Concerning Guy Fieri: the Lead Singer of Smash Mouth

My mom has been really into figuring out our family history lately. She'll sit at her laptop and commit to novice Google searches of dead people with funny names that she's convinced we're related to. I was lying my way through an essay about caste disparity in Pre-Colombian Mesoamerica (or maybe it was for my other class, I don't know, I just rememeber I referenced Big Willie Style--if you haven't heard that album you should check it out. It's not bad) and I continuously overheard her vocalize her enthusiasm about those internet ancestors. Those graves. I couldn't figure out if she was trying to talk to either my dad or me, in hopes one of us would reciprocate her suppressed familial anxiety or she was merely unconsciously having unbridled outbursts of authentic joy scrolling through dead names but it made me feel very uncomfortable. It made me feel shame, a teeming shame about myself because I was engaging in the same passive existence as she. I was a dog, submitting myself to The Great Master in exchange for pity. I wanted the infinite force of the universe to recognize my place in its growing corpus and spare me the dread of my blessed context. I wanted one of those giant Olmec heads (okay, so it was the mexican essay) to unlock its stone jaw and swallow me so I could slide down the spiritual tunnel form whence I came and deep into the underworld where the Molemen live.

The Molemen are a species of earth-dwelling creatures that choose not to see, but rather they dig. They dig immense underground tunnels and hide away from us crust-walkers patiently awaiting our implosion, our final demise so they can surface like a war submarine (Moses split the red Sea, but Jesus walked on water so...) and finally walk the Earth where the dusty footprints of last year's Jordan's dissapear in the decadence. There is a Molaman at the university I go to who lives in the utitlity tunnels snaking around the campus. I know he's there because I've seen him; he likes to come out at night and kidnap unsuspecting victims to take back to his lair.

Here's a visual approximation of the Moleman:

(If seen please call COPS)

Anyways, one of my good-guy friends and I went searching for the Moleman, unsuccessfully. This friend was the kind that would have your back no matter what. The kind that would buy you some beef jerky and sip on Soda Shaq because he was just an all aound guy who wanted to chill. One time, this chill friend and I (and this decently chill girl) went to go see SMASH MOUTH LIVE IN THE FLESH. The car ride there was nothing but pure zeal (the very same sort of zeal my mom had trying to claim her past). We sang some tunes, some of those sweet, sweet weed songs, and talked about the zeitgeist in some pretty cool shirts. Did I mention that the one and only Sugar Ray himself was also playing with Smash Mouth? Yeah, we were pumped to say the least.

Here's a pic of me and Guy Fieri:

(note the frosted tips. Hella cool!)

There are very few things a true man will remember from his lifetime. Every tick of the clock that leaves us with nothing but a thin, silky vibration travelling through space is like an earth worm, crawling through the bedding of a newly planted garden (are you guys picking up on my well-placed, subtle motifs yet?). In the digital age, most of us don't use analog watches or old-fashioned clocks anymore and have supplanted our traditional quantitations of the world with intangible digitalization. My mom searches the ends of the internet for any sort of glimpse at self-discovery while I recapitulate the speculations we have about a once great civilization. My phone buzzes.

Beneath the layers of dirt, the skin-cell dust that mixes with the smog and whistles in the wind, we find the molecules who were there to bear witness to such great events. A sunset sacrifice atop a great pyramid, or just a trio of friends, driving into the very same color scheme ready to listen to some good Smash Mouth music.

It's there; we're always going to be there.