The good thing about being a shut-in whose intellectual curiosity rarely leads me down the au currant path the rest of you saucy devils travel--is that I get to think a whole lotta shit was my idea. Tons of stuff. All mine.
For example, I am solely responsible for the world wide popularity of Coldplay. Oh I don't care that you hate them, or feel it necessary to prattle on about how they're the poor man's shabby knock-off of Radiohead--which they are--but who cares. The point is I discovered them and brought them to the world; for the world to love or hate as is its want.
The details: I was Napstering my little buttocks off one night (note to G: back when it was legal, stop cringing) and punched in a search for oh, I don't know, some Slow Dive tune I wanted as backdrop for a big get drunk and cry session. Included in the hits was a band I'd never heard of: Coldplay. I downloaded a song, liked it, and proceeded to hunt down every single song I could find, UK releases all. I burned tens of CD's, passed them along to everyone I knew (including actors and DJ's and record store clerks and wanna-be rock stars and an ex-boyfriend who had a very influential job at Viacom...okay, very influential is stretching it but it supports my argument), and before you knew it--BAM!! They were everywhere. Everywhere. You couldn't go into a music store, a restaurant, a corner bar... you couldn't go to a party or turn on the TV or get in an elevator or have a blessed quiet moment alone in a public bathroom without a Coldplay soundtrack. Their records flew off the shelves, their tours sold out months in advance, and they all became very rich men who got to knock up film stars. Because of me.
Well yeah they were already popular. Their course had been charted. I would have known that if I were paying attention, if I'd read a magazine or left the house once in awhile. But since I wasn't paying attention and didn't leave the house and couldn't have possibly known these things... I discovered them. See?
I've logged thousands of similar discoveries to date. Duct tape, Altoids, Ernie Kovacs. I pioneered the use of super glue for sealing minor cuts, turned garden-clippings into "mescaline greens", brought the poncho to the hipster crowd (sorry). The whole 'do-it-yourself home improvement on a dime' industry featured in the likes of Martha Stewart's Living and the Home and Garden channel? Me. Ever heard of a little thing called the I-Pod? All me. As a matter of fact, I can trace the popularity of everything from the booming homeopathic medicine market to reality television shows back to me.
It's a real esteem-booster, let me tell you. And easy. All you have to do is stop paying so much goddamn attention to everything.
Posted by Antigeist at October 1, 2004 01:36 PM