Greetings, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Internet.
I am Sam Julian, artist and cantankerous co-editor of the blog Reasonably Ludicrous. First of all, let me thank you for your support of our fledgling blog these past few weeks. It is a great privilege to address you now, this time with words. I post today with very important news, so important that it had to be posted on a Thursday.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am a man. That’s not the news. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am a man who lives in perpetual fear, fear of a man that I will never meet. I cannot see him; I cannot feel him, but I can perceive him. He exists in a timeline parallel to my own, mirroring my every step, my every movement…
Until that crucial moment, when I’m not quite paying attention, when I think that for once, things are going my way. That’s when he changes things up.
Every time I make a mistake, every time I let a ball slip through my fingers or trip over the finish line or whatever sports-based faux pas you want to apply,
Every time I miss the apple, my parallel universe self (Let’s call him Hyper-Sam for brevity’s sake) takes a big, juicy, delicious bite of out of it. Hyper-Sam doesn’t balk in surprise when a situation-Hydra rears its hundred heads of branching possibility. Ever confident, he weaves his way forward silky smooth and cuts them all off in an incredible combo chain attack, turning misfortune into opportunity and opportunity into unadulterated win. If life gives him lemons, he will pulp the lemons in a juicer he won from a ring toss at the county fair, and offer it to his guests sweetened with Agave Syrup and Pimm’s. Hyper-Sam is charming and quick-witted, sensitive but never vulnerable. He is eloquent but efficient in his speech, reserved and knowing, but never pretentious. And even though he always knows precisely what he means to say, it doesn’t matter, because his winning smile says enough.
See, I am none of those things. When someone asks me a direct question it takes a moment for me to register that the person is actually speaking to me, and that the phrase out of their mouth was an interrogative, so by the time I sayanything it’s well past the point of spontanaeity, let alone wit. At parties and clubs I have to shout to feel like I’m being heard, and as soon as more than two people start listening to me, I get so self-conscious I derail my fossil-fuel powered train of thought. God forbid someone be anything less that friendly to me, because I will bluster defensively before my brain even registers they were making a joke. And should anyone of the female persuasion engage me in conversation and seem actually interested in what I have to say, I become highly suspicious.
Needless to say, Hyper-Sam excels at all the social situations I’ve grown accustomed to witnessing devolve into massive fiascos of monstrously cruel insignificance. And as I sit in the corner, watching Stacie dance with Yosef, in my mind’s eye I see Hyper-Sam pulling Hyper-Stacie ever so slightly in towards his crisp and not-at-all-wine-covered collared shirt. Hyper-Yosef stands next to me, muttering resentments into his Dixie Cup of Jungle Juice and humiliation.
The other day I was talking on the phone to a very friendly, very tragic government worker who was so happy to have someone call him back that I couldn’t possibly deny him a quick twenty-minute survey, but because he was out buying organic groceries, he said he’d call me back when he got to his office. Thirty minutes later I have to get to work, and naturally Dan Fillin (not a pseudonym) calls me just as I’m getting into the car. I answer and don’t think anything of it as I drive along my easy, suburban commute. I was feeling pretty good about myself, totally making this guy’s day. He was just so happy to speak to someone, and I rediscovered the joys of talking about myself without fear of Judgment. I had fun answering the questions, and we joked about his computer that still ran a MS-DOS program that didn’t have a mouse. Then, just as the program was rebooting after the first crash, I heard the quick clip of a police siren and dropped the phone in angry realization.
The Gentleman Police Officer didn’t even have the courtesy to run the siren for a full wail. He sidled up to my pulled-over car.
“License and registration, please.”
“Here you go. This isn’t my car; I’m borrowing it from a friend.”
“Okay, and the friend?”
I told him, and he began scribbling on his pad. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I thought I’d bring up the elephant in the room.
“Is this because I was talking on my cell phone?”
“Yessir.”
After that I pretty much sat quietly while he input things into his laptop or whatever they use on motorcycles and wrote me up a ticket. I didn’t know what else to say. And staring at my ticket, I knew that Hyper-Sam would never have gone down like this. It would have gone something more like:
Hyper-Sam avoided the ticket and got a great story to tell Dan Fillin when he called back. Me, I pretended to still be enjoying his terrible, terrible 40-minute survey.
Now you might say, “but Sam, if this were true, Hyper-Sam wouldn’t even have been in this situation in the first place. Hyper-Sam would have a Bluetooth headset that he bought at a reasonable price online, and what is he doing borrowing someone else’s car? Hyper-Sam owns a Tesla.” You might say that this is a sloppy metaphor and that it falls apart upon further investigation. That Hyper-Sam is merely a figment of my overly-neurotic, self-flagellating brain.
But no. It’s far worse than that. The reality is that there are actually an infinite number of Hyper-Sams, spawning off of me at every causal juncture. A new one is created every moment, and he goes off to live a life of self-actualization and purpose while I watch him fade off into the extra-dimensional horizon.
The other day I was moving out of my old office. As I left, the cute secretary, the one with the straight dark hair, the one who always smiles with a knowing twinkle, who always seems to want me to talk to her but I never do because what would I have to say to her anyway, asks, “Hows it going?”
“Good,” I say, blushing. “Heading out.”
And as I walk past her I realize that I should turn around and talk to her because I have nothing to lose. I’m leaving the building now, forever. I could be telling her about my awesome, cool-sounding job at a start-up and our fancy new pad that’s just like in The Social Network. I could ask her out to dinner and even if she said no I’d never have to see her again. I could even tell her she was beautiful, and she might even be flattered. I could do anything. I realized I could always do anything, but I just keep getting in the way of myself. Life was about experiences, not obstacles. This was the dawning of a new era, a day when Hyper-Sam and Sam would merge and become one.
But I just walked out the doors without saying anything.
Reasonably Ludicrous 
D’aww! Maybe she’ll read this blog entry, and realize you really did like her! 😀
We womenz aren’t that scary. Just give us some chocolate and something shiny (It doesn’t have to be real. It doesn’t even have to be jewelry!), then we’ll likely agree to a meal or a date at the carnival or what-have-you. 🙂
I know Hyper-Sam’s great uncle very well. In fact, as I have gotten older, I seem to have picked up some of his traits, or it’s that I don’t give a damn what others think of me anymore.
Grr! So here I am at another party, dancing another dance with Hyper-Yosef, and thinking to myself, why couldn’t some nice, shy, nervous, artist guy with a little wine on his shirt come rescue me?
🙂 Like your comment here Anne!
My video is almost at a close. I pretty much neglected my son this weekend, going out and filming alone, coming back and editing. He had friends over Saturday night, he was fine with that, but right now it’s 1 in the morning Monday and I will NOT go to sleep until this is done. Can’t let it linger for another weekend, and be unavailable to Daniel again. I’m afraid I did take on a lot, wanting to read excerpts from the works of the people I would nominate for the Blog Awards – HOWEVER I’ve enjoyed it DESPITE being tired HOWEVER I hope I’m not buggared at work tomorrow HOWEVER there’s a chance people won’t even like what I’ve done with their words – ugh! ugh!
Anyway, shouldn’t be saying this here!! But I just saw your comment & basically wanted to say hi & the vid is about 2 hours away from being done & I hope you like what I’ve done with your words. Sincerely I do! So get ready to be presented with three blog awards because having received three I’m rolling my response all into one! It REALLY IS a lot to respond to, but the good thing is there’s no rule against ignoring a nomination!
Oops, what a way long comment. More videos are loading, see, which is why I have time to browse, can’t continue until they’ve loaded into imovie.
Enough! cya!
Both of you are such great writers!
And you never know, there could be one day where Sam and Hyper-Sam switch places. Start by slipping the secretary a funny drawing 🙂
er….go back and deliver it or mail it (man, I wish we could edit our own comments)
why don’t i just email her this blog post with all the pictures i drew of her on the internet 😛
I love the self-flagellating brain illustration. Good stuff as always guys. 🙂
Don’t forget that Hypo-Sam has his good qualities as well. And I love that brain-whipping image, too!! Totally cool.
Is Hypo-Sam regular Sam, or is he the version of yourself that makes all the worst choices, so you can always think “Well, at least I’m not THAT guy.”
Haha! I meant regular Sam, but I think you’ve got the better version!
This story is giving me uncomfortable deja vu, as if I’ve lived it myself… d’oh!
But hey, at least you weren’t sick on top of that. It could always be worse! Much, much worse…. The fact that you actually notice and care for one thing….
I was interested to see your page (from your style above) but when I clicked on your name it took me to the page of freshly pressed – did you know that? That’s pretty weird. So I can’t see your page!
SAM!!!! You DIDN’T! Argh guys are the worst! Go back to that office, under pretense of some possibly misdirected mail and ask that poor girl out!
Great post good to get to know the other half…not that anyone thinks you and Russ are like ‘each others halves’ cause then you’d be married…or at least in a long term relationship. No one thinks that…
Yeah, maybe I should have just stuck to “Great post”….
haha thanks, Jezzmindah! Always love your feedback 🙂
And I like to shoot my mouth off wherever and whenever an opportunity arises…what an amicable friendship we two will have 🙂 lol
Yet another excellent post. My own blog languishes because I’m too burned out to post anything, but that’s totally cool because I just tweet yours.
Oh, and bicycles totally rock.
You don’t sound cantankerous!
I think we all feel this way some of the time. Like there is a better, more awesome version of ourselves that is doing all the things we can’t. Great post and art as always 😉
Haha, the picture of the police officer is amazing!
I wrote a post about a ticket I got the other month too and I’ve been debating on whether or fight it or give into my non-confrontational desire and just give in.
“At parties and clubs I have to shout to feel like I’m being heard, and as soon as more than two people start listening to me, I get so self-conscious I derail my fossil-fuel powered train of thought.” Sigh…that’s ME! Wish I didn’t have to acknowledge it…
Fun post!
Oh wow this is fantastic. If you don’t mind, could I add you to my blogroll?
Absolutely! We’re glad you like it, theasaurus! As are the hyper-versions of ourselves.
Done. Cheers.
This was like reading a story book – the pictures were great! How clever 🙂 Your writing’s great, entertaining. I totally love your ‘reasonably ludicrous’ I don’t know how you do a co blog though, as in, do you ever disagree with what the other says/puts up? And then it’s your page too and there it is! Just saying, I’ve never seen a joint effort before. It’s great.
And don’t worry, I fear a man too – a REAL man who’ll love me!! 🙂
So nice to meet the other half 🙂 Just to attempt to make you feel better about yourself, I know hyper-Sam. I know many versions of the perfect, sometimes far too cocky, tooth glisten-er Hyper-Sam. Although it seems like they are all you want to be, know that most of it is a facade. Accept who you are ‘cuz as I see, you seem perfectly cool. Work on the picking-up-girl methods, you gotta just do it once and it will begin to break the habit.
The Hyper-Sam I know got a toilet paper roll’s worth of tickets for the wisecracks and smiles. Another stuck up for his girl and said what was on his mind and socked the chin of a cab driver that messed with her. Many thousands of dollars in lawsuits later he is keeping his feelings to himself.
Most girls that I know like the shy, artistic, and socially awkward men who are real men and make drawings of us with extra large boobs that we wished we were adorned with. (Send the girl your blog link, it’s the way to go)
Awesome post and awesome pics as usual. Do you draw them online?
I use Photoshop and a Wacom tablet, which is annoying but more convenient than scanning and I’m getting better at it. Thanks for the thoughtful response!
Thank you. Finally a clue as to how people can come up with pictures like that with a touch mouse-pad. You are definitely getting better- the pics are perfect!
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I always leave a comment on reasonably ludicrous posts but when I read yours the best I could do was “You don’t sound cantankerous”, so I have added a link to your post on my blog and maybe someone more ‘wordy’ will write a better comment than mine 🙂
momuboocreaisland.wordpress.com if you want to see your mention ‘cos the link doesn’t work – and social ineptitude has transgressed to technical ineptitude and I am going to hide under my desk for the rest of the afternoon – oh the shame!
Whoever you are, Sam, I can understand where you’re coming from more than you probably know. My conclusions on that matter involve an inability to sync your emotions with your logic, afterall, if you go balls-out it’s only natural that it’ll hurt if you get hit. So… Logic comes along and tells you not to be so stupid and alas, Hyper-Sam vanishes.
It’s impossible to sync with Hyper-Sam every second of every day, but let me just say, that it is always possible to grab one leaving into the ethereal plane and throw him back into you… Turning around and being spontaneous with that lady would be an example of such a thing. Going to court and pleading innocent to a charge you clearly were guilty of would be another such example (Believe it or not, most of the time the cop doesn’t even show up! That’s reasonably ludicrous if you ask me!)
As time goes on, I’ve realized that it gets harder and harder to throw this alter-ego into myself but if you’re anything like myself, you’ll recognize that life is but a game and it’s a lot more fun if you can feel it- no matter the situation; no matter the emotion.
So put your poker face on; recognize you’ll never grab hold of this figural phenomena and instead, I assert, look only forward, not backward, to play the hand you’re dealt. That, Sam, is the game of life. I hope in some fashion this random bottom-of-the-comment-section comment throws a curve-ball to your otherwise apparently ‘Johnny Bravo-less’ life.
I simply loved the line: “Life was about experiences, not obstacles…”
DID I GET CLONED HELP
(found this from the image after googling hyper brain lol)