SOON I will be 30. I’m not nervous about it… Vin Diesel is 47, you guys. I’ve got 17 years until I’m Vin Diesel? Straight cash, homey. Still, 30 is a ponderous age. I won’t be able to drop that “LATE 20s” card anymore, I have to be 30. “Late 20s” is lavish as fuck. “Late 20s” is a glorious era, when you can still refer to your potential without people making a vigorous jack-off motion in their brain.
I nailed my late 20s. I climbed to the highest turnbuckle and dropped one of the meanest elbows of all time on my late 20s. I got hammered, and lived check-to-check, and created pompous works, and did drugs, and wallowed, and lost the deposit on an American Property Management apartment. I complained about gentrification with my words and celebrated it with my actions. I saw bands first. I showed up at bars at 1 am, behaving as though last call would never come, not even hearing it when it was hollered. I was hella HELLA hella in my late 20s in Portland Fucking Oregon.
I was two to 18 years old in Beaverton Fucking Oregon, though. I grew up around pre-owned Acuras and brand-new couches. Sometimes my family would go to Pier One Imports, and sometimes we’d go to the OTHER Pier One Imports. I grew up with people who went to doctors when they WEREN’T sick. I grew up with people who had enough money that emergencies were just emotional. I’m not celebrating suburbia, but I saw that way of life and I experienced its comforts.
I do plenty of overcompensating in my life, but pretending like a life of suburban comfort is a ONE HUNNIT PERCENT AWFULDEPLORABLE THING isn’t one of them. I have zero desire to go back to the physical manifestation of the suburbs, but as I approach 30, I think about the suburbs as a philosophy.
I often fly back to Oregon from LA, mostly to return bottles. I was having an evening in a bar, enjoying the company of a woman and some kind of bourbon drink, and I saw a ghost from the future. He looked like he was pushing 50 with his white hair and taxed skin, and stories he probably had about Satyricon. He was dressed like he hadn’t changed his clothes since he lived those stories. He looked like he’d dressed up as “me 20 years ago” for Halloween. He made me sad, kind of—he made me hopeful, kind of.
Portland is an experiment where you can act like you’re in your “late 20s” as long as you want. The party keeps going, at the cost of some feeling that tugs on you when you’re riding the bus to ZoomCare. I saw this old man trying to have the same night I was having and wondered why he’d never heard “last call.”
And then I wondered if I was jealous that he hadn’t.
So in other words, you are an old fucker? And the old man wasn’t??
What the fuck kind of riddle are you putting on us now Karmel.
No riddle, no train of thought, just stupid as fuck “I’m a snowflake” Millenial twit life philosophy. When confused by Ian’s writing, never reach up, you’ll miss the turd lying in the middle of the floor that was placed there for you to marvel at.
^This person is named after a cookie.
Reading something just to write a negative comment is SOOOO 2010.
I don’t really think 50 is ‘old’, nowadays. But I do agree that Portland fosters the Peter Pan Syndrome. There is a reason Portlandia’s theme is ‘the dream of the 90’s is alive in Portland”
Making fun of my onscreen name? Ah, the battle cry of the weak and witless.
This dude still named after a cookie ^
^ This dude is named after heated and condensed sugar.
^ This dude is named after a cracker originally intended to curb sexual urges in children.
^ This dude is named after a band and a washed up pop icon, and also somewhat after a red planet.
^This guy named after his grandpa.
Let us raise a glass to the birthday boy in hope that he will use this next decade to do something other than continue to metaphorically drag is ass across the carpet like a stray dog with worms. Now remember Ian, birthday cakes are not adult sized cupcakes!
BTW – Did ya’ll catch Ian’s HILARIOUS sketch in tribute to Robin Williams, entitled Mrs. Buttfire?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZyTFt8SAy…
Just keep blowing man…
About to turn 30 myself and a former “Beavertonian”, I dig it.
this is fucking brilliant!!!
^^^^ This guy way up there is named after female mammary glands and a hand rolled marijuana cigarette which just happen to be two of my favorite things so that isn’t that bad.
I had you pegged in the mid 30s. this is a bit of a shocker. but explains a lot. well gotta go shit now. bye
The Dirty Thirties are real Ian. You may look forward to everybody in your age group falling into random sexual pairings all the damn time, as the panic sets in re: growing old alone.
The thirties are also your second decade where people will not specifically dismiss your views because you’re a kid, or ignore you because you’re old. Enjoy.
Yer forties, though: that’s not for pussies.
^My screen name is an ironic take on two things am not.
Destitute bigamist?^
Heh heh…