"I remember being on the road, doing live shows with Tom Shillue, and he was interested in checking out the city we happened to be in, by foot. It was rainy and grimy and I had mentioned that I didn't want the hassle. He reframed my anxiety by turning it into curiosity. 'Don't you want to see what's out there? Greg, life is an adventure!' He said this with his eyes almost popping out of his head. He was right. Then we got mugged." -Greg Gutfeld (page 161)
For me, Joe, a good friend of mine, pulled me out of the slow lane, the lane where you live a "clean, boring life." And that's how I got in an odd place, putting my writing hand in a sugary, liquid-filled blue Jolly Rancher bag. He said something along the lines of "You could win a free prize" to entice me.
What was the liquid? Water? Urine, probably.
The bottom of the bag was covered with squishy, sticky, melted candy bits. I hit one, and then tried to maneuver around them like a minesweeper during World War 2. Or like Indiana Jones, dodging the squishy, blown up Aztec temples, also due to World War 2.
And that's also how I was pushed off a cliff, by Joe. Turned out he was a crazed German spy whose real name was Lars Einhoff, and was searching for the Ark of the Covenant. He made it pretty far, bushwhacking his way through the Amazon jungle, while I stood triumphantly on the cliff, holding the shiny golden box thing in one hand and a bunch of chips in the other.
Little did I know, he would choose the chips. I should've known, since he's fat.
But, joking aside, this is one of my favorite stories from the entire book. It reminds me of when I went to Maine last year with my family.
It was our last day at the campground, and it was cold and foggy, since we were by the sea. There was one place on my one-place-long bucket list that I had not checked off: Raven's Nest. I didn't want to go that day, maine-ly (pun intended) because of the aforementioned weather. I thought to myself: "If I keep telling everyone that life's an adventure, and I'm not taking this chance to stand on a slippery cliff, then what have I been doing?"
Moreover, I got a magnet from the town shop that says, "Don't be crabby." It's right next to my drugged out moose fisherman one. I also have a Disney World Tomorrowland Speedway driver's license, hanging on a clip nearby.
I think I yanked it off a kid while waiting in line for the Avatar ride, and then I threw it into the tall grass, and returned for it after sundown.
"In
one of his podcasts he asks you to imagine that someone asked you to
carry a potato across the street from your place to some other
destination. No problem, it's just a potato. But imagine if that someone
asked you to carry a priceless Picasso across the street to the same
place. The anxiety and fear explode. What about crime? The weather?
Birds pooping?" -Greg Gutfeld (page 162)
"Right
now, I'm trying to change my filter from thinking that I'm carrying a
Picasso, to instead carrying a potato. In fact, when I'm about to do
something I'm dreading, I say to myself, 'Be a potato.' That instantly
devalues myself. I'm no longer fragile." -Greg Gutfeld (page 163)
Once
you put the potato filter on life, you don't take life too seriously.
You let loose, and have fun, because it's a potato. If it were something
worth much more, then you would be living your life worrying for the
endless web of possibilities and issues that could befall you at any
turn. Really, you'd be stuck!
"Be a potato, be a potato," I reassured myself every half a second while I walked into the Garden Grill restaurant at Disney World. The whole place reminded me of the time a guy fake-puked into the deep fryer at McDonalds, right after he screamed, "Gimme my car keys!"
Fun times...
Then I was tased by park security after I sucker punched Mickey Mouse after he asked for my plate of steak and asparagus. Or because I tried winning the Vin Diesel award by driving a go kart off the balcony of the Japanese Pavilion. That was before I realized you had to be bald to win it.
Just remember, the guy who dresses rich, and is rich, gets the coked up girlfriend. The guy with the wrinkled Sag Bag branded white t-shirt gets the pretty lawyer girl with three kids!
"Nobody has ever lain on their deathbed, saying, 'I should have done less shit, tried less shit, and lived life to the emptiest!'" -Greg Gutfeld (page 158 or 159, I can't remember)
I say something along the lines of this everyday to my boring friend, Emily. For all I know, she may have been part of Joe's--I mean Lars', sorry, plan to derail the fun train and send it like a torpedo to China.
Here's the exchange...
Me: So cute...the dog, not you.
Emily: Ugly.
And then I sent them a video of a Christmas Bret Baier rapping in a bar, to which they responded as if the video I sent them was particularly insane.
Anyways, I love the book! Thank you very much, Mr. Lemire. DOGBABY returns...for the first time?
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