The Eccentric Essentials

 If you’re anything like me you have a problem.  You have two things in conflict with on another.  You've got your hugely inflated sense of self importance which is coupled with a wavering and massive insecurity.  This conflict causes you to worry that no matter what you do with your time on planet Earth you will be forgotten as soon as you’re dead. You want to stand out in this world of billions of people 99.8% of whom are tragically boring to spend time with.  Perhaps you don’t need a plan to stand out.  Perhaps you want to leap up and correct me. “No, Kranki, don’t you worry I’m working on a really amazing screenplay and it’s going to catapult me into the spotlight.” Well, what if it doesn’t?  What you painstakingly craft it and it's considered a work of genius by the most acclaimed and savvy screenwriters you know and the studio buys it and they cast Pauley Shore and Paris Hilton in it and it goes straight to video?  Do they even have “video” anymore?  I don’t know.  And what about your back-up plan.  Yes, your plan to capture a bronze metal in Olympic Ping Pong and skeet-shooting in the same year.  What if it also sputters and you end up coming in 4^th in both competitions, losing by a total of one point and 2 skeets to that 12 year-old girl from Singapore?  Where will your glory plan for personal achievement be then?  I offer unto you good people a solution.  It’s not even that difficult if you set your mind to it.  It’s certainly far easier than writing an incredible piece of literature like say a JD Salinger or ascending to celebrity status like Michael Jordan, Sir Mix-A-Lot or an Olsen Twin.  With my method you won’t even have to murder a famous like John Wilkes Boothe did or put in the hard work and planning to orchestrating a whole Pol Pot style genocide of millions of people to get a slice of historical notoriety that you crave and deserve.  I offer you the alternative path of eccentricity. 

A true eccentric - just look at those pure crazy eyes

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  You have a few friends who are pretty eccentric already and they’re not happy and their lives are just a mess.  Well I say fuck those friends.  Tell them I said so.  Fuck those friends for half ass-ing it?  They give eccentricity a bad name.  You can’t just be shithouserat crazy or run randomly naked through the streets of San Francisco to be eccentric.  You can’t just decide that from now on you’re only going to wear magenta-colored clothing.  It’s a mediocre start but not enough.  It’s certainly not enough to stand out in this town.

It’s as easy as E-C-C-E-N-T-R-I-C-I-T-Y – eccentricity.

The E is for Entourage – Very key.  Surround yourself with people who believe in your weirdness and want to support your bizarre dream.

C - Cash – Think about it.  Can be truly eccentric without money?  Let that marinade a minute.  You might feel otherwise, but you’re wrong.  Think about this.  That guy with the mohawk that walks his bike up the hill at Dolores Park every day, dozens of times a day so he can then ride down full speed until he crashes – on purpose.  He’s a real person.  He exists.  I see him all the time.  He’s a fuckin’ weirdo.  Bum Jovi, is a drunk guy in an old poncho who plays the shittiest covers of Elivs songs that you've ever heard on Valencia Street is a crazy dude.  But, if either of them had 3.5 million dollars in their bank accounts. —BOOM. They’re eccentric.  Money gives you options and if you do weird things with those options THAT is eccentric.  So...  Money.  Have it.  Have a lot of it and make it very unclear where it comes from.  "I hear he’s an arms dealer?"  "Oh my god, weapons?"  "No, I think he buys actual human arms."  "Weird."  "Why?"  Eccentric.

C - Collections – the stranger the better, the more the merrier.  The weirder the more wonderful.  Forget collecting wine or stamps you want lean more towards moose heads, baby shoes, or salvaged plane crash wreckage.  Picture an entire display room of thousands upon thousands of adorable baby shoes with a glass eye placed atop each one.  Now you’re getting eccentric.  Imagine a wall of exquisite, tiny glass framed boogers.  All of which once resided inside the nose of noted serial killers. Impressive.

E – Exotic Animals and Odd Pets – Don’t be impulsive here.  Sure, if you want to make a rookie mistake then just go ahead and run out and buy yourself a White Siberian Tiger.  C’mon.  Do you want to be a Vegas cliché or do you want to be eccentric?  Get a little creative.  How about a family of sloths that just cling on to you wherever you go?  Or a pair of Kumodo Dragons that greet your guests when they arrive at your door.  And if you don’t want to venture into evil villain territory… I understand.  We’re not all out to hold the world hostage with a weather control device.  The world is heating itself up just fine all by itself anyway.  My point is… Don’t choose to be a cat lady when you can be a rat lady.  Or maybe just a simple yet classic pack of wolves.

N  - is for Non-Stop Parties. This is your bread and butter.  This is where you need to step up your game – BIG TIME.   You need to throw the kind of parties that suck people in like a black hole and hold onto them like a dirty, sensual, bear trap.  Parties that are so much fun and last so long that your guests’ friends and families will assume that they’ve fallen off the face of the god damn earth and report them missing. Go that the extra mile and organize a drag queen unicycle joust.  Your parties need to be spoken of and revered as legendary.  “I think it was so weird and cool how he had those midget porn stars wandering around the party making the rounds giving out made to order sandwiches and hand jobs.  “OH, totally, mine was amazing.  Amazing.  The spicy Cajun mayo gave it a nice zing. It was so good that I forgot to even try any of the sandwiches.”  And these things need to rage on endlessly. 

“When did you get to the party?” 

“I got here about 8 days ago and there was some human centipede themed wrestling-match going on?  How about you?”  “Hmm… I was here after the fireworks just in time for the Bonobo monkey orgy and barbecue.  I’ve never in my life tasted such flavorful primate before.” "God yes! The honey mustard sauce was incredible."  "Oh look they’re setting up the Dom Perignon Slip and Slide.  Let’s get swallow some more of those triangular pills and get in line!”

T – T is going to surprise you.  T is for Tenderness.  It is.  Because if you’re going to be such a lunatic you’re going to have to have some sweet and redeeming characteristics so people will want to feed into your eccentricity.  Think about being a really good listener.  Listen with your heart, your freakshow-nutjob eccentric heart. 

R - Rumors and Rants – You want people to be talking about you.  You should go ahead and kick things off by spreading some rumors about yourself to just get the ball rolling.  Start with whatever comes to mind.  You were kicked out of the French Foreign legion for seducing your commander. Um… Your first two spouses became lovers after you divorced them and then they both disappeared without a trace during a mushroom trip in the Mohave desert.  Create some mystery.

I - Invent Something Useless – Placenta scented candles, barbed wire sex toys.  How about a six-foot tall, 175 pound cellular phone that takes two people to operate?  Let the useless genius flow.

C - Companions – Nothing says eccentric like a dedicated servant at your beckon call.  Maybe they’re always at your side or maybe you ring a tiny bell to summon them. 

Personally, I think it’s good to go international.  Think like a rich pervy Roman here.  A nice teenage sidekick boy servant and a sister girl servant from some impoverished yet exotic country like Madagascar. You’re eccentric, friend.  You’re expected to be culturally insensitive.  You may as well go ahead and rename them while you’re at it.  His name can be Click Click like a quick sound you can make with your mouth and her name can be be Snap Snap or Clap Clap – Now underage isn't my fetish but if you’re inclined go ahead and have unprotected sex with Clap Clap.  The irony of possibly getting an STD from her would make for a good story.

I - Inheritance – Make sure that when you are coming to the twilight your eccentric run in this life that you leave all the money you’ve accumulated and all the bizarre collections to a non-human.  This keeps your weird legacy going well beyond your lifetime.  I’d leave the choice to your own individual style but you can’t go wrong with an Siamese cat, a puffer fish, a cactus plant or a box of Oreo cookies.  Each one of these will earn you some solid eccentric points. Fund some research into questions nobody cares about.  Build an expensive monument to your imaginary childhood friend. Buy up all the socks in existence and buy up the means to ever produce or manufacture them again.  Have fun, you’re long dead.

T - Tell-all books – Published after you’re dead. You're have dirt on every single even remotely famous person who fell into your sphere of oddfluence.   You'll be able to air all the raunchy gossip and rant about their freaky inclinations and all the things, people furniture and animals they may have had sexual relations with while on drugs at your non-stop parties.  It's likely that they’ll get angry and create scandal.  Your estate is being sued by a celebrity.  Gasp.  That, my friend just tucks a phat feather in your eccentric cap and validates you as a mad party thrower and highly deranged and deceased eccentric. 

Y – Your last act. Hey it’s your funeral.  So don’t squander it.  Don't do something dull like get buried in a casket made entirely of Belgian chocolate or have yourself cremated inside an active volcano or something Hunters S. Thompsonish and obvious like having your remains shot out of a giant cannon.  Be original.  This is one of your last opportunities to wave your crazy flag, so wave it high and mighty.  Sure you’ve thought about being cryopreserved so that your brain can be attached to a muscular and sexy host body… Kudos to you for trying to extend your eccentric run.  But, my aspiring erotic, eclectic, eccentric comrade, what if medical technology never discovers how to thaw out obnoxiously rich people and put their heads on hot cyborg bodies?

I hope that sheds some light on a potential life goal.  It's a golden opportunity.  Personally I’m just barely getting started on my own eccentric path but already...  I’m stuck on the C for Cash.  In fact, I may have hit a big road block.  About 20 minutes ago I got a call from Click-Click.  Apparently he got detained at the airport by customs with a steamer trunk full of baby alligators, Quaaludes, Chinese circus acrobats, strawberry lubricant and methamphetamines.  They were supposed to be a fun little surprise for a my friend Seth's birthday party.  I just don’t know how I’m going to get them all home on a scooter even if I can afford the bail money.  But enough about me.  Back to you.  You follow your dreams and just don’t be boring.  There are millions of other people who have that fully taken care.  If my words have inspired you to aspire to lead the life of an eccentric I merely ask in return that you invite me to one of the many parties that you'll throw and leave me out of your tell-all book.