I realize that in the past I have railed against celebrity as an empty, soulless pursuit. I am also aware that I have stated or at the very least implied that an overwhelming percentage of celebrities are no talent hacks undeserving of any attention, let alone a wealth of praise and cash from the collective masses. However, I may have neglected one tiny niche group within the famous, the truly talented.
Although it may take many years longer for a humble self effacing individual to climb through the ranks of stardom, when they do, these individuals possess staying power and leave a lasting imprint on our culture. Some famous people in the past have tried to sabotage their ascent to the upper echelon by hiding their talents in some tattered folder, in a weathered desk drawer in a dark lonely corner of their own mind. Yet, against all of the self imposed resistance, the societal need for their unique brand of creativity continues to expose their virtue until the would-be celebrity finally gives in and takes their place among the chosen few.
While I am not claiming to be perfectly summed up by the above paragraph I want to set the record straight before my unavoidable success. You know how it is, once an individual graduates to a certain level, they are thrown into a public relations machine that waters down any strong opinion or crass behavior they might have before it's able to escape for human consumption. Not only this but celebrities are regularly force fed fake life events and fake skills in order to have something to talk about when they are pushed out in front of David Letterman to shill the new big budget thriller.
I don't want any of that ambiguity. I want to jot down a succinct characterization of my life so far while I am still teetering on the precipice of fame. This way when you see me on television (fuzzy bee mascot costume and all) you can compare the me you know now to the me I will be pretending to be then. Also, when I am awash in buckets of money and adoring fans I'll want something to help remember the meager beginnings of where I started. Without further ado, I bring you my story.
I was spit out into a broken home on the poorest neighborhood in the most violent city in the nation. My mother a crack addicted alcoholic of indiscriminate race and my father, a violent criminal of indiscriminate race conceived me out of wedlock in a Winnebago that had been up on blocks for five years in my grandmothers backyard.
Tragically on the day before my second birthday my father a professional philanderer fell off his skidoo while trying to pull a ski-lee (a wheelie in a snowmobile) in an attempt to show off to one of his extra marital strumpets. When word of my fathers mangled body got back to my mother she doused her sorrows with a bottle of Jim Beam. Unbeknownst to my mother my father had earlier in the day laced the bottle with a lethal dose of anti freeze that once consumed would trigger a heart attack that was natural in appearance. As it turned out my father was growing tired of having to go over to "her place" all the time. In the face of my fathers ritualistic abuse and neglect my mother refused to stray from him and was recorded as saying to friends and passers by up until the day she died: "I married him for his butt, but I stayed with him for the free HBO."
Upon my parents deaths my grandmother took full custody and that is when things really started to change. Evidently a toddler is still worth a fair penny on the black market which grandma soon found out by pawning me off to some hick in the hills with a barren uterus. The last I heard granny was on a bus to Reno to feed the one arm bandits the loot she inherited from fencing me. Thankfully it didn't take that long for child protective services to reclaim me. Evidently my "new" parents were involved in some kind of religious cult that was one third pyramid scheme and two thirds EXTREME gun hoarding.
By the time I reached 11 years of age I had bounced in and out of more than 7 foster homes. Many people might have been destroyed if they faced all of these early challenges, I not only endured I felt empowered and creatively driven.
12-14 was my experimental phase. I developed a rap name "Guy Smiley" with which I competed in hugely popular unground rap battles. But the people judged me for being of indiscriminate race and politely implied that my form of verbal expression was not permitted with the confines of the club. To add insult to injury the kids at school did not understand the inner me and because of this chose to incessantly comment on the outer me and how it hurt the inner part of their eyes. But, I did not waiver. My self belief was too strong after all, I was an artist of such a unique complexity how could they possibly be expected to interpret the greatness that was me? I just kept working, day by day, week by week. I filled countless notepads with lyrics and filled hundreds of cassette tapes with my hip hop stylings.
15-18 was my dark period. My self produced album the one I had been working on for almost 3 months was not picked up by a major label, I was devastated. I lost all hope in humanity for a brief moment and it caused me to spiral into a heroin addiction. After six months of being strung out on the junk I was penniless and sleeping in dumpsters. I stole televisions, car stereos and small kids lunch money just to muster up the cash so I could tune out and ride the dragon. But my desire to create burned inside me. Its pull was so great that it drove me out of the gutter and helped me quit heroin cold turkey.
18-21 was my Renaissance period. I wrote a letter to Harvard. I told them that I had learned more on the streets than any school in the world could teach me. I was so convincing that the Dean of admissions had no choice but to grant me entry with a full scholarship. In only 3 years I breezed through a degree partially bolstered by the fact that I wrote 3 plays for the drama department and was quite prolific at producing pro bono art installations on par with anything Michelangelo might have produced.
21-24 were the pilot years. Hollywood had got word of all of the great plays I was writing for Harvard and flew me out to draft several episodes of upcoming shows. During some of the meetings I was surprised to find out that many of the powerful women on the other side of the table found me to be extremely attractive. As it turned out the physical flaws that the kids judged me for when I was young gave me character, a highly desirable trait in L.A. Before long I was not only writing pilots but starring in them as the main lead. Unfortunately such is my curse, the focus groups were too focused on my stunning good looks that they didn't pay attention to the wry dialog I was writing for my character. Further, those who were able to listen to the dialog stated that coherent and poignant words coming from a face that pretty seemed inauthentic. Sadly, I was cast out of Hollywood for being too good looking. Predictably this lead to...
24-29 the relapse years.
29-Present day: the blog years.
Ahh..it feels good to get all of that out, now I can finally sit back relax and undertake the upcoming burden of being extremely famous. Thanks for reliving the memories with me. I hope that I can still maintain contact with you, the little people after I get called up to the big leagues.
I'll be moving soon and leaving the illustrious picturesque Oakland that I lambasted in an earlier post. Don't worry I haven't "made it". In fact if there was a word for a lateral move with a whiff of going backwards it would accurately describe my current experience. I have had to scale down and/or replace many of my possessions to fit into what will surely be another tiny apartment. Along with reducing the size of my home furnishings I've also had to sell off a variety of what most would call "crap" in order to help finance the impending move. Instead of having a yard sale in the ghetto and subject myself to a parade of people pawing at my personal belongings only to yield 14 dollars for an entire weekend I opted for plan B, Craigslist.
For the uninformed, Craigslist is not just a place on the internet where serial killers stalk people via their personal ads. It is in fact (allegedly) an online community advertising magazine to help you find a myriad things such as jobs, cars or the nearest swinger gang bang in your area. In recent years we have all but removed the stigma that was once associated with computers. These days everyone has a smart phone and today's youth are born with an inherent sense of where to find the nearest WIFI hot spot. However, there a few pockets of unbridled human insanity that still exist within the confines of the computer world and one such place is Craigslist.
Rather than employing a vague exaggerated comedic approach to characterize universally identifiable characters I would instead like to draw on personal experience and outline a few of the personalities that I have encountered in the schizophrenic salad of Craigslist transactions.
To prove that I am not above scrutiny I will place myself at the top of the list.
(Me) The Profusely Sweaty Salesman
I often go the extra mile to insure that what I am selling is fully operational and is valued accordingly. However, from the moment the doorbell rings and I am forced to interact with a person in a short, awkward situation I immediately become nervous. Before I crack the door open and welcome a potential buyer inside my hands begin beading with sweat. As a clammy handed person you are faced with 3 choices when someone tries to shake it. 1) Present a pathetic Howie Mandel excuse about the unsanitary nature of slapping skin and instead offer to fist bump them. 2) Quickly grasp their hand and brace for their slight but disgusted "ick" face when they grab your sweaty digits. 3) Flatly drag your hand along your pant leg in one sly motion as you bring it forward to shake, an unspoken declaration of living with hyperhidrosis.
From this point on I become the character Gil Gunderson from the Simpsons. An inept salesman with little to no confidence who invariably blows every deal the moment before it comes to fruition. On my good days I can talk somebody out of an item they originally thought they couldn't live without.
The Guy With A Thousand Obscure Questions
The guy with a thousand obscure questions never purchases anything of monetary value that would justify a thousand questions. All of his inquiries are about items that cost 50 dollars or less. GWATOQ wants to know the provenance of your lawnmower from the time it was assembled at the factory until the day you got it. He'll ask you if you've always used standard lawnmower oil or if there was a period in the spring of 2008 when you switched to synthetic. He'll ask you for all available serial numbers, he'll ask you to recite the English and Spanish instructions from the owners manual. He will ask you the tire width and the ave MPG (mows per gallon). Regardless of how many specifications you provide The guy with a thousand obscure questions will never read the ad in full and instead will ask a number of questions that have already been answered in the initial write up. After you have satisfied all of his questions the guy with a thousand obscure questions will decide that he is not interested in the item and promptly hang up on you.
Guy Who Has a Gross Misunderstanding Of What The Words "Like New" Mean
I was looking for a mattress a little while ago and I saw an ad for one on Craigers that claimed it was "barely used, like new." It wasn't a great deal but the item was reasonably priced and I was in desperate need of a mattress. So I called the guy up and asked him a thousand obscure questions. My only requirement was that the mattress be firm enough that it didn't taco when I laid down on it. The guy assured me that the mattress had been used for less than six months after which it was stored in an air tight bag. I was two towns away but I told him I'd be right over. On the way there I ran into Walmart to get some rope to tie the mattress to the roof of my comically small car. As I entered the house the smell of bleach was overwhelming. I looked around the corner and found the source of the smell...the mattress. I was presented with a scene that looked like a poorly covered up crime. The mattress sat on the ground with two giant brown stains on it where I assume an elderly grandmother voided her bowels or the body of the guys unfaithful wife was hastily dismembered on. In addition, when I sat upon the still wet bleach reeking mattress (out of politeness) I immediately sunk into a crater in the middle of it and I eventually had to roll off of the mattress like a feeble puppy learning to walk.
Gingivitis Guy
I apologize, this is an insensitive way to describe this guy but the image of his eroded gums echoes in my mind every time that I think of him. As I recall the guy was coming to buy an old stereo/cd player for his dad to the tune of 20 dollars. On the phone he sounded like a caucasian-surfer-stoner but in reality he was a youngish dude of Asian descent in his twenties or early thirties who sadly had the gums of a corpse. He brought five of his own cd's with him because he wanted to insure that the cd player played all the way up to track 26. For the next 15 minutes we tested out self help cd's the first of which dealt with sobriety. The next one was about self actualization and achieving your potential and the third was about how to attain wealth and power. The final bizarre incident was when he popped in the last cd (his personal mix.) He quizzed me on a track by track basis while he grooved to Cutting Crews "I Just died in your arms tonight" spliced in between Lady Gaga's greatest hits. Ultimately, he bought the stereo so win-win!
The Gnome Lady
My wife was in the market for garden gnomes. All the good ones were too expensive and all of the inexpensive ones looked like butt. We suspected that anyone selling gnomes on Craigslist was probably a little crazy and we were right. When she went to the ladies door she opened it a crack and didn't seem to have any recollection of the phone conversation prior to my wife's arrival. She then told my wife to wait on the porch with the explanation "I have cats." A few minutes later amid a shuffling, slamming and murmuring of ambient noises the lady returned. She began to tell my wife the gnomes entire life story and the only reason she was parting with them was because her condo complex did not allow exterior decoration. Unbeknownst to my wife the gnomes had names and personalities too! At this point it was becoming apparent that perhaps the gnomes and this lady had a more profound relationship than one might expect from a painted cast ceramic statue. My wife offered the lady 20 dollars for the two of them, a fair price for the used garden ornaments. A little insulted the lady fired back that she would have to stick firm to her original asking price of 23 dollars, no more no less. Reluctantly my wife peeled off the extra singles and handed them over to the lady who appeared to have a tear forming in her right eye as she tentatively unclenched her death grip on the gnome boxes.
There are 30 or 40 more people that I could write about but they are mostly variations on a common theme. Honorable mentions go to: The Guy Who Tries To Sell Crap For Way Too Much, The Perpetual Flake, and The Old Lady Who Just Wants Someone To Talk To. If you've encountered an interesting Craigslist character feel free to tell me about them in the comments below.
Hippies in theory are a sound idea. Any person or group who advocates a counterculture perspective is a good thing for society. Unfortunately the Hippie movement has failed to gain any traction or leave any legacy over the past forty years. Sure, there was a spike in Hippie activity directly after "Hippie-Genesis" occurred in the 1960's but throughout the following decades the thrust of being a Hippie lost all importance and credibility. If you asked an average Joe on the street today to describe a Hippie they would render them down to drugs, joblessness, The Grateful Dead or Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. Although there are many flaws with Hippies (shudder) the most glaring error in their evolution is the lack of a Hippie moderate.
As I see it there are two predominant groups of Hippies:
1) The Dirty Hippies.
2) The New Agers.
The Dirty Hippies are the easily recognized Spicoli type. Part surfer, part skateboarder, part singer-songwriter. You'll often smell them coming before you actually see them. Not because they rarely bathe (which they don't) but because they'll be driving a biodiesel Volvo puffing exhaust clouds of repurposed french fry oil. In the back yard of their shared housing they will most likely have a complex handmade filtration system that indirectly irrigates thier tomato garden with excreted piss and shit. Almost all Dirty Hippies have an idiot savant knowledge on the multifaceted uses for hemp as well as the beneficial applications of medicinal marijuana. Don't be fooled by a DH's lopsided information ratio, you see Hippies are not consumed with the legalization of drugs for their own recreational benefits NO! they are in fact fighting a war on personal freedoms. Armed with ponchos, patchouli oil and puka shell necklaces these birkenstock bearers will never harsh your mellow.
New Agers are to Hippies as born again Christians are to Christianity. Born Agains are essentially criminals or deviants who did terrible things early on in their lives that forced them into rehab or jail. During their time in the clink they rediscover the word of God in order to absolve their sins. The byproduct of being reintroduced into the faith however is an overwhelming desire to (cram their beliefs) instruct any non believer that they might encounter in their daily lives.
New Agers are usually former Hippies who abandoned the Hippie lifestyle once they realized that love (and LSD) could not in fact conquer all. They threw away their bandanas, suited up and got real jobs for a couple of decades so that they could pay the bills. But, the nagging desire to celebrate their vague spirituality and fascination with the healing power of gems finally overcame them. All of their repressed Hippie urges started a wheat-grass-roots campaign in the bottom of their souls and began screaming "Kumbaya." What resulted was a need to preach Hippie platitudes funded with the finances collected during their time working for "The Man." Whether they are on their way to Whole Foods or a Phish concert or just topping up their Tesla with a fresh laptop battery a New Ager is never too busy to pontificate on the dangers of plastic, the importance of recycling or the necessity to integrate solar panels into every light reflecting surface on the planet.
The unfortunate consequence of the New Ager's monetary success manifests itself in a lack of awareness of how the other 99% actually live. The average American does not have the 50 extra dollars necessary to purchase a pound of organic buckwheat nor do they have the means to buy and service a Prius.
What Hippies have created then is disconnect. In one instance you have young (perhaps misguided) drug laden folk with a passion for living off of the grid. On the other hand you have organic elitists whose monetary class renders them unrelatable to the rest of the world. It is not just a matter of money either. Like a modern day Atheist New Ager's operate with righteous indignation. It is not enough to provide information and to be inclusive of any step in the right direction. Anyone who has been to a Trader Joe's knows the smug look you get from your fellow shoppers if you forget to bring your reusable nylon bags and instead have to opt for a paper one. The irony of course is that the Hippie culture was a response to popular culture and like other countercultures was intended as a refuge for all of the freaks and nutters of society. What it ultimately has created however is a no man's land that only seems to breed spite and derision.
I live in Oakland California and I concede that some of the rumors are true. Every couple of months there are random gunshots outside of my dwelling. Some of those gunshots are directed at people but most of time a drunk guy is just having a little fun discharging his weapon into the sky.
I concede that on more than 3 occasions felons who are fleeing the police have run through my backyard. Yet on ONLY ONE of these occasions did a swat team (complete with attack canines and assault rifles) have to enter my basement in a desperate hunt to find a fugitive.
Besides the few (perpetual) instances of random extreme violence my neighborhood is a relatively quiet one. Well, it's quiet when the Hell's Angels bikers aren't ripping down the street on their Harley's. In those few fleeting minutes when someone isn't blasting the latest hip-hop or mariachi jam through a trunk full of speakers you can almost hear the birds chirp.
Seriously though, I'm under selling it. At worst, I live in the upper crust ghetto. Sure there is lady who is addicted to crack who lives a few houses down. Sure, she has a small white dog named "Kilo" (short for kilogram i.e. kilogram of cocaine) BUT, she is very pleasant. Every time that she accosts my wife for drug money she has the decency to pretend that any "loan" my wife might give her will be paid back post haste.
There are many hidden benefits to living in a city like Oakland so today I'd like to take you on a tour of my neighborhood to show you why the prospect of living here is ever so enticing. For the record the majority of these pictures are screen caps taken directly from Google maps and have not been doctored in any way.
1) Free Garbage Delivery
In this computer age we rarely ever get mail delivered. Because of this it is truly a special moment when we get an actual letter or a parcel. In Oakland, the gifts just keep on coming. Several times per week an anonymous donor drops off a package in front of my house. Sometimes it's a collection of fast food paraphernalia, sometimes it's a bag full of soiled diapers but every once in a while you'll get an entire garbage bag full of some really sweet child size clothing.
Conversely, Oakland also engenders a Buddhist lifestyle. What better way to free yourself of your possessions and live only in the temporal world than to have everything of value go "missing" by the time you return home from work.
2) Pet Friendly
Unlike many other snooty towns we don't have any regulations about what kind of an animal you can have. Not only are Pitbulls, German Shepards, Dobermans and Rottweilers accepted in my neighborhood they are almost a prerequisite to get in. In fact, most people have more than one attack dog and they rarely if ever bring them inside so you can always hear their comforting barking especially in the stillness of the early morning hours.
Often "pet people" are weird about their dogs socializing with other dogs and they'll cross the street to avoid an uncomfortable dog on dog butt sniffing incident. In the ghetto this absurd notion is hardly ever witnessed. In fact, Oakland has a communal approach to dog ownership. On any given week you can walk out your front door and encounter five different types of dogs sniffing around in the foliage leash AND owner free.
3) Cars
Got a hot ride? don't worry, we've got ample street parking/front lawn parking to ensure that you don't get any scratches in the clear coat or dings in the bumper.
4) Schools
The old adage exclaims: "Stay in School" well, with our 20 foot high jail spec fences your children will have no choice. During recess they can play soccer on our simulated field (read: painted concrete). Also, our delinquency and dropout rates are so high that the remaining students are guaranteed to get a lot of extra attention from teachers.
5) Fine Dining
Do you enjoy delicious food with an international flair? Do you like saving money and not having to worry about making reservations? Would you love the convenience of eating freshly cooked food at all hours of the night? Well, look no further we've got all of your needs covered.
Are you planning a cheese tasting party? Do you need a delicious chablis to serve with oysters? One of our alcohol dispensaries conveniently located on every corner will help you scratch that itch.
6) Je ne sais quoi
There is something to be said about the architecture of older buildings. Our ancestors revered style over function and as such many properties are outfitted with ornate wrought iron fences that represent the pride of a past era.
Some houses were built with ingenuity ahead of their time. Take for example this one with the suicide suite on the 2nd floor.
With scenic views and lush gardens second to none as well as the ability to cash a check at over 30 locations within a one mile radius Oakland truly is the "Do Everything" city.
I hope that this brief tour of my neighborhood convinced many of you that Oakland is more than just home base for a myriad of gangs. In many ways it is a misinterpreted and undiscovered gem hidden beneath a canopy of drive by shootings and spontaneous home invasions.
