So I read this article about the potential closing of the El Mocambo this morning, and it reminded me of the realization I had years back that all my childhood dreams are dead. When I was younger I always assumed you set your dreams as a child, since that is the only time anyone will ask what your dreams are, and realize them as an adult. Anytime anyone achieves a modicum of success the first and most obvious question is always ‘when did you know you made it’ and the answer is unequivocaly ‘when X childhood dream was accomplished.’

No one ever tells you what the fuck you’re supposed to do when every indicator you had for success slowly disappears and is literally replaced with a condo.

I guess I’m not angry, it’s hard to convey that on the internet. I’m not really resigned either, I can see how the forcible removal of the pressure to fulfill a sort of arbitrary experience chosen as an elementary schooler could be a blessing in disguise. I’m more confused? Ambivalent? What do you do in the absence of any benchmark?

I know the response is love and personal discovery and moving to New Mexico and learning life is all about the goals you set for yourself (I just finished watching Eastbound & Down, and I am upset) but that seems like a pussy answer. I don’t see what’s wrong with a little good old fashioned shark-iness, set a goal, accomplish it at all costs, and burn everything in your path. The only reason we ever hear about the average joe is when some shark-y documentarian or journalist or actor decides they need an award. I don’t doubt there’s a nobility in living humbly or that our priorities might be motherfuckin’ skewed in some areas as a society, but I’ve never understood why some amorphous hippie shit was somehow PREFERABLE to the type of thinking that is constantly rewarded.

Whatever, life goes on. It’s not like I will change course based on the closing of the El Mocambo. But it is sad to me, personally, beyond the understandably sad loss of another Toronto landmark. I guess I hate the unavoidable changing of the landscape in the literal and metaphorical sense. I hate birthdays, I hate New Years, I hate most holidays, anything that draws attention to the passage of time. It’s not a morbidity thing, I just find it fucking weird. That things change, for whatever reason, I am not able to process. I hate when you’re having a great conversation with someone and you’re straight vibing off each other’s shit, and there is suddenly a lull. Intellectually I understand there is a flow to conversation beyond my control. In practice I will start word vomiting every thought I have in a desperate attempt to get things back to their previous level. I guess it’s a control freak thing, or the most uninteresting addictive behavior of all time.

How do you mourn things with no quantifiable importance, or why do you want to mourn them in the first place?

Also I need to go back to Toronto and go to the Zanzibar before the war on tacky signs claims another victim.