I'm transcribing things today

Preparing them for inclusion into my book of favorite quotes/lyrics/poems/passages/text-based media, etc.  It's kind of fun.  A bit time consuming, but fun.  I've spent many hours over the past three years working on this project, on and off.  I'm pretty pleased with the product so far, a book of my favorite words and phrases.  I've filled up 35% of it, and have quite a number of things ready to write in it.  Anyway, I transcribed the entirety of the lyrics to George Watsky's spoken word poem "Go Big, Young Friends" and thought that I would post them.  Enjoy!  *note: profanity


Go Big, Young Friends by George Watsky

Being fifteen is terrifying

So is stage diving

Especially when your peers' biceps look like deflated bicycle tires.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I took AmTrak two hours to UC Davis with Victoria to see TLR sensations Sum 41 live in concert.

Because I thought she might kiss me at the end of the night if I did.

There was an efficient system in place.

The kids - we waited in a single file line as a security guard guided us up the stairs and onto a designated like free speech zone corner of the stage from which we were allowed to bellyflop carefully into the audience and crowd surf for about two yards before being dropped off safely, a newly minted teenage badass.

Let me tell you, there were pooka shells, cargo shorts, and knee high tube socks everytwhere.

It was pure pop punk rock chaos.

Controlled, well-sanctioned, all ages chaos!

Victoria took a break from head-banging to fat lip to look me up and down to see what I was made off.

Because it was my turn to jump next.

There was a moshpit in my chest.

I knew those kids would drop me

Those squirrelly little runts?

They'd freaking drop me!

And crack my scapula, I'd sprain my ass, or skin my knee

A stiff wind would drop those kids, and they'd drop me!

I am sorry to say I didn't jump.

I took the walk of shame, away

And not that sweet walk that I'm told that old kids take the morning after they get laid,

but the lame walk that craven cowards take while braver freshman, even braver seventh graders rage.

Eight years ago, I stood on Finals stage for the first time and I took a deep confident pause

because I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt

that I was about to vomit in front of two thousand people

and then I didn't

And I finished my poem and everyone clapped and I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

I have no idea how rent is going to handle itself six months from now.

But that’s for rent to worry about! 

The future is a hunk of clay.

I see the shape that mine should take and chip away a little every day.

I don’t want to cut away the part of me that gets afraid.
I don’t want to numb myself.
I’m not fearless.

But, goddammit, I’m wearing brand new socks right now,
And I feel like I’m walking on a cloud bank on the top of Mount Olympus
With two katanas strapped behind my back,
Eye of the Tiger,
Heart of the Turtle,
Ice water in my veins,
A bag of bones breaking,
Owning the area,
Conan the Barbarian,
Rearing to give it up and bellow to the gods: I don’t give a fuck!

And by that I mean I give so much of a fuck,
That the fuck I give consumes me,
Like a huge, man-eating wildebeest of a fuck,
Or a school of thousands of tiny piranha fucks.

I care so annoyingly much.

But getting the jitters means you give a shit.

Scared, is just “cared” with a lisp.

This stage - this stage is every girl I never kissed

and I refuse to die tight lipped.

So please, leave every mic ripped in my crypt

I love the lump in my gullet, the knot in my stomach the minute I take flight

I need the stress

and if I plummet from the summit

I died in easy death

this world is a foxy hottie,

a hotchy matchy MDTF

and yes, we'll be tested, again and again

But riding your adrenalin to your impossible dream

and if your heart beats right out of your chest let it swim upstream

Become the one you long to be

anyone who's every felt a breeze believes in what they cannot see

Me, as I know it, was born on this stage

which makes you my momma bird

you could never hurt me

and when you open up your throats and beaks

you feed me, no you baby bird me

But what I wanna know, is if I were to do something I've never done before, 

something stupid

A most unwise of things

and leap into my destiny

like the majestic albatross

would you be the wind beneath my wings?

I won't say please

HEY! Did someone just say swag? NO! that was just the breeze.