopunk as fuck.)

rosedale's 4head said...

Great line: "But… I believe that absolute commitment to those you care about is the best way to live."

I think you're on a good track~!

robp said...

Ah, a familiar name I've not seen here before. Welcome aboard the happy neurosis train. And thanks for providing evidence that I don't know who reads this (vast numbers of silent lurkers, no doubt.)

Tis a good track, not nearly as muddy as it used to be. I went through my self-inflicted emotional turmoil a few years back, found out some shit about myself. All good in the long run (well, not all, but other people survive a lot worse - which by the way, leads to me feeling guilty about feeling bad, but we ain't solving everything right here and now).

I also try to throw myself wholeheartedly into new projects/people/online acquaintances, then sometimes withdraw abruptly when I find myself not spending enough energy on my top priorities. (The withdrawal tends to apply more to things than people - beware, once yr in, yr in.)

Thanks for dropping by, there are free coffee and pastries in the lobby.