Alright hopefully you've read the first, and what I thought would be the last, AFRO Manifesto because then you have a vague notion of what I'm getting ready to go off on a tangent about. But if not, get ready to be slightly confused as you wade through this muddy insomnia-induced and frenzied orchestra of proliferations and pretentions that is AFRO.
DON'T DIE WHEN YOU CAN LIVE!
or
So You Want to Save the World....
Like most people probably, I always get these weird schemes that never actually happen about how to liven up an otherwise boring existence. Part of the problem is that said ideas strike at 6 am when I am half asleep, which obviously makes it very easy to forget them. Another problem is that I am "too busy." Too busy with what though? So far I don't have much to show for all my "busyness."
A while ago I saw this video called 'Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth,' and there was this one part that hit me on the head like an anvil. Basically the watered-down Cliff Notes version is this: most people are held back from doing what they love or really want to do because of "responsibilities" or "social obligations". Joe Campbell says fuck that and wookishly proclaims "Saving yourself is saving the world."
See, a lot of people think that to "make a difference" you need to dig ditches in third world countries or save baby eagles and three-toed sloths, which is all fine and well. But his philosophy is that to disregard your regimented, pre-programmed life and do what you really want (which could very well be digging ditches) is saving your own world, which to some extent is the only world that really matters.
Now obviously I have the self-centered luxury of saying all this because I live in the United States of America and am not homeless or terminally ill, and I am not trying to discredit people who do stereotypically save-the-world things like enlist in the Peace Corps or plant their own politically correct food. That is all great and beautiful. What I am saying that there are other not-so-obvious ways to save the world, and wouldn't it be neat if we all tried.
Which brings us to the doctrine of AFRO.
AFRO would like to be your catalyst!
See, all these schemes I was talking about earlier, they are like Linus's blanket, or your imaginary childhood friend. Both these things offered warmth and security, but then died horribly slow and painful deaths once you "grew up" and got all cynical and apathetic. There is a toxic growth in the bowels of your heart filled with all the rad ideas you once had of fucking shit up. This is where they went once you gave up and resigned yourself to being grumpy while you lived a life of things you "have" to do like going to school or working at a bad job.
AFRO would like to extract this growth.
AFRO would like to be the antidote to an otherwise poisonous state of mind.
So all these plans that you had which were chipped from the colossal glittering diamond that is usually located in the back of smart people's brains, well these plans are miniscule slivers of glass from that diamond which have embedded themselves in the bottom of your heart. At first they are a steady thought on your mind, as a sliver usually is because of its slight but constant sting. But then gradually, as time goes by, these little diamond-sliver-ideas pierce deeper and deeper, until finally your skin slowly grows over them, they are forgotten, and everything is like a hazy deja vu. And it happens over and over, with various undeveloped plans, until underneath your skin their is a goddamn army of tiny sliver-ideas that in their pure mass quantity have grown into a tumor that, although quite large, has lodged itself so deep in one of the many bunker-like and radiolucent caverns of your heart that an x-ray has as good of a chance of finding it as an ice cream cone has of surviving in hell.
Well AFRO is here to play doctor with you.
Without the dull numbness of anesthesia, we're gonna cut open your chest, find these secret grottos, and expose that spiky cyst to the light of day where it will explode in a manic triumph of sparks. And then there in front of you will be all your forgotten schemes of grandeur, your unfinished plans, and your disillusioned dreams that once promised an interesting life.
Yes, it might be slightly humiliating to have your secret old hopes laid out and vulnerable for all to see, but in the end it is better than not. Because once they're out you can't cast them aside; it's always harder to quit something while everyone is watching.
But now it is all up to you. Hopefully AFRO has been a help, opening up locked doors and pushing you in the right direction with a "go get'm tiger." AFRO got it started, but you need to get it finished.
See, AFRO wants your relationship to be symbiotic: to be mutually advantageous, to depend on each other. No one has the upperhand. Once committed, AFRO cannot survive without you, and you cannot survive without AFRO. This is the way things are here at AFRO.
Which brings us to the actual point. Many people blame their boredom or dissatisfaction on Eureka and so they leave. I agree it is a kind of boring town, but there is so much potential! We could mold this place into something no one has ever seen. Sooo.....why don't we make it what we want and fuck some shit up. I used to have this idea that seemed cute at the time but in reality is pretty dumb. Basically what it consisted of, was the thought that all we need to liven this place up was to do some good old fashioned recruiting. Like this:
we send some charming people out of town, to where ever they want to go for a couple of months. They in turn find the most productive and perversely interesting people they can. Hopefully a friendship will form and our recruit will paint such a glowing picture of Eureka that the recruitee will just be dying to move out here and live forever and make neat things and babies and blah blah blah. If not, abduction is a possibility, but that might get too messy. Because it's not that the people here are boring, they're just bored of monotony, so some new faces with new sliver-ideas might be all we need to get in gear.
Anyway, silly I know, but the point of it is that rather than moving away to find some new exciting life, wouldn't it be so much braver to fuck shit up right here? With all your little sliver-plans that got lost in those obscure grottos of your heart?
I just want interesting things to get started, good or bad or disastrous or what have you. I want people to resume their monthly low-rent restaraunt which takes place in a dirty living room, I want people to organize generator shows out in the middle of nowhere. I want people to contribute to an unauthorized Arts Alive venue on the gazebo with ugly paintings and fake chiken nuggets and tiny glasses of Pabst Blue Ribbon. I want meticulously edited documentaries of people we know to be made, I want an invitation-only showing of super-8 porn movies on the side of that giant white building next to the Sea Grill. I want I want I want.
Which brings us back, full circle I might add, to my "busyness," the excuse I use when I feel pathetic for not following through with any of my dramatic schemes. Supposedly, I don't have enough time to start something, and, good lord, finish it, but, I have enough time to spend all of Saturday afternoon drinking beer.
And so on that note, I would like to publicly thank whoever it was that told the bartenders at the Shanty that I am underage and have a fake ID which is what got me kicked out forever (well, for 2 years). Because now, instead of promising myself only one drink, that of course will end up taking all night, cost a million dollars and result in a hangover, I can walk to the bay, drink a 40, and then go home to plot my retarded projects. This newly accumulated time and money will contribute to my proverbial sliver-ideas, and if everything goes according to plan, and if I don't find another bar to hang out in, hopefully I will completely extricate all my procrastinated projects. And hopefully the end result will simultaneously entertain old ladies, confuse and captivate Japanese tourists, scare grumpy hippies, and inspire bored people to save their little goddam worlds.