My Peoples...

Blue collar is a mentality.

Case in point.

I have a friend on a music tour. She plays in full, live, electric band. All of her own tunes. She's worked hard and at this point could be sittin back and relaxing before every show.

Instead she's out roamin around the crowd, handing out promos and hustlin. Promotin. Hustlin. That's rockstar. There isn't another way about it.

And I wish I was up there with 'em. Because I know how much fun they're havin right now.

And I also know the effort it takes to pull it off.

That kind of attitude or ethic comes from somewhere. People aren't born with this. It's ground in through good parenting. Earning a wage. "Punchin in".

Blue Collar isn't a "look". It's an approach to life.

My peoples...

"Wake me up! Wake me up!"

Last night I coughed up the twelve bucks for a movie theater ticket, and went to see Inception.

Both are crazy, but this movie is NUTS. I'm a "thinkin" guy, and this movie is telling a story on four different pages. Four different sub-plots. Four different angles. You'll at one point feel like someone has screwed your skull off and is eating your brains with a spoon. FACT.

After Memento and Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan is a serious player among Hollywood directors. This movie was a MONSTER to create and put together. And he somehow finds a way to walk us backwards right into the "forward" and seal the entire package up. I left totally satisfied, and with a billion questions. Which means...?

I'm goin to see it again.

The movie is visually stunning and I probably popped a couple neurons along the way, but no matter how manicured the graphics are and how good the acting is, it always seems to come down to this: "do I even care about anyone?".

Enter Leonardo Dicaprio.

As everything moves forward, and as the chips begin crunching as another layer of bean dip was piled on, I found myself always caring about what happens to him and his character.

Finding and knowing "truth" is something that has always been important to me, and without his commitment to his "truth" and his emotional struggle and pain, I'm only knee deep a dope technical movie.

Inception wins.

Dear America

This is why I love my country.

I grew up in the Midwest, on a tiny island in Michigan. Where people stopped on the street when I was 10, and took the time to say hi to a WAY too busy child.

Where a single mama could raise two kids. Where money didn’t matter. Where the simple joys really were the definition of joy.

I didn’t grow up worryin about clothes, and cars, and "who" people were.

I grew up with a pack of other rugrats who got in trouble, who mowed the lawn, who raced home after dusk because I wanted to play one more game.

People typically didn’t hurt kids. We left our door unlocked. We were poor, and I never knew it.

I was taught that if I worked hard, I could do anything.

Men had blue-collar jobs, worked long hours, drank harder. Loved their wives. Stayed with them a long long time. They fought about money. They always seemed to have dinner on the table. Football ruled all. And football was what we looked forward to.

And the thing I remember most….. the MOST….

Is that EVERY single parent I knew, just wanted their kids to have a better life than they did. That was the goal above everything else…. EVERYTHING.

I still to this day, because of my upbring, don’t need a lot. I just need enough.

It’s the conversations, the friends, the daily moments, that mean the most to me.

I really am the embodiment, personally, of all that America has to offer.

My only job is to give that to my kid when I have one. So he/she can have, well, a BETTER life than me.

This is what America means to me.

I hope everyone has a safe weekend.

Timmy:D

Initiative

William Kamkwamba saw a windmill in a textbook. He SAW a windmill.

He then gathered garbage, built himself one, and it worked.

Which is somewhat extraordinary when you live in Malawai and the windmill ends up powering your tiny village.