10/10/05... Good Luck Gringito

10/10/05

Dear People of the Future,

There is a great difference between gaining knowledge and learning things.  Knowledge sticks with you and dictates what you actually do with your life.  Things learned come in handy while you’re adhering to the lifestyle your knowledge (or, much more often, lack of knowledge) dictates as appropriate.

That said, I can now say that in the month since I dropped out of medical school I have come to KNOW more than 7 years of intense medical education would have bestowed upon me.

I think I would have forgotten a lot if I devoted four years of life to memorization and another three to being a medical system's bitch.

Moving back to Jackson Hole beyond broke and completely unsure of what the future holds, I lost any motivation whatsoever to attain conventional power/status/money/sex-appeal-based success.

Good luck, Gringito.

Right out the gate, I put in a week of Ranch Hand work, beer swilling, and conversation with the ex-Army Ranger, ex-convict, father of three, elk and moose poaching, Bob Segar blaring, pureblood Apache beau of my “surrogate mother”/landlord.

By the way, in case its not common knowledge anymore, Apaches were one of many nations of Native Americans living all over North America before white people showed up and killed almost all of them.  Only about a hundred years ago the major slaughter of them tapered off.

Needing to make some money without losing any days, I took on a full time overnight security position guarding the posh gated community where none other than Richard “BIG DICK” Cheney occasionally hangs his unsullied cowboy hat.  Three nights a week… 6 pm-6 am.

Me.

A ridiculous security uniform that will soon be my Halloween costume.

A tight little guard shack... too small to sleep in.

A computer as my only companion.

And a lot of angst towards THE MAN, whom, ironically, I am supposedly protecting.

In my little red patrol truck I drive right past Dick’s house three times every night.

Every time I wish I had a million hands to tear that monstrosity down… or at least direct a million middle fingers towards it.

I don’t claim to know the answers to my era's problems but I know killing poor, powerless, confused, manipulated folks half the world away, no matter whose system of control they were born under, just isn’t right.

I also know lying is wrong, especially if you’re lying about very important things regarding the wellbeing of all life on this planet.

I also know it is stupid to waste potential energy kindly stored by our organic ancestors.  Especially if you're using it to blow shit up.

Hoping to put some money way, I've taken on another 40-60 hour/week position doing what is, in fact, one of the hardest, least understood or appreciated, but thought provoking jobs in America today: Banquet Preparation and Server at a high class hotel.

Three to five times daily I create absurdly ethereal, white, spotless, flowing AND glinting perfection from an organization/culture that is wasteful and unproductive chaos at best.

Eight overworked middle managers constantly dictate and contradict one another.  MinUUUte details cannot be overlooked or I’ll hear about them eight times from eight different people.

Eleven different things to put perfectly in place every time a fat, stupid, disgusting, wasteful, completely unaware ass sits down to learn “THE SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL SALES” or “REAL ESTATE : EMERGING MARKETS OF THE WEST”… chair… _ “schoolie” table… spotless 52x114 table cloth… skit clips… spotless table skirt… pad… pen… custom chocolate…embroidered napkin… polished water goblet…  plate… doily… pitcher of ice cold previously bottled water.

After the absurd, misinformative presentation concludes I clean up all that shit, vacuum the bits they dropped to the floor, and completely overhaul the room for a whole new set of fat, stupid, disgusting, wasteful, completely unaware asses.

Fortunately it’s a mind-numbing job that’ll have me on snow 180 days this year and keep me in the black.  It also further exposes me to a world I’ve never truly KNOWN and never truly will; I work alongside many people less fortunate than I including the young, tired, beautiful but haggard Mexican woman, who, every night of the week from 12-8 am, cleans an enormous, disgusting kitchen until it shines like a chromed-out fender… only to have that order completely destroyed daily in the interest of white middle and upper class luxury.  I’ve also learned from the mentally handicapped dishwasher who cranks out cleanliness all day long and the GEN X cooks who, like me, love listening to Temple of the Dog and refuse to buy in any more than they have to.

I've also created a completely original service that will not succeed but should—here’s my card:

POPPED CULTURE
• Awareness Enhancement • Lifestyle Modification •
“Weed out the shit & get fit.”
Always Affordable

Max
(320) 493-4402
maxmogren@yahoo.com

Also, I'm caught as the only male in a love pentagram with a semi-professional extreme skier, former professional surfer, former Reno go go dancer, and innocently deadly Catholic school girl.

Until now, you probably thought us old timers of the distant past lived slow, uneventful lives.

So here’s where things stand with me.  I hope you’re all well.  Strangely and wonderfully, I’m doing better than ever before.

Your Friend,

Max Mogren