Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Cult-cha

I have been accused of "knowing everything." Not by anyone in a position to grant true Genius standing to yours truly, but being Mister Know-It-All has its downside. Like the knowledge that I do not, in fact, know everything. I have harnessed my concern rays on a rather specific sliver of all the world's information. A voracious reader and storehouse of pop culture references does not equip me to be a rocket scientist.
I know that at times I appear in people's lives as a font of wisdom, but it is primarily recycled aphorisms from movies that I have seen and lyrics from rock songs that have disappeared from playlists in other folks' minds. I can't count cards, but I can tell you about Rain Man. I find things that appeal or amuse me, and I try to spread these bits of trivia as if they were my gospel. A walk into my living room is a walk into a very busy mind. Two very busy minds, since my wife's obsessions are stuffed in there too. If you visit, we will take turns trying to cram your head full of the things we have just noticed or experienced. We are fortunate when those visitors are willing recipients of the word on high, or medium high anyway.
The trouble is, I am a much better transmitter than a receiver. Heaven forbid someone will take me aside to tell me about a TV show they have been enjoying and it hasn't made my playlist. I search frantically for a reason or connection to something else that will allow me access without having to increase my bandwidth too awfully much. My reputation, as I mentioned, tends to proceed me. That means friends will often show up with artists or artifices that really should be in my lexicon. "You haven't seen....?" or "I can't believe you missed..." Which sets off an alarm in my head. How did this happen? What could have been in the way from me to have ignored this significant event? For this reason, I own a Grateful Dead CD. I have watched the first season of Game of Thrones. These initial contacts were not enough to send me into a frenzy, watching and listening to all aspects and tangential material connected. Breaking Bad was different. That one set off a binge watch that ended with the purchase of a Walter White action figure that now stands on the altar above the television. No Jerry Garcia action figure, sorry.
But now that I have taken the time to write this, I know that such a thing exists.
It never stops.

1 comment:

Kristen Caven said...

Casts *a knowing look *