with a name like travis?...
i don’t know why i keep writing but it’s people like travis who keep me doing it
lately i’ve been obsessed — and when i say ‘obsessed’ i mean ‘fascinated’ or ‘very curious’… (i don’t literally mean ‘obsessed’ but people can take things literally so i feel the need to clarify and explain because i’m canadian and a womansplainer). anyway, i’ve been obsessed with mark manson the self help guru and dusty slay the trailer park standup comedian. together, they form a formidable powerhouse in my mind of fearlessness, which i seem to need a jolt of every day.
but last night, i received the gift of watching someone who had chutzpah and who only needed about 10 bottles of beer to get there but still. it was their first open mic so give him a break. anyway, the guy walked into the open mic with dreads a-flying and a christmas sweater a-sweatering and with a tiny tattoo in the shape of a dagger between his eyebrows i couldn’t help but be reminded of charles manson but still… that’s ok. everyone is entitled to have a tattoo between their eyebrows. point is: the guy had cojones. drunk cojones, but cojones. so when it was his turn, he grabbed whatever guitar was lying around (after getting the owner’s permission of course) and began strumming wildly with the neck of the guitar suspended high above him like the lead singer from some rock band like journey (what’s his name? steven tyler? i don’t know. i’m terrible at names. oh well. there are worse things) and he belted out songs out with more recklessness and notes that were sometimes hitting and sometimes not that you had to watch him just to see what he would do next. at one point he made up a song on the spot about god knows what but it involved being drunk at a bar. there was something in his voice. ‘passion’ doesn’t describe it. more like ‘grit’ or ‘fuck it all.’ he cared about people but he also didn’t care. and then afterwards, i got a big hug and he told me a story about someone he had heard was paragliding so far and long that they had to poop in their pants in a special pouch and how he too loved to drop out of airplanes and how, when you do, all your worries fade away. all the anxiety: gone. and he just didn’t seem like a person who ever had anxiety but there you have it. we all have it. i don’t think i’ll ever stick my body under a paragliding apparatus or fall out of a airplane, but i do feel free-er today because of meeting travis.