The Friendly-Shady

(Cell Phone vibration):

Arthur: "Wusup Jud?"
Jud: "Whatupppp? Whatchoo doin tonight?"
Arthur: "Not much; well I've gotta go to this party with a friend of mine."
Jud: "That sounds like fun. Who all is going?"
Arthur: "I'm not real sure. It just one of those thangs; you can probably come, if you want."
Jud: "I dunno; call me when yall are leaving."
Arthur: "Aight man; will do."

Do you recognize this dialogue? You should. It is something, in one form or another, we all do. This is the Friendly-Shady.

In respect to the above example, two things are obvious: 1) Jud didn't have much going on for the night and was down for whatever. 2) Arthur had plans that didn't include Jud and he meant to keep it that way. What wasn't so obvious, but is implied, is the mutual respect each of them had for both themselves and each other. Notice how the dialogue didn't go:

Jud: "Hey, what are you doing tonight?"
Arthur: "Going to a party with another friend."
Jud: "Cool. Can I come?"
Arthur: "No; you won't really know anyone there, I'm a second degree invite, you'd be a third degree invite and I don't want to have to end up babysitting you all night."
Jud: "OK. Thanks for saving me from a night full of awkward non-versations."

The conversation didn't happen like this because that isn't how we communicate; it's much too direct. Instead, we speak more like the first one as Arthur subtly conveys his shadiness in a friendly way. Had Arthur not been friends with Jud, he probably would have just lied to him about what he was doing and said that he'd call him tomorrow. Of course he'd have no intention of calling. It's just one of those things we say.

I, for one, appreciate it when someone friendly-shady's me. It's kind of like when someone cuts you off on the interstate, glances over and smiles and waves. What they're really saying is, "I'm not sorry, but I appreciate your position. No offense, but I've got to get where I'm going and that place doesn't include you."

Communication is so much more than the literal words we speak. Instead, it is an elaborate orchestra of cultural gestures that link us from our individual separation.

Do More Now

...For a further look into the dynamics of "The Degrees of Invitation", visit my new Blog at www.mysecrestvocabulary.wordpress.com.

Recessionomics

What is appreciation, really? And,




Who knows how many good days one has anyway? And,



If he knew that they were so good, then why the hell does he not have them right now and tomorrow and everyday after that? So, then,




Why would one ever even want to know that they are having a good time? And, if so,

Wouldn't we only find happiness in a whisper,

- as if hiding a comment from a friendly foe, like an officer, parent or teacher?

Shouldn't we be enjoying ourselves?

Why not do a good deed for our own sake today?

Phantom Pimples

Even now as an adult, I find that I occasionally get those irritatingly unattractive blemishes of the skin upon my face known to many as Pimples, or, to others, as Zits, or, when it's one that's real, real big and red and full of white puss, "This is my friend Fred."

But they're never as bad as we think they are, are they? Usually, as with the occasional neglect of face washing from a few weeks ago manifestations-of-our-laziness pimples, they are like the red wine stain of a go-to wedding shirt - no one ever really notices it. I notice though. Probably because I know it's there. And I notice the pimples too and it's like they plead with me to obliterate them (similar to how Chris' evil pimple talked to him on that episode of The Family Guy.) Even when they are practically invisible popcorn blackheads that I can feel ever-so-slightly under the skin, they seem to summon me to the nearest restroom where I must "Oh Shit" peer, point blank, into the mirror and RIGHT NOW use each of my index fingers to mash on them from just beyond the perimeter; slowly at first, gradually applying pressure unbeknowst to pain, until, gloriously, the mass of mucous is released from my face and splattered back out unto the restroom earth from which it was formed. Backing away from the OCD trance, I look up into my face with an ere of victory only to observe the undeniable redness in the place on my face where I'd just mashed and the capitulating clear blood clusters that slowly ooz from the cavity of what was once a mere invisible mass of slightly uncomfortable build-up that actually called out to no one but me.

"Had I just waited another day or two until the zit was ripe for the pressing, I could still be outside confidently feeding that pretty little insecure girl red-liquor-drink lines and setting snares by which to try and take advantage of her later." But every time it seems as if it is beyond me to stop myself until it is too late.

How much more often does this example of self control-lessness play out in our lives? One place I can think of points back to the reason that one whom has a seasoned eye can almost always pick off the insecure, wanting for attention closet whores at parties by noticing their certain little overly-obsessed-with-their-attention intricacies that they appear to be so eager to put on display as if at a booth at a science fair. Among these, which are several, the most apparent is the caked-on makeup and eye shadow and blond streaks in their hair fakeness that makes them look like a Jersey Shore casting call reject. The makeup, you see, when worn in such abundance that the expressions from her face are hardly noticeable, is the phantom pimple that leaves its scar on the appearance of her face more as a manifestation of the means of hiding rather than that that has been hidden.

Of course, there are such imperfections in us all that should be cleverly concealed, right? Clinging to an undeniable intent on anonymity, pimples are ugly and it is deeply ingrained within us, in our survival-of-the-fittest sexual pursuits, to strive to be as beautiful as humanly possible.

However, in our pursuit of physical maintenance and/or improvement do we, at some point of diminishing returns, begin to lose what it is to even look human. Instead, we begin to collectively move toward an articulation of the pop-culture inspired image of of a pseudo-human. (Isn't the definition of Superficiality - to regard only the surface of things.) But the surface of what things, and how is what is attractive influenced? For there is no supreme court Justice of Beauty whom sits atop a tall podium with an iron-clad gavel in hand, passing judgement on all who dare to face the crowd of day.

Instead, it is a subjective rule that's beset in each man and woman yet it is similarly drawn within each of us according to popular culture and the sub-culture within the geography that one lives and the social circle or crew in which one runs.

The pop culture component, obviously, is that which is promoted on MTV or by famous athletes and celebrity movie stars and musicians. The effect of chicken head revolutionaries like Pamela Anderson and The Beatles and the Governah, Arnold Schwarzenegger, impact the way each of us view style and beauty and philosophy and economics and the political issues of the time and what it means to be Cool J like L.L or wear Trucker's hats like Ashton Kutcher. These mainstream artists and even those of them who are merely the faces of art like Miley and Brittney, through the power of mass communication, have cleverly molded the icon of the Cool and, too, of the Beautiful.

And by way of TMZ Television and bloggers like you and smart phones the MJ's (pick one) of the day implant themselves all across America and most of the world into your high schools and colleges and rough street porches and in the Cheers of your choosing where these superficial ideals are perceived and consumed by the masses and purchased by those whom are able and willing to go that extra mile for the sake of the preservation of his or her vanity. In these few brave, cool people is the gavel of the sub-culture borne. For they wear their fake-bake muscles and plastic breasts and Coach purses amidst a confident swagger that draws the rest in like the sun does it's planets and the style portrayed therein bounces like balls contagiously against one another from the earliest adaptors to the mids to the so-two-years-ago-jeans lates and this trickle down continues and the earlies are always buying and trying and the mids keep their calculators on them at all times and the latest of the late adaptors may very well be the least superficial of all, but they surely spend most of their life whining of the ways of the present and nervous in the place of uncomfort that is anywhere outside their safe little existence.

So is it wrong to be that way - to sport an imperfection rather than so blatantly hide it with the efforts associated with fashion. Is it right to be a pho-hawk metro dude who looks like a lady? Or is the right really somewhere in between? If it is right to exist in the Mid, then us waiters-on-acceptance must thank the Pamela's and tanning salon patrons and also those crotchety old stubborn mountain men because without them, either side, then how would one ever know what Beauty is?

Indeed, popcorn pimple poppers have been around since the time of the leaves of Adam and Eve. They exist in every continent and in every culture. For change is a way of beauty and beauty is a human quality and wherever there are humans there will be those who aim to perfect upon our appearance and also our condition and also those, from the perspective of the middle-dwelling masses, who take the aim for perfection just a little too far too fast. The doing so of perpetually changing in an effort to achieve that envied form, sadly, almost always is produced in selfish aims, but the succeeding, gladly, is an infectious being.

"The animal does not lie beneath the thin layer of our skin, but beneath the thin layer of our clothes." Yahia Lababidi

Get in where you fit in, but remember not to fail to Bee Yourself.

Do More Now

Pocketfull of Eyeballs

What are the best parts of a life? Think about 'em: the peanut-butter covered moments that are as refreshing as a green flav-o-freeze on a ninety degree day.
Hmmmm. Breathing in deep with blue-skied filled eyes; these Sunday afternoon porch beers; the late-night sloments; the split seconds of want; the next to last seconds of shaken open romance; the passion-filled chance that something will go as it should; and it does because of a pocketfull of eyeballs of days-past that warrants the capacity for greatness.
Thank you for your wise words; for the trial times and the cold nights; for the irony; for the laughter in the wake of awake mornings; for being there; for not; for...
Give me your eyeballs - LIFE.
Give them to me!
And I will graft them from your every-day-like pieces and take them as my own. I'll take them from your Can I Get bums, your Here You Go professors, your Pastors, your Priests, your airport-bar wisdom-nugget purveyors, your strangers in line or at a wait-bench outside of a noontime breakfast nook and I thank you for the half-smile hey-nods, the good morning, good evening, and good night; for the five broken noses, the car wreck, the wedding handshakes, the funeral hugs, and for the failure and success that shall surely follow.
I love them.
I need them.
And I will take them from YOU every day. I'll pack'em in my jeans pockets till their full as I carve them from your faces. I'll take them from you as if they were already mine. I'll cut them from you as if your head were the pumpkin of my Jackolantern - sharp-gripped with a short white knife; hand in the skull, fingers swimming in your flat, white-seed-guts; in strait lines and on sharp edges; cutting slowly and gripping tightly, deep-questionly slicing, prodding, and feeling the tip of the end of the dull blade with the tip of the index finger of my other hand as the knife delicately cuts.
Give me your soul.
Every one of you.
Give me the negative of yours and it will be the candle-lit light of mine.
These are my pocketfull of eyeballs.
Thank you for them...

For now,

I will go and give them to a blind man on a park bench that is rightly in the heart of the City.

Appreciate More Now

The Handwashing Dilemma

Think about the last time you were in a public restroom. Maybe you were at a wedding or perhaps you were in the can just before a lunchtime meeting with an associate, friend, or client.

In the restroom, walking from the urinal, you finish your business and you're faced with an all-too-common dilemma; to wash the hands or not to wash the hands. It's a dilemma, not because you're in a hurry or because you may have some weird fetish for germs, but it's a dilemma because you know that there is at least a fourty percent chance that a handshake is eminant and if you wash, then it is certain that that shake will be wet or, at the very least, clammy, and the doing so, the offer of a damp handshake, is deemed rude, even if only for a moment. And in that moment, the one that you've lived, by now, about thirteen hundred times over due to mispoke words or mistepped (before a lady) doorways or after unintentional mini-burps. In those dreadful split seconds where your faux paus' hang in the wind like boxer shorts on a flagpole, exposed and vulnerable, your whole social presence is transformed, even if only for a moment, and it is in these embarraced-faced situations that make or break your composure, which is what most people tend to feed from like the obese do from the local Golden Coral. And there you are with this seemingly small question in front of you as the urinal flushes behind and the mirror faces in front: to wash and dry with this proposedly green hand dryer (that never fully works even if I finish the job myself on the sides of my pants or in the inside of my pockets) or not to wash and just brush the 'supposed' germs from the conscience by rubbing the hands together a few times as if Pilot from the Easter story.

I, for one, noticed this little terrerium of a greater dilemma of "What is Truth?" about nine months ago when I was still managing / selling construction projects. Meeting the guy for the second time at a Longhorn off Southside, I arrived first, went to the restroom, went through the 'wash or no wash dilemma', washed, dried with the blow dryer and left the restroom for the restuaraunt to see the potential client, hands folded at the fingers and smiling in a fake way, standing patiently at the hostess stand. As we shook, I noticed the most quaintly peculiar look as his brow lowered wrinkledly and his eyes darted quickly to the hostess who then led us to our table.

Thinking that maybe it was just my imagination but still debating the root of the awkwardness, I began to expirement with people: washing and not washing when leaving the restroom in certain situations; shaking and not shaking; replying "I'm Good" in lieu of "I am Well" and vice versa dependant upon the person; wearing matching clothes some days and not matching on others (yeah right, that's never on purpose). And I tried on these social miscues for people so as to document thier reactions. Since doing so rather consistently for the last three or four months, I've noticed three apparent truths about manners: 1) What is proper varies from person to person and from sub-culture to sub-culture, 2) What is proper to a given individual is instant as it is transferred via the subconscience, and 3) What is proper, even if only for the moment, is definant.

But seriously, why do we even shake hands? According to my good friend Google, 'the act of shaking hands upon meeting has been around since about 200 B.C. as a gesture of peace showing that the hands hold no weapons. Shaking hands, weather upon meeting, greeting, departing, for congatulations, at the end of a competition, or to seal an agreement, has since been used, in some form or another, has served humanity with a similar purpose: to convey trust, balance, and equality.'

Moreover, let's look at the evolution of the handshake and it's multiple and perpetually forming styles. From the classic, firm and outstreched with three to four up and down motion three to four inch jostles and release, to the "it's been awhile since the last wedding or funeral" handshake and big pat on the back complete with safe wheather-talk questions and followed by an awkward silence, to the slap me some skin friend, up high, down low, with the elbow; to the handpound, once with the fist, 'now blow it up' and bring it back; to the inverted shake with a bring it in for the real thing chest pound quasi-hug that you might give to a 'long time no see' friend in a public place.

The handshake and it's various and perpetually evolving forms are that great little piece of a sub-culture that is often misunderstood yet always necessary in the greeting of friendly or at least 'on the surface of friendly' company. It is a telling of and a listening for that takes place in an instant, as if hitting a major league baseball - seeing the wind and the pitch; seams or no seams; one or two seams; is it strait and fast on the outside corner or is it a change - slow and decieving and destined to be low and late; or maybe it's a curve, starting high and spinning out of control to the dirt. In this moment, if one were to misread the pitch or come in too fast or too late, then the handshake and thus the meeting will begin poorly. In baseball, a half of a second is all one has to decide what pitch and where, when, and if to swing and if you muck it up, then that pitch is gone and your behind in the count '0 and 1.' The good news is that while a poorly read or a badly shaken hand may leave you slightly "behind in the count", you have several other chances to impress or disimpress your adversarial friend or associate or, perhaps, your blind date. (If it is a blind date, in the interest of being polite, be sure to lead her with your arm as you would any girl.)

The next step, prior to even speaking, is your style of dress. As one who typically wears clothes from the last-season sales rack, it still amazes me as to the massive variety of the "right things to wear" available. And as a man that lives a Tale of Two Cities traveling back and forth to and from Brunswick and Jacksonville, I have an interesting vantage point of noticing even the slightest differences in style from one state to another. In Georgia, the Polo horse still stands strong; in Florida, the dragon T. In Georgia, no gel; in Florida, gel (white guys). In Florida, girls still wear skimpy little hot ass little cutoff jean shorts. In Georgia, most women buried thiers just after "Way Down Yonder on the Chatahoochie" stopped playing on country music radio stations. And the back and forth differences continue to colors and shoes and jackets and you get the picture; but wait, theres more.

When I first moved to Jax, I moved to Southside and then to Neptune Beach shortly thereafter, which is where I stayed for about two years up until the beginning of July '09. Now I'm back on Southside. Having had the opportunity to see the beaches with each set of sub-cultural eyes, I remember the Handwashing Dilemma-esque situation that we, my friends and I, encountered weekendly. (First, a little geography: in order to get to "the beaches" from the mainland one had to cross the intercoastal waterway, or "the ditch.") Those who lived in town on the other side of the ditch whom often commuted to the beach bars on weekend nights to party were considered "townies" and those of us who lived at the beach were refferred by them as "beachrats." For the most part, it was a harmless rivalry and longnecks and threehorns did play with one another often. Looking back, the amazing thing was our ability to spot a Townie from across the bar or even from across the parking lot. Even more incredible is that, despite the occasional chachie-douchebag dudes, everyone from Jax that goes out at the beach dresses pretty similar. Now this is profound in two distinctly different ways: 1) Being that the beach bars are by far the best bars, people come from all over Jacksonville and the surrounding area to get drunk at them. While the sub-culture and the style of dress in whatever nook-and-cranie part of town in which they live may vary, those that come to the Beach even every now and then to hang tend to have adapted their nightly wardrobe to that which matches the majority at the beaches or at the bar or bars where he or she most frequently hangs. 2) We almost always picked out the Townies from the Beachrats from a distance despite the fact that their dress was similar. This means, to me, that we were picking up on sub-conscience clues to peg them as friend or foe, native or outsider, skeasy beach biotch or easy townie doe. From the blatenly obvious, yet sometimes misleading cues - beachrats drive beachcruisers, while townies park their cars and walk - to the more vague and often more effective subtelties - the comfort-in-my-kingdom squint of the eyes versus the bobble-head-swivel-desperate-search-for-a-place-to-talk-smiledly-nervousness that screams OUT OF PLACE to everyone in the place. I now know all too well because I've slowly but surely become the later - an other-side-of-the-ditch son of the rich in a poor place wearing two and half year old pair of shoes that vaguely match my Polo Jeans and Brooks Bros. collared shirt with the golden lamb laced and hanging from above by a golden rope in his gut, which isn't ironic at all because that is who I am when I am the townie at the beach bars, walking from an eleven mile driven town truck to a place that was once in my element, but is now only an occasional scene where I must wear an out of date chamelion mask and only hope that I can find multiple high fives and, if I'm lucky, one stimulatingly funny conversation amongst the millions of beach cruisers that comfortably laugh and sit and dude-bro-whatup girl-holla-holla-holla at each other in their dreadfully cool dragon T's and board shirts and skater shoes and swagger jacker skater haters and popped collars and gel and hourglass shaped dresses that top out fakely with bleach-blonde hair and blue-contacts blue eyes.

But back to the initial meeting of a friend or not-yet-friend; after a dry and dirty or clean and clammy handshake that may or may not have been the appropriate shaken style, after the all-know half-second glace exchange of the respective digs, there is the initial "hi, how have you been, it's good to see you." Now, the grammatically correct answer to the respective grammatically correct question is, "I'm well, how are you?" From there, it is whitely proper to engage in a sequetially unraveling line of weather-talk questions and short, politely smiling answers in which the allowable topics are the weather, traffic, the resturaunt or establishment or even about the general area of the city if it is one that is foriegn to either one of them (all of which should be obviously agreeable). It's deemed proper, mind you, grammatically - i.e. by a certain group of people who study english and continue to box it in and name it according to what they think is proper.

Back in the days when I used to manage construction projects and back in the days prior when I used to hold concrete pump's hoses, manage sump pump motors, and literally dig ditches to place aggregate (rocks) on hot-Georgia-sun days, the way to aproach someone verbally in the cool 6:30 morning dew covered site was simple - "Mornin" , "Mornin." From there, silence ensued for a second or ten, followed by a strait-faced hilarious story and laughs and banter and there was always a poke-fun at the new guy and one behind-the-back-talk for the foreman until he shows and then the day begins and the stories continue, some true - SOME - but all were as funny as a sheep dog on ice skates.

And on the ball court, there's whole different verbal routine and a brand new cadence. As there is I'm sure in a Ball Room with courtsies and "Good Evening, Madame"'s, as there is a slightly different etiquete entrance speach with each of your circles; at work, home, church, with Mom, with Dad, with the girl you hope to soon "know", with the ex-girl you once knew, with the waitress at Longhorn versus the cashier at Wendy's.

The gist is that many of us live our whole life in accordance to this seemingly endless barrage of Sienfield-esque rules of engagement. We speak, dress, shake, and fake our way through each day as if drone lemmings marching to and from our involuntary appointments speaking, dressing, and shaking involuntarily to a similarly, yet inconsistantly percieved Jody Call, as if to the tune of a military-esqu song so appropriately named, "Manners", by The Unending Attempt to Fit In.

And more appealing, when you back up from yourself and look at the whole wonderful ordeal as if a bird on an away-from-it-all perch, the author of the song, The Unending Attempt to Fit In, is as blind and brillient as the would-be son of Ray Charles and Helen Keller. While this Unending Attempt is at the very core of all that is human, he doesn't even realize what he or she means to fit into. If it is a box, then it is an elastic box; always changing; forever expanding in one circle and minimizing in another; perpetually chamelion in color from the outside and also in the in. The threshold between right and wrong, good and evil, coothe and uncoothe, it seems, varies dependent upon the social circle as the wheather varies according to the presence of the sun. And we get so caught up in this neverending tussle of an attempt at vain, fake, correctness until it happens. Until finally, on some rain-skyed day on the northside, God grants us eyes and wings and cold, hungry, poverty and we can see, for but only a moment, the greater truth of the lacking, which is also the giving. Lying flat on the back, eyes to the place in the clouds where the sun should be, peered on only by the bird that may or may not sing, can one realize that the sun, the true sun, weather it's raining or cold or sweat-drippingly scorching, is there; weather we like it or not, it's there; in all of it's terrible glory, it's there; it's always there.

Further, or perhaps, lesser, so is the woman beneath low-clashioned clothes at a high-fashoioned ball. And so is the "I'm Good" introduction acceptance at the "I'm Smart and you're not" alumni convention. And finally, so are the germs on the unwashed hand that you accept everyday without a smirk or snicker because it's dry and thus satisfactory, because something in your right-minded brain says that that's the way it should be.

And how much more often does this dilemma play out in our lives - to act according to the avoidance of immediate WTF-looks and perhaps, still, to satisfy a most acceptable conclusion as we forgoe the action that would otherwise serve the best interest of the greater good? In the friendly-shady invite or the shady-friendly deni'nvite, in big ole fake boobs, in the waive and smile because I just cut you off in traffic, its in holding the door for strangers who are within ten or less steps, and in saying Ma'am or Sir, or in the way one crosses her legs in certain company. All of these and more are indicative of man's means to cope with man. How do you cope everyday? Are we so wrong for doing so?

To do what is best for all is best of all, always?,

Just because it makes people laugh doesn't always mean it's a Good joke,

None of us always wash our hands,

Truth More Now

The Sadiction

The Sadiction, or for those of you who prefer to speak English the old fashioned way, the Sales Addiction, is a real, living, breathing social notion that has swept our nation clean from poor to rich to wealthy and back to poor again. It's the reason car salesman sit in suits on hot Florida summer days, smoking two packs of chiggarettes, lighting the next from the last, playing cards to pass the time between ransackable potential buyers who show up in rent-a-trucks inside afternoon thunderstorms. It's selling door-to-door fifty times over, five days in a row, all for what equates to be about fifteen dollars per hour, sun up till sun down, around town, laughing and grinding and Jammin. It's all for nothing estimates and quotes to fatcat buyers who shop drunk on the gravy that was but no longer is. It's getting the run-a-around; laughing and squinting, squeezing the forehead, and shaking it off; getting kicked in the teeth, getting up, toothless and enamored and eager but scathed all the same. It's a Real Estate hustle for over a month for the sale of just one house that ends up splitting it's commission two ways and then divides by five because "that's the only way the deal could happen." It's the constant "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, Get the F out of my store!, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, nah man, not right now, could you come back later, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, let me think about it, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, I'm Busy, It's too much for me right now, NO, NO, NO, maybe, NO, NO, NO, NO, Yesss!....Initial here, here, here, and please, Mr. Customer, sign here." It's the up-down, back-forth emotional pendulum. It's the leather skin jacket one day and 'brush my shoulders off pimpin' swagger the next. It's a day-to-day self-motivate state of mind. (Go, Go, Go, Go, not too fast, not too slow.) It's counting up ten, starting with one million, nine hundred thousand, three hundred and sixty two, in succession, out loud in the truck and in the head on the way to the door and while waiting in a Dentist's waiting room as this, the counting that is, is the only cure for you're otherwise-stammers or you're dreadfully occasional st-st-st-stutters. It's talking practice in the office with your friends on purpose and at the bank and at the grocery store and the holla, holla, holla, holla at the bar with strangers, all in second nature. It's a structured interest in people; in knowing them in a matter of fifty seconds, in speaking to lead responses, in caring for them but from a distance, in the attempt to control them, people that is, yet doing so delicately enough to shield your doing so from their knowing of the strings that are attached as you wield them in all of the directions that you want them to go; and it's being an actor, too, with tragic sighs while feeling felt-found and also in the silent bursting touchdown dances that must be held in with the face until the customer is at your back and you can finally smile outrageously and fist pump as if Tiger at the Masters. It's a killer instinct stare with flared nostrils that breath quietly as if a Lion in a tall grass field, peacefully looking for limp legged antelopes; peacefully waiting and looking and sniffing. It's being a Bull Shark in a bloody lagoon; breathing and smiling and consuming in a frenzied, jerkheaded rage.............and then silence.
And the rage ends and the sadicted salesman is full and warm and satisfied for a little while until the return of the envied NO's as they keep coming as long as he keeps going and they taunt him, building want for the stimulus created upon the execution of his will upon another, upon the world, and upon himself. Some may define this actualized notion of Allbeing as Power and still others prefer to call it Influence. Either way one may spin it, once you've had it more than once, you need it like a baby calf needs his mother's milk in the morning or as a lonely woman needs a hug and a blanket and a soft kiss on the forehead in the evening or like a twelve-year-old class clown needs a grand applause of laughter in the middle of every day that he is alive.

Don't be afraid to be the class clown,

Don't fear the word NO,

Composure is Power,

Do More Now,

The Young, Poor, and Happy Sadict

Ego Breakfast

Yesterday I had a ride-along with a potential employer. On a muggy hot day, we drove from Daytona Beach, Fl to Orlando, Fl to B.F.E., Fl and finally back to my truck in Daytona. The guy who was to show me the ropes, Bill, was nice and I could tell that he used to be interesting. He had a good way with people, a pure salesman, and he had a pretty good sense of humor. Though, later in the day, while driving between the 10 something businesses that we visited, I could see in his voice a slightly telling creek that suggests a saddened boredness. Prior, at lunch, I quizzed him on his present state. On the up end of a flattened-out rollercoaster, renting alone at the beach at 42, a runner and a Nascar fan, nice-natured with a good relationship with his son and Ex, he failed my happy quiz.

In Bill’s defense, however, the job is legit. The company sells chemical cleaning solutions to industrial facilities at a great profit in a great niched system. The benefits of the job include salary, truck payment, and an opportunity to make a very significant commission. The problem, for me, is the product – SOAP. Do I really want to be a soap salesman? (Me, a strong, smart, passionate man with the potential to change the world; me, as humble as I am cocky; me, a once to-be-when-I-grow-up professional baseball player / astronaut?) Do I have it in me to lay down my pride so as to again pick up a paycheck?

I think that this is a dilemma that I have in common with about sixty-one million and seven (61,000,007) Americans – Swallow my ego, my pride, my passion, my freedom for the sake of survival. How many of us eat a daily Ego Breakfast for the sake of keeping our home and making a truck payment? Many, eat this breakfast selflessly and so honorably as they do it for the sake of their kids or their parents or their significant loved one. Many more, still, swallow their once-passionate pursuits of doing for the sake of an extra 1,000 square feet and a boat payment as they keep up with the Amercianized greed-gravied Jefferson’s. What is the value of your ego?

How many people sleep on sidewalks under the Life section of Sunday’s newspaper, wearing brown-streaked Hanes and an old, brown Falcons toboggan with their ego well in tact? Probably not that many. And there is the bitch of the dilemma – where is the threshold to the point where there is no turning back? At a certain point, the preservation of things like passion and freedom that exist inside one’s figurative ego can crush a man under the weight of the real money-needing world. Conversely, similar to the saddened boredom inherent in Bill yesterday while on the road in the blue Honda, too many people live out their life one Ego Breakfast at a time in a constant state of denial and in the ignorance of their one-day regret.

I read a good short story the other day that does a great job to annunciate the Dilemma that I describe. Many mid-twenty unemployed and newly employed world citizens are faced with this dilemma. The story, How Much Land Does a Man Need by Leo Tolstoy, describes man’s incessant need for more in lieu of what is his inherent place. While I by no means promote life-complacency, there is a Josh-Implied lesson within the story that should not be missed or misinterpreted.

“Each man has a unique set of skills that is his talent. His talent is created by and improved upon according to his interests. His interests are given from God in his nature. He is Free only in the doing of his true interest.”

If you have to eat your Ego for breakfast, do it for but a short while and drown it with extra syrup,

Pursue your personal passionate freedom with your pride intact,

Do More Now

Sheet Karate

There are two types of Sheet Karate.

1) Your alone in bed and you can't quite get comfortable enough to sleep. You constantly reposition from the back to the side to the stomach; legs and arms flailing as if trying to tread water amidst the sheets. If someone were watching from a "fly-on-the-wall" position, they'd think you were practicing a Mr. Miagi inspired Kata.

2) While in bed with your favorite lady-friend, you constantly find yourself waking up cold and half exposed. It's two A.M and you've got to be up in three and a half hours. The sheet tug-of-war that ensues is the Sheet Karate Dual that is of interest.

The how-to-win for the later, Sheet Karate Dual depends on the answer to one basic question: 'Do I want to get some action in the morning?' The strategy, from a man's perspective, is vastly different dependent upon whether the answer is Yes or No.

If the answer is No, then you will most likely subconsciously-half-asleep jerk the covers from her as if you were trying to set a hook on a flounder. She will wake, jerk back, the two of you will exchange butt-to-butt sighs and go back to sleep. At this point, rest assured that the battle is a tie but realize that this is not soccer and so the bout is just in between awake rounds. Eventually, maybe forty minutes later, you wake from your Bikini-Ring-Girl dream, cold and blanketless. At this point, you have a couple of options - a) repeat the previous hook-setting blanket jerk, waking her up even more pissed and returning to a quasi butt-to-butt slumber or b) forgo to her either the sheet or the comforter and wrap up tight and alone in the other. After all, your not looking forward to her morning anyway. Sleep now with your dreams with another (either past or future or Only); half-warm in the solitary blanket of your choosing; waking, half-rested and contented but without enthusiasm.

If the answer is yes, then the solution is simple. Forgo not neither of the blankets, but a piece of your bed-position. Spoon-cuddle and sleep-flirt. When it is time, she will wake smiling and thirsty. Simply follow the smile-instincts with which the early morning blesses.

Single and usually in-between the aforementioned no and yes, I am by no means an expert on sleeping, either with or without woman. If you constantly toil in a solo Sheet Karate as mentioned earlier, endeavor to dual, I suggest to find someone to sleep with. Wheather at bars, or coffee shops, or at postachio parlours with the nearest Publix, talk mad shit to the woman you think that are just a hair out of your league. Trust me, they are not. At the very least your will be moving towards a we and away from the dreaded by-yourself I. For even sleeping, and eating for that matter, with one from whom you are partially detached is far better than that lonely opposing option. There are so many woman (or men for the woman out there) that are nightly available while they wash thier single finished-with dishes - one fork, one plate. No matter how small or big or at-first-glance grotesque, they are out there and we should be too; we, the single, un-understood-for-now and competing Main-ful Lions; this is a dual that we can win, but only if we get off of that uncomfortable TV-infested couach and dare to begin. As for woman....what a great dilemma that I hope to forever absolve to understand, but deep-down wish never fully know.

Searching is as Fun as you wanna make it,

Do More Now

Gimpy-Gazelles

The other day, as has been the case for most of the last few weeks, wearing a backpack filled with my planner and this computer, I rode my bike 11 blocks North to my then-office, the Jacksonville Beach Library. Upon arrival, I realized that I had forgotten not only my computer charger, but also my bike-lock. Being that I had no charger and being that I needed to use the Library’s free Wi-fi to check email to see about some job search inquiries I was involved in (and fantasy baseball and facebook), I decided leave it unattended and unlocked for the 45 minuets it would take for my computer battery to die. When I returned, dead-batteried-computer in my sack, my bike was gone.
I sighed and thought, “that’s what I freakin get.”
Don’t be that Gimpy-Gazelle, always lagging behind at the water’s edge during the dry season. Believe me; ‘That Lion ‘el BITE-CH-YOU!’
Lions. Though I’ve never been to Africa, I’ve always been fascinated by lions from what I know of them from the Discovery Channel. How they fight. How they play and travel in Prides. It’s fascinating how they scheme at night. Observing, I notice that the only animals that ever feels the lion’s bite and ultimately fills their belly is the weakest of the weak of the more peaceful jungle animals such as zebras, antelopes, or gazelle’s. Beyond that, it seems that the Pride doesn’t even target the fast ones or the strong ones or the ones that stick with the group. Upon further research, however, I found that Lions aren’t in fact prejudiced toward gimpy, slow-running meat. In fact “Lions are opportunist hunters, and, after a careful stalk, will take the closest animal regardless of its age, sex or condition…” (link)
And what of the Gazelles – the Grasseaters. They roam across the countryside. Quietly; always together; their food ever-present; it seems as if they never need to squabble or kill or fight. It seems like they are at peace.
Grasseaters are the animals (or humans) who are content to live off of the bland, do-able facets of the world which are in abundance – on which one can survive all the way to death. They are peaceful beings, content to live on the Tofu Taco’s and veggie-burgers. “Wildebeasts are gregarious animals, and scattered individuals will often attach themselves to a herd of some other species…We have noted no aggressive behavior or display of any sort between wildebeests and other herbivores.” (From the book, The Wildebeast in Western Masailand, by Talbot and Talbot)
The way of the Grasseater is as if a good dream that can only be in that uber-world that I suppose most Liberal pixies exist. Socialism, as far as I can tell, is just that – a pareto-peaceful-Neverland that would be palatable if only all men were content with the lesser-life – the saltless, the ham-less, the WNBA existence of basketball without slamdunks, crossover-360-no-look-allyoops, and last second Jordan-esque heroics. But what the leftists – the Grasseaters – don’t realize is that the peaceful gazelle’s of the world need their gimpy counterparts to occasionally get picked off and devoured by the hungry lions that constantly ambush the herd. They need them because they would otherwise slow them down. They would otherwise disrupt their peace.
As I was walking home from the library that day I thought, “It was probably some bum (who stole my bike). I shoulda known. They’re always hanging around there. Afterall, it’s a free place to hang around if you’ve got nothing else to do.” (If you have no job or no money to blow someplace else – afterall, I was there too) I guess I trusted in the inherent goodness of people. Still, I shook my head and laughed softly as I thought of a quote I’ve kept from an old GSU professor – “If we make doormats of ourselves, should we be surprised when people wipe their feet all over us?”
So then, what is the answer? Darwinism? Ah, yes, the survival of the fittest. The old, the sick, the retarded and eternally injured ones of us – are better off dead. If they can’t keep up; if they aren’t savy enough investors; if they don’t have the UNMPH it takes to make it big or even scratch by in this world, then the world, then our whole human race is for the better if they are gobbled up and forgotten. That is the way, right?
No, that couldn’t be. We are not animals. We are understandingful, compassionate beings. That is what separates us from animals – compassion that is. So then the choosing few that can and do work our little knuckles to the bone will continue to do so. Through storming recessions and even in bull-headed-blue-sky wealth, tighten our grip upon the rope and bear the load of the poor and lazy and eternally sick and injured and retarded masses. We will sacrifice our hardworked-for freetime at soup kitchens and give to charity. We will always give-the-penny, never expecting to take.
Isn’t there a happy medium? Isn’t there a way to get mine but still give back. Socialism definitely isn’t the answer. Look at Russia. That didn’t work. Look at Kali-forn-yia (sorry Arnold). Back to Russia; it didn’t work because there are Lions amongst the peaceful herd and these individuals have a blood-thirst for the finer things of life - for power, for more than the bland diet necessary for mere survival. This is the system of difference that was created. There is an idea behind capitalism and that is that every man holds a self-evident truth – the pursuit of self interest. That is, each man, at his core, will act in the best interest of himself and the culmination of the actions of all men (whether in cooperation or in opposition) will be the result of the civilized economy of the whole. There is one statement-question that, to me, summarizes the dilemma presented here:

“To do what is best for all, is best of all, always?

But what do we do with the Gimpy-Gazelles?

I am in the process of starting a study of just that. The name of the study, the name of the to-be organization, the name of the fixinta-website is 1000 Phalanges. The idea is to develop an effective method to analyze the hopeless, the homeless, and the jobless person and then help him pull himself up so that he can rejoin the rest of us working, playing, contributing many - grasseaters and lions alike. This is not to be a soup-kitchen charity. It is to be a concentrated effort to pick up one worthy man or woman at a time. I will not knock off early nor quit my job (once I get a new one) to extend to this person. I will, however, sacrifice some of my extra time. A friend once told me in an email, “you’ve got to take care of yourself first, so that you will be able to take care of others.”

If you ever find yourself acting like a Gimpy-Gazelle – always whining and grumbling and excusing and lagging – you best change your balls and pull yourself together, ‘cause if you don’t,

That Lion ‘el BITE-CH-YOU!

Bad luck is for losers,

Be the Lion or learn to run with the herd,

Don’t be a Gimpy-Gazelle,

Do More Now

Change Your Balls

Last month, I went to Memphis, Tn for their annual'Memphis in May Barbecue Fest.' If you've never been to Barbecue Fest, you should. Picture 300 Keg Parties - all complete with fine music, even finer woman, and some of the best Barbecue you've ever put in your mouth.

On the Thursday-of, we went out early. It was hot - real hot - so my cousin left his girlfriend, Suzanne, and me to wait in the shade while he went to fetch us some frozen drinks. Suzanne, her and I just beyond the weather-talk stage, said "We're gonna have to walk back to the hotel before tonight. I'm gonna have to take a shower, change clothes, change socks..." I interrupted instinctively, "Change your Balls." When my cousin returned we all laughed profusely then and throughout the rest of the trip.
Though I didn't realize it then, the statement "Change Your Balls" can be very deep, a bit discomforting (ha), and, perhaps even, inspiring.
About five years ago I created a "secret" word with myself - Fearless Facade. (The word, still in my vocabulary, is on my Fixinta list so it may show up on here at some point.) A man's Fearless Facade is the outer layer that he (or she) wears when he is uncomfortable or anxious or scared. Under this cloak he can mingle with Cake-Eaters at coaster-parties and can comfortable take prospective clients out to lunch. I feel that, to some extent, we all have a fearless facade that we occasionally slip on. We incognitoedly wear it like the magic sunglasses that Julian wears in the movie "Big Daddy." My fearless facade is a lightly smug, partially cocky, sarcastically laugh-at-himself-funny persona. Thinking back, there were phases in my life (like High School) where I rarely took the mask off. Thinking forward, there has got to be a better way.
On Monday, June 8, 2009, at about 8:21 A.M., I was fired (technically put, "laid off") from my JOB as a Project Manager for an industrial construction company. I have a mind to present a pretty good see-what-had-happened-was story about the events that lead to my Walking Papers acceptance, but I won't do it. It doesn't matter. I was boredly employed in a mediocre job; now I am not.
Being that I got the heads-up that what went down was going to be going down two weeks ago today, the contents of the 8:21 conversation with our President came to me lacking surprise. I was ready with a good "C-mon man" response, but he didn't ask me for one. Since the day (two weeks ago today) that I found out about my to-be-firing, I've been flipping through the closet of my personality for that all-too-familiar, fearless, incognito robe. The only problem was, the skin that I searched for didn't seem to fit as well as it had in high school.

How can one, while sipping a Crown-drink at an after-work networking event, arrogantly say "I'm unemployed." I guess I could say that with an enunciatedly deep voice and a cocky / humorous aire and get a laugh or two, but ultimately, when the day is done and the party is over, I am either (whether employed or unemployed) going to forced to look at one man in the mirror. How can I ensure that I like who I see?

As if putting on a fitted hat a year after losing it in the garage, my Fearless Facade just didn't seem to be comfortable any more. What can I do? I could drown my sorrows in a sea of rum and CoorsLight. I could apply for unemployment.

On Monday night, I can honestly say that I was sporting my whoa-is-me-little-girl-Balls. Recurring questions like "What am I gonna do" kept playing in my mind like someone pressed the repeat button. On Tuesday night, I occasionally itched at my Tow-up-from-the-flo-up-cause-I-don't-know-whats-up-Balls. Today, I have been after it since the A.M. I put the finishing touches on my Resume, contacted a head hunter, signed in to a few relevant job-search websites, and was fortunate enough to have a friend contact a fellow alumnist about a new opportunity. Today, I'm wearing my Bad-Ass-Mother-Fucker-Balls. I am sucking it up getting back out there. Changing, this time, what lies within in an effort to produce a new career, a new life, that most accurately reflects who I am and so what I want to become.

All too often, we are all too quick to throw a mask over the dreary and the mundane. All too often, we change our face in lieu of our attitude. I will introspectively search myself for my next, best move. I will outrospectively search for the opportunities that are available. If you know of any, hollar at me. From my end, I'll keep you posted and I'll leave you with the daily quote from my Franklin Covey planner from the day immediately following the day I found out I'd be canned.“You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you. – Walt Disney”

Optimism is the only way,

Change Your Balls,

Do More Now

Fixintas

There is a disease that afflicts millions of men and woman each year. It is, in the long run, far worse than the swine flu; worse than cancer; worse than AIDS. The Fixintas is an procrastination-affliction that begins with the Put-it-off-till-tomorrow’s, progresses to a sour, helplessness existence called the Doldrums, and, if left untreated for the youthful part of one’s life, can lead to a dreadful result of the Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda’s.

It starts, in most instances, by a casual 4:30-laziness. An attitude that wafts the wants of ‘today’ toward tomorrow. Often, the above-mentioned wants are the seemingly trivial, day-to-day events such as a call-back to an old friend. At work, I commonly put off the need-to-be-approved-invoices and the need-to-be-called potential clients. Instead, I cruise Facebook till the end of the day. Annually, it is just as easy to put off a Canada canoe trip till next year. After all, it’s Canada and it's not going anywhere any time soon. Moreover, I am so BUSY. I am way, way too busy this year. “Maybe next year, if I can find the time.”

The problem is that these seemingly insignificant tasks that we “put off until tomorrow” stack up on each tomorrow until they are lost in a waste basket of last month’s lists. Some, and oftentimes many, of these to-do’s are foregone the second they are put off.

Deep down, whether or not we admit it at the moment, they are missed and it is the missing that leads to the second phase of the Fixintas: the Doldrums. In my mind, this is a green, slimy place. In my mind, it is the place from the kid’s movie – The Phantom Tollbooth.

In the movie, the main character, Milo, navigates his red convertible through a dark, slimy cave where he meets the Lethargians. As they pull him in to the slime-covered slow-paced existence in which they live, they tell him that "Why, you can do anything (in the doldrums), as long as it's nothing. Everything, as long as it isn't anything; so don't say there's nothin' to do in the doldrums. We dawdle a bit and then we loiter a while, and dawdle again. We gather our strength to start anew on all of the loafing and lounging we still have left to do. So don't say there's nothing to do in the doldrums, it's just not true."

Though the excerpt-poem per the Lethargian in the movie is well put, in a figurative and holistic sense, don’t take it too literally. The Doldrums can exist within a weed-ridden couch or inside the unchallenging white walls of a square office. The Doldrums are at the table at an early-to-late-morning-gas-station-coffee-stop; they exist on the other side of a Soap Opera with-in the restless suburban housewife; and they hang out on ghetto street corners. I can think of two people close to me who I believe presently exist in the that drull, circular place.

One works in the office next to me, the other, is one of my best friends. Each man has a job, goes, does his duty, and returns home. One, I believe, sulks all day and night every day and night in his misery. The other escapes by chemical means. The whole world is against each of them. Nothing, it seems is thier fault and I can relate to each of them, because I have been there.

It is kind-of like the central theme from another great movie –Groundhog Day, with Bill Murray. In case you live in a cave and you haven’t seen it, the gist of the movie is this: Bill Murray’s character, Phil Conner, continues to wake up on the same day, Groundhog Day, in the same small town of Punxsetawney, Pennsilvania. He begins, sour with life and the monotony of having to come to this same small town each year just to report on the ability of one little “vermot's” ability to see his shadow. One scene in the movie and the quote therein stands out in my mind. Phil, discouraged that he will ever get out of this dreadful day in this dreadfully boring town, is drinking heavily at a Bar that is in the town’s bowling alley. Sorry-for-himself, Phil says to the two towney-drunks that sit next to him – ‘do you ever feel like every single day is exactly the same as the previous and nothing you do or could ever do REALLY matters.’ One of the drunks responds; “That pretty much sums it up for me.”

Phil proceeds to give up on any hope for a future ‘meaningful’ life as he goes on a hilariously suicidal, armored-truck-robbing, town-hottie-seducing rampage. In the end, however….well, let’s get back to the point.

The third and final phase of the Fixintas is the Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda’s. My father and his brother (my uncle), reportedly used to call my Grandmother Shoulda-woulda-coulda. While they called her this in jest, I’m treating the term as the advanced and irreversible stages of a tragic ailment - the Fixintas. Once a person has contented through his healthy years, unproductive and easy-going amidst the Doldrums, he gets to a point of ‘awakened regret.’ The Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda-infected man looks back on his life as if he were J. Alfred Proofrock– the old, perpetually-indecisive man of the similarly named T.S. Elliot poem – as he wonders what life would-of been like if only could-of dared to try. Notice the many-a-old-men who are languidly crippled in there scowling, jealous-of-youth yearning for a relief-ful death from their constant, what-if-headache that continues to drain their capacity for any appreciation of the otherwise inherent beauty of day-to-day-life. As they usually wish their fate on all men, these grumpy old men are the Letharigians that coax and grumble new potential subjects into the Doldrums.

So, how can we avoid this seemingly inevitable, potentially horrible existence.

First, I look to the opposite of the above – kids. Why are they seemingly Fixinta-immune? Are they issued a behind-the-back vaccine just after birth. Notice that you never hear a kid say, “Let’s play ‘King of the Hill’ on Thursday.” No; they see, they want, they do. Children don’t plan; they never put off; they don’t have it in them to develop a case of the Fixintas. They are immune because they are daring. They are daring because they are unscathed. They are scathed because they are irresponsible.

That’s the answer, then. The anecdote is to forgo planning, right? Wrong. The answer is to forgo responsibility, right? Wrong. We, as adults, must be responsible. Responsability is, to me the precursor nesessary in order to define one as Adult. But adulthood is no excuse for the Fixintas.

Next, I'll borrow a soundbite from the number one golfer in the world. While he did end up choking yesterday at the TPC, Tiger Woods recently let loose a quote from an interview with Scott Van Pelt. It is possibly the most empowering statement from a man who otherwise should be perfectly content. You can find a more complete summary of the interview here, but the quote, in raw form, follows:

SVP: So there’s no point when you can sort of put the feet up on a Tuesday afternoon and say ‘Today I’m not going to the gym’.?

Tiger: “No. Because the next…that’s…I look at life as: the greatest thing about tomorrow is that I will be better than I am today. And that’s the way I’ve always lived my life. So I have no understanding why people do hit the snooze button because you have a chance to become a better person, become - for me - a better athlete…all the different things you can do to become better for tomorrow. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of that?”

With that attitude, it isn’t hard to see why the man is a living legend in his respective sport. But, let’s be real; it would be a whole lot easier to get up early every day to train to play golf. To train to do what it is that we REALLY want to do. Is that the answer? - Probably. Do I know all the answers? - Probably not. Am I presently (as I type) trying to figure out MY Fixinta-Remedy? – Yes.

To summarize, here is my current, always-evolving, step-by-step solution to Paralysis-due-to-Procrastination:

1. Determine what it is you want to do. What are you passionate about? Don’t look too hard. You know. Deep down, you know. Just acknowledge what you like, follow that curiosity, and accept that this is your passion.

2. Make lists. Daily; monthly; and yearly.

3. Borrowing a term from Stephen Covey, “Choose big rocks” to put on your lists i.e. Limit your commitments to those things that you can readily handle. Plan to achieve those commitments. Do.

4. Regulate on your waste-time. Don’t eliminate it, but regulate it. We all need our Beer-Couch-FamilyGuy-time, but be mindful not to melt into the lazy-boy. Relax for a while after work, then get up and get going.

5. Make a side list of things that you want to one-day do but don’t have the time to get to right now. I’ve named mine the “Fixintas.” Re-read those things each time you add to or check off your Fixinta items. Make time to Cut and Paste from this list to you current to-do list. Do.

6. Find the courage to dare to do. (Not just any kind of courage, on the kind of courage in the following poem: The Hill, By Nissim Ezekiel)

7. Develop the discipline to keep doing. Here is the step that I still struggle with. Maybe I'll revisit this post one day when I figure this one out.

I write this long post on the folly of the Fixintas because I have a bad case of them and I constantly struggle to overcome them. Until recently, my pride-fear paired with my fauma have me looking back on a life full of shoulda’s, woulda’s, and coulda’s. Lucky for me, I still have my youth. I can still change my non-ways and one-day contribute as I continue to appreciate. For me, this is just the first step. Stay tuned for the next; I’ll need you there as I need you here.

And You…out there; if your still with me; if you feel me; how do you avoid the in-the-rut-“Groundhog-Day” existence of your life? What is your passion? How do you make a difference?

Do More Now,

- Not Just Another Dog Named Tag

The Should-Be

Often I hear people say things like: “They shouldn't be treating people that way”; "Guys should know to put the toilet seat down after you’re finished peeing”; “Popey’s should’ve had plenty of chicken stocked up” (funny youtube video); “That’s just not the way things are supposed to be.”

Well how should they be? And, more importantly, according to whom? The should-be is a widely used, specifically subjective term. The way things ‘should be’ to me - a southern, middle-class, mildly conservative male who likes Pork Chops and Succotash with his stove-top, hot sauce and beer - would be drastically different than a Petit English woman named Ms. Gertrude Prudey, whom prefers non-fat Jam on her crumpet, which she enjoys daily with a small glass of pinky-finger-raised hot tea. How different is the should-be for a 17 year old Somali pirate on the verge of starvation and beyond the outer limits of hope. How should things be if you were the mother of an Arab terrorist that is under a waterboard, on a table, in the middle of a windowless torture-for-vital-info room? But we will get to that shortly; for now, on the lighter side, let’s consider the Toilet Seat example.

I have never been able to understand, for the life of me, why woman make such a big deal about us putting the toilet seat down once we are finished with our “number one” sequence. It is as if all women, once they reach the threshold of the bathroom instantly become completely blind as they apparently do not have the where-with-all to see that the seat is up before they sit down. Or, maybe, yall (women) approach the toilet as if you were a defensive back, backpedaling, eyes strait ahead until your butt just happens to reach the toilet. And once you sit down, unbeknownst of the present position of the toilet seat, you have a 50-50 chance of falling in. Do woman actually do this? Do you girls actually sit down into a bowl full of toilet water? It’s hard for me to believe. Maybe. But, I don't think so.

I think that the reason why you make such a big deal about it is because of a social disconnect that exists between men and woman. You (woman) take our (men) leaving the toilet seat up as an inconsiderate and dis-respectful thing to do. While some of the threshold-blinded-defensive-back women may actually end up with wet-ass-syndrome, most of the commotion as it relates to upright toilet seats can be attributed to a misunderstanding of cross cultural perspectives. (….whoa, too much caffeine, I know, I know, I'll slow down.) It is this social disconnect that I am concerned with as it relates to the should-be. In college, while at Georgia Southern, a speaker in an introductory business class said, “We see the world through cultural lenses” - Changai Mwetti. What I feel that he meant was that all people see all aspects of their life according to the culmination of experiences that have shaped their current view of the world. Furthermore; by nature, we are subjective beings and we judge others’ actions according to what we know as REAL, what ‘I would do’, and what ‘should be.’

Back to the Toilet Seat Example, the social or cultural disconnect between what should be from the perspective of the Man and the Woman is rooted in incentives that have been reinforced or challenged via experience throughout the course of the given person's life. Me as a man, thinking logically and in my own best interest, think to myself upon shaking it, zipping it, and buttoning it: “it sure is a good thing that I put the toilet seat up because otherwise I would have gotten a little bit of over spray on it (the seat) and no-one wants to sit in that. Not because I am too lazy to put it back down, so I’ll just leave it up so that it can dry before the next person comes in here.” As I walk out I pass a beautiful nice-butted brown-haired woman. She, being a sort of female anomaly that is neither blinded at the threshold nor feels the need to back peddle toward the toilet, sees the upward oriented seat and thinks to herself: “Even though that guy was ruggedly good looking, he has terrible manners. Why wouldn’t he just put the seat back down when he is finished? How freaking hard is that?”

Each player in this example has a completely different idea of what should-be; of what is GOOD. Notice that we have created our conception of the right way things should be done according to incentives that meet our best interest. Being that either up or down toilet seats for men and women respectively suit his or her best interest, consider the idea that such a conception is constantly reinforced (on average, about 4 - 5 times per day).

Another example, would you steel if it were the only way you could eat? Would you steel if it were the only way your family could eat? Somalia, as are many communities all over the world, live in a hopeless poverty that I cannot even fathom. In a society where genocide is commonplace, where can a young man be expected to find his place; where can he find a common ground with life; can he see a light at the end of his dreary, dark tunnel? The answer for many men and women all over the world is that they there is no way to make an honest life via hard work and education. So they steel. At first, at six, a loaf of bread. Later, at twelve years old, a pick-pocketed wallet. As a man, at seventeen, much larger opportunities arise. All his life, the only way he has known is to steal. This is his should-be. To him, a man who isn’t expected to live past nineteen, hijacking cargo ships is a once-in-a-life-time 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' opportunity to live; really live. It doesn’t matter to him that US Marines can blow his head clean off from 450 yards away. Economically speaking, he is risking a two year loss versus a fifty plus year gain. To him, pirating is the only way. To him, this is a GOOD should-be..

Now, a personal question: how is your should-be? How is your should-be when it comes to using torture techniques such as waterboarding in order to obtain vital information? Think about the person you love the most. Picture their smiling face. Think back on the last time you saw them. Now, imagine that he or she has been kidnapped and is being held in a very unpleasant place (...like the girl in the badass movie - "Taken" ). You know that if you don't find him or her soon, they will be killed or worse. Finally, imagine that a man sits in front of you who knows exactly where to find your missing loved one. What should-be done to find out what you need to know?

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Chickenheadish

More and more, I feel like I meet the same girl over and over again. Brown-Blond-headed, short-tall, exotically plain, preppy, slutty, rich, middle-class, poor, smart-dumb; every other weekend, it seems, I meet these otherwise beautiful girls and women who share a common trait - their unmistakable chickenheadishness.

Chickenhead (noun) - A girl who talks without ever saying anything. She fashions every part of her life in accordance with her mass-media influenced self-created mold of what is expected of a girl (or woman) of her age, in her geographical location, and within her socio-economic means. She is the plastic persona of the should-be.

Dressed in her fake face, sitting at the bar sipping something that looks far too delicious for me to drink in public, she looks good. Damn good, in fact. I approach her with a fifty-percent-of-the-time clever line. She bites. I play along.

I call. We either meet up or I pick her up. Either at dinner or in the car or on the phone, the weather-talk eventually runs out. The game, the banter between us, gets old. Where do the good times go from that awkward silence but horizontal? Nowhere but there.

Her, in her thong high heels, nice butt, and perfectly still boobs. Me, the hypocrite that loves to hate her for her chickenheadedishness. Me, in my Chickenhead solution disguise; I've learned that I must act like an asshole in order to get anywhere with this girl. Looking down at her with a half cocked head and a slick, asshole line. She snaps. I snap. That is the game we play amidst this outer layer of getting to know one another. True conversation is like an onion as we must peal past the crust before anything worth consuming can be found. And I'm cool with this. It's natural. While the getting-to-know-you is going on, we each silently look for subtle clues as to each other's real you. This is natural and so it is healthy. In this sense, guys have a little bit of chickenheadishness in us too. It is a fearless facade that allows us to approach and be approached. It is a comfort blanket that keeps us until we can go on without it.

What I don't like is what is not natural and is not healthy. I don't like the fake face that she puts on because she thinks it is what is needed to impress. Whom? I'm not sure. Maybe me. Probably the other chickens. Either way, it's not a good fit for me. I also hate what it does to me; the reaction her chicken headdress invokes. I, in order to compete, must use this asshole tough guy guise and act like all I want is some easy action. And I do it because I am a guy with a natural urge to do it.

The bar seen is full of this dilemma, but there is a simple solution; and girls, it starts with you because it is beyond us to give up the pursuit of you (or it). To borrow a line from Andre 3000, "... take off your cool." Listen to the song. It is just that simple. I believe that ninety percent of you chickenheads are not that at all. Deep down, you are kind and funny and daring. At home, when you are by yourself, you like to read and think and humbly laugh at yourself for going to the fridge, getting there, and realizing that you forgot what you came for. Deep down, you like compliments and opened doors. Deep down, you are good people.

Chickenheadish (adjective) - a figurative layer of the female persona that manifests itself as vanity that is worn to conceal the insecurities associated with an inherent 'good person' that lies hidden within.

So, here's the deal for all of the could-be-Chickenheaded-Women. You've gotta stop all of your pouting, Beamer-crazed, vanity-shrilled-extra-high-pitched-fake-"hello's". Quit acting like you were the product of a three-way between Joy from My Name is Earl, that chick from Clueless, and New York from "I Love New York". Quit emulating Britney Montana. That shit's not cute. Brittany Montana is a dumb slut. Sure, I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers. But she is empty and uninterested. Underneath it all, she is plain-jane-ugly with no more to talk about than her own miserable life. She is a collectible barbie in a box that is wrapped in plastic and on a shelf.

REAL woman: figure out what you want; who you are; act like you have a little class. Be yourself. Respect yourself.

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Butt-Ass-Naked

Have you ever felt like you were completely exposed?

In my experience, while it is somewhat disconcerting at first, it is quite liberating.

The last time I felt like that was about a month ago while giving a presentation to four big-whig execs inside a small conference room of the manufacturing facility of the largest industrial manufacturer in Jacksonville. "This is my account," I thought. "This is the first step to the rest of my career. Don't blow it!" (Don't we always do this in these situations. Blow them up in our minds like balloons that are bound to burst at any second.) Nervous, yet prepared and confident, I did great.

I remember the turning point. It came just after I stuttered and stammered my way through a defensive explanation of our position in the face of a ridiculing question from the Largest man in the room. He was short, he spoke with an accent, and he didn't exactly look like a "Man with the Plan." He was smooth though. His game was like Billy from White Men Can't Jump; disguised and sudden enough that you didn't know he 'got you' until it was too late. As I spoke, he stared me down as if to weigh my composure with each of his now very aware eyes. When I finished, full of myself on adrenaline, I directed a deliberate glance with a quarter-cocky smile toward him. He smiled back approvingly and I felt about thirty times better. Better, not because I felt "clothed", but better, because I now felt comfortable in my own skin.

I guess it has been a necessary skill for me to acquire in my 26 years as a red-headed, freckle-faced, allergic-to-air ginger with mild astigmatism. At a certain point, a Man must shrug his shoulders, laugh at himself a little bit, confidently slap the court hard with both hands, look those whom you fear dead in the eyes, and do whatever it is that you do.

"This is me, Butt-Ass-Naked."

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