On one late summer night in 1995, I stood in line outside of a Ticket Master outlet at 4am, waiting for tickets to go on sale for Oingo Boingo’s Farewell Concert. It took quite a bit of engineering to produce an alibi so I could be out in the dead of night in the middle of nowhere waiting for concert tickets.

It was an incredible concert! Well worth the lies, being up at 4am and much, much more. Aside from having had the chance to see Boingo play live one last time, I learned something from one of Elfman’s masterful songs.

In a 6 minute song called “Change,” Danny Elfman elegantly lays out a very complex problem.

“Some times when I take a peek outside of my little cage, everyone seems so asleep, will they die before they wake….

“Oh here is that question now, the one that makes me go insane, I would gladly tear my heart out if you never never never change….

“I like my stupid life just the way it is. I wouldn’t even change it for a thousand flying pigs, cause I like you just the way you are. I like your face just the way it is and I wouldn’t even change it for a herd of screaming kids, cause I like you just the way you are….

Do you really want to? Do you really want to? Nothing ventured and nothing gained, evolution’s greatest joke….”

The song opens and closes with some thoughtful lyrics but for most of the 6 minutes, Elfman begs you to never change, not for thousand flying pigs or a herd of screaming kids. Yet the opening and closing suggest that in order to be awake or to participate in what evolution has in store for us, we must venture; in order to gain, to be awakened, we must CHANGE.

Yet there are those wickedly sublime moments when you are standing on the top of Mt Sinai, watching the sunrise or sharing a bowl of porridge with a Tibetan monk at Everest Base Camp in the highest Monastery in the world, and you say, “Fuck Yeah! I wouldn’t change this for a thousand flying pigs!”

Hence the irony … we must play in order to win, we must be willing to change in order to have those moments when we say, “OH YEAH BABY! I wouldn’t change this for herd of screaming kids!”

Next stop, Delhi, India. I am willing to venture, to change, to step out into the world and have bloody lip so that I can arrive at the next wickedly brilliant moment where I say “Oh Yeah Baby!” Are you coming along for the ride?!

Join me on the road by entering this fun contest, Travel Ninja – Road Contest. Guess how many hours I will spend on ground transportation in India over 3 weeks and you can win a lovely 8×8 special edition print upon my return.

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