I really can’t say anymore about this other than thanks to John Dickinson High School classmate Elizabeth Knox (go Rams!) for sharing this on Facebook this morning. And to the rest of you sitting at your desks with your speakers turned up to an unreasonable volume, you’re welcome.
One benefit to having an “office” career that largely consisted of doing cool and unexpected things or meeting interesting people at any given moment – then writing about them – was that since I finished school I’ve only infrequently experienced the typical “Monday dread.”
You know – that Sunday evening feeling where it’s impossible to enjoy anything later than 4 p.m. because you’re already feeling the crushing weight of week’s first work day bearing down on you like a ravenous warthog. It’s like the tick-tick-tick of the 60 Minutes stopwatch is there to remind you of just how little of the weekend you have left. Continue reading → It’s Monday! Shout Geronimo and Leap Into the Void
Spring tends to make people a little goofy, especially here in the Northeast where it seemed like we’d be buried under snow until sometime in the middle of July.
But alas, the snow is gone and we just frolicked through a full weekend of sunny, 70 degree-plus weather that seemed bring everyone out to play.
Of course, for me this has never depended on ridiculous things like the weather. Recently I spent a full 20 minutes at the dinner table making my kids collapse into fits of giggling by doing an extended riff on Johnny Depp’s Capt. Jack Sparrow – basically a drunk Keith Richards.
Like I said, for me it doesn’t take much.
So take some time today to do something that you wouldn’t normally do simply because you were worried that you might look a little silly. Here’s a recommendation.
Get up, get moving and quit your bitching about the time change. You’re a grown-up, not an infant. If scooching the clock back and forth an hour messes with you that badly, go see a sleep therapist and spare us all your insufferable whining.
So you lost an hour of your life? Here’s a news flash: That happens every time you get on Facebook or let yourself watch two CBS sitcoms back-to-back. Suck. It. Up.
Extended daylight (not an extra hour of the day) is a gift of modernity (and Benjamin Franklin, who thought of the idea in the first place). Embrace it. Like the man in the video says – right thoughts, right words, right actions.
Positive thoughts, people. Positive.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Andy Allo – Prince protege and certified bringer of funk in the spirit of all the great multi-instrumental/multi-ethnic soul and funk bands that emerged from the late 1960s and early 1970s.
But why is Ms. Allo here today? Not simply because she smokes behind the mic and on the guitar, but because she’s become something of an inspiration.
Continue reading → Funky Friday: Andy Allo and The Mysterious Process of Character Inspiration
OK, now that you’re good and worn out from chair dancing, let’s talk about the Grammy Awards, where last Sunday, despite a truckload of radio play, Robin Thicke failed to get an award for his super-mega hit “Blurred Lines,” and instead laid the foundation for a future as a Las Vegas lounge act backed by the guys from Chicago (I’ll get to why I started you off with “Tighten Up” in a moment). Continue reading → Funky Friday Writing Advice: Take What Someone Else Did and Make It Your Own
My wife asked me a few days ago if I had any New Year resolutions. My answer, as it has been just about every year of my life, was no.
I do, however, maintain a mental list of things that I always want to do differently or better. Naturally, with the rollover of the calendar, those things fall under the spotlight a bit more, but they really don’t change much from year to year. Continue reading → Happy New Year: They’re Not Resolutions, They’re Just Things I Try to Do
I can’t emphasize this bit of advice enough. Part of what has helped me be the writer I am (good or bad, you can judge that yourself) is that I have embraced the opportunity to do stuff.
Granted, we have to keep that stuff in perspective. Have I mushed across the polar ice cap, learned to fly or jetted off to Paris or Mozambique on a whim? No. And honestly, I – like many people – have probably spent too much time in a room in front of a screen of some sort when I could have been doing six dozen other really cool and interesting things. Continue reading → Inspiration For the Last Monday of 2013 – Make It Count
Scott B. Pruden 