== Read this column before you die = By Mark Morford

[madokie]

1,000 sights, 1,000 books, a few hundred drugs, 397 kinky positions, one million blasphemies. Get busy

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/03/07/notes030708.DTL&nl=fix

What the hell are you doing? Why are you just sitting there? Haven't you seen the lists? Haven't you been reading the books?

Here is what they tell you: You should be outside, far, far away from here, right this minute, visiting Machu Picchu or a former Hungarian brothel that's now a cute artisanal bakery run by tiny singing lesbians, or visiting a giant musty old castle in Leipzig, or maybe taking lousy digital pictures of that Amazonian tribe that makes cute little earrings out of dried capybara testicles. Do it. Do it now.

Didn't you know? Haven't you been reading? After all, it's the latest micro craze in annoying copycat book publishing and I believe it all began with that cute and wildly guilt-inducing bestseller from a few years back, "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" which was sold by the truckload at every Costco and Walgreens from here to the former Yugoslavia and purchased by every armchair traveler and wealthy retiree who likes to show off their frequent flier mileage receipts at dinner parties, and which has a great catchy title and admittedly terrific gimmick, even if it is just a giant to-do list hitched to a rather insidious idea that you haven't actually lived until you've eaten fried pigeon legs in some obscure village in Vietnam.

And now, as with any passably decent idea in the popular culture, that cute little gift book has now been whored quite nearly to death. There are so many spin-off titles it's a bit like skanky celebs showing their vaginas as they exit an Escalade. Which one to choose? Which version to read and ponder and further my anxiety that I am never doing enough, which one to make me feel excruciatingly underexperienced in the world? ...

[elizfeelinggreat]

1. thanks

for the link. And the Mark Morford reality check!


"isn't that what life is really all about, racking up a big catalogue of experiences so when you die you can saunter through the pearly gates with a badass hangover and a rabid STD as you slap St. Peter a high-five for that time you hang-glided drunk in Cabo with some skanks from "Girls Gone Wild"? Cool!"

Something is terribly wrong with such a self-centered culture.

[zanne]

2. That's great!

Now I feel almost normal! Thank you!

[NC_Nurse]

3. Isn't it amazing how Americans can turn even a good idea into an

obnoxious, materialistic BINGE episode? Morford is so right. And funny. :thumbsup:

[Blue_Tires]

4. lol

brilliant

[Indenturedebtor]

5. Yeah he makes a good point

In an arrogant pompous fart sniffing sort of way. Gotta love SF eh?

Personally I think that these books are fantastic. I don't know where you folks live and work, but most of the people I know watch American Idle, cook Stuaffers Lasagna 5 nights a week for their overweight kids, watch movies like 300 and The Passion, and think that travelling is visiting Grandma or the worlds biggest church made of spaghetti.

Urging people to get out there and experience life in any way is a good thing.