The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!: Poobah's Journal: The Oldest Young Person Ever

Poobah's Journal: The Oldest Young Person Ever

To all those I've met and to all those I've yet to meet, may we meet again some day.

-- Omnipotent Poobah, April 11, 1975 dedication in his journal

I've started to read the old journals and I'm finding the writing poorer and myself far more knowledgeable about the world than I am now.

Youth is like that.

I've chosen the following entry to share because I think it says much about who I was then and now. Be gentle kind readers, be gentle:

April 22, 1975 - Well, I missed out on the 21st and I didn't even notice. I didn't even notice all the other things I missed either.

Here I am at 19, and already I'm tired and aching. Before long, I'll begin to notice the white hair in my beard and the sound of crackling arteries.

I'm old. I feel it. Possibly what is wrong with me is what is wrong with the world in general. Maybe, just maybe, the world and most of the people in it are all used up. That's why people don't complain anymore.

"Oh well, it's the third economic crisis this week, and lookie here, Canada sank yesterday when the Chinese invaded Ottawa." Off hand, nothing is surprising anymore.

Today, people have done most of what they wanted to do by the time they're 30. Old before their time, they curl up at the ripe old age of 30 and wait until they're 70 or 80 before dying, screaming and kicking about how shitty life treated them.

I know what I need - a vacation. A little sun. A little fresh air. I'll be a kid again. Maybe that's the solution for everyone else too.

OF COURSE!

As of this minute, everything in the world will stop to take a vacation. Then, in a week, maybe two, the Great Nazz flips the old "Dig Infinity" switch and everyone comes back to real life.

A great plan, except that people don't know when to quit - just throw in the towel and stone-cold-sober quit.

Well I do know, by God, and as soon as I can quit, I'm taking a vacation.

The first thing I'm going to do is find a place to live at a leisurely pace, then I'm driving home (except someone else will have to drive because I hate it so much). Then, it's off to some quiet park or a museum or something, right in the middle of the week.

And then, AND THEN, when I'm on vacation in the middle of the fucking week, I'm going to sit on the nearest sitting thing, maybe the ground, and I'm going to thumb my nose at all the rest of the poor bastards who were too dumb to admit defeat.

It'll be great. I'll be refreshed and ready to go back to my niche.

But all that's on hold for the moment. I have a summer cold.

Summer colds look nothing like the pudgy balloons in Central Park in the Contac ads of old. They are rotten, and dirty, and a pain in the ass. They are not "different animals" at all, just the same old plague that has infested mankind since we graduated from bearskin duds.

So much for the philosophy of the cold. It could be worse. It could be the clap.

That, Dear Reader, is that for the night, and probably the next day, week, or any other given measurement of time.

Stay tuned. Some day I'll discuss my theory of THEY.