AA SOTD - 8/3/22; The Iceman Cometh
Pre: cold shower
Brush: Stirling 26mm synthetic pro handle
Razor: Merkur Progress
Blade: Astra (3)
Lather: B&M Arctique (omnibus)
Post: B&M Arctique AS
Post: Nivea cooling balm
#UNCHALLENGED:
Happy hump day to all. Damn easy shave today. Still can't feel my fuckin' face and that is fine because I know it is BBS. I am the Iceman.
#SIDETRACKED (u/Teufelskraft):
Yesterday I betrayed my Sunshine State upbringing to the community. You can take the man out of Florida, but can you really ever take Florida out of the man? I’m of the opinion that you cannot, in fact, entirely purge the Florida out of someone who grew up in Florida. Like an irreparable scar levied on your body from a violent accident, Florida never leaves you. Once you’ve drank enough Indian River OJ to change your internal osmotic chemistry, once you’ve been spoiled by the easy availability of cheap Cuban cuisine, and once you’ve seen enough crazy bullshit to violently rob you of your faith in humanity, then you cannot really leave Florida.
To be honest, however, it was a decent place to grow up. I had a good family, I had good friends, I never wanted for much. Grandpa gave me my first car, a dark green 1992 Mercury Grand Marquis that he kept in pristine condition and got single digit miles to the gallon. A V8 goddess. Man, I loved that car - the bench seats, the pull down shifter, the wheel that was so loose it felt like I had to spin it 10 total revolutions just to turn right or left. It drove like a dream, and on hot steamy Florida nights, driving back and forth from friends' homes, it was a massive metallic space yacht cruising effortlessly on flat, wide Florida highways.
You grow up in a big enough suburban/urban space and if you have a car you will end up listening to a lot of music. Jack Johnson ("JJ"), Hawaii native, born into a lineage of surfing fame, and creator of mindlessly melodic beach acoustics was a favorite of mine. I cruised on highways, passed endless rows of stripmalls, occasionally went to the beach, all listening to these easy tunes. Gone is an idea representation of JJ. Simple, melodic, easy listening with an earthy, albeit somewhat trite, message. It was good music for a kid, still good music now, just don't read into the tea leaves here and hope for a life illuminating message.
Mediocre Bad Guys is a bird of a different color. Upon reflection, JJ nailed this one. I worked in the criminal justice system as a younger man and I can confidently tell you that you will meet a lot of shitty people, but you will only meet a handful of truly bad people in your life. I mean evil people, if you believe in evil. Some men just can't be reached. But most of your life will be full of mediocre bad guys - assholes, jerks, shitty people who are selfish, mean, and sad. When you're a kid you don't understand why your teacher is picking on you, or why your baseball coach is just an ass all the time. What you don't know is that that person might just be a jerk, might just be an ass, might be sad and alone. These are mediocre bad guys; they can't really hurt you, but damned if their efforts don't bring you down anyways.
Edit: great to see the Floridians represent!