On Todd and Trog and Doin' Your Thing...

On Todd and Trog and Doin' Your Thing...

by Adam Littlefield on Friday, April 15, 2011 at 4:27am

"I like people who don’t fit the general perception of what they’re supposed to be—like a jock who doesn’t think the game is the end-all/be-all of his life. I always admired that about Mike Tyson. He was the best boxer in the whole world, and boxing really wasn’t that important to him. And I feel connected that way, too—I feel like the less I care about my music, the more it comes out of me, and the more fun I have." - Todd Snider


    


     So I can not claim to be a huge Todd Snider fan. I have only been exposed to small portions of his work. I do know he's a huge badass, though, and a little fart of my brain led me to an interview featuring this lovely little ball of good spackle... Something yesterday, I have no idea what any more, brought to mind Snider's Infamous Buddy Trog, who I had first heard a tale of at a bbq at Erin C's maybe, and maybe it was five years ago, or something. Regardless of where I heard the tale, I was like, yeah, Trog's kinda like me, or I'm kinda like him, or something. Several people agreed at the time, and a few people over the course of those years have randomly asked me if I'd ever heard of Trog, and stated my resemblance to their mental picture or what not...
   
    Anyway, when Trog popped into my head yesterday, I was hit with a wave of introspection... Am I Trog?... Have I spent these last five years trying to emulate my general idea of his generality and filled in the blanks with Boomby?... Is he yet more of my as-seen-on-TV spackle?... And then I'm kinda like, 'well so-fucking-what if he is? Quit spazzing about whether you've turned into Trog, you're having a blast; and you're not all Trog, or all Hank Moody, or all Ignatius J. Reilley, or all Uncle Buck, or all Del Griffith, or all Bert Littlefield, or all... You're one fucking Boomby... So quit your spazzing and do your thing...' I'm paraphrasing tones of my thoughts here, in case it needs to be said, but my point to myself was that we all take pieces of people we identify with or admire... People shape our personas... We have our examples, and we choose which ones to take along for the ride... And the choices are endless and ever tricky...
   
     So I get de-railed quite easily in my Universal dealings. If I'm not careful, I can ruin a really good flow by focusing too much attention on, ahem, one thing or another. It drives me nuts, but I get a little better at controlling it with each bump in the road... So after getting some things back on track, and a couple of mini-de-railments, I was a little melancholy when I came across this quote up top. One mini-de-railment came after I'd spazzed for a few minutes in the car about the one part of my current flow that could be going a little smoother, and then the same thing, my id gave my ego a little pep talk about all the great things on the rise, and I did a mini-version of this new little meditation exercise I made up for myself... Half-way through the exercise, I hit a fucking squirrel. Believing in the flow of things as I do, I considered this not-so-good, and was sorta sad-and-chuckly-all-at-once at the irony of it all... It didn't really help my mood... But Todd put me back on track...
   
     Some people fight who they are. Why? Because of the perception of who they're supposed to be? Todd was asked this question in reference to a song he wrote about a Major League pitcher who threw a no-hitter tripping on acid... And it's the question that's been on my mind these past few months... At some point we have to realize who we are and make it work for us. If we stop fighting it, or pushing it, or pulling it, it goes. Any one of us is able to make our life whatever we want. I want to be a Good-Timin'-Good-Hearted-Countryghettohippie-Writer-Farmer-Gambler... And I am, and I will be, the best one of those I can; maybe that ever was, if there ever was one...
  
     Do your thing, people. Be that jumble of people that make you, you... Care less about your music, and the more it will come out of you...
Good day
~Boombalias