Did you know that a wild turkey can fly at the speed of 35 mph?? These are the important, illustrious facts that you really need to know to be successful in life. No?

Did you know it’s impossible (for most people) to lick their elbow? Go ahead, try it. I dare you. Ok if all these tidbits aren’t enough to satisfy you let’s move on..

Since I’m a southpaw myself, lets talk about some of my fellow lefties!

David Letterman, Mark Twain, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Tony Iommi, Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Julia Roberts, Jim Carrey, Morgan Freeman, Hans Christian Andersen…and the list goes on and on.

See, this is why lefties rock. Ah yes, I believe this concludes my most informative post to date.

Happy Friday!

Here’s a look at a couple of other drawings shown from different angles so that you can see they are just drawings on the sidewalk.

and the lobster from the opposite side…

Bathing Beauty

and the Bathing Beauty from the opposite side…

Pretty crazy no?

One of the speakers was Chris Garner, author of The Pursuit of Happyness (made into a movie starring Will Smith) I think through sheer determination and belief in himself, what he’s achieved in his life is pretty amazing. His website: http://www.chrisgardnermedia.com/

Another speaker was Frank Abagnale; his life story was also made into a movie by Steven Spielberg called “Catch Me If You Can”. I was enthralled to hear Frank speak about the things he had done. If you are not familiar with his story, Frank began his misadventures as a con artist/imposter and forger at age 16. He impersonated a pilot, a physician and an attorney and managed some pretty incredible and ballsy feats along the way. He spoke about some of his “achievements” during this time and it was truly mind boggling how he did some of these things. He mentioned the movie and book that were written/inspired by his life and that they were not biographically and therefore some of the stories were not 100% true to life.

He was eventually captured and served time in a prison in France, then was extradited to Sweden where he served time and then finally back to the US where he served more time. After serving 5 years in the US, the FBI asked him to serve out the remainder of his sentence working for them. He has now worked with them for 31 years and is a respected consultant. He spoke about how he was not proud of his past and that his most notable achievement was that of being a father and husband. You can check out his official site here: http://www.abagnale.com/

Quincy Jones also spoke about his life and achievements, his love and passion for music. Which brought me back to my own. As he said, you can’t taste it, can’t touch it, can’t see it - but you feel it in your heart and soul.
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“You are the music while the music lasts.” - T.S. Eliot

The Me Society

You leave your house early in the morning, and start your commute to work. On the way, some jerk cuts you off so naturally you show him a sign of sincere appreciation. After 45 minutes you arrive downtown and spend the next half-hour looking for that illusive parking spot. After another 30 minutes you hit the jackpot and find a spot; it’s metered, how exciting. Then you head off to the local coffee shop for your morning fix only to discover a disorganized mass of bodies waiting to be served. Somehow you manage to arrive at the counter and before you can place your order, you hear an exasperated sigh and some guy pushes his way in front of you to order his coffee. So naturally, you emphatically thank him for making you late for work.

Sometimes I wonder how it can be possible that as people, we have become so self-absorbed that we don’t recognize we are as well. We do of course, clearly see that other people are selfish, immoral even, but we, ourselves, care about people. In High School, they don’t teach you about values; there is no mandatory course. Yet our values affect and guide how we live our lives every day; collectively they shape the society we live in.

I approached Tom Morris, founder of the Morris Institute For Human Values and asked him why it seems as a society, our values appear to have changed to that of being self-absorbed.

“Self-absorbedness is an unfortunate side effect of an upwardly mobile culture full of opportunities and awash in the lures of comfort and luxury. People pursuing success can easily get derailed into a pursuit of money, power, fame or status. And their scope of thought and feeling can easily shrink to the self alone and it’s most material wants. I’m out there as a philosopher calling people back to more ancient and healthy definitions of success and conceptions of the good life focusing on community, family and friends. A proper self-concern is at the heart of ethics, but selfishness or self-absorbedness is a very unhealthy frame of mind. I believe that our affluence, along with the mass media images of material success, have had the unintended consequences of just the reversal of values you describe.”

Each one of us has that ever present code by which we guide our lives by; our values. So is it that our values have changed over time? Have we become so individually overwhelmed that we don’t have anything left to give to one another? It seems we have become a society devoted to “me”.

Dr. Greg Maio, from Cardiff University of Psychology, current research includes examining people’s cognitive support (or reasons) for their values. I asked him what his research findings were thus far. “My research findings suggest that people have difficulty justifying their values. We predict this result based on the theory that people grow up without experiencing many arguments that challenge dominant social values, such as the value of helping others. As a result, people feel strongly that the values are important and widely shared, but they do not bother to develop reasons to explain why the values are important. This process may make the values weaker than they would be if they were the subject of occasional scrutiny.”

We, as a society, spend the majority of our time and energy focused on our own lives, what we want, and how we can obtain it. Perhaps if we individually reexamine our own values maybe we can learn to place more value on each other. Afterall, it’s we as people that give love, inspire others, laugh, cry, and help each through difficult times.

In other unofficial news, I’ve decided that I will not appear in public without a hat until my hair grows back. lol

Yes ok, now for the serious news, I have been working on a bunch of different projects to do with music and writing of course. I will eventually update you on them when they are complete and ready to be revealed…and when my brain is firing back at 100% again. Now my lovelies, I really must get some sleep.

“It is with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I’ve been insanely busy working on the mag, writing, writing, working, meetings, working, well…you get the idea. I’ve come to the conclusion that I must like the insanity since I keep at it. It keeps me out of trouble and busy plus it’s an outlet. It’s like riding on a creativity high sometimes… which can be exhausting but the key is remembering to take a break from it and enjoying what’s around you.

I’ll post some updated work and things soon, until then have a lovely week.

Though if I keep this us I may become cross eyed at some point. How sexy would that be?

In other news, since it’s my birthday week, I think I may have to invent an “anti-birthday” celebration. I absolutely refuse to be one day older than I was yesterday… ;-)

This month is flying by, I can’t believe it’s almost February!

Ok, so updates… the novel is still coming along, though I’ve been working on it less as I’ve been crazy busy working on other projects the past few weeks. I’m also working on finalizing things for my book of poetry, “Mental Decay”. In addition to that, I’m DJ-ing once a week on a rock radio station and editing/writing for XS BS Mag. So yes a bit busy at the moment but it’s all good.

Completely unrelated, I’m on day two of no dairy. You don’t realize how many food products have dairy until you are not eating/drinking dairy!

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And I’ll leave you with this… here is today’s quote for you: “I don’t want to be a passenger in my own life” - Diane Ackerman