Writing

The film Goodfellas opens with one of the more memorable movie quotes ever. "For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster."

If there is ever a biopic about me, it will probably start somewhere along the lines of "For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to fit in."

I figured I would take a break from my usual over the top schtick today to write something that isn't layered in various levels of bullshit and try to prove to you all that I do indeed have a soul. I had something great cued up called, 21st Century Post-Broism, but hey, there's always next week. I figured today would be a great day to discuss my love affair with writing.

When I was young, I was a pathological liar. I would just make things up, sometimes it was to enhance my image, make me appear more desirable to the cool kids. But other times I just did it because, I don't know boredom? I've always had a penchant for making up stories. Some of them were outrageous and obviously fake, but others became so deeply routed in my psyche I'm not even sure if they are true or not.

Case in point. I don't know if I am really allergic to chocolate or not. If you have ever offered me chocolate in the past 20 years, I have probably aggressively denied it and then dazzled you with tales about what would happen to me if I had even one bite. (My eyeballs will explode, I will projectile vomit blood ON YOUR FACE and then you will turn into a vampire) The truth is, when I was 3 years old (my dad forged my birth certificate so I could start soccer a year early, what a hero) after our first game (I had 1 goal and an assist) the team mom gave everyone on the team, including me, a quarter. I mobbed to the concession stand with the older, cooler 4 and 5 year olds. All of them got a bag of M&Ms. On the way home in the car, I ate like half the bag and as soon as I got home I puked and got an itchy rash on my chest.

That's it. I haven't had chocolate in 24 years, and I likely won't ever again. I convinced myself and the world that I was allergic. There are a trillion other things that could have caused that nausea, maybe I was just sick...I hear it's something that happens to 3 year olds quite often, but chocolate took the fall and I have rolled with that story ever since.

So you can see that from a very young age, I started using false realities as a coping mechanism and not much has changed since.

When I started school I was one of the smart kids that got straight A's in elementary school and I excelled athletically, but in a series of poor decisions I decided that wasn't enough. I wanted to be one of the cool kids, so I started goofing off, being obnoxious and getting into trouble, because that's what was en vogue at Amy Beverland in the early 90's. Finding myself increasingly in trouble, I had to find a way to get out of it. My oral pleas were not sufficient, but somewhere along the line I started writing elaborate apology letters to people I had wronged and somehow it worked.

Seeing that my writing prowess could get me what I wanted, I began writing my parents these elaborate proposals whenever I wanted a new video game, hamster, Pokemon cards, to go to Disney World. It wouldn't always work, but let's just say that if my conversion rate was a baseball player's batting average, I would be first ballot hall of fame.

As I grew older and entered the horrible ether of middle school, I started writing short stories on Saturday nights while waiting for the phone to ring (which it rarely did) I would create these characters that I perceived to be a perfect version of myself. I would always give this character a happy ending, I realized that while writing, I could control all of the elements of a fictitious universe, elements that I might not be able to manipulate in reality.

I started to really get a knack for banging away at the keyboard. In 8th grade I started a gossip blog about the goings on of the 50 person class of 2001. Looking back it was so stupid, I remember a poll I posted, "Who in our class has the best butt?" There was only 1 option, because there was a clear runaway victor at the time, but that poll still posted like 300 responses. I remember coming home from school one day and trying to layer at HTML password protection layer on the site because there were rumors that some parents had discovered the blog. God forbid they find out who was fingering who in the woods after the Mardi Gras dance.

Eventually I shut that down but rebranded a new site that became like a Bar Stool Sports for Indianapolis high school CYO basketball. (CYO basketball was kind of like beer league hockey, you play semi-organized rec ball for your middle school, while you are in high school) This thing was the shit though. It had standings, stats, player of the week, a smack board...I was realy getting a knack for this whole writing thing.

At this point, I was in high school and I was doing Improv team at which I was winning awards every week, I was taking acting classes and performing in plays. My comp teacher was starting to take an extreme interest in some of my short stories and begging me to get involved with the school paper and then...

NOPE!

The theater kids are weird. The improv kids don't get to drink in the fancy Carmel basements with the cheerleaders. So what did I do? I threw it all away to play football, lacrosse and get drunk with the John Tuckers of the world. A world that I was tolerated in, but never really truly accepted.

It was just the next in a series of decisions I would make to try to be cool. Looking back now its laughable, I became a 3rd stringer on the football team, but imagine what Groundlings level I would be if i had 10 years of improv under my belt.

I graduated high school with a degree in being a fraud and made my next ridiculous decision. During my campus visit at IU I made a snap decision to change my major from Telecom (something I was interested in, something I would love to do for a living) to Business (because Kelley is prestigious and if you aren't in Kelley you are inferior to everyone. This major will make me rich and cool)

As you all know, college was awesome for me...I finally figured out what it was like to be on top of the world. A lifetime of insecurity washed away instantly the first time I had a party at my senior live out house. I was finally that guy, and from September 2008 to May 2009 I had the greatest life in the world. But unfortunately there is no real world equivalency of being the cool frat guy Senior in life. So I took my shiny business degree and got some shitty telemarketing job in Chicago so I could try to recreate my Bloomington life in a major midwestern city.

I was beyond miserable. I lived with 2 of my best friends but we were out of control. We were only happy when getting so beyond fucked up that I will likely never recover from those 2 years. And sure there were moments during the 5 night a week partying in Lincoln Park that it felt like life was awesome, nothing had changed, but it was all an illusion. People started dropping off one by one and pretty soon I had nothing.

The one solace I had in Chicago was my old blog. I had started a new one in Italy, during my semester abroad. With limited connection to the outside world I had started writing again. I tried to write a novel, and I started Frat Italy to keep my friends back home in the loop during my travels.
It had dropped off my Senior year because I didn't even have a laptop that year, let alone the sobriety required to write. But I rebooted Frat Italy as SingleDudeinChicago as some sort of creative outlet.

Back then it was much more "I just did COKE til 6 in the morning and only came to work so I could look at coworker Jen's tits! BLAAAAAH I'M SO AWESOME!" I was not awesome. But coworker Jen did have nice breasts. It was the same format as it is now, kind of a vulgar rallying call to live your life to the fullest, seize the day, ask questions later type of thing, but it was more mean spirited and I would ALWAYS do it at work.

For the first 2 years, I think my coworkers just assumed I was writing detailed emails to clients, but somehow word got around to the office that I had this ridiculous blog that also acted as a burn book for my coworkers, within a week my local hits were MUCH higher than normal, I wrote some Little 5 post that went viral and 3 days later I was sitting down with HR.

It did not go well.

So I'm 24 without any discernible skills and I have just been fired for writing this horrendous blog about my coworkers and my hedonistic lifestyle. What now?

Move to LA and keep the blog going? Sounds reasonable.

The sweet irony is, the only thing I have ever loved is writing. I absolutely fucking love it. The fact that there is a chance that some day I might get paid to do it blows my mind. I would pay to be able to do what I am doing right now. I sometimes have to pinch myself to know that it's real.

See where I come from people don't get paid to write. You go to college then get some sort of private sector businessy job. Selling insurance, doing accounting work, getting married and buying a house in the northern portion of Carmel. That always sounded so fucking horrible to me, and for the first time in my life, I took a risk. I came to LA with basically nothing, and I still have basically nothing, but I have a dream and a path. That path is very long, but I'm on it and some day I'll get there.

For the first time in my life, I'm not trying to be cool anymore. This is me. I like musicals and indie film and writing coming of age dramadies. I like red meat and gluten and I think that people that don't are stupid.

I am so uncool in LA it's ridiculous. There are girls that I would love to ask out, but I can't because of my current lot in life, there are social gatherings that I can't go to because of my current lack of clout in my industry. And that's fine. I'm so sick of trying to be cool, to fit in. For the first time in forever (I couldn't help myself) I'm free of expectation or requirement. There are things I could do in LA that would elevate me I'm sure, make more money, but it wouldn't get me any closer to being someone who just creates worlds all day with their words.

And sure it's a daunting path but sometimes I feel like I have already won, see in a few seconds I'm going to press publish. I'll then pop this on Facebook and hopefully someone will read this thing that I have written, which in my mind, makes me a writer.

It's little things like that.

That gives me this feeling beyond happiness, a comforting feeling of content. But obviously I'm not going to stop, I never will. I'm always going to write shit whether it be for myself, for others, for money, whatever. The journey is just beginning and I'm so glad that I have discovered something that I truly love to do.