I’m a Scruffy Dude

I live on a Scruffy Boat

Lately I’m a Free Booze Sample Dude. I clean up a little for work, but not much. Because why bother when I’m serving Dudes like this Yahoo…

He thinks he’s Elvis. So that’s what I call him, the Elvis Dude. I’ve seen his stupid I.D. a dozen times. He’s a One Trick Pony.

The Office is where I blog

They call me the Gloomy Boomer. This is my blog. I work on my blog at the office. The Office is my name for the Strawberry Starbucks. Possibly the best damned Starbucks anywhere. For those of you who don’t approve of Starbucks. Who consider Starbucks a corporate megalith responsible for passing bad coffee off to a gullible public. For underpaying their Baristas. For standardizing mediocrity. For those of you who complain that Starbucks is destroying small independent businesses and fostering monotony and possibly killing creativity across the urban interface….all this I will concede is true. But if you insist on whining about it, I say,

eat shit and die.

There’s plenty of real bad shit out there you can whine about.

The Office (Starbucks) happens to be one of the few places left anywhere that welcomes a human being. Allows a human to sit and do nothing. Come in out of the cold and sit. Don’t buy anything. Just sit. Find a bit of a refuge from the bad old world. Sit and think shit out.

Today I’m sitting near a homeless girl. Nobody has pestered her to buy a coffee. She came in here to sit. She’s scratching her head. Staring at her phone. Thinking shit out….

Where else can you do that? The Library? Junkies crowd the libraries.

A park bench? Try sitting on a park bench at Golden Gate Park. You’ll get mugged. Robbed, beaten, murdered. Left in a duffle bag.

Not everybody get’s murdered at Golden Gate Park. You can sit on a park bench in broad daylight and you’ll probably be okay. But you might get mugged. And there’s no coffee while you’re getting mugged.

I don’t know of any other retail venue where you can go besides The Office and sit for free. Sit for free and just stare at the wall, like the Lobotomy Dude does…

I don’t know if it’s different at other Starbucks besides the one here in Strawberry. I suspect it is the same as here. I’ve been to several other Starbucks where I’ve come in, sat down, stared at my phone, spent not a dime, and nobody complained.

The Freedom To Do Nothing

This freedom I think doesn’t exist. Not only are we expected to do something with our lives. Preached it from the time we were old enough to listen. We Ourselves collude in the demand. Our Inner Critic urges us to do something. Be something. Pitch in. Lend a hand. Don’t waste a single moment!

And when you find yourself doing nothing, you’re nasty little critic pounces:

Don’t just sit around. Do something. What the fuck’s the matter with you? Weakling. Loser. Deadbeat…

My inner critic gets pissed seeing me do nothing

I mean, I could be out working a real job. Even at my age, seventy, my inner critic says, “fuck, Gloomy, why’re you doing this suck-ass job for? Pass’n out Booze Samples. Get a sales job and make some real money. Bust your fucking ass. You need to get out of your rut. If you don’t, you’re a loser. LOSER!”

He has a point. Here I am Scruff’n around, living on beans. I mean, I got a few grand in a can and my boat’s a nice crib, etc., but I should be living higher on the hog. So says my INNER CRITIC.

The thing is, though, I’m cool with doing nothing!

Like this Blog for instance. My INNER CRITIC says, “you need to monetize your blog. Make some money with it. Turn it into something marketable. If you don’t your a fucking loser. Loser!”

The thing is, though, I like posting NOTHING Blogs. It feels…it feels…it feels like I’m doing nothing!

I like that feeling.

Yesterday I’m sitting on my ass, watching The Time Machine on my phone.

I’ve seen it seven or eight times but I like it. You know, they got the Morlocks eating the Eloi and old Rod Taylor decides he’s gonna make it right for the Eloi. Wipe out the fucking Morlocks. And he does. Then, he decides he’s gonna stay in the future. A million or even millions of years in the future. He came back first to his own time, took a look around, said, fuck this, and headed back to the future. Why? Maybe because he wants to help the Eloi. Because they’re gonna need help. Before they could lay around and do nothing all day because the Morlocks provided for their needs in order to eat them later. But now there’s no more Morlocks. They’ll need to learn how to take care of themselves.

Anyway, I’m watching this movie. My Inner Critic starts jabbing me. “What’re you watching a movie for? It’s broad fucking daylight out and you’re watching this old ass movie. You’ve seen it seven times. You know how it ends. You should be working on your boat. Fixing shit. Do something productive, for Christ’s sake. Loser!”

I’m thinking I wish I had a Time Machine. I’d whisk myself into the future. Hang with the Eloi. Maybe show em how to grow a few crops. Or live off the low hanging fruit. I don’t want them to work so hard. Maybe show them how to work just a little bit. Do just the minimum so they’ll be free to lay around and do nothing all day.

Like I like to do.

The key to happiness

I owe money. It’s not easy to do nothing all day when you owe people. I’m gonna be forced to make something happen…which is work. I’ll need to make some moves…which is more work.

For the moment, I’m doing nothing. Sitting here working on this Blog. Which is nothing…

I’m feeling good about it.

This is the key to Happiness, I think:

Find out what you are. Learn to accept what you are. Once you’ve done this, kill your Inner Critic.

Go with Irrational Exuberance.

A three year old balloon still holds air.

Roll with the Bubble.

Cuz at your age it’ll probably last longer than you.