Bring on the Awesome
It is tradition that around this time each year, as new beginnings near, I reach forth my arm and with a steady, strong hand firmly press the stirring rhetoric button. And this year is no different. So hold on to you knickers, kids, we’re at full-tilt-boogey.
In just a few days we will exit what Time magazine dubbed, “The Decade From Hell” and while it’s hard to argue that some truly awful shit has gone down, it’s also hard to argue, I feel, that life is pretty flippin’ sweet.
Looking back over the past decade I fell in love once, got my heart broken twice, broke more hearts than I care to think about, wrote a book, made a movie that has screened on every continent but Antarctica (and at this rate Antarctica won’t be there much longer so fuck it, right?) graduated college, made a ton of AMAZING friends, spent an evening with Kevin Smith drinking nine dollar New Castles, shared a few beers with Butch Walker, Josh Joplin and Angie Aparo, picked up a hitchhiker, totaled a car, became good friends with not one but two strippers, lost a brother and my father, gained two brothers and a sister and the cutest little crime-fighting nephew ever, got a little praise from Brian K. Motherfucking Vaughan, laughed my ass off in both oceans, campaigned for and helped elect the first African American President of these United States, watched about 2,000 episodes of The Late Show with David Letterman, saw the Counting Crows live in concert about a half dozen times, walked away from a feature film seven days before shooting because it was the right thing to do, almost got in a fistfight in the bahamas, won a bunch of awards, got told a dozen times or so that I suck and should never be allowed to make movies, co-hosted a podcast, wrote, like, fifteen screenplays and, like, fifteen-hundred blogs, apologized, at least once, to everyone I know, appeared on a nationally televised teen soap, spent about a year as a homeless person, got asked to act in a porn, turned that down, wrote a one-shot comic book, started a bi-weekly comic strip with Xoph, toasted at five or six weddings, ate some stuff and this is just what I can think of off the top of my head.
Yeah, there’s some really, really shitty stuff in there, and some really, really shitty stuff that I didn’t mention, but all in, not bad work for a decade, I feel. And I hope as you all look over your last ten years you see that you found awesome and hope and greatness almost daily. And I hope I was some tiny, tiny part of some of that good stuff.
But, beyond than this, I hope you see that more than standing at the end of a crippled decade we are standing at the beginning of a year and a decade and a future that can be anything.
I have no idea what the future will bring, but I plan to dig the hell out of every moment. I have no idea where I will even be living this time next month, but I plan on kicking ass while I’m there.
The future is wide and mysterious and entirely ours. Yours and mine.
Bring on the awesome.
Get a beverage of your choice and move the world,
E
Yes, I still love you but it’s okay…
December 28th, 2009 at 7:02 am
Glad to say I was laughing beside you as we soaked our toes bi-coastally. You are a constant presence in my highlights reel. Happy new decade, friend.
December 29th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Awww. I’m glad you were there, too. Life is way less awesome without fred around. And you are a constant presence on my reel as well, madam. Here’s to another decade of awesome and beyond.