Fascinating Musings

bg12

Although I regularly BEG for abuse, occasionally someone actually hits the mark, and YESTERDAY WAS NO EXCUSE, and it helped me realize that, indeed, as much as I write, I rarely cover the fascinating everyday musings that would serve to form a connection with (air quotes) COMMON PEOPLE. So this morning, I pledged to do better, and here are a few pedestrian activities in which I engaged:

1. Listened to (air quotes) popular music, such as Robbie Williams
2. Abstained from drinking rum with breakfast
3. SAID FUCK YOU, VOICES

The following description of this EVERYDAY MUSING, in fact, will be littered with (air quotes) colloquial phrases that I looked up on URBAN DICTIONARY and attempted to use. The colloquialisms are marked by asterisks, so you will know when I was attempting to stop living inside my head and be AN ORDINARY JOE.*

(For the record, YES, I’m being facetious when I mention Robbie Williams, but goddamn if Angels isn’t a good tune. It is. Don’t be a hater.*)

As soon as I got in the car, I was determined to keep it real,* which meant I needed to keep my eyesacks* peeled. Don’t want to get served,* I muttered. So imagine my OMG* ya mean* as every ride skank* sat pie holed*…

Okay, this is dumb.

Right.

Anyway, on the ride to work, I noticed that no fewer than two cars passed me whose drivers wore huge grins, and yes, I do live inside my head, and it wasn’t until I got to the parking lot, my throat ACHING, that I realized they must have noticed my Bon Jovi-esque rendition of Wham’s Careless Whisper.

The thing is, I was totally screaming the lyrics ON LOOP for at least 20 minutes. For the record, I bonjovied* the fuck out of that song. It was perhaps my greatest moment as a human being. And that’s saying a lot, because I count reproduction among my many accomplishments.

As I was saying,* I had big plans, and one of those was channeling all this creativity into something productive. So I recalled a lunch with a friend in which I declared, “I’M PLANNING ON WRITING A SITCOM.”

My reasons:1
1. i know nothing about television writing
2. i have a poor eye for everyday details that seem to make people laugh
3. i don't have enough work to do, bills to pay or mouths to feed (5)
4. i don't watch television
5. i attempt to make people dislike me and the things i say

THIS SHOULDN’T BE TOO HARD

Unfortunately, my idea didn’t seem to make sense with my date, and that idea included a setting at a small zoo, whose antagonist, a clever, HOTSEXY, intellectual type with a troubled past tried to make sense of the insanity around him. THE ANIMALS ARE MERELY SYMBOLISM, YOU SEE. He’s the only one who’s sane.

(Seriously! Is that not a sweet sell? How many of you have gone to work in the morning and thought, “AM I THE ONLY SANE PERSON IN THE VICINITY!?!)

Each episode opens with the protagonist at a urinal. All you can see is the back of his head. And with the opening credits, a second gentleman assumes the position at the nearest urinal, and says something exotic, like maybe a few verses from an obscure poem or an EVERYDAY IRONIC TRUTH. And the protagonist merely stands there in silence, like OH MY FUCKING GOD WHY DO STRANGE MEN TALK TO ME IN MY MOMENT OF URINARY ZEN? But as the show gets bigger, the strange urinator is played by a growing cast of B-list celebrities, like Anthony Michael Hall or Emilio Estevez (YES I FINALLY WATCHED BREAKFAST CLUB, GODDAMNIT).

Okay, for example’s sake, here’s a scene:

Protagonist, urinating.
Special guest star, Judd Nelson, sidles up to him and begins to urinate: So you’re the head zoologist, I hear?
Protagonist (IT’S ME, PEOPLE): /says nothing
JUDD: I hear one of your Anoas has a tumor?
Protagonist: /shakes, uncomfortably
JUDD: I have this theory that cancer is nothing more than a math problem. What if we could just convince the cells to divide, instead of multiply?
Protagonist: That makes no sense. Cancer cells actually multiply by division.
JUDD, sarcastically: Most of your friends are animals, I take it?
AUDIENCE LAUGHTRACK
Protagonist: The ducks don’t care for me. Apparently, I’m too dry.

AND SCENE

And so ended my brief sitcom/EVERYDAY MUSINGS writing career.

On what may be a related note, not one single automatic door opened for me today. BAD SIGN I THINK.

Besides, while I don’t have a muse, I most certainly have an INTERNAL LIFE COACH, and he was never supportive of my efforts:

Me: Well, he’s a zoologist.
INTERNAL LIFE COACH: Yes, but is he quirky? The networks want quirky!
Me: He’s a fruitarian?
INTERNAL LIFE COACH: QUIRKIER!
Me: He’s a synesthete?
INTERNAL LIFE COACH: IT NEEDS TO BE QUIRKIER!
Me: He carves tagua nuts into the shapes of animals he loves and leaves them underneath the coffee table of the co-tagonist, a woman with whom he is madly in love but who is unavailable because…
INTERNAL LIFE COACH: YES? UNAVAILABLE BECAUSE…?
Me: Because she’s married to the mayor?
INTERNAL LIFE COACH: DROP AND GIVE ME 20!

On the way home, after a full day of trying to absorb the ordinary things that most people notice, I found myself at a stop light in Tacoma. Not too terribly far away, a young man was trying to push a 442 up a fairly steep incline. He was then joined by another man. And then another. Before I pulled through the stoplight, no fewer than 5 men were exhibiting their manhood by pushing against, I don’t know, 3,500 pounds of steel and inefficient 70s carburetor technology, and it reminded me of when you’d roll into the station, the bell would ring, an attendant would show up, start your pump on leaded gas, wipe the windshield and lift the hood, and you’d wonder, “Why is she crying? And will this be the town we can finally call home?” and other such nonsense. You had to hold tight to the seat, because the vinyl would burn right through you if allowed too much sunlight to reach the surface.