Brave New World… Eh, Year

James Mann

2002, and no more of that “Is this the millennium or not” nonsense to deal with. Nope, now we can focus on exterminating little brown people and shredding the Constitution. Oh, hold on, no more political rants, at least for a while. No, this is what I’m gonna do in 2002.

Not a damn thing.

Now I’m sure it’s not gonna work out that way – who knows, I could be in hell or Houston by the time the next new year rolls around, but I ain’t planning nothing. Not a thing. Other than playing nurse for a few select folks in my life, I’m just gonna accept the fact that this is the year of my 40th birthday – the midpoint of my life, so it’s said – and revel in the fact that I’ve made it this far. Not that I doubted I would, so much, but still, 40 has a ring to it, doesn’t it? I sorta figured by this point my adolescent fixation with rock and roll would have faded into a nice, sedate enjoyment of classical music and talk radio. Ha. Not yet. In fact, I find the older I am, the farther away from the mainstream I get. Give me growling country folk with cheap guitars, give me crazed religious fanatics with decades of inbreeding, hollerin’ to their lord, and you can keep whatever the hell it is they sell on the radio.

And I’m gonna read more. I already read most of the day, but still, I’m gonna step it up. My tastes won’t get anymore highbrow – I still will read anything Stephen King scrawls his name on – but the volume will increase.

This is the year I’m gonna record my own music, so I can become one of the faceless (and talentless, if ya wanna put a fine edge on it) goobers with MP3 files. But since I’m the only person capable of playing James Mann music, I would consider it a loss to the world not to do so. Your mileage may vary. I don’t care. Goes hand in hand with my vow to play more guitar, since I’ve bought the damn things.

See, no big plans. Just make it to next year, when conventional wisdom says that I’m gonna be on the downhill slide to oblivion. Or to paraphrase Fight Club: “Given a long enough timeline, every one’s life expectancy drops to zero.” Happy thoughts, y’all. ◼