Ill-Advised, Very Costly, and Probably Not a Good Idea

It's been three years and I just remembered that I have a blog. To follow up my “Unwarranted, Unwanted, and Unsolicited” first blog post, I've decided to write about an “Ill-Advised, Very Costly and Probably Not-Good Idea” for my second post. If there’s a trend in these headlines, clearly it’s that I always make the sensible choice. My topic today will be exactly that— how the unwarranted and ill-advised can often be the most practical decision. But first, let's stop and smell the roses. As my favorite optimist Schopenhauer might say, each day is a little life, each waking and rising a little birth, and each three years between blog posts a paragraph to be blogged. So what’s been up, Mike G?

Well, since last I blogged I’ve worked at a production company and two TV shows. I answered phones, wrote emails, and ran around fetching stuff. To avoid the mundane and skip to the point, a headline for these years might be “Long Hours, Low Wages, and Free Lunch.” The best analogy I could offer, and certainly the favorite and most frequent in my journals, was Hollywood is a lot like the Renaissance court system— a series of dukedoms where ambitious courtiers orbit noblemen, vie for their favor, and hope for a comfortable sinecure before power shifts. The monarchs keep you well-fed and greetings go something like the old Pope epigram, “I’m his Highness’s dog at Kew. Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?”

My commission at court was fun, but long hours in fluorescently-lit offices made it clear I wasn’t captaining my own days. I was worried, to paraphrase Stafford, that following the wrong god home, I might miss my star. So I squirreled away my salary, tupper-wared my free lunches, and saved an adequate lump of savings to throw at the ill-advised idea of my choosing; in this case, buying several Amazon shipments of expensive, highly technical film equipment I didn’t know how to operate. I’ve tetrised it into my Camry’s trunk (yes, dear readers, my Volvo of old no longer is), and am driving around filming poets. I won’t describe the project anymore and simply say, ‘Curious? Watch my videos.’ I’ll link the first below. It’s been fun so far. I’m not as well-fed as I was in court, and unattached to a duke or title, now my greetings go something like the Dickinson line, “I’m nobody. Who are you?” 

The past adequately blogged, we can now “bloggum en praesens” and discuss the important matters this blog’s one-time readers have come to expect. Because a good headline is everything (and what blogger wouldn’t aspire to become “click-bait” for posterity) I’ll phrase today’s topic as “The Practicality in Being Impractical”, which I’ll explain by way of “a door”. I’ll admit, dear readers, I’m not sure how this door analogy will turn out. It enjoyed no test-run in my journals like the Renaissance Court analogy. A vaulting blogger juggling untested metaphors is a dangerous thing, but in the words of constant mentor Mac Dre, “Don’t be no punk young homie, if it’s worth it take that risk.”

My general feeling is that most people in most places find their way to practical situations: some are nagged to do it, some overhear, others get a pamphlet in college, but the majority naturally pick up the scent and follow. In the end, a long line forms at that handsomely engraved door labeled “The Practical Thing”, and the resulting bottleneck is difficult and sweaty to navigate. You can push and push but everyone is pushing. If you decide to push harder, you’re not the first with the idea. And if you take a running start to blitz your way through, well, there too you are only one of many. The easiest option is to merge with the masses and let inertia carry you. With a well-timed push here and there you can gain an unexpected inch, but for the most part you’ll shuffle in sync with the crowd. My point is that the greater the competition, the more marginal the gains— at the most crowded doors, mere inches. And I’d like to suggest that competing more for less is, in this blogger’s opinion, illogical. By virtue of its unpopularity, the impractical starts looking pretty practical. The competition is slim and the gains potentially enormous. There isn’t the comfort of crowds to reassure your direction, but you can move at your own stride. Thus concludes the world premiere of my door analogy, which admittedly bled into images of "lines" and "crowds" as well, but refusing to look back on metaphors already blogged, I blog ever onwards.   

I’d like to end with an eye toward the future as I believe every blog worth its word count should. I don’t know what the future holds, and more germane to you, my dear reader, I don’t know what the future holds for this blog but I suspect it will be more of the same. Whatever is unnecessary, ill-advised and otherwise a bad idea— you can expect that here. On that note, I’d like to make some acknowledgements, a practice I propose more blogs follow. I’d like to thank the Internet for the opportunity to blog, my various life advisors for the colorful quotes they’ve provided this blog, and to my imagined "dear readers" for the convenient asides they allow me to write in the middle of thoughts. And finally, to any actual reader who's read this far, thank you too. 

Pasadena
May 2018