7.18.01

Hey, Kids! How ya like the new home? Pretty sweet, huh? Yeah, I figured it was about time that I break down and buy my own domain for this monstrosity. One of my goals for Space Monkey was to have other people with other ideas write in and tell me what they think, and I just don’t think the site would ever really get found being tagged on to the end of dygfloyd.com. Besides, it’s always nice to have a domain all to your own. It’s sort of like having a house or an apartment to yourself – even if your old roommate was easy to get along with, it’s just nice to have your own space.

As far as the name goes, I don’t know if I’m going to change it to Space Monkey X or not. I like the X thing just because it sounds anonymous, which is kind of the point, but I don’t know. Sadly spacemonkey.com was taken, so I had to make do. We’ll see what happens.

I kind of like this whole Wednesday update thing. Maybe I’ll keep that going for now. Once a week is enough Space Monkey for you, isn’t it? If anything else pops up that I just HAVE to write about, I’ll go ahead and do it, but I’d just as soon take the time to really develop the ideas, give them a little time to stew. So, look for Wednesday updates from now on. Feels good to have a schedule now. Ahhhh….

My last entry generated some heat. Got some people pissed off at me to say the least, but that’s what you get for pouring your ideas out for others to see. I’m sure they have some beliefs that I’d be pretty fired up about; it’s just that they haven’t created a forum like I have. The people who got pissed are good friends of mine, so it’s not like I’m angry with them; I just disagree with them. Hopefully they see me the same way. They seem to so far, but then again maybe next time I see them they’ll bind and gag me and throw me in the East river for all I know. Although I do want people to share their ideas with me, I’m not going to respond publicly to them for many reasons.

The first reason is that one of my friends threatened me with harm if I ever brought up the subject again and, well, I don’t enjoy sucking chest wounds and try to avoid them whenever possible.

Secondly, the gripe had nothing to do with the theme of the entry, but more of a side point; therefore, I don’t really feel like it’s worth opening a can of worms for something that I didn’t even find compelling enough to write an entry on. I guess you could say that I just don’t care that much about the topic to get into a huge debate over it.

Finally, the subject was one of those eternal “Black and White” debates – sort of like abortion, gun control, capital punishment or which one of the Backstreet Boys is going to end up in rehab first (Well, I guess that one won't be discussed anymore). You either are “for” it or “against” it and I’m not interested in those types of debates. Space Monkey is all about the gray area, it's more about questions than answers.

I’ve discussed religion, materialism, the beginning of existence, and what it means to be a man; none of these things have a black or white answer by any means – and that’s what I’m more interested in. If the discussion will bring up more questions than it will answers, then I'll be happy to put it here; but if it's just a matter of who's right and who's wrong, I could really care less. If I wanted to do that kind of site I'd just tell you my opinions on these "Black and White" issues and see what kind of fire that starts. I'm not saying this person wanted me to publicly discuss their feelings, it's just sort of an explanation to the rest of you that if you really want to know where I stand on abortion I'll be happy to discuss it through emails, but not online.

Ok, enough of that, let’s move on to today’s entry.

Tomorrow night I’m going to see Jurassic Park III. If you’re a friend of mine you’re probably thinking, “Frasier Crane is going to see Jurassic Park III?”, but if you’re thinking this then you don’t really know me at all. In fact, I’d say the only people who know why I’m going to see JP3 tonight are my Dad and my sister. Ya see, I love dinosaurs.

When I was 5 or so, I had the typical security blanket stuffed animal. I guess he wasn’t so typical because he was a triceratops and his name was “Horny”. Hey, I was 5 and didn’t know any better. Now if this doesn’t make sense to you, a triceratops was a huge creature, about twice the size of a rhinoceros, with a large, bony plate on the back of its head, two long horns above its eyes and a third horn on its nose. So, to a five year old, Horny is a perfectly appropriate name!

Besides carrying Horny wherever I went, I had books, posters and those read-along-with-the-record books to teach me all about these fascinating creatures. I even wrote my first “book”, illustrated and all, about a little triceratops named Johnny who lost his mother and needed the help of the other dinosaurs to find her. I could pronounce all the names, I knew the species on sight, and could even tell you which ones were “bird-hipped” and which ones were “lizard-hipped”. It was scary, I tell ya. Now my interest in dinos waned over time, to the point where I had almost completely forgotten most of the information I once had.

However, just over the last few years I’ve thinking about them again. On a shelf labeled “Things I’m Going To Learn More About”, there’s a triceratops resting peacefully amongst The Civil War, jazz, the computer program, Adobe Illustrator and the life and times of Jim J. Bullock. Recently I’ve decided to go digging through that shelf and find that little triceratops; gonna have to buy some books, maybe get some posters and buy a turntable for those old read-along-with-the-record books. I’ve already started to do a little research online and while doing so I realized something – I still really love dinosaurs.

In my younger days, when my dinosaur interest was at its peak, all I wanted to be when I grew up was a Jedi Knight; but if that didn’t work out, I wanted to be an archaeologist. I dreamt of lying on my belly in the desert of Utah with a dry paint brush in my hand slowly, carefully sweeping away millions of years worth of sand to uncover the fossilized toe bone of a creature that lived during the Triassic Period. And ya know, the sad thing is that’s still what I want to do today.

Why is that sad? That’s sad because I’m sitting in an office in Missouri staring at a computer monitor for 8 hours a day. I missed my chance to fulfill my dreams. All because I was so concerned about making money and living the Ghetto Fabulous lifestyle like my idols Snoop Doggy Dogg and Notorious B.I.G.. In making many decisions over the last 7 years, I was more concerned about what was going to make me money than what was going to make me happy.

After my horrendous college experience, I went into computers – a real growth industry. Then I got interested in the internet and thought that would be a great place to express my creativity and use my technical knowledge – dodged a bullet there, huh? But, then I realized that this would require some marketing experience, so I got into advertising, where I thought I’d be able to help companies come up with names and slogans and ideas for commercials. I even went so far as to go through 4 years of night school to get my Associates degree in Advertising. So, I got jobs in advertising firms, when I realized that you don’t get to be a part of the creative process in advertising unless you’re a graphic designer and you don’t get to be a graphic designer unless you have your degree. Well, fuck me. So now I’m thinking I should go back to school, to get some training that will let me get a job that I love.

But what do I study!? Graphic Design? Yeah, I could but another side effect of the whole advertising firm experience was I learned that I really hate the advertising world and many of the people that work in it; so that’s out. Computers? Ugh. I don’t want to be an IT monkey working inhumane hours, chained to a beeper, cell phone, and Palm Pilot so I can be reached anytime, anywhere when John up in accounting can’t get the email from his grandma to print; fuck that. So what now?

Well, I read once that the best way to find a career is look to your childhood; the things you were interested in in your youth are what will make you happy for the rest of your life. So, basically, I should reenact a brutal battle between my Boba Fett and Luke Sywalker figures until I’m old enough to retire. I wonder if I get benefits with that job? A 401K would be nice. Seriously, though, this theory does make sense.

When are you most happy? When you’re a kid, because despite what we think when we’re young, there are no rules. You’re free to be whomever you want, to like whatever you want, to be able to do whatever makes you happy, because you don’t have rent, a car payment and credit cards to pay off. Now if you can figure out a way to be a kid and get paid for it, that’s when you’ll find the career you’ll be most rewarded by.

For me, that all comes back to dinosaurs; or maybe writing; or maybe art. So far, writing is my best bet, simply because I don’t have to get my PHD to write a book and I was never the artist my father was. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the book will get published, but then not every book written by a Dr. So-and-so gets published either.

So, I’m working on my equivalent of an artist’s portfolio – you’re reading one of the entries right now. I’m also writing short stories, doing some collaborative writing so I can learn how to write with others, and looking for freelance opportunities on the web. I plan to take some writing courses this fall at a local community college to help with the process. Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree again, I don’t know. But then again, maybe I’ll someday be a famous author, sell thousands of copies of my books, and be able to lie on my stomach in Utah digging up a triceratops - on my vacation at a dig that I’ve funded.

Space Monkey