i disagree michael stipe, living well is not the best revenge

when i watch movies, or read books, there's always that scene or chapter or page where i say, that's me. i am that character, those words say how i feel! all bs really. some dreamed dream about greatness, and having other people watch you in all your tragedy. the reality of the absent audience is hard for me to accept, but i can't do anything about it. can't change history, but won't surrender either. the albert camus effect, let's call it that. i cannot define myself, i am all donnie smith and sarah mclachlan singing angel live, vladimir or estragon, penny lane (but only when she said "what kind of beer?") and one of robert altman's characters.

i spend hours wishing i were miles davis, or roger federer with a french open title, or steven soderbergh, or salman rushdie with a nobel prize and an oscar for best screenplay. i wish my mom and dad were karen and henry hill, that would be an exciting life. but i'm stuck listening to jazz and not playing it, reading the virgin suicides and not writing it, watching taxi driver, or goodfellas, or even the departed, and not living it. violent lives, i know. i need violence right now.

(and i still like you, michael stipe. i wish i were you too, sometimes.)