The ancient monks of Cambodia used to celebrate Ku-Mat Lei. Each year around this time, they would gather at the temple and "confess" their shortcomings to each other - not just their sins, but their faults and the aspects of their lives that they thought needed improving. By verbalizing their mistakes and failures and sharing them with each other, they believed that they could gain power over these things and improve themselves. So, in that spirit, here's my list of confessions for this year's Ku-Mat Lei:
1) I don't get jazz, especially free form jazz. The irregular melodies and beats throw me off. It just sounds like a bunch of noise to me.
2) I secretly hope that Brett Favre stinks so badly this next season that the Vikings don't make the playoffs.
3) Despite having nine years of higher education, I just don't understand poetry. I can't tell really good poetry from really bad poetry, and can't distinguish poetry from prose broken up into separate lines mid-sentence. People say that poetry has rhythm while prose doesn't, but whenever I hear poets reading their stuff, I never notice any rhythm. Sometimes I feel like a big, giant joke is being played on me.
4) I wish I could verbally abuse people without guilt or repercussion the way Gordon Ramsay does.
5) I used to think Bon Jovi was a cool band. I even bought their CD's the day they were released. In my defense, it was a long, long time ago and they still made music that guys could rock out to. I know it is not a fault that I currently struggle with, but it still needs to be confessed so I can move on.
6) I root for the smoke monster on "Lost" and hope Benjamin Linus regains control of The Others.
7) I encouraged my friend Brad to steal a Steeler fan's (free) seat cushion at the Super Bowl as we left. In my defense, Steeler Fan was drunk, obnoxious, and kept standing up in front of me at inappropriate times. I really didn't feel guilty about it, but Brad was angst-ridden about it all the way back to the hotel after the game.
8) I know nothing about ancient Cambodia, and made up the whole Ku-Mat Lei by truncating and mashing together the names of the quarterbacks for my beloved Arizona Cardinals.
There are four attributes that distinguish the completely erudite human--verily the refined person: 1. an appreciation for and understanding of poetry--including haiku, but excluding limericks 2. an appreciation for and understanding of jazz--traditional (never called old skool)artists like Miles Davis (pronounced "Maahhlz" while smiling knowingly and nodding) 3. an appreciation for and desire to play chess, and 4. a respect for the ertswhile babe-magnetism, and occasionally cool guitar licks of the Bon Jovi band.
I have mastered #4, but there's still time.
Hippy; I have mastered #3, and can relate to #2.