YOUR LIFE begins on a set course, and since you’re reading the Portland Mercury (which, great job, by the way), I’m going to assume it went something like this: You went to preschool and then you went to kindergarten. After kindergarten you went to grade school, and then it was middle school, or junior high (it’s a mystery why such a dismal place gets two names—it’s like if Tigard was also called New White-Dude-in-a-Dropped-Mitsubishi-Ville—also sorry for making fun of Tigard while having grown up in Beaverton). After middle junior high school you went to high school, and you did all of these things because you’re legally required to do all of these things. Where the law stops, however, a more powerful force takes over your life. The force of “because it’s next.”
There are three kinds of people who go to college: people who go because it’s next, weirdos who have a favorite and second favorite Ayn Rand book and have their shit together coming out of high school, and moms. I went to college because it was next. I’m sure most of you went because it was next. I’ve already written about college, but let me say again: As children (BTW, 18-YEAR-OLDS ARE FUCKING CHILDREN. SOMETIMES I GET BOOKED TO PERFORM AT COLLEGES AND THE PEOPLE GOING TO THAT COLLEGE ARE CHILDREN. I’LL FIGHT YOU ON THIS), we’re tasked with making decisions about the rest of our lives, and we have to do so with all the momentum of pre-destiny and almost no encouragement of agency. You’re allowed to pick what to do next, but only in the context of higher education.
“Because it’s next” is comforting, because it means you get to walk a well-worn path, rather than wander into the wilderness. “Because it’s next” is comforting, because it means your failure is a communal failure. You didn’t squander your time in college… naw, you flailed in a broken system. And yes, by the way, the system is broken. It IS fucked up that we send children off with nothing more than the vague instruction to assume a stance in a paper and the ponderous damnation to acquire thousands of dollars in debt—all because it’s easier than breaking out of “because it’s next.”
This isn’t confined to college. Dates turn into relationships into marriages into divorces, because it’s next. Internships turn into jobs into careers into burdens, because it’s next—because you put a TV on your credit card.
One day I decided not to do what was next, and I PROMISE I’m not just blowing myself rightchere, but my life has been WAY! MORE! DOPER! since then. I almost went to law school! The Fucking Seventh Circle of Because It’s Next. I would have been a lawyer! There are so many lawyers already, and I would have been so bad at it. Imagine me as your lawyer! Showing up to court late, covered in marinara sauce, quoting Young Jeezy in your defense. College is great, marriage is beautiful… but do that shit because you really want to do that shit. Own your future and all the regret and spoils that go along with it. The wilderness is scary, but it’s beautiful out here.
You should be handing out refunds Ian, cuz this motivational speech was neither inspiring or entertaining.
@ Mercury. I barely tolerated this guy’s column when he lived here. It’s summertime, please give your readers a vacation from this decaying carcass of a column.
kk but somehow you made the marinara-encrusted lawyer fail sound more tragically heroic than the way more doper Dom Deluise.
Truth.
This guy’s writing (and believe-you-me, I use the word “writing” in the most vaguest possible sense, like when you’re trying to eyeball some curvy parts through a shower curtain, hoping it’s the gender/sex/meat-parts/go-lucky stranger/whatever-ity you prefer, so you don’t have to go back to those thoughts you thought you thought back in soccer camp–“No coach, I don’t know what happened to all the eye-black grease. No I don’t know how my undies got a front-skidmark, either, get off my case!”) is pretentious drivel.
You know, I never fault anyone for making fun of Tigard. All the way up to failing to correct their just-off-the-turnip-tuck ass when they call it ‘Tiggurd.’ Or when they call Tualatin ‘Too-Lautin.’
Also why I shout down anyone trying any sort of revisionist “Hey, Beaverton’s not so bad…” shit with, “I WORK THERE, AND DRIVE THERE, AND TRY TO FIND FOOD TO EAT THERE, SO SHUT THE LIVING HELL UP, YOU SIMP! THE PLACE IS A FUCKING ABOMINATION!”
Hey “Dogtrot” and “Snickerdoodle” – I will use my Portland Mercury money to fly you both down to LA to suck my dick. Thanks for reading!
Also, dogtrot, you’re going to criticize anyone and make a skid mark joke? Kill yourself, dawg.
Kill yourself, dawg
The ultimate statement of compliance in your vapid world of trite contemporary humor. I am so “real” I get to tell you to kill yourself under the guise of pretentious irony.
Fly me instead and ill help you reconnect with being a human.
Ian, writing jokes that are funny and entertaining is different than writing prose that is funny and entertaining. I am sure you are great at writing jokes. However, you are no David Sedaris, or even Dave Barry. I have never even cracked a smile while reading your column, those are two examples of authors who will make you laugh out loud over a newspaper or book.
See, I’m not even sure what you are doing with your column. Are you trying to be funny? Are you trying to give a Beaverton tutorial on what it means to be from portland? Is this weeks column just how you’re feeling about life right now? (Cuz i felt that way at 16 when i was taking a lot of acid). Is the money really that good for this gig? Really?
Save the plane fare and spend it on a Sunset blvd tranny bj. That’s gonna be a little closer to your mercury paycheck price point.
There are some pretty good writers at the mercury. Some funny, some entertaining, some informative. You are dragging that curve down.
I read that as “marijuana sauce” and didn’t even bat an eye.
All you haters just too scared for I, Anon commentary.
And too wordy.
Anyway my favorite part of college was picking a political science degree and getting to hear smug assholes talk shit about it FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE as though that’s dumber than anything else I or they did at the age of 20.
I think Ian is the shit. And these haters just jealous o’ the stink.
I think Ian is the shit. These haters just jealous o’ the stink.
I went to college because “it was next” too. multiple tens of thousands of student loan debt later…… I’m pissed I felt forced to make that choice when I was a teenager. I didn’t know a thing about money! we were all told it was a good investment back in the late nineties… and anyone who didn’t go to college was a loser. Even people going to community colleges were considered screw ups (WTF??? thanks stupid sheltered chicago burbs). Now I’m about to be a mom, (*not because ‘it was next’, because it is my dream.. cheers), and I’ll be trying to make sure my daughter doesn’t have the same fate.
Are you implying that because you get paid to do something you’re good at it?
You should change this column to LA As Fuck and you can explain how Jeff Dunham and Glenn Beck are deserving of our respect.
That garbage in parentheses was my imitation of your shitty writing, how you can barely make it through a sentence with diverging into nonsense–it’s painful to get through. I guess you could say the skidmark joke was a suicide-worthy version of your Young Jeezy reference. I didn’t use all-caps, though. Maybe it would have clued you in if I would written something like: WAY! MORE! VAGUER!
I don’t understand. I’m assuming that this author is writing this article on The Mercury’s dime. Jeez, where do I sign up? As I stated on FB, it’s a very narrow minded, and juvenile view of the average college student. In the end I wasn’t even sure what the point was. It appears to me that this newspaper is willing to shell out money to anyone as long as they can write something that includes middle school cuss-words and Boy Scouts around the campfire sexual innuendo. The adult readers of The Mercury deserve better. Better than a man-child that suggests people perform oral sex on him just because they dared to call him on his drivel.
“Adult readers of the Mercury”…Classic.
Man, people sure do get worked up over the content of a free newspaper. Maybe when you settle down you can use all those free show listings, movie times, and restaurant reviews to find something to do with your night to take your thoughts off of how pointless your life has become.
in a loose kind of way i guess i agree with the three classification ; i barely passed high school but had invested myself in physical work that gave me a good work ethic and also had a passion for weird fantasy novels. by age 21 i applied all that work ethic to school and did well. i get the distinct drift many are here because “it’s next.”
Some- like myself- though, start because they feel trapped and want to support a family (and no i’m not a mom i’m a man). lastly i’ll say I’ve found the mental stress of solving problems is the same as the satisfaction of the physical stress of manual labor which i thought i’d do for the rest of my life.
It is reassuring to hear someone affirm the education is messed up and in need of change. it needs to be free. but before people’s motive for pursuing school changes society needs to change. until then people will still go to school “because it’s next” and because it gives them something to put on paper and a sense of security or advantage.
ohh and dogtrot get something better to do than knock peoples good writing- i see like three similar remarks in your comment history- is dissing other peoples writing the hobby of a failed writer? I think your arguments would go a lot farther if you demonstrated some talent in your responses or at least build an appealing argument… seeming as how you think writing is something to be judged.