Improve My Aim

I eat a pound of whole carrots a day, more or less. Sometimes more. Always organic. Always whole. I can't get enough of them. As a matter of fact, my love affair with these delightful roots has bloomed into an obsession. I talk about carrots to people I don't know at work, I eat carrots in my car when I drive, I walk with a little extra swagger when I have a carrot in hand, I fantasize about Shoot 'Em Up (the only pro-carrot action film) and I offer carrots to my friends and roommates (who always decline). But most of all, I muse about what Beta Ceratine does for my eyesight...

Any chance I get, I'm at Trader Joe's or Winco buying up the organic carrots. It's a god damn shame they don't sell them in bigger bags. One or two pounder is the biggest they come in.

So here's my question... Do people not realize that buying non-organic ground vegetables is BEYOND foolish? Honestly, buying non-organic ANYTHING is asinine—but ground vegetables (and fruits) are the quintessential example here. Whatever grows in the ground soaks up the groundwater. If the groundwater contains skeezy-ass pesticides, your vegetables become skeezy-ass by association since they soak up all the water in order to grow and form into edible mass. Follow? Think about a watermelon. My sweet lord. They're like 99% water. In the mood to bite into a massive chemical ball? No. Okay, then buy organic produce. Especially ground produce.

Back to my point. Carrots. To be honest, all of this really does tie back to the movie "Shoot 'Em Up" starring Clive Owen, Monica Belluci, and Paul Giamatti. It's a big, loud, bloody, corny, nose-over-tail action romp. But it's tongue in cheek. It's action-baroque. It's John Woo on crystal meth. Shoot 'Em Up is a masterpiece. Here's my reason for brining it up: Clive Owen's character is a homeless man who is an ex-Special Forces gunman. He's a killing machine... who also has an affinity for whole carrots. He eats carrots during gunfights. He shoots a gun with a carrot (since some of his fingers get broken). He even stabs a guy in the eyeball with a carrot, killing him in his tracks. But I think the main reason I was so charmed by this film is when Clive Owen's character explains that he eats carrots to "improve his aim" because of the "vitamin A." There's even a point in the film where there's a first-person shot of Clive Owen's character taking a bite of a carrot and having his vision sharpened automatically, in real time.

The first time I saw this back in 2007 (Late September, at Disneyland no less...) I was bewitched. Ever since then I've subconsciously influenced by the film. The whole... carrot... habit... thing...


Sound strange? Yeah, it's a weird reason to start eating a lot of carrots. But here's the kicker: I'm getting a tattoo in honor of this little love affair of mine. It's definitely more aimed toward personal health and well being than it is toward an endorsement of Hollywood or ground vegetables for the sake of ground vegetables. It's more a general statement that I'm a dude who cares about my vitamin intake. The value of the tattoo will last longer with an ethos like that.

The tattoo will look something like this: A pistol and a carrot crossed in an "X" formation with the text "Improve My Aim." It'll be done in old school style.

Like I was telling someone today "when I hate something, boy I really hate something and when I love something, I really love something." Proof in point.