Cinque: What has been your greatest challenge in life so far?

taking a big risk has been a constant challenge. putting myself in a position of happiness seems to involve subconsciously calculating risks and rewards. so i roll the dice for small stakes all the time, but rarely for the ranch. inevitably failure lies ahead when you take big risks, which i genuinely don’t fear, but the rewards haven’t been enticing enough for me to be lured into the deep. i think that’s a problem i need to change, and as i grow up, i feel some priorities gain clarity, while others fade away like a cloud of dust. my hopes are to focus on those i feel intrinsically aware of, so i can fairly assess the value i’d get by pushing my limits.  for me, those risks can all be explained literally and metaphorically in the aspen extreme movie poster.

 

 

jesus. #4 What does love mean to you?

well, this is probably a terrible time to try and tackle this one. Just 8 hours ago i was shopping for twix bars at the bodega underneath my apt after a night at otto’s shrunken head.now i am getting the early symptoms of a substantial hangover. so here i am, sitting in my office, in the dark, with snow falling outside, and johnny cash on the airwaves and i feel compelled to continue this quest of completing these 30 topics before a pal of mine does. but why did today have to be the cliched “what does love mean to you?” im not going to over think this one though. it probably means the same thing to me as it does to almost everyone else. its the feeling involved with the things that you associate with happiness. doesn’t matter if its a story your mom used to tell you, or a dessert you shared at some special restaurant you went to with a person you likely associate or associated with goodness. its your favorite team, pet, smell, whatever. it’s the subject of 99% of every tune ever written. if it didn’t exist, it would certainly leave a void for me, so thank you love for being here, and thank you Johnny for describing it far more eloquently than I. 

If you could wish for only 3 things to come true, what would you wish for?

I’m not sure what your feelings are about the whole wish thing, but I’ve always felt slightly uncomfortable with the rules. There’s the obvious, can I wish for unlimited wishes wish; and then there’s the I wish for 5 related things in one wish, but does that make it 5 wishes ordeal. I am pretty sure this was addressed in the hit film aladdin without any crystal clear resolution. If Disney can’t set the rules straight I suppose it’s understandable why everyone just accepts a wish for a wish, no matter how far it’s stretched. So, I’ll try to be very clear with 2/3, and the 3rd you can determine if I deserve the whole thing, you genie you.

These are in order of importance, so judge me if you dare.

Wish #1. I wish that my mom can visit the places she has always wanted to see (ambiguous? yes. Greedy? No. Its really only Greece, the Wild West, and a seat at the original Pusser’s Rum bar).

Wish #2. I wish that all the people in my life can say with a straight face that if they had to grade their life, when all is said and done, they would give it at the least, an 8 out of 10.

Wish #3. I wish to be immortalized in an iconic dance number in a film that impacts our culture significantly enough to have its soundtrack played for decades to come, no matter what the format of music is at that time; not unlike Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing or Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack.

Topic #2. Plan your last day on Earth.

 

 

 

So this is easy. I wake up my parents and have a really excellent breakfast with them. Conversation, cocktails, big hugs and a nice goodbye. Then I hop on a flight to New Orleans, and meet up with all of my friends and family that read my email inviting them to join me for an end of the world extravaganza in the crescent city. we bounce around town, visit all the haunts, kix is coincidentally playing a set at the maple leaf and right after I scarf down my last meal at the bar at Jacques-Imo’s. A sentimental introspective stroll along the riverbend follows and takes me to Tchoupitoulas St. A ’67 Banana Cream Mustang convertible is idling on the corner, passenger free, so I borrow it and take a cruise to Lafayette number one. It’s just about 10pm and with two hours left to live everyone has gathered. There’s live music, jugs of wine, and a pagan dance party is bringing the cemetery to life. I open the trunk of the car and discover it is packed to the brim with fireworks. As we light them off the skies respond with thunder and rain and we all  run through the grounds, soaking wet, laughing so hard that it hurts, without one care in the world.

never say never.

although sean connery can fairly say he should have said “never” when they asked him to come back as a grampa bond in never say never again.  no offense. my reason for the cliche is far less glamorous, but 100% responsible for the words i am typing. when i first heard the word blog i was insistent that it was an act of narcissistic egoism to the nerdiest degree, but shortly after i knew that wasn’t the case. However, being the stubborn person i am, i refused to give in to one of my sacred vows. This won’t be the first time that’s happened (see: Will Never Date a Girl That Owns Uggs). The inspiration to finally give in (coincidentally the same week as I broke my streak of avoiding Woody Allen movies at all costs, which while on this tangent I knew was a big mistake when that decision was made) came from my roommate/girlfriend who i like to think of as a casual occasional blogger. She like me, broke a promise. Hers was to write about 30 different topics on the first 30 days in the new year to upgrade her occasional bouts of word wisdom to frequent bombs of insightful knowledge dropping.  Didn’t happen. Overall that is not a big deal, but i thought it was a cool idea, so i am stealing it in hopes of getting her butt in gear, but possibly just because i want the excuse to be a narcissistic nerd. Here’s Q1: What famous or fictional person/character did you admire as a child? There is no way I’ll accomplish this in 30 days, but here is my short and sweet answer to numero uno: Like all things in life, this post will come full circle, and I will say that Sean Connery/James Bond were important factual/fictional icons of my youth. Being that Sean and my mom grew up in the same town, and that everything he did as James Bond was a dream for me, i felt a close connection to the 007 of days gone by.  James Bond could be inappropriate and people didn’t really bitch about it so much. Maybe they would’ve if the internet existed, but it didn’t, and because of that i got to cherish Mr. Connery living his style with a far less PC approach than what we see in the modern Bond.