Missed Opportunity
//
Indecisive
By
Jake Dubs .
06.30.10 //
Missed Opportunity
// Indecisive
By
Jake Dubs .
06.30.10 //
Missed Opportunity
Little kids have it easy.
When you’re a little kid you pretty much know where you’re headed.
It’s not until you’re of a certain age—for me, it’s almost 26—that you realize the older you get, the more decisions you have to make. And the harder those decisions become.
It starts off the same for everyone.
You are born. Your parents nurse you. They feed you. They clothe you. They clean up your shit.
You grow bigger. You’re strapped into a car seat. You’re enrolled in pre-school. You have to.
Whether you want to or not, you go to kindergarten.
1st grade.
2nd grade.
3rd grade.
4th grade.
5th grade.
Elementary school. Done.
On to the next one.
Despite your pleas, you are forced to go to middle school every day, even though these three years might as well consist of simply walking onto a stage at your most awkward, ugly, naïve and vulnerable, and be laughed at by everyone you ever cared about before being marched, crying and blue-balled, onwards, to 9th grade.
High school. It’s just what you do.
A bit more freedom comes into play. You can further indoctrinate yourself into a crowd. You can choose your classes. You can choose your sports. You hone in on your abilities. Or just smoke pot. Or both.
You graduate. The decisions intensify.
You choose your college. Maybe you choose to be pre-med. Or English. Or mass comm. Or maybe you don’t go to college at all.
Maybe you go travel. Or you deliver pizza. Or you get a girlfriend. Or you kill yourself.
You choose a Fraternity or a Sorority. You choose to live on or off campus. Maybe you take an internship during the summer. Maybe you choose to sit on your ass and lifeguard. Or maybe you choose to just sit on your ass.
You graduate again. More decisions.
You decide to go work. Or maybe you take a year off. Or maybe you move to India. Or maybe you go to grad school.
You graduate grad school. More.
You decide on a job. Could be close to home. Could be on the other side of the country.
Or you do something else. More. More.
And then another opportunity comes along.
And that’s when it hits you. That’s when you’re finally aware of what you always knew: eventually the world turns into one big unrestricted wide open lonely liberal fuck-all free-for-all where every decision affects the one after it.
And there’s no one who can tell you what to do.
And the stakes are high.
And it’s your life.
And it’s your move,
son.
I’m never surprised by how much I can be surprised.
Saw the documentary “Babies” last night with a friend. Pretty incredible film. An hour and a half of following around four infants from four different corners of earth for a year. No dialogue, no plot, no real semblance of a moral, often times no clothing.
I highly recommend seeing it, assuming you don’t go with your wife or girlfriend and/or your wife or girlfriend doesn’t want children at this exact moment in time. Because God help you if she does.
Here’s the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vupEpNjCuY
A-goddamn-dorable. I know.
Anyway, the film started out mostly exploring the relationship these mothers had with their babies. Nursing them, dressing them, feeding them, playing with them, teaching them, cleaning their shit off their leg with corn cobs.
That part was weird.
But it soon became less about the parent-child relationship, and more about the babies themselves.
Parts of it were laugh-out-loud funny. Because babies are little people, with no idea what the hell is going on. And that’s funny. It’s funny they have no idea what’s going on. It’s funny that everything is new and surprising and amazing to them.
Without doubt, the funniest part of the whole film was when Mari, the little girl in Tokyo, was playing with some toys on the floor. It’s a long scene, probably three whole minutes of being a creepy, voyeuristic fly on the wall, watching her fool with wooden poles and flat wooden circles with holes in the middle.
There’s a sense of incredulity when she finally realizes she can stick these wooden poles through the holes in the circles. She does it again. Then again.
‘What does it mean?’ You can actually see her brain working. ‘Is this it?’ she says. ‘Is this what life is all about? Sitting here on a floor, sticking poles into circles? What does it all mean, seriously?? This is boring. I’m confused.’ She starts whimpering. She tosses her hands in the air. She throws the circles. She throws her hands up and cries out.
She falls back on the ground. She tosses her hands in the air again. She rolls around. The crying intensifies. She is genuinely freaking out for no reason. And it’s fascinating.
What had started out as my laughter now turned to bemused silence. I understood what was going through her head. She wanted answers. She wanted to know things. And so did I. The only difference was, I couldn’t cry out like that. I had to keep it inside.
I never thought I could identify with the mindset of a toddler.
It was one of the most incredible, human and honest pieces of film I’ve ever seen.
//
Friendship, Death and a Rickshaw
By
Jake Dubs .
05.02.10 //
In The Back Seat
// Friendship, Death and a Rickshaw
By
Jake Dubs .
05.02.10 //
In The Back Seat
“I can’t believe where we are right now,” Justin says to me, smiling, cigarette in-hand, head thrown back, feet up on the bar in front of him.
“I’m in the backseat of a fucking rickshaw. In Newark, fucking Delaware. At 1 in the fucking morning. Smoking a fucking cigarette. Talking about the fucking afterlife. With Jake motherfucking Dubs.”
After a 2-year absence I was back in my old college town, having flown in from the other side of the country for a weekend we all silently agreed was the last hurrah reunion of every alumni in our Fraternity anyone cared to see, all back in one place.
The weekend had been everything I wanted it to be. I was happy I came.
And now, Justin, the rickshaw driver and myself were discussing what we thought happens after we die.
Justin figured you just go into the ground and everything goes black. “It’s not about what happens after,” he said. “It’s about making the most of the time you have when you’re here.”
I felt that whatever happens after we die is too incredible, too mind-blowing, too inexplicable for our human brains to begin to comprehend until we’re already gone.
The rickshaw driver was pretty sure he was going to hell.
“Most of my friends will be there, anyway,” he grunted, powering over 600 pounds of man up West Main Street on his bicycle. This guy was an interesting cat.
Now we were headed back to our hotel from the bars, drunk off beer and the conversations of good friends, many of whom we might not see again for years to come, if at all.
“You know, it’s funny,” I said, flicking my cigarette into the hot night wind manufactured by the slowly moving rickshaw.
“What’s funny?”
“I write for a blog called ‘Blommit.’ Every week there’s a new topic seven guys weigh in on. You can write something, make something, do anything you want. There’s guest posts. It’s pretty cool. This week’s topic is ‘In the Backseat.’
“Fitting,” said Justin, taking a drag.
“Sounds cool,” said the rickshaw driver, panting, beads of sweat dripping down his shaggy hair, the wet spot in the middle of his back stretching outward over chubby sides.
“What I write is mostly shit. But every now and then I’ll have a decent one. Anyway, my post was due at midnight. And up until now, I had nothing to write about. I didn’t wanna mention banging.”
“Understandable,” said the rickshaw driver, pulling up to our hotel.
Justin and I stepped off and smiled at each other.
Through the years, as we get older and friends come and go, reuniting with old buddies becomes noticeably stranger and more awkward as our lives diverge into our own unique roads. Shared experiences are fewer. Major life events don’t match up. Tastes change. People grow. But Justin and I, despite being 3,000 miles away, were still very much similar.
I reached into my pocket and handed the rickshaw driver a 20.
“What’s your name, dude?” I asked.
“Robbie.”
“Thanks for the lift, Robbie. You’re gonna be the star of my story.”
//
Stay Enigmatic, My Friends
By
Jake Dubs .
04.13.10 //
Store Brand
// Stay Enigmatic, My Friends
By
Jake Dubs .
04.13.10 //
Store Brand
On my ride to work, I pass a Dos Equis ‘Most Interesting Man In the World’ billboard which states the sage advice, “The bulk of your life should be off the record.”
At first I didn’t think much of this billboard. I mean, it’s an ad. And I don’t think much of most advertising. Because most advertising doesn’t instill much wisdom—it’s too busy shilling us shit we don’t need and holding up the status quo. (This, I think, is a healthy belief, seeing as how I work in the advertising industry).
But after a few morning rides to work, I started thinking about what this ad and what this brand was saying. Sure, life should be lived off the record. The best parts of life are for you and not the public. Keep it close to the vest. Instill a sense of mystery. I get it.
But let’s get deeper with this. Let’s be more irrational.
I was thinking about this billboard when I sat down to watch a documentary called “Beautiful Losers” the other night with my friend herb.
That night, we came up with an interesting theory.
Everything since the dawn of the digital landscape has been recorded.
Everything you’ve ever done online—every AIM conversation you’ve ever had, every email you’ve ever crafted, every website you’ve ever visited, every click, every comment, every like, every friend request, every ex-girlfriend stalked, every cat video sent and received, every porn video watched, every visit to the WW4W personals section on Craigslist—every universally embarrassing and weird thing we all do online was, is and will be on the record. Including you reading this right now.
So my only questions are, who’s holding onto this record?
And what could they do with it?
//
Today
By
Jake Dubs .
04.01.10 //
What Could Have Been
// Today
By
Jake Dubs .
04.01.10 //
What Could Have Been
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 could have turned out a lot of ways.
Something weird could have happened.
I could have been shot.
Or stabbed.
Or hit by a car.
Or ended up in a hospital.
Or in jail.
Or dead.
I could have won the lottery.
Or lost my keys.
Or crashed my car.
Or killed someone accidently.
Or killed someone on purpose.
That would have been pretty nuts.
I could have met the love of my life.
Or maybe just the lust of my life.
Or a new best friend.
Or a new roommate.
Or bought a new car.
Or a new dog.
Or done something to make my bosses hate me.
I could have quit my job.
Flew somewhere cool, like India.
Or Thailand.
Or Corsica.
Or Reykjavik.
I could have come up with a kickass idea that changed the world.
Or come up with a kickass idea that didn’t change the word but was still kickass.
Or a website.
Or a book or a play or a song.
I could have Chris McCandless-ed it and emptied my bank account.
Gotten the fuck out of Dodge.
Driven up the coast to Alaska.
Stopped only for gas.
And food.
And sleep.
I could have slept on the hood of my car tonight.
Or in my car.
Or in a roadside motel.
Somewhere outside Eureka, CA.
I could have ended up doing blow in some bathroom with Robert Downey Jr. after seeing him on the street this afternoon.
I could have not gone into that sunglass store after I saw RDJ.
I could have not asked out the girl who worked at the sunglass store.
And she could have not told me she already had a boyfriend.
Before I bought this sweet pair of Mosley Tribes
I could not afford.
It’s 8PM on Saturday.
You jump in the shower.
The water hits.
You wash everything you got.
You spend extra time in the special places.
You get out and look in the mirror.
You’re looking good.
But not good enough.
You walk into your room and put on your underwear.
Your Gold Bond.
Your Old Spice.
Your socks.
Pants. Shirt.
You pull off the shirt.
Another.
Then another.
And another.
You look in the mirror.
You’re satisfied.
But not satisfied enough.
You look up at the sky before you get in your car.
You think the biggest cliché there is: God is the best artist.
Your mind goes off on a tangent about God.
About how he creates people.
And people are perfect.
Which is weird.
Because up until then, you weren’t really a believer.
You get in your car and take a deep breath.
You put the key in the ignition.
Shift into gear.
Put on 93.1.
Drive off.
And then she’s there with you.
Finally.
In your bed.
And you can’t even enjoy it.
Because you never thought it would happen.
But you do it anyway, like it’s not real.
You wake up the next morning and roll over.
She’s still there.
You get up on your elbows and glance around.
There’s only one word that wants to be said.
But you don’t say it.
Not out loud.
Was hiking the other day in a Hollywood park where everyone walks their dogs unleashed. Every time a good-looking pup passed by I would pat its head, rub its coat and, after ascertaining the little bastard’s name, would comment in a mock-cutesy voice how cute he/she was before moving onto the next one.
Obviously, petting other people’s dogs is commonplace. With few exceptions, it’s one of those things we all love to do. It’s human nature. Free reign to touch and caress something else living and breathing (other than a significant other) is a rarely-matched pleasure.
But give this one a spin around the brain: a world where instead of people petting dogs, people petting people.
Imagine walking past attractive, interesting people on the street, in the drugstore, at the movies, in the hallways at work, ruffling hair, grabbing scrunched-up faces, running hands over backs and shoulders and necks, pulling ears with both hands, asking names, telling us how adorable we are.
This is weird, yes.
But what if it wasn’t?
In a forthright display of honesty and candor, local marketing assistant Paul Sultanick let the entire internet know what it’s wanted to know for quite some time, posting to Facebook the following message at 1:28 AM: “Time for bed..I’ve been up to late.”
According to close friends, family, and over 647 Facebook aquaintances, this is the first time Sultanick, 25, has been so open with them.
“Usually Paullie just posts some funnyass video or something,” one of Sultanick’s high school friends, Zach Gold, told us via email. “But this was, like, deep, y’know? Normally I’d be all, TMI, bro. But this, this I want to know.”
“At school Paul always just went to bed,” Dan Tulis, Sultanick’s former roommate at San Diego State, said. “No goodnight, no explanation. Just a bong rip and a peace sign and dude just bounced. To see him reveal this to the world is pretty fucking shocking…… Ayo, shout out to the 609.”
Although most Facebook grammarians are upset over Sultanick’s apparent lack of knowing the difference between the preposition “to” and the quantitive “too” (and many would also argue the ellipsis he used should consist of three evenly-spaced periods rather than just two), everyone is in agreement they’re thrilled to be let in on such an intimate detail of his life.
“I always knew Paul was a pretty interesting guy,” former girlfriend, Heather McGrath said. “I just never knew he was this interesting.”
Said Mr. Sultanick’s mother, Michelle: “If you talk to him, have him call me. He won’t accept my friend request on The Facebook. What kind of person goes to sleep at 1:30 in the morning on a weeknight? What kind? You tell me.”
//
The Demise of Analog
By
Jake Dubs .
02.17.10 //
Post-It Notes
// The Demise of Analog
By
Jake Dubs .
02.17.10 //
Post-It Notes
I like #2 better.
Who was the first person to smile?
Who was the first person to cut their hair?
Who were the first people to have sex?
Who was the first person to be born?
Who was the first person to say something funny?
Who was the first person to laugh at something funny?
Who was the first person to use the word “cool” to define something “cool”?
Who was the first person to realize, dude, holy shit, we can masturbate?
Who was the first person to think the world wasn’t flat?
Who was the first person to accidentally make fire?
Who was the first person to come up with the theory of God?
Who was the first person to figure out alcohol gets you drunk?
Who was the first person to truly think about the concept of the internet?
Who was the first person to try swimming without drowning?
Who was the first person to use fossil fuels for energy?
Who was the first person to smoke pot?
Who was the first person to realize 365 was the magic number of days in a year?
Who was the first person to refer to the delicious concoction of meats, beans and spices as “chili”?
Who was the first person to die?
To prevent things from getting out of control during your next BDSM sess, here’s an arsenal of 25 other good ones:
Poppycock
Ow
Paleolithic
Rat feces
Gravy train
Booger
Mickey
Grandma
Murphy’s Law
Goat-ass
Sally sells shiny seashells by the seashore
Women’s Lib Movement
Golda Meir
Prem Nagar, India
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
Boomshakalaka
Syphilis
Patrick Swayze
Hamiltonian-Federalist Jeffersonian-Republican Alignment
Gertrude Stein
Fart
Go fuck yourself, master
No, stop
Blommit
…Good luck.
It’s a French term which translates to, “the little death.”
It’s also a metaphor for orgasm.
Although it’s not the first time I’d heard sex being related to death, this term bothered me. Why should the greatest physical feeling human beings can experience be characterized by what is arguably the worst?
But after a bit of thought, I began to be able to connect the two.
The feeling of orgasming—physically speaking—is a feeling rivaled by nothing else on this earth. There is no greater spasmic euphoria or spiritual release or period of melancholy or transcendence or loss of control imaginable. The feeling is so inexplicably great, there is no proper way to put into words how great it is.
This made me wonder.
Maybe when we orgasm, we experience a little piece of what it means to be dead.
I have this theory that when we die, we’re immediately given the secrets to the universe, to human beings, to nature, to why we’re here, and to what the meaning of all this is. Why am I typing this to you right now? And why are you reading it? What is sand really made out of?
As humans, I believe our minds cannot possbly fathom the answers to these things until we’re dead.
So maybe our orgasms are just a tiny taste of what’s to come.
Mull that one over the next time you’re getting freaky.
//
Drama On The Farm
By
Jake Dubs .
01.24.10 //
Onomatopoeia
// Drama On The Farm
By
Jake Dubs .
01.24.10 //
Onomatopoeia
Cow walked over to the barn door. She opened it with her teeth.
Duck barged in, feathers ruffled, voice hoarse. He had a crazy gleam in his eye.
“Quack, quack,” he said, frantically.
“Moo,” said the cow. “Moooooooooo.”
Dog walked over to see what all the commotion was about.
“Bark?” he asked, perplexed.
Cat leaped down from her perch on the upper level.
“Meow?” she said. “Meow??”
“Quack, quack, quack.” The duck was in a panic. Upset and disheveled, he put his head down.
“Bahhhh.”
Goat came over.
Just then, there was another knock on the door. “Bark, bark, bark!” Dog shouted.
“Meow.”
“Bahhh,” said the goat, more agitated this time.
Chicken walked in, solemly. She was visibly upset.
“Buk Buk,” she said, softly, glaring at Duck.
“Neigh,” Horse followed her in with her head down.
The animals were angry.
“Meow!”
“Moo!”
“Bark!”
“Neigh,” said Horse, looking at Chicken pleadingly. “Neighhhhhh.”
Until about 15 minutes ago, they had been best friends.
Now Chicken was angry.
“Buk buk!” she screamed, lunging at Horse. Horse tried to get away from her, bucking up, pushing back into the wall.
“Buk buk buk buk!”
“Bahhh,” said Goat, trying to push Chicken off of Horse.
“Meow,” said cat, soothingly, trying to calm Chicken down.
Duck was in the corner with his head down.
Chicken’s anger subsided. She looked over at him.
“Buk Buk,” said Chicken. “….Buk Buk.”
She strode over to the door and out into the sunshine.
She tried flying away. But she couldn’t. She was just a chicken. So she walked.
No one ever heard from her again.
THE END.
//
Wasted Weinstein
By
Jake Dubs .
01.11.10 //
Sloppy Drunk
// Wasted Weinstein
By
Jake Dubs .
01.11.10 //
Sloppy Drunk
The most drunk I’ve ever been was my first week of freshman year at the University of Delaware.
It was a Saturday night and everyone was in the dorms pre-gaming and watching an opening weekend college football game on TV.
This is how my night played out.
9:00 PM: Walk into the dorms with a concealed case of Beast Light and a handle of Popov bought at a liquor store five miles down the road over the Maryland border. (Being caught buying booze underage in Delaware was way worse than being caught in Maryland).
9:02 PM: I get the sudden urge to do a Power Hour with shots of Popov. I announce this to the room.
9:03 PM: My friends tell me I will die if I do that.
9:04 PM: I decide to do the Power Hour, except I’d take one shot every five minutes instead of every minute. I mentally pat myself on the back for my out-of-the-box innovation.
9:05-9:14 PM: I go back and forth in my mind over whether or not I’m actually going through with this. I am surrounded by people I hardly know. I need to make a good first impression. I rationalize this will be an epic accomplishment. I decide to go for it.
9:15 PM: Gametime. Shot #1 goes down. Hard. Sweet mother of Christ is that awful. A few dudes take it with me. They agree.
9:20 PM: Shot #2. Let’s do thisssssssss. That one’s pretty bad, too. One less guy takes it with me.
9:25 PM: Shot #3. Only two of us take it. I almost throw mine back up, but there is a girl in the room whom I wish to be intimate with someday. I manage to keep it down.
9:30 PM: Shot #4. I can officially no longer drive in this or any other state or territory in the U.S.
9:35 PM: Shot #5. Awful, but easier. I am now the only one left.
9:40 PM: Shot #6. Music is turned on. I start grooving. No one else does.
9:45 PM: Shot #7. I feel incredible.
9:50 PM: Shot #8. I love every single person in the room.
9:55 PM: Shot #9. I love every single person I’ve ever met.
10:00 PM: Shot #10. I hate everybody.
10:05 PM: Shot #11. I can’t feel anything.
10:10 PM: Shot #12. I start crying.
10:15 PM: Shot #13. I am completely blackout shit-housed fucking annihilated drunk.
10:16 PM: I stumble out of my room into the hallway. I bump into walls and doorways on my way to the bathroom. Two female R.A.’s from the floors above and below ours (the dorm floors alternated between boys and girls) appear out of nowhere. They corner me and ask if I’ve been drinking. I fall back against the wall and tell them of course not. They ask my name. “Jake Weinstein” I reply. “No it isn’t,” they say. I concede they might be right. They ask for my social security number. “11284x93d25682fg234d4zz923″ I say proudly. “Tell it to us again,” they say. “0983769343dgdf2345678910xxx700,” I say. “You’re fucked,” they say.
10:23 PM: I crash back into my room, fall onto the floor, climb into bed, piss myself, and pass out.
9:45 AM: The University Judicial System sends me an e-mail documenting the events of the night before based on the R.A.’s report. They’re not happy with me.
//
Look Out
By
Jake Dubs .
01.05.10 //
Resolutions
// Look Out
By
Jake Dubs .
01.05.10 //
Resolutions
I recently bought my first pack of cigarettes since moving to LA.
I’m no smoker.
This evening, I pulled one out, walked onto my deck, lit up and stared up at the night.
At first I could see the regulars– Orion’s belt, the Big Dipper, the North Star, Mars. But after a few moments, as I let my eyes adjust, one by one the lights went up around me.
By the seventh drag I was standing under a canopy of muddled white.
In this chaotic and oblivious start to 2010, when no one really knows what’s next, when the news rolls in at uncomfortable speeds and the lists of talking heads about what to expect in the coming decade light up the internet and we all become more engaged with our computer screens and mobile devices and less engaged with each other, sometimes going out and staring at the sky is the answer.
I’m by no means the first to write this, but the pitfalls of being young and inexperienced and starting out in a new career are trumped by the virtues of being pure, untouched, full of ambition, curiosity, wonder. Life hasn’t gotten the best of us yet. We’re not completely caught up in the bullshit yet.
We can still look into the stars and forget about the computers and the new media and the millions out there clamoring over each other to invent and cash in on the next big thing before the world has even taken hold of the things before it.
This year, once every week, I’m going to grab a cigarette (or maybe just an iPod), and I’m going to stare at stars.
That’s my resolution.
//
When Memories Become Highlights
By
Jake Dubs .
12.30.09 //
Highlight Films
// When Memories Become Highlights
By
Jake Dubs .
12.30.09 //
Highlight Films
Hi there.
Have you ever sat back and thought about your life from start to finish? Have you ever tried to piece together the mishmash of dreamlike experiences and faces still hanging on, refusing to be forgotten? Ever examined and analyzed your choices? The ups? The downs? The good decisions? The regrets? Ever wondered the significance of why you’ve held onto certain people and places and experiences for so long when there is no logical reason you should?
Of course you have.
We all have.
Now, imagine being able to compile all those bits and pieces—everything from childhood until now, starting with your very first memory—and play them out, one after another. A spring of experiences, life events, memories, mental images, sensations, emotions, and personal associations of particular places and times in your life, chronologically flickering before you on your television screen, computer monitor or mobile device.
Introducing HighLitLife(TM), the revolutionary new process that creates highlight reels out of personal memories.
For only $125,000 (*taxes, fees and airfare not included), you’ll be invited for a 2-day stay at our special care center and spa on the outskirts of beautiful Eugene, Oregon, where, after a deep tissue massage, hot rock therapy and facial, you’ll be anesthetized and our certified cognitive neuroscientist technicians will gently probe into the multiple subcomponents of your hippocampus and amygdala, retrieving every autobiographical memory you’ve held onto until this point—including the ones deep within your subconscious.
It’s important to note we only pull from what’s there. No more. No less. Any previous episodic or visual memories you’ve had that have since been lost before the procedure will not be included in your final highlight reel.
It’s also important to note we do not discriminate from good or bad. If you’re like 99% of the population, your highlight reel, like your life, will contain both painful and happy memories. Our customers have found the polarity between these two extremes is often more interesting and enlightening, creating a sense of balance they never realized they had.
Each memory pulled will have various views and angles. You’ll be able to see yourself and anyone else associated with the memory as if you were a third person observer, watching your own personal autobiographical movie.
Using an elaborate memory-streaming process, your memories are then scanned onto film stock and converted to a compact disc—akin to a DVD or CD (*extra discs available for an extra fee)
For an additional $25,000 (taxes and fees not included), we’ll also provide you with “The Soundtrack to Your Life” option. Upon completion of memory extraction, our technicians will probe your subconscious for favorite songs at the time a certain memory or memories were being created, with editors placing them into your personal highlight reel using Final Cut Pro technology.
We at HighLitLife(TM) thank you for taking the time to learn about this exciting new process. We hope you’ll grant yourself the exciting gift of reliving the life you’ve already lived.
Everything you need to know about being The Man can be summed up in this pin:
I bought it for $1 in a consignment shop in Venice, CA last weekend. I was at the checkout counter buying a $35 non-refundable, not particularly ugly Christmas sweater for an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party, and it caught my eye.
I know it’s supposed to represent the Super Furry Animals song of the same name—a track rockingly chronicling how the police, the corporations, rich people, the government and the mass media ‘don’t give a fuck about anybody else’—but I’d like to suspend the literal meaning of the pin and instead give it my own.
Being The Man, cool and awesome and nerveless, isn’t just about being cool and awesome and nerveless.
It’s about not giving a fuck.
It’s about not caring what other fools think. About doing your thing. It’s about going from “Fuck you” to “Fuck it.” About wearing something or listening to something or watching something or liking something other people don’t, and being The Man about it.
From one non-Man-aspiring-to-be-one to all you other non-Men-aspiring-to-be-one, my advice is simple:
Don’t give a fuck.
Just be The Man.
//
Dear Goodwill,
By
Jake Dubs .
12.12.09 //
Hand-Me-Downs
// Dear Goodwill,
By
Jake Dubs .
12.12.09 //
Hand-Me-Downs
I just want to say thank you.
Thank you for the miles of cotton, denim and fabric you throw together on mismatched hangers in beautiful, colorful randomness.
Thank you for providing me with nearly 1/3 of my awesome t-shirt collection, including 3 of my 5 favorites.
Thank you for the obscene amount of money you’ve saved me over the years, even if much of that money went to extra laundry detergent I used to wash what you gifted me several times over to get out the hobo smell.
Thank you for that janitor’s jacket I wore last Halloween. …Really? A janitor’s jacket? You actually sold me that for $2.99? Amazing.
Thank you for the countless Halloweens before that, for those ridiculous pants, those cheap sunglasses, those awful Christmas sweaters, that woman’s blouse.
Thank you for singlehandedly helping me have the best outfit at my Fraternity’s annual “What the fuck are you wearing?” Mixer 4 years in a row. No one had any clue what the fuck I was wearing.
Thank you for making my skin feel tingling and strange after trying on dozens of other people’s old, unwanted shirts and jeans. A shower the second I got home was all that was needed.
Thank you for existing, Goodwill. You’re a true part of my life.
I love you.
Jake
After the toke everything is different. The world is small and complex and weird. No one exists except the 1,500 or so people I’ve met in my life. These are the players in my play. Everything is clearer, even though I can feel my brain becoming enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke. I look around the room and swing my focus around to the TV. For ten seconds I have no idea what I’m looking at. Then I realize Sportscenter’s on the screen. 20- and 30-something-year-old men running around in bright colors trying to push and tackle other men in bright colors. Or run away from them. Grown men with talent and athleticism only a tiny amount of people have ever had, playing games. It’s suddenly the most insanely ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. And hundreds of millions of people around the world lose their shit over it, hanging on every moment of these other people’s lives. Human beings are so interested in each other they devote large chunks of their lives and their happiness to the success of others, their brains flicking into crazy mode when the team from their geographic area or college best a team from a different geographic area or college. Their pride runs so deep and is so meaningless and unnecessary. They do it for entertainment, to feel something, to have something, to be part of something bigger than themselves. Feeling depressed, I think my roommates are plotting to kill me. I go upstairs, sit in my computer chair and turn on some music. I apple-T it and the visualizer comes to life, sending waves of multi-colored light and spheres swirling around my screen. I think each sphere is a tiny little world, exploding one after the other. Maybe one of those spheres is or will be ours. The song I’m listening to is one I never liked, but now, this time, it’s the most mind-blowing thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Ever. I believe it was written and performed for me, for my life, at this exact moment. The lyrics are for me and no one else. I think there’s no God. I think life is meaningless. I think life is wonderful. I am confused. Everything is clear. I am totally in control. I am totally out of control. I’m the smartest person on earth. I’m the stupidest person on earth. I know I’m feeling and thinking conflicting things, and I’m simultaneously fine and not fine with this. In the back of my mind, I know the trip has grabbed hold of me. Suddenly, I think I’m dying. But aren’t we all?
Loading ...
