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13 April 2006

Sometimes I get the crazy urge to grow a classic Green Arrow beard, even though I'm not into facial hair or goatees. I guess before growing this beard I would hopefully establish some lifestyle out in the woods with rare human contact. What are your odd or eccentric urges?
post by: shane at: 09:43 | 46 comments
Not odd or eccentric, really, I guess... but I love tattoos; and have yet to get one. I have trouble committing.
posted by mike9322 13 April | 09:52
Live on a house boat, embark on a career as an internet mc, make my own shoes, design, build and market a car without learning one thing about designing, building or marketing a car. Become a professional hand line fisherman. Live in a cave. I got more.
posted by Divine_Wino 13 April | 09:55
That is an amazing beard, grow that beard sir!
posted by Divine_Wino 13 April | 09:56
Green Arrow.
posted by agropyron 13 April | 09:59
"We'll never be able to figure out his secret identity because he covered a half inch of skin around his eyeballs."

"What about that crazy cow catcher Van Dyke he's rocking?"

"Are you high? That's the most popular tonsorial style in America. Next you'll tell me to be on the lookout for guys wearing jaunty green forester caps who love archery. Do you live in a cave or what Osama?"

posted by Divine_Wino 13 April | 10:00
When I'm on top of someplace tall, like a building or a cliff, I spent my entire time frightened that some insane urge is about to drive me over the edge, so I have this crazy urge every time I'm up high to quell the urge to jump that I don't (and hopefully would never) feel. That's the best I can put it.
posted by Hugh Janus 13 April | 10:06
Hugh, I feel the same way when I'm driving and one side of the road is a huge fucking precipice.
posted by Divine_Wino 13 April | 10:08
odd or eccentric urges?

I occasionally want to take up the life of a wandering balladeer, but the fact that I can neither sing nor play and instrument has been a hindrance.
posted by jonmc 13 April | 10:09
My life is all odd & eccentric urges. But Divine Wino's car plans make me think of this. Go for it, dude.

I'd like to live somewhere in high mountains, doing something techy. To get into town, I'd have to fire up my Ducati. We can but dream.
posted by GeckoDundee 13 April | 10:10
I feel the same way when I'm driving and one side of the road is a huge fucking precipice.

Niagara Falls has regular periodic "spontaneous suicides." Apparently people with no history of suicidal behavior experience the sudden overwhelming urge to become one with the huge, elemental, rushing downward tide, and they jump.

A friend of mine in high school used frequently to experience the desire to swing the wheel hard while driving on the highway at 55mph+, sending his car into a massive roll...
posted by shane 13 April | 10:12
I totally have that throw-yourself-off-a-precipice urge.
posted by Specklet 13 April | 10:13
I have to admit, during my worst times when I've been flying down the interstate I've sometimes wanted to redirect my car's path into something large and concrete, like an overpass pylon. I mean, WOW! BOOM! and then nothing, or then something peaceful... But I'd never do that.
posted by shane 13 April | 10:15
I think Dave Navarro is the Green Arrow. (I've never heard of the Green Arrow, btw--was he some sort of Robin Hood figure?)

Whenever I walk into an old stone cathedral (which isn't that often), I have the urge to sing something really loud so I could hear how cool it sounds. But, since that would interfere with other people's enjoyment of it, I don't do it.
posted by witchstone 13 April | 10:17
The urge is quite common and nothing to worry about - look at this second ask-me answer. I have it to. . I wonder if it's just a gravity thing. I also have had the related urge to walk into the sea. Of course I'd never do either one.
posted by rainbaby 13 April | 10:18
It's the alure of the [haven't unpacked my books - some German dude's term for mystical experience]. I've heard lots of people tell me that standing on the top of a cliff makes them want to hurl themselves into the abbys. Personally, cliffs make me want to back away slowly.
posted by GeckoDundee 13 April | 10:19
I think sometimes squirrels have the sudden urge to jump in front of a car. They commit suicide and are immediately reborn somewhere else. They were dissatisfied with living where they were before.
posted by shane 13 April | 10:19
Also, naked tapdancing in the town square. Perfectly normal, right?
posted by jonmc 13 April | 10:19
Gawd. It's like some kind of asinine obsession. I'm going to photoshop that damn ridiculous beard onto a pic of my face tonight to see what I'd look like, LOL.
posted by shane 13 April | 10:23
Perfectly normal doesn't count. But do you really have an urge to do that, Jonmc?


posted by GeckoDundee 13 April | 10:24
I really like the fling yourself off the precipice urge, it's an old friend. Evil but totally comfortable, like a smallpox blanky.
posted by Divine_Wino 13 April | 10:24
It'd be normal if you could tapdance your way out of a paper bag, jonmc, which I'll wager you can't.

We have a secret code word here at the office for if The Bad People bust in through reception (hu?) ready to go on a rampage. I often have the urge to run down the halls shouting the code word, just to see what would happen. We have a word, but no real plan, you see.
posted by rainbaby 13 April | 10:25
Does this count as odd or eccentric? I want to have some kind of shamanistic spirit voyage where I take peyote and discover my animal totem.
posted by agropyron 13 April | 10:25
I often have the urge to run down the halls shouting the code word, just to see what would happen.

Kind of like being a carny worker and running thru the circus yelling, "HEY RUBE!!", eh?
;-)
posted by shane 13 April | 10:27
Gawd. It's like some kind of asinine obsession. I'm going to photoshop that damn ridiculous beard onto a pic of my face tonight to see what I'd look like, LOL.

Shane, photoshopping is well and good, but I recommend getting a quality fake beard you can paste on for a day. Maybe you should be the Green Arrow for Halloween. You owe it to yourself.
posted by agropyron 13 April | 10:27
Is the word "HOLYSHITHOLYSHITHOLYSHIT" ?

That's our word, the plan is to instantly throw a bunch of shit towards the nutters and
do a scrambling swarm run towards the door or towards the liquor cabinet. We also got the Green Arrow on autodial.
posted by Divine_Wino 13 April | 10:28
No, Agropyron. Everyone wants to do that. It's only odd if you actually do it.
posted by GeckoDundee 13 April | 10:29
I've always had the urge to dye my hair shock white. I wish I'd done it before the baldness genes kicked in and I went down to stubble.
posted by Capn 13 April | 10:32
Shane, photoshopping is well and good, but I recommend getting a quality fake beard you can paste on for a day. Maybe you should be the Green Arrow for Halloween. You owe it to yourself.
posted by agropyron 13 April | 10:27

Brilliant! I'll do it. Maybe I'll save clippings of my own hair for the fake beard (yuk.)

And I think the peyote/spirit animal urge is eccentric, but pretty normal for me. Hey, go for it! Castaneda made a career of it.
;-)
I haven't done hallucinogens in ages, but I never did the nature trip thing and I'm always getting the urge to walk around in the woods with some magic mushrooms or something.
posted by shane 13 April | 10:33
...do a scrambling swarm run towards the door or towards the liquor cabinet.

YOU HAVE A LIQUOR CABINET!!??

That's it, I'm getting out of the cubicle farm. Maybe if I get that job with PETA (!) we'll have bottles in our desk drawers (and need them.) Probably not, though, as PETA's pretty corporate. I guess you really have to become a private eye to keep the Scotch in your file drawer.
posted by shane 13 April | 10:37
One day, I will find the perfect outfit, something classic and timeless and flattering. And I will buy many copies of this outfit and never wear anything else ever again.
posted by krix 13 April | 10:39
Divine_Wino, that is an excellent plan. Do you do any disaster management/recovery consulting? We could do with some thinkers like you. I'm in no position to hire, but, yeah. Liquor Cabinet. Green Arrow. Damn. Now I'm having rescue fantasies, pushing my urge to run screaming closer to threshold.
posted by rainbaby 13 April | 10:45
Well, not so much a cabinet as a series of liquor caches throughout the office, a current inventory indicates a bottle of good tequila direct from mexico with a cartoon of a dude taking a snooze on it (but it's good tequila), a bottle of cloudberry liquor which is only for the direst of emergencies, several bottles of variety pack duty free cognac and some mystery scotch. Also half a twelve pack of coronas in the little fridge and a jet black bananna that seems to have every intention of becoming liquor.

I've been thinking about hiring myself out as a disaster management dude to kinda battle Rudy Guiliani, my sales pitch would simply be me showing the taking the bridge scene from Apocalypse Now ("who's in charge here? Aren't you?) and then setting off a smoke grenade and handing out nips of Wild Turkey. Pretty good huh?
posted by Divine_Wino 13 April | 11:05
I'm having a crazy urge right now that I'm trying to decide whether I should give in to.
posted by mike9322 13 April | 11:07
I have never had suicidal or overtly destructive impulses so far. But I've followed very, very many completely unconsidered, usually ill-advised other impluses (almost all, in fact). I won't detail them, but pretty much my entire life history can be traced in the uneven footsteps of my followed mad impulses, and I've always found this strange in me, because as much as I'd like to see myself as being mostly creative, or original, or whatever, I'm actually at heart just the most logical, rational dry stick ever (okay, not really "dry" but, you know). Yet up to now, it's pretty much been impulse all the way.

At any rate (needless to say, perhaps), I think you should go ahead and do it, Shane... why not?
posted by taz 13 April | 11:07
Cloudberry liquor, huh?

Effin' Scandihoovians.
posted by Hugh Janus 13 April | 11:08
Was a gift from the author of the book you gave your dad hugh, he also gave us raindeer jerky, which was the assiest jerky I have ever eaten, good lord.
posted by Divine_Wino 13 April | 11:14
Wow, that's fucking cool. Forget what I said about the Scandihoovians; you are a grand and admirably large- and squareheaded lot.
posted by Hugh Janus 13 April | 11:30
Urges about appearance:

-- bright blue hair, or at least a streak of such. But I had too many 'straight' jobs to accomplish this.

--occasionally, the tattoo urge, but I've resisted it so far.

-- new ear piercings every few years. Already jonesing for another.

Behavior urges:

-- When at the beach, I always always have an urge to wade barefoot, even in winter. And I usually give in to that.

-- to climb on things. I usually give in to that, too.

Big urge -- throw it all over, quit my job, move to an island and make a catch-as-catch-can living by sailing, cooking, doing odd jobs, and the like. Just being. Parhaps writing, but only if I feel like it.



posted by Miko 13 April | 11:49
Hey, I had bright blue hair briefly while a Junior High teacher in Japan. The kids thought it was pretty cool, but the principal sure didn't. Snip snip!
posted by Hugh Janus 13 April | 12:03
I, too, have regular throw-yourself-off/veer-into-traffic urges, which are sort of freaky. But I've actually jumped off a couple roofs, so I know it's not much fun to land.
posted by me3dia 13 April | 12:26
I wanna join a Mariachi band, wear the cowboy outfits and play that huge bass guitar...*sigh*
posted by black8 13 April | 12:26
Screaming in public places, work, the store, etc. Just open my mouth and scream and shriek until my throat bleeds. I really envy babies.

I also get the oft mentioned throw/veer urge.
posted by PinkStainlessTail 13 April | 13:30
Another member of the drive-off-bridge/into-solid-object/jump-off-precipice camp. I never thought this was a crazy urge, though, because my grandmother has it too and really set the bar pretty high for being freaked out over that.

We were driving once when I was about twelve or so. I was in the back, she was at the wheel and my mom was in front. We were sitting in pleasant silence, going over a bridge, listening to the bridge sounds, and my grandmother spoke up:

'Sometimes you just want to spin the wheel,' she said, and we all settled back into a new, entirely different sort of silence. (It was hilarious, but utterly unexpected.)

Eccentric urges.... I like to dress monochromatically. It gives me great pleasure to put together an outfit in one color. Shades of the same color are okay, but not as good. I have a sort of soft blue one, a brown one, a white one and so forth. I collect blank unlined notebooks; have about twenty. Never kept a paper journal for more than a couple of months in my life. And I have this decorating hang-up where everything has to be in wood and earth tones. I find other colors unappealing.

These are above and beyond any urges that I don't consider really eccentric, like wanting facial tattoos or telling people on the plane that I'm someone I'm not.
posted by rebirtha 13 April | 13:31
I like to dress monochromatically. It gives me great pleasure to put together an outfit in one color.

Me too. Makes me feel like a rap star.
posted by Hugh Janus 13 April | 13:56
witchstone - Green Arrow

I too have the drive-off-a-cliff thing.
posted by porpoise 13 April | 14:19
Yet another member of the Into the Abyss club (so I deem it, so it is - it covers jumping and driving).

Doing the "back to nature" schtick is really appealing. Any of you ever read One Man's Wilderness? Yeah, like that.
posted by deborah 13 April | 16:30
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