This is familiar knowledge for those who have had the unfortunate experience of listening to me rant at various times in my life, but I had been planning on moving down to San Francisco during the late days of this summer. Before I left though, I wanted to tie all my existing frayed ends in attempts to ward off any future regrets of leaving; for I had no intentions of ever returning. My mind felt like roadkill, and the only ideas that were coming to me were always along the lines of ways to permanently put those Little Caesars promoters on Broadway out of work forever. Creating a new habitation elsewhere seemed like the only solution available to me.

I was nearly ready for my prospected leap into a bustling city of street vendors, Rupaul billboards, midnight subtrains, and of course an over population of Starbucks consumers, when low and behold, I lose the source of acidic flavor in my life-Orange Julius. This place represented the masochistic life-style I had led behind a plastic counter in the ruins of hell (otherwise known as the mall). There, I earned the pretty penny that would allow me to take a magic carpet ride out of what I saw as the many monotonies of Humboldt. Without a schedule imposed on little ol' me and no daily class functions to attend, I became a bum. I think if I was a beer drinker, this would have been a golden opportunity to fill my gut with the luxuries of a liquid meal and revel in the fact that the stains on my wife beater only were visible to me and the reflection on my beer can. There was no legitimate reason why I should leave the confines of my house, so why face the cheery sun that would mock me with its rays?

Instead, I turned to daytime television and excessive amounts of sugar from the bulkfood paradise at Waremart, excuse me, Winco. Within the company of my fellow gummibears, I actually sat through reruns of Mama's Family, Matlock, and the action packed Hunter. Inside my head, the knobs and wheels were turning like crazy. I think a nerve detonated a timebomb inside me because eventually I had to escape the buzzing screen of my television that had begun to magnetize me into a robot. I turned to books ranging from dime store trash horror paperbacks to band biographies and an endless stream of Anne Rice novels. Through these outlets, I was trying to escape facing myself and mainly my discontentment. I focused on Kevin Bacon's quest to dance in Footloose or the uncanny resemblance between News Radio's Matthew and a combination of the Sin Men's Ryan McGonagle and The Gazillions' drummer Jason Smith.
I know at this point your questioning my delay in just picking up and moving away and leaving behind all signs of my couch potato era. I was procrastinating for a reason that didn't hit me until recently.

Now to the point, in moving away I was struggling to escape who I had become in the recent years. I slowly had mutated into a mechanism for my own self-destruction. In descending down the California coastline to a city of new dimensions, the person everyone knew of me up here would disappear. I wanted to dive into a new life-style so that I could forget my problems and in turn, lose who I was. After those first few weeks of mindless vegetation on my couch though, I realized that I was tumbling down into what was beginning to resemble a sewage tunnel. The remnants and excrement of past tales of woe and disappointment had congealed into this monstrosity that was much like the revival of the blob. The next few days was a living nightmare as I realized this feeling of entrapment was in fact in me and not within this environment.

Humboldt wasn't really the dilemma. Sure, you do always seem to hit a rut on finding something entertaining to do, but I was using it as my scapegoat. I was blaming this area for the lack of luster in my life when really this area just needs a spark, but even more so, I needed to be lit on fire. It's just easy to hit a dead-end here because of this nastalgic lack of motivation that runs rampant among the streets. Self pity is as highly common here as the mullet. (Note: Humboldt has a high concentration of bad hair do's, mullet included.) For the past year, I've been focusing on why we're this rinky dink area with more than one KFC per town and the fact that it takes a bribe of booze among other things to get someone to leave their house. Yes, those two things are some people's idea of bliss, but I was viewing them with a pessimistic mind and a sour expression. I had forgotten that in the corners of our town's existence, lies our own unique etchings for the future. Sure every band here may not be on its way to stardom, half of them wouldn't even want it, but whether they are making noise or songs, they're painting themselves into Humboldt's permanent memory.

It may just look like graffiti now but it can evolve into something much greater if people stick around and don't fall into their personal toilet of unhappiness. I was overlooking some of Humboldt's finest luxuries, partially because they seem to be playing a game of hide and seek in which they are still waiting to be found. People's interest in life seems to have died out along with the year of 1999. Yes, the world didn't erupt into a state of chaos and end, so it's about time to move on and change things. There is potential in this area, if we can stop and open our drooping eyelids, we'll see it. We haven't yet been overrun by commercial monstrosities like Wal-Mart or Starbucks and we haven't been designated as the next location for Real World MTV. I see these as good things.

We're surrounded by this surreal atmosphere that's populated with art openings twelve times a year that offer complimentary no questions asked booze and provisions, a seafood restaurant that mutates into an all ages punk rock realm that can guarantee a new surprise each night, movie theatres where employees will wink at you while you're slipping in through the side door, and an endless array of noise bands and starving artists that just need your support. With a couple sparks of ambition we could light this entire place up and burn down the depressing monotony of our days.
The world's passing too many of us by, and it's time to discard our mangy attitudes and show someone, anyone, that we're alive. I'm not saying that you need to tie yourself down to Humboldt County forever so that you can see your grandkids parading down the glittery streets of our renovated town. But why not paint your own impressions of life on the walls of this city before we all hit fifty and look in the mirror and see bigger noses, elongated ears and our bottoms expanding beyond the boundaries of existence.

Yours Truly,
Michelle Cable