99.999%

Things grow. They evolve. Everyone wants to leave a mark on the world. Most leave a crumbling tombstone marking the location of crumbling bones somewhere beneath. Fame and fortune elude most. Even two generations of their own descendants become surprised when they discover that they ever lived. 

This is life! To get from seven to seventy without disrupting the planet should be the goal. With over seven billion versions of the shaved ape prowling the planet, it becomes a given that not everyone of them will leave a mark, but leaving that mark dominates the mind of every one of them. An aborigine in the Outback of Australia pursues the mastery of the boomerang with the same zeal that a young Paul McCartney did with his guitar on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. And the two will never meet! 

But consider this. You don’t matter! But if you can somehow influence someone, anyone who matters how far will that go? When I was fourteen my biggest hero was Don Curry. Don’t look him up, you’ll never find him. He was just a lounge player in a run down bar in Harker Heights Texas. He’s most likely pushing up home grown tomatoes in some city graveyard in an unmarked grave somewhere. I never saw him on stage and do not know if he ever cut a record, but he had a guitar and a show even if it was a at a run down club singing to drunk GI’s, because in my eyes he was a star. 

So I learned to play a guitar. I imagined that Don was a great composer so it only followed that I had to become a songwriter. A great songwriter. A hit. With offers coming over the phone. Neither one of us made it. The first real song I wrote mentioned Don. I can’t even remember what he looked like and most likely I never will. 

Do you feel sorry for me and Don? Don’t! Feel sorry for yourself because that’s who you are! You and 99.999% of the people living right now who will never leave their name on any wall other than a restroom wall in Lodi. Hurts doesn’t it. Get over it. You and I are Soylent Green! 

And that’s the way it should be. If everyone was famous then nobody would be famous. Everybody is somebody in Mayberry but nobody is anybody in New York City. So what do you do? Some dastardly act that gets you on the news? Well, that’s good for a day until some wandering teenage girl gets kidnapped. She’s good for about two days, maybe, if she’s cute. If she’s white maybe three days unless Trump grabs the headline and even he can only get maybe four days if the Baptists don’t come up with another Rapture scare but the News Services can’t even guarantee Jesus a week. And you’re hoping to achieve immortal fame with a video of a cat slapping a dog on your kitchen floor. Cracker PLEASE!

What to do? Stay in your bubble. We all live in a skitzophrenic bubble of our own delusions. The difference between who you are, and who you think you are! Consider this. The basic components of the human body are worth something less than twenty dollars. A full grown pig goes for between $950 to $2,130. You just lost to a pig! Always nice to know what you’re worth, right? There is an  island called North Sentinel Island just off the coast of India where the natives kill and eat anyone who shows up so there  you may be worth twelve fish. . Pickled Penis anyone? Hey! In Louisiana they eat Pickled Pig’s Feet. Jus’ sayin’.

I just love putting things in perspective, don’t you. So, before you find yourself in some nursing home trying to  get to that last breath before the residents and staff steal all your stuff I have a plan. Save your money and try to keep your credit score up high enough to the point where you can buy some kind of RV. Nothing fancy. Bed, kitchen, crapper. Pick up a case of Jim Beam. Go to the campus of the University of Texas. Don’t go to A&M because the kids there actually have an education and this cockamamie plan won’t work among them. Find some coed who’s losing her scholarship because she’s flunking out. Make sure she’s over 18 to avoid imperial implications. Go to Occatillo Wells California. Not the tourist court! There are other gatherings out there more receptive. Spend you days looking for the Lost Dutchman Mine and your nights looking at her butt. Try to act like you’re not having a good time. You are now more successful than those 99.999% still trying to re-invent the wheel.