The Collegiate Endeavors

The weeks been long, and not all negative energy has been converted into Allspark form (raw power). To get negative energy to become positive, or to end up in a place where pride can ride, one must convert that energy first. Many people believe that exercise is the ultimate converter, and for many this is true, as they put in the graceful hours during the week where the pain and pleasure gradient get surfed upon. Unfortunately, not all your current comrades sit on this discipline when the the timer goes off on Friday.

In attempt to clean the mental slate, a temporary conversion of energy takes place. Over a small gap in time, they’re able to mask their week’s emotions. Alcohol carries the ability to brighten a mood, and lower inhibitions. The real issue arises when the chase for more alcohol ensues, it’s only logical, “I’m feeling great, Oi gimme more!”. You don’t know about biphasic drugs yet. Five days of compounding surface-level baggage floats for a night and is granted the opportunity to keep compounding in stealth mode.

Now suppose if all of your acquaintances were not only masters of the drink, but daily operators of buckets and bundles of pure energy. When doing a drug, understand that the substances at hand are simply just amplifiers. And you, being the curious lad that you are, living with the passion for creation, set yourself up smoothly to properly utilize the amplifiers of this grand and mysterious game. Consider a creation of your own, “a good idea” born from a hybrid vessel of practical thinking and philosophical business principles, your exceptional intent can now be perfectly matched with a short-term power up, your drug of choice. Most think that their d.o.c is a “fatty pitcher”, or a “bowl before bed”, obviously because it “helps warm me up” or “it helps me get to sleep”. Common takes, and it’s the invention of the tavern that you can thank.

I have a good friend by the name of Brad. Classic brotherhood crafted under constant manual labor. I never attended, but he spoke highly of an elective he aced, something about the culture of the tavern. I imagine the tavern was the birth of a true commonfolk social scene, maybe how an after-hours sub-society turned a temporary blind-eye to foolery and shitery on a public level. Pirates of the Carribean comes to mind initially, and it makes sense, if I were riding the black pearl for months, eating year old meat that tastes like the ship itself and sleeping like a surveillance camera at a casino, I’d undoubtedly unleash a concoction of raw and previously submersed emotions. One could only imagine what kind of fluids were launched and suspended in the Taverns of Tortuga.

It’s a fact that on a physical and objective level, our lives are much easier than those of our ancestors, and for that we have thanks to give. But is there a possibility that we still carry directionless feelings of emotional pain?

You’ll have to answer that question yourself with data that you’ve collected or now aim to collect, but lucky for you…

I propose that visiting this sub-society, something like once a week, and bound to a quest of the night where the perpetual and perceived destination is a realm of super-society, is how you should engineer your weekend plans. This means to deliberately receive the hilarious exposure of the modern man and his shenanigans, with the intention of using it to feed the hungry muscles of inspiration (super-society). The perfected night quest is funny. You and your probably post-grad buddies, once released by the constraints of your diverse and self-titled “bullshit day jobs”, bind together for a few hours among the public to fuel the flames of your squad’s overarching creative goals. You’re all indeed whacked from the week, pretty tired, but a solid supply of raw energy is primed for action. It’s sniffable in their attitude. Everybody’s taken care of themselves, so now they can come together on something bigger. It might be a screenplay, or a youtube vid, maybe an app, doesn’t matter.

You roll up to the spot that’s called Pattie’s, with no hesitation it’s classified as Scottsdale’s saloon. Pool sticks now waving around, the sunset looked steeze on the way in, it’s 6pm. For a second you consider why you’re here so obnoxiously early, but you quickly remember that this is all part of the plan. You’ve got shit to do. You’ve got shit you want to do. None of you can free it from the back of your minds. Thinking about something else is impossible at this point, everyone’s focused on the squad mission.

“Who the fuck is that?”. It’s so hype, it’s borderline retarded. A trio of athletic brunettes, probably swimmers, walk in after a pair of barbied blondes. Whatever the fuck a “plasma surge” is, you feel it in all corners of your god-given body; the boys are booosted. It’s been a quick hour at Patties now, and the bar welcomes new patrons every thirty seconds; three teammates are scheming with various bunches of girls, the homie with the other pool stick won’t shut up about this new idea he’s been curating. It sounds far along in the thought process, you tell him. “It’s done marinating” he says, smirking like a total dickhead. After you wax his ass in pool for the second and final time, you decide that “it’s been a while” so you casually penetratefind yourself now in a socially lubricated posse of attractive people, essentially to “sharpen the craft”. Everyone understood the rusty vibe, but it went well enough to motivate the process for another trial. It’s been two months of consciously forming a more analytical mind, so now bigger pictures seem more apparent. You find the nearest nine and request she come up to you under a swell of emotions in around five minutes. In the center of a crowded bar, everyone believes the show and their gears of curiosity are now turning. It’s something like eight-thirty now and through some clever social engineering practice (Clutch +50), three phone numbers, two of which are potentially solid, one is for sure busted, have been casually acquired (Poise +75). Visting the peasants went well, and now your squadron is prepped to ride this wave back to whatever startupy shithole you’re operating out of.

It’s nine-sixteen at night and you’ve catapulted your weekend momentum particularly because your squad utilized a common drug as its master. A catalyst for creation has been engaged. A sober and well-deserved night of sleep takes place at around one, and a chalkboard scattered with completed objectives and future battle plans watches over, while all your “old homies” are still squatting at the pub, talking to a soft six that they’ve known since seventh grade. They’re somehow already hungover and it’s going to be a sixty-bomb $ just to get a ride home. you can get so much done in a night.

The Circle Drag

The first rule of working at a baseball field is that it’s not about the money. The second rule that’s applied to maintaining a baseball field is that it’s really not about the money. The “job” checks all the boxes for the collegiate initiate: small yet stable direct deposit, occasional free eatery, healthy downtime, outdoor labor, flexible hours. If you think this doesn’t really sound like the typical life of an employee, you are right, and we were lucky.

Two white pick up trucks lounge in the front spaces of the lot as the third steams in with its windows down. No shortage of Sublime tunes, “I’ve got 6 discs loaded up in here”. Late to the show, I play it cool with enthusiastic and humorous greetings but they don’t respond. I acknowledge the negative grease and move on to tuck away my goodies in my locker for the day ahead. The black bean and pepperjack cheese burrito, I already feel the looming urge to maul the bastard to shreds; I’m hungry and I wouldn’t even need to blast it with microwaves of radiation.

A mango with its meat showing and this weeks book get tossed into my cubby. A quick peek to the neighboring locker owned by “fart” as it reads on its door grants me a quick grin, and I’m off into the grotto to kickstart the shift. The grass is green, and the dirt is tan. The skin, the dirt is called, needs to be dragged and watered.

(Imagine the process of brushing your hair then applying the proper ointment to ensure moisture and grip. Say you’re bald, you’d have to ponder the creation of a dirt bike ramp. I’m talking the manipulation of the earth to serve the purpose of aesthetic and function. It takes the perfect combination of tool touch-ups and water works. Men of the name Jules may call this “Divine Intervention” as I was the lucky lad to ride upon the freshly maintenance-d sand pro, the machine that in unison with a hose, makes the skin very aesthetic and functional, indeed.)

Were Sundays in America invented for Baseball Games? (I thought the chicken came first but now I really don’t know.) I’m blessed with one of those feelings of “right place + right time”, a feeling quantified at “Accelerating past Seven”, level of contentment. The Arizona Sun does not play games, his mission in this sector of the earth is to deploy vast amounts of energy to be met with no opposition, it should be illegal to have a shirt on in this part of town. My sleeveless crop top matches my rolled up shorts: maroon or die. My cheeks are getting fried but I forget about them as I perfect my dirt sculpture. The mind proceeds to wander through the figurative sands of time and space as my body pilots the combustion-powered machine that combs the particles of the infield; it’s a microcosm of the galaxy itself. With each oval I drag, I have the ability to correct my past drags, looping through life equipped with both the pencil and the eraser. The student becomes the master and the teachers become the blasters. On my outbound passes I gladly receive the divergent drops from the hose stream, and I get the pleasure to see my smooth dirt work adopt the moisture with cozy receptivity.

this collegiate gig however, went on to disrupt my expectations of the traditional labor force. Live through a phase of life akin to the vibrational attunement of “Brown Eyed Girl”. You know what this does to the American soul. Imagine the tapping-in of yacht rock; It just hits different when you’re with your buddies as you perform very merry, mellow physical labor. Sweet dessert, I nurtured this little oasis in the desert. A metaphor for my future? You guard the grounds of Valhalla, and there’s no future career shot of playing it safe.