...i don't want you to read this...
...the great impression...
“The fool shouts loudly, thinking to impress the world.”
-Marie de France-
“I’m not sure you want to be seen.”
This was a thought that impressed on me about a week ago. Is it better to be seen or be seeing? It feels like we prefer to be seen seeing.
My grandparent’s grandparents got to live out THE GREAT DEPRESSION, a decade of global economic downturn remembered for the social financial emotional trauma it left on those who endured it (...and also killer black and white photos…). Dust bowls, glass bowls, mass unemployment, organized crime and the eventual solution (...a wonderful world war!...).
It sounds depressing.
It was depressing.
It was so depressing that the era itself got named after being depressed. How great the depression!
I dream that I someday get to live through THE GREAT HAPPINESS, THE EXCELLENT AWESOMENESS and THE AMAZING RADNESSNESSNESS. But instead I live during…
THE GREAT IMPRESSION
This decade is notable for people taking pictures of their posed inflated asses in front of wildflowers at dusk (...with a vignette filter, and portrait mode on…). Impress. To affect especially forcibly or deeply. To apply with pressure so as to imprint. To produce a vivid impression of.
My era is jobs on job sites. People in suits showing me how to wear mine better. My era is a replicant reality. Machines trained to mimic our work, our art, our music. Everything is either to impress me (...learn how to get 25,000 followers!...) or do an impression of me (...A.I. please make me an erotic Garfield…).
The hallmarks of this generation are 15 second videos where everyone is an authority on anything. I watched someone crack a perfect egg. Another mastermind showed me the secret to telling a secret. Our most famous human of the current moment, Hawk Tuah, is about to make a million dollars (and millions of impressions) for having perfected a perfect spitting blowjob sound effect.
Impressive!
I am no better. I started a tiktok to give myself big eyes and a big mouth so that I might talk stupider more often. Idiocracy is I-diocracy. I want you to see me. To feel me. Hear me. Touch me. Tommy?
I don’t want to be hidden, but I am obtuse. I want you to know that. I am abstract. I am not afraid of being that. I am a rectangle hexagon stuffed inside of an omelet made of number shaped pasta flavored igloo ice cream cone. You igloo. I-gloo too. Right here. Right now.
What is the point of a lack of point? To walk the walk? To judge time by donkey ears? My point is anythingism. Anythingism = Anything you want. Anything you need. Anything you -ism.
We are conundrums. CON. UN. DRUMS. Anti-reverse-tympani. Like the opposite of a condom, but percussive, maybe dumber. We are yeah-babies!
“One reason why birds and horses are happy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.”
-Dale Carnegie-
Some thoughts (on space)
Space is meant to be filled
Empty space is beautiful
How you fill space is your art
Your art is beautiful
Some rules (for life)
Have fun
Be fun
Make fun
Have fun fun fun (until your daddy takes your t-bird away)
I become now by being last, by owning the ending. The number one of the end is the end. Last place is the first of last place. Life in reverse is as real as forewords to going forward in four words. Go, move, make, be.
Blink twice if you understand.
Blintz once if you are underneath blueberry syrup.
I sound crazy now because I am. I am crazy for this opportunity. I am crazy about wanting to entertain you.
A friend once questioned me on the validity of entertainment as an artform. What is it they asked? It was a hard question to answer at the time. Entertainment is the distraction of exactness? To be present in thought, but not presence? To show not tell? To tell not-shows?
The book definition is “something diverting or engaging.”1 No wonder it feels so special and specious. What in life is not diverse engagement? I have a good time pissing. I am enraptured by floorboards. To do is to divert. All of existence is entertaining. It all just goes to show that it is all literally (...alliteratively…) a show. Possibly even THE SHOW (starring Thee Showing, Showy Showerson, and Shown “Showish” Showers).
All of this is to amuse you & me & us & them.
Let’s make that more amusing.
YOO. Meaeaeaeee. UHHHSUHSS. Theamehm.
That’s ENTERTAINMENT!
Are you not entertained?!?
Can even that be more entertaining?
“I don't try to change myself to impress anybody. I'm just who I am.”
-Tim Duncan-
It feels like adult life wants us to quit PLAYING. Get a job. Be a boss. Obsess with the obsessions that the obsessed obsess obsessing about. What is it about growing closer to death that makes us so much more serious? Don’t we realize that we are about to die? We could die tomorrow today! We could die whenever wherever! Whatever!
We could die listening to Shakira Shakira!
Is it worth it to plan a spreadsheet for that? Or to create a bucket list? Or to make generations of “generational wealth”. Let’s give our money to the poor and see what they do. I want to see generations of uneration :: untold unheard unfound unbelieved undefined unctuous unknowns. I want to see the Hamptons look like shit for once. The billionaire's are kicking the millionaires out of Jackson Hole2, meanwhile a dude down the street from me sleeps inside of a big flat tire. This shit is getting tired. Flat out.
The future is impressive. Our imps pressing us to stare deeper at our screens. I browse web3 social media spaces seeking out virtual friends. I live like a vampire, concerned with my lines of blood. Oh god, be a kite hanging from the weeping willow tree and please show me which way the wind might take us (*the kite falls to the ground, my dog pees on it & end scene*)
Believe in Believeacuss!
These words have diverged, divunged, divested, defunded, debungled, dewrangled. The world needs a mustache day. The world needs new shoes. The world needs to wake up together and admit we exist. Admire that we exist. We fight in wars because we can’t fight ourselves hard enough. Each other is easier.
Why is it so hard?
What is it? It’s it!
…yeah…yeah…yeah…
We are seen and seeing.
We are seen seeing.
Our message is confirmed to be read, dancing a meme back to ourself. We are the comments beneath us, the heart emoji shining on our hands, the acknowledgements we acknowledge acknowledging each other. So I $%#^ around to impress you. If you made it here I know you see my I’s.
Am I still hiding? Am I in these words? Can you find me?
Things I have hidden
A 20 VHS-Tape Collection of the complete Charlie Chaplin
Time
A wrapped and sealed double LP of Grayfolded (an album composed of a blend of 100’s of versions of Dark Star by the Grateful Dead)
Priority
A bunch of bad art I will eventually share with you here in a self roasting session celebrating the era where I quit smoking cigarettes and started getting emo
An appreciation for mundane tradition
The list could go on, but it won’t. THE GREAT IMPRESSION wins. I want to impress you, and to impress myself, and to impress myself onto my self. I come from atop my mountain, a man climbed above his mind, sent to ski the altitudinal twists of an alpine attitude.
I am impressed. I am impressive. I digress. I am digressive. I drive less. I get a discount on auto insurance. I don’t want you to read this. I want you to see it. To feel it. To hear it. To touch it. Tommy?3
I need to create a map and buy a snorkel to find my untold depths and expose them. I need to share naked photos. Here I am unhidden. Here I am fully nude.
I live through THE GREAT IMPRESSION, our generation of vision. We hide nothing, yet have never been more hidden. Hidden in our online persona. Hidden in our glown up dress ups. We put on our avatars and slink up sad to bars. We share our selves and wear ourselves, out and on our sleeves. We can be found everywhere (the internet allows).
I come here to quit hiding. But I work in reverse. The words that can unveil me, only inhale and exhale me. I am smoke. I am sticky. Let me grab my shovel and find my treasure.
Those riches within us might be mighty, so we might as well be impressive. At least that is the impression that I get.
“Wait long enough, and people will surprise and impress you.”
-Randy Pausch-
…thanks to
& for your assistance on the edification, clarification, and magnification of the potential exhumations illuminating dissemination herein…appreciate you…FOOTENOTES
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entertainment
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13601649/Joe-Ricketts-Wyoming-Jackson-Hole-luxury-resort.html
i’m really glad i smoked before reading this sassy&tender piece. and yes i’m absolutely falling asleep to the audio as i dream about dreaming
What!! Your voice is so perfect for narrating!