The world of doing something completely new and is a scary one, isn’t it?  Doubt creeping over your shoulder.  Insecurity tightening around your neck.  Failure gnawing at your heel.  So leave it to the King of horror to comfort.

At nineteen they can card you in the bars and and tell you to get the fuck out, put your sorry act (and sorrier ass) back on the street, but they can’t card you when you sit down and paint a picture, write a poem, tell a story, by God, and if you reading this happen to be very young, don’t let your elders and supposed leaders tel you any different.  Sure, you’ve never been to Paris.  No, you never ran with the bulls at Pamplona.  Yes, you’re a pissant who had no hair in your armpits until three years ago–but so what?  If you don’t start out to big for your britches, how are you gonna fill ’em when you grow up?  Let it rip regardless of what anybody tells you, that’s my idea; sit down and smoke that baby.

To those — nineteen or not — who are smoking.