As this year Stardate 2013 ends I feel compelled, not by the power of Christ, but by my own overblown ego to say something important. Unfortunately I really don’t know anymore what is significant enough that it needs to be documented for all eternity in my CaptCliff blog archive, sometimes better known as my personal literary dustbin.

Plus, it’s hard to compete with a Piranha feeding frenzy in Argentina and Christmas doorbuster sales at Walmart where people kill each other over skinny jeans and sequined iPod cases. Dont get me wrong. Part of me itches to go shopping and buy something that I dont need. Just like losing connectivity to the internet or Facebook for a few days, at times I suffer from an irrational fear of falling behind and realizing too late that I’m the last person on Planet Earth with an iPhone 3 and a flat screen HDTV that is NOT “smart” or bluetooth-enabled.  Worse yet, I dont even know what that means. I like to think of myself as an iconoclast and a unique individual but more and more it seems we are living in the Chinese Year of the Herd Animal, and I’m the weirdo who is way out of step (see my “Cadaver CanCan” art project above).

On the positive side I realize there are many people who care about me including Facebook friends who may be complete imposters/catfish and others who love me and tell me stuff I want to hear, ie., that I am moderately clever, even occasionally funny. I now know how to look at both sides of life. For all the hair I’ve lost there is plenty more growing in my ears, on my back, and in places I cant mention in public. I know this might seem to be an unusual way of demonstrating wisdom and positive perspective, particularly since it means I now resemble a stooped Neanderthal. However, maybe that’s the point. As we grow and age we also regress and redress our more primitive, immature and less thoughtful selves….. like the time  (around age 13?) I cut off my sister Julie’s lip with a scissors or the incident in which I amused my children on July 4th by lighting fireworks in the nude. Believe me I have many regrets and a pot full of lessons learned. Speaking of pot, does anybody have any cuz I’m all out and it’s almost New Years… Just kidding. Here’s one honest truth and one Cosmic question I still have after all these years. Allow me to put this in list form. It’s something I like to do for no known reason:

1) Truthfully, the annoying people who try to tell you to “slow down and enjoy life”, to take long deep yoga breathes, and to not just gobble down your food but chew it thoroughly…they were right. In the vast swirling Universe that we can imagine only in amazingly beautiful psychedelic Hubble telescope enhanced photographs, there is only light and love where we live, where we look and in what we “make” of it all. When I think of my life, my family, and my friends far and wide, I feel less alone and more connected, not by advanced electronics but by spirit and soul. What I mean is that love and compassion go way beyond something material and lasts longer than my Best Buy extended warranty on my once fancy but now worthless stereo VCR. People in my life are never forgotten and my sentimental feelings (due to my sentimental nature) about them last forever. If I do forget them it’s only because of emerging senility and brain atrophy. You cant blame me for that. 2) Cosmic question: When we die, where do all my bad jokes go? Do they get recycled by other class clowns, half-assed comedians and New Age wise guys or is there a landfill for old out-of-date humor? If there is such a magical place it should be called Bada Badum Ching and it should be a peaceful place in space-time with an excellent view of the expanding universe. The only sounds to be heard would be distant rim shots in far away galaxies and crickets eternally chirping. Lots and lots of crickets.

P.S. Happy New Year everyone and, by the way, is anyone interested in buying a huge alphabetized collection of VCR movies and audio cassette tapes? I put a lot of time and effort into collecting them and imagining their tremendous “value”. They’re going cheap.