Eww de Toilette

Until now, scientists have long been baffled by the peculiar behavior of male Capuchin monkeys, urine washing. When approached by a female, males will urinate on their hands and then heartily rub urine onto their bodies. Just like teenage boys dousing themselves in Axe body spray, their research renders up similarities to behavior in other species, as well. The hormones in urine have long been used by wildlife to announce fertility or territory. Male dogs, for example, will mark their territory with their scent and female elephants will announce their oestrus period from trace hormones in their urine. 

Finally, after a 4-year study lead by researcher Kimberley Phillips at Trinity University in Texas, research has confirmed exactly what we don’t want to hear:  that female monkeys actually respond to this display. Phillips reasons that, “urine washing by males might provide chemical information to the females” speaking to the chemical hormones that signals information about their availability and social standing. Since adult males have a higher concentration of the male hormone testosterone in their urine, those that produce more oftentimes can indicate their sexual maturity and social ranking among the group. These findings were initially linked when researches noted that males, when solicited by a female, “increased their rate of urine-washing,” said Phillips. 

Anyone familiar with the theory of evolution can take some comfort in knowing that humans have an enlarged frontal cortex and will probably use more sophisticated means of courtship. It's not that humans are better or more superior than other life forms on Earth. Certainly not. But it would stand to reason that females are far more “evolved” than their male counterparts - something that Darwin could never have predicted. 

Now onto real business...

Cappuccino, anyone? 

Coffee...Grinds

In contrast to yesterday's gold-plated marketing scheme, I offer up one of the worst examples ever. This commercial is so burdened by sexist ideology and wacky repression it leaves me wondering how women even existed during this time. At one point, I completely forget what they are advertising.

If any marketing cats today tried to parody this style and plug this into prime time, they may find, just by virtue of its anachronism to modern culture, that they would actually be selling their jeans or t-shirts. *cough*cough* Old Navy.

Part of me was almost waiting for this line from the girl at the end... "Listen you half-brained fruitbot, I bought this coffee because it tastes good."

It's not so much that we've gotten better in how we market to people. We have. It's that it stands to represent just how far we have developed as a society.

And it's not just our advertising that's benefited.

Happy Easter!

I hope you get to share the day with family and friends. 

Mmmm....Mmmm....Good Advertising!

This is unarguably the best commercial of all time. You know the one with the snowman who comes inside from outdoors, sits down at the table with a warm bowl of steaming Campbell's Chicken Soup, nestles in to take a sip from his spoon, and an adorable, freckled boy comes smiling through the snow! All the while, "Let it Snow" is playing in the background to complete the wintertime appeal of being home for the holidays. It makes me smile and feel warm inside every time I watch it.

What this commercial is able to accomplish is pure genius. Campbell's has simultaneously created a full-bodied advertisement that plays equally to all people, of any age. Kids watch it and they see a really cool snowman turn into a happy, smiling boy. They probably went to their parents right after begging for Campbell's soup. Adults can also watch it and instantly appreciate the warm and cozy feelings the commercial projects. The commercial lets you escape to a place we wish we could be all the time! It can make any adult miss his or her childhood, and can make any child appreciate the one they have. Campbell's Soup used the warmth of the soup to warm the hearts of people everywhere. It's the most well-crafted advertisement and is, still, the longest running commercial of all time. It aired continuously for 17 years, until last year when the commercial itself got "canned".

Last night, while I was out celebrating another friend's 30th birthday, I met him, the Campbell's Soup boy! His name is actually Scott. He's now in his 20s and was conspicuously dressed in sandy needle-cord pants and a light green hoodie, wearing a form-fitting LA Dodgers ball cap. Nothing like the plaid button up shirt in the commercial. But once you get past the disguise, you instantly notice the same freckled face and hardy smile that made him famous in his youth.  I asked him how he felt about being known as the "Campbell's Soup boy," to which he said, "I like it. The commercial connected with a lot of people, even to this day, and it's cool to think that I was able to be a part of it." I then said that the commercial has become synonymous with the winter season and asked him why he thought they took the commercial off the air. He sat forward in his chair and said, "It's been playing for a long time. It's still the longest running commercial of all time. I guess they felt that the commercial just got outdated. I hope they bring it back."

And I hope they do too. Campbell's Soup managed to create an advertising classic by bringing that warmth of its soup to the viewers at home. Most commercials have a short lifespan based upon the particular product they are selling and the demographic they are selling it to. Campbell's does right here by creating what all advertising and marketing campaigns hope to accomplish, timeless loyalty.

Bring this one back, please.

The Underdog

Whichever country you are from, we should all have a sense of national pride. There is no country that is greater than the other because there is no person who is greater than the next. I'm from the U.S., so naturally I'm biased towards my country. 

Historians would define it as ethnocentrism, the belief that your civilization is the best for the sheer fact that you - yourself - are in it. I love my country for a lot of reasons.. One of them being that America has typically been a nation of upstarts and underdogs, from the very birth of the country. It's the collective vision for who we are as a people. It is the ESSENCE of the American Dream that you can come from nothing, work hard, commit to something, and that the only thing truly holding you back, is YOU. 

Now, I could CLOWN these guys on their lyrics, but when they put out something like this, it makes me appreciate the value in being the underdog. 

Reflections

It's been WAY too long between blog posts. Time to grab a broom handle and lay tribute to some blues, and do some Spring Cleaning.

But I have good reason, I promise.

I've been busy turning 30.

Contemplating. Growing. Listening. Learning.

It's the last one that is the hardest, sometimes. There's A LOT of things I've learned up to here. Maybe even more things I've learned to appreciate.

I've learned the hard way this past year how to build a brick house. One brick at a time. Every day working. Patching things together, moving them around, and then along. And before you know it, when you look back behind you, there's a house sitting there.

However you would care to examine it, I have found a window to my soul, for the good, and the bad, right here.

THIS is not hard for me anymore.

I love my solitude now. I have many close friends, but RARELY find myself in the position where I'm "wasting words".

Last night I went out for a bit, and people watched.

I was on my "block" surrounded by people my age, when I became lost in a couple who were painfully expressing their own idea of what was attractive to the other. I felt like I could walk up to the two people standing there and tell them EXACTLY what the beginning, middle, and end of their journey will be together.

I felt lonely.

It made me miss my X a little.

Not that I missed the actual relationship, just the laying in bed part, watching TV, knowing what the "noises" she made meant... of being familiar with another person. I know it's all going to happen again, I'm just NOT into the process it takes to want to get "familiar" with someone.

The other thing I've learned is that the only thing a man has that's TRULY of value is his life experience.

I'm old enough now to know my life experience has allowed me to learn some things about myself. And I'm thankful to know I have the patience enough to listen to it.

Life is getting big. There's some distance here I haven't noticed before.

I am so excited for everything that's to come. But at this point, all these thoughts begin to come to mind...

I completely highjacked my blog this year for my own personal reasons.

For me this was as much about finding my way through the fire as it was finding my voice and being comfortable to stand on stage for the first time and sing.

It's also been a year of incredible insight. I'm not a big stats guy, and I hope to never be. Show me the game, give me the players, but all I really care to know about them is where their heart is. In terms of personal growth, though, stats can be very telling. This year I maintained my typical viewership on up to about the 11th month - that god forsaken 11th hour - when EVERYTHING changed. It seemed everyday when I would show up to lay another brick, more and more people would stop by. Denmark, Argentina, Iran, Russia, then China, then Morroco, then Belarus, you get the point. This continued for the ENTIRE month.

26 different countries in all, PEOPLE FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD had tuned in to read my blog this year.

Then you throw in the "hypothetical" that Angelina Jolie is following me on Twitter...

Which leads a man to contemplate some things, like how can you possibly even BEGIN to top that.

Angelina Jolie?!?!?! I feel like I'm standing right next to Brad Pitt.

But to just give up, would mean I am either extremely lazy, or just playing dead. Two things of which I am not. So I will definitely keep on building, laying down bricks.

Moreso, it's been a year of formulating a self-belief. Because sometimes it gets dark and I lose my way. I can get scared even - unsure and hesitant how to put on my cape and fly. But I do know this, I've never forgotten the WAY to where I'm going.

I also know I'm someone with lots of opinions and a LOT to offer the world.

You take the "self" part out of "self-centered" and "self-seeking" and you get some pretty cool concepts.

I need to stay out of me.

Let me look out of this reflection and into helping you.

God, however you choose to seek him out, REALLY is.

Like Never Before

As complicated as I feel sometimes, and as complex as I may sometimes seem....

This is where I'm most home. 

My cajon on stage performing. It's the very outlet I am most in love with. The music. The camaraderie. The absolute desire to push the boundaries in my own self. The reactions of what it is exactly I'm playing on. The applause. It's the people watching and noticing their ears perk up as they begin to hear a new song for the first time, and then working up the courage to start dancing in front of others because that's what feels right. 

When I play, I play hard. To the point where I will actually bleed on my cajon sometimes. The people who know me, and who play with me, know that if I'm not bleeding I'm not playing. It's not that I set out to bleed. In fact, I've worked up some pretty nice callouses to prevent it from ever happening again. It's just that if I didn't I would know in my heart that I wasn't giving it my absolute all. My very best. 

I have performed with a score of talented musicians. I've even gone on tour...twice. I am very familiar and comfortable with being on cue in front of others. 

Still, every time before I climb on that stage I have butterflies in my stomach. My hands get clammy. My knees start to shake. I'm realizing again, for the very first time, the demands of knowing that I am about to commit to something bigger than myself. Of being accountable to other people. Yet it's in that very feeling I also find I don't have to look out for myself alone. 

It's the sweat, the tears, and sometimes the blood, all go to create something that maybe someone in the audience has never felt before. 

Togetherness. 

(Photo Credit: Alfonso de Alba)

Better Man?

There is one thing I can't deal with, woman-hating after a break up. Now okay there may be that period where it is completely healthy and necessary to go back and review every little bad thing about your ex and how she didn't uplift and support you as a person. Break ups are quite possibly one of the most difficult things a person can go through because they are extremely painful. But when all that emotional dust settles and you look ahead at the clearing in the road, there has to be a moment of reckoning where you can reach inside and sit with yourself. We men create a bunch of drama and chaos so that we can learn from that experience and know how to be a better boyfriend in the next "go-around" of Love.

But to just close a chapter like that and say, "Look at what XXXX did to me." is not the point.

I've only committed to 5 girls in my whole life. And I'm almost 30. Commitment is a serious thing for me, and although it sounds a bit Looney Tunes, I honestly thought that I would be with them forever. And when forever comes to an end, it's a nightmare.

Sometimes you won't notice it during, but looking back I definitely can see that there have been many things I've learned about myself or my behavior in each relationship I've been in. Each trial and tribulation has prompted me to grow and learn things about myself so that I can become a better, more sound man. By going into and sitting with my psyche allows me to become a better boyfriend each time. And most importantly, by doing that, I get to look back at the "Girlfriend Graveyard" of my life and realize that each one of those five girls were pretty incredible people and each one gave me so very much.

There's not a chance that life is about being perfect. Because it really is about learning from all the bad and then allowing it all to become good.

Please don't hate your X. It makes you look shallow, and classless.

Move to another spot.

Look inside.

The Greatest...

U.S. Presidents aside, one of the greatest speeches given by one of the greatest Americans in all of history, right next to Ben Franklin, Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, and Babe Ruth.

Why? They all made us believe in something by giving us something to believe in.

This is one of the best videos on YouTube.

Every one of us on the planet should watch it.

Humbled by the King

43 years ago tomorrow Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be shot to death while standing on the balcony of a Memphis hotel.

The news will spread and send shock waves through the country sending millions of Americans towards an impulse of violence. For the next 5 days the country will burn. Cities across the nation from Washington D.C., Chicago, Detroit, Boston, and New York, 168 cities in all, will deteriorate into some sort of race related violence. In all, nearly 700 people will be injured, 40 people will die.

April 4, 1968.

Maybe that type of thinking doesn't work for you. But if you weren't alive yet to experience this, just try to imagine and recreate a moment that was so very "death defining" for our nation's history. Whether you lived through the moment or not, this was a time when our country was separated by MAJOR gaps in its generation and politics, and was one of only two times Americans actually wondered if the country would just simply disintegrate.

Therefore, to even try and quantify what Martin Luther King Jr. did for this country and his impact on future generations would be next to impossible. He was, in my humble opinion, one of the 4 greatest Americans who ever lived.

He carried the bright torch of humanity and let shine the light of freedom in ways no one else could have done.

With all do respect, I learned one of the greatest things tonight by going over your readings. 

"There is no glory in the finish line. The glory is all over me in the process it takes to get me there." 

In the end, you Sir would finish what Abraham Lincoln began 105 years earlier.

And you would finish strong. 

Even a white, rural boy growing up outside Detroit can tell you that.

I can't thank you enough. For all of it.