WEBMASTER'S NOTE: If you happen to like the sunscreen song, that doesn't necessarily make you stupid, gullible, or mildly retarded, as Mr. Bryson suggests. Mr. Bryson is the most cynical person in existence - as the rest all self-distruct by age 18 and he has survived to drinking age.
(Note to Jason: if you kill yourself out of spite after reading this, I'll be so pissed!)
Although a talented satirist, we recommend that you not read or listen to his philosophies too often as it may be hazardous to your health and can cause post traumatic stress disorder in the very young or weak of heart. Please enjoy responsibly.
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '99: Drink grain alcohol. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, grain alcohol would be it. The long-term benefits of grain alcohol have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own testimony at my double homicide trial. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until you've wasted your life. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked compared to the toothless, wrinkled old prune you are now. You are not as interesting as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to dispense advice when you're three sheets to the wind on bourbon. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things thatnever crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday after you've been arrested for drunk driving.
Hate and try to destroy one thing every day that scares you.
Piss.
Be reckless with other people's hearts, but don't put up with peoplewho are reckless with yours. This hypocrisy will only protect you from the inevitable creeping guilt that having an active conscience will produce.
Jerk off.
Don't waste your time on jealousy; kill the object of your envy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind, but guns solve all problems in love and war. The race is long and, in the end, better him or her than you.
Remember compliments you receive, but better still, remember the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how, as I am serving a life sentence without parole in Chino for the bludgeoning death of a man who called me a 'faggot'. Guess he was right after all, too.
Keep your old love letters, the better to nurse the sense of loss and pain that will always be with you. Eat your old bank statements.
Procrastinate.
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to dowith their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't, or rather, didn't until they took a lead lunch after some serious self-examination.
Get plenty of drugs.
Be kind to your knees. You'll need them when you're begging for mercy from a parole board or begging for your life from a terrorist or bank robber.
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding and end up proving to all your children and grandchildren just what a senile old waste case you are, and how little dignity there is in old age. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, it was probably just dumb luck. Your choices are half chance, half stupidity. So are everybody else's.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. After all, if they can't stand the sight of a grossly obese 40 year-old in a leather thong, they must be on some kind of judgmental asshole trip. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own, if you don't have a pipe organ.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room. In fact, don't ever dance outside of it.
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them. This is a subtle attempt to ensure that you read the rest of my advice.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly. Do not read the Wall Street Journal, it will make you feel poor. Do not read Scientific American, it will make you feel stupid. Of the literature I can approve, go with Mein Kampf and Horton Hears A Who.
Get to know your parents. You will need to know what they are like so that you can better understand yourself when you one day turn into your father or your mother. Be nice to your siblings. They're are the ones you will want to bail you out of jail and give you loans that you will never pay back.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Make sure they have a lot of money and are easily fooled(preferably semi-retarded). Understand that blackmail is the glue that holds every long-lived friendship together.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you dead. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you want to kill.
Travel, but avoid the Southern states and most of Europe. In fact,don't travel at all. Stay home at all times, and only leave to get the mail and scream at your neighbors.
Accept certain inalienable truths: You are a fool. Life is largely one long trip down Entropy Lane. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and you could control your own bladder.
Respect your elders, if they are rich.
Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out. So take out an insurance policy on your spouse and do what your heart tells you to.
Gamble compulsively.
Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85. Just shave it all off, or suffer the fate of Burt Reynolds.
Don't be careful whose advice you buy; swallow everything you're told and follow it to the letter. Advice is a form of cruelty. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and making young people repeat the stupid mistakes you made yourself so that you may sit in the wings and giggle like a monkey throwing his shit in the air (which essentially is what is being done).
But trust me on the grain alcohol.
