is addiction bad for you? should you avoid your insane grandmother? does it really pay to have money in the bank? can you live on the street happily (no bills)? always blows me away to pass a panhandler sitting amongst his belongings, smoking a cigar, and petting his perfectly healthy cat!
the ragged edges of life, as long as i don't have to be around them too much, are very entertaining. and without obsessions we'd have no art, no electric lightbulbs, or panty-hose. it's the wild ones who come up with the exotic inventions and who destroy themselves in dramatically entertaining ways (fodder for the movies).
i used to try to figure things out, and i had a lot of prejudices. ultimately, i realized it's great that most people have jobs and lead settled, dependable lives. this leaves plenty of room in the cracks for the rest of us. true, there's always a certain uneasiness being outside the mainstream. my most memorable grafitti on a men's room wall in berkeley, california: "the price of freedom is loneliness." i'm not sure it's true, yet every important choice involves risks.
so, here's what a friend called a 'sordid tale.' one of the seven one-act plays i wrote last summer: www.pbase.com/wwp/addiction
also you can get a quick rundown of my latest picture and literary posts at http://www.pbase.com/wwp/root&view=recent
