Richard Branson Psychoanalysis
by Wolf Redboy

As you probably know, Richard Branson (President of Virgin Records and Virgin Air), is about to release his new space-plane to the public so average people like you and me (who can blow a hundred thousand bucks or so) will get to be temporary astronauts.

I salute him, I really do, because this is the first stage of a larger plan to inhabit other planets to mine for oil and build interstellar gas stations. Once this is accomplished, we can become masters over time and space - which is the big goal, really - and essentially live forever, like gods.

"But of course, this will never happen. Because if it was to happen, we obviously would have been visited already by visitors from the future. So we can already say that we've failed, but never mind this," I say to no one, sitting in my bathtub. "Richard Branson is probably floating up in his balloon right now, sailing over the Arctic continent."

I squeeze my rubber ducky.

"He's probably freezing right now ... As he should be. There are men, ordinary men such as myself who take baths, and then there are men like him - adventurers and conquerers - who take the risks that I, apparently, will not."

I stare at my distorted reflection in the bathwater.

Now, according to Aristotle, Richard Branson would be a "hero" and I would be a "poet." The heroes, like Ulysses, DO, and the poets, like Homer, RECORD.

"WHY am I a poet?" I ask aloud. "I would much rather be a hero."

This thought inflamed me so much, I must tell you, I jumped out of the bathtub and placed a phone call to Dr. Phil to ask him why I wasn't building rocketships and instead was tinkering around on my guitar like a goddamn idiot savant.

ME: Hi Dr. Phil.

DR. PHIL: Hi Wolf. Firstly, I want you to know, you're not an idiot. The truth is, is that you are exactly the opposite.

ME: But you haven't even heard my problem yet ...

DR. PHIL: I don't need to because Wolf, I don't really exist. I am a figment of your imagination. So let's just cut to the chase.

ME: Okay.

DR. PHIL: You don't need to build rocketships to the moon because you read books. Richard Branson had the part of his brain that creates imagination - the frontal lobe - destroyed by methamphetamines that has stunted his ability to think ahead. So while you know what it's like to play across the street, to jump on the swing and run through the cattails, Richard does not. You know what it would feel like to be up in a hot air balloon writing a letter to your relatives "goodbye I'm dying" and he, apparently does not.

ME: So heroes have their brains destroyed by methamphetamines?

DR. PHIL: You know the end-game. A man goes on lion hunts only to wish that he stayed home in his bathtub, which is where you are.

ME: I'm a master of time and space?

DR. PHIL: I don't know if "hero" is the word I'd use, or "poet" for that matter. I think what Aristotle meant to say was "smart" and "dumb."

ME: Listen, Dr. Phil, I'm a musician, I can't talk this way because Richard Branson is a music producer and this might destroy my chances of working with him.

DR. PHIL: There you go, with that hero talk again. Why don't you turn on that hot water.

ME: If the basket on his hot air balloon was a bathtub filled with hot water I would fly around the world.

DR. PHIL: So what have we learned? There are "smart" people and there are "dumb" people.

ME: If I had a billion dollars I would fill my hot air balloon up with chicken pot pies and drop them down onto the people of Darfur.

DR. PHIL: But "smart" and "dumb" is relative. So let's look at this from the other perspective. This "other" perspective suggests that: YOU are "dumb" and RICHARD is "smart."

ME: If I was a billionaire I would take all my climbing gear and rapel into some hospitals to help some people who don't have health insurance.

DR. PHIL: I mean, get inside Richard Branson's head here, boy! He's SEEN the music of Madonna, he's experienced the Beatles! He's SEEN the best that music can offer and let me tell you, it's a dead-end street! You're going to bang on your guitar and come up with some new chords that emotionally affects your medulla oblongota and perhaps creates some neuro-memories! That's it! End of story! Bob Dylan DIDN'T change a generation he only SCORED it! Listen, man ...

ME: I would at least drop some Britney Spears albums onto the people of Rwanda from my spaceship.

DR. PHIL: While you're hitting your hand on your guitar like a goddamned monkey Richard Branson is building a rocketship to fly right into the center of the sun! What do you think about that?

(Silence).

ME: Honestly ... I ... I ... gotta get out of here Dr. Phil. This bathwater is ... dangerous ... addicting as any drug ...

DR. PHIL: So what are you going to do?

ME: I don't know. Become a hero, I guess.

DR. PHIL: And how do you do this?

ME: Maybe write a goodbye letter to my family. That I don't know if I'll make it out of this bathtub alive. The smoke and the suds are ... eating me slowly ...

Dear Mom and Dad,

I got stuck in the tub ... I don't know if I will get out ... I'm at 3,000 feet stuck in Missoula ... I decided to be a musician rather than a pharmacist ... I screwed us all ... I'm a poet writing blogs about Richard Branson the hero ... Our only hope is that he gets on his spaceship and flies into my apartment with a big bag of weed so I can get over this writer's block ... (Just kidding I don't smoke weed says my deep Catholic guilt. I'm not even a Catholic.). Goodbye! Goodbye! PLAY MY SONGS! PLLLLAAAAAYYY MMYYYY SOOOONGS!

SIDE NOTE: WOLF REDBOY is playing THURSDAY JANUARY 31 2008 AT THE OTHER SIDE! It's Missoula's "BATTLE OF THE BANDS" - WE PLAY BEFORE THE HERMANS. COME HAVE A DRINK WITH US.