Hey. Yes, you with your right hand poised on the mouse, left hand pulling your cheek off the side of your face. Can we just...you know, talk? Off the record?

Wait wait wait wait. Before you decide you already know what I'm going to say, just pretend like we haven't really talked about this okay? Because we haven't! I mean we have, but we haven't. I know you think that we looked at this from every angle, discused all possible permutations and exhausted the length and breadth of its importance. But!!! What if we were wrong about the way... (mmmm hhhmm, I'm not going to mention any names, because I know that you can't handle that right now) but yeah, what if the very first instinctual response was the right one? And all the other attempts were just our insecurites and fears working themselves out? You know? I mean what are the chances of us having nailed it...first try? Just, like, some how known implicitly that what we were doing was going to lead to this, this "question" of right and wrong.

Well, yeah, you said so, but that's what I'm saying man. Don't you get it? It's like coughing or sneezing becuase some foreign object or substance has found its way into your system. And you don't even need to think. You just...eliminate it. Automatically. Well why not, right?

But you see that's the thing, is that what comes most naturally will most naturally lead to our destruction. So you have to fight it with, ahh yes, the super natural. You have to yell at yourself in the mirror on occasion. Really get into it you know? You've got to write speeches to yourself. Deliver them from behind a podium, in front of a mirror. Use your hands. And don't blink. And you have to watch little children. Watch them, when they don't know they are being watched. And write notes on your palm. And practice your speeches in the mirror before you do it for real. You have to dance. When everyone else is asleep. You have to keep on dancing and being loud. And you have to find the other people who are bobbing their heads to beats at night on the sidestreets that have two or three people walking up and down them, finger tracing the bricks. And get those people. And bring them inside.

But most importantly, you must find someone who really needs something? Somthing the size of a thumb tack. And give it to them? Because you have one.

I had my first ever casting role today in a show written for a screen about 1.5 inches in diameter. It's the advent of mobile televsion people.

My appearance lasted for approximately 5 seconds, and was extremely natural, organic even. I just get out of a car, a very expensive gas guzzler, and then get slapped in the chest by a cop who is handing out parking tickets. I was brilliant! You have to see it.

Nah, I wasn't really that good. But you'd laugh if you knew me. And maybe you do know me. So you'll probably have a nice chuckle. Other than that, life is clipping along at an alarming rate. I'm 25, (yes, can you believe it?) and still searching for a dramatic means by which to change the world, knock it off its axis, give it a good kick in the pants.

Really though, if I could literally knock the world of its axis, I think it would be an act of self discipline to stay my hand from the lever. Levers are are the next best thing to pulleys. I'm just sayin'. So maybe if I rig together some pulleys and levers... I could leverage some pull with some of these high profile government leaders around the world and get them to see that what the world needs now is love sweet love...and more efficient sugar cane distribution. And just plain forgiveness. Which comes only through the letting of blood.

Hmmm...Of course at this point they will diagnose me with "the crazies" and shove their hands into pockets so as to not give themselves away. But then, I will tell them of how I wear a gray sweatshirt and blue jeans 5 out of 7 days a week in the winter time, and substitute white and gray pocketless tees for the sweatshirt in the summer time. Then I'll have their undivided attention, and do you know what I will say next? Other than the obvious, niether do I. I'm not sure I would have anything too say at all. But I should. Shouldn't I?...have a speech filled with convictions and beliefs ready to go, ready to devliver with quivering cheeks and tears to a room filled with political minds, some slowly deteriorating, some murdering, some neutralized.

Instead, I will enjoy some hard work and savor small conversations with dots on the map. With balloons that slip away from the grips of children and are eaten by the sky. With potholes that jar my insides every morning at the same time on the way to work. I will let go of the unseemly successes we are driven to behold, and instead look for those opportunities streaming underneath noses. And linger in the footsteps of others who eventually found their peace.

Village Voice (4/8/97, p.65) - "...passionate, tempestuous, messy music....This music has a hallucinatory, surrealistic poetry of intimate faith, unfiltered by organized religion....After 45 minutes of nearly psychotic excitement, the staunchest atheist may find herself muttering "I love my Lord..."

Now that's what I'm talking about.

This fourth of July, I spent at least half of the day lounging in a swing on the deck of a good friends lakehouse deck. I sat underneath a slow spinning fan, blades drooping, and dozed underneath the bill off my lake water soaked hat. But for the other half of the day, I was doing figure eights wherever I could find some free water out on lake travis. I'd take the gas powered dolphin out there straight across the middle of the lake and just give it a as much juice as I could, looking both ways of course to make sure one of those fountain monsters wasn't racing from one end of the lake to the other. I'd just squeeze the throttle, stand up and jut my chin out closing my eyes once or twice, water spitting and stinging my chin, and wind dampening the other noise of boaters and kids playing in the water. For some reason wind in your ears and hair always feels better when there's a little bit of water mixed in.

So I'd gun it, and then throw the handle bars to the right or to the left and let the rear end slide around and start sinking, stalling (this doesn't look as cool as it feels from far away). It couldn't keep up with what I actually wanted it to do. It wasn't novel or anything like that, but everytime I slowed down to let the thing slide back into the dock entrance, I'd look at everyone on the dock, me smiling, them smiling but not really paying attention, and then I'd throw the handle bars and squeeze the throttle (SUPRISE!!) which looks almost exactly like the brake that you might find on a bike, motorcycle, moped and many other modes of two wheel transportation. Don't ever drive a moped right after you get off of a waverunner. Very dangerous. So like I was saying, I just couldn't let the thing slide into the dock like you're supposed to, I'd always think, just as I was pulling into the "no wake" zone, that I should go spin around a few more times, that I might not ever get to spin around like that again. And it was so hard to just let the engine idle and bring it in, put it to rest.

No no no!! One more spin, I'd think to myself. And then spray the people on the dock, the nose pointing about 45 degrees in the air for the first couple of seconds. It just felt better to come in when the gas light was down to the last bar, that's all. And I didn't understand how anybody else could resist the urge to steer themselves back out away from the "the end of fun". I was amazed at every rider who simply turned off the engine floated in on the very first time. What self control these people had.

We need more funny commercials like this. We need more stunts in our everyday life. Why didn't I become a stuntman? I'd thought about becoming a stuntman, but then I went to A&M. Why didn't they have a Bachelor Of Amazing Everyday Stunts?

I'm sure that you guys, being the blogosphere savvy individuals that you are, have heard of this new video blogging concept, or not that new really, but becoming more typical for blogs. I think that every last one of you smoke beats water readers is well suited for vlogging...simply because, well, you read my blog don't you? I like this idea a lot, and as soon as I can get my hands on one of those...what do you call those things? Video cameras. Ah, yes, video cameras, I think it would be fun to take you all along on a Day Trip to Ryan World. What do you say? Would you like to come along on an informative look into the real life of a rough around the edges 25 year-old single guy who has made the aquantence of many normal but fantastic individuals and lost his best friend to a female miniature shneiu...shcneu...how the hell do you spell shneuzier? Yes, I think you would too.

Oh, and here's a link for your general relaxation:

http://www.izpitera.ru/lj/tetka.swf