Condemned to be Flea

1. My colleague sighed with relief. The chair fit him better. "Thank goodness," he said. The concert had already happened, so he wouldn't have to decide whether to buy tickets, whether to drive up to LA, maybe stay there or drive all the way back home afterward.

2. So many decision trees, and branches, pruned by the past. Thank goodness! I laughed, or maybe smiled. Does anybody really like free will?

3. Or is it like violin lessons, something you feel like you should get for your kid, but definitely not yourself, because let's be honest, who wants them? And you're an adult; you can make your own decisions now. Ha!

4. Or you could exercise your freedom of choice, and take bass lessons instead. Then you could say, paraphrasing Sartre, "We are condemned to be Flea!"

5. But only if you did that slappy-poppy kind of bass playing.

6. It's been a while since I busked, but I'd like to perform at that line of people waiting for the Powell's Books warehouse sale to open this weekend: only the easy-to-play Beatles songs in the misty morning rain while miserable Gen X book scouts grasp their empty Ikea tote bags and bankers boxes.

7. Hopefully by now it has already happened.