Please stop reading this and pick up Columbine

I’m supposed to be researching and writing about John Philip Sousa right now. But the thing is, see, he’s fucking boring. And so, I’m suspecting, is John Phillip Sousa, i.e. me. Not that people hang around with me and are bored. It’s more like, this narcissistic project is boring me.

I feel great otherwise. I’m losing weight and my body is sore but in a good way because I’m working out really, really hard, and I live in this beautiful place where the weather is perfect. It’s hot but there’s a pool. Everything is green and beautiful. I feel like I’m on vacation. In fact, right this minute, as I type this, I want to leave the Los Gatos public library, drive home, and take a nap.

I had an idea percolating yesterday, though. I’m reading Columbine by Dave Cullen and it’s fantastic, in that In Cold Blood kind of way. Exhausting research, thousands of interviews with survivors and victims’ families and law enforcement. Details from Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold’s journals and videos. It’s an amazing book. Morbid, sure, but fascinating. And a couple of things occurred to me:

1. I will never write a book like this. I just won’t. I’m too lazy, untalented, and too self-absorbed.
2. What if I wrote my project in the third person, like the JPS biographies? I could interview my friends and family and former co-workers and create a complex portrait of a troubled but lovable guy, blah blah blah.

Do you see the obvious problems with this? My narcissism led me straight to a third-person biography of myself. My laziness and lack of talent finalize the deal.

So you should probably close this tab and go and pick up a copy of Columbine. It’s much more compelling than this crap.

But if you’d like to be interviewed for that other thing, hit me up.