...what a mess...
…the most unprofessional version of ourself is our self…
“I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob.”
-William F. Buckley, Jr.-
The real me is not wearing a suit and taking a headshot. The real me is not struggling with excel. The real me didn’t just get replaced by A.I. at a job I didn’t like.
No.
The real me is overeating a bagel and letting the cream cheese hit the ground. The real me is microwaving popcorn and crumbling it on stovetop kimchi mac. The real me just netflixed and chilled with myself. The real me half read a picture book and skipped his toothbrushing. The real me just farted.
The real me is a slob.
Slob is a great word. It sounds slobbish. That is neat. Maybe too neat. I can’t believe I am writing in a way that made me say neat so neatly. To avoid being neat I am going to burp-shart out the next three sentences.
…blllllbbbppppp - half eaten cold taco, pour salsa down my pants…
…fllllllrrrrrbbbb - torn t-shirt, forty years old, smells like suitcase…
…zzzlllppppffd - forget, forget, forgetting, do I know anyone named Bob?...
Wearing makeup is my aspiration. Getting a haircut is my dream. Wearing a tie to catch someone’s eye is just foreplay or more play. I need to be speaking from the gut or my butt. I need to expose all of my forgotten stinky innards.
My me is inside and needs to get out.
“I can be a lazy slob.”
-Shirley MacLaine-
I like to give babies a hard time. You can quote me as saying that “babies are just extremely useless tiny people”. I saw a baby today and totally ignored it. I dare that baby to call me rude (good luck talking you blobby skin-sack-water-ball of gaaaah). But one thing I can credit a baby with is authenticity.
A baby doesn’t care if I see it covered in tears and vomit and piss and shit. The baby isn’t performing for anyone but god (or Zingus, Zungus & Zebbus). It is only when a baby splashes out the human door closest to a butthole that they get told by the world what to do. This is when they lose their truth. Honesty is knowing not what we know, but what we don’t.
The baby is id. The baby is real. Sure, I can read Sherlock Holmes and the Case of The Disappearing Crack Pipe. Sure, I can speak three languages, and sing in four (lies). But can I cry for 4 hours straight just because no one is looking at me? If I want to be noticed in the world I better be ready to do just that.
We have to be big human babies if we want to be seen. I have to put on a pink onesie, grease my door and stairs, and slip and slide into my car. That’ll make a good tiktok. That’ll make me a good big old baby boy.
Goo. Goo.
I say.
Gah. Gah.
I goo.
Man of poise. Controlled, collected, practiced, purposeful. That isn’t me. That is me as a reflection of all whom I have been taught to be. Naked, hooting, hollering and running down a crick to evade the cops. That is me. That is me at my realest.
The cops see me for who I am, a tall dadbod who tried to steal a hoagie from Jimmy Johns while yoked up on a super-chill brand of truck-stop molly. My unreal me wears a suit and walks away from myself. The real me is handcuffed to a hose and talking about haunted halloween orgies with Trooper Dan while he sprays me with water and asks for clues (you’ll never find my treasure dopey Dan).
The real everybody is a slob.
I don’t care how fit your fit is, or how on fleek you speak. I know you took a dirty ass dump today. I know your underwear is filthy and hanging in the corner of some forgotten corner of a corner in the corner of your corner. I know that one day on earth you said wanh. And your wanh was right.
Wanh. Wanh. Wanh.
Do you realize what just happened on earth yesterday!?! What is happening today!?! Or what might happen tomorrow!?!
The fact that we aren’t more outraged as a species speaks volumes to how quiet we are getting. Life is an endless cacophonous din of tragedy. Live. Die. Repeat. The empowered amongst us generally settle on using their powers against us (see war, a.i., water abuse, two and a half men reruns, taco bell).
If I want to fight back I can’t use their norms. I need to be Norm (from Cheers). I need to grab a beer (N/A is OK), escape from my jail cell, and make friends and neighbors with my friends and neighbors.
My truth is in the mistakes I make. In front of me. In front of others. Like writing a 1000 word ode to slobbery, or stealing Trooper Dan’s Chevy. My truth is what I don’t want you to see. My real me only I can see.
Truth lies. It lies in so many places. It lies in the sky where I assign spirit to it. It lies in the toilet earth that bakes me carrots. It lies on top of the horses who cost me $200 at Swiffy’s racehouse. It lies inside of that same $200 I hid inside of a sock so Trooper Dan wouldn’t take it.
Truth lies in the places we hide ourselves.
Take linkedin. No one on linkedin is honest. I didn’t make any company $5M in sales (black magick did). I didn’t build backends to frontends (my rear end did). I can quit living the lie. I can live the truth, (which might also be a lie).
“I'm just a lucky slob who happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
-Clark Gable-
In the 1984 documentary Caddyshack director Harold Ramis tracks the comings and goings of two species of human who inhabit a land called Country Club. The dominant species are known as snob. They live by a code of inhibitive rules, dance and dress as tightly old fashioned as possible. Their day to day is centered on play, but only one sort, golf.
The slob is the other species in this documentary. The slob has no rules. They drink, they smoke, they set bombs and kill gophers. They curse and gamble and are poor and rich alike. As you watch the snob and slob play games you can see that snobs play by only one set of rules. Slobs however play by those same rules, or against them, or really in any way that they please.
Eventually the slobs take over a body of water. What ensues next is pure unadulterated chaos. Splashing, nudity, madness, glee. A turd is found in the pool. The pool is drained. The turd is a candy bar. The greenskeeper eats it. Metaphorically the swamp has been drained, rebirth commenced, and a moral has been revealed. One man’s shit is another man’s candy. Another man’s life.
To slob is to know ALL ENDS.
To slob is to be late. To say who cares. To forget what I am doing and to do something else. We can do what all the tellers tell us at any time. They will continue to tell us to do so. Their systems aren’t leaving. Their systems are set.
There is no better time on earth to slob than now. Everyone is in a race to put on A.I. t-shirts and work on Amazon branded Tesla-Pepsi spacestation-trukkz. Instead we might not work at all. We can embrace our inner hobo, cut open a can of sardines and steal a french man’s laundry. We can dig some holes and show Trooper Dan exactly where his socks are buried.
The fact that I so carefully wrote these words, and that I didn’t write fart-stains-mc-butt-sauce-fuck-fart-it-all instead, proves I have a ways to go to be truly slobbish.
To be a slob is to work without working. To find truth and not know it. To seek existence instead of showing it. I can’t slob by telling you to slob. I can only slob by slobbing.
In my filth of mistakes, accidents and un-worry, sleeps my real me. I won’t give him a shower. I won’t give him advice. I’ll instead leave him on the couch covered in dreams and doritos.
In a world ruled by rules I can pay my entrance fees and try to get noticed at the tee box, or I can eat turds from the pool and have sex on the 18th hole. Call me stupid but I prefer that you pass me the baby ruth. And bail me out tonight.
“Free your mind and your ass will follow.”
-Parliament Funkadelic-
…big thanks to Quinn Zeda, Samantha Law and Mandell Conway for helping me with this one…i tried to find your substacks to link to but i failed…i guess my slobbishness is succeeding…maybe i shouldn’t even publish this…i should just throw my computer in a pool and rub soy sauce on my chin…i am going to put my diaper on now…see you in the deep end…
An ode to the slob - I feel so seen!
This is so good. You should post it on LinkedIn though.