Some songs just move me...

Is it apropros?

Is there a message here?

At certain points in time... yes 

but really now...

It's just about how well ZZ Top fuses blues and hard rock.

That gyrating bass line borders on the pornographic in its sultry repose against the cry of a blues guitar with just enough of a slow grinding drumbeat.

One of my favorite ZZ Top songs is all.

I aint apologizing for it either so just enjoy the groove...

Expectations: Love, positivity and otherwise

 

I've been thinking a lot about relationships lately and that's a bad thing because, well, I'm really bad at them.

Not bad in sense of being selfish or abusive.

Rather, I tend to be as my 8th grade English teacher once said to me...."Hyper analytical."

Before you run off to Google it, that just means I think too much...about everything.

Seems nothing happens in my life without at least some measure of the consequences being considered first.  

At length...

The same can be said for a lot of  people but I tend to take it to another level.  Hence...Hyper analytical.

It's served me well for all those things where there was a "safer" option but relationships are all about risk and reward.

So let me put this out there right up front.  The Internet is a HORRIBLE place to find answers to your relationship questions.  Want to ruin a good thing?  Listen to some idiot try to tell you what you're feeling.  

"The first kiss should happen by the second date..."

"Sex should happen by the 5th date..."

"If she doesn't want to hold your hand it means she's not into you..."

Bull...

Love isn't an Amazon Prime purchase.  There are no customer reviews or 5 star rating systems.  Well, there are but they're worthless.

The heart wants what it wants but I can tell you from experience that the heart is, to be blunt, stupid.  This is why we have brains.  The problem is the two are mortal enemies.  Where the heart may be warm and accepting the brain is cold, analytical and far more subject to the influence of the sin of "idle hands."

Leave things unsaid long enough and those "idle hands" get busy.

The best relationship advice is to forget about expectations.  Especially those born from uncertainty.

If you look for answers everywhere BUT the person who actually has them you're doomed.


I've written about the dangers of relying on absolutes before and when it comes to relationships it seems they're everywhere.  Look for definitive answers to questions about love and you get 1000 opinions.  All of them framed as a golden truth but as worthless as cow patties.

OK, here's the wave thing again...

Remember we can only control our own actions, our own thoughts and our own judgement.  The more we ride the waves the more we learn that no two are ever the same.  Any expectations beyond "wet" and "movement" are unreliable.

Be open to what's happening in the relationship good or bad but keep your expectations out of it.

I can tell you from experience that the worst heartbreak comes not from what you think someone did to you but rather a personal expectation they couldn't and/or didn't want to live up to.  
  
That's the issue with expectations; they aren't reality, they're just unspoken demands.  Anything unspoken eventually leads to trouble down the line.  Besides, DEMANDS don't make for great relationships.

I have a close friend that I absolutely HATE going to restaurants with.  The reason is that he's never happy with his order.    An example comes to mind. 

My friend often orders salads.  Now it's not unusual that they just might include a tomato or two.   

Thing is, he hates tomatoes with a passion but when he orders he  never says anything to the waiter about his disdain for all things tomato.  So the salad comes with the offending red veggie (Supreme Court says it's not a fruit BTW) and spends the rest of the meal grumbling about how they should have known he didn't want tomatoes.  

 It's happened so often that now I won't go anywhere with him that doesn't require you to tell someone behind a sneeze guard exactly what you want.  

Subway restaurants come to mind...

Just like my finicky eating friend you never get what you want when you make unilateral judgments.   

Admittedly, that's hard to do at times.  

Gosh, wouldn't it be just wonderful if if all our relationships were like an 80's John Hughes film.  A couple of awkward meetings, love and/or friendship develops and gets tested just before the ultimate resolution rising to a crescendo complete with happy ending all in the space of a couple of hours.

Yeah, it don't work that way.

BUT!

It's easier if you're riding the wave instead of trying to dictate its direction.  Love the moment, breathe in the atmosphere and enjoy the ride.  

Just don't forget to keep your eyes open.

We get into the most trouble when we get lost in our own expectations and make blind assumptions.

Be you, be real and be open... 

"NO"

No,

I hear a lot of permutations of the word.

You probably do as well even if you don't notice it at the time.  In fact the word "NO" has probably saved your life.  

What do you think a glowing red stoplight is telling you?  

Simply, NO...

Because of course if we ignored it, chances are we'd probably be involved in some horrendous accident harming ourselves and others and ultimately spurring a flood of negative consequences.  All of them ultimately telling you...NO!

The word will have its due one way or the other.  I suggest the path of least resistance...

So NO can be a good thing.  A guard rail protecting you from a sheer cliff.  An intuition about maybe not taking a stroll down that dark, sketchy street.

NO gets a bad rap for being negative.  Nobody likes to be denied something. Be it a favorite morning danish or tickets to a popular performance the last thing you want to hear is that there's just NO more left.  

There are other kinds of bad NO's too.  

NO, you didn't get the job.
NO, you don't qualify for the loan.
NO, you're not going to be a rock star
NO, she doesn't love you in "that way."

They say the trick to get through this mess we call life is to keep things in perspective.  Sometimes that's hard to do and even in an age of constant communication we can end up feeling alone even though it seems like we're in a crowd.

You may have 10,000 followers on Facebook but one careless quip can make you a pariah.

NO can be a lonely place.

A friend recently told me, "After awhile hearing nothing but 'NO' can take its toll on you."

We were talking about my recent difficulties in supporting myself and while what he said was true I also knew that instead of NO being a wall, I had to keep endeavoring to treat it as little more than a low hurdle.

To be honest, the word hasn't been kind to me lately but then there's that perspective thing again.

It reminds me of that joke that Garrison Keillor (controversy aside) makes about the Lutheran philosophy of life. 

"Things could always be worse..."

Which sounds kind of self-defeating until you realize that it's an admonition to appreciate what you've got.  

I often remind myself that you're never really at the bottom until somebody's throwing dirt on your coffin.

Which, by the way, is why I'm not a fan of zombie movies or Lazarus stories.

Zombies are gross and I'm more inclined to believe that Lazarus was less resurrected than  buried alive...  

Sometimes NO can be a guide.  It can show you the way when reason otherwise fails you.  Take the example of not getting that job you were after.

Of all the possible reasons that could be responsible the only one that matters is: Were you honest with yourself when you went after it?

Was it really what you wanted or just something to continue a lifestyle you weren't that wild about to start with.

NO can be the ultimate "tough love."  It's half of the equation when people talk about what's in their "heart of hearts."  

They say, "The heart wants what it wants." and there's NO denying it NO matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise.

You know my story.  I've always tried to spend my time doing things in harmony with my passions and interests.  Sometimes that works, most of the time it doesn't but it's worth the struggle.

I want to be a writer so I write.  Nobody much cares about my work and I've received no accolades doing it aside from a few kind words from my peers.  

The point is that I continue to do it because NO is a hurdle not a wall.  I believe in what I'm doing and hope it brings some value to someone even if it's only me.

That's the point.  Take the adversity, the denials, the denouncements and use them as tools instead of letting them define you.  

Life doesn't always happen on a convenient schedule as much as we'd like it to.  Bills,commitments and mortgage payments all try to dictate what we're supposed to be.  It becomes far too easy to live according to someone else's expectations.  It knocks us out of sync.

NO wonder everyone is so miserable....

NO can be a good word.  A guidepost that forces you to choose what you're living for.  

There's a natural flow in all things.  Throwing rocks in its path only causes disorder and destruction.  

That may seem a bit Zen but it's the simplest way to express what I'm trying to tell you.

NO is just a tool, not a character assessment, not a valuation, not a condemnation.  

Just a tool....

The Glass Floor

Up until recently the term "glass ceiling" was common when discussing women in the workplace.  It was a societal problem, a symptom of a stereotype that held that females of the species were far better suited to the kitchen than the boardroom.

The stereotype still exists but it's far more subtle now.  In the second decade of the 21st century we find more women holding the reigns of business but the numbers show they're still a minority.

Now it's less about glass ceilings and more about what you get paid once you successfully break through it.  Numbers don't lie and on average women still only make 70% of what men do in the same role.  It's just the evolution of the stereotype.  It's systemic discrimination and it's wrong but it happens.

But there's another kind of discrimination.  One that's hard to define and has no champion to defend against it.  It's discrimination born from our own ingrained subjectivity.

You can read any of the articles on how to have the perfect interview to get the job but do you comprehend the hidden message?  You're expected to be at your best but the person across the table from you is usually at their worst. 

Just walking through the door could kill your chances based on nothing more than a personal bias.  Who hasn't suspected they've lost a job because of somebody's closet racism, sexism or ageism. 

But try to prove it.

You can chalk it up to human nature but let's face it, as human beings we're awful to each other.  The truth is, most people go through life with their own little prejudicial firewall.  

The lizard part of our brains tells us that everybody is out to take our stuff and only when you prove that you're not can you make any progress. 

This is why interview advice ends up sounding like a mashup between a polished sales pitch and a Dominatrix's slave. 

Yuck!

This is where the Glass Floor comes in. 

It's bad enough trying to get a job you're qualified for but what if the only thing available is something less than that. 

What if instead of going for the regional sales manager you're forced to apply for grocery stocker. 

Hey, things happen and we all need some kind of income.  

Thing is, you've got an even bigger uphill battle when you're aiming lower than that sales manager gig. 

Nobody really believes your heart's desire is to be facing bottles of salad dressing the rest of your life.  Thing is, your interview for that prime minimum wage gig starts from the premise that it is.  

Meaning you'll have a hard time convincing "Buck the Boss" who rose to his lofty heights after a string of pizza delivery gigs after barely graduating high school that you're seriously interested.

It's the glass floor where those that have supposedly "made it" have no fallback position.  Yeah, you could leave that CFO position off your resume but if you're a bit older nobody is going to believe that you're that into jockeying pallets of Hidden Valley Ranch. 

Get real, stocking shelves is a crap job and everyone who's ever done it knows it.  It's not meant to be a career path but when you're sitting across the table from "Buck"  you might as well be going for a tenured Professorship at Harvard.

It's a big reason why the old saying still rings true.  There's a lot of people with Masters degrees living on the streets.

That anyone would expect a dead end job to be a lifetime career path is ridiculous.  The reality is, they don't.  It's just another "plausible" means of legally discriminating against an otherwise viable and willing candidate.

It is, the glass floor.

My advice, I don't know, I haven't found an answer yet.  Maybe I should try entrepreneurship!  I know I still have that work at home email somewhere around here...

A lifestyle event, now with stereotypes!

Article originally published on Technorati as: A lifestyle event, now with stereotypes!

It's January in Scottsdale, Arizona and that huge traffic jam on the 101 freeway can only mean one thing, Barrett-Jackson's back.  With examples from classic to wild custom there's always something to drool over at this largest of the four Barrett-Jackson auctions. 

It's said to be "The" automotive event of the year that both collector's and wannabe's alike use to value their dreams.  Is that all original Hemi RoadRunner in your garage  a good investment or is it just another Satellite?  Barrett-Jackson will clear that up for you.

Since 1993 Speed Channel, now called just "Speed" and recently acquired by Fox networks has broadcast the event.  Each year a week's worth of coverage in the middle of January dominates the otherwise Nascar centric programming on the channel.  It offers a view into not only the cars but the lifestyle and people that surround them. 

Watch it for an hour and you notice that the "lifestyle" is populated by primarily affluent 50'ish white men.  None of which seem to have any compunction against throwing ridiculous sums of money at cars your parents probably couldn't wait to get rid of back in the day.  They call it an investment but it's dubious reasoning.  The collector car market is as fickle as Wall street.  It's more likely an attempt to recapture lost youth with a bit of braggadocio thrown in at their financial ability to try.

Speed has always been good about staffing the event with veteran commentators from across motorsports.  Whether they've been covering Nascar or writing articles for Hot Rod there's sure to be at least one you can identify with.

Which makes a recent change to the event coverage perplexing.  Last year saw the addition of what can only be described as a "booth bunny" to the lineup.  I appreciate an attractive woman as much as the next guy but does shoehorning a stereotype from a bikini contest really add anything to the broadcast?

There's nothing wrong with female broadcasters so let's get that out of the way.  Speed's choice, however,  is little more than a foil for dumb blonde jokes.  Is there a dearth of female motorsports commentators versed in their subject? If this is the way motorsports views women I wouldn't blame them for staying away. 

Still, it's not as though Speed hasn't had access to female journalists at least familiar with motorsports.  Is it too much to ask to not perpetuate a stereotype?  It's demeaning.  On Wednesday night's broadcast for example,April Rose (of Maxim fame) was seated in a driving simulator and actually said,

"They should make one of these for women drivers where everyone stayed far away" 

I hate Internet shorthand but...O M G ! 

She even did the hair flip thing! 

Gender equality set back 50 years in 20 seconds.  Were I an affluent woman considering the purchase of one of these shining examples of lost youth I'd likely have switched off Speed channel's coverage left the auction and headed across the street to Russo and Steele instead..

I'd like to say it was an isolated incident but unfortunately it was only one of many.  It's obvious that to the old white men in charge of Fox, she is the pinnacle of female broadcasting.