Yeah, yeah. It's a little late, I know. But who doesn't love a little procrastination? Besides, it isn't as if I'm getting paid for this (One day, one day....) Nah, I'm getting paid to ferry drinks to drunks and drunks to drinks. It's quite ironic, now that I think about it. I'm an enabler of an entire city's predilection for substances, but hey, I gotta keep the AC on somehow.
I cut my beard into a strange goatee yesterday. I can't decide if I look like General Zod or the bastard spawn of Ron Perlman and Zach Galifianakis. Works either way, I guess. It's refreshing and absurd in equal measure when you aren't trying to impress a special someone every day of your life. I feel like a kid who held in a fart for too long in a room with his middle school crush, and now she's gone and I can test how far I can fart the alphabet.
But enough asides; thsis is starting to read like a Tristram Shandy knock-off.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to my mind's seedy biker bar; we got scotch on tap, everything on the menu is served with jalapenos, and the clientele is plucked straight from Bukowski's fever-dreams. If this is your first time reading, I apologize in advance. If not, well, you know precisely what you're in for.
I wanted to restart my entries with a quick update on yours truly. I've recently moved back to my city-muse, Richmond. She's a winsome lass, when she's not puking on your shoes. I remember the first time I wrote about this city, years ago in a tiny student newspaper called The Black Sheep. I really hadn't been in the city for more than a few months at the time, so I was at a loss for content. But after a serendipitous experience with some trainhoppers at Belle Isle, little wide-eyed Ben set out to pen an ode to the Isle and her nuances. It's quaint, in retrospect; the Isle is now universally popular - maybe more so than when I first visited - and universally cramped. Not in a stuffy way, but you definitely lose the slapshod majesty of the Isle if you're pounding beers next to a family with two newborns and a collapsible baby hammock. Regardless, it's good to be back in a place where I have at least a fraction of history. And for a kid who grew up with Uncle Sam, finding a home is notoriously elusive. Your roots only go a few months deep, then they slough off like the tail of a salamander in crisis. They grow back, but they grow back a bit shorter each time.
At this rate I'm going to be a potted houseplant with the trunk of a baobab.
Oh, and one more thing to any writers out there. I think the worst course of action for a writer is to take inspiration from their past work. It's akin to mixing fresh food with the rotten rinds of last month's offal, or setting up a date with a girl you knew in Pre-school. All art made with pieces of yourself has a shelf life, and once it goes bad you can't shock it out of lividity. Let it die, and be reborn. Sometimes the past is easy to hold on to, but only because we refuse to see its putrefaction.
Going to review some music in the next few days, as part of my attempt to inject good taste into American culture. Yes, I'm quite serious, and yes it's possible.... Stop laughing.
You wanna see what cultureless existence looks like?
https://youtu.be/24R8JObNNQ4
HEIL KARDASHIAN HEIL BUZZFEED HEIL THE CONSENSUS HEIL HOLLYWOOD HEIL PRETTY PEOPLE HEIL YOUTH HEIL THE TIMESTAMP HEIL HASHTAG UBER ALLES.
Sorry, I almost made a bad joke there.
