In 2014, comedian, musician, podcaster and Nashvillian Chris Crofton asked the Scene for an advice column, so we gave him one. Crowning himself the “Advice King,” Crofton shares his hard-won wisdom with whoever seeks it. Follow Crofton on Twitter and Instagram (@thecroftonshow), and check out his The Advice King Anthology and Cold Brew Got Me Like podcast. To submit a question for the Advice King, email bestofbread@gmail.com.
Dear Advice King,
Happy New Year! What is a realistic New Year’s resolution?
Thanks!
—Hank in Hoboken
HANK IN HOBOKEN?! Now we’re talking!
[Sweeping orchestral noise indicates the start of a musical number.]
One good resolution would be to write more limericks.
There once was a man from Hoboken
Whose pants split when he was showboatin’
He headed to the store
To buy some more (pants)
But he got arrested for indecent exposin’
I quit. That’s a terrible resolution.
[Orchestra screams obscenities, destroys instruments.]
But it’s a better idea than reading the news!
[Nine-year-old plays Raiders of the Lost Ark theme on trombone.]
Except for the Nashville Scene. You should read that.
[Cymbal crash.]
I’m kidding around. The guy who sent in the question wasn’t even really named Hank in Hoboken. I made that up. His real name is Frank from Fresno!
[Orchestra starts up.]
OK, I’ll stop.
My staff (my mother) is tired of responding (politely) to hate mail from the “make advice columns great again” crowd: “While we appreciate your interest, to our knowledge, there is no such thing as an ‘Advice Column Tribunal,’ so Chris has no plans to appear in front of it. Thanks! Penny Crofton.”
Speaking of the kind of news you shouldn’t read, the other day I saw an especially disheartening Associated Press headline. It was about the recent plane crash in South Korea, in which 179 people died. It was published less than 24 hours later. The headline was “Jet Crash Disaster Marks Another Setback for Boeing.” One-hundred-seventy-nine humans died in that jet disaster. And in case you needed a reminder, that’s the only thing we have going here — humanity.
Humanity and animals and crops and little shelters called houses and little pipes carrying water around. All that infrastructure was made by, and is designed to serve, humans. How did “Boeing” enter this equation? What is the point of labeling the deaths of innocent people a “setback” in a timeline that stretches backward and forward over billions of years? I’ll tell you what the point is. It’s to diminish the value of human life. To make it seem as if we are but a small part of some grand, for-profit “project.” It’s directly connected to Elon Musk’s obsession with birth rates.
Existence is not a for-profit project — it’s our brief time on earth. If flying kills us, we should stop flying. If birth rates go down, we should enjoy the peace and quiet. I resolve to remember that there is no urgency to any of this, except the urgency imposed upon us by a certain type of human — “the hurtling people,” I call them. People addicted to narratives and often driven by substances. When humans become bit players in those narratives, and we treat loss of life as a setback — or some kind of indicator — then we have lost the (actual) plot. We are all in this together, not as “birthrates” or “setbacks,” but as the community currently lucky enough to be alive for a few instants on the back of this giant, undulating, inscrutable serpent we call time.
No more cold brew for me?
Allow me fix that AP headline: “Maybe We Fly Around Too Much and There Aren’t Enough Competing Companies to Properly Incentivize Safety, but Mainly a Bunch of People Died Today and Their Families Are Devastated, so Maybe Don’t Put the Damn Thing in a Market Context Immediately, You Desensitized Monster.”
And I forgive you, Associated Press reporter. We have all been raised to think this way. I resolve to try to break this fever. We are here to do whatever our hearts desire, but together. We are the networks, the machines and the products. We are beholden only to each other and our shared health and happiness. Namaste.
An unhoused person is just as valuable as Peter Thiel. Namaste again.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
