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Month: September 2019

Going Chronic

7 Min Read

I have a complicated relationship with being famous.

For starters, fame is essentially my imaginary girlfriend–or as distinguished nerdlings like to euphemize such situations, my “untested courtship hypothesis”. So to be clear, all my experience in the matter essentially boils down to the thought experiments of an overactive imagination (and dreams1See also: Stranger Dreams). As I’m wont to quote the Brothers Kratt: “What if?!?”

Case in point: somewhere around my early 20s, I had a friend make the observation that I’m really good at planning ahead…for the most unlikeliest of scenarios. Not so much in the case of more practical matters, like bringing gloves with me on my first [and last] skiing trip. Nah, that’s not how I roll.

Anyways…if I recall correctly, the particular situation that motivated my friend to speak up involved me wringing my hands over the possibility of writing an earworm of a song. This was back in the early days of the Oscillating Fan Club, a loose confederation of me and several of my somewhat musically talented associates. I use the word “loose” here, in the sense that there were never more than two of us in the same room at the same time. And here I was, worried about writing the next Toxic2Spears, Britney. “Toxic.” In the Zone (2003). or The Remedy.3Mraz, Jason. “The Remedy (I Won’t Worry).” Waiting for My Rocket to Come (2002).

I suppose I should break down the logical reasoning that was the source of my consternation. Basically, it starts with me writing songs with the OFC for the fun of it. Now, if one is writing songs, there is a decent chance that one is going to produce one or two that they really like and is personally dear to their heart. It’s much easier if we admit that we all have a favorite amongst our childr–er, I mean “songs”…right? Right.

Also, if one is writing songs, then there is a non-zero chance that one could catch on and enjoy some modest success. And then there is the remote possibility of it becoming wildly, annoyingly popular.4…or worse, this could be you: https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/gambit-snap-judgment (listen to the first story, “Life on Easy Street”). You may laugh, but the threat is real. I’ve seen it happen many a time over. A good example that comes to mind is most of the songs by Twenty-One Pilots that you hear on the radio. Now, I have ALOT of thoughts about Twenty-One Pilots, and now is simply not the time to get into all that. I just wanted to build a little bit of tension, such that you, Dear Reader, will be simply bursting with anticipation by the time I get off my ass and write what I estimate to be a 10-part opus.5 I shit thee not. I know of at least a good 7 posts I’ll need to write to provide the full context leading up to what will be at least 2 posts explicitly related to Twenty-One Pilots, plus another NSFM post. May the anticipation kill you.6(TM)

Back to my train[wreck] of thought: so far, the situation would be manageable, primarily because it is a well known fact that most extremely popular songs are actually pretty basic (dare I say “dumb”?), ergo, if one of my songs were to become outrageously, sickeningly ubiquitous, then clearly it would have already been one for which I hated myself for writing.

But…what if? What if it was that song I loved so much, the one that was a product of my blood, sweat, and tears, the one which contained a small piece of my soul in its melody and piece of my raw heart in the lyrics? What if it was that song that got so much airtime that it would make me want to jam a pencil deep into each ear? What if just the mere opening three notes instantly made me want to vomit every time I heard it? What if my precious, most beloved baby grew up to be a ----- monster?

You get the picture. In my mind, the worst-case scenario would be becoming…universally beloved and famous? Admittedly, it is a little preposterous now that I’m saying it out loud. But, yup, that’s where my mind ended up at after it’s little adventurous jaunt through the Forest of Endless Possibilities.

So. There you have a brief example of one of my many famous thought experiments. Mind you, in this specific instance, I wasn’t actively pursuing those thoughts. I just woke up one day to realize I was extremely worried about what I would do if/when I found myself with a song topping the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

The point of the story is that, while I’ve never technically been famous,7…unless you count the taste of real-life fame I experienced in Blog Like Nobody’s Reading. apparently I’ve put a lot of thought into the matter. Which brings me to the topic that motivated me to sit down and write away this fine evening in the first place.

What the hell am I hoping to accomplish by living the dream and starting a blog full of thoughts that are my very own, and mine alone? More specifically, now that I’m solely responsible for my own fate, how am I going to define success?

Ok, first off, going back to my complicated relationship with fame, I forgot to mention that it’s sort of a love/hate thing. I have in mind a separate post in which I expound upon just that topic, and to tease you unnecessarily a little bit I’ll even tell you that it will probably be entitled “The Shy Attention Whore”. But, spoiler alert: when it comes down to it, of-fucking-course, I want to be famous.

Actually, the shy side of me is still fairly strong. For the longest time I didn’t pursue writing in a public arena because I couldn’t decide on a nom de plume, of all things. But the pirate ship has sailed on that idea, hasn’t it? I realized that I talk so ----- much that it wouldn’t take long for people to put the pieces together and unmask my true identity, so I just had to say “Fuck it. It’s not like I’m going to be getting into heaven with a fake ID anyways. Might as well own all my thoughts and words, be what they may…”

The point is, while I want to be famous, I somehow saw it necessary to devote a whole extra interjectatory paragraph to qualify that statement with the idea that I don’t necessarily want to be famous, and if I had the choice, I would be perfectly happy with only my thoughts and writings being famous. And not me. Got it? Good.

And, surprise, surprise, an hour forty into writing this, I find that I have still managed to avoid about which I really want to talk. Just be grateful that it didn’t take you 100 minutes just to read this far.

Now that it’s been established that I sure wouldn’t mind it if somehow this blog were to be successful within moderation,8Please, oh please subscribe! And tell everyone you know about the thought-provoking and amusing content you found at www.thepointofthestory.com. Oh, please! what is more interesting to think about is what path I would prefer to take to the top of Blog Rock Star Mountain.

Let me cut to the chase: Simply put, ----- “going viral.”

(Sorry that you had to hear me speak so foully,9Christ copulation, I tried for a good 3 minutes to figure out how “fowlly” was not a real word. Turns out, it’s a homophone. Of course it is. Mom, but sometimes a situation has a ----- Fever, and the only medicine is more ----- Cowbell.)

I don’t think I’ve ever viewed going viral as a positive event…even though up until this point in my life I really haven’t done much to put myself in harms way of that happening. Nevertheless, true to form, I’ve devoted an uncalled-for amount of synapses to the matter (see Point #1 above).

Anyways, I suppose if what you really want in life is your 15 minutes/seconds of fame, then knock yourself out.

But is that what you really want? To be a blip on the radar of our collective popular sub-conscious? You do realize that, most likely, you’re going to be eternally memorialized as a 1-dimensional travesty of who you actually were in this lifetime, right? And probably for something that doesn’t even remotely reflect your true self.

If you’re lucky, you won’t be remembered for something, er, regrettable…I’m looking at you, GellieMan.10https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLjBCqeYYas I mean, I highly doubt (or at least hope) that dude isn’t still writing decent-but-poorly-executed pop-synth and sleeping on Mickey Mouse sheets. Alas, indubitably his epitaph will read “He gave up all his dignity so he could give the world the gift of Aicha.”

Virality cheapens the worth of your soul. Don’t do it kids. The world is just going to chew you up and spit you out before moving onto the next incredibly asinine flavor of the hour. Is that what you want, huh? Do you want to be nothing more than a long-forgotten meme? When you die, do you want to have your memorial service to consist of nothing more than an indefinitely looping gif that represents exactly 6 seconds of your life?

Sure. Whatever. It’s your funeral.11If you’re wondering what literary construct on which I totally just stuck the landing, wait ’til I tell you hear about this dream I had. Oh, wait, I already did


Anywho…I think it’s safe to come down from my soapbox now…

Oh, and did I mention I don’t want to go viral? Nah, man, I want to go chronic.

I want to be a persistent condition that sticks with you til the day you die.

I want to be an epidemic that can only described as “moderate to severe”.

I want to be the scratch you have to itch just to survive.

I want you to have to seek remediation for the withdrawal you endure on a long-term, recurring basis.12…and I want to make more sense with my analogies, as I’m clearly veering from “medical condition” to “medical substance dependency” at this point. It’s way too late in the evening to be safely operating a laptop…

And frankly, I want to go to bed. I’ve inadvertently spent way too much time and effort building up to this point, that I simply haven’t the energy left to expound upon further on the concept of going chronic. Sorry folks, I’m all out of puns and gonna have to close up shop for the night.

So…in conclusion: yes, I am aware that I may be running the risk of being forever known simply as the guy who actually had the oves13…because using the term “balls” would just be reinforcing the power The Patriarchy exerts over our society, and you know what? ----- The Patriarchy, AmIRight? Seriously though, why isn’t “having the ovaries/oves” the go-to phrase for describing situations in which one must have incredible courage in the face of adversity? Not enough respects are paid to the half of us who have be a woman living in a man’s world… to stand up and say “Fuck Bob Ross!” But if I have to go viral to infect the masses, so be it. Y’all better call a [medical] doctor.14https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvAYnFh0Zdo The Point of the Story is your new favorite disease.

Well, at least I hope so…


P.S. I decided to save you the extra click. You’re welcome.

Content created on: 11/12 August 2019 (Sunday/Monday). Edited on 27 September 2019 (Friday).

Footnotes & References:[+]

Two Lukes

4 Min Read

Sometimes, you just need to be regaled with tales of the asinine and the absurd. After all, what are the building blocks of the human experience but for these two things?

Today is one of those days, and now is one of those times.


Act I

Last year, when my elder daughter had just started kindergarten at her new, small school, I was asking her if she knew the names of her classmates. In a daily update email sent earlier by her teacher, I had noted that there was at the very least a “Luke” in her class, so I mentioned that.

She confirmed this intel, and then continued to inform me that there were actually 2 “Lukes”. I found that pretty cool because there were only like 6 kids in her class. What are the odds, right?

A few days later, I’m at parent orientation for the kindergarten class when we’re asked to go around the room, introduce ourselves, and share something about our kid that we find special.

Well, one of the mom’s found that question to be particular interesting, because her boys were identical twins. She kept talking, and when she mentioned their names, I realized that this was one of the Luke’s mom.

And then it dawned on me…holy shit , there are literally “2 Lukes”. Only one is called Ethan.1Not his real name. Consider yourself Shyamalan’d.2Or, as I have called it elsewhere, “M. Night’d”

The Observer: “There is more than one of everything.”3Fringe, S1,E20: “There Is More Than One of Everything.” Fox Network (2008-2013)
Me: *brain short circuits*

I had found this so profound, yet so absurd, I couldn’t help to tweet about it to an audience-of-none on my secret Twitter account. In fact, what I wrote above was merely a light adaptation/expansion of those two tweets.

In my mind, I was all patronizing,4This almost also functions as a pun. You know, because I’m her father and all. Speaking of patron, you can always patronize me! thinking, “Oh, that rascal! Isn’t that cute? She thinks identical twins have the same name as well. Ahh, youths…”


Act II:

Well, one thing that I should have learned well before then was to always bet on the kid. Any time when she would say something that would warrant the typical parental response “Well, I don’t think that’s really the case” etc., us adults would always end up eating our words. Always. She was pretty much never wrong, with the exception of ghost/monsters in her closet. And honestly, I’m not even sure she was wrong about that (I listen to too many paranormal podcasts).5You can check some of them out on the Brain Ticklers page.

Shortly after the original incident, I was telling this story to B.S. Slappy, who’s son is in the same class (our kids are basically best friends). He was like, “Uh, actually…there ARE 2 Lukes. Luke B. & Luke W. And yes, one of them has a twin.”

Well, whatd’yaknow? The kid wasn’t full of it after all.

At this point I’m just basking in the copious amounts of the absurd flowing from this situation. I’m loving it.

The best part was that there was a twist after all–I had M. Night’d myself. A Self-Shyamalan, if you will.

Me: *double short circuit*

Act III:

The school the Elder went to last year only went up to kindergarten, so this year we found a different school that we could afford even less–“but [this one] go[es] to 6.”6https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOO5S4vxi0o In this particular educational model–which will remain unnamed for now–grades are integrated together 3 at a time. But this school was so small, that all grades 1-6 are in the same classroom, with a grand total of 13 students.

After the first week of school, I naturally found myself asking her the same questions as the year before. She rattled off a few of the girls’ names, so I followed that up by asking if she knew any of the boys’ names.

The Elder: “Oh, yeah. There’s Dylan, he has a twin…and, let’s see…who else? Oh, there’s another Dylan. There’s 2 Dylans!”

Me [under my breath]: “I’m not falling for this one again. Fool me once…”

Me: “So…there are three boys involved in this scenario, correct?”

The Elder: “Yes.”

Me: “1) The first Dylan. 2) His twin who is NOT named Dylan. And 3) the second Dylan–and you promise he looks nothing like the other two?”

The Elder: “Yes, Daddy.”

Me: “Cool, cool…I just had to double-check. So, it’s like last year with the 2 Lukes, huh?”

The Elder: “Actually, Daddy…there’s 3 Dylans! [Teacher from previous school]’s son is Dylan, too.”

Me: “Don’t you bring him into this…

[End Scene]

Content created on: 27 September 2019 (Friday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Blog Like Nobody’s Reading

8 Min Read

I would like to apologize up front for yet another meta-blog post about blogging and how that’s my true calling in life. I get it: you get it.

But, you see, what happened was…it was a clear and calm Wednesday night (as recounted on a Thursday)…

With my regular, self-imposed weekly Sunday deadline looming, I needed to pick out one of the several articles I have in the oven to touch up and get ready for primetime. That was my main goal yesterday. Well, of course other less important things got in the way.

Come 10 pm or so, I’m taking my routine, er, “pitstop”, and decide to check in with the gigs section on Craigslist. Now, I haven’t directly addressed Craigslist gigs yet, apart from listing it in the Dubious Endeavors page. I guess I haven’t fully explained my nuanced employment situation yet, either, so here’s the abbreviated context so we can proceed.

The short version is that I work multiple part time jobs, one real one with a real paycheck, and then several projects that fall under the header of My Own ----- Boss (yet another series of posts promised, but still not delivered as of this writing). Anyways, Craigslist gigs falls in the latter category, of course. Now, I haven’t actually fully ventured down any path I have found via this avenue, but I hope to some day.

Of course I would love to bring in some extra cash for the family’s sake, but another motivation for me is that I see it as not only as a fount of humorous entertainment, but also a potential source for unexpected and atypical misadventures. I mean, I need some material for posts covering ongoing and active shenanigans and keep all y’all entertained. I can’t just endlessly regale you with tales from my past…oh, wait, I totally could do that. But, being the kind soul that I am, I would like to have a variety of material for you to enjoy, Dear Readers.

Okay, now we can turn our attention to what I discovered last night:

Figure 1: A Craigslist Gig full of potential.

YES, PLEASE. Now this is what I hope to find when I go sifting through the muck that Gigs often can be. YES YES YES. I could get paid to go on a treasure hunt, AND write about it. Oh, shit yes, I’m so there. I gotta say, this really speaks to my inner pirate. Speaking of which, I just so happen to be writing this on Speak Like A Pirate Day, which I celebrated with a tweet.1Spoiler Alert: You’re bound to roll your eyes in response. Or “roll your eye” if you’re a true pirate.

So, anyways, there I am, upon my throne, and I have come across this grand opportunity. I really should be working on my weekly post, but…oh, the temptation! Ultimately I gave in, and decided to tap out a reply to this post then and there.

Let’s just say that I got a little side-tracked in trying to convince him that I would be a pair of well-invested Andrew Jacksons. But ultimately, I ended up telling him I story I had wanted to share on here eventually, and at this point I already wrote it…why do a job twice, right? So I’ll let me, telling the story to some rando treasure hunt creator, tell you the tale of my first experience “blogging”. Please note that, unlike my usual M.O., a main of the point of the story was included in this post title. Sorry to disappoint.

Anyways, without further ado, enjoy!2[Voiceover, in a serious tone:] The following has been modified for broadcasting via blog; it has been resized to fit your screen (but not edited due to time constraints). And I quote…


From: bj@thepointofthestory.com
To: ——–@——.com
Subject: Chapel Hill


Hi —–,
It seems like I might be a good fit to test things out for you. I geocache3For the uninformed curious: basically treasure hunting with GPS. on occasion; once or twice was on UNC’s campus (I was a grad student there for 6 years).

As for attention to detail/proofreading, etc. it seems a little more difficult to convey my skills in those areas.

To give you an idea of my baseline, I once was an education major many moons ago, and had to take a class with about 300 other students, in which we would go to local high schools twice a week just to observe. We had to keep an online journal of our experiences. It was pretty much busy work. Mind-boggling boring type stuff, right?

I didn’t expect anyone to read these journals, and in fact thought that, at best, the professor would maybe read a handful throughout the semester, given the size of the class and what-not.

Despite this—or maybe because of this—I provided overly-detailed accounts of the asinine day-to-day happenings in the science classroom to which I was assigned, taking care to construct at least something of a narrative with each entry. Really, I was doing it to entertain myself, and keep me from wanting to shoot myself on account of the overwhelming stupidity of the whole situation.

Well, come the last day of the semester, and everyone in the class was forced to attend one last gathering. If I recall correctly, I don’t even think there was an exam. It was just our professor—who dressed like a mafia don, by the way, which was a bizarre wardrobe motif for middle of nowhere Kansas—is up there yammering on, waxing way too philosophical for any of us 21-year-olds to give a flying ----- I mean, he was really in the weeds about the true meaning of education. At least I think he was…I was kinda zoned out, too busy succumbing to my narcolepsy.

Towards the end, he was recognizing several students for outstanding achievements. Like, actual contribute-to-society stuff. I was about to doze off again, when he was like “and lastly, before we wrap this up, would Robert ———— come up to the front? Robert, are you here?”

Now, I’m starting to panic because, 1) he was using my real name instead of “B.J.”, and 2) last time I got unexpected attention from a collegiate authority, I about got expelled from the College of Engineering—personally by the Dean himself—for being a half-ass Engineering Mentor who didn’t make the protégés turn in their busy work. Anyways, I could not come up with any good motivation for what was happening…but of course you can, because I’ve spent so much time providing the necessary context.

To my surprise and delight, he presented me with a box of chocolate pecan turtles, in recognition of producing “Educational Journal Entries Actually Worth Reading”. I guess he actually read my journals, and in a hilarious twist of fate, mistook me for someone who gave a fuck.

It was definitely a huge ego boost.

Even better, afterwards, 10 or so other students, most of whom I didn’t know at all, came up to me and told me how they loved reading my work, and in a few cases, that it was their only source of hope and sanity that got them through the semester. One of them even had a favorite, “The Day the Sub Yelled”. Yes, I even gave them titles. And, yes, I’m chuckling right now as I recall that episode. That poor substitute teacher. He was clearly too old to be dealing with the students’ shit that fateful November day in 2001, and just like our beloved Rodney Dangerfield, couldn’t get no respect, no respect. I witnessed a grown man’s spirit broken that day. But I digress…

The point of the story is: blog like nobody’s reading.  Bonus turtles and unexpected celebrity status? That’s just the icing on the cake of self-amusement.

Oh, and the other point of the story is: no task is too asinine that I can’t turn it into an adventure—on paper at least. Just be careful what you ask for, though. You might get more feedback than you bargained for—er, I mean, “for which you bargained”. After all, why the hell am I regaling you with an unnecessarily detailed and long (by tapping-it-out-on-a-smartphone-while-on-the-crapper standards) tale that borders on the edge of #HumbleBragging? Let’s be real, that’s way too much effort towards just having the chance of earning $40–It’s not even the real work!

I’ll leave you to ponder that philosophical quandary…in the meantime, just know that I probably would be free enough Friday or Monday to run through the hunt.

Thanks for listening!

BJ

Editor’s note: there actually was a P.S. to the email in which I engaged in some shameless self-promotion, imploring the recipient to check out www.thepointofthestory.com. Ironically, it turns out that the company who hosts this website had site-wide server issues most of that particular day, and if anyone tried visiting this site, they would be led to believe that nothing of the sort existed. So that probably explains why he never responded to me…


Okay, so while that guy is busy pondering what the hell I was getting at–other than “I always do way more work than I’m getting paid to do. Clearly I don’t value my own time, and/or I have a perfectionist’s personality defect; either way: take advantage of me!”–it might be helpful if we philosophize a bit more about blog like nobody’s reading.

But first! A side note that was too long to jam into Footnotes & References: It may be obvious to you that this is a derivative of “dance like nobody’s watching”, and I have to admit I see no real distinction between the two philosophies. Except that even I am not amused when I dance, whether or not anyone is around to mock me. Also, I’m going with the blogging version because it is a superior investment of time. Sorry, dancers. For your own sake you need to know that when society breaks down, you’ll be the first ones to be eaten. It’s best you heard it from a friend.

Either way, this is just most likely a repackaged “to thy own self be true.”4Hamlet, Act 1, Scene III; Shakespeare, W., 1603 Or at least the modern misinterpretation of it.5https://literarydevices.net/to-thine-own-self-be-true/ Not that you shouldn’t be considerate of others,6As exemplified in Privacy Policy, for example. but ultimately, you really should just have “an audience of one”–you!7Some people might call this a sacrilegious cultural [mis]appropriation, but I would counter that laying exclusive claim to the True Meaning of the Rainbow is scientific cultural appropriation.,8Footnotes & References BINGO! If you’ve been able to bring happiness into your own life, then you’ve done your part in making the world just a little bit more of happy place; call it a day. Don’t waste too much time trying to please everyone because, statistically speaking, you’re guaranteed to displease a decent chunk of the peoples. Never forget: you are not responsible for their happiness, and in fact, many people simply don’t want it–for you or for themselves.9I.e. Don’t let the Haters win. No better way to tell them to go ----- themselves is to be happy despite their best efforts.

Bet on yourself, kid; you’ll always be worth the risk.


BONUS! The Craigslist gig in this story probably would have resulted in mild shenanigans, at best. So I wanted to share with you a better example of a Craigslist gig that might be a bit more likely cause moderate to severe shenanigans.

Over the course of the last 2-3 months since I’ve started regular visiting the Gigs section, I have seen this same post regularly recurring about every 2-3 weeks:

Figure 2: A sampling of what kind of opportunities that await the Brave in the Craigslist Gigs section.

After about the 3rd time I saw it, I started to feel really bad for this guy. Somebody, please get this man an erotic photographer! Or…get me a camera. At this point I feel like I might be unfairly judged just a wee bit if I were honest with you about how seriously I contemplated borrowing a friend’s camera and stepping up to the plate. Just know this: I was motivated out of nothing but pity for this poor guy. And I would have brought my wife along for safety’s sake. I have a feeling that the situation would have been a little less “erotic” than advertised, so believe me that wasn’t my motivation, lol. Anyway, somebody does really need to put the poor guy out of his misery (sorry big fella, it won’t be me this time).

And…you know what? Despite having seen this ad about 7-10 times at this point, just now am I realizing that the pictures would be of him. Oh, shenanigans, indeed.10On top of every thing else, this is the town where my in-laws live, and I bet with my luck…yeah. That would be real awkward. This realization is happening in real time, mind you. Oh boy…11https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxzYszntWuE

Well that turned out to be even more of a different and interesting example than I had expected. I think we may have just discovered meta-shenanigans…


Content created on: 18/19 September 2019 (Wednesday/Thursday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Shotgun Wedding

5 Min Read

I love dreams. For most of my life I’ve been able to remember at least some portion of my dreams on any given night. I consider myself fortunate in that regard, and I shower unrequested pity on those out there that never can remember their mid-night shenanigans and escapades.

Ah, dreams. I find them intriguing and fascinating. And at times, disturbing.

Which brings up I philosophical quandary: how responsible is one for the content of their dreams?

Here’s a fun case study: I have a neighborhood friend–for now we’ll call him B.S. Slappy1I could have gone with a play on his initials, but I’m already calling someone else Jesus Christ. Perhaps we could just call it his Second Coming?–who was a professional musician in a past life. One time when he was over with his family for one of our kids’ birthday parties, he saw my sweet SG Gibson hanging on my wall of guitars, and somehow inferred that I could play it with some degree of confidence. That was when he first started strongly advocating on behalf of the two of us getting together for some jam sessions.

Shortly after that thought first entered the ether of my mind, I had a dream that I had gone over to his house for a playdate for the kids. While there, I stumbled into his makeshift studio where he was noodling away on one of his many six-strings. Delighted to see me, B.S. said “check out what I wrote for us!” and started shredding out a very rocking and very unorthodox riff.

It was like nothing I had ever heard before. But I loved how it took me to a new place I never could have imagined. Such ideas and experiences are my favoritest of all things.

When I woke up I had the chance to reflect on my awesome dream…and it occurred to me “Wait just a tick…he didn’t write that song–it sprung forth from the loins of my mind! I’ve never even heard him play guitar before, so that wasn’t him, it was ME!”

So, if I were somehow musically talented enough to figure out how to play the song from my dream, riddle me this: who should get songwriting credits? Me? It was my brain doing the dreaming, after all. Or my subconscious’ projection of my rock star friend? Maybe, in the process of trying to piece together what I knew of him, along with any poorly-informed perceptions of what type of creative limits he might be capable of stretching, I actually synthesized something completely new and surprising to me. Maybe it is something that I would have never imagined had I never met him…

But guess what? You can chew on that mental cud for awhile, and in the meantime I can get to the dream I really wanted to talk about. Good news for me, I’ve already related the tale digitally, so I don’t have to re-invent the wheel from scratch.

For context, this exchange happened earlier this summer when I was in my “workshopping” phase.2See also: The Olde Timey Wheelchair,3See also: A Pound Casual Asshat A friend from back in high school was sharing the beautiful gift of “comedic amnesia” with me, and the fact that she knew a major player in this dream–combined with an unintentional trigger phrase–prompted me to tangentially relate to her my vintage 2002 dream. I didn’t even ask for consent…

I’ll let the screenshots do the talking. Sonny Bono,4Of course, it’s not her real name. To avoid confusion, though, it’s not her porn star name either… take it away, will ya?

IM screenshot:
Facebook screenshot from 13 years ago, from BJ to anonymous friend.
"you popped my wall's cherry. now it is desperate and clingy and fantasizes constantly about marrying you.
Friend: This memory makes me giggle every year.
BJ: Laughing emoticons.
BJ: I didn't realize I had written such dirty hilarities...so for me it's almost like hearing it for the first time.

For some reason, it seems a little less bragadocious when a past, forgotten version of yourself makes you laugh. This, my friend, is the gift of comedic amnesia.

IM screenshot:
SB: It is quite unlike you, I agree.
SB: Smiley emoticon
SB: Which is why I giggle.
BJ: I also find it quite humorous that Facebook celebrate's that post's anniversary religiously.
BJ: This has totally made my day.
SB: I could delete it, but it always makes me laugh, so I don't.
SB: I'm glad you were also entertained. Smiley emoticon. I hope the rest of this particular anniversary is lovely.
BJ: I would say it's bittersweet...I mean, for my wall, it's just a reminder that 13 years later and still no ring from you. Crying emoticon.
SB: Oh, I thought it was a reminder of [SPOILER REDACTED]!

Oh ----- She just uttered a trigger phrase…it’s also a spoiler, so I blurred it out. Once you know what it is (see below), come back and fill in the blank. It was a humorous statement in it’s own right.

BJ: LOL
BJ: Speaking of which...did I ever tell you about a dream I had back in college about marrying [a mutual high school alumna]?
BJ: I was back in Rolla driving around with the girl who would eventually be my college girlfriend, THE legendary Tiffany Chestnut...
BJ: But I knew it was my wedding day, and I was going to marry [redacted] at the Methodist church there in Rolla...
BJ: I was very confused, particularly because I REALLY did not want to marry her. Like, REALLY REALLY didn't.
BJ: I couldn't figure out how the hell I ended up in the situation...
BJ: I felt trapped and suffocate...and I couldn't find a way out of it. It was a dream largely marked by utter despair.
BJ: Anyways, I go ahead with the wedding, and I'm standing there at the altar with her, screaming in my haed NOOOOOOOOO!

To help fill in the blanks, I was pretty sure that, in addition to objectively not wanting to marry the Alumna, I very much wanted to marry Tiffany Chestnut instead. Anyways…”and then what happened?”

BJ: And then a bullet comes flying through one of the stained glass windows and just straight up kills her on the spot.
Narrator: Wait...wtf?!?

SB: OMG
SB: If you told me this dream, I don't recall it.
SB: How wild!
BJ: I don't think I've felt more relieved in my life!
BJ: Also, a little ashamed for feeling so relieved...
BJ: But mainly sweet ----- relief.
Never has there been a more fitting situation to use the phrase "Well I really dodge a bullet on that one!" (This was the redacted spoiler/trigger)
BJ: Ever since then, though, I've had one thought persistently nagging from the back of my mind:
BJ: What is the right linguistic/psychological term here?!?

Honestly, I’ve never been more proud of the wit embedded in this dream. Again, though, do I really get to take credit for it?

BJ: Many might be quick to bandy about the term "irony", but I'm pretty sure that's not it.
BJ: (Thank you, Alanis Morrisette, for miseducating an entire generation on that one.)
BJ: Like, was it perhaps an allegory or a metaphor?
S.B. Irony doesn't quite seem to fit.
BJ: It ----- haunts me.
S.B.: Perhaps allegory for some sense of nostalgia or being out of control.
S.B.: Or fighting expectations.
BJ: Damn, I forgot the witty line about all the random drive-by shootings in Rolla. Nuts.
BJ: Well, I'm looking for the term capturing how the situation was a literal manifestation of the figurative situation. You know, kinds like double entendres, but I still don't think that's quite it. [This was the point of my story].
BJ: And no, I've never bothered questioning if I'm at my core a dark twisted individual for having such ----- up dreams, lol.
BJ: Anyway, that's the story.
S.B.: It's a fascinating story! And I wish I were more engaging this morning, but I have to [CLASSIFIED] so off I go for now.
S.B.: We are probably all dark twisted individuals [Her point of the story...]
Well-said, Sonny-B. Well-said…

I still am searching for an answer to this question–so please, if you know what the right term is, please “leave it in the comments below”. I implore you.

Also, I bet you didn’t think that it would be someone other than me to deliver the money shot. What a twist! Thanks S.B. for really bringing it home.


I’ll leave you with a bonus bit o’ the asinine:

S.B.: See? Totally searchable...
BJ: jackass. If you're referring to what I think you're referring to, I was referring to finding my "F M" profile by searching for BJ [redacted]. Now that all may change since I am in the process of combining the account.
S.B. I really don't know what you're talking about at this point.
BJ: ...nor do I...
I think I was claiming that she couldn’t find/stalk me on FaceBook…but clearly in the end no one knew what the ----- was going on here.

Lastly, in regards to the title.5Okay, okay, for you “2A” people out there: yes, I realize that the title is a misnomer, as it was most definitely a rifle that was used in the ceremony.

Content created on: 6 June & 14 August 2019 (Thursday/Wednesday)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Stranger Dreams

5 Min Read

Going public with this blog makes me nervous. Or at best, very anxious. I would describe it as being at the top of the first drop on a roller coaster, and your car is toward the back. The first car is already succumbing to gravity, and though you’re not falling yet, you’re already feeling the tug of inevitability.

I went live with thepointofthestory.com in late August, a promise I dumbly made in late July. In early August, I went with my family to the beach for a 3-night vacation. We couldn’t get the wi-fi for shit in our cottage, so despite bringing the laptop in hopes of making progress, I was unable to do jack squat. Due to the events and circumstances beyond my control, I suffered the unimaginable. I was forced to relax.

Of course, in the back of my mind, I knew that once vacation was over, I would really need to get on the ball and get my shit together if I wanted to have a decent and functioning website ready before September. The inevitable was coming. But was it fame or infamy that awaited me?

Right before I woke up the last morning we were there, my subconscious decided that it would try to deal with that which I had been avoiding dealing with consciously.

Yes, I had a dream.

In this dream, apparently stories from my childhood featured on thepointofthestory.com had been adapted into a Netflix show. And it was EXTREMELY popular. In fact, I’m pretty sure that that show was Stranger Things. Or at least a slightly modified version of it.1Rolla didn’t have any (non-hispanic) residents of color my age until the 90s, so at least that detail was modified.

I was extremely pumped about the situation, but also a bit on edge, as I had no idea how I was going to handle the fame that surely would accompany the success of the show–the show that was based on my life and the humorous and poignant recollections thereof.

I had found out about the success from one of my childhood friends who was a character in these stories–Kingofthe, as I will call him for now. Kingofthe calls me up and is like “Hey did you see our article in People2Or maybe it was US Weekly, or In Touch, or one of those guilty pleasure ‘bloid you pretend not to read the covers when waiting to check out at the grocery store. magazine? You got to check it out!”

A short interjection here: this wasn’t just the first I was learning about the success of the show. It was the first I was learning there was a show. Not to mention I had no idea that People Magazine was doing a piece on it. But I digress…

From this dream, I learned that, despite being shy-ish, I really did want the recognition and glory. I rushed to the grocery store (I presume), and flipped to the piece on the show. The show that was based on my life and the humorous and poignant recollections thereof. Did I mention that already? Oops. My bad.

There was a dramatic FAQ-type section, in which the fans’ most burning questions were pre-emptively answered, two of which I distinctly remember:

  • Will there be a second season? Yes! It has already been renewed through Season 4.
  • Will BJ continue writing the jokes for the show? Yes! You can also see his current project over at www.lid.com.

Okay. So, cool. People cared if I specifically will be the one writing. It was implied in my head that this meant that they loved my particular brand of humor. Though, I mean, c’mon, it’s my life, so I hope they care that I write more than just the jokes. Anyways, the best part was the national exposure my website was going to get. I was going to get all the clicks.

And…wait, go back. There was something odd about that last bit. Oh, yes. “www.lid.com”?!? Son of a ----- !

Who the ----- told them that was my website? And why didn’t they think to actually interview me? I mean after all it was [everybody together now] “the show that was based on my life and the humorous and poignant recollections thereof.” Even if I got them to issue a correction, the damage was already done, and I was never getting that rare opportunity for massive free publicity back.

Poop.

I was seriously hung up on that fact for the rest of the dream. But, as dreams often do, this dream continued in a somewhat disjointed yet still relevant fashion, so let me cover that as well.

Another odd detail about this version of reality was that the majority of the cast of the show were one of my particular aunt’s grandchildren. That was probably due to the fact that she and the oldest of them (who is in high school) had just visited one of my brothers in California, and I had been on the phone with him the night before hearing all about their visit. For what it’s worth, this kid was the one who was the main character in the show. This in itself is odd, since the real Stranger Things has many main characters, as it is an ensemble cast, but whatever. It was pretty cool that my kin were able to enjoy success and fame because of opportunities that clearly were made possible by being related to me. It always feels good to be the hook-up.3Hollah if ya hear me!

The final chapter of this dream found me at an airport, getting ready to check in for my flight. These other family members who were involved in the show were also traveling at the same time, albeit independently. All of a sudden a bunch of media type people show up and start setting up a press conference for the show, right there in the middle of the check-in area at the airport. The realism of this dream is insane, right?

Anyways, I’m getting giddy at this point, thinking to myself “Oh no! What if they recognize me? Please don’t recognize me–I’m too humble to accept your praise and gift of recognition. I couldn’t really. Wait…you’re seriously not recognizing me? ‘Tis I, BJ, the creative fount from which the entire show flows. The one who writes all the jokes. Please. Recognize me.”

I overhear them going through a checklist of which of the various cast/family members that are expected to show up and participate in the press conference. “So-and-so are both going to be here.” “But what about this other so-and-so?” “No, they probably won’t make it.” I patiently wait to hear them mention my name, then turn in surprise to find that I had been beside them all along.4See also: the very first tweet from @apointofastory.

But nope. They never mention me, so I decide to be proactive and help them out: “*Ahem.* I’m here for the press conference–which seat is mine?”

“Uh, and who are you?”

Goddammit.

“This whole ----- show is based on my life and the humorous and poignant recollections thereof. How the ----- do you not know who I am?”

The point of the story is: you never really know how you’re going to handle fame until you have a hilariously unrealistic dream in which you learn that you’re nowhere as famous as you had secretly thought and hoped you were.

And also: clearly my subconscious has big dreams for this blog. Don’t let it down.

Content created on: 13/14 September 2019 (Fri/Sat)

Footnotes & References:[+]

Bum Sandwich

5 Min Read

I definitely have lots of regrets–don’t you? If you’re somehow living out the motto “No Regrets”, I somehow suspect that you ain’t lifing right. Or you’re a psychopath. But who am I to judge?

One’s relationship with regrets can be a tricky thing. You have to hold them loosely and tightly at the same time. On one hand, you really need to take Elsa’s advice1https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeHJHjkwDuM and let. That. Shit . Go. It may be cliche, but don’t get hung up on things that you can’t change. You done ----- up son. Give it up already.

On the other hand, I think it’s worth reflecting on your regrets,2Misappropriation of #NeverForget if for nothing else to avoid repeating unnecessary mistakes. If you want to take it to the next level, you can even examine what it reveals about yourself, at which point you can ask whether or not you want to be that person that made such a regrettable life choice. Then use that knowledge to move towards being that [presumably] better person.

On occasion, I suspect you will find me waxing short about various regrets I’ve had thus far in my life. If it isn’t clear by now, I am pretty capable of being quite a poopy person acting in a rather poopy-head fashion.3www.thepointofthestory.com/the-olde-timey-wheelchair,4www.thepointofthestory.com/shower-tips-part-1,5www.thepointofthestory.com/a-pound-casual-asshat I like to cling to the self-protecting hope that that is not who I am to the core. A key part of that hope is the notion that “what is important” is the willingness to own thy shit–and use it as all-natural organic fertilizer and in turn grow as a person/citizen of society. Also, in cases where I regret how I made other people feel, I think a part of me verbalizing my regret is trying to apologize in the sincerest way I know how.

Now, all that being said, I have to confirm your worst fears: no, I’m not really going to talk much about the specific nuances of the concept of regret, as I may have led some to believe by the last few paragraphs. I will at some point share more relevant stories, but for now I thought I would lightly ramble since I was on the topic, and eventually those other stories are going to need some broader context anyway. And also, I’m attempting to write past my bedtime, which is when I run the risk of becoming so incoherent that I actually become more coherent than my natural state.

Honestly, my motivation for today’s story was to set the Dear Reader’s expectations that I will on occasion serve up shorter, less interesting stories, in hopes of tempering the inevitable disappointment. Even more honestly, I’m really trying to lower the bar for what I can pass off as a blog post and save myself from the temptation to nervously talk on end just to fill the air. Clearly, I’m not doing the best job of exhibiting the virtues of brevity. I really just wanted to type a few quick paragraphs and get to bed at a decent time, but nooooooo.

But, I digress. In spite of my best efforts (really, though?!?).

After all that meandering prefacing, I actually do have a regret that I wanted to share with you. One evening when I was a single young buck in grad school, I was waiting to go home at the bus stop in downtown Chapel Hill. Nearby sat a modestly attractive young lady, probably about my age, eating a sandwich. And directly in between us sat a down-on-his-luck middle-aged man of lower socio-economic status.

By and large, I was minding my own ----- business, paying no real mind to my two companions, when I noticed the guy had started talking to the girl. Or at least talking at the girl. Either that, or he was talking to her sandwich. Honestly, it wasn’t really clear. He was asking her how her sandwich was, but it was almost…sexual. I could sense the smarm coming off of him, but I wasn’t sure if the object of his lust was the girl or the food.

She could definitely sense the smarm, too, because she was clearly very uncomfortable with the situation. So here’s what I regret: I regret I sat there and watched, and continued to mind my own ----- business. Maybe I was entranced by the situation, as my mind was stuck trying to figure out what was really going on. Or maybe a part of me was relieved that he was bothering someone else rather than me about whatever it was that he wanted.

Fortunately, she just ignored him and he hopped on the next bus. After the immediate tension broke, the realization of my missed opportunity smacked me upside the head. As soon as I sensed her unease, I totally could have and should have jumped on that grenade for her sake, so to speak. In action that would have been as simple as striking up a conversation with him and diverting his leering stare away from her. Had I really been on my game I would have offered to buy him a sandwich.

But alas, I didn’t, and I have to live with the consequences of my inaction. Which are surprisingly pretty much non-existent, save for my self-assigned sense of cowardice.

There is a real underlying moral to be mulled over here, though: at what point does one decide to go from being a simple by-stander to a reluctant, yet responsible, hero? Recently, on two separate occasions, I had to decide whether to call 911 on behalf of neighbors I barely knew, and get myself thrown into the middle of their situations. Ultimately, I did step in on their behalf both times, but not without what seemed like an eternity of uncertainty as to what my role and responsibility really was.

I don’t know if I can speak for anyone else, but for me these experiences were…surreal. At least surreal in the sense that the back of my mind kept trying to figure out “Is this really happening?” It took a surprisingly long time before I snapped out of it and was even aware of the question of what I could do to help. The real takeaway for me from all of this is that it really is worth running such thought experiments in my head, and essentially train myself to respond with the assumption that I’m being called into action. One day that assumption just might save someone’s life. Or at least the enjoyment of their sandwich…

Now, the story doesn’t quite end there, though that last line would have made for a pretty decent zinger to end on.

For whatever reason, I was recently recounting this story to my wife, when something occurred to me, all these years later. Although I had zero romantic motivations for intervening with the young lady and her sandwich, such champion-like action could have possibly had resulted in eternal, er, “gratefulness” on her part. Following my thoughts wherever they wandered, I continued to muse aloud.

“Who knows? Maybe I would have inadvertently found myself with a lifetime supply of on-demand booty calls…”

At that point I noticed my wife was giving me one of those looks.

[Ruefully under my breath:] “I regret sharing that last detail…”


Content created on: 19/20 August 2019 (Monday/Tuesday)

Hello Mother ----- !

3 Min Read

BREAKING NEWS: In conversations with my expected #1 Fan (Hello, Mother1), I have learned that she is hesitant to visit my freshly launched site on account of not being able to unsee certain 4-letter words. This hearkens back to a conversation we had a few weeks before the launch date.

[Scene: the freezer section of a coastal NC Harris Teeter, ~9pm on an early August evening. A son and his beloved mother are getting supplies for their beach vacation, trying to decide which popsicles best qualify as “organic”, though none are explicitly labeled so. Frustration eventually sets in, and one of the two drop the F-bomb…]

Me: “Soooo…Mom, how exactly does your brain handle it when I swear?”

Mom: “What do you mean?”

Me: “Like, are you so numb to it now that you don’t even notice? Do you hear BLEEPS instead? Or…?”

Mom: ” Well, since you asked…”

Me: “Okay…am I going to regret asking?”

Mom: “Each time I think, ‘I can’t believe I raised this boy!'”

Me: …

Me: “Well, shit .”

Me: “You might want to stay away from my blog…”


For long-time readers of the blog (Hello, all 15 of you!), you will know that this is something I have already considered and hope to mitigate, a la The Alpine Stranger. Alas, I haven’t had time yet to reverse engineer any WordPress plugins for such purposes, so I figured I would try to implement a stop-gap2https://wordpress.org/plugins/censorship/ that would at least make it largely Safe For Mother to peruse my writings.

Unfortunately, it is not 100% perfect…apparently it has difficulty with adjacent punctuation (hence the egregious use of spaces in the title and elsewhere), and it is not well-suited for my penchant to use expletives when forming new and exciting compound words. Also, I have excluded “ass” from the list, because, apparently, that is my favorite word.

[Whispering:] “The Secret Word is…”
(Original source: 3
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKNsh4dUaKE
)
Chairry: “Get. Yo. A$$. Outta my face.” […and the crowd goes wild!]
(Original source: 4https://tenor.com/search/pee-wee-herman-secret-word-gifs)

The least favorite part of this temporary solution is that it is universal–i.e. the Dear Reader cannot selectively turn this on and off, so until I know it’s safe, all of y’all mother ----- are going to have to endure the M’FCC being five feet up my ass. Oops! I already forgot that my asses aren’t being censored. Sorry, Mom!

P.S. You’re welcome, Mom.


Bonus tale: Later that same trip we found ourselves outside in a lightning storm. At some point I cussed, but, realizing that it would be a prime opportunity for the Good Lord to strike me down for my errant ways, I had to think quick. I grabbed Mom’s arm and directly addressed the heavens. Looking ----- square in the [place where I presumed His] eyes [would be], I dared Him: “You take me out, I’m taking the pious old lady out with me!”

Hello world!

3 Min Read

By default, WordPress pre-populates a new blog with a singular post entitled “Hello world!” It is meant to be deleted or appropriately edited, but I felt so inspired by these words that I decided to instead subvert this post for my own purposes. Joke’s on them, I suppose.

My experience with “Hello world!” is in the context of trying to pick up a new programming language. If you’re not familiar with it, “Hello world!” is the archetypical first coding project for most any language. It’s the most basic of tasks: getting your computing device to display the simple message “Hello, world!” Also, I’m pretty sure there should be a comma in there, so I added it just for all the English teachers reading at home. But I digress…

Now, some people have told me I have a modestly entertaining sense of humor. Well, right off the bat I’m going to ruin that idealized image of me by telling you a bit about how the sausage is made.

Between you and me, Dear Reader, an insane proportion of my humorous thoughts come from an embarrassingly simple line of code in my core system:

Figure 1. Yes, I realize my core code is written in Perl. What can I say? I’m a legacy [machine].

Well, technically that “one simple line” is wrapped up in 47 other lines of code, but hidden in there is Line 22, which is generating potential humorous phrases by simply substituting one or more words with their antonyms. Essentially, I make my living by being a contrarian. That’s it. That’s the secret.

So many things are absurdly funny if you merely pause long enough to consider their opposite. Nearly-free humor, just hanging there, ripe for harvesting. Honestly, I feel like a magician, explaining away all the best magic tricks of the trade, inviting shunning from fellow magicians. I’m just asking to get kicked out of…the Guild of Mildly Humorous Bloggers…? Not really sure who my cohort are here. I wouldn’t be so bold as to claim to be a “Comic”–you know, how comedians refer to themselves when no outsiders are around? But that’s beside the point.

Anyways, apparently such tactics find its way into my own coding work. Recently I came across some old code of mine in which I was clearly supposed to be doing the ol’ “Hello, world!” routine. But of course my stubborn ass refused to be so bougie and write the same overly-cheerful message.

Run my program and what do you get?

Goodbye, cruel world.

Damn that’s dark. Funny, but dark nonetheless.

Now, of course that’s not the end of the story. It’s just merely a waypoint on a longer destination. So, a point of the story, I guess?

At some point, I promise you I’ll put together a few posts explaining how this blog hath sprung forth from the loins of the universe, aka The Story of the Point.1That’s a Spoonerism right there. Better get used to seeing them in these here parts of the Wild Wild Web. Like any good hero tale, it involves me leaving a job with a regular pay check and risking it all to follow my heart.

Yup, my dream job is being a blogger. Because–and listen up, gentlemen–I know that nothing will get the wife more hot and bothered than a man who knows how to bring home the Bacon Bits.

Anyways, marital intimacy tips aside, the key detail buried in those last two paragraphs is that I’ve had the immense pleasure of leaving my 9-5 job behind, something many dream of doing but only a select few ever get to experience.

The point of the story is, I feel another slight modification to Hello World, and we’ll have the perfect way to kickstart this party:

Goodbye, Corporate World.

Your sorry ass won’t be missed.2Well, this is not 100% true. It’s more like this:https://i0.wp.com/thepointofthestory.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/F_This_Shit.jpg?resize=218%2C300&ssl=1 218w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />
“Fuck this shit.” … “Just kidding. Its still Thursday and I need these.”


Content created on 27, 28, & 30 July 2019 (Sat, Sun, & Tues)

Footnotes & References:[+]

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