“Life Lesson #6: Amuse Yourself”

As you can see, I’m a massive fan of Moleskine notebooks and have used them over the years for various purposes like journaling, poetry, capturing random ideas, sketching, etc. Their first page has a space to record your name and offer a reward in case of loss. I immediately saw this as an opportunity for an inside joke with myself; an opening salvo to set the tone that silly was, as ever, in season. Yet, looking back, I recognize that it took me a long time to harness my inner audience (I’m consciously avoiding the term critic as too formal and judgmental), those various selves who collectively decide the things deemed interesting and worthy of investigation. The jokes that I find funny. The art that moves something inside me. My favorite films. The music that is soundtrack of my life. And I like the idea that when amassed, this forms a unique fingerprint of my specific tastes (albeit at a given place and time). In my younger days, I was a bit of a people-pleaser and too often swayed by the opinion of others. I now see that it’s a major milestone when you grant yourself the power to be the final arbiter of your own tastes. I remember being in my 30’s and dating a woman who was self-confident and discerning and also fairly critical. Her opinions mattered more than they should have. Anyway, the song “My Love” by Paul McCartney came on and she quite dismissively expressed her disdain. But without even thinking about it, I responded, “Oh, I love this song!” And it was at that very moment that I realized I had turned an invisible corner. That I was at the helm and there was no looking back. But don’t be misled, this is a long toil in figuring out. But it’s the very opposite of drudgery that pays handsomely in dividends of joy. And it is one of the most worthy efforts we can make in revealing our true selves.

Yet it’s not as if the input of others doesn’t matter. It matters greatly, in fact, in the accumulation of one’s preferences. How could it not? The lion’s share of my curated aesthetic has been facilitated by other people. Family, friends, girlfriends, acquaintances, classmates, writers, musicians in interviews, etc. In many instances, they turn you on to the things that ultimately shape and define your personal style. Many recommendations, of course, are set aside, but it is this very churn that helps you solidify your trove of cultural influences and artifacts. Would I have discovered the Beatles even if my older sister hadn’t put me onto them when I was eight? Yes. But it matters to me that it came through her. She is forever ensconced in my Beatles experience, as an embossed salutation and signature. As for Kenny G, he’s more a running joke (the hair alone!) with an old friend, to whom I recently had the absolute joy of sending his memoir via Amazon. That’s the essence of it, really. Amuse yourself first and then, hopefully, others…

My humor, obviously enough, skews towards irony and irreverence. And I think that in discovering yourself, you don’t so much adopt the humor of others; instead you connect with the people who share your overall sense and sensibility (or maybe in my case, nonsense and insensibility). As a lapsed Catholic, there’s little I enjoy more than skewering the inane hypocrisy of that flailing patriarchy. And this forms a sort of litmus test for my “trust circle” — meaning the more ardent your beliefs, the further out your orbit. Not be design, per se. It just happens to work out that way. And so, in the end, the Jesuits did actually teach me something worthwhile.

What post in these trying times would be complete without some disparagement of the World’s Biggest Asshole?? What an utterly shameless dickhead. A black hole of malignant narcissism. A Möbius buzz-stripper. The gods must be fucking crazy…

One of my favorite George Carlin lines: “Home is where you keep your stuff while you’re out getting more stuff.”

Under the influence of “The Twilight Zone” (episode “To Serve Man”). As Bosse-de-Nage from Dr. Faustroll would say, and only say, “Ha-ha!”

Billy Idol performed one of the loudest concerts I ever attended. He had an album called Cyberpunk (1993) that, for the record, I did not purchase. But I did see an interview in which he was asked to define the term, and he rather awkwardly squirmed while drawing a complete blank. Ironically, we could all intuitively define it today as some form of internet hacker-troll, an electronic tag-artist, a virtual vigilante. “White Wedding” was also one of the best from the “Literal Music Videos” series, if you can find it. His real name, BTW, is William Michael Albert Broad.

I just finished the book “Remarkably Bright Creatures” that I found mostly unremarkable, light and cloying (but please form your own opinion!). My favorite line though was this insult: “Why are you dressed like an extra from Caddyshack?”

I think we’ll end it here.