I salute you with a hearty Ho Ho Ho!

I salute you with a hearty Ho Ho Ho!
Monday 12-06-2010 12:11pm ET
Actor/Comedian/Grammy Award winning musician and now published Author Steve Martin wastes no time to sputter what others mutter on the subject of reaching reasons why we play with possibility.


The list is endless of those who loudly shout, “I have a purpose! I’m here for a reason! I won’t stop until I locate the answer!” Only to be overshadowed by the leaky gloom, severe lack of gleam and unfriendly, “But now I’m tired so I’ll set what it is I’m supposed to do aside for another day to playfully chase a channel of three hundred on a television set already moving.”


Steve believes people create to build an audience.


Stop! Say it again! People create to build an audience.


Me being me…I could spend an extremely long week writing, thinking, bending, blogging, Tweeting and Face Booking on such a subject. In doing so I’d be forced to release the name of other creative’s that have the gift to speak, paint, interpret, meander, convince, seize and set free to sail across an open forum of other thinkers already lost in the worlds they manage like a Wal-Mart greeter.



People create to build an audience.


We workout at the gym to build a better body so others see us as being fresh and energetic; we’ve grown into a nation of 12 hour workday employees because we’ve creatively come up with ways to take the money we don’t have and make ourselves look bigger than what we are because being accepted is one of the major human needs in the art of surviving.


You don’t have to be in radio to be creative. You don’t need to be named an Art teacher to earn the label of being creative. Once a December sun sets on a cold to the bone day in Carolina a single whisper of wind unveils some of the most brilliant displays of creative flow of the year…Christmas decorations.


Go ahead slam that stick in the ground to keep the Santa inflatable in place...its your signature. Your house can be ugly as sin when the ball of fire climbs no higher than twelve noon but once a shadow kisses the step nearest your front door…dreams become a winter wonder land of blinky blink blink blink.


Today I stand up and cheer for Christmas tree decorators so often accused of taking it way too serious! I salute the father’s who grew up hoping to have a front yard brighter than a lunar landing on the moon! I pour lots of pride into the hearts of the brave souls who risks their lives leaping onto ladders connected to their roofs just so they can strap another string of lights to the siding only to find a bulb is out and they’ll spend the next three hours trying to figure out which one it is!


People create to build an audience.



Complain all you want about stores selling Christmas items way too early! Notice the holiday decorator never says anything about lawn tractors, plants and swimming pool supplies being readily available year round.


I salute the big bright and beautiful homes and yards that have torched the electric bill. That’s ok you have eleven months to pay it off. I’m proud of the skinny guy that dresses up as Santa and stands outside his house waiting for a slow moving car to pass while kids leap toward the window like wild dogs that spotted a squirrel.


No matter how cold the day or bitter the night, Christmas decorators brave the worst of conditions to hold in their hands that single moment when someone they’ve never met comes up and says, “Dude…love what you do every year. When I was a kid it was the only place I could find happiness. I’d look out that window knowing how rough life had been the entire year only to feel something warm in my heart coming from your vision of sharing something as simple as Christmas lights.”


When I was a child the stepfather figure was completely addicted to setting our house on fire with a storm of lights. He always told us. “I’m doing it for you mother! She calls it her winter time Fourth of July celebration.”


One year I complained and complained about crawling up on top of our two story house. It was horribly Montana cold and my fingers were too numb to remember whose hands they were connected to. The stepfather kept asking me to be still, “Your mother doesn’t need to hear you talking like this.” Being weak in his reasons I elected to stand up on the roof and belt out a few out of control thoughts. I slipped and fell from the roof landing directly in the stepfather figures arms. He laughed like Santa Claus, a cheer so loud it woke up the neighbors. Thinking he was mad and bent out of shape for having to listen to my wild mouth say evil things he calmly said, “I’ll catch you every time you need me. Which happens to be the second most important thing on your Mom’s honey do list.”


People create to build an audience.


I will always believe in you first!


arroecollins@clearchannel.com