Champagne Taste on a Beer Budget...

Champagne Taste on a Beer Budget...

by Adam Littlefield on Saturday, September 4, 2010 at 7:59pm

So I've been wanting to write something lately, well, and at different times in other entries, about all of us single 20-and-30-somethings and the way we all treat eachother... This is a broad and general topic that of course seeps in to and is pertinent to all other aspects of our lives. It can not be whittled down in to just a few paragraphs, but I was thinking about something I wrote years ago, an un-finished rant of sorts, that might be a good lead-in to a possible string of entries. It follows along with versions of the same conversation I have lately had with at least a dozen people... This was written at a very tumultuous point in my life where I was actively pursuing the removal of my head from my ass once and for all. And during the following months, it looked like I might actually do it, but here I am nearly eight years later struggling with the same shit... So here goes... As stated, it is quite rough and was never finished, and speaks more on the generality of this life so many of us are living, but it feels like as good a place to start as any...





10-7-02





Champagne taste on a beer budget... That's what grandpa Chuck used to say. It's odd looking on it now, the way I always had, yet not quite ever did fathom the reality of that statement. Chuck was a sharp dresser. He liked jewelry and slicking his hair back. He liked to look like he had money. He walked it and talked it. Hell, I didn't even know him til he was in his 70s, and I still sat in awe through the most of my teens at the totality and smoothality of his swagger (especially knowing as I got older that he didn't really have much, but he made what he had work for him in a spectacular way) . My old man is(was) the third-to-last of eleven kids spanning three wives and four decades. Ol' Chuck liked to get around, and get around while he got around, I'm told. He was a lover of wine, women and song, so-to-speak. Which brings me back to my original thoughts this morning...





Champagne taste on a beer budget. It's a catch-22. The beer budget is inevitably due to the love of the "Beer". The "Beer" comes in all shapes and sizes. And more and more, it would seem that we all have a taste for champagne. This, too, is a broad area to be sure, because the champagne comes in various forms as well.





Is anyone happy?


Is anyone satisfied??


I guess the answer is yes.


People get satisfaction from being dissatisfied.


People get happiness from being unhappy.


We're all sick fucks.


Could we please complicate things more?





I dunno man, maybe we were all born to live outside our means, but I'm not thinking so. I'm thinking it's good in certain aspects of our lives, but is a double-edged sword and an unwinnable race in others. Some people need that, I guess, because there's always that chance...





*****





So that's it... It's kinda choppy and all over the place, and we're not sure what is good or bad or the difference between beer and champagne... I was probably on drugs when I when I wrote it... It can mean whatever you want. For me it raises some interesting questions...


Where do we draw the line?...


When does wanting better for yourself cross over into greed and creation of unnecessary drama and/or financial and/or emoitional ruin?


Is it better to slake this greed we all have with wine, women and song, or cars and homes and clothes, or whatever the fuck fuels your tank? For some, it is a combination of any or all, and we all think we're on the right side...


What's your Beer?


What's your Champagne?


What can you have that you can live with?


What do you want that you can get?


Do you want it, or do you just think that you do?


What will you want next?





These are just some of the questions. They can basically be asked of all apects of your life, including the games we all play with eachother*. And my answer is that I haven't a fucking clue any more than you do. As far as I can see, we are all right, and none of us is right. But I think that in the task of finding your answers, it helps to know your questions...





Enjoy your night, people


Boombalias

*There's the tie-in with the single-in-the-teens theme, more to come on that fucked up shit :D...