It's 9:30pm. I'm trying something a little new. I've gone to a café to write. I'm hoping that the different stimuli will encourage me. This place has a bohemian meets corrugated steel kind of feel to it. There are some quite neat black and white photos posted on the walls, and different colours everywhere. A man behind me is blowing into a digery doo. Ordinarily I'd prefer a digery don't, but right now it seems to work for me. This place has a comfort to it. It's not sterile, but it's not like a jungle here either.
The cafe is called “The Planet.” It kinda has a community feel to it. Artists of every variety and flavour come here to shoot the shit and fuel up on desperately needed caffeine. I used to be a regular here, but that was several years ago, before I met Erin, before Stand up became a job, and before I cared about things like RRSPs, mutual funds, and equity.
Sometimes I wish three ghosts would come and visit me. I'd like to meet the ghosts of Marcus past, present, and future. I wonder what they could offer me? What transgressions would they try to rectify? What would they help me rejoice? It's too bad that couldn't really happen (as near as I can tell…) because it would be an excellent tool to aid in the progress of human social evolution.
That would be killer… Like a Geiger counter designed to sniff out antisocial behavior, and help nip it in the bud before it became a something more, something larger and more difficult to challenge successfully. Imagine all the shit in your life that could have been stopped. The more I think about it, the more the concept flattens me.
I have started to look back a little on the things that have gotten me to here. I'm amazed that I became the man I am. There are so many things that haunt me, choices I've made (that while they have made the difference is a few cases…) I wish I could go back and spend a little more time thinking in future tense rather than past tense. A good example here would be my first marriage. I was young, and I'm not sure what I was thinking. Whatever it was, a dose of sober second thought would have been brilliant.
Currently I think I have been spending a lot of time with the ghost of Marcus present. There are some revelations that are surfacing that I'm not sure I like too much. For instance, I have discovered that I'm a rather typical male. (Happily not much of an alpha male…) I like beer and meat, with sports running a close third. (Not to mention sex and all it's glorious trappings…) I'm trying to see past the perceived failings of my gender, and rise above the things that make us stubborn, petulant, stupid, stereotypical, macho, and emotionally bankrupt.
Where I differ in most respects comes mostly from my parents. They encouraged me to seek answers wherever I could. They spent a lot of time carting me and my sister to things that would help us see the world differently. I was a museum rat just as much as I was a rink rat, and I liked a good dose of classical music along with my Dead Kennedys. (Although I would never admit to it back then…) They did so many things to try and round out our characters. They wanted us to be more than normal, more than mediocre, and I think they succeeded brilliantly.
All that stuff rubbed off really well. I have spent the last 15 years trying as many different things as possible. Just looking at the list of jobs I've done so far is telling. It's such a mixed bag of stuff. I have worked in radio, retail (mostly camera and record stores…), new media, filmmaking, market research, photography, and my favorite so far, Stand up.
More importantly I have been a man with many, many hats. I have been (and likely still will be… as least most of them…) a friend, a best friend, a lover, a boyfriend, a husband, a lifesaver, a person in need of saving, a villain, a hero, a radical, an enemy, a bastard, and a prince. (Not to mention Rock Star, and Prophet… but those are new… and they need to be broken in a little more…)
Those are the real Lego blocks of my personality. Those are the things that have the most value to me. They have made a curious shape to me. So far so good I guess.
I'm excited to meet the next ghost. Marcus future should have some interesting things to say.
End of Transmission
No comments:
Post a Comment