Old Sorry Bastards
it is with great regret that i am forced to inform you that you are an old sorry bastard.
yes. you.
for a few weeks now i've been trying to rustle up a team to "compete" in the urban iditarod this saturday. it's everything one could hope for: idiotic costumes, forced drinking, calesthenics, public sex acts.
many a soul heard the pitch, saw last years pictures and said loudly, with joy in their hearts, "maybe."
"maybe?"
now here it is the thursday before and i have exactly two teammates and a photographer.
two (2). that is pathetic. and why, why you ask, do i only have two teammates?
because you are an old sorry bastard.
too many of the people whom last year caroused with abandon are now just too damn adult to dress up like Hunter S. Thompson and drink heavily while pulling a shopping cart across town.
not me, though. or well, maybe yes me, but i'm doing it anyway. because.
because!
because you just get older and duller and softer around the middle and you get hangovers easier and your knees ache and the kids need minding and you just can't drink like you used ta could.
ergo you must FORCE yourself to remain among the living. you must look carefully at an opportunity, decide it is wholly inane, and yet do it anyway.
because!
i just finished this book called The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton. it's really quite excellent. in it, he discusses in mostly philosophical terms what travel is and how one can approach and appreciate it.
one of the last chapters is about how to SEE things. how to use sketching and "word drawing" to force yourself to really observe where you are.
the last chapter is about a guy who travelled around his bedroom.
so it's clear, right? you need to get drunk and pull a shopping cart around every so often or you'll end up with your head down, working 9-5, just so you can watch the latest episode of Survivor and retire so you can watch it again in reruns.
fuck that. i'm moving to Mozambique.
really.
conversations with steve have progressed and he's serious and we're serious and, well, Mozambique!
in case you're new to this whole Mozambiqe concept, my friend steve is starting a business to bring tourists to Mozambique to monitor and track whale sharks and manta rays.
by monitor and track we mean: dive with and photograph. an eco-tourist / scientific holiday kinda thing.
he needs a marine biologist and a tour manager.
we'd live near Inhambane, which is, uh, in Africa. i know tons about Mozambique. tons. like, as of 1999 it had the world's lowest per capita income ($80). there are a lot of land mines scattered about after that civil war thing -- which wasn't really a civil war since the "rebels" were out and out funded by South Africa and Rhodesia. it's major exports are prawns and cashews. it's across the strait from Madagascar which is where they keep the lemurs.
is this a definite thing? no. is it a plan? not yet. is it better than reruns of Survivor? fuck yeah.
it is never too late to stop being an old sorry bastard. the urban iditarod starts on saturday at 1:00. we'll be the ones who are drunk and acting like idiots in costumes which vaguely resemble Hunter S. Thompson.
may he rest in an everlasting ether-induced frenzy of peace.
two things.
1. i hope you know it's 12:33AM in NYC and i'm looking on orbitz for tix to SFO just because you can't find 6 loonies to get drunk with you and pull a shopping cart around town. yes, i'm drunk. man, zack, if i have to come to the rescue there'll be hell to pay (and by "hell" i mean obscene amounts of alcohol).
2. i think i recommended said alain de botton book to you a year ago, no? 'sgood. me likes.
alain de boton is good, yes. i'd recommend "on love" as well, but maybe not. i don't know if you need to know how that works, especially if you're in it. spoils the magic, no?
being an old sorry bastard also ends up in you wearing thermal underpants as well.
this just in: Mozambique GDP per capita: US$670. clearly it's a country on its way up. course, it's difficult to go down when you start at the bottom.
I like prawns.