Day One

5 September 2011

So, I knew there must be a way for me to codify what it is that goes through my peculiar mind on the daily.  It might sound like complete bullshit to you (it does to me too most days!) but these are still my thoughts, so deal with it.  Why should you care?  You shouldn’t but because I know that you are an American I know that you do.  You (we) can’t help but look into the open window.  I’m opening a window, so feel free to look inside. 

Like everybody else, I need a place to deposit the bullshit that accumulates in my psyche on the regular.  I need a place to unload.  I need a place to tell you how important Skid Row is and why you’re an asshole for thinking the Beatles are better than the Stones.  Moreover, if you don’t think the Clash is the most important band ever then we have very little to talk about. 

If you’re not from Mississippi, or don’t understand how important SEC football is or if you don’t remember when Milli Vanilli admitted they sold out, or if you didn’t get loud in Los Angeles when the Rodney King verdict dropped, or don’t understand how important the battle of the creek is, or don’t remember the first time you went to the moon and smoked pot it’s okay.  You don’t have to be who I am to hear who I am.  What you prob don’t want to hear is that I’m you.  I just remember it differently.  I remember a beautiful girl “friend” dropping trow and taking a piss in the parking lot of the Pyramid in Memphis before a G’n R concert.  I remember waiting on line (and missing Mrs. Pep’s class) to get Whitesnake tickets.  I remember watching the sun set on Venice Beach and the sun rise over Las Cruces.  I remember those nights on the beach and those nights on the bayou and those nights on the boulevard and those nights down by the river and that golden night on the border.  I remember those days in the hills with bootlegged Takka Supreme and Boone’s.   I remember Topper football and growing up at the Top.  I remember the first time I heard Joe Strummer sing “I’m not Down”.  That changed my life – I was 14, but I knew how important that song was. 

I remember everything.  I remember all the days that nobody remembers except me and that’s that. 

That’s the past (and doesn't really touch the iceberg of my recent past) that I am trying to reconcile with my present.  That beautiful, promising yesterday (that is surely gone forever now) with that beautiful, promising tomorrow (that is surely right around the corner). What do you think?  If you can relate, come along for the ride…if you can’t, so be it. (go back to hell where you came from…I wasn’t talking to you anyway!) [that was rude, and I really didn’t mean it.]  Bottom line – I’m a grown ass man…trying to understand what it means to be a grown ass man. 

I love the Braves, I love Mississippi State, I love my family, I love my dog’s dirty paws hitting the floor of my dirty house and I love East Atlanta.  I love that I am able to talk to you right now.  You have no idea how much I love that.

-         “I want this day to be as good as I dreamt it was going to be last night.”

- John Stantz