On the kitchen counter are 6 or 7 containers of Chinese food. A “buttload” according to my sister. It’s a little before midnight and I’m piling piece onto piece on my fork, stuffing the fork into my mouth and then repeating. I had a really filing diner at a nicer than fast food chicken joint at the corner of Hollywood and Vine around 7pm, so I’m not that hungry. This is a moment of habit, and indulgence. It will be there in the morning, you don’t have to eat it all now. I skip the General Mao’s chicken and continue onto the other small black containers.
I want change, but it’s slower and more difficult than I thought. You can’t just stop. You can either slow down or think about what you can do to replace what’s happening. Instead of going to Amoeba records between shows and spending ridiculous amounts of money on pop culture, I go to the hotel café and see an hour show. It means drinking coffee black, because then I drink it slower and don’t gulp down a ton of sugar and fat in creamer.
Food is the most difficult of all, because my willpower’s drained at night and food’s an easy good time. I can’t just let myself go to bed hungry. I can’t just let the ice cream stay in the freezer. I have to go through huge brainstorming sessions to find alternatives. Right now the winners are carrot chips and precut apple slices. Here’s hoping.
I’m drawing these huge brainstorming graphs trying to clear out my head. All these wavy spider graphs dedicated to topics as heavy as my future, to as light as the after effects of obsessions with pop idols. Anything is written down to figure out what I should do next. The future is going to march on me if I don’t. And same-old, same-old isn’t doing it for me anymore.
It’s hard to figure out what’s next for me. There aren’t a lot of successes out there who are guys like me. No model. It always seems like those who are successful in America are just a long life of skinny white people bequeathing each other onto infinity. It’s a shame. What’s great about the American dream, is it’s the reverse of most religious dogma. There is no chosen, just someone who is self made. But how much of that is real? And how much is just made to keep a status quo? Who Knows? Not me. I got spider graphs to make and a hustle to bust. Holla.
