That Old Familiar Feeling
Well the thesis is complete. Just like that. You know, you have this vision of trumpets sounding, clouds parting, birds flying around wrapping a sash around you that reads, “You’re Awesome” but really, it’s kind of anti-climatic. In fact, it’s kind of hard to believe I’m done. I’m not certain if it hasn’t settled in yet, or if I’m kind of going through a decompression, but I am through with pencils, and books, a teacher’s dirty looks. School’s out forever.
And really, what is beginning to trip me out is the over all sense of what now. I mean, I know what now. I just earned a Master of Business degree. I’m engaged to be married this September. After the honeymoon, I look for work, and hope I find a fantastic job that pays me lots, with great benefits, that I love doing. Isn’t that what everyone wants? But still, the “what now?” persists. I think I know part of the reason.
About five years ago, there was the Outrigger. I tended bar there with a few friends Beth and Samantha. Every weekend was a party or adventure, and really, I can’t say that we went exciting places, or climbed any mountains, but there was just so much insanity occurring out there, and we just sort of soaked it all in as the spice of what makes us human, or inhuman, that it just seemed like such a kick. And in any case, any life “adventure” I always figured was material for the screenplay that I would write and direct some day. I had, at that time, wanted to move to L.A. to make movies, just like any red blooded American kid. But in reality, I was just sort of drifting, because the “reality” was that the only writing I ever did was in my livejournal account. I never wrote the screenplay back then (it’s still a goal), and I never carried around a camera. But I saved a lot of money while I lived with my parents, and after one year at the Outrigger, with two previous years to that, pouring drinks at other Delta locations, I packed up my truck and headed to southern Cali to hit the big time.
But life having a way of changing you without you even noticing it sometimes, I realized that I didn’t like L.A. I didn’t like the culture down there. People didn’t seem all that friendly to me. I don’t mean that they were not friendly just to me. They just didn’t seem like they gave a shit about anyone at all. I realize that that is a broad generalization, and I don’t mean to begin a discussion about whether or not Los Angeles is a center of hell or heaven, but let’s agree that the relevant information is that I just did not get the sense that I belonged down there. Perhaps I wasn’t ready it for L.A. then, or maybe the time that I was ready for it had passed me by already, and I was now geared for something yet unknown. But I left and returned for another season of insanity slinging Mai Tai’s at the Outrigger.
By this time I really felt aimless. What the fuck now? Bartending had been a vehicle to get me to L.A., the place that I “belonged”. My destiny had been to make movies, and working for tips was the thing I was to do until fate delivered the golden laying goose to my lap. Again, I asked, what now? It was at that time that one of my liquor distributors tried selling us Hpnotiq: and exquisite blend of premium vodka and tropical fruit flavors with a touch of cognac. And it was blue. I said no way, and it was a hit nationally. Blue cognac? And then I reckoned that if some guy my age could sell blue fucking cognac, for millions, then I ought to be able to come up with some liquor idea that would sell for millions too. Then I could get to my screenplay (funny how a crazy man thinks, isn’t it?).
It was my boss then, Ron Greene, who suggested I attain my MBA. That’s what he had done, when he had been about my age, and feeling a bit aimless. And he had been a success in business. So my plan at the time had been as follows: get the MBA (that should take a year, two tops), then sell my billion dollar idea, then get back on the creative train. How naïve.
But here I am. Now three years after having started school (the unit requirements were greater than previously believed), four years after having conceived of the MBA plan (it took a year to prep and apply for school), and I’m done. It’s unbelievable to me that it’s true. Here’s the guy who L.A. spit out in less than six months, who stuck with it after three years of getting up before 6 AM, and didn’t get home most night until almost 10 PM, and was on the move all hours in between. And now I got the MBA. It never would have happened but for the lucky twists of fate like meeting my true love, landing a bartending gig after some other guy died, and serendipitously being chased out of one crappy apartment into a far better one for cheaper, but it DID happen.
And now I must answer the same question that I asked after my prodigal return from la-la land. What the fuck now? Do I really try to sell my billion dollar liquor idea? A big risk to take for a guy about to be married. If I was single, why not? But now I got something to lose that really matters to me, and success is predicated on serious financial risk and traveling a lot. Ironic that I never would have completed school without Lesley, but now am afraid to pursue the next big adventure for fear of losing her, isn’t it? Maybe she’s the one who will push me through the next success.
Anyway, I’ve got to get back to work. It’s early and I haven’t shaved. But I’ve been needing to get that out for awhile now, and I’m not even a fraction done yet.