If there was some sort of mojo I had as a writer, I feel I may have lost it. The fact that I had to use "mojo" in that sentence, in fact, that whole first sentence and probably this one too, is evidence that my writing is much less like that found in the New Yorker and much more like that found in USA Today. And I don't even put any visually enticing graphics up here, so this is basically as entertaining as a middle school class newspaper without the over-reliance on a thesaurus.
This is the kind of visually enticing graphic that separates The Ozone Shack from USA Today
Let's take a look at what I have done in the past few months:
- Make the astute observation that the Eagles are kind of like a turkey sandwich with avocado
- Rambled on about the future and how it will be exactly like every dystopian sci-fi movie ever
- Produced some incoherent rambling about the philosophy of running
- Talked about LOST for two posts more than was necessary
- Changed the name of the site, for some reason
- Acquired exactly one (1) more follower
Basically, as much as I hate to admit it, this has fallen into the category of "every crappy blog by some asshole on the internet that barely has a readership greater than one." I would like to fix this, but, as you can probably tell, I am not very good at doing things, and especially not good at doing things well. (It's true, I just sort of lie here in a pile of my own filth thinking "if I could move properly, then maybe my bedsores wouldn't be so infected right now.") Incidentally, I'm not sure if I closed that parentheses right. I have a quote and a parentheses and it's the end of a sentence, but it looks like some sort of weird smiley that looks like a combination of the face paint of Paul Stanley and Peter Criss from KISS, and whoever it is, they are
very happy. Maybe I haven't been learning what's important. But I have learned that you should never put a gun in a story unless it's going to go off, as well as its corollary: never put a banana in a story unless someone is going to slip on the peel.
Maybe I'm like Dylan Thomas and I can only write well when I'm in a specific place. Maybe more like Bob Dylan, who throws a lot of references together that kind of make sense grammatically and calls it profound. Or maybe the part of my brain that writes well got swallowed up by some other important part of my brain like the responsibility lobe. If said lobe is the culprit, however, it has yet to come online. To compensate, I have been keeping my cell phone extra close to my crotch and standing in front of the microwave whenever possible in order to reduce my sperm count, because I am in no state to be siring any illegitimate children right now. However, this is much more likely to cause a horrible mutant strain of bacteria or virus (or brain parasite!) which our immune systems will be horribly incapable of handling.. Even my best ideas suck.
I sort of have this desire to puke right now, and it's sort of a combination of despair, confusion, and a feeling of being useless. But there's nothing I can do other than puke and keep going. And this is not some sort of lame metaphor. I really feel like I'm going to puke. Like, despair puke. I don't know if that's a term, but I want to puke out of despair. I can't take Dramamine or Pepto-Bismol or ginger ale, I think I may have to let this thing run its course or somehow abandon this irrational lack of hope. Jesus, I should at least turn the lights on.
Ladies, keep in mind however, that as much as I seem to talk about unpleasant physical maladies, I would also love to talk about your day. Because I care. I really do.
My content sucks, my readers are few, and my haircut makes me look like Ellen DeGeneres. I can do two things well. The first is make playlists and subsequently turn them into CDs which are like mix tapes used to be but pointless now because you can just skip between tracks and
you don't even get the meaning, do you, you children of the robotocracy! The second thing I'm good at is not getting lost, but that's not useful anymore either because iBorgs come equipped with GPS systems. Seriously though, I participated in a study for the geography department looking at how people learn new spatial environments. Apparently my numbers were off the charts.
So, if I wanted to make a blog that was say, useful, I could give directions to places and suggest ideas for mix tapes. The first component would be just silly, since it's basically like a very limited version of MapQuest. (MapQuest, this advertising space is yours for the taking.) The second component would be equally silly, because let's face it, I like jazz. I also like Zimbabwean Chimurenga music and Tuvan throat singing. And Coheed. Let's not forget the discrepancy between how I feel about Coheed and how most people feel about Coheed.
So, how am I going to get this waste of a domain name off the ground?
Edit: There were some more words in this paragraph, but google deemed them to be a violation of their policies that allow complete hegemony over the internet. Said words have now been removed. Does this make you happy, Google? You're already an evil totalitarian regime from the future, can't you at least let me try to be not broke?
I like being good at things, but I'm usually not good at anything. For every time I hear "wow Nate, that was good," or "good job," I hear something along the lines of "what the hell were you thinking!" "here, let me do it, I can do a way better job," or "that's the worst idea since East Berlin" at least ten times. I'll be honest though, these late-night, self deprecating posts are probably the most entertaining material I produce, simply because I think "hey, no one is going to read this so I can spend whole paragraphs exaggerating my uselessness and talking about how I miss my dead car that was actually a spaceship."
Come to think of it, I may not be entirely useless or boring. I detected two gas leaks within a half hour of each other, passed out in an orchard, and got a ride from a tweaked out hippie and his mom. This is a guy I met on a bus who runs a family marijuana farm and believes that aliens prevented the Cuban Missile Crisis from escalating any farther than it did. He also gave me his home phone number. I plan on visiting him on a road trip I am taking this summer. All this while wearing an extremely classy hat.
Don't take rides from strangers. Unless the strangers are these people. These people are awesome!
I also got un-banned for life at a campus eating establishment, which is nice, and don't get a strange burning sensation in my right lung when I try to breathe. I pulled off a fast of almost 96 hours and felt great the whole time, and topped it off with a pair of revelations during hour 75. Now all I have to do is find out who shot JFK and I'll be golden.
And despite the optimistic turn this post is taking, I'll have to nip it in the bud here, because this is starting to sound like a lame personal blog, which it is most certainly not. Welcome to the post-postmodern era, where a postmodern art form (ok, calling the blog an art form is a Gumby-esque stretch) is aware that it is art (again, using the term "art" loosely here). And as of that last pointless parenthetical clause, the little man is very sad about the fact that he only has one eye. Stupid internet.
Until next time, Earth.
Edit: I puked. See if you can guess the color!
