Guilty as charged.
Yes, that can be the only verdict for my reckless abandon of 1st degree murder. You could even call me a serial murderer as I have been killing for over 35 years. And although my closest friends and relatives kind of had this idea that I could be a serial murderer, they really didn’t give it all that much thought.
My prey cannot really be quantified per se. I mean I am not like the Green River Killer or the BTK serial murderer. And I have no real stories like Gacy or Dahmer who end up in dark anthologies of mass murderers. My victim is not a tally that can be easily measured. What I am guilty of killing is time. And boy have I murdered a lot of it.
The genesis of me becoming the serial killer that types before you today lies in childhood. I was one of those kids who chose to play by himself rather than reach out to neighborhood kids. They always tended to play cowboys and indians or cops and robbers. I was more high brow opting for my own adventures inside my head moreso because no one wanted to join me in a game of Congressional Lobbyist and Senator, a VERY riveting game if you gave it half a chance. Sure, not a whole lot of physical contact, but the paper cuts could be VERY brutal if you were not careful.
I created games on my own. I would routinely play chinese checkers and chess by myself. I even enjoyed playing Monopoly by myself, trying hard to outwit me but somehow always falling short and losing the game nonetheless. And me being a sore loser would end up with something being destroyed by my wrath. Now don’t go throwing in my face how by logic, I also WON the game because somehow that winner was not me, even though it WAS me. Yes, I was an odd kid with an even odder outlook on life.
But soon, I found that I was choosing more to entertain myself because I pretty much had more fun with myself than with people. This didn’t mean I was a hermit. It just meant I was very adept at passing time with myself as opposed with other people.
My Atari 2600, my Atari 800XL were all instrumental in me becoming the future killer. The arcades also contributed. How many Saturdays was I waiting outside Willowbrook Mall’s famous Fun N Games arcade waiting for the doors to get unlocked? And how many late nights was I up posting messages on the BBS systems in the North Jersey area. (For those of you who do not know, BBS systems were mini internets that a person set up inside their own home which could only have one person logged onto it at any one time. And they had threads which you could leave messages on and some really crude online games all without graphics).
I started to really kill time as I started to acquire hobbies. I had this one REALLY bizarre hobby as a child which involved me keeping a journal of every cigarette ever made with an account of its tar and nicotine count. I had it sectioned off into 100s, lights, ultralights, hard pack, soft pack, menthol. It was just downright weird.
Then I started keeping lists of all the Tom and Jerry episodes ever made. And then I started keeping a journal of every license plate. It was borderline obsessive compulsive behavior rather than hobby.
Next came baseball card collecting and chasing down those sets. Wacky Packages followed suit and then came Alarm record collecting. Each one had the common denominator that they were all solo ventures not needing a counterpart to partake in the sheer orgasm of jotting down a Kansas license plate or finding out the nicotine count of a Chesterfield.
The Alarm was a Welsh band in the vein of U2 who never really caught on like them, but still had talent nonetheless. I was for about 3 years actively chasing down, documenting, researching memorabilia from them. That killed a LOT of time. I guess it was during college that I really honed into the idea that I was not just passing time anymore, I was actually killing it. I found I opted more to be with myself than mingle with other college folk.
I took a lot of my free time when I got a job at the PBS affiliate in Phoenix to invest time into learning the equipment; editing, switcher, camera, and the like. That killed PLENTY of Saturday nights. When most normal people were busy getting laid, I was finding the absolute thrill of regenerating vertical interval timecode on beta tape and could not understand for the life of me why ANYONE would choose to pursue sex over that.
By the time I got to Bakersfield, my skill at massacring time was legendary. I had rollerblading, Java Jazz, journal writing at length, writing books about Wacky Packages, the gym; the list was long. And when i got to Los Angeles, I added poker playing, metal detecting, road tripping to Laguna Beach and now, online blogging to the weapons of choice. All the while, time keeps becoming collateral damage.
Well, today, I decided to kill some time yet again. I actually logged onto CNN.com to watch at length the work they are doing on the famous Deep Horizon Oil Spill vent. I was actually riveted as I watched the underwater subs unscrewing bolts, trying to loosen pieces of the topcap and actually cheering when they finally were able to pry loose a piece from the cap. I would have continued killing time had I not actually had REAL plans with a REAL person.
I had lunch with Hilda and it was over a Kobe burger at Ruby’s that I realized that I had not been passing time all these years, I had actually been murdering it. Should I be held up to account for my sins? Perhaps. But to be honest, I don’t feel all that bad about it. Like a psychopath, I have no remorse for my murders because ultimately, I am in a good place. And I don’t encourage people to follow my path. But I do say, when time does slow down for others to where they have a crash course with what they call “boredom”, I find the concept absolutely alien since I am an expert on never being bored. Somehow, I think I have obtained the skills from my kills to never have to worry about ever being bored. And for that I am grateful even if it has come at the expense of lost time.
Now please excuse me. I have some more CNN live oil well capping to watch.
