Hello Everyone, My goal in this blog is to tell a story. I’m not anyone particularly special or important - just your average guy. Born in 1984, in case that’s relevant. I’m not really sure this story is of any particular importance either. But it’s mine. And this is my attempt to tell it as honestly as I can. You should be aware that you are reading the words of a flawed narrator. I’m not even so sure I want to tell this story. That’s the type of honesty I’m talking about - I don’t think I “want” to. I feel compelled. I am a fan of all things art; books, music, movies, visual art, statues, plays, poems, stories of any sort. With a particular slant toward the abstract. I used to play music when I was younger, and that felt good…. But I think I’m going to accept that my ‘art’ is storytelling and the written word. I love stories. I love to tell them. I love to read them. I love to live them. And now I’m going to try to write some. I’ll probably start in the middle - since that’s where I’m currently at. What will this story be about you ask? Well I’m not so sure, I haven’t seen the ending yet. It has a beginning, that part is for sure. It has parts that meander a bit as well. It’s not a story that necessarily makes sense, but I think that’s because it’s real? There are some life lessons in here, maybe… I sure hope so, for my sake. If you happen to grab some that would be mostly a bonus. I mean - happy to be of service, but I’m not convinced that my life lessons are anyone else’s lessons, on life or any other matter. I’ll say this - I’ve got decent taste in music, according to this one guy I know. This might be that guy’s story. Or it might be another guy. We’ll have to see. I think that might be part of the problem, I’ve had so many phases and different lives lived already - that it’s getting a little crowded in here with all of the different people hanging around. I’d like to think this story is the attempt at merging all of that. Reintegrating, if I’m using the language of the therapists. Maybe I need to reintegrate these different parts of me. Or maybe I’m just a guy who likes to type and think. Maybe this is a story with a happy ending, or maybe this is just a story. Time will tell. Maybe I feel like I’m finding my voice and I need to get it out creatively. Or maybe it’s some cry to be heard. It could be me feeding my ego, thinking that telling this story matters. Hard to say most days. I’ll confess to this much - I think I was 5 or 6 years old the first time I had what I would now describe as an existential crisis. I distinctly remember thinking “how did ‘I’ get in here?” “Where did I come from?” “Who is having these thoughts?” Hilarious now, like I’m special with these feelings. Welcome to consciousness. Ok anyway - on to the reason I started writing this to begin with. There’s this animal inside of me that I’ve been wrestling with most of my life. Some days he is the source of my inspiration and my will to keep going, some days he is just a huge pain in the ass to have around. But today we’re going to see if we can try to just identify this little guy for a second, and see what he’s like. Here’s some fun features; - He really loves to smoke weed, more habitually than needed. - Wakes up with more energy than most people and doesn’t drink any coffee. Never consumed one single sip in my entire life. I’m just like this. - He has an insatiable sex drive. - Short tempered and fragile at times. (*Gasp* Ego?) - Whatever the opposite of brevity is, clearly. - More concerned with life, love, adventure, and living in the present than any other part of me. Now I’m trying to figure out if there’s any significance in the fact that I just threw out my empty joint tubes in the same container that we use to throw away the dog shit…. There’s probably something pretty obvious here. Anyway if you’re not impressed with this guy. Imagine how I feel, I have to live with him. What else does he get up to? Well once in college he got a C- in an Econ class by doing the following; - It was a Monday night class and my roommate would drop me off every monday after smoking a blunt. - Even on nights with tests. - When I got the final paper back, and re-read it - I didn’t even remember writing it. And it was such gibberish that I can’t believe the professor gave me some sort of C+/B- on that paper, I think just to make sure I didn’t take Econ again. All I could say for sure was after reading this paper, whoever wrote it didn’t understand the topic they were attempting to describe. Oh, As I’m sitting here high as a kite - this comes to mind; Me and my roommate got in the car with two young women and headed for our neighboring town’s college - on the way there we got pulled over and since he and I were drinking beers in the backseat, we got written underage drinking tickets because we were both 19ish, and you need to be 21 to drink in the backseat illegally. The officer made us ‘admit’ to it and then he was ‘kind’ enough to absolve the two ladies in the front seat of any wrong doing as far as “letting” us drink the beers in their car. Lessons learned. - But the thing is, about 90 seconds before we got pulled over the young lady driving was making a left across a 4 lane highway. During the turn she spotted a perfectly harmless spider on the outside of the drivers side window. Yes you read that correctly, on the outside of the closed window - as in; harmless in every way even if it was the world’s most poisonous spider - which it was not. We were in Minnesota. So the young lady in question who’s name I can’t remember for the life of me, is screaming about the spider on the outside of the window while making a left turn across traffic. And as I stared at that harmless spider I thought to myself “this is how I’m going to die….” Now, probably 10 minutes later as I was sitting there on the trunk of the patrol car, and the officer feeling like he taught me my lesson by writing me a ticket for drinking in a moving vehicle….. I was thinking about how glad I was to not be dead on behalf of a distracted driver by a harmless spider. So yea, lesson learned - I shouldn’t have gotten in this car. Thank god you stopped it, you probably saved my life. But sure, I had two beers as well. Scary stuff. It was also funny again 3 or 4 months later when my parents figured out their insurance had gone up on behalf of this incident, and they scolded me for not telling them. Tell you? Yea right - you yell about everything. Like I’m gonna tell you I almost got killed by a spider on a harmless drive across the countryside while drinking two beers in the back seat. I may be dumb, but even I’m not that dumb. My friend and I went to court and after I said my long winded piece (as you can imagine, look at all these words I’m writing for this one story) — when my roommate stepped up, the judge looked at his paper- looked at my roommate, looked at me. And my roommate said “yea, I was with him”. His whole deal took 2 seconds. Exact same outcome. I sweated it out up there feeling guilty or some shit for several minutes. Fucking hilarious. On a completely unrelated note, I had one of the most dramatic 3 day weekends of my life after inviting a girl I’d been on 3 dates with away for the weekend with me and a dozen drunken 26 year old friends on a boat…. Not sure where I was going with this but that wasn’t that much fun in the end, felt fun at the beginning of the idea. Strange how that works out sometimes. But putting those words together now, it’s like what did you think was going to happen? So I wonder how I’ll feel about what I’m doing now in a few years. And what am I doing now? Well earlier today I took a little bit of mdma, a tab or so of lsd, smoked a joint and then watched the movie ‘The Life of Pi’. Or what I like to call…. Saturdays. Circa ‘20 - 21 - ‘22ish. Not every Saturday, obviously. Ever since I finished the movie I’ve been outside listening to music and I’m now trying to pretend like I’m not going to smoke another joint around sunset and watch the stars come out. Rebel. I’m pretty sure I’m writing this as an ‘about me’ page for a Blog I want to start. And as I type those words its like; accomplishment? Or 21st century cliché? Pointless homework for myself? I’m not entirely certain any of these thoughts will be original or that my perspective is of any particular value to anyone. But this is some of what I’ve seen. Not necessarily in any particular order, and in some cases with the benefit of hindsight - so who knows how true those stories even are. I’ll try my best. ‘Best’ for me includes being honest - and if I’m being honest I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing. With my Saturday or with my life. As you might have guessed, some things have gone awry. Silly little humans always getting themselves into the next predicament. Another problem for us to solve, to keep our minds busy while we try to live with the near constant urge to survive and fuck. Anyway, there have been some artists and creators that have had a positive influence on my life. And probably have saved my life at times by being there when others weren’t, by sharing parts of the human condition that don’t lend themselves to polite dinner discussion. I’m grateful to you all, you’ve made my life more rich. And at times, more bearable. In no particular order, because I don’t know how to do favorites, except Atmosphere and the Offspring. But here goes the list; Atmosphere, Cake, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Talking Heads, Paul Simon, Lil’ Wayne, Hunter S. Thompson (tips cap), Aldous Huxley, Jimmy Buffet. Aesop Rock - specifically the song Holy Smoke, about 20 mins ago. Ayelett Waldman, your honesty was inspiring. Anne Lamott - it can feel so good to cry and laugh at the same time. Jeff Goldblum and his two jazz albums. Yea, you read that correctly - go check them out. You’re welcome. There’s some (many) others, I’ll just mention them as they come to mind I guess. But you’re all cool, for putting it out there. Being real with us about how it isn’t all roses along the path of life. This too shall pass, or whatever you’re supposed to say when life kicks you in the teeth so hard that it knocks your lights out. I mean, it will pass. But how long until I stop seeing the stars? Hank Moody, the fictional character from the show Californication. *chefs kiss* And lately these guys called the KnowMads. The Game. Rihanna, Lil’ Kim, Faith Evans… The Notorious B.I.G. Jeff Bridges as The Big Lebowski. 311, Rebolution, and the Dirty Heads. Lane8. Chromeo. Chet Faker. Pantera. Mudvayne. In Flames. Ozzy Ozbourne. Tim Ferris and the guests that he’s interviewed. Ram Dass. Taylor Tomlinson, for helping me to laugh when I was really struggling. And to my ex wife- *cheers* I fucking hated both of us during our marriage and I’ll never have any clue how we got to that place. Couldn’t have done it without you. Now as I stand here in the sun I’m thinking: I hope if the neighbors can see me standing out here that they’re thinking - that’s what a shirtless guy on acid who is smoking a joint and listening to music looks like. Because that’s what I’m thinking too - and I do so love to connect with my fellow human. I’m remembering now how when I was just about to go through my divorce I was starting therapy, and I spent probably 3 or 4 months just yelling at this poor female therapist. Then one day I remember saying something like “I just feel so angry”. I don’t have any actual memory of how she reacted, but how I picture it now is that she snapped awake in her chair, and was like - gee, do ya think?! Bravo, you both had and labeled a feeling. Solid first step. Did I mention this guy is angry sometimes? It sucks to say it but it’s true. About a lot of different things really. Some of it ‘righteous’ anger he might even say to himself. But anger. Rage. Frustration. Snappiness. The lack of patience. Yes I’m familiar with the feeling…. Right between my shoulder blades. Makes my shoulders squeeze together. Makes me feel tight. Like a hair trigger. A scary little animal that hasn’t been loved like it wanted to be along the way - so mad. Wah. Just a kid who grew up all in one moment. Or in one series of unfortunate events. Hard to say exactly…. Some of the other characters in these stories disagree as to how events unfolded. In those cases I’m not sure what can be said, I’ll try to be as accurate and emotionally open as I can be - and I’ll keep everyone‘s names out of it, including my own. So this is me, Blunter S. A not very creative moniker as an ode to a guy who’s thoughts I miss dearly and who’s ultimate fate I hope to avoid. Stay well, Hunter, I wish you were still here sharing your perspective. Aspiring gonzo-journalist. Arm chair psychologist. Friday night philosopher. Entrepreneur. Software Engineer/Consultant (what, weird?) Loving Uncle. Brother. Cousin. Friend. Wanna be Comedian. Family fuck up. Rebel without a cause. Snowboarder. Mountain Biker. Surfer. Lover of all things art and music. Observer of Science. Child. Man. Homo Sapien. Caveman Hunter Gatherer…. Semi-Hairless monkey. If you’re still reading - bravo, you’ve got almost as much attention as me. Cheers, I’m gonna write some words.