UN. The weather currently being experienced in Seattle is like one of those amazing pie pranks where you get hit with the first, laugh, get hit with another, laugh some more, then start wondering what you did to get the person mad at you. It has long passed the realm of being absolutely hilarious, and now all anyone really wants out of life is to get home without stitches, eat greasy Oriental leftovers and watch Lo-Definition episodes of ‘Lost’. I’m speaking only for myself, of course – although I hope not. I can’t do this anymore. Sit here like some paraplegic in some retirement community far from the baits of civilization. I don’t have four-wheel drive and I need to get down my fucking hill.
DEUX. Due to Thanksgiving, the weather psychoses and the instructor’s perpetual series of ‘girl troubles’, the original schedule for bartending school has been nipped-and-tucked to the point where I don’t know which day is Christmas. (Just for the record, I wouldn't in any other circumstance either) Anyhow, I should have my certificate in the next two weeks. I still haven’t decided what kind of bartender I should be. I mean, the people who make the best tips tend to have very unambiguous personas like ‘Rob the Hot Ex-Marine” or ‘Nina the Tattoo Nymph’ or ‘Jeremy the Guy Who Can’t Do Math But Who Can Make My Grey Goose Martini Out Of This Five Dollar Bill". If you can help me make any specific choices as to what bartender I should be, I would appreciate it very much.
TROIS. Okay, I’m sure I’m not the only one to notice, Foo'ZZ, it’s already December! (Well, a day away from it, but really, what’s the difference?) God-oh-God-oh-God. How the hell did this happen? Where am I? Why am I not rich and having recurring three-way sex with Fredric Michalak and his Belgian waffleboy? And why is my hairline all the way back there? (REPEAT X 12)
QUATRE. I would have liked to have finished at least one substantial project this year. Like Woody Allen. (Who manages to pull it off successfully by being Woody Allen, even when the rest of us say: “Stop making movies where you lie in bed with girls that you'll never get to spread in a hundred years.”) But I mean, going back as far as childhood, I could always trust myself to meet certain goals at the end of each year. Goals that gave something to show for the passing of time. A year well spent. Whether it was a popsicle-stick fortress or a forged attempt at heterosexuality or reading a three-decker volume of poetry that I only pretended to understand, I finished it. Yes, back then, my ass had ambition! (It still does, I think. It just doesn’t like to look in the mirror.) So when the ball drops, we will call 2006 by its name: The Year of Attempted Wisdom and Other Inconveniences. Until then, we still have thirty-one days to go.
CINQ. Well, at the beginning of next year, I begin recording a song cycle I started back in April called Blind Bastard’s Banquet. As it stands, the songs I have finished thus far contain, I think, some of the most musically and lyrically successful work I’ve ever done. The songs are radical, introspective, funny, chromatic, sexy, social, subterranean, etc. I am very proud of what I’ve done and it’ll be very excited to see what comes of this. The objective, ultimately, is to perform them either as a standard ten-song repertoire or with an incidental character-driven narrative. I’m performing these songs on my own, or with a band, should the opportunity present itself. Now as I write this, I just realize how incongruous this is with the paragraph that came before. I should really stop undermining the work that I put into the things that are supposed to give my life any value. In fact, I should stop undermining any of the other attempts I have made this year with the purest of intentions. This will be my new half-baked New Years Resolution. To stop this. Or at the very least, cut back. Because when all the hair is finally pulled out, you realize that the undermining is a strategy to stop moving. My insurance won’t cover its victory.
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