The Wanting to Know..

I've sat on it for nearly 24 hours. I still can't decide which was more amusing. The roughly 60-year-old white dude singing “Gangsters Paradise” for karaoke. Or the three middle-aged white ladies next to me singing along while banging to the beat on the table. It was all quite entertaining but such is the downtown of a city with such a storied past. The carriage rides. Trolleys. The ghost tours carried out by a hearse with a cutout top. Fucking brilliant really.

 I'm guessing for the ladies it was a night out. The old guy? He had a decent enough voice. Was certainly not his first time. But “Gangster's Paradise?” It's catchy. The message is heartfelt. Although I imagine there being legions who wouldn't classify Coolio as all that gangster. But what the hell do those people at the bar think they know about being gangster? Hell, it seems everybody wants to be gangster these days. And in case you're wondering I sang “Man of Constant Sorrow. 

Hell, maybe I'm just a sour middle-aged white dude. Letting it bother me so badly. He wants to sing about it but the crusty dude is not going to be living that shit out. So what is his understanding of the song? What meaning does it hold for him? I'm surprised nobody is yelling cultural appropriation when white people sing rap songs. Unless those white people are singing Marshall Mathers. 

I just watch. 

Amused. 

I think about those ladies. I wonder if they were glad to get away from their husbands for a night. Honestly, they were quite annoying. Doing those damn Snapchat filters on themselves. Or maybe that's just me wishing I could let loose and have fun. What does it say about our current condition? You can look across the room and see that 99% of the people there endured a miserable week of work just to turn it up on a Saturday night. People sing song after song. The booze flowing like Niagara Falls. The number of phones that were out and people recording themselves like they are the most interesting God Damn person that ever lived. I'm here trying to figure out whether to admire them or hate them. Having a sense of healthy self-esteem is one thing. But the level of self-importance people seem to have today. 

I Want to Understand…

I get it. I just can't decide whether to embrace it or hate it. Hell, when I went to Los Angeles for 4 years I just knew I was going to be the next Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt. But maybe there is the fallacy. The world today tells us that you're nobody if you're not somebody. That you're not important and that your life is sad if you're simply not famous. Why do we want to be? Me? I chased the fame so the money would follow. I don't care to be known. I just want the money. Give me 25 million and I will gladly and quietly go away into the stillness of the night. 

It's probably why I'm writing now. I realize I will never have the money. So why not the fame? To be talked about decades or even hundreds of years from now. We won't even know it so why does it matter? Dying having everyone know your name or just in complete obscurity. What fucking difference could it possibly make? And so I write. Incoherently. And probably with the utmost stupidity. 

Why? 

Because I sit here. 

Alone. Hoping someone might notice. Or maybe one day my kids will read this and somehow understand me better. I remember reading somewhere that people want to be understood. Maybe that's true. I don't know. Honestly, I don't know anything anymore. What do those people at the bar have figured out that I don't? What have they learned about themselves or their lives that make it appear as though they are actually living? Or maybe they are just fooling themselves into thinking they are. What if their lives are so banal this facade only placates what they truly feel? We hide behind words like meaning and purpose and passion. How many people truly get to do what they're passionate about? 

Willing to Buy It?

I don't believe for a second that a single individual at that bar truly does what they are passionate about. If they did would they have to try and wash away the week with booze and a pathetic attempt at singing? No, there's something off about it. I can't place it but if people were happy, I mean really fucking happy with their lives they wouldn't need an escape from it. 

And that's exactly what weekends are. Escapes. An escape from the mundane. The bullshit that encapsulates such a God damn meager existence that most of us live. We try to convince ourselves that we are happy by convincing others we are happy. And it's one big comical farce. Because we lie to ourselves about what truly makes us happy. Do you think your job makes you happy? Helping others makes you happy? Fuck no. Nobody wants to work. I work because I have to not because I want to. Help others? They might be appreciative for a day but who are we kidding? 

Eat. 

Drink. 

Fuck.  

And just be merry. 

The rest is just bullshit.