Rollingstone magazine prints a tiny tale of a new film featuring Led Zeppelin’s lead guitarist Jimmy Page speaking of the paths crossed on the way to generating Stairway to Heaven and instantly you’re drawn into the continuing saga of the power of a pen kissing the edge of a once living tree.
It’s nothing more then a fantasy to be a ragged old trailer trash fly on the wall of an office, bedroom or studio during the unwinding of a single thought fully capable of infectiously dominating the landscape of a passerby for fifty years and beyond.
Places I wish I could’ve been: The night Keith Richard’s eyes finally picked up on a rhythm and tone vibrating through an imagination assumed sleeping after a long hard night of play. Once within sight, the rest of his body was negotiated with, “Push your feet off the bed and lean forward…your shoulders will catch what little balance you have left.” Half awake, dead or just numb by a lack of satisfaction…Keith’s lips barely whispered into a bedside 1960’s style tape recorder, an echo from his scampering soul, “Please just get it out of me so I can get back to sleep!” One word became two, then an entire sentence…nothing more than mumbles or spilled words like milk on a kitchen counter. It later became the most popular pop rock song of all time.
To be a Carpenter ant taking refuge from a cruel humanized world onboard a giant black wooden guitar case with the letters The Eagles on Tour spray painted on the front as if to send shivers through the long and winding road blessed with mile markers made of chipped guitar picks and stretched out metal strings crafted to captivate the depths of a trail like a cavern harnessing a getaway for mountain climbers begging to reach the top. Were the rivers of legacy flooding during the opening seconds of Bernie Leadon and Joe Walsh’s first strum of Hotel California?
Legacy…an extremely powerful six letter word, just like an opinion and your bum everybody has one…it’s what we build, create, rip a part then piece back together again and again. Some see it, feel it and change it early while others spend an entire life trying to mow the grass that keeps growing around it. After all you’ve brought to it, taken away, reacted to and ignored, without notice you’re given the opportunity to say, “Feel the force Luke.”
A painting once flowed from the corners of my thoughts landing hard onto the prints of my fingertips baring the story of how we are given our lives, family and careers. The one time sketch now collector of acrylic takes the viewer from an open book down a single twisting path, the child is led by the hand of something extremely large yet caring only to realize their presence isn’t the purpose of the story—it’s the book, the very pages that 99.9% of us were told to study but choose to leave behind. The journey down the path are the rings of a tree, a clock that which births us with enough time to question the answers before answering the questions. The ABC’s seem too easy…it’s when we get to L,M,N,O,P that we realize it’s not a single letter but several…
Reaching for the book it’s soon discovered, every page, paragraph and sentence now sits with others in a mile high stack of bewildered weather.
Legacy…Dr. Mick Ukleja confesses that too many of us treat our lives like a giant stage, there’s no better feeling than to be in front of two, ten, twenty, a thousand or bazillion…interestingly enough, once presented under those very large and extremely hot bright lights, all that once was…has been forgotten. Gone…through confusion, frustration, fear and embarrassment; the anticipation, the feeling of assurance, the production of exhilaration and the joy of enduring daily change…all that is your legacy…a lived out, hand written, thought provoking family inspired book left behind.
“The moment your past becomes more exciting than your future is the day you start to die,” words from Coach John Wooden who led his UCLA Bruins to ten national basketball championships. At 96, his legacy continues to help shape college and professional teams world wide.
Understanding who you are and what you want is the first step toward creating harmony. Wait! No pills, power drinks, hot coffee with yummy stuff on top? No scientific secret remedies like Just Juice? All we need to do is understand who we are and what we want? Yeah right!
Without it…you are tone deaf.
Instantly we become Simon Cowell when someone sings out of tune…but often ignore the sounds of someone close whose life and career are out of tune. When you know what you are the rest of you will start to show up. The best example is my radio career…since 1972 at the age of ten I’ve spent every cent of energy in my pocket crafting a career. Everywhere I traveled, every place I was given the chance to speak, sing and or perform…it was 100% all in the name of one day being part of radio. My first opportunity to perform on a real radio station was in 1976 at KLYC. Mom and Dad said, “No! We will not drive you to another city so you can play games.” Patiently I waited until the day legendary country music announcer Lonnie Bell from KOYN asked the Dean of Boys at Billings Senior High School to get me out of class because he needed to talk to me. Thirty chapters into this book and I am man enough to admit it was the worst mistake of my life.
Wait wait wait…Lord have mercy I can hear it now, “Arroe’s not happy, blah blah blah.” That’s not at all what I said. Everything we do is a lesson leading toward a different destination. By being open with the process of change newer rows of roses are planted everyday.
Legacy is not ego…legacy is based on the strengths and passions that align in ways that not only affect your life but people you’ll never meet. Take actor Kal Penn…known for his parts in Harold and Kumar and last season on the FOX drama House…his truest art form and stage performances had nothing to do with lights, camera then action. At this very moment he’s currently part of President Obama’s cabinet working one on one with Asian nations to keep better communications open and always moving forward. But to become well spoken and trained to handle situations that require mindsets of acting, he’s allowed his earlier chapters to feed his future.
Recession? Look at it as being the first step of your brand new beginning. The moment your past becomes more exciting than your future is the day you start to die.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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