On Sunday (not Friday) I was just sitting around the house not doing much. I would have called my best friend to come over and sit on the front porch with me but it was winter and my best friend lives up in Black Duck, Minnesota. So instead I hung out in the living room with Jenny Reck. She was doing laundry and I was sitting around listening to music. It was a very unproductive day for me. When she said that she was going to take a nap I decided that is was time to go find my electric guitar and rock out. I had been looking forward to this moment all week and I finally had the time to do it. I searched high and low for a working electric guitar but the only one that I found was one that Timmy has built for me like 4 years ago. It's not a very good guitar but that's ok because I'm not a very good guitar player. There could be a pretty good reason why this guitar wasn't the best. He could have lacked the knowledge or tools needed to make a quality guitar. Or maybe he just never got around to finishing it. But the truth is I'm thankful just to have it. I never valued it before because it didn't have any value to me but now I can realize just how cool it is that my little brother made me a guitar. He wired it and finished it himself. That having been said I apologize if the videos before aren't any good. For starters I don't think I've ever played an electric guitar before and I don't really know how to use an amp properly. And then I forgot some of the words and chords to the songs that I was playing. And finally when you break it down I just kind of suck at guitar. But I am trying to get better.
Here I am playing a song by 4 Non Blondes called "What's Up." If you were alive in the 90's then you certainly are familiar with this song and it has gained popularity for being one of those one hit wonder kind of songs. It has always been a personal favorite of mine because it allows me to sing in my head voice, be obnoxious and sing really loud. I usually reserve this kind of nonsense for when nobody is around but thanks to the beauty of the internet I will now share it with all of you. You're welcome.
Timmy's guilty pleasure music group was The Cranberries and his favorite song was "Zombie." Timmy had a thing for zombies and he adored all of George Romero's "______ of the Dead" movies and even wrote his own song about zombies. It featured lyrics that came right out of those movies like heading towards the local retail store when they start taking over the world. I learned this song a while back and like to play it often because it makes me think of Timmy. Plus it gives me a pretty good chance to showcase my vocal stylings and range. It's pretty ridiculous but somehow it works for me. I just hope that someday I'm able to get better at guitar so that I can take my show on the road and impress the ladies with my renditions of 90's pop songs.
So that is basically my life now. I still live at my Mom's house and I hang out in my basement "No Girls Allowed" clubhouse and figure out new ways to turn away the opposite sex. I'm sure that chicks dig me hard core because I'm a trivia master and I would wear pajama pants and sleeveless shirts all day every day if my work didn't have a dress code. I wish that I had my own cable access show and that people around town worshiped me because of my local celebrity status. Well I do kind of have that going for me because people do recognize me as either "that guy from the beer pong movie" or "that guy in the bleachers with the sombrero" and at Saturday night's Bucks game Jenny and I did have backstage laminates. So we're pretty close to being Wayne + Garth with the exception of the cable access show. But it will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine. When I lived with Aaron, Brodey, this dude Craig and TJ slept on our couch for $80 a month we considered putting a show on public TV and doing new episodes every week. It would have been a pretty sweet and in retrospect I wish that we would have done it if only for a few months. It would have been pretty sweet to look back on a reminisce about the good old days. But that didn't happen and I can't linger on it any longer. Do you have to let it linger? Do you have to, have to, have to?
So this is basically the end of this adventure. For 7 straight days I didn't knowingly or purposefully watch TV or movies and chose to instead use that time to write or play guitar. And you know what I have learned? It's something that I already knew but is still very important - moderation is the key. That having been said I would still rather choose to fully indulge myself in these lovely ladies or the massive beer mugs they are holding. Can it be both? There would be no moderation. I would go to town. You better believe it. Especially because the blonde looks like this chick I went to college with and had a major crush on. She was also a communications major and we had a lot of the same classes. Damn man really takes me back and makes me forget about what I was writing about. Scan back a few sentences and...OK now I remember - moderation. Watching TV or movies isn't bad but if you do it all day every day and don't accomplish anything else then it is a bad thing. There is so much to do in this world and sometimes we lose our focus and end up getting stuck in a cycle. It's so easy to veg out and watch someone else's life unfold on TV instead of living your own. Life is tough and sometimes people choose to escape from it. Well I'm tired of running away from mine and although I can't promise to always dedicate an entire week to writing I can promise that I will always take time to do it. I have realized that I need a creative outlet for my ideas because if they fester inside of me I drive myself crazy. I have to let them out and like I said in an earlier post the best way that I know how is to use my words. So look forward to plenty more blog posts in the future and if you've been along for the ride for this "7 in 7" thing I promise you that you ain't seen nothing yet. I can take this virtually in any direction and the possibilities are endless.
Remember yesterday how I said I wanted to make Mila Kunis my girlfriend? Well that would be cool and all but I would totally make Natalie Portman my everything. I've had a thing for her since Day 1 and after watching Star Wars Episodes I, II and III tonight I am more convinced than ever. I have decided that after every 7 day challenge I would give myself a buffer day or a recovery day before starting my next challenge. I am writing this during that day and I went to go see Episode I - The Phantom Menace in theaters in 3D and I can honestly say that she looked fantastic. And before you get all up in my face about the fact that she was so young in the first movie I'll have you know that she was born in 1981 and that we are the same age, so there's nothing creepy about it. I mean I don't have a framed poster of "Where the Heart Is" on my wall or anything. That would be wrong. And she's married and has a kid and shit. She's happy. What would she want with some loser like me? But one can dream, right? Sometimes I just sit back and put on the Ozma song "Natalie Portman." Check it out sometime. It says exactly what I want to say and it couldn't be closer to the truth. This week I have had the opportunity to sit and listen music and I can totally understand why people use it as a form of expression. Someday I hope to have the skills required to be able to write a song so truthful and moving that it expresses everything that I am feeling. Until I reach that point I will just have to use other people's songs to accomplish that. But it's better than nothing, right? Besides I still have a lot of work to do if I am ever able to get a girl like Natalie, let alone any girl, which leads us to my next "7 in 7" challenge.
I am totally unattractive. No girl in their right mind would want to be with me as evident by my lack of girlfriend at the moment. I'm pretty sure that I have the brains, award winning personality and fantastic sense of humor that the female of our species crave but I'm really lacking in the looks department. Despite all the nonsense that people throw around like beauty is in the eye of the beholder and inner beauty is what really counts, physical appearance matters a whole lot because that's the first thing they see and the lasting image that permeates the mind when your name is brought up. I'm an ugly person and I'm also heavy in the midsection. Well might as well stop dancing around the issue - I'm fat and I could stand to drop a couple hundred pounds. This shit has gone on too long and I have become complacent with being single and lonely. Is it a coincidence that I am writing this on Valentine's Day and the only one that I have to spend it with is my cat Coach Gordon Bombay? Yeah maybe but it's more of the fact that I'm just getting sick of this shit. I can't love anyone, nor can anyone love me until I love myself. And at my current state no one could love me. That's why I have to improve my outside appearance so that it matches what it inside. And the only way that I know how to do that is to work out, eat right and hopefully lose some of this weight I've been carrying around. It's no secret that I'm large and in charge and that people call me the white Fat Albert behind my back. Oh c'mon. I've heard you whisper "Hey hey hey!" as I've walked down the hallway. And I would get made if it wasn't true. Hell people used to say that I looked like Jonah Hill but know he went and lost all that weight. So I'm just going to have to go ahead and do that as well so I always look like someone. Looking like me has never really worked out so I might as well copy someone, right?
The whole purpose of this "7 in 7" series was to take away something, add something, or change something in my life in a short period of time so I would notice the difference. When I took away TV and movies for a week and replaced it with writing and playing guitar I realized that I really don't need TV and movies in my life and that I am better off if I devote my time to something that matters more and gives me more enjoyment. When the 7 days are over I will resume watching TV but I hope to do it less often and not let it rule my life any longer. It is only in the absence that we can truly appreciate what we do have. Giving up something that tied me down has kick started my passion for writing and I'm now doing it more than ever. So that is why I proposed that I work out at the gym for 7 days in a row (starting Tuesday February 14) in a effort to kick start myself into the habit of taking care of myself. I tried to care at one point and I currently have a membership to Anytime Fitness that is going to waste. It's time to use it and make better of myself. During these next 7 days I will be working out every night and I will also try to eat healthy as well. This means cutting out all snacks, fast food and all of the other garbage that I put into my body. It will be one of the toughest weeks of my entire life but I need a shock to wake me up from the deep slumber that my life has become. The hope is that by the end of the week I'll be tired as shit but I will also feel a lot better and maybe try to get into some kind of routine where I will be working out on a regular basis. Who knows if it will work but I have to at least give it a go. You never really know until you try and one thing that I know for sure is that I will die if I keep living like this so something has to change. And in the end that's all this "7 in 7" thing is. To experience something different and hopefully be more accepting of change for the better. I guess we'll see what happens in a few days if I'm able to move enough to type something here. I have a feeling that my lazy ass is going to quit this one and not make the 7 days but then again I have surprised myself. Once I kissed a girl. Growing up I never thought I'd do that. So there is hope for me yet. But damn to hell the person who thought of this idea...
- pookon -
email: pookondotcom@gmail.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MilwaukeeIceman
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