Friday, April 29, 2005

If I Could, I Would, maybe...

I am quite fortunate in this life to have very supportive parents. Yes, there have been times I've pushed their like of me to the limits, but their love of me is steadfast and infinite. I could punch kittens and they'd still love me. I could be a panhandler and they'd give me a cup to panhandle with along with a two-hour lecture on self esteem, resilience and personal accountability and then leave me and my crusty ass on my corner in the city to continue begging for change with the idea I should most likely get my ass a real job and life. I am indeed a fortunate woman and with that I give you the oddly named meme "Disappointment to my parents":

If I could be a scientist: I would be all over the big bang theory and evolution v. Creationism; find the missing link and show in layman terms how this is our destiny because it just is, damnit. Evolve or Devo, that is the question. Finally, I would prove once and for all that the String theory has nothing to do with red string wearing celebrities.

If I could be a musician: For a time in my youth I wanted to be the female Pete Townshend. I had a fabulous guitar made of a tupperware lid duct-taped to a plastic baseball bat that I would spend endless hours in my bedroom mimicking Townshends best windmilling action. I would play Live At Leeds over and over, bashing the shit out of my plastic instrument. I was 19, ahem.

Over the next ten years my one pursuit in life was to be a be a Rock Star. I briefly took guitar and piano lessons. My uncle even gave me a beautiful Fender jazz bass that at this time in my life is now collecting dust. I did learn to play it, not well enough to be a rock goddess, but enough to amuse myself and briefly, very briefly, play in my friends' band; a group of people with the same aspirations and the same poser mentality of any young person in Seattle at the time. Everyone was in a band in Seattle in the 90's. Even if you sucked to high hell, you were in a band, you had "creative differences" (you sucked) and you broke up, but damn if you weren't in a band.

Eddie Van Halen once described his guitar sound as "brown"; warm and intoxicating, yet engulfing and overwhelming noise--in your face if you will. I wanted to make brown noise. I wanted to use the influences of all my favorite bands: Zepplin, The Who, Clapton, Prince, Sex Pistols, The Knack, Cheap Trick, The Pretenders, Simon & freakin' Garfunkle mish-mash it all up to make powerful, melodic, pop tinged rock. I was lazy and inconsistent, got a job in a bookstore, was fast-tracked to management and then, when I wasn't looking, Nirvana happened in my own backyard, literally. Nirvana made the music I wanted to, which was great because that sound had to come to fruition and I was too busy looking and playing like a Rock Star while my reality was shelving books and bossing people around. I also faced the fact that I loved and appreciated music more than I wanted to play it.

Nowadays, when I'm bored I'll hook the bass up to the amp and run through some scales just to remind myself that I once had that dream. After about an hour of thumping the big ass strings of my beautiful bass, I get bored and put it away, put on Live at Leeds (once vinyl, briefly a tape and now CD) and get down to the business of windmilling Townshend-style once again. Such is the life of a plastic guitar-wielding book geek.

If I could be a doctor: I'd find the cure for AIDS, Cancer and all viruses, then receive a promotion due to my brilliance, which I would decline in lieu of the CEO position given to me by a desperate pharmaceutical company wanting to increase its profit share. I would restructure the executive branch of this company, i.e., fire most of the management, allocate finances to the drugs which would do most good in our times and make them affordable. Very affordable. So affordable other pharmaceutical company's would have to slash their prices in order to compete. Bitches.

If I could be a painter: Yet another dream. One I have yet to become accomplished at, but fear not, it will happen because I was born to create and you were born to appreciate it. Lol....alrighty then, I'm done with cocky shit. But seriously, my painting idol would have to be Leonardo Da Vinci because like me, he wasn't just interested in painting as much as he was interested in creating and finding out how things worked. He invented and learned, and challenged himself to know just about everything that his mind could imagine and although the man had only a handful of paintings he is still considered a genius painter because he dared to be more than just a mere painter.

If I could be an innkeeper: I wouldn't shut out pregnant women on donkeys therein changing our reality as I know it, that's for damn sure.

And there you have it. Things I could be, would be, if I wasn't what I am today. Now it's time to pass the meme along to Jeff @ Side Salad because I just know there's an air guitar story to come. Also, I pass this meme to cul @ Ratboy's Anvil because I know that there would be some fascinating answers. And last but not least, Maria @ By Beauty Damned, because it has nothing to do with the SAT's or politics. Have at it people-chop chop!