25 Jun 2009, Posted by jay rusovich in Jay Rusovich, 2 Comments

Who. I. Am

“Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thought that is forever flowing through one’s head.” Mark Twain

It’s not who I tell you I am. It’s not who you want me to be. It’s not the product of your projections, your dreams, your unrequited fantasies. It’s someone else. Someone you don’t know. Someone you can’t know in this world. In this world. As opposed to the other one. The one you live in, not thru.

What do you know about Perez Hilton?

That he’s an attention-whoring blogger with delusions of grandeur stemming from a lack of childhood validation? That he’s just another internet opportunist who prefers blogging to real-estate? That he’s over-compensating for something I’d rather not visualize?

What do you know about Governor Mark Sanford?

That he’s a duplicitous, self-righteous moralist with boundary and entitlement issues? That he’s a marginal psychotic with only a tenuous connection to reality as most of us define the term?

What do you know about Jay Rusovich?

That he’s a narcissistic middle-age adolescent with too much time on his hands? That he blogs personal issues to the world because he has nothing better to do with his time? That he wants your affirmation? Your love? Your trust?

The funny thing about perception is that I can be anyone and no one at the same time.  You don’t know what’s real and what’s not.  Just like the other two people I mentioned.

We’re all just figments of your imagination. Media incarnations.

And while words, coupled with actions, define all of us in some small way, our lives are insulated by television, literature and the internet.

That’s the part you see, the part you judge, because what you really want is to wrap your heads around the lives of other people so you can deflect attention from your own.

I don’t blame you, frankly. It’s much easier to pass the poison.

Perez Hilton is a genderless 31 year-old entertainment blogger.

Governor Mark Sanford is a 43 year-old politician who looks twice his age for some reason.

Jay Rusovich writes about life and love from the perspective of a generation in the last act of its final performance. A generation that refuses to lie down. Refuses to plan for the future. And, for all intents and purposes, refuses to die.

In many ways we never grew up.

This is because when “self” comes before everything else, other people and their irritating needs are a buzz kill.

This is one way we’ve managed to perpetuate our relevance…through sheer force of will.

My generation is associated with privilege. We grew up in a time of affluence. As a group, we were the healthiest and wealthiest generation in American history…and among the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time.

As Claire Raines points out in ‘Beyond Generation X’, “never before in history had youth been so idealized as they were at this moment.”

When Generation X came along it had a lot to live up to, and to some degree, has always lived in the shadow of the Boomers, who often dismissed them as ‘slackers’, ‘whiners’ and ‘the doom generation.’

So if you want to know why today’s youth is so fucking narcissistic and obsessed with fame at any cost, blame us.

Why I write about this is instead of a book about trees is something you’ll have to piece together for yourselves, which you’ll do, anyway.

I’ll do my part. You do yours.

Some of you have commented that my message sometimes meanders, like someone who’s gone fishing with a Nietzsche anthology.  It’s true. This isn’t a genetics textbook. It’s a chronicle [crucible] of life from the perspective of an educated, affluent, older [urban] man.

So yes, it’s occasionally moody and inconsistent, which is why philosophers are intuited rather than deconstructed, like, say, the atomic table of elements, which always hold up under scrutiny even when you’re hallucinating. It’s also why having an engineer around is a good thing, particularly if you want to cross a river without having to swim.

With me you’re already in the water, so forget about it.

For you agents and publishers, I know people need a laser-guided message before investing in literature a second grader would fall asleep reading. So here’s a list of things that interest me…and that I know everyone for whom I speak is affected [afflicted]:

1] The customer service I expect from hotels, restaurants, coffee shops and psychiatric institutions, among others…and why I expect it in the first place.

2] The physical, emotional and intellectual attributes of my ideal woman.

3] Where people like myself go to escape, and why escape is a big deal.

4] Advice to newly-divorced men and women.

5] Style, and why not having it is a deal breaker.

6] The importance of lighting in restaurants, hotels and retail dressing rooms.

7] Manners defined…or redefined.

8] What it means to be a man. This includes gay men, but excludes the transgendered, because even I can’t get my head around them.

9] How to handle female sexual aggression, particularly when you’re tired…or just want to watch a movie in peace.

10] Marriage and why I’ve never experienced it.

11] How to handle first dates.

12] Women: Is it better to rent or own?

13] Should you take the 19 year-old cashier up on her offer, or just walk away with your fantasies in tact?

14] When to opt-out of a potential threesomes.

15] If it’s okay to hook up with people in “committed” relationships, why not married women?

16] Strippers, prostitutes, escorts, sex workers, porn stars, massage therapists, wives, girlfriends: What’s in a name?

17] What inspires me and men like me?

18] My health regimen and why you need one.

19] Why I don’t live on a beach in Jamaica?

20] Why death bothers me, a lot.

Here are just a few of the questions I address on jayrusovichlive.com. If they define me, fine. That’s for you to decide, not for me to prove.

They’re simply questions most men my age tackle, because in spite of our personal differences, our cultural genesis is like a loaded nail gun on stacks of ¼ inch plywood.

So for those of you who don’t me, this is who I am.

Peace.