I thought I’d have some witty verse ready to announce the new site, but you know what? All the wit you can handle is a click away:

The Gospel Of Cash

Don’t forget to sign up for the new RSS feed, or just put your email address in the..wait for it.. ‘Type Your Email Address Here” box. That way you’ll get a purty message delivered to your inbox everytime I update the site.

Thank you, one and all, for bearing with me here @ Drunkensherpa as the transition happened.

All my posting attention will be focused on TGOC going forward, but I may sneak in an occasional update here if I’m feeling particularly sassy.

xoxo Cash

forgive this throwaway post

I take great pride in tempering my reactions to everything. All power in the history of the world has been given or taken due to someone’s reaction to something. Still, there are moments where I just can’t help being shocked.

Take earlier today for instance.

Walking past one of the many jewelers that inhabit the area around my office I overheard the following, stop-me-in-my-tracks-to-turn-around-and-look conversation:

“Well how much then, just for the stone?”

. “Hmmm.. For Sophie? I suppose I could let it go for $24,000″

. “And how large is it again?”

. “That’s about 3.. 3.2 carats”

. “Well.. it is quite nice..”

This folksy, well dressed older couple were actively considering spending almost twenty five thousand dollars on a rock.

Now I realize everything, especially money, is relative. For that couple, 24K may be like $24 for me. I also understand status, and the idiotic persuit of satisfaction through attaining it (you should have seen me pimping my Bugle Boy jeans and Izod polos in junior high). This said though, it still seems absolutely incomprehensible to spend that much money on something someone (probably oppressed and tortured slaves in Africa, no less) dug out of the freaking ground.

Life, dear readers, is an collection of experiences. Nothing more, nothing less. $24,000 can buy a lot of experiences.

On your deathbed, when there are maybe three people standing around you, which would you prefer? A 3.2 carat shiny diamond on each finger, or the memories of a lifetime? Maybe a safari in Africa? Having hot hot sex with the movie star you masturbated to your whole life? Trying heroin, and seeing what all the fuss with that was about?

Whatever your own collection of life time ‘to-do’s’, you could probably get a lot of them done for $24,000.

Throwing that kind of money away on a ring; as vulnerable to theft, distruction, etc as any other material object in your life seems tatamount to insanity in my book.

I pitied those people at that moment. I still do.

13 has always been my lucky number.  Thinking about the perfect time to launch my new site I realized something; there’s a whole lotta thirteeny goodness happening tomorrow.  It’s November 13th.  There’s a 13:00 hours (1PM) and 13 minutes past that hour.  In other words, I have the chance to start things off at 13.13.13.

Good God that looks gorgeous.

Keep your fingers crossed.  I’m really, really gonna try and make that happen.

Check here tomorrow at 1:13 and hope for the best.

The welcome post is already written and just waiting to burn some unexpecting eyes out…

That’s right kiddos.  This time, I ain’t playing.  TGOC is getting all up in your business as of 9:01 AM, Friday, November 14th.

It ain’t perfect, formatting wise, but after a Camel No 9, NIN and Reese’s Peanut Butter cup infused laaaate night, it’s almost presentable.

There will be a new RSS feed, natch, so you can keep up with my irresponsible posting habits at your leisure.

TGOC promises to be quite uh.. different, from my work at Urban Monarch.

Think you can handle it?

We’ll see.

Mood: unfuckingstoppable

“And I, will die with both of my hands untied..”

-morrissey

Two disgusting forms of control:

Advice and “Caring”.

I recently started smoking.  Yep, at 30 plus years old (wouldn’t you like to know just how many ‘plus’), knowing full well the health risks, societal judgement, and overall shock it’s caused in almost everyone I know, I’m now a puffer.  Prior to sitting down at my laptop to write this, (flanked by a pair of headphones and a tall rum & coke), I enjoyed a smooth, refreshing Camel menthol.  And I mean I enjoyed it.  Now, personal Cash benefits of this new hobby aside (which will no doubt warrant an entire post of their own at some point), smoking has really opened my eyes to certain traits of the people in my life.

There are officially two factions;  the knowers, and the controllers.

The knowers realize that there are exactly three things that will get me to stop doing anything that gives me pleasure:

1.  It no longer works.

The second I can no longer roll, feel the lightheaded wonderment of a neighborhood walk with two lungs full of smoke, or the instantaneous confidence, wide eyed awake-ness and overall thrill of, er. something else, I’m out.  There’s a reason people have their vices.  Enjoying the fuck out of them is the first and foremost for everyone.

2.  I decide to stop.

This decision would be a completely independent one, motivated by exactly three people: me, myself, and I.

3.  I die.

Pretty self explanatory.  One can only hope it’s in the hyper-pleasurable grips of one of my naughtier vices that my time comes.

These people, the knowers, are wonderful, loving, altogether kick ass members of the Cash fraternity who barely batted an eye when they learned the tabacco laden news.  Some find smoking positively disgusting.  For them, out of respect, I do my best to keep the smoke out of their eyes.  Others are smokers themselves, and have helped me learn the tricks of the trade (inhaling is something I worked a week on before a good friend, the ultimate knower,  showed me an easy technique).

I have a quote, a lifetime mantra I’ve never shared with anyone that I’m about to spring on you, dear readers:

I love no man, or woman, more than I love their right to seek out and embrace pleasure.

Whatever the cost.  Whatever the vice.  I support them.

You can sit there with your judging eyes and call me a true enabler.  Might be closer to the truth to call me a true friend.  I put their own joy above any sense of ‘responsibility’ to keep them healthy, or do anything else that might interfere with their pursuit of happiness.

Now, on the other hand, we have the controllers.

Controllers are the ones who, in mock shock horror and disgust when learning the news, transformed immediately into insta-pundits, singing their tainted gospel from the most mis-shapen of soapboxes.

Advice; oh, they had it in spades.

“You know that’ll kill you, right?” “You’re gonna stink..bad” “Make sure you limit it to just a few a day, trust me!”

But you know what?

I don’t trust you.

I don’t trust anyone but myself when it comes to matters of vice.  Everyone, from Barack Obama to that sleeping homeless guy you stepped over trying to get to the ATM outside the 7-11, has their own moral code.  Shaped by everything from upbringing, peer pressure and pop culture to far more significant matters of their own views on mortality, everyone has their own code.  Mine, dear friends, is a lot different than yours.

Advice, no matter how ‘genuine’ is ultimately a power play in which the giver attempts to speak to the receiver from a position of ‘authority’.  A position that almost always includes condesension.  No matter how sincere their wish to ’save you from making their same mistakes’ may seem, ultimately, advice is an attempt to control you.

“Caring” is worse.  Much, much worse.  People will play to your emotions with this one.

“You know I’m only saying this because I love you..” “I can’t bear the thought of losing you..” “I don’t want you to suffer, I’m here to help”

Bullshit.  Bullshit.  And Bullshit.  If you truly loved me you’d love my independence, and respect my intelligence enough to let me make my own decisions.   You can’t bear the thought of losing me?  Guess what cowboy?  You’re gonna lose me.  You’re gonna die, and I’m gonna die.  Who goes first?  Who knows?  Who cares:

EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE IS A SLAVE TO MORTALITY

Some of us are wise enough to accept this fact, others, not so much.

Trying to make someone do what you say based on the fact that they ‘care’ about you makes me want to vomit.  My most eloquent statement?  Nope.  One of my most sincere?  Yep.

So there it is ladies and gentlemen.  Cash’s treatise on “advice” and “caring”.

My advice on the matter? Don’t fall for either.

Sent via text from my good friend Tracy. The context of the comment shall remain unknown to protect the not-so-innocent. A.k.a. me.

In the past, our mildy retarded ‘gambling’ experience was limited to $5 minimum, $5 maxiumum bets. Not exactly an inspiring situation for card counters in blackjack (like myself) whose advantage relies on our ability to increase our bets according to the count. Now, a more than respectable 1-20 “spread” (being able to raise from a $5 to a $100 bet) will be on offer. In addition, we will finally have the chance to lose our money on the pass line, and or double zero. That’s right, craps and roulette have also been approved. Added bonus; 24 hour operation. Nowadays the casinos must close between 2AM and 8AM.

Bus trip + flask full of hooch ahoy.

Viva la vices!

An uber-cute hipster shopkeep @ American Apparel with two bent mannequin legs over her shoulders.  She was behind the counter, and I couldn’t see anything too clearly.  From my vantage point, it absolutely looked like some lipstick lesbian action in progress.

. guy#2: what?

. guy#1: drugs

. guy#1: we can stop by my place and grab my smokes

. guy#2: nicotine? grow up.