"Let's have a little fun today."

It doesn't take much to stress me the fuck out, unfortunately. I'm what some may call a "perpetual overthinker," the kind of guy who sits around pondering the aftermath of events that haven't even seen their first proverbial Domino piece knock over the next. I'll be sitting around, reading a Chuck Palahniuk novel, and in mid-twisty-sentence a thought will hit me: "When the fuck will I settle in on a fully-realized plot of my own, so I can start scribing my own long-form narrative?" And from there, an ongoing armada of "what ifs" and "am I good enoughs" set sail, and my head begins throbbing the point of aspirin-rendered-obsolete.

And don't even get me started on the repercussions of overthinking matters of the budding-relationship-with-a-lady-friend sort. That's an entirely different, much larger/scarier bag of worms that should never be taken out of the bait-box and cast out into my subconscious.

Overthinking has plagued me since a young age, back to the adolescent days of "Does Diana Guevara even find me cute, let alone worthy of a date?" Or, "How can I tell my dad that I don't want to play in tonight's baseball game, that I'd much rather go to that pool party with my friends and at least pretend that I'm a normal teenager?"

Fortunately, I've conceived several defense mechanisms. Without which, I'd have probably ended up in a looney bin years ago. Sporting a movement-constricting strait-jacket, repeating "All I wanted to do was write stories, All I wanted to do was write stories, All I wanted to do was write stories, All I wan...." from waking hour to drug-induced sleeptime. Doctors would've looked in through one-sided-glass walls, scribing notes and shaking heads in defeat. We can't save this one, they'd have uttered, morosely. He's a lost cause.
--

Last night, one of my defense mechanisms re-established itself into my stress-battling agenda, unexpectedly. And it worked as proficiently as ever.

It's actually a method of mind-soothing that I unintentionally discovered back in my pre-teen era. Home sick from grade school one routine weekday, awaiting the homemade Nesquik strawberry milk that Anne Barone makes oh-so-amazingly, I flipped the tube away from MTV (for once) and continued the channel-search downward until the clicker was put down on my belly so I could sip on some artifically-pink cowjuice.

By some sort of divine intervention, the present channel was PBS, and the program something called The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross.



Clearly taped some time during the '70s, this Joy of Painting starred a peculiar-looking one-time-hippie with a serious afro and taco meat poking out of his unbuttoned shirt. What caught my attention initially was how pleasant this Mr. Ross appeared, visibly in nirvana while holding his paintbrush and using slanguage such as "happy little tree" and "let this live right over here." I was mesmerized, captivated. Hypnotized by the man's calming tone, and all-around even nature. And as luck would have it, it was a two-hour marathon in its first quarter.

I didn't touch the remote control until 120 minutes later.

The seeds were placed under the soil. I was a Bob Ross fan. To this day, nothing has ever even come within leaps and bounds of equaling The Joy of Painting's calming power on my mind. There have been times when girls have machete-d my heart, and career-sparked headaches have pummeled my spirit like an anvil dropped from thirty stories high, but within seconds of hanging out with my boy Bob Ross those troubles evaporated, and I was in a happy place.
--

It's mostly the voice. Just ask Guru. The organic process of detailing a beautiful vision of Mother Nature plays a part, as well. Together, these ingredients tag-team my attention and turn my brain into spongecake.



I never knew Bob Ross, but that doesn't mean I can't feel connected to the guy. Over the years, he's become a quasi-psychiatrist, a PBS-certified healer who operates through a television screen, rather than an office with a long, comfy couch. Instead of listening to my problems and offering solutions, Dr. Ross simply does what he does best: paints the best landscapes and scenic wonders an easel has ever produced. While talking prospective painters at home through the step-by-steps in his soft-spoken, all-will-be-well-my-friends vocal tone that could make a rabies-infected zombie halt (un)dead in his/her tracks to experience The Joy of Painting.

2009 is already shaping up to be a massively-trying year on my brain, for a slew of reasons left undisclosed for the time being. But thank the luckiest of stars that I happened across a Bobby Ross rerun last night while waiting for a night of drunken debauchery to commence. I'm on the verge of buying some of Bobby Ross' greatest hits on DVD, just to have instant access to his unique brand of psychiatry whenever its needed.

Up to this point, his services have been free of charge. What a scholar and a gentleman he is/was, huh? So dropping a cool $20 on some Joy of Painting episodes in DVD packaging would be funds well invested.

Thanks, Bobby. 13 years after your demise, you're still the man.