Mr. Productivity

I have an amazing ability to be counter-productive... or maybe it's dis-associatively productive... well, you decide.

I have something to do, like write the comedy that will keep me in cocaine and Learjets for years to come, but I manage to find something else to do - that is also work - instead. I've done laundry when I should be updating my blog, changed the oil on my car when I should be writing a screenplay and gone grocery shopping to avoid sending mailings to bookers and agents. It's as if I prefer mindless menial labor to meaningful mental labor. AS IF.

I don't like cleaning, or changing oil per say. I'm pretty sure that it's just easier to see the fruits of my labor with such tasks. I can see the clean room. I can't see the positive reception to my brilliant musings. Maybe I'm afraid that I will fail. Is it fear of success? Then why this constant fear of failure? If I'm afraid of failure and afraid of success, does that make me mediocre? But I'm pretty sure I have a fear of mediocrity too - I mean, doesn't everybody? Don't answer that. I've lived in the suburbs.

I'm not lazy. I'm always working. Even when I was being a drug addict, I made sure I was a drug dealer so I wouldn't have to depend on hand-outs. I'm very self-reliant; wouldn't ask for a life-preserver (or heroine) if drowning and all that.

I'm very good at preparing to do work, but never doing it. I've bought pens, expensive electronic equipment such as a video camera, voice recorder and laptop to streamline the recording of my rapid flow of creativity, so that no ideas would slip through - out into the ocean of lost and forgotten premises. I have sat down at my computer with the full intention of writing my observations and imaginations in sweeping prose and punchline only to find myself spending two hours surfing Ebay in search of a laptop on which to record the same when at a coffee-shop on some future date - and I have never in my fucking life been productive in a goddamned coffee shop. There is nothing creatively inspiring about Starbucks. Nor am I inspired in any independent coffee shop whose entire ambience is dedicated to seeming as un-Starbucks-like as possible.

I quit smoking in part because it is the perfect excuse to procrastinate. I may have to abandon coffee for the same reason. Also, it's hard to have a cup of coffee and not a cigarette. If you're going to make your mouth taste like shit, you really have to go all the way... but I digress.

I could make promises, but I've made promises in the past. I'm just going to try to make a point of being a total slob with a broken car and dirty clothes. This is obviously the only path to glory.

Here's some Ping Pong: