Napster has this awesome feature on their music player called "Automix" in which they take whatever song you've selected on your playlist, and composes a 25ish track long playlist of similar music. It does a great job. Sometimes you get some weird connections, and there are some quirks, but it's otherwise great. I started listening to some Creedence, and ended up on some Joe Cocker. I decided I wanted to listen to Joe Cocker only for a bit.

Then I remembered John Belushi on SNL, and decided to look up the video of his parody of the infamous woodstock performance by Cocker. And, like how looking up something innocent on wikipedia can render you reading about other things, youtube's offering of similar videos landed me watching NBC's Nightline where Ted Koppel covered the breaking news of John Belushi's death. By the way, the coroner looks strikingly similar to Dan Akroyd, and it made me chuckle for a bit, thinking that they would have pulled an epic laugh if they had been able to hoax people on that scale.

Watching it was depressing. I hate seeing people that I can Identify with die. It's like a part of me dies. I have a real problem with attaching too strongly to an idea of a person... their 'character' so to speak. I will have never met the person and not really know who they are, truly, but will have seen something by them, see a form of greatness, in my eyes, and really attach myself to this developed ideal in my head of who they are. I do it with John Wayne, John Belushi, and John C. Montgomery partially (in Scrubs) (must have something with Johns... I never noticed that before) but also Jesse James a bit, much to my embarassment to admit. It hurts to see those people die because a part of me thinks that their spirit or the ideal I cherished... died with them...

I'd always identified with Belushi's form of comedy. His constant disdain for mainstream and the paradox he landed himself in with being on SNL after it got more famous.

I had read that he despised TV because it would be the death of performance comedy and through most of my years, I disliked the successful in lieu of the underground. I went through that whole 'punk' phase of my life at age 16-19 until I discovered the inherent hypocracy in my endevours. I couldn't make sense of it anymore. People grandicized bands of olde such as Velvet Underground and Sex Pistols. The Sex Pistols were nothing more than a front for a Hot Topic like shop. They began as a alt-trend fashion band much akin to what Hot Topic is today. Somehow the years have a way of gilding memories beyond reality. I saw nothing in trying to associate myself with those who epitomized (or pretended to epitomize) the ideals I held dear. I wasn't holding them dear, myself. I was a weekend warrior. Then in my first of the 20s, I became what I thought was right. I embraced a lifestyle I thought was true to heart. I made great friends in college. I lived a quite nihilistic style of life. I drank heavily, I partied hard, and embraced immediate gratification. The idea of Belushi became a role model, in many ways. No I'm not talking about Animal House though it's an easy mistake to make. I lived my life in the moment, though. I made every hour matter as if it were my last. I sought grandeur in every moment I made. I took control. I didn't coast through life. I kept my wits lubricated and accomplished notoriety, infamy, gratification, and every moment was an entrance to the stage of improvisation.

Then something went wrong, I guess. I don't know what happened. Suddenly I found myself working. I held on to every spec of glory I could, and sought it's fruition. I had a great many successes, but nothing like what it should have been, because every 5 days of the 7 in a week, I knew I had to drag my hungover ass back to the office and manage to stay under the radar long enough to get back out of there unscathed.

Now it seems I lost everything that once was me. I'm out of touch with everything I once was. I've been wrangled into the role of a provider, and this intense responsibility of continuity has weighed me down. I work 65 hours a week anymore, and barely have a breath that isn't office air, or from in bed. I've become the exact antithesis of who I am or ever wanted to be. I've become good at it... but I feel like I am scoring touchdowns and kicking field goals in a game where I was supposed to hit a home run. I'm successful by the wrong rules. Rules I never wanted. I want to bring my life back where I should have gone. I have lost sight of every moment, forever gazing into the long term, and as such, every short term moment is agonizing, depressing, and uneventful. I tend my 401k, I plan my spending out until the next paycheck, I plan my day and have to make personal appointments to alter plans ahead of time.

I have the biggest urge to procure a portable amplifier and microphone, put on a beer stained tie-dyed shirt over my worst pair of jeans, and get stinking fucking drunk, and stumble into bars, re-enact John Belushi's parody of Joe Cocker. I just think that would be absolutely hilarious. Of course I'd have to have a stereo to play everything else on the song except the lead singer... there's too much piano, guitar, and backup singer importance in that song. With a little help, it could be done. Of course, back in my earlier twenties, I'd have friends who would back me up in person. Now I got nothin'... marooned on a southern state island alone and with no life left in this husk.

...guess I should get back to work. Gotta make sure I have enough on my paycheck to support my 2.5 family in development...