The New Me Will Still Run in the Rain

People generally respond to about 70 percent of what I do with a stern inquiry. They ask me, "What were you thinking?" in a tone that contains a host of further questions.

And more often than not, I respond with an overreaction rife with sarcastic disdain accompanied by raised eyebrows which invites the question, what were YOOOOOUUUUUU thinking ... in bed?"

It's a tacit rhetorical assumption that extends the scope of confusion and invites parallel comparisons of me to mules with heehawing futility. So effectively, I answer their question with another question.

You are invited to imagine what it would be like to walk in my shoes and make zero sense regularly, but it's difficult. I submit to you that you have no idea at all where to begin the leisure expedition to becoming an all-nonsense person.

With age, comes wisdom, so they say. This is why I picked up a book recently and analyzed its cover intensely when some jackass told me "It's a real page turner." Thanks for the tip, but I know how books work.

But I got older earlier this month and the natural order of things would suggest that I abandon these tricky childish ways of mine.

In a grotesquely limited way, I am good at impressing people with this ability to celebrate nonsense. Need more evidence you say?

I purchased a yacht from my high interest savings account. Yes. I don't live in Cape Cod, nor do I own boat shoes or rock neatly tied sweaters around Ivy League T-shirts. I suspect that I will have zero use for this water traipsing piece of decadence.

Having ripened to a new grizzled age of over-the-hill twenty-something earlier this month, I've noticed some changes that likely explain this purchase. So sit down, sip on your fat free whatever latte and get to know the new me.

Growing older is a tamped-down variant of suckyness that points to responsibility with manic zingers, and to some it's more depressing than a Zoloft commercial played upside down. You'll have to forfeit your affinity for Lucky Charms, and you will begin to see truths. For example, saying Lucky Charms has 10 vitamins and minerals is like saying there are inflatable bouncy castles in hell. You realize your aspirations to get neck tattoos will effectively render you unemployable and you will ultimately acquire a taste for money, and reasonable solutions.

This was challenging, but under a high powered microscope I can now study my growing inclination to settle down and become a yuppie. I hear yuppies are fun to emulate, mainly because they enjoy activities like building a stronger vocabulary and critiquing the shit out of everything. They are also ultra conscientious about their lifestyle.

I rarely drive now. I take my road bike everywhere, and embrace alternative transportation like a newborn baby who makes rainbows with every hug. I'm considering ziplining my way to work, actually.

I envision a new job with high-rise office spaces, Yoga ball chairs, gourmet chefs, expense accounts, and nubile interns who will polish my shiny shoes. I will entertain myself in social circles that discuss the New Yorker magazine, upside-down mortgages and refer to everything in golf metaphors.

Having such goals means I can no longer achieve the high score in Ms. Pacman and then remove my shirt and walk around downtown pretending I was a member of the U.S. Olympic Swim Team, because grown-ups don't participate in such antics.

Growing older also narrows my hopes of falling ass first into huge piles of dough if I'm still working at News 8, so I'm thinking with ferociously imaginative power which triggers chortling snort fests, how to get rich quick. I've heard it all, too. Click here to see me in all my News 8 glory, lackthereof.

"J.J., write a book"
"Dude, swallow some intense hallucinogens and then a dictionary and write"
"You should strip for old women at nursing homes"
"Become a post-college graduate-post modern dropout and bottle your inspiration in the form of perspiration and sell it to abstract artists for oil paintings"
"Sell a kidney, having two is a little excessive anyways"
"Find a rich girlfriend and dump her when she gives you everything"

I will channel my creative gusto as an entrepreneur with patented products to market, like a stay young forever drink. It will be a life-prolonging serum of refined alien ore and minotaur semen. I will make millions. It'll be tight! Like Sher's face.

Living downtown Austin has made me think this way. I even caught myself saying "Hey there, chief" in lieu of the typical "whaddup, bitch." Even my wardrobe is slowly being manipulated by yuppie tendencies, with high quality, swanky threads that are reserved for GQ cover shoots.

There's a fine line between yuppie and douchebag, and I'm walking the tightrope, poised to spill to my doom as a full blown adult looking back at the old me who was only snobby when it comes to music and whose mom I chose to fornicate with.

I've been hovering in the pretentious stratosphere of music snobbery ever since I can remember, but you wouldn't know what that feels like because gravity has rendered you incapable of attaining such heights of splendor to even recognize it. I breathe the good air up here, (great for my asthma) but you intensely inhale the exhaust of petroleum vapidity through a straw, sucking at the very notion of attaining higher sensibility in aural pleasure. (Douchebag assertion).

Therefore, I sometimes plummet to your earthly level to prove that I am not a douchebag through acts of generosity. This is performed by bestowing gems of awesome music for you to enjoy. Not today though, since I'm too busy playing my hand in investing stock options as a newbie yuppie. Perhaps next blog, I'll send some new music your way. But this is the yuppie blog.

I also wanted to nform you that in my last week alone I attended the Ratatat show and hung out with them too, saw White Denim shred the Mohawk and am gearing up for FOUR amazing days at ACL. Typical week for music.

Continuing this yupster theme, it's safe to say I have taken twenty dollar bills and left them in places you've never dreamed, like trashcans, paper shredders, Zaire, or the front shirt pocket of a fast food cashier. But you, ... you manage to take said twenty dollar bill to far reaching places that I will never venture to ... like seven days worth of meals with the remaining money being stashed under your pillow. So consider my purchase of a yacht a precursor to what is to come.

Picture it now: Donald Trump and Bill Gates made love, and sprouted this beautiful embryo, then gave it to Prince to store in his multi-billion dollar Armani velvet coat pocket, nestled and incubated it, and when it hatched the result is a stylish time piece from the future that deposits $1 trillion dollars into a mutual fund bearing my name on it with every tick and tock, because time is money and money is what we're here for! Zing.

But yesterday I was co-mingling (because yuppies don't hang out) and I postulated an even deeper truth about the new me. I reminded myself that I'm a modest dude, despite what this dope ass blog dictates, but even my own laurels have been jaded by old age and refined goals, which brings me to the second part of this blog that will beg the question, "What were you thinking?"

I bought a cardigan sweater, which doesn't completely negate my previous claim that I don't tie sweaters around my torso. But that's when I knew I had crossed the line. Or was it that I am truly growing up and thinking about my future now? I doubt a cardigan sweater points to either - but it says, "Hey, slow down JJ, open a book, kick back and and make dinner dates with your girl friend and others." I do enjoy living the lavish life, but I don't think it's quite me. I go to music shows, tirelessly work to grow a maniac mustache and maintain authenticity under the street guise of keeping it real.

So how can I possibly be a yuppie? I am not. And that's why I'm totally joking about the yacht. Fuck that shit. I could care less about money. I've learned that much and realized that with my new old age. And I don't think I had ANYONE fooled about me being a yuppie either. I'm back on track with things and will start blogging twice a week. Get ready to scoff at me twice a week.

Here's me after the marathon relay being all nonsensical.