Tag Archives: Original

Be yourself

People talk about this stuff all the time, but it’s really hard to make your own way in the world today. You’ve got so many competing voices, all of them trying to tell you what to do, how to dress, do this, do that. Sometimes you feel like you’re not really making any decisions at all, like you’re kind of just floating through life, randomly bumping into this, barely staying on two feet as you collide into that.

You’ve just got to be yourself, that’s the best piece of advice I can give to you. Take a look at your clothes. Do you ever feel like the rest of the world is subtly dictating the terms of how you dress every day? Unless you invented your own pair of pants, I’d have to say that, yes, you’re just following the crowd. How can you be yourself if you’re just wearing what everybody else is wearing?

Take off your pants. OK, you’ve got to make your own pants. And you’ve got to make them out of something crazy, something unique. How about shirts? Take a bunch of shirts and sew them together until they’re pants. That’s it. You’ve done it. You’re being unique, you’re starting something new here. You’re being yourself.

There’s only one problem. You’re not being yourself, because I just told you to do it. So take off your shirt pants and put your old pants back on, because you look like an idiot, because you were just following orders again. You’ve got to think even bigger. And no, the pants thing is totally out of the question now, because whatever you wind up doing with your pants, I’ve already put the whole pants idea in your head. So just move on.

No, you’ve got to like, embrace your inner you. What does that even mean? Exactly. If I told you what it meant, we’d be right back to where we were with the whole pants thing. Is this starting to make sense? I hope not, because then you’re not being original. I’m being original right here, and so really anything you’re thinking right now, it’s all derivative.

I’m being derivative, because I’m starting to get to that point where I’m saying the same thing over and over again. But that’s me, I’m being myself here. If, for some reason you’re still reading this, which I doubt, because I’ve already said the same thing like three or four times already, five or six if you count this sentence, but if you’ve made it to this paragraph, you might think, OK, I’ll just stop now, I’ll stop being Rob and I’ll start being me.

Well, it’s not quite that simple. You’ve got to give it time. Your brain’s still going to be processing everything I’ve put in your head. Go ahead and try it, say to yourself, “I will not think about this anymore.” You’ve already failed. Because just by not trying to think about it, you’re already thinking about it, still. Thinking about what?

Again, exactly. You see where I’m going with this?

An open letter to Big League Chew

Dear Big League Chew:

I’m writing for several reasons. I wanted to start out this letter by writing, “I’ve got some good news and I’ve got some bad news,” but I’ve decided against that particular opening. First of all, it works much better face to face, because I can make it more interactive, like, “What do you want first, the good news or the bad news?” and then you could decide, depending on whether or not you’d like the good news first, to build you up for the inevitable bad news. Or maybe you’d prefer to get the bad news out of the way, take that bitter medicine, and then take the good news to sort of chase down the negativity.

Anyway, I’d like to point out that I’ve always been a Big League Chew fan. Ever since I was a little kid, I preferred your gum to other little kids’ chewing gums. I’ve never been a fan of Bubble Tape. Between you and me, although I’ve never busted out the tape measure, I’ve always been skeptical about there being a full six feet rolled up in that package. Bubble Yum? Bubbleicious? No thank you. I did flirt with switching to Skittles Gum as my go-to brand, but after the novelty of them tasting and having the same chew as Skittles candy wore off, I realized that it would be Big League Chew for life.

Even if I didn’t get the reference when I was a little kid, that the pouch of gum was supposed to be shaped like a pouch of chewing tobacco, that the thin strands of gum were supposed to be similarly identical, it didn’t stop me from fully enjoying your product. Whenever I watched a pro baseball player chewing something from a pouch, which, to be perfectly honest, I can’t really ever remember seeing, but maybe if I saw a movie or something where the pitcher was chewing some chew, I’d just assume it was Big League Chew.

I love Big League Chew despite any baseball references, although the name made the baseball connection almost automatic. Also the cartoon baseball player on the pouch. But I prefer Big League Chew for several non-baseball related reasons:

By not having individual pieces of gum, I’m free to choose exactly how much gum I want in my mouth at any given time. I’m not bound to individual sticks, having to decide between one or two. With Big League Chew, I can chew the equivalent of one and a half sticks, or one and three quarters sticks. It means more options for me, which I love.
Unlike the other big gums, like the ones I’ve mentioned before, Big League Chew is definitely the chewiest. Nothing is worse than a big mouthful of gum that offers no resistance to your teeth. You’ll be chewing and chewing and it won’t stay in a cohesive wad. It’s totally unsatisfying, too liquid-like, too easy for stray pieces to get stuck in between the big molars in the back of your mouth.
Big League Chew gets points from me in regards to flavor selection. I like how you guys keep it simple. Regular. Grape. One time I saw Green Apple, I think, although that might have been a dream. Regardless, it’s usually just regular. It makes the decision making process really easy, on my end.

Having said all of that, I do have to mention some areas in which I think there’s definitely room for improvement. (Remember the whole good news/bad news thing? Yeah, so I gave you the good news first.) Where Big League Chew has the best chew, like I said before, I think you guys could work on taste. While the initial few chomps definitely pack a lot of flavor, I feel like the intensity of that flavor drops precipitously after a minute, a minute and a half. I’m not expecting it to last forever, but maybe three minutes, four minutes, that might be an improvement.

Other than that, I just want to say, keep up the great work. I love Big League Chew to the point where I refuse to acknowledge any other chewing gums. In fact, I can’t even really chew anymore, because I’ve spent the majority of my life chewing Big League Chew. My jaw doesn’t close right, making chewing gum an impossibility. But I still buy it anyway. I’ll bring the pouch to my face and take deep breaths in. I’ll put some in my mouth and let the flavor just soak through my tongue. It’s still great.

Big League Chew For Life,

Rob G.

PS – One time I wrote to Pepperidge Farm telling them how much I love Milanos and they sent me a whole case of cookies. Any chance you’d like to up the ante? Let me know.

Fresh to death

You can’t box me in. I won’t fit into any type of mold. I don’t do presets. I’ve never even heard of the word conventional. What does it mean? Maybe I should go look it up. But I’m not going to do it in any dictionary. I’m so original that I’ve never looked anything up in a dictionary. It’s too tired, too cliché. That’s for everybody else. I only do things that nobody else does. I eat breakfast for lunch and I eat snack-foods for dinner. And once I do something, I’ll never do the same thing again. I’m too new. I’m always innovating. I ate breakfast for lunch today, but it was the first time I had ever done that. Yesterday I had dinner for lunch. And that was the first time that I had done that. And I’ll never do it again. Tomorrow I’m going to eat some pancakes. I’ve heard they’re great. Somebody told me they’re delicious. You know what? I’ll never eat pancakes. It’s already been tried. Old news. No, I’m going to eat some tancakes. What’s a tancake? You’ll find out when I invent them.

I march to the beat of my own drum. I’ll never settle into the same routine. I wait for the light to turn red and then I put my foot on the brakes. Sounds pretty regular, huh? But my car is original. I switched the brake with the gas, so it’s unique. You hit the brake and it takes off. You hit the gas and it stops. So when I’m at a red light I hit the brake and I go. And if the cops stop me after the light I like to ask the cop for his license and his registration because I’m not going to go through the same boring, done a million times traffic cop routine. And if he asks for my license, I’ll roll up my sleeves, because when I got my driver’s license, I had it tattooed on my arm, and then I threw out the original, because this is even more original, the most original, and the cop always lets me go. And then I pull up at the next light and wait for that light to turn red, and then I floor it, and maybe another cop will get behind me and turn on the sirens, but I’m not stopping. I just did that a block ago. I told you, I never do the same thing twice.

I voted for John McCain, only because I really wanted to vote for Barack Obama, but I knew that if I voted for Obama in 2008, then I wouldn’t be able to vote for him again in 2012. It would have already been done. I need to always be doing something fresh. I never watch reruns. I like it even fresher. But when I voted in 2008 it was in the cafeteria of some public school. No way I’m going back to the same place to vote again. So I set up a fake residence in some other country, and I’m going to vote via absentee ballot. And I’m not going to use a pen. It’s going to be in crayon. Because I stopped using pens a while ago. They’re so everyday, so pedestrian. Pens? Really? Could you be any more unoriginal?

I never even write these blog posts. I wrote the first one, and that was it. You think I’m going to sit here every day and do the same thing over and over again? No way. Everyday I find some other writer and pay him or her to write something new for me. It’s all on the books. I make them all file tax papers and everything. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “What, you make them do the same thing every day? How exciting.” But you’re wrong, because I’m not filling out the papers, they are. They’re the stupid ones. And besides, I get all of the papers printed at a different print shop every day. And then after the writers write something, they get fired. Take a hike. But I do it in a different way every time. Like one time I sang it out, like a song. Another time I baked a cake with a pink slip in the middle and I made the writer finish every last bite. Another time I sat the writer down and said, “I’m sorry, this isn’t working out.” But I only did that once, so it was new at the time.

I wear my pants on my torso. I wrap a bunch of shirts around my legs. Have you ever seen somebody skiing with the skis on their hands? And he was skiing upside down? And he was going up the mountain instead of down? And there wasn’t even any snow? And it wasn’t even winter, it was spring? And he had three skis instead of just two? That was me. That was my first ski trip. I loved it. I always wanted to go back. But I’m done with skiing. I need to find some new activities. Something completely different. Something that’ll really make me stand out from the pack.