Why I got nothing for Christmas?

Well, because I don’t want anything. Really. No I haven’t achieved some late in life mystical alternative state of reality or anything I just don’t want anything. I have a roof over my head, enough (too much?) to eat, few future goals I have real passion for and too many toys I don’t use now.

My Car is a 1991 Mercedes 300TE Station wagon thatb runs well enough and when I’m forced to travel all the rentals make me wish I were back driving mine instead of the 06, mitsufordhonda SUV that I bang my head getting into and handles and drives like a dump truck. Oh yeah, my car gets 24 MPG which is better than the average new car. I don’t care to get into the neighborhood competitive holiday gifting by having them observe what shiny new piece of multi-national assembly sits by my curb with a big red bow on the roof even if it’s in my favorite color and I even did ask for anything shiny this year. Oh BTW, singing the most dreadful song from the worst musical ever produced about a bunch of singing Bavarian elite refugees doesn’t motivate me to obtain a car named after a lunch meat in Korea. So forget cars.

I own may favorite guitars already. One a 57 reissue strat can quack which is all anyone can ask from a Fender and I’ve already modified so it doesn’t hum like a Theremin (I knew that BSEE degree would come in handy some day) and set it up with Roland guitar Synth. My Gibson ES 347 (like BB Kings Lucille with simpler electronics and much hotter pick ups) is one that companies most underestimated axes and is simply way too hot for the desires of most humbucker users who are searching for that muddy sound they so love. My 1973 Guild D44 was made from a pear tree whose wood has long ago been consumed for production leaving only mine and the few lost equals in the universe with a sound quality that defeats that of other acoustic guitars I’ve played with price tag 10 times what I laid out. I searched for an acoustic like that for twenty five friggin years with that sound. You get that guitar from my cold dead hand. A couple of others fill in the gaps for old timey sounds etc but those are my triumvirate. Add on a decent Yamaha keyboard and a project studio I built and my instrument cup runneth over.

Sound wise I consider my mobile needs fulfilled by a $50.00 MP3 player by Scandisk that uses their removable media that now costs $15.00/ Gb. I play it through the Sendheiser headphones or the studio set and stay happy or through my original equipment Blaupunkt car radio which lacks even a CD player (I kind of went from tape straight to MP3s years ago). I assembled my home sound system from the closeout parts I assembled from the defunct AR research in Boston. The real one, not the shit they sell under that brand at Target. I use any number of $25.00 portable CD players with that system. I challenge you to hear a better system. It’s 25 years old and paid for.

Ironically being so closely aligned with video editing and content creation, I watch few movies and most HDTV leaves me cold. I don’t watch sports and Hi Def sweat doesn’t do it for me. I intend to wait for 2009 when the Feds force me to buy a digital receiver and by then your average 52 inch LCD HDTV will be the same price as a dinner at a good restaurant before I shell out money for an upgrade. I am looking forward to trashing the tube because of weight I just hope they’ll let me recycle it properly. So much for the home theater. Oh yeah Surround sound is a gimmick.

I own all the furniture I need and sure as hell don’t want to add any more to my moving bills. I buy clothes as they wear out and being a T shirt whore have a vast quantity of free ones in my collection. Hell I even wear the Microsoft shirt that others have coveted (god knows why) that I own for peddling enough numbers of their operating system to unsuspecting consumers. Let’s just say I’m not a clothes horse so much for that new suite.

So no new houses, cars, clothes, guitars, I build my own computers and already own too many, and my collection of CDs is as complete as I care for it to be. I own two DVDs and that as many as I want the rest is tape I recorded off of broadcast. Talk about hard to buy for what do yet the guy that doesn’t ant any more.

See emotionally there are a couple of things going on. First, I’ve moved too much in the last five years. Four times to be exact. It has turned out to be costly and exhausting. And, I feel like I’m aging at a thousand miles an hour. Moves I made only 20 months ago would likely kill me now. The last move a mere three month (not quite) really took it out of me and I paid somebody to move the bulk of it unlike previous moves. The idea of adding to the load is overwhelming.

In addition the end of the tunnel is in sight. Recently I’ve lost feeling in part of my right hand, the right side of my face and tongue (a very odd sensation). I’m slightly dizzy all the time. My right side is weak and I’m limping. Now I have no illusions about what this all means. But I’m a “NO Blue Mondays” kind of guy. That’s a phrase I learned while working in the hospital thirty years ago. It means I don’t believe in extraordinary measures of any kind to extend life. Having a heart Attack? No resuscitation. Got diabetes? Screw insulin and auger in like an aviator. It applies to me first.

Also, have no illusions, I may after a lifetime, have a collection of material items that younger people don’t possess but after a series of recent unfortunate business experiences I am without financial resources. Like many Americans I am only a few paychecks away from homeless. That means with the usual health insurance I cannot afford extra medical treatment. Besides I believe one of the responsibilities of the older generation is to die and get out of the way. The least I can do is to facilitate the process.

So you see with the end of the road in sight you suddenly lose concern for aspirations and goals. Now that doesn’t mean I’ve given up. I am writing a book I need to finish and publish quickly (for financial reasons) but acquisition of more material goods seems stupid and wasteful. On the other hand recent changes in my health have made some differences in my viewpoint.

I see a sardonic humor in many things that I didn’t have before. And some humor I didn’t react to has taken me quicker and deeper. Jay Leno brought me to tears of laughter with his “headlines” routines recently. That never happened before. Just tonight the picture of some Iraqi combat solders holding a banner that read “John Kerry help us, were stuck here in Iraq” caused me to keel over. Payback is a bitch. Maybe human behavior appears even more absurd to me now.

On the other hand the incessant drumbeat of holiday marketing this year has been nearly intolerable. It seems that it’s your patriotic duty buy a new car and spend for Christmas until refinancing your house is no longer an option. I don’t even want to discuss contemporary politics which simultaneously frightens and disgusts me. In may ways I feel like the old Indian in those bad cliché ridden westerns who sit wizened with sad eyes murmuring “I’ve lived too long”. I actually feel bad for young people and the world we have left them and the upbringing they’ve had.

So it’s been a strange holiday. Few if any external signs of interest, no tree or decorations, no presents and a deep desire to hide while all the holiday frenzy spins out of control around me. To boot my employer is busy making threatening noises about my job and I find it hard to muster anything but anger at their stupidity. I’d just wish they’d suck it up and make a decision.

Not much holiday spirit here I’m afraid. So no presents needed. I don’t want to add to the pile anyway and am not using everything I’ve got now. Christ if I have to move again soon I’m probably gonna just light a match to it all anyway. Meanwhile I bought a new Def Leppard CD recently that I like playing too loud and I need to make a new will.

And, recently, on occasion, I’ve begun thinking about past events in my life and what I’d do differently based on what I know now.

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