Things To Do Before I Die

No cheeky kid stories today folks. They've been a generally cranky lot this week, which isn't any fun living through once, much less reliving through the magic of the written word.

I'm in a list kind of mood today, as it resolves me of the responsibilty of crafting a coherent narrative. I've been keeping a mental note of things that I want to make sure I do before I make my grand exit, and its high time that I put it down somewhere so that I can refer to it in the past. This will also help you, dear reader, in determining if my life was even remotely successful once you hear of my eventual passing. I'll try to put these points in my will so that my success or failure in accomplishing each one can be passed on to whoever writes my obituary. I'm sure this list will grow with time as I can't go a day without thinking of some stupid ass thing or another. That being said, lets get started.

Uppercut a Punkass
Yes, I did steal this idea from Dane Cook, but it's a good idea and I too want to do it. The world falls into two groups of people, those that stand by and put up with punkasses, and those that refuse to take such abuse and instead uppercut them into nearby refreshment laden tables. I guess that would be three groups as we have to include the punkasses in there somewhere, unless you have punkasses who are willing to uppercut other punkasses. At any rate, I'd like to think that if the situation presented itself, either at a party, or perhaps the junior high Valentines Day Dance, and a punkass was going about his punkassy ways, I would unleash an uppercut that would send him flying into the snack table. If it were at a party, I would also like the opportunity to knock him into the pool. If I'm at a farm, the pig pen is an appropriate post-uppercut, punkass receptacle.

Kick Someone Through a Window
Similar to the above point, but not necessarily limited to punkasses, I would like the chance to karate kick someone with such force that they leave the earth, and crash through a window before eventually returning to the ground. For maximum effect, I would like there to be a water trough under the window, or a fruit display. Perhaps I'm at the grocery store, and someone butts in line at the express lane. I speak to the gentleman calmly and ask him to take his place behind me, and rather than try and have a civilized discourse, he instead resorts to violence. I then proceed to beat his sorry ass to the point where he is barely conscious and standing, but wobbling while doing so. Time would slow and with either a viscious roundhouse, or a mid-air spinning kick, he would go crashing through the window. The store would then erupt in applause and an old lady, who had previously been accosted by my defeated opponent, would hit him with her umbrella as she exited the store.

Rap the Bridge in a Pop/R&B Song
We've all been listening to a pop song on the radio, and just when we've had our fill, here comes the smooth lyrical acrobatics of the latest rap star du jour. A well rapped bridge can elevate a song from mediocrity to genius in 6 or 7 well crafted lines. I would like to be the source of that elevation. I would resume using the moniker MC Whiteboy from my college rap show days and find my partner in rhyme, a one DJ Shag. He was going to school for chemical engineering or some shit, so I'm sure he'd be more than happy to ditch his six figure salary to engineer some chemicals of the lyrical sort. We would use this opportunity to get ourselves known, and then drop our first single "You Da Man? No, I'm The Man", in which we apologize to the world for all of the asshole things done in the name of white people in the past. We would use our new fame to drop a mix of social consciousness and rhymes thicker than your Grandma's gravy. Eventually I would meet Mos Def and he and I would go out to lunch on occasion, and possibly take in a movie. If you are an aspiring pop/r&b song and you think that your latest single is missing something, send it to me and I will add to it in ways that only a 33 year old white guy can.

Appear in a Rock Video, In Front of a Wall of Video
Some images persist in music videos because of laziness on the creator's part, but some images persist because they work. We've all seen the video of the band rocking out in a darkened room, and as the song builds to it's thunderous conclusion, the room becomes alive with light and color as a wall of video turns on and is filled with pulsating images. We are then left with the sight of the band's frontman as the images move behind him. Think the video for "Be Yourself" by Audioslave. I would like to be that frontman. I realize that I don't have a band, mostly because I can't sing, but the lack of singing ability doesn't appear to hold back musicians these days. I could just say that you just don't "get" my inability to carry a note, that I'm being post-modern in how I'm completely tone deaf. It doesn't matter. What matters is getting that video wall fired up as I gyrate, microphone in hand, to my band's massive rock output. In fact, I think that I've just come up with my band's name: Massive Rock Output. If there's a band out there that needs a frontman to appear in their videos, please don't hesitate to call. I also do Bar Mitzvahs.

Jump Out of a Plane
This next one is actually doable, and I've spoken to the missus about it, but she is less than thrilled. I appear to have grown on her over the years and she prefers to not have me in a form that requires a shovel and a bucket just to bring me from room to room. There's also the children to think of, as if I perish in a parachute mishap, I don't think my life insurance will kick in. That, and I would be forcing my wife to deal with those little hellbeasts on her own and she'd never forgive me for that. I need to find a skydiving firm that will take your shattered remains and toss them off of your roof, complete with strategically placed ladder, to give the appearance that I tumbled while cleaning gutters. The goggles and helmet would be completely understandable, as gutters are a popular vacation home for squirrels and those fuckers go for the eyes.

Reveal My Powers in a Case of Mistaken Criminal Identity
As this is the year I've resolved to get super powers, I think it's only right to have them come about as the police suspect me of criminal mischief that I had no part in. Perhaps I could, in the middle of a large city, go to help some poor citizen that had been a victim of some sort of illegal shenanigans. Perhaps I'm handling a weapon that was dropped at the scene, or I'm pulling a tire iron out of the citizen's head. The police then make a snap judgement and unleash a volley of bullets at my person. This is when my powers kick in, and I repel the bullets in some superheroic fashion. I would then turn to the police and say something like, "That was a spectacularly bad idea" and fling them asunder before streaking off into the sky and turning my powers to evil, to punish a world that would mistakenly wrong me. I've left the terms of the repelling, the flinging and the streaking general to accompany a variety of powers. I don't want to pigeonhole myself, should I want to be either a powerful telekinetic or be bathed in living flame.

Retire Early
There were some very interesting articles in the Feb 16th issue of The Economist on managing the ageing workforce. Basically, if all of the boomers retire at the same time, we're all going to hell in a handbasket because there will be more people leaving the workforce than entering. Also, not all of the boomers want to retire, but they're being forced to, due to outdated pension schemes and the incorrect assumption that older people can't be productive workers. Personally, I fucking hate working, so if there's a boomer out there that wants to keep working, I'm more than happy to take their place and retire early. More tee times for me.

As I mentioned before, I will continue to work on this list so that I can keep track of how my life is progressing. In a perfect world, I could knock some of these out at once, however the odds of my superpowers kicking in due to a parachute failure as I plummet while composing my rap bridge are somewhat on the low side. Fingers crossed.