A brand new weekend! Two days to get away, 48 hours to break free, 2,280 minutes of space to set sail…wait, wait, wait…reality check. Saturday and Sunday’s have become an open door to another place of business, the King and Queen have ruled, “In order to survive successfully while keeping the creditors off your path you must pay the price by dropping the one time weekend fun to pick up the duties and responsibilities of a part time job.”
We’ve become numb to the constant expectations of an every day that arrives on time at the haunting stroke of midnight.
I’m the guy in the ice cold movie theater playing an action packed Jason Statham thriller with bloody cop chases or giant monsters crushing cars, people and buildings wondering, “Who’s making the call home to the families featured in the film to tell them that their son of daughter isn’t going to be there?”
Same thing about the current workforce in America…what is the final picture going to look like after the occupational addiction is said and done?
The CEO of The Great Wolf Lodge Kim Schaefer puts in seven days a week. She’s not shy to admit that if it wasn’t for her stay at home husband the term family probably wouldn’t exist. Working is her life. The payoff being she’s one of few if not the only woman leading a major corporation worth hundreds of millions.
What does this have to do with bone chilling movie theaters with Jason Statham taking out bad guy after bad guy?
With so many people physically connected to the bottom line dollar…what becomes of the art a creative mind once generated? When there’s no longer any time to play or redesign originality what becomes our new solitude? Being a visionary with his eye attached to generations not yet born, the times we currently call home will be looked upon as being some of the most quiet in the history of music, art and writing because day by day we’re slowly becoming the generation that’s become numb to the importance of being free to create.
Hired is the help to make the lawns look unforgettable. Why cook at home when chefs are born at the birth of every school year at Johnson and Wales? There’s no need to paint on a canvas once blizzard white when Wal-Mart will sell you a print for $4.99. Racing to the mountains to witness to the arrival of fall isn’t savored until you stop for 30 seconds in the months after and review the two hundred thousand pictures.
Heard the greatest quote last week, “The recession will be over when the thing we need come down in price and the things we don’t need disappear.”
It’s amazing how many people verbally attacked me for canceling HBO, “How could you detach yourself from True Blood and East Bound and Down?”
And if you heard the real reason why I grew into a Droid or Amazon’s Kendle the technology storyline would be so boring movie critics like Lawrence Toppman and Sean O’Connell would instantly write, “He’s not even cool enough to be a nerd.”
People have different reasons for working all the time. Be it to keep online banking tossing out checks like Halloween candy or because the son of a farm girl from Wyoming understands the presentation of a good days work—the end result is…there won’t be much of an end result to create a colorful horizon.
I’ve often playfully accused my mother for teaching me how to strap on the work boots and walk through acres of cattle and horse waste and she apologizes every time. She took it personal when the phone call arrived that her son’s heart stopped. It’s taken over a year for me to convince her that it had nothing to do with her addiction to work and everything to do with my dependence on fast food.
If you aren’t writing, painting, redesigning, tilling the front and backyard, playing the guitar or drums, baking or serving nifty cool ways to fry bologna due to the ever present pressure of having to hold down numerous jobs and other people’s expectations then the message we’re sending into the pages of tomorrow is simple. “Life isn’t worth sharing.”
When you create you share…
I don’t care if it’s a fresh plate of Rice Krispy Treats or movie popcorn with a splash of spices to hide the typical cardboard taste…without creative flow we’ve become the dead generation. We’re allowing other people to entertain us. We are the millions who once packed the coliseum in Rome and the only thing standing today is a shell. You might as well dress us up in Star Wars Storm Trooper suits and send us into Darth Vader’s next galactic battle.
A brand new weekend! Two days to get away, 48 hours to break free, 2,280 minutes of space to set sail…what exactly does that mean?
Spend thirty minutes in a nearby mall slowly eating freshly created ice cream and nearly everyone who sluggishly walks by is talking on their cell phone or sitting across from you texting. I can be in the same room with my wife and we’re communicating to each other through Face Book, “Giggle snort, giggle giggle you wrote something funny, giggle giggle where’s the dog?”
Next time you cruise into a movie theater…for just a moment think about the aftermath of what Jason Statham has ooo-ed and awed you with. If the movies we watch are the current reality…who’s placing the call home to the people who need to know Jason didn’t play a game of nice, nice with those they share a relationship with?
Of coarse I take things too seriously. That’s my job on this journey through the 21st Century. Somebody has to write to those waiting for us in the future.
I will always believe in your first…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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