Radio Blah blah Blog with Arroe Collins

2012 The Journey Back to America: Page Nine

2012-01-30T05:16:00.000-08:00

If you're going to dig make it an entire shovel full. The Journey back to America continues.

2012-01-27T06:26:00.000-08:00

Winter, Summer, Fall...Christmas, Halloween your fricken Birthday. Mile Markers that decide for us to invite change. There's a genius in all of us. What is your genius? Grab the journey...

The President Forgot To Say, "I will protect people from workplace bullying!"

2012-01-25T05:24:00.000-08:00

Katie Byron reminds us: You are the teacher and healer you've been waiting for. Thanks to the bad economy workplace bullying is at its highest peak. How can you save you? LINK up

Forgetfulness Versus Today

2012-01-24T05:12:00.001-08:00

How many days has it been raining? Is it playing games on your imagination? You're going places that aren't too safe. Where is Superman to save your day?

2012: Journey Back To America Page Eight

2012-01-23T05:01:00.001-08:00

American Idol versus Reality on The Street

Music is just rhythmic mud...

2012-01-19T05:51:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had one of those days when your intended destination is set on a mind driven performance and without notice and preparation a whisper of wind from the heart shifts the position of the sails requiring the journey to glide northward?

Growing up in a pair of Montana shoes, a child learns his or her foot loosely planted in the dark, heavier than rocks but extremely mystifying mud made in the
Big Sky Country has a way of affecting outside lives.

Commonly found in cow pastures and a struggling farmer’s growing field the newly formed section of land that’s taken shape on the bottom of your soles has a way of deflating a Mother’s beautiful home intentions while heightening the presence of a young one’s imagination.

Mud makes people move.

I call it your true signature.

Montana mud is deeply enriched with incredible thickness giving it the strength to stick to everything…

For some God forsaken reason I find tremendous amounts of energy and inspiration in wet dirt; believing anyone, everyone, bad bosses and your worst enemy have the ability to make it. Once generated the gift isn’t a line left in the sand but the remnants of knowing someone has made you move.

Take the new song Good Feeling from Flo Rida. What did I just step in?
If the streets of Heaven are truly made of gold I think a chunk of it just bopped the pop which stopped the talk forcing me to drop the needle on a stack of wax that’s gonna last longer than forever. Somebody call the future! Good Feeling is gonna be ripping up car speakers from here to twenty thirty seven!

Flo Rida has sampled a shiver making set of rhythms that swipes the Blues from Soul.

Good Feeling doesn’t rip Etta James from her fame but spreads her greatness like Montana mud across our present day kitchen floor.

Something’s Got A Hold On Me from Etta James was released in my birth year of 1962. I don’t know if my farmhand Mother used to sing it while mending fences, branding calves and breaking horses but Flo Rida’s remix has elevated my senses beyond a stereotypical Hollywood drama based on the powers of reincarnation.

Etta’s early sixties release isn’t surface level church choir Aretha Franklyn-esque but downright Preacher man is disappointed that he didn’t see you in the Holy House this past Sunday.

But like Montana mud…music has a way of offering separate shades of reaction and destinations.

What I find earth quaking, shaking and mind-crater baking might in fact be the cheap rubber heal of an old pair of leather boots scraped across a set of finely designed hardwood floor planks made to gift your smile with an I’ve made it to greatness kind of day.

Sort of like the words we share.

Like the melody of a song, it won’t be long that something someone said will stick to your feet like Montana mud basking in the opportunity to be stretched from the open doors of policy through a foundation that doesn’t belong to you.

And just like Good Feeling from Flo Rida, fifty years after its birth the impact of the message shared today will be part of decisions made.

Respect…
Don’t expect…
The abused becomes the abuser…
It’s what you say and how you deliver it that makes the house look dirty.

Shhhhhh…let me lean over here and help you steer. Time to shine. Pour some vibes in the heart vines. I’m gonna release into the air the songs that put you there.
Not to take you back because that’s too much fat. The weight isn’t freight… it’s belief from a leaf, the seed of light for your tree of life.

Thanks to Flo Rida I’m singing me some Etta James!

Oh sometimes I get a good feeling…
I get a feeling I never never never had before.
I just wanna tell you right now
I believe.
I really do believe yeah…
Something’s got a hold on me right now.
Oh it must be love
Let me tell ya now I got a feeling I feel so strange
Everything about me seems to have changed.
Step by step I’ve got a brand new walk
I even sound sweeter when I talk.
Oh, Oh, Oh!
Let me tell you it must be love!

I will always believe in you first…

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

2012 The Journey Back to America: Page Seven

2012-01-17T06:33:00.001-08:00

Over the weekend a Presidential hopeful was stridently grilled of his assessment to publicly debate that our current place in history is captained by a Food Stamp President. Immediately he was labeled a racist.

Calmly, the former Speaker of the House explained how research has put a face on the number of American’s currently receiving monthly government help. At no other time has there been such a demand.

Is it wrong to say there aren’t enough fingers and toes on my body to count the number of hungry families I know? Should I be embarrassed by the height of the mountains keeping school children unfocused in class because they’re not getting proper nourishment?

As a child I never knew why I wore the ugliest shoes. I couldn’t figure out the reasons why other’s would point then laugh at the jacket barely covering my shivering skin. I didn’t eat lunch at school because I was embarrassed to let co-students see me drink powdered milk, eggs and anything extremely cheap. By junior high the system had changed and we were allowed to keep a card the lunch lady would punch but mine was always a different color than the others.

But this isn’t about me…

And I refuse to make this writing endeavor a political statement.

Nobody wants to talk about homelessness not even those living on the street.

I can’t hide the numbers that are invisibly growing. Therefore the journey has become a walk through a manmade forest. Why should this collection of eroded gullies and ancient canyons be any different? Shocking isn’t the new face of homelessness but the silence so many hold in what they brag as being an open door or warm heart and palm.

So this week I traveled outside the trees, to a different ridge. To the assumed grand beauty of a section of the nation so proud and even here the soil is poisoned.

Because Native American’s don’t believe in fate; I find no reason to locate a purpose as to why the footsteps of my path have led me to a trail baring the name of Jerry West.

A quick glance at his bio and even my mother would question the decision to enter the sacred circle holding the often ignored questions. His Florida ministry is based on identifying demons. He travels the country dressed in heavy makeup and large metal like shielded costumes that a younger generation finds Super-Hero-like only to learn there’s a much deeper message.

Trusting gut instinct and the knowledge of knowing how showmanship can be an extremely powerful tool, I tightly held the glossy promotional photo of Jerry laced up and ready for war and hardly took the split in a fast paced second to decide, “This guy has story which will help build bridges over valley floors on this journey back to America.”

I am the interviewer. Every week for fifty two total I’ll ask only five questions.

Interviewer: No matter where you travel you can’t hide the differences that separate the rich, middle class and poor. But if you stop long enough a fourth class is beginning to appear closer in rearview mirrors. Do you see this as the start of a third world?

Reply number one: I’m not an optimist or a pessimist but a realist. I see things the way they are. The south has always been known as a different group of people. But that’s what makes this country great. We have the south, northeast, southwest and the Pacific northwest. But for some reason conditions in the south have always been different which can be traced all the way back to the civil war…the south has never lost a painful stigma of being like a third world country of helplessness and homelessness. Personally I believe if enough of us ban together to do something about our current conditions without relying on the aid of the government then the south won’t return to the way it was. If each person would agree that enough is enough and do one thing to change the face of today an entire nation will change. We have the power to affect everybody.

Interviewer: Can churches and rescue missions afford to keep helping people?

Reply number two: We’re in a position to always provide help. I’m not talking about a particular denomination but every denomination. Forget what the marquee says outside on the wall and realize that the word “church” is a single body that never stops reaching into lives requiring help.

Interviewer: What’s more important dropping a couple of bucks in the plate on Sunday morning or offering your time at a soup kitchen?

Reply number three: When you share five or five hundred dollars know the majority of the churches in America will be helping the homeless. Whether it’s for food, clothing, temporary shelter or a chance to grasp hope again…by providing a couple of extra bucks someone’s life will change for the good because they believed in themselves enough let a church or rescue open the door for them to locate a new job.

Interviewer: Are the new faces of homeless the birth place of new missionaries and teachers? Basically meaning, could these experiences be an extremely valuable education for future Americans?

Reply number four: Anybody can teach. You don’t have to be homeless. Any experience is a life experience. You can spend thousands of dollars on the best education and walk out a dummy. I’m not against education because I believe we need to educate ourselves. A life experience is the best way to communicate a more peaceful tomorrow. Use the experience to teach other’s how to survive when things look bad. Don’t be shy with your experiences…what you went through can change another life so they don’t endure the same experience. These are the mistakes I made…let me help you make the right choice.

Interviewer: In the past five years a lot of jobs and lives have been destroyed because of corporate cutbacks that tend to finance the pockets of CEO's and Stockmarket Share Holders rather than the hardworking employee...how do you react to the Presidential hopeful that believes Corporate America is not a corporation but rather a person? If it truly is a person then what laws should be enforced to help correct conditions at work?

Reply number five: People are people. The Government is for the people by the people. A statesman speaks on behalf of the people while a politician speaks on behalf of the person giving them a vote. We the people of the United States need to hold those controlling our tax dollars accountable. If you want to look at it from a Corporate American standpoint then someone needs to remind them that they work for us.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Eating chocolate doesn't guarantee a great day!

2012-01-12T05:44:00.000-08:00

The boss is on your case. Family members continue to accuse. The strangest place where freedom can be found is?

Do you believe in Angels?

2012-01-11T05:15:00.000-08:00

An early morning craving that led to something nearly impossible to explain so you learn to ignore it.

Do you even know what having passion means?

2012-01-10T05:51:00.000-08:00

So you think you've got what it takes?

2012 The Journey Back to America: Page Six

2012-01-09T05:58:00.000-08:00

Page six

2012 The Journey Back to America: Page Six

2012-01-09T05:56:00.001-08:00

http://www.lite1029.com/pages/arroe.html?article=9585473

When your boss walks into the room do you duck?

2012-01-05T05:55:00.001-08:00

The birth of a business New Year should be caught on video then connected to Reality TV…

Priceless are the resolution hunting bosses and company owners that hap heartedly believe changing the last digit of the presented next 52 weeks is reason to stand up straight, stop picking your nose and kick into a new gear everything that seems deep, dark, unspoken and bleak.

The initial first step is to get control of the minions dipping into your biweekly pocket. Immediately sent out are office emails bleeding with threats; then the full staff meetings reeking with intimidation. And who will ever forget the extremely classic

“We are a team” speech. We are the biggest! The best! If in doubt please see HR for a free bus ride home.

Coming from Montana I know threats and intimidation may move the cattle and sheep away from the silent wolf casually watching in the nearby trees but we all know that true success isn’t about the present moment but rather long term. But the importance of documenting the number of bodies that once sat in the chair Johnson just took over is numb, null and void.

Working relationships are what we did when Microsoft, Apple and Muzak introduced to big business a come as you are, wear what you want day of freedom. I remember the gray walls at Jefferson Pilot being repainted to yellow, a comfortable brown and an infamous purple near Master Control at WBTV Channel 3.

Then something before the recession happened. Threats and leadership by way of intimidation blazed the tall forests of productivity turning 7.2 hour days into fully documented IRS watched 40 hours a week knowing full well the amount of time spent off the clock shoved the rule books into that little place called, “He doesn’t work here anymore. I’m now in control.”

Show me a company that’s presently having a sip of success and I’ll show you a fully built barrier fed by fear and resentment.

I remember laughing at the announcement of there being a recession in America. I thought, “The Calvary has come! Businesses will be forced to change their standards.”

Fired were the coaches. Lost were the captains of the ship that would’ve stood at the helm of that sinking Titanic if given the opportunity but someone from a village twenty six states away didn’t feel comfortable with a set of numbers and without questions, concerns and or reasons to believe in…the face of finding and maintaining success changed from developing a monument to becoming a moment.

One quote from Art Williams still holds true, “Fear isn’t the most effective management tool.”

Build a better today by taking note of your possibilities in July, October and next January. Darth Vader dies in Star Wars.

Learn to invest your passion for the sport in untrained souls. I’ve yet to meet the Linguistics Major that can properly speak the street. Workplace success cannot be book or research taught. You’ve heard of people complaining about the world having too many lawyers. Same goes for consultants and CEO’s.

“Pay me this! I will give you this!”

Meanwhile six months of totally uncool Chapter 11 no member FDIC, get written permission from the NFL while seeing the dealer for details later…the company continued to fall eventually leading to close doors and no Christmas.

“Yeah…if you would’ve had BBQ only on Monday’s followed by more beer for my personal parties on Thursday thru Sunday while hiring someone to pinch hit for me on the golf course you might have seen your numbers rise. But because your place of business uses bad toilet paper, the stuff without flowers and perfume scents; it just didn’t seem inviting to new customers. And what’s up with your recycling habits? I feel that maybe its best you find yourself a new beginning.”

Every employee should be shown new opportunities in the company! Give the tail busters a reason to believe they can help deliver success to the owner’s addiction to gold cards and Martha’s Vineyard.

I grew up thinking only the world of broadcasting was the only place on earth that didn’t share the Help Wanted section of Radio and Records Magazine. Getting caught with your nose buried in a job opportunity in Fargo, North Dakota was far worse than your mother discovering magazines under the mattress.

I still can’t get over Mitt Romney’s victory speech in Iowa, “I will help people get back to work.”

Here’s an idea: stop trying to create new jobs and generate the guts to free the people from fear, intimidation and a lack of self confidence. Mastermind a policy that reshapes the business relationship sky like those that swiped smokestacks and factory pollutions from the air.

The American dream is dead not because we are a lazy people… Have you ever stumbled onto the scene of a dog that’s been abused? He or she offers nothing except glances toward the one holding the chain. Like abuse, in order to receive we look to our bosses and company presidents to get permission to accept success.

Relationship! Connectedness! Rather than hoist the flag that says, “You’re the man!” Give July, October and next January a fighting chance to be a continuation of success not just a quick fix. Growing up we called them beer buzzes. Then we went home and felt like dieing because the fricken bed spins were killers.

When your boss enters the room do you duck?

I will always believe in you first.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

If you don't do...then you can't.

2012-01-04T05:50:00.000-08:00

Winston Churchill said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going. You only have to endure to conquer.”

General Douglas MacArthur believed that age wrinkles the skin but quitting wrinkles the soul.

Former Presidential candidate Ross Perot, “Most people quit on the one yard line. They give up in the last minute of the game.”

After barely winning in Iowa 2012 Republican runner Mitt Romney clearly spouted to supporters, “When I go to work I’ll put American’s back to work.”

First…I don’t support Romney or any other person that’s scientifically situated their backbones in a position of public display that may or may not lead to becoming the leader of the most incredible nation on earth.

What I do find interesting are the entanglements candidates put themselves in only to cackle like chickens when the golden egg leads to a payoff.

You’ve got CNN and Fox News to tell you about how two months ago Mitt was barely a viewpoint.

Fascinating is the journey. To shave the hairs off the open financial wound of this country and pull off an eight vote victory is every reason why the best investment is a personal drive to move through the mountain, bust down the skyscraping walls of Corporate America and succeed.

In martial arts we are trained to break boards and thick concrete bricks. My first degree mentor Nathan Richie took the challenge to a higher level by blindfolding his only view of the world then jump turning hook kicking 6 to 8 feet in the air an apple from a sword.

What are the real chances such a kick could save your life?

While nonbelievers chant, “The wood is cut in ways that shatter easily!”

No hand, foot or head will touch the realms of the other side unless there’s a journey first. It’s almost like an agreement, a contract or trust designed to better understand the vision or final destination.

I’m constantly telling people about where Montana is…but after being in the Carolina’s for 27 years I haven’t a clue as to how I’m gonna one day get back to my hometown.

Why should the drive toward personal success be any different?

We’ve been trained to want therefore we shall receive. Goals are set too high which makes it nearly impossible to reach. If you can’t do it who will? We’re trained that being a manager or company leader brings dreams to the surface. You now have the control to hire and fire.

I don’t know how many times I heard Carolina Panther Steve Smith and Cam Newton telling reporters, “If you can’t live up to what’s being asked…you shouldn’t be here.”

And every time I became less of a fan.

Steve and Cam have come across as the top dog sales people in a company that’s no different than most who are extremely lucky enough to have a couple of loyally dedicated go getters. But to display an I’m better than you attitude immediately erodes the foundation that furthers the journey toward a winning season.

In an atmosphere of martial artists the act of being better than teaches lower belt students how to quit. The moment your foot touches the mat, you bow to the flag and allow the white color of your uniform serve as reason to believe that you always have room to grow and showcasing an interest in other people’s journeys will forever have an impact on the very place your foot is currently placed.

Guidance, courage, wisdom and leadership turned Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill into monuments that continue to change lives many chapters after their final breath.

When a red belt is wrapped around the waste of a student it opens the door for them to refocus their journey. Although it may sound easy to ax kick a solid brick into two…I learn more from the chance taker that didn’t succeed the first, second or fifth time. Doubt destroys willingness. Without a will there is no way.

Who influences your need to quit? The best players on the team will never come out and clearly say, “Move away from the end zone.” Nothing inspires a need to quit more than a coworker that barely does what’s expected but is constantly awarded with gifts and or recognition from decision maker’s that wouldn’t share the sunshine with you if today was blessed with too much.

Other people’s actions and reactions invisibly undo what you do.

You can’t break a brick unless you envision your hand, foot or head moving through it first. When was the last time you gave yourself permission to see beyond your biggest let down? How often do you turn an extremely bad day into an opportunity to step back and revaluate the destination of attempt?

At the extremely old age of ten in itty bitty Billings, Montana I sat in a barely built bedroom pretending to be a morning show radio DJ in Los Angeles. Get close enough to me and you’ll quickly realize that after 33 years only my desire to quit stands in the way of making it a reality.

Ryan Seacrest wouldn’t have become this generations Dick Clark without having those conversations with family and friends in Atlanta about one day being.

Be truthful to your budding self. Push those unique flower petals through the metal. Twenty twelve is the 52 week period that’s officially open for your leadership, unconditional support and dedicated desire to learn from every chapter that resembles a bleak, dark and gloomy reason to say stop.

Not today…it’s time for victory.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

What if Ace and TJ don't like me?

2012-01-03T06:00:00.001-08:00

Remember when being angry usually came with an invitation from an elementary school teacher, “Please turn this sheet of paper and pencil into a tool and spend recess writing about what’s made you extremely too moody for my class. When finished, I’ll show you the fine art of ripping it up and tossing your anger away.”

With barely a whisper of wind to hold, life thrusts your feet into a pair of adult shoes; eight, nine and ten evolves into 25, 31 and 50 where the idea of putting focus on the methods of madness that make you lean are no longer important enough to invite peaceful conclusions to. So…we horde bad vibrations like an 80’s song overplayed on the radio.

Come on Eileen from Dexy’s Midnight Runner’s might serve as a happy place while Betty Davis Eyes from Kim Carnes ignites a fire that rages out of control at work, home or while slipping through the cracks on Independence Blvd.

According to the author of Loving What Is; Katie Byron, “Never stop judging your neighbors.”

She invites you to rip open your heart and land your flight above all things ignored on a runway of resolution and solution. Write about your past, present and future. Jot down your dislikes and worries about people. Unveil your sadness on paper! If this seems too revealing and it’s a safe zone you’re searching for check out www.thework.org.

Anyone who’s followed Julia Cameron’s Artist Way knows of the truths she’s introduced you to through being faithful to Morning Pages. Getting to know you is a gut wrenching task filled with more Halloween masks than Morris Costumes on Monroe Road in Charlotte, NC.

Trust is constantly the battle. How is it possible to be open, honest and revealing of what paints pain on the path if you live or work with someone whose eyes constantly search for weapons to use against you?

It took ten years to leave my daily writing out for anyone to view. Having the guts to whip out the pages to showcase a thought isn’t necessarily brave but rather truthful. Rather than judge the way I think know who I am first.

Penning out your points of view isn’t just a family squabble thing!

Because of my 2009 heart attack doctors have asked that I step on a scale twice daily. Although 2011 was an incredible year for weight loss, a sudden gain over the weekend put their methods of education into play. While the nurse calmly accused me of eating and drinking wrong while forcefully reminding me of the dangers of her purpose, I was able to bring peace of mind to her reasons by pulling out my writing and sharing my handwritten thoughts, blood pressure and weight changes for the past thirty days.

Have you ever documented the journey of the common cold? You’ll learn more about you when you do.

Back to Katie Byron, “If you find yourself sending out the index finger of blame the most important rule of true happiness has been shattered. The focus is no longer on you.”

Remove the censors.

That in itself is an extremely dangerous game to play. By dropping the curtain that reveals the wizard, knowing when to be open and direct is the key to walking in peace. Just because it seems fitting on paper, anyone nearing your daily circle won’t understand your reasons for becoming and staying real.

According to Katie, “When you do the work, everything outside you is a reflection of your own thinking. You are the storyteller, the film projector, he or she that promotes an image. The moment we recognize a flaw in the screen we want to change the person.”

Is it true?
Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
How do you react when you think that thought?
Who would you be without that thought?

Julia Cameron leads readers into believing, “Anger isn’t the solution. It’s only a symptom.”

Have you ever asked why you suddenly become depressed the moment your toes walk through the front door at work?

Rather than place blame on coworkers and the cleanup crew that constantly forgets your trash; look into the bucket and see if you recognize the lines that keep you connected when the biggest ambition is to sever the ties.

I suffer from a horrid disease called OPBWE. (Other people’s bad work ethics) I become extremely angry and depressed when confronted by what I assume is laziness, a lack of caring and or they find no reason to invest in success. Guess what? It’s not their job to keep up with me! In fact people find my addiction to working completely a pain in the a**!

Keeping up with the Jones’ at work creates mountains. Not living up to the boss’s expectations generates craters that surround the mountains. Becoming angry at drivers who don’t move when the light turns green is the evil claw connected to a fire breathing dragon too ugly to put in a Hollywood movie. From the outside it truly looks like our purpose in life is to be unhappy only to assume we’re too late to fix it.

Why are Grandparents more open and playful than the parental figures they were when you were growing up? My stepfather Joe was brutal on bad behavior. We’d get five minutes to talk on the phone and 30 seconds into the conversation, “Your time is up!” Combine that with radio station program directors that screamed at you if the thought over the song lasted longer than eight seconds. Now ask me why I can’t stand emails longer than a paragraph.

Why do I instantly become a demon when a company raises their prices? I’ll know that answer when Stepfather Joe shows me shows me how he kept his family from being homeless. We literally had nothing and yet when I look back I see a man that never gave up. He let no wall serve as a mountain he couldn’t climb.

In 2012 stop pretending to change and grasp onto a couple of minutes to locate an answer as to why something might be bothering you. I haven’t a clue as to why the sun always rises in the east then sets in the west. Rather than challenge it, I’ve learned to accept new beginnings while never forgetting to say thank you for the light that unveiled paths to chase.

I will always believe in you first…

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

2012 The Journey Back To America: Page Five

2012-01-02T07:39:00.001-08:00

Visually, scanning the jagged edges of homelessness seems approachable, without hard to digest challenges, some might even call it a vision quest to connect with a higher understanding of where this generation might be drifting.

Now that the writer whose footprints have been muddied by thirty two years of radio broadcast has stepped into the mysterious dark hole; the faces of assumption line the unmarked nights as to who is and isn’t homeless versus which family, friend or coworker will charter a headless dream giving permission to hope, faith and ambition to seize it’s desire to receive air?

Homelessness is more visual than you see.

It’s disguised to look like other methods of acceptance such as multiple families living under one roof, the same quarter acre of land featuring small one to two bedroom no bigger than a shack landmarks that resemble housing, bankruptcy terminates mortgages but in some cases you have until a year to physically leave the setting or if you spend ten minutes driving in any direction on a freeway you’ll bump into the modern gypsy; American’s that have walked away from neighborhoods and city streets, country cabins and lakeside waves to accept constant moving by way of RVing.

Homelessness isn’t just the bum snuggled up in a blanket at a bus stop begging for a buck or scratching his or her fingers across five strings of a heavily weathered guitar chanting songs written along the way.

Pastor Flo was extremely clear when explaining, “Are they houseless or homeless? Do they suffer from disconnection?”

Standing outside Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, NC on New Year’s Eve, my conversation with a short dirty bearded man with crusted fingertips and stained tips smoking the last 1/8th of an inch off his only smokes began with, “Are you without a home tonight?”

“I have a home!” His well focused reply instantly bounced off me. “If they let me back into this place I know exactly where I’m gonna be tonight.”

Pulling from his jacket was a nicely folded sheet of paper that categorically in a lawyers way explained that because he chose to smoke that he wouldn’t be allowed in. Sucking in a lung full of what used to be he found no reason to believe that he fit the category I had suggested, therefore every question I very politely shared was blocked by what Scott a former street warrior called my misunderstanding.

It was I who was uneducated.

Scott explains, “If you’re watching TV and a man walks into your house without knocking, you’d feel invaded. Walking up to the assumed homeless man put his defenses up just like yours.”

I would never walk up to someone in an RV and start things out with, “How long you been without a roof?”

If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck…in the world of homelessness that doesn’t mean you’re standing next to something that’s going to quack.

This week The Interviewer took not five but one question to the web with shielded five different answers: How should I approach the homeless?

Reply number one: Homeless people aren't all necessarily the cliche "hobos" the media displays for us to see. I've talked to many, and they're all normal people. All the homeless people I've met so far have spoken perfect English. You have to remember that most of these homeless people were once average people although some others may have been born homeless which is a rare case. Talk to them like normal people, really! In your world, there are fat, pretty, ugly, skinny, mean, nice, tall, and short people. -Well, it's basically the same in the homeless world. Offer them a meal with a drink, sit down beside them and ask a simple question "Hi, my name is ________. Do you care for a meal? I've been walking around this whole day, the weather is really nice. How are you today, sir/ma'am?" If they nod or reply yes, hand them their meal politely. Don't start to personally, and don't ask for their name too early, instead ask them as you leave "It was wonderful meeting you. I'll come again next weekend if you don't mind. Oh, and what is your name?"

Replay number two: I did a project on people and their different life styles and one day while I was going to grab some lunch to go…this guy who, when he talked sounded like anyone else not like "change change, can I have a dollar, do you have any money to spare?" He was really polite. I asked if he had plans for the rest of the day. He said, “No…” like expected. I asked him if he would like to join me for lunch. I found out how he became homeless and the inside "scoop" on the homeless journey to survive and make it to the next day.

Reply number three: I usually just smile and say, “Hi!” I've seen people engaged in conversation with homeless people and I think as long as you're friendly and treat them respectfully, you can begin a conversation too. If you're doing this for a project, it would only be right to give them a few dollars or buy them a meal while you're talking, because their time is valuable too.

Ok stop right there. This brings me to a conversation with Scott whose personal vow is to take $300 from his entrepreneurial pocket and hand out the money $50 at a time.

Instantly I gulped! $50 is a ton of cash to give to a person you don’t know especially since society has taught us that nearly every cent of it will be spent on drugs, alcohol or cigarettes.

“At least I know they’ll be warm tonight,” was Scott’s reply. “Warm with hope. The first thing you lose out on the street is hope. A man walks up and gives you fifty bucks and for the first time in weeks your heart feels something incredibly special.”

Interviewer: How should I approach the homeless?

Reply number four: I once stayed in a homeless shelter in Denver for a while. Went into a stupid "Work Oriented" rehab program there. Did it instead of going to jail for four months. Worked 13 hours a day cleaning up human waste and puke, being eaten up by bedbugs, cooking dinner and washing dishes for our "guests" and putting up with all manner of verbal and physical abuse from them. A few, really just a few, were friendly and appreciative. The rest were just ornery, dangerous, ugly, shiftless, disgusting human junk. I got in a lot of fights. More than I did in jail.

If they can get away with it, most will kill you and strip you in ten minutes flat. Kill you for ten bucks. If I had it to do over I'd just go back to jail.

Reply number five: I encounter homeless people five days out of the week. A few months back, I had a good discussion with a friend about homeless people. He was passionate in a practical way. He had experience. His advice was simple - just talk to them. They're human too. That's scary. They're not like me. They may smell. I'm in a hurry. Talk to them about what? What if they ask for money? He proceeded to tell me that homeless people just want you to talk to them. They don't want to be a project. My friend mentioned the idea of keeping a few cans of chili in the back of my car just for a homeless occasion. I didn't have to store those cans for long. Anthony was his name. I met him at a Shell just down the street from school. He asked me for money. I asked him if he was hungry. And out came the chili. We sat on the sidewalk with our chili and talked, like new friends. He is 28 years old and was jumped in the park the night before. He told me of his family and how long he had been homeless (10 years). His dad finds him from time to time and gives him money. He has a driver's license, but only for identification. He showed me where he slept the night before. All the while I was holding back tears.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

2012 The Journey Back to America: Page Four

2011-12-22T14:12:00.000-08:00

Standing with my hands open in a Sunday morning soup line doesn’t guarantee a reason for being. Nor do the chapters written open in the way Moses parted the sea. Then again my upbringing had nothing to do with connecting a performance to a payoff. You do what you do not because you want others to do the same for you but you do what you do because that’s you.

I study. I wishfully think there’s something we can do. I study even harder.

While the winds of the north prepare to blow what little is left on the winter prepared trees; each limb tends to scrape from the sky what little is left for the trunk to carry. The ground is frozen so no water is getting in. The air seems tight so there’ll be no rain tonight. Like a homeless man the tree bends with whatever wave is sent; to make it through the storm seems endless, meaningless and almost next to never a game of let’s pretend.

I study. I carefully listen to the tales connected. I study even harder.

The closer I get so shall the scent; that of wonder salted with what must it be like? Willie is too free while Scott couldn’t escape fast enough. Does the Stock Market guarantee no room at the Rescue or does being people of homelessness come with a modern society?

A set of war torn eyes belonging to Clarence the Chef swell while gently explaining his most recent visit inside the outside; to meet, greet and hold the hands of mother’s wanting nothing more than to find a blanket to cover their child not collect the almighty dollar so many city folk tie to their lost identity.

I study. I patiently wait for the painted face to appear before my writing hand. To share by way of being there. To open is to teach. I haven’t a clue as to how one might be able to heal so rather than steal I hand the writing instrument over to the voices that live beside the darkness waiting for the walkers to suddenly appear.

Jennifer Clark is the Business Manager of the Family Care Center of Catawba Valley, Inc.

Family Care Center is a nonprofit agency that provides emergency and transitional housing for homeless families with dependent children. The program offers a comfortable and secure apartment for each guest. It also provides physical, emotional, social and educational services.

The Goal at Family Care Center is to transition every family into permanent housing through a savings program, in lieu of rent, the guest are required to pay a savings into their office that goes into an account for them.

According to Jennifer, “Basically, they’re paying rent to themselves.”

The key is to have a job and in this area that may sometimes be a challenge. Family Care Center uses valuable resources to help those struggling in their job search. It’s a “helping hand – a hand up” not a hand out. The guests are required to do their part to make their time in this program a success. But together, with the help of the community, local businesses and Churches, we can make a better tomorrow one family at a time.

I am the Interviewer. Jennifer was asked five questions:

Interviewer: Why is it so difficult for the homeless to convince themselves that you can help?

Jennifer: The Family Care Center is designed for families with dependent children who for whatever reason – laid-off, overcrowded situation, fire, domestic violence, etc. – have found themselves in a state of homelessness. They were once self-sufficient and independent and now find themselves in a scary and unfamiliar place in their lives. Once we reassure them that they are not alone and together we can get them back on their feet and restore their self-confidence and pride once again, we can begin the recovery process.

Interviewer: How difficult is it when job applications require an address the homeless don’t have one?

Jennifer: Fortunately, most applications can be applied for online and responses can be sent via email. The families in our program are given an apartment and a mailbox, so that eliminates this problem. However, we have also found that many of the families applying for our program cannot get food stamps without a permanent residence, so many of the families that come into our program have to wait until they have a permanent address before receiving food assistance. This is a problem for families that are living in their vehicles, streets, or tents.

Interviewer: Being face to face with departure with no reason to believe in the horizon what one message have you shared that invites hope?

Jennifer: Jesus cares and so do we! You are not alone. Time after time, families come in desolate, disheartened, and depressed – for just reason. Many of these people have no one to turn to; they see the faces of their children looking at them for reassurance and they have nothing to offer. We through the support of the community can restore some normalcy to what otherwise is a hopeless situation. We offer an opportunity for a second chance at a better life.

Interviewer: Can new beginnings keep someone from returning to homelessness?

Jennifer: With proper training and education, the homeless can become self-sufficient and independent once again. Budgeting is a big part of the long term recovery picture. These families need to be taught how to manage money and what is considered necessities and what can they do without (ie: cigarettes, cell phones, cable t.v., internet, etc.) They need to learn to live within their means, as do we all.

Interviewer: If a homeless family isn’t with you, who are they with?

Some of these people are forced to stay in unsafe and unsanitary places or extremely overcrowded conditions. There is a shelter in this area that gives homeless families and individuals a place to sleep and a warm meal. The doors are not opened until around 3 p.m. and they are required to be out around 9 a.m. therefore for most they have nowhere to go during the day.

Our program however does come with several rules and requirements, first they must be working or diligently searching for employment, in order to get out of the homeless situation they are currently in, they must be willing to work hard to find and maintain employment while in our program. They are required to put money into a savings that goes through our office so that we know they are actually saving. This money is used at the end of their stay to get them into permanent housing, hopefully through an income based housing program. This type program can assure that the families will be able to maintain at the minimum status quo and hopefully in time continue to better themselves and their families’ situation.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Un-bossing a bossy boss

2011-12-22T06:02:00.000-08:00

Be open and honest…

How often do you go to work and feel like a loser? Especially after a mandatory pep rally build me up buttercup quarterly meetings geared toward inspiring you to give more!

“We’re going to be great in 2012! We have the best team on earth!”

Three seconds in front of the company bathroom mirror and the scent of vomit filters through your nose because that speech failed to represent the feelings you’re having on the inside.

Art Williams is a brave man for exposing the hidden depths of a Corporate American front. Treat people “good” is a quality to live by. Until you get to work. Then the rules change because according to Art office managers are trained to believe management means treating people in a way they would never want to be treated themselves.

You don’t even have to close your eyes to see the face of the Grinch that stole your Christmas. That mug is fixed to your memory banks like a computer burns an image onto a compact disc. Now try and erase it…

Forget about the idea of fighting back. Total waste of your good energy. I’m shocked Ellen hasn’t tackled the subject of bullies at the workplace.

Overbearing, micromanaging, constantly dumping stuff on your path bosses used to be just like you. Then it happened, an opportunity to lead. Managers become who managed them. Or…the abused becomes the abuser. Ouch!

Art Williams clearly and boldly prints very loudly in his book Pushing Up People: Treat people good.

How do you do that? Do you know how much pressure is on managers?

This is why Art claims managers lead by fear and intimidation. It’s natural to believe that being tough is being a leader.

His solution? Leaders add the human factor to all aspects of their business.

Let me put it a different way. I love my stepfather Joe. I hated him while growing up. He was the meanest, most unfair and harshest with his words person this side of any Star Wars galaxy. And yet when you see him with the grandchildren the tiny tykes wearing teen shoes come back with words like, “Um I’m thinking you were the problem. He’s a far out, nifty cool absolutely the best in the whole wide world guy.”

This isn’t my way of saying, “Have you thought about giving your boss grandkids?”

Art Williams has a different plan: take the word boss out of bossing people around.

Let’s take a good look at a manager’s world. Although I manage the production department of five radio stations I’ve been accused of not being a great leader. Not because I boss but because my way of leading is believing. I believe in my producers and the styles and textures they were gifted with. To shape them like Frank Lloyd Wright carved out his student architects doesn’t offer my vision of how a commercial break should sound any depth.

Treating them with honest respect while trusting their visions of creative flow is looked upon as being flighty.

According to Art such leadership is a sign of weakness. Corporate decision makers are crafted by way of thinking that being too nice gives reason for employees to take advantage. You have to be tough to win people’s respect.

Insert scent of vomit here…

Wait…Arts response is so much better! A caring concerned leader is often welcome in the ranks of getter done. Be firm while making touch decisions without losing strength through an avenue called commitment.

Be committed to your team. See everyone as an individual not a nameless face.

That’s so Disney! Toss in the Charlotte Symphony and let’s call it a Christmas play!

Here’s my challenge. It’s the very invitation I give to everyone that steps within two inches of this Muppet filled radio station production room with a hand painted display of the Beatles in the corner.

You aren’t a real manager until you take your skills as a leader to a school that teaches what your company makes for the world. If you aren’t letting someone steal your art the failure is you not the employee.

I never say no to a school of Broadcasting. Being with a budding imagination teaches patience, the importance of locating personal value in what you offer as a business and even more powerful it prepares the future for quality because when your leadership is on public display fine tuned is communication.

Did you happen to take note of the Bose speakers connected to my soapbox? You gotta look good when standing on top of the mountain. As far as you see it only seems like it all belongs to you. Real leaders step off the path and help guide the thirsty to water.

That’s pretty fricken flighty isn’t it? Sure glad I’m not employed by the toilet paper people. My stuff might actually come with a fresh pair of undies.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Defeat the beast...

2011-12-21T06:42:00.001-08:00

Oh this is it! This is the year! I’m gonna do it! Whew baby! Aint nothing gonna stop me now! Humpty Dumpty pick that lazy butt up off the ground and put yourself back together because I feel the earth move under my feet! Then like a silent spider with his covert operation buddy the snake time sneaks up to your very busy plate and whispers, “December 21st.”

The New Year’s resolution is null and void!

The Yoga mat sits in a room barely used. The piano lessons the same. How about the front yard project that looked incredibly easy on TV? What about the leaves, twigs and everything else squirrel clogging the gutter? You said this was the year you’d save money by dropping cable TV! The washing machine still sugs and clugs when it should be swishing and swooshing. As for the kids getting more active? In what? Video gaming? Channel changing? What about creating excuses as to why those really cool nifty shoes look better in the center of their bedroom floor?

Between 1994 and 2000…the final ten days of the year were deeply, honestly and loyally dedicated to boldly laying out the path of process for the fast approaching next fifty two weeks. No morning page was written unless it included new ideas, the identification of correcting old habits and or unmasking impossibility by way of shrugging fear off like un-liking a friend on Face Book.

Something changed the course of my writing instrument during the Y2K scare of the new millennium. I began to take New Years resolutions too seriously. Two hundred forty hours before the number 19 disappeared from calendars, vivid pictures from an imagination gone wild reached too far into the realms of what if. In doing so, I began to fear.

FDR shook the birth of unborn history with, “The only thing you have to fear is fear itself.”

And so I let it…

I.T. departments in every corner of the business world became cocky blasting off office emails that belittled more than informed claiming Y2K wouldn’t be what CNN thought it could be.

Although Timothy McVeigh was put away and the Uni-bomber out of sight, America still had no clue what terrorism was except to call it an article read in Time Magazine.

I still remember the conversations about Big Brother. I mean come on, highways and downtown streets could be seen on video screens. Cell phone conversations truly weren’t private and bowling alleys featured black lights, glitter paint, strobes, chasers and speakers the size of Christmas sending out rhythms, rainbows and Hip Hop beats that made the sport extremely exciting.

The only thing missing was George Jettson’s infamous flying car.

Ten days before the millennium changed the prints found on the tips of my fingers laid out poetic expressions that continue to be too real to hold. Only to find the picture vividly becoming clear one year nine months and eleven days into the change. From that moment forward to resolute seemed selfish. It seemed too self serving to wanna change me when “we” needed to rebuild the country our Grandparents gave to us.

Wow! Here we are again. Not just ten days from the change but fifty two weeks from the final page. A little ditty not named Jack and Diane but December 21, 2012. Skeptics, criptic’s, critics and conspiracy theorists and masters who’ve studied the Mayan’s collectively agree this could be.

Kind of weird how we let what other people think control our daily living. Maybe it’s human nature, this thing called fear. What is fear but the lack of knowing?

So when FDR said, “The only thing you have to fear is fear itself.” He was truly telling the most powerful nation on earth that your decision to stop learning is every reason to halt growth.

Over the next ten days ask yourself ten questions. Bravely and honestly answer each with the type of openness that a closed society has encouraged you to practice.

There can be no resolutions if what is being changed has no clue as to who…you are.

There won’t be workouts to melt the body unless the doctor says, “You have cancer or it’s a heart attack.”

There won’t be a tighter budget until the online banking reads zero or barely a penny to save.

There can’t be dinner with the family until the smart lip of a tired teen steals from innocence then borrows it to chance making change.

We wait too long to make dents. The new shape of communication is guaranteeing your imagination enough room to be alone to text while driving while hammering out sixteen hours of work with pay that means nothing to you but at least the family has insurance. The price of gas will never bust the wall below three bucks and eating healthy doesn’t begin with drinking more water. That journey starts with clearing your heart and head.

You have twelve months to get to know you. Ask a question a day… What if the eyes looking back at you each morning you pee truly was someone that constantly had your back, stood up for you when life becomes challenged and quietly held your hand in the office during the delivery of more unheard of demands?

Have you ever laughed at a joke only you thought was funny?

Love what is… I will always believe in you first.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Becoming what your mind says you can't...

2011-12-20T06:55:00.000-08:00

It’s been written a thousand times, “Thoughts are harmless unless we believe it.”

This is when experts step up to simplify the message, “It’s not our thoughts but the attachment to our thoughts that cause suffering.”

I don’t know about you but my entire childhood was oversaturated with an extremely protective stepfather that constantly grilled five meant for nothing trouble teens, “What were you thinking?”

I must have became him because no morning sunrise passes that my writing instrument doesn’t scrape into the pages of a hard covered book, “Why can’t you let this go?”

In Byron Katie’s book Loving What Is…she presents the idea that fueling a thought feeds your belief. Where weakness is found isn’t necessarily inside the thought but the lack of energy spent inquiring what the thought is truly all about. We tend to believe what we perceive.

Here’s a great example: I’m 49 with natural dark brown not gray hair without a shortage. My musical tastes are Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Usher and Ryan Seacrest. I listen to Hip Hop while texting, Skyping,

Tweeting and Face Booking. I have more energy and less body aches in Tae Kwon Do then most half my age in class. If you ask my soul it’ll tell you, “I’m sixteen!”

But reality bites when trying to further my performance in broadcasting. My thoughts are caked with young ideas, dreams and the willingness to accept all challenges. The industry thinks otherwise. Therefore

I deal with extremely dangerous depressions that resemble a four year old looking up at his mother wondering why he can’t ride a ten speed bike with all the other numb skull kids on the block.

Thoughts are harmless unless we believe it.

Katie unveils her truths by exposing, “One day I wasn’t breathing. I was being breathed. Basically meaning I wasn’t thinking, I was being thought.”

Whoa! That’s even too deep for me. At least until the puzzle pieces begin the process of being shaped on the cold winter floor.

Katie explains, “No one has ever been able to control their thinking. Instead of letting go of your thoughts meet them half way by allowing there to be an understanding. Then let them go.

Case in point; 49 year old radio guy whose thoughts of being successful on a modern Top 40 station aren’t going to happen but he can create better commercials that fit into the places a radio listener stops participating. Rather than pushing ears away his writing and way of thinking and producing don’t create a disconnection to a life and style he lives therefore it comes across as sharing.

Katie asks, “Would you argue with a raindrop?”

Raindrops aren’t personal nor are their thoughts. Once a painful concept is met with understanding, the next time it appears you might find it to be interesting or you might ignore its sudden appearance on the path.

What thoughts in your chapters have been given permission to breathe you?

Think about it…

We hear it all the time! Someone close catches wind of your moments of weakness and compassionately offer the message, “You need to take a few minutes to breathe.”

Are you breathing or is it breathing you?

I play a stupid game called Lost and Found. When it feels like the world has dumped its load on my shoulders I call the spade a spade, “You’re lost. Now it’s time to find.”

Your choice of drugs isn’t always the best addiction. Understanding what gets you high keeps you from reaching what I call the caffeine rush; up one minute sliding into a basement within a few minutes. Talking to friends, coworkers and accepted relations on Face Book is never the answer. Understand the documented rules of sympathy versus empathy. A lot of relationships are shattered if the right words aren’t put into play. Your life isn’t going to get better if your friend perks you up like a Red Bull.

Thoughts are harmless unless we believe it.

It’s not that I’m a skeptic I just know where being pessimistic has led me. Why should you settle for a glass that’s half full when an entire mug of milk always goes better with chocolate chip cookies?

I’ll always believe in you first…

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

2012 The Journey Back to America: Page Three

2011-12-19T07:01:00.000-08:00

To refocus indicates a change of energy. Through education one might be made aware of but in the end to refocus becomes a ticket or a fist full of hope that’s easily burned by chance nestling opportunity.

Only a couple of times have I heard a company general manager say, “Because of economic conditions we’ve decided to make the New Year a learning place. We’re refocusing on several possibilities and in doing so we believe the end result will be a future that includes every player with us today.”

Being on this side of the white picket fence fear becomes the decision maker. You’ve been warned. There’s nothing you can do to prevent change except to prepare for it.

During the bitterly cold whispers of wind that capsized the month of January 2010 my soul was forced to refocus; a single woman, maybe 26 or less sat on the concrete block that keeps cars from jumping a storefront sidewalk.

She didn’t beg nor borrow from passerbies. Although she sat not stood on the frost covered block nobody approached her to ask, “Are you ok?”

Being only six feet from the steam that rhythmically flowed through her dirt covered nose, I kept wondering making sure I didn’t poison it with assumption. I had been there before; Melrose in Los Angeles. Each who walk beside, within and nearby carry several scents of life and style and my decision was to quickly compare without being aware. In doing so…I felt tremendous guilt.

And there I was again except this time through education and being fully aware of the shortest distance between two dots not being the best path, I chose to step away from the car and offer something as small as, “Are you lost?”

“No…” she embarrassingly replied pulling her face from the conversation as if to locate something more engaging on the fast paced street in front of us.

“Did your car break down?”

“No…” the short answer was released with no reason for me to believe she was in danger.

“Can I help you?’

“I wish somebody would’ve said that when the bank I used to work for decided to rip my department a part. I just wanna live again.”

At that moment I realized how close we all are to being homeless. She was warm compared to how frozen

I instantly became while attempting to push away corporate reality. As if to be a morning dove and I a child chasing the sky for feathers, she stood then flew away.

Walking back to my car I knew had to write. I had been given something beyond my control and in receiving it the energy to refocus became my guide.

The exact words scribbled on the back of a monthly statement from Verizon Wireless to which I’ve never thrown away:

You sit in silence and solitude, not wanting to be found. Your face is muddied by not your hand. Gone tonight is the life you once had.

Palms closed so tight my friend. Open up and let someone in.

Lost and alone on a darkened night. She feels with her memories to give her sight. She’s cold, emotion sold. And then she says, “I wanna live again.”

You sit inside your lonely thoughts holding pictures of forget-me-nots. Your shelter is shattered by not the shell. In your hand you hold your fathers pride.

The times have changed, a new generation. Open up and let someone in.

Lost and alone on a darkened night. She feels with her memories to give her sight. She’s cold, emotion sold. And then she says, “I wanna live again.”

During the arrival of a new Christmas, Pastor Flo reached toward a deeper explanation of the meaning of Mary being a virgin giving birth to a child. Whether you believe or choose to walk away. Her landscape of thought gave reason to refocus on what the symbol of a virgin is; that of new, a challenge, a journey or vision quest that overpowers the present only to find that what’s been shared with you might not be for you but rather everybody you meet along the way.

Ultimately it’s your choice to accept your true north or sit and sag in the middle wondering why the depth of every page is easily scratched away. There’s no religion in that. It’s a walk and what you take in or take away makes or breaks the start of every new day.

Stop searching and start realizing it’s already there. To refocus indicates a change of energy.

While visiting a library I’d spend more time holding chapters in a book that featured bent tips of a single page. Forgetting the story I elected to learn more about why someone before me chose that moment to seal off their reasons from moving forward with the book.

Were they tired? Could the car ride have come to a conclusion or the doctor’s office waiting room been not so busy which allowed them to step inside another reason for being? Might they have been homeless and within the next steps of an environment shut off from reality there was no way the bleeding mind of a poet could inspire them to keep moving forward.

Did my friend Scott win the war against homelessness or was he given a virgin gift that forced him to refocus. His message is powerful but how many along the way stepped from the comforts of life without judgment? It’s not natural to assume someone is homeless. It’s a lack of focus that drives your heart into believing your life is better.

What if you took the time to refocus? Upon your return who in your current circle would you terminate or is the truth of understanding on the streets we beat to death daily with cars that take us away from the places we truly need to be?

What happens if the car stalls?

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

You did what when you were 15?

2011-12-15T05:32:00.001-08:00

We’ve been told for decades that to get the lightbulb it required one thousand Thomas Edison failed attempts. Parental figures around the world use the inventor’s bad days as news to use while teaching a growing imagination to never give up.

Then suddenly life forces you TO dance in a pair of middle aged shoes and everything deemed cool during teen proms and a set of ten twenties comes back faster than the speed of light.

“Why didn’t I trust my gut feeling?”

“I still believe it can sell.”

“Why didn’t I find someone who shared the same vision?”

Tribes author Seth Godin knows all too well that it’s never easy to give up on a great idea. Look at the music industries addiction to press compact discs inside a digital age. I laughed out loud when John Boy and Billy slipped me Bob Seger’s approach to gaining a little air play; a double sided sliver of vinyl that screams 45.

Without hesitation I rushed back into my production studio and hung it on the wall! The goal is to count how many times a person born after 1992 will ask, “What’s that?”

Ideas are gimmicks. They’re designed by the universe to stimulate what otherwise would be emptiness. We’re hit in the forehead with an idea and without a doubt lesser than a few physically pick up the challenge to see it through to its total potential.

I find Clear Channels forecast and vision of I Heart Radio two pages off from reaching the generation that’ll live by its realization. Not because it’s a bad idea but rather too confusing for beer swigging Kevin and Shopaholic Sharon to change their every day stale routine to, “I gotta do what? Can’t my car just come with it?”

To change a habit “chance” has to be given permission to breathe. Someone or several somebody’s set off on a vision quest; it’s what they bring back to other pioneers that quickly shape possibility.

Thomas Jefferson didn’t send Lewis and Clark on a wild goose hunt. Documenting the Louisiana Purchase opened the gates for new beginnings. I’m sure Rush Limbaugh would’ve been all over it, “What kind of a President are you? The land was cheap because there’s nothing there! Who in their right mind can trust a man that believes the hard working, deeply dedicated people of the original thirteen colonies wanted their roots to be shipped out from the places they diligently and faithfully fought for?”

Seth Godin isn’t shy when expressing the importance of never over feeding a great idea. How many copycat Snugglies have flooded the Christmas market? Apple’s Ipod and pad might have been the first but thanks to a community of digital bloodhound inventors the connection to mental destruction continues to grow. Why are you buying music when your favorite songs are free on I Heart Radio?

My support of I Heart continues to earn me hotter than hell flames of disgusted discussions, “How dare you turn your back on the broadcast industry that freed you from Montana!”

“This is the end of a legacy!”

“You’re a fricken bone head loser for believing in the one thing that could silence every tower from Myrtle Beach, SC to Victoria, BC.”

Wow! Where were these brave warriors when it came to perfecting the greatest radio break? Love the spicy talk, why didn’t they use those lips to design a better radio commercial?

While waiting for Don Anthony’s Morning Show Boot Camp to begin in Atlanta, my hero in radio Andrew Ashwood leaned over and asked me, “I need to know right now; are you a Broadcaster, a radio performer or a DJ?”

Without hesitation, “Broadcaster…”

“Then get used to the changes that’ll consume this industry like cancer. The only thing I need from you is to guarantee that you’ll never stop learning then teaching it. The moment you hang up the phone…you’re done. The next Broadcaster in line will kick you’re a** off the path and within a second you’ll be known as used to be.”

Seth Godin says, “The good old days are yet to happen and the guys that ran everything up until then will be gone.”

Let’s put it this way; during the Mood Ring craze of the 1980’s… a lot of people made millions off something so simple. Do any of the nickels dimes and quarters earned from a gimmick idea sit in bank accounts some thirty years later?

Take the idea from your sleepless nights and burn it into the channels of American culture.

Ideas are gimmicks! Buy into it or someone’s gonna beat you to it.

Ryan Seacrest is all over I Heart Radio. I’ll never be Ryan but no day passes that an intern/future Broadcaster isn’t sitting with me and it’s he or she that could one day replace Mr. America.

I want nothing but to watch the journey. In a society driven by billion dollar deals; footsteps toward painted horizons is priceless in a world of dreams.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Shhhhhhhhh

2011-12-14T05:32:00.001-08:00

Words…

What are words other than representatives of communication or lack thereof?

Dictionary.com describes words as a unit of language consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation that functions as a principal carrier of meaning.

Now I’m lost…

Words shared through emails, texting, Face Book and Twitter don’t often come with meaning. Words resemble a gasoline rag landscapers tuck in their back pocket, both are oversaturated with fuel fully capable of igniting disconnection.

My father Joe has never been one who shares a lot of words. Expressions sell his message whereas I tend to use too many words making me just as hated.

I use words to help advertisers sell cars, boats, candles and excitement.

Pastor Flo uses words to magnify lost paths so wanderers can focus on true North.

The Transportation Safety Council has introduced a plan geared toward saving lives; no texting or verbally communicating words while behind the wheel of a car.

Bosses would love to enforce a little less word sharing on the company computer.

Having a great voice and delivery is no longer the most important part of a radio career; social networking a tribe of words is measured every day by IT department meters that determine if what’s being shared provides a big enough platform for reasons to sell.

Television sports and newscaster’s guilt trip viewers into believing if you aren’t sharing words on their Face Book pages or texting devices you must not care enough to belong.

Ouch! Ok radio does it too.

With so much weight on our daily shoulders you’d think we’d sink from the word scene and melt between the word cracks.

I laugh out loud when closet writers and poets softly say, “My words mean nothing.”

My daily word writing before each new sun is given birth might seem like nothing until you realize very few remember what it was truly like in America on 9-11. Rather than fight I chose to write.

Words…

A playful coworker once worked with others to trip the word addict by presenting a set up Ashton Kutcher you got punked failure only to watch the assumed reaction of anger, depression or lack of belief fail to materialize; but you should’ve read the words written in my journal based on trust, faith and hope.

In martial arts Master Harris taught word Tae Kwan Do: The art of creating movement not with a foot or fist but trusting the way to make waves. It’s no different than a 1970’s pre-Brady Bunch parent guiding their sheep toward a newer place to graze. There was never a need to rip the belt off your waist…short, to the point; no questions asked word sharing shaped a nation that once led the world.

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” JFK

Today my daughter invites her peeps “Use your words…”

Words once made the leader. Today, words shatter leadership. Using your words makes the playing corporate field uneven. Julia Cameron says we have the right to write…not the right to right. We can fight for the right to right but are your words unrightfully disrespectful?

Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and Sean Hannity find no reason to word spar. They professionally set up soap boxes for you to disagree but in the end their word is final.

When there are no words we find alcohol and drugs, energy drinks and chocolate.

When words are sucked from our lungs during baseball triple plays and the unexpected loss of a family member or friends we race to find other word collectors to reboot the word game.

I can’t imagine living life without words.

It’s fun to make up new words! The Shakespeare dictionary offers the best comedy. How ways are there to say, “Bite me?”

Dogs and cats are extremely wordy in the word display telepathy is their way of play.

Choose your words wisely. But why? No matter what word falls from the lips given to you at birth there’s always going to be someone that’s going to receive your loyalty, dedication and determination to be the very best at what you do wrong.

Our failure isn’t lost in a foundation built on words and words alone. We are the generation that has forgotten how to listen. The next time you’re in church listen to how many people are whispering, “Dear God please I want, I need, please

God gift me with…”

Life is a three second intro of a song…what are you going to say that isn’t going to force a listener to tune out?

Love what is…

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Perfectly ripe for the picking

2011-12-13T05:41:00.000-08:00

We’ve all done it; from childhood to adult underwear or lack thereof…no moment in history can unfold unless there are questions. Questions can be easy, tiring, playful, intriguing, insightful, worth the enormous amount of patience required to finally burp it up and questions can be the only key that fits the door behind the wall next to the mountain near impossibility.

Author Bryon Katie believes the art of locating inner peace at work, at home, an outrageously expensive restaurant or in a car stuck at a never ending bright red traffic light is four questions away from being accepted then forgotten.

In the opening pages of her book Loving What Is, Katie’s description resembles the image in many mirrors; a life overtaken by fear, guilt, stress, depression and whatever else daytime television talk show hosts create in their race to score better ratings.

I’m not gonna waste your time. The four questions are:

Is it true?
Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
How do you react when you think that thought?
Who would you be without that thought?

These aren’t the questions you instantly whip into action during a heated discussion. The challenger could be fueled with the wrong medicine leaving the situation wide open for accusations that tend to sharpen the environment rather than win the chase on a race toward peace.

Four questions you might ask a troubled friend while sharing hot steamy peppermint flavored coffee with an edge of chocolate smiling up at you each time your desire to look great and feel better becomes weak.

Being one that openly admits to having several personalities…I share with you an example while reaching out to Arroe the artist; a painter, acrylic scented brush breathing former gallery loving promoter of free will expressions until a public display in New Orleans in 2009 silenced him forever.

Interviewer: Is it true you’ve allowed a gallery owner's mid-recession fears destroy what came so incredibly easy to you?

The Painter: I kept telling her that my paintings of the bridges in Charleston, SC wouldn’t sell in New Orleans. Southern cities take great pride in the masterpieces men of construction leave behind and if you can’t physically see the bridge painted on the canvas, why in earth would you invest in a painting? Nothing sold for 90 days. She wanted my stuff out and it came with a letter that said, “Maybe you should think about no longer doing this. Having no reaction from my clients is a sign.”

Interviewer: Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

The Painter: Every now and then I pull up the email for no reason other than to locate an LOL or a Ha Ha Ha. I mentioned to her several times that I understood the reasons for the gallery opening two months late. I lowered my prices to help get her business while at the same time offering to send different pieces of art because my heart kept telling me that paintings of Charleston bridges won’t sell in New Orleans but she was completely addicted to the idea that anyone who enjoys structure will buy structure.

Interviewer: How do you react when you think that thought?

The Painter: Angry, sad, silent yet it’s opened the door for me to explore other avenues of expression such as my music. I’ve always written music and believe the only reason why I got into radio is because I was too lazy to chase stages. If New Orleans hadn’t happened I wouldn’t have challenged myself to take the songs beyond a home studio to a real world with real musicians and producers that talk on funky microphones while never uncrossing their arms or smiling at really stale radio jokes.

Interviewer: Is it true you enjoy the music more than painting?

The Painter: Without a doubt. When I’d paint there was always music in the house which invited my doves and other birds to sing with it. I called it my Jazz. The only reason why I started putting paint on canvas was to invite people to my lyrics. It was a trick I shared with other poets and writers at Barnes and Noble where I had them sit in the section of the store where their books would be on display; after twenty minutes I wanted to hear about the store patrons that found interest in that particular section. They came back with empty hearts. That’s when I challenged myself to take ink and stain pages which later grew to a canvas and in doing so I’d write something in the corner. The picture caught the attention of a passerby who then took the time to read my lyrics.

Interviewer: Who would you be without that thought?

The Painter: A closet writer; someone that rushes to feed the addiction of a once living tree that collects words in order to stay alive. My first book was written while in the second grade, it along with thunderous amounts of poetry remain hidden away because I was too shy to put my visions out there.

Interviewer: Think about it…by painting you created a tool that helped pry open a fear of displaying your true art. You allowed something that you liked to serve as the bodyguard while your true love for music and writing books has been on display on web pages all over the world for nearly two years. Sure, the email sent from the gallery owner cracked the egg but it gave birth to a creative outlet, it also reintroduced you to everything tucked away in the closet. There’s no reason to hate, feel bad about or silence. I can’t imagine what other doors will be opened the moment you pick up the brush again. Let it continue to serve you as the tool it was designed to be.

The book is called Loving What is from Byron Katie…

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

2012 The Journey Back to America: Page Two

2011-12-12T06:03:00.000-08:00

In an age of two clicks and an instant fix we’re finding the shortest distance between two dots isn’t always a straight line. Technology has retrained the human mind to think everything is possible. With such confidence comes a price; professional athletes and coaches caught up in scandals, who knew what a ponzi scam was until Bernie Madoff made off with billions?

For the first time in history not one or two but four generations from Boomer’s to Gen Xer’s, Y’s and all other’s born after 1992 sit in economic timeout. Not just in the United States but around the world. While the price of gold, copper and other precious metals soar, the onetime best investments of housing, banking, retail and The Stock Market continue to shake worse than the most famous fault lines on the California coast.

No single person or group holds the solution, not even a vision that’ll separate the rugged sea for the masses to walk between. The backlash of getting what you want when you want it has unleashed a scene only Hollywood was capable of making.

Rent and mortgage defaults blanket the current conditions forcing families to live with relatives and friends or if you’re lucky pack up the car and live alongside a barely traveled street or behind buildings.

In our first blog I introduced you to Scott who found his way out. How? We have 52 weeks to share that cure. For now I need to dig deeper; to locate the modern face of those racing to survive. To reach toward the calm palm of the grey bearded wanderer that doesn’t want to come back to America while introducing you to the silent warriors chosen to help re-invite.

When it comes to extending unconditional love Pastor Flo from Segal Avenue Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina stands on no line. What is good for one is good for all. Therefore no day passes that the doors leading to her sanctuary aren’t open to someone lost, cold and without answers to such brutal challenges.

While delivering the second of three parts of a series based on locating your personal Star of Bethlehem, Pastor Flo called me out; while with the congregation she spoke directly to me about homelessness, recognizing it as a very powerful issue.

My questions challenged her so she challenged me back with a quote that changed the entire path, “When you say someone is homeless, are they houseless or without connection? Because at Segal Avenue you’ll always have a home and I will do everything within my power to give you a connection to lessons that will strengthen you.”

I am the Interviewer and each person met on this year long quest will only be asked five questions.

Interviewer: What do people fear most during a time when everything around them seems lost forever?

Pastor Flo: Fear of the unknown is definitely our biggest fear. If you don’t have a clue as to where your next meal will come from or where you will lie down for the evening, that’s a huge sense of hopelessness. The despair that accompanies loss is vicious. It gnaws away at the fiber of one’s being. If a man or woman has no existential reality about themselves, the fear is that their existence doesn’t matter at all. If they have no existence, or sense of contribution, as in even being alive matters, then that person has no reason for anything. The purpose of a relationship with God is to instill a sense of being. Therefore the church as an extension of the relationship creates opportunities for people to grow in the reality of being created for a purpose.

Interviewer: With as passionate as you are about the community what becomes the focus on the path to reach out farther than most to help the hungry and homeless?

Pastor Flo: For a long time we have provided a place to sleep (once a week) or food for those who are hungry (twice a month) and weekly we feed children who sometimes wouldn’t eat if the church didn’t provide food. Now the larger questions are having to be addressed such as what is keeping people hungry and homeless?

Interviewer: Can homelessness be conquered?

Pastor Flo: That could be viewed as a trick question. Jesus said the poor will always be among us, however he didn’t say that the homeless would always be among us. We customarily define people who do not have shelter as homeless, however some would say that they are “houseless”. Homelessness could be defined as 'An inadequate experience of connectedness with family and or community,' (Dominic Mapstone). This fact is now recognized by Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Program. If the problem was a lack of shelters (then the answer is easy) but more shelters won't solve the problem. Homelessness is about a lack of connectedness. Belonging somewhere is about belonging with other people. Like belonging to a family, a Church, Synagogue or Mosque or local community. We’ve got work to do. The largest social demographic in first world countries that experiences homelessness are actually elderly people who have shelter, but not a home. Quite often their spouse has died and their children live at a distance. They feel the same loneliness and abandonment as the person living on the street.

Interviewer: Because of his travels wasn’t Jesus homeless?

Pastor Flo: Absolutely not. Jesus was surrounded by community and people he could interact with. Folks he could teach help and empower. He didn’t own a house (to our knowledge) but he was connected.

Interviewer: A homeless child sits in front of you scared of the future,
Christmas to them is a box of hand me downs and almost new toys from the Salvation Army…how do you teach faith in a politically correct world?

Pastor Flo: We need a new paradigm. Unless and until “faith communities”, the public (political) arena, and the private sector come together, there will be no future. Yes time and matter will continue to be, but there will be no understanding of reality that resides in hope for a better tomorrow. Public policies are contradicting what’s needed to instill hope. In like manner religious paradigms must be reshaped to meet the new demands and front new needs. The private sector listens to the “profit” more than the “prophet”. None of them alone can reshape our future. It is not until we all come together that we can change the world. So my first response to the child is I’m so sorry that life hasn’t served you as best as it is capable of serving you. My next steps would be to seek ask and raise the questions and seek to adjust our compasses to reflect True North.

Interviewer: John F Kennedy said it best, “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Oh puke, its another positive inside a negative America

2011-12-09T04:28:00.001-08:00

How often has a brilliant mood or great day at work been deflated by the front covers of Face Book and Twitter?

Although 60 Minutes, Oprah and every lifestyle magazine strongly suggest that you don’t do it; I’m seeing a rise in the numbers when it comes to the willingness required to bash your boss and the company.

Bosses are on the edge. It’s the end of the year and nobody wants to lead a team of half witted wanna be warriors into the next chapter of America the Recession.

Demands are high and standards have been set aside. Quality no longer means forever; the new evolution is efficiency.

How do you survive in a world that no longer sees recognizes success? Championed employees are no longer celebrated because the pyramids of business structure have become threatened by what’s quickly becoming a hungry nation. To keep it under control requires leadership that doesn’t reward.

Face it…controlling micromanaging bosses with obviously nothing better to do so than bug you are no different than increased taxes; it’s a way of life. If you think it’s bad, try pulling off self employment where there’s no corporate umbrella to protect you from fast approaching storms.

Dr. Richard Carlson believes there are two different types of employees; complainer’s that spend endless hours verbally beating up their bosses behavior and those who stay focused on the bigger picture which is to locate a positive quality of the head honcho.

Nobody enjoys being pushed to perform!

Dr. Richard clearly states that pushy people are pushy to everyone…it’s their entire act. Basically meaning it shouldn’t be taken personal.

Shocked by the doctor, I’ve learned my way of leading is just as damaging. One that positions themselves to turn negatives into positives tends to influence those having a difficult time to think they don’t have what it takes therefore continue to choose a less likely path.

Rather than be judgmental of either side of the fence the doctor encourages you to look deeper into the value of each personality.

Both only seem different but hold a common connection in the way of being a learning place. Rather than choosing corporate divorce or catching a fake high worse than two Red Bulls from that Arroe clown…keep the overreacting in place and take great notes of what each teach.

Nobody is born smart.

You can take the cutest baby with the brightest eyes and set them free and there’s no guarantee that fate will find them success. Teacher’s make the business world spin.

Open your mind to the contributions they offer then fertilize your soil.

I’ll give you an incredible example: Radio on-air talent are a breed of their own, they’re locked in the mode of performance whereas radio sales executives live and breathe survival. A spec spot or fake commercial can either invite new business or shun a potential client away. The jock that decides his show is more important affects the success of the sales rep.

I got into commercial production because it became my addiction to try and figure out where listeners tuned out. Just yesterday while helping to send thousands of presents to our troops overseas one of the volunteers embarrassingly told me, “I can’t stand it when you stop the music to try and convince me to buy something.”

Rather than belittle the man’s confession I chose to listen. My goal was to locate which style of commercial turned him off. I studied his answers believing Oprah’s heavily promoted Secret book will reveal the single line that meets when two journeys collide. I know clients that need customers and I know listeners that want to better their life. Through advertising and great salesmanship combined with relationship a simple sentence can change the course of history.

My job is no different than your job which is no different from a banker needing credit card dollars to whip up their end of the year profits which is no different than Frank’s bowling alley needs all twenty four lanes filled on a Friday night. The janitor keeping the floor clean means bowling shoes won’t stick on the alley. The oils need to be spread evenly so strikes are struck more which ignites the ego of the visitor making him want to come back again and again.

Stop sweating the demanding boss and quickly running away from my over spirited pump you up vibrations that would make a rollercoaster freak ill to their stomach. If you truly want a life changing weight losing moment to occur in the chapters you keep make your new year’s resolution something as simple as turning the negatives into a tool that can be used in locating your higher success.

Learn to love what is…

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Dear Radio Listener...there's something I've been wanting to share...

2011-12-08T05:49:00.001-08:00

I wish radio listeners could hear the real show. The funniest, most intriguing best content on earth is nearly almost next to never what’s been delivered between the songs but always when the microphone is off.

If listeners could see, feel and experience a room when three to six or seven Broadcaster’s drop their guard and begin to share…its far better than watching a Fourth of July celebration in New York City.

Radio people have the courage to be so far open scientists are incredibly close to calling it a black hole.

Nobody tries to outperform, over produce, build comedy routines or visually attempt to stimulate strength and passion for the two speaker stage; the channel isn’t formatted and neither are the subjects. Radio performers off the microphone are the missing page on a ninety year old journey that’s been challenged by movies, television, the Ipod, Napster and Pandora.

So what happened? Where are the modern day shapes of Alan Freed, Wolfman Jack, Cousin Bruce Morrow, Larry Lujack, Scott Shannon, John Records Landecker, Murphy in the Morning from Big Ways and countless other thought provoking gut busting pee your pants geniuses that could burp the alphabet while shaking hands with an entire city of radio listeners.

These were just some of the masters that proved radio isn’t about having a brilliant voice that makes you say wow but becoming a voice that made you say wow.

What about the late night Pied Pipers that impatiently waited for their program directors to haul their tails to bed so they could break out the 45’s and albums blessed with true rhythm and blues and not candy coated Pat Boone remakes?

Thirty two chapters in this biz and I whole heartedly praise the days when Bill Conway slapped my ego and shoved my ambitions onto overnights. No ratings meant no rules. Until the night Chuck Boozer woke up and discovered I was playing sound effects and comedy bites from his show and he very professionally said, “Dude…I get what you’re trying to do. I was once there. Just let me know so that I don’t use the same bite three hours after your show.”

That conversation would’ve made great big dents in our constant grind to locate a relationship with listeners. It was real and blessed with enough content that might inspire a normal person to step up to a company coffee pot and say, “Did you happen to catch Arroe getting busted using Boozer’s bits this morning? I’d love to talk to Mike in cubical six about how he keeps stealing my pencils.”

While with the Pam Stone Show 2002-2005, the nationally recognized comedian held nothing back on inviting radio listeners to the true party. Anthony and I would stare at each other knowing every lesson taught by consultants and programmers meant nothing within the doors that separated our worlds. Her loyalty to the people earned two Gracie Allen Awards.

Radio people find no reason to fear unless there are unexpected gatherings in offices much larger than the on-air studio. What becomes of those meetings is usually a key to another opportunity. Legendary radio host Henry Bogan was brutally too honest for the norm. If he liked you, that required a tough message by way of preparing you for the inevitable, “My job is to plug in these earphones at the beginning of the show then wait for them to tell me it’s the last time such a move will happen.”

Show me a radio person that doesn’t have a story and I’ll introduce you to a liar.

Popping open that microphone is an art that you’re called to. Ministers and preachers locate pulpits, radio people find knobs connected to control boards linked to transmitters that mysteriously beam out bouncing sound waves from an imagination most high school teachers labeled a leader but not in common sense.

And yet you never hear of the days when being with invisible people hurts so bad that impossibility melts the music but the Great Inner Voice from distant planets and no formats chooses not to encourage the radio man and woman but rips from the bowels of I can’t do this and gifts the talker with the greatest show ever performed.

The days and nights you kicked yourself so hard because every break sucks so bad is the moment you realize that why you’re there has nothing to do with vanity and everything to do with sharing reality with a passerby you may never meet but for one split second their decision to call it quits stopped them from ending the story.

Have you ever stared into the eyes of a radio person after they’ve changed a human life? A forever mark is left in their soul and true radio people can see it no matter how cloudy the day or bright the sun. Not a word can be shared and within the metallic shell assumed protective a ring is heard when two radio performers pass each other in hall…it’s that ring that radio listeners never get to hear and that’s what’s missing from radio.

If radio is dead why have the voices between the songs lasted longer than Dave Clark, Foghat, The Captain and Tenniel, Duran Duran, Gangsta Hip Hop and Grunge? We’ve learned to adapt to a constantly changing need to become part of your life and style. The city skyline can change, professional sports owners can sell out and schools can keep farming out future leaders but in the end there’s nothing more solid than what radio people bring with them…the passion to invite something else to think about while the rest of the world has whittled away every dream you’ve held.

Before they throw my ashes into the Charleston Harbor I want my wife to whisper only two words, “Thank you.” None of this would’ve ever happened without radio listeners and that’s the part of this business that never makes it to the air because research shows you should’ve been talking about something else.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Its better to write to have a public then not to write to have no self...

2011-12-07T05:28:00.000-08:00

A coworker convinced me to add The Shack to my Kindle; while waiting for its instant arrival the spirited moment became blank when reminded of my elementary school days when selecting a book was based on how cool the cover was.

Mike Mulligan’s Steam Shovel with its bright red face and black lettering showcased a manly I’m a tough guy approach never realizing how much of a classic it would prove to be to those that grew up ripping dirt piles apart with larger than life heavy metal Tonka trucks and tractors.

Is it wrong to admit I read Are You There God It’s Me Margaret because I couldn’t figure out why the girls were whispering?

Curious George did nothing while Clifford the Big Red Dog glamorized my love for pets. Both featured valuable lessons that could easily be incorporated into everyday life but there was something about that out of control monkey that invited more anger and disappointment than entertainment.

By third grade I knew something was seriously different when Mrs. Stephenson would handout the order forms to purchase paperbacks.

While the majority of the students perked up and shouted, “Wow!”

My heart’s interest invisibly conquered the soul with, “Whoa…look at the lion.”

Yep…a picture fanatic that constantly complained about authors destroying the surface of my getaway with words.

It’s not that I couldn’t read…I was a shy kid with very little to say. Shouldn’t the books I’ve casually savored while slowly turning each page at such an early age be the same?

I’m no different today; any book, magazine or collection of blogged words or Tweets and especially emails that feature more than a single sentence have to come with a voice or its rubble from a fallen imagination.

While dressed in adult clothes I’m an avid reader but only if it’s purpose has a voice.

Two clicks into The Shack and I was quickly introduced to Mack, a thirteen year old that didn’t have much to say. Stop! Now you’ve got my attention. Mack is a thinker not a doer. The only emotion I hold is to figure out a way to get a message to this Mack kid that deeply expresses, “Don’t do radio.”

Mack doesn’t say much unless you ask him directly. In an age of computerized finger talkers where does the tyke fit in? Thinkers are treated like aliens; verbally they’re always in the way, not a pity parade but an idea maker that experiences things differently. Yet every now and then Mack comes up with an idea worth investing a couple of minutes of your time.

One problem…after the conversation has concluded the tendency isn’t to friend Mack but to latch onto a rope and pull yourself away. Mack’s thinking but not doing approach tends to invite the visitor to look in a mirror, realizing what they do doesn’t seem so appealing to the masses inside a world where popularity and acceptance is the only way to gain.

When Mack talks he looks at it as being nothing more than a survival mechanism. Stop! You had me at hello! The Shack didn’t even come with a really cool cover with a steam shovel or bowling ball hitting a congregation of snotty nosed pins.

Maybe this is why it took me thirty one years to publish my book Halloween 78. Although it continues to serve the purpose of being the only reason why I didn’t drop out of school; cutting it in half in the middle to create enough space to add a classic Hollywood generated cliffhanger to a Twilight saturated generation allowed the thinker and not doer to accept artist Peter Max’s challenge and release all things created back into the universe.

Say what? Let’s just call this kind of talk The Mack attack. Not so many big words but a whole lot of vowels and consonants super glued together to resemble an idea that might become a voice.

Writing is personal. Letting go of it is like walking in on bedroom privacy. There is no fear grander than that of expected judgment. When thinkers begin to do the blvd seems less crowded but in the end what’s been done is what you were born to do…write.

Doctors, nutritionists, weight loss geek freaks, fat suckers, body part raisers and workout kings make a lot of money reshaping your outside cover while the true story bubbles beneath the fancy design waiting to be delivered.

It’s ok to be a curious monkey that dresses up in a big red dog costume while digging giant holes in the center of small towns only to learn the latest project forgot to include a way out… The original

Halloween 78 doesn’t conclude like the published release because one night while sipping on incredible wine the depth of my thinking did something undoable…I killed off one of the main characters only to sit back, laugh and calmly say, “Figure it out.”

The only judgment I require is the acceptance of self. That’s what feeds a popcorn seed on a journey to pop its head up above the soil only to be sporting a nifty cool graduation like tassel by summer’s end.

When you write your entire self is given room to breathe. If you’re hell bent on million sellers and popularity contests become a politician elected to office then connected to a scandal. You might get a 30 minute show on CNN or MSNBC.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Before you say, "Hey Arroe shut up!"

2011-12-06T05:48:00.000-08:00

While watching Carolina Panther quarterback Cam Newton perform his art on the hard driven soils of a heavily crowded field of play; I find myself laughing like a child addicted to Christmas sugar cookies and left over Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.

Like NBA legend Michael Jordon, Cam’s got a style that offers a separate journey for sports fans to follow; one that’s connected more to a test of skill rather than an expansion of ego.

Colin Powell once said, “Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.”

Losing sight of the greater reality has led several high profile decision makers and those hired to be their support system toward destinations unspeakable. A burial ground that Rig-Veda calls the biggest enemy of humans.

Author and Martial Arts Master Richard Andrew King calls out to the ego to join him in the center of the fighting circle so that it can be defeated by the need to expand growth rather than further the human need of being accepted.

He writes: The goal of competition is to test ourselves; our skill, character and our personal development.

The most recent downsizing of the Corporate American scene has provided the current generation with too many chiefs with not enough willingness to succeed except to keep firing. If all who is left is looked upon as being the best then why isn’t anyone moving mountains?

King clearly makes a statement when describing our reasons to settle with the term power in the flock. It’s a reference to external, social power, the power that manifests itself over others. Power in the flock is false. Using such powers deludes and misguides the masses that follow out of fear.

Fear of what?

I remember in the eighth grade, within the core of the Bicentennial year Riverside Jr. High school Social Studies teacher Mr. Fox laid out a sheet of clean unused paper and asked each of us to step to the front and write down our single most powerful fear.

At fourteen my snickers and doodles were too childish for some yet he saw through it.

My exact words were, “What if tomorrow doesn’t come?”

His reply, “And if it didn’t arrive what would your actions and reactions be during the process of all things coming to an end?”

“To figure out how to warn the people without them thinking the sky wasn’t falling.”

“Wouldn’t you have to be required to hold a power in office or big company in order to reach a conclusion?”

“No sir…I’d stop the record playing on KOOK radio and remind people how great yesterday was.”

Six years later my bedroom driven pretend radio station ambitions unfolded onto the cattle stained grounds off South Billings Blvd with four giant sticks in the Montana mud that shot KOOK as far north as Norway on a clear night in midwinter. Between 1982-85 I feared living out that classroom conversation. The Soviet Union was still a force and who knew what the Middle East was up to?

My friend Brian from Philly kept my feet on the ground while reaching for the stars, “You gotta think like The Boss!”

“Dan Miller?”

“Bruce Springsteen! He’s a hero to my friends and family back home in Philly because he never lets any of his fame go to his head. Everything you say on the air should be about real people. The moment you start believing the stage lights are on you is the day you can’t prove your statement true to Mr. Fox.”

Back to Richard Andrew King…

“Power of ourselves, the concern is not in the act of dominating others but controlling our own mind, passions, ego and all the inner demons and dragons afflicting us from within. External power is the beast. Internal is the true power.

Buddha never stopped teaching, “It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles.”

Dr. Ronald Mack from Wake Forest University scared a lot of people; not because he was a man of physical power, a voice that rocked the Rockies and whose ego belittled even the strongest of desires to be named the head doctor of a hospital or medical practice. His internal willingness to walk in peace, an ego built on a foundation of tests based on skill rather than expansion of ego made him a leader within the paths that take average dreamers and turn them into healers.

Although I’ve been a student of martial arts for nine blinks in a book of 2,000 plus years…all people who venture near or around a place of study quickly recognize our greatest weakness which is the act of external power. Although I find great pleasure in watching budding egos grow from soils invited by the Master; humility must be openly shared by way of calling a spade a spade…it is the greatest strength.

Why should your business, family or circle of friends be any different? The Christmas party invitations have been handed out and just like last year and the chapter before; cliques and special favors make up the moments that’ll be held the longest. Rather than returning to work on Monday with a heavy heart and or holding too much information about those you work with…feed not Karma but rather protect the mind, body and soul with a simple exercise: when you laugh mean it. When you smile make it real. When you shake hands squeeze a little too hard so they remember more than just your name. Never create what I call shadow talk, taking over corners with a couple of your supporters, your eyes being pointers. Be a leader in life and welcome everyone with a real determination to get to know them.

I’m not a fan of NASCAR but I fricken love the way every driver thanks everyone that made today’s victory a reason to believe in the arrival of tomorrow.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

2012 The Journey Back to America: Page One

2011-12-05T06:43:00.001-08:00

Constantly I’m asked why. Why radio? Why paint? Why do you hide behind music? Why so much energy in daily writing?

Does there have to be an answer?

While accidentally knocking over the cherry wood laptop writing desk, dark bluish purple ink wasted no time to dance on the unprepared cool wooden floor. Because you can’t put spilled ink back into its well my imagination instantly began to think of the words that wouldn’t make it to my daily writing. Then it occurred to me that I put too much trust and faith in tomorrow and not enough leadership in the given moment.

A trait I blame on radio. Show me an air talent that isn’t planning out a break 20 to 30 minutes or longer in advance and I’ll show you a beginner or someone on the way out. Radio jocks don’t live in the now; everything that transpires requires the same ingredients a book demands: beginning, middle and end.

Poets, writers and storytellers don’t cry over spilled ink. We find worry in the act of what could’ve been.

When it comes to writing I’m a total sick-o. I preach it like a nicely dressed well determined church going minister on call whose goal tonight is to stand on this rugged sweat stained corner and warn the masses of the second coming.

Being a writer and living the path are two different expressions. Knowing the identity of each personality becomes the depth of a page.

Although I still hold handwritten scratches dating back to the second grade, I still remember the day a purpose fell from the birds butt above and hit me in the heart. In the way an artist’s painting sits quietly on a living room wall exposing separate stories from different sides of the sofa a journey to live out the tale of a writer had no choice but to begin.

Like millions around the world, Julia Cameron helped reopened multiple paths with a language that poked through the darkness school teacher’s so often explain as being too far out there.

Mrs. E shouted out in 11th grade Billings Senior High Creative Writing, “Is that the way I showed you how to describe? It was you who elected to take my class and ultimately it’s me who’ll decide if you’re going to pass.”

I laughed out loud at the Transiberian Orchestra concert last week when a well respected radio talent peacefully said, “You wander while writing and yet I find myself following.”

That said…we now begin.

Upon your computerized canvas 2012 The Journey Back To America sits still with a hidden wish to be opened but not lived unless it becomes the case. Then, maybe the only thing owned by many who helped me share this blog can give to you a simple teaching of what schools continue to cover up because homelessness is something they do in a different class, sometimes the basement or near the end of the long hall closest to the door they arrived.

I don’t want to be a radio disc jockey sporting a writer’s jacket therefore I’ll rely on the challenger of my daily writing; a character dubbed The Interviewer. He has no face nor voice yet when asking those that volunteered their paths to be studied their words become the pick, the hammer, nails, knives and spoons designed to replant the seeds of something all too many don’t have in making choices on a trail nicknamed Horizon.

If you’re frowned upon in the avenues of life to call someone a former Marine; shouldn’t the warriors of the streets be looked upon the same?

I won’t call Scott a former homeless man because his journey back to America is vividly painted with lessons that e-books and those still baring hard or soft covers won’t print and in many cases political leaders are tired of hearing about. Backs are turned, subjects are demolished by bigger mass appeal situations and the act of understanding a self taught art of survival is the farthest from their nearest success.

The Interviewer plays by one rule to never ask more than five questions during a single meeting.

12/5/2011

Interviewer: The average household in 2011 is two to three paychecks from being homeless...when did you know your path was headed for a collision with the obvious?

Scott: When my car broke down after I got it fixed and I didn't have any more money. I had no car at that point so it was quickly coming.

Interviewer: Could you have prevented homelessness from happening in your life?

Scott: Ya know I at time could not have prevented it. It was out of my control and my mother never got it.

Interviewer: Give me three physical signs that showed the changes that lead to

Homelessness.

Scott: Not exactly sure if there are signs I think people make mistakes not knowing their road is gonna end. I think we live in an illusion that we have more support in our life's then we truly do. I hear people always say they would have the support I didn't. All I did was have a $165 car repair. No drugs no divorce no drama just a car repair.

Interviewer: In an age of families melting back together, some apartments featuring two to three different groups at one time. What could you have done with distant relations that may have prevented you from living on the street?

Scott: I assume maybe if I cried louder or kept begging I would not have been homeless but when your family says, “Son we are doing very bad ourselves.” At the time the entire country was going through hard times like we are now.

Interviewer: Before being homeless when did you feel fear for the first time of it basically being the only way to go?

Scott: Honestly the night that the shelter wouldn't take me. The next night was the scariest because the night before I slept out in the cold. With a card board box as my shelter and realizing they only had so many spots and if I didn't get in each night I'd have to spend another night sleeping in direct cold. That still scares me every day. I have never really got comfortable thinking that it can't ever happen again. I see people take relationships every day that they dissolve and people move on. Point is we all seem to think the reality we live in is some kind of fact or controllable. Like everyone would understand and help you. Fact is in this country we seem to only understand people that over come not ones that have to go through what needs to be overcome.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Two things to remember right when you're about to say, "I can't."

2011-12-02T14:02:00.000-08:00

I tripped across a pretty unique quote that seems to make dust heavy during a windy day of assumption: a typically boring collection of word dumping that screams, “Look at me!” only to find yourself reaching for the DVR remote control to spin back life.

Don’t stop faster than you start…

I’d love to finish penning out this blog but…oh well…I stopped faster than I started.

I not only see it every day but deal with it in radio and in Tae Kwon Do.

Although nobody’s admitted to hearing one loosely being let go in places we don’t throw….somewhere out there amongst the shapes of warped Eagles Albums and sunburned Madonna cassette and Bay City Roller 8-track tapes is the larger than life voice of long distance dedications popping up a need for more speed, “If you build it, they will come.”

“Build what?” The receiver’s mumble questions.

“Just fricken do it!”

Unmet is the soul that didn’t kick up a storm somewhere in their teens wanting to accomplish an idea. To act out, play out, build upon or set free is the very reason why the human race has outpaced the monkey. We find success as being the best damn drug on earth. Locate it and the high remains immeasurable until challenged.

In the movie Wall Street Michael Douglas found value in Charlie Sheen believing his talents as a leader, spender and chance taker was worth the company’s investment. A single solo performer had the Rocky Mountain Oysters to make productive waves.

That wouldn’t work today. Decision makers and those in charge of writing business checks have set up an economic take over in the center of two American fads; locate every intern that’s willing to work free and find anyone suffering from bad confidence and lets shape them into believing that our little pay and wealth of knowledge guarantees nothing more than a reason not to apply for unemployment.

Don’t stop faster than you start…

What?

Hit any street on the beat and they’re everywhere! Big, little and somewhere in the middle entrepreneurs bitten by the dream daddy of all vision quests set out to conquer a corner and end up closing the doors.

Twenty seven years ago before every radio show I walked several times around the block never figuring out why the corner of Kings and old Independence Blvd in Charlotte remained empty. Across the street was the state’s first indoor mall, a giant movie complex and a Chinese restaurant that’s been around before Jesse Helms was born. But this corner had nothing, except a big ole tree with branches that reminded me of witch’s teeth.

Four months ago in the freaking core of this nation’s second largest money crisis up goes a building that’s left me begging the God’s of business for a single drop of the juice someone must have swiped from the pulpit.

The building looks awesome! It’s bright! It’s sexy as hell on the corner but why did it take 27 years or longer to plant the seeds to a rooting system that obviously has failed in the chapters before Mom kissed Dad.

So…what’s the first thing my pessimistic imagination latches onto? Don’t stop faster than you start…

Like a toy you get from the dentist that grows when you add water…poof! There’s this unforgettably beautiful building and I’m stuck wondering what it’s gonna look like when stopping faster than they started is put into motion. It’s as if banks and money holders rely on bad decisions to feed their dynamic egos. Or is it that we reward business failure?

I’m constantly questioned why at 40 these size elevens carried me through the hometown gym door toward an art form that’s never inspired me. Yet being part of it has made the path visually more spectacular than catching KISS for the first time at The Metra in Billings, Montana in 1977.

The journey has been mind blowing. If I had walked into my parent’s house fresh from that KISS concert with broken ribs, shredded fingers, bruises larger than I-Hop pancakes laced with crater sized amounts of inner peace, Dad would’ve hauled me to the hospital to check my blood for drug abuse.

The voice said, “What have you invested in your life today that’ll pay off years after tomorrow sets on the horizon?”

I haven’t located that answer yet…mainly because its blocked by a couple of simple commitments that burp themselves up around numbers nine and ten: never retreat in battle and always finish what you start.

Don’t stop faster than you start can’t find air to breathe if you believe.

Clint Brown writes, “The world will always give you the opportunity to quit. But only the world would call quitting an opportunity.”

Richard Nixon said, “A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.”

Clare Booth Luce, “There are no hopeless situations; there are only men who have grown hopeless about them.”

I can’t wait until the stores open on the corner of Kings and the recently renamed Charlottetown. It’s my job to help make sure the owners don’t stop faster than they started… The journey begins with becoming a consumer then a customer.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Shaking hands with the side of you that you don't like...

2011-12-01T06:01:00.000-08:00

Whole heartedly my truest passion feeds the roots of a single line handwritten then delivered to core of this nations continued history: Separation between church and state.

I’m not gonna get all political on ya…

A billion pages in the book ago the tike still hoisting teen wishes and size ten Converse basketball shoes quickly noticed a constant in all that he came in contact with. No two people are the same but can a single person walk that way?

My separation between church and state could easily fit within Webster’s description of selfishness. Rather than waste hard to locate energy dividing highways that which carry a normal peeps multiple personalities; I elected to accept that Dad was always different when away from Mom. My sister Susan seemed distant when with friends compared to family chases and challenges beginning first at the dinner table.

Separation between church and state to me is personally agreeing with the mind, body and ego that today I could be different than yesterday and it’s not your judgment doctor’s job to offer opinions that take value out of goals presented.

I’m not the only one that thinks this way!

Art Williams writes, “The only quality that’s more important is a will to win. You can’t defeat a will to win. Show me someone who’s obsessed with being somebody and I’ll show you a person who can figure out a way to win.”

Arroe on the radio can’t stand Arroe the blog writer and what’s up with the commercial producing side of Arroe? The studio is Muppet Happy! Arroe the musician won’t share a cup of McDonald’s sweet tea with Arroe the painter of giant white canvases. The martial artist Arroe isn’t even called Arroe in class! Arroe at home is a gnome.

I once had a boss that said, “People can’t figure you out so they instantly call you an a** hole.”

I laughed! I know that Arroe! I know them all! The common denominator is the will to win.

Art Williams continues, “Many organizations don’t look for employees with a will to win. It’s something that can’t be measured with a test. Effective leaders “LEARN” how to recognize it.”

I heard somewhere along the way that no morning radio show can or will be successful unless the presentation includes three very important pieces of a very large puzzle; you need a d**k, a dork and a deer. Your personal life should be no different.

The problem is the majority of today’s hardest working employees have been whittled down to nearly nothing by companies that micromanage or invest so much of their purpose into the bowels of the worker bee that the originality that created ruffed up ridges in potato chips is dead.

We’ve entered the age where not just anybody but everybody no longer trusts what could be an honest approach to having a great day at work. Fake smiles! Rubber handshakes! False ambition! In the past year the normal Joe Blow and Sally Nobody should’ve picked up Hollywood’s precious Oscar because the modern way to do your thing is to do it one way…their way.

I have 32 years of radio that I physically sit back and laugh at. I did exactly what they wanted.

Only to realize Arroe the business guy will never dine with any of the other Arroe’s unless it benefits. A willingness to win is a great tool from your Grandfather’s shed but unless you live it every day…its nothing more than a Christmas toy that got some attention only to be tossed into a corner.

I love weddings! That side of Arroe decided one day to do something about this nations 52% divorce rate. Those vocals escaping the torso may sound like a Keith Hawthorne Ford commercial but this message doesn’t end with, “See dealer for details.”

Scott asked me late, late last night, “Why did you decide to sit down with me and to write a yearlong blog series about homelessness?”

You would have too! Scott’s story is unbelievably energetic and inspiring and fully capable of influencing the nay sayers that spend their Sunday afternoons addicted to football games and other things that make them fat.

Wait! No judgment! That’s one of their personalities! Separation between church and state. I totally get it without having to get into it!

The idea of giving it your best shot is no different than a Commodore 64. Giving it your best shot has been replaced by, “I’ll take whatever I can get.”

So what if your personality has eight sides! Julia Cameron teaches us to locate the voices of everything that makes you happy then do it. Do you honestly believe you were born to be bored?

Will to win! Where’s yours?

If you ever wanna get to know the real Arroe get in line behind me.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Welcome to Chiquita-ville, Chiquita-boro, Chiquita USA!

2011-11-30T05:49:00.000-08:00

The Q.C.! Queen City! One sign downtown reads: Tree City USA. Charlotte is home of the Panther’s, Michael Jordan’s Bobcat’s, Billy Graham’s birthplace, it’s the Charlotte Motor Speedway, Charlotte Douglas International Airport and now the world headquarters of Chiquita Banana’s.

Not too good! Students in the Charlotte Mecklenburg school system will spend the next six months attempting to spell banana. Does it have two side by side “N’s” or can we get away with texting monkey food?

Chiquita will set up shop in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Not too good! Who associates banana’s with racing? How long before a long haired country boy steps up to the Channel 3 microphone and accuses local leaders of stereotyping oval fanatics, “We passion the sport we ain’t gone banana’s for it?”

The arrival of Chiquita peels away the recession adding fruit to the environment in the shape of 400 plus jobs that fork out over a 100 grand a year. An increase in housing sales will blanket the front page of the Observer, with people comes money to shop at South Park, Carolina Place, North Lake and Concord Mills. Sales tax cha ching means no reason to bleed an already dried turnip.

Not too good! The invitation to come to Charlotte came with a 22 million dollar tax break incentive. That’s 22 million that could’ve been spent on another unknown artist statue on the corner of Queens, Queens and Queens.

Seattle has Microsoft and Boeing. New York is blessed with Wall Street and David Letterman. They still make movies in Hollywood. Orlando brags about Disney World. Nashville whoops and hollers with the best in Country Music. St. Louis got the arch. Dallas was blessed with the Cowboy cheerleaders. The Golden Gate Bridge is in San Fran. Butte, Montana was once the home of professional wrestler Brett the Hit Man Hart and daredevil Evil Knievel. Charleston has Southern hospitality. Elvis came from Memphis and Charlotte is now Chiquita, NC.

Actually…that kinda has a ring to it. It goes perfect with Hendersonville’s annual Apple Festival.

“Where you from?”
“Chiquita...”

Not too good! If the Charlotte Knights ever move downtown, the new stadium will be branded Chiquita Field. Players will hit the diamond sporting yellow suits with an easy to remove blue sticker in the center of their back.

Wait! This just in! Where is Larry Sprinkle from NBC6 to break this story?

Exotic plant lover’s with Caribbean tastes that cake their homes and backyard decks with palm tree looking things purchased at Lowes, Home Depot and roadside horticulturalist no longer have to waste Saturday afternoons trying to explain why such a leafy green machine with an assumed strong trunk can’t survive within the warmth of our coldest winters.

The banana tree God’s have sent us their messenger!

Congratulations Charlotte, North Carolina you landed the big fish that didn’t get away. Stuff that nanner and put a nail in the wall; time to enter another great moment on our walk of fame. Maybe now we’ll get enough money from Raleigh to finish I-485. I heard they love bananas in the decision portion of Chiquita USA.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

2012 The Journey Back to America...

2011-11-29T05:44:00.001-08:00

In 2010 and 2011 I took the mask off breast cancer and shared the story on my Lite 102.9 station blog of Zondra. From the first doctors visit to the surgery to our most recent loss…the blog has been read by people in Singapore, France, Canada, Russia, Germany and beyond.

I take our station web page serious…maybe too serious. And then the broadcaster in me is introduced to the next chapter.

A new writing project has stepped from the shadows that walk between us.

It’s going to require lines to be crossed, daily challenges to appear on opposite sides of the fence at the same time, to disconnect from harmony while helping to share visions where hope used to be a neighbor.

Writing is how I breathe… Sharing is air.

Your eyes are leaves from a tree. Trees exude oxygen and in return we give back carbon monoxide.
When reality isn’t being met by those who want to learn versus the constant push away; it becomes my ambition to socially network the paint I push into the corners so often assumed.
I’m going to introduce you to Scott; a well educated extremely successful business man known for his strength to climb un-attempted peaks while scaling numbers that garnered him relationships dreamt of one day greeting.

Scott doesn’t have cancer, he became a cancer; homeless by the age of nineteen. History tells not his story because if it had there might be a cure.

As a writer, poet with a pen, on-air radio talent that’s discovered more faith in his listeners than research delivered by consultants; in 2012 the Journey Back to America will unveil hell on earth while exposing what you’ve taught yourself not to learn.

There’ll be days when your heart can handle the depths introduced and other ticks and tocks on the wall clock that’ll be too heavy to digest because the weight of reality stares at you from beneath the bed, from the closet and below the house in a crawl space never visited. The fat of this nation is Corporate American made and legally it’s fed into the veins of a nation addicted to good times and plenty of booze…everything’s gonna be ok because we’ve learned to make donations.

Once described as unstoppable; today The United States of America is third world.

2012 the Journey Back to America will force you to respond, continue to ignore and creatively disguise fears of tomorrow, unwritten, unspoken, unforeseen stories until it gets here.
Homelessness is how many paychecks away?

What if someone not connected to politics, a church or shelter held the keys to possibility? What if the answer’s been to hell and the guarantee to be set free required a journey to seek the message makers that’ll help invite sunlight to America’s darkest secret.

Rather than feed them fish shouldn’t the goal be to teach them how to fish?

Every Saturday Angela’s family rushes to a giant church kitchen to skillfully layout a path for the homeless to be properly nourished. I want to know the faces they feed realizing that no addiction can be met unless the identity of the problem becomes truth.

I’ll introduce you to a Charter School assistant vowing to neither promise nor guarantee; the better need is to feed the children dropped off at 6:30 AM then expected to learn on an empty stomach.
I want you to know Clarence; a chef that’s located a purpose no longer linked to the tallest buildings and most profitable CEO’s in uptown Charlotte but opening walls so tall they naked eye becomes clothed without depending on donations and other hand me outs.

More importantly I want your words, wisdom, magic touch and coldest nightmares. My email address is arroecollins@clearchannel.com Be open, be honest, be a different name but don’t replace the face that’s become homeless.

We’ve ignored it too long.

2012 the Journey Back to America

Starts now on Lite1029.com

The Map Toward Metal Treasures!

2011-11-28T06:21:00.000-08:00

Where have all the heroes gone? Or is this part of getting old? Is Steven Tyler of Aerosmith this generations Frank Sinatra? If so, does that make David Lee Roth Tony Bennett?

VH1 Classic has creatively latched onto the roots of heavy metal in America by pulling from the grave the unsung lyrics beyond what Rollingstone and Creem Magazine boldly tried to print in their headlines but were out sold by free posters in Tiger Beat, tell all rumors in People and unexpected pictures in US Weekly.

Although it feels like ten minutes ago; Alice Cooper singing Schools Out every three hours mutilated the once tame genre of sound held by Burt Bacharach, John Denver and everything Motown. Steppinwolf vowed to erase extremely long drawn out guitar solos by delivering the message faster than Tweets on Twitter while KISS levitated the rock power ballad with a B sided orchestra driven Beth that a rule breaking radio disc jockey from Georgia tossed on the air because Detroit Rock City wasn’t doing it for him.

Rock radio has seen more star wars than Darth Vader: base beats from 70’s Disco, 80’s safe happy programming of Phil Collins, Michael Bolton and Steve Winwood Adult Contemporary and an unexplained addiction to Country music that sounds more like mid-70’s Poco and Fleetwood Mac than Hank Sr. and Waylon. Metal has evolved within the times experiencing more reinventions then Madonna.

80’s Hair Bands weren’t meant to be a generational movement just as much as Kurt Cobain didn’t set out to collect millions of plaid shirt wearing supporters. Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam took on Ticketmaster! Billy Corgan from

Smashing Pumpkins writes and produces today but no longer waits to release his hand in metal…he posts it for those who’ve always supported. Lars Ulrich of Metallica didn’t attack Napster; it was a simple question that required an answer, “How could a piece of unfinished music he left two hours earlier be available to the world? It wasn’t fair to the artist!”

Again, Rollingstone Magazine has printed a story about how the Rock radio industry is dead; calling the recent firing of radio legend Jim Ladd the nail in the coffin.

How many times does the average person have to hear Party Rock Anthem, Boom Boom Pow and Rascal Flatts before they hit search on I Heart Radio?

Metal hasn’t changed only those who enjoy receiving it.

When a grey haired, face completely caved in eighty year old camper whips out a Droid to latch onto a sniff of modern rock; that tells me the beer buzzes that once shaped his concert going path three decades ago still places importance on Rock’s presence in the 21st century. The only difference between us are the stories held tightly by guitar licks and drum rolls that remind him of a deeper rock history therefore he uses it to bridge the generational gap introducing me to the music makers that forced Ted Nugent to create a garage band called The Amboy Dukes.

Where have all the heroes gone?

Lady Gaga stepped way ahead of the pop music crowd by designing an earth shattering Thanksgiving special that did more for the Post War, Boomer, Xer’s and Y generations than Harry Potter.

Why did Aerosmith captivate the masses of the lazy Capenter’s, Kenny Rogers, Cat Stevens 70’s radio scene? The message you’ll never read at Cleveland’s Rock n Roll Hall of Fame is that Joe Perry filtered nothing which gave his guitar a personality like that of a horn section so often attached to pioneers like Benny Goodman, Buddy Rich and Guy Lombardo.

The evolution of Rock will never be challenged by religion because those born to play it were already standing straight up.

When will the pages expose the makers of permission; those who stood before the gates of change and enlightened leaders to use Rock as part of their Sunday morning message. Can you say Stryper?

I’ve yet to hear how Rock Music as a whole has had a labor dispute forcing fans of the sound to wait until after

Christmas to watch the game. There’s never been a walk out. There’s never been a players strike. Radio didn’t enforce a lockout…nor is this part of getting older.

You haven’t lived unless you’ve tried to scream like Robert Plant. You don’t have a hair on your butt if you don’t bravely walk up to a karaoke microphone and belt out You Shook Me All Night Long.

Is Rock really over? I Heart Radio…

For the first time since 1984 David Lee Roth is pumping his California soul into the raging riffs mysteriously presented by the guitarist that once stood in front of Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley asking to replace Ace Frehely. I can’t stand the idea that Michael and Sammy aren’t part of the twist but like the road warriors they are; neither of them need Van Halen to continue spitting metal between their teeth. Where will you hear the songs? I Heart Radio!

Where have all the heroes gone? They’re on I Heart Radio…

Banking CEO’s come and go as do motivational speaking guru’s and major corporations that biggie sized not because its legal but it’s within our appetite to have a Super Wal-Mart and Lowes Home Improvement somewhere nearby.

We’ve stood witness to the mightiest of strength falling and will hold nothing against those that convinced us to throw away every album and cassette to purchase the compact disc then Ipod.

Free radio still exists without there being anyone but you in control… I Heart Radio.

My god this sounds like a cheap Wayne’s World designed free plug! Wow! I guess I deserve that punch. The reality is…I’m a radio junky that supports metal and don’t need a mining city to scoop up a shovel of what brings the house down. If I bump into something great…it’s my job to share it.

Rock n Roll will never die!

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

I'm going away for 32 days...

2011-11-19T04:28:00.001-08:00

I guess its my weakness. I never look at a person and wonder how old they are. While at Zondra's wake last night I did the math. She was only 32. I don't do well with the rules of life and find myself battling the makers when chapters don't finish the way you dreamed. I still believe they should've never met in Sleepless in Seattle. 32... and it will be that many days that I will disappear from all of social media. To take the time spent typing and writing to better understand the path to which I will learn from so that when I return in late December I can be much wiser and more prepared for the things that happen to those who've been gifted daily with air to breathe and a heart that creates music.

Something more to ignore...

2011-11-17T05:54:00.001-08:00

I feel like a hypocrite…

If it came across as such I won’t apologize choosing instead to take the higher road of identifying the problem followed by generating a solution.

As a Broadcaster, blogger, author and a tax paying citizen of the United States it’s become a goal to further my education and awareness as to who, what, where, when and why The Wall Street and other city Occupied protesters are beginning to fight.

We’ve seen so many pictures of the 60’s that physically watching angry people chanting, being arrested and thrown off property our taxes paid for in 2011 looks more like a PBS or HBO special. Rollingstone Magazine reports daily on what comes across as being the truer conditions and yet how can I believe it when Brian Williams on the NBC Nightly News can only scratch up a few pictures and mentions.

Do you think David Crosby woke up a few months ago and said, “Oh hell no…I did this stuff already! Please don’t make me the Poet with a pen!”

I’ve been blinded by propaganda. What is or isn’t real? Is this a marketing project designed by the right vowing to defeat the left? Like it or not the human is the mammal family’s biggest follower; an unfocused gathering never sees the farmer rise before the sun to plant the perfect face, thought control and innocence required to sway with the winds that come off every tall mountain.

The Electric Slide, YMCA from the Village People, Cha Cha Slide, Wobble and The Cupid Shuffle wouldn’t be if people didn’t want to be led.

If you study the front covers of every magazine featured in the grocery store line; the subliminal message is the masses can’t afford drugs or alcohol to numb the pain so we’re in dire need to find a swifter rush and reading about Kim Kardashian’s divorce instantly makes Bank of America’s decision to lay off thousands digestible.

Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity and Al Franken aren’t voices of the people; just as much as I can’t change the world over a seven second Christmas song. We’re entertainers, showman, voice jockeys trained by the programming staff and over educated by consults to get into the heart, body and soul of a passerby.

Taylor Swift writes and performs about boys and the broken hearts they deliver. Every little girl at Time Warner Cable Arena last night truly believed they’ve been there.

Get enough people to believe in your purpose and the decision to make the right choice becomes the wrong investment. Or does it? Face Book, Twitter and a Friday night get together with my neighbors doesn’t waste an ounce of energy on the NBA’s decision to ignore the fans that put in 8 to 15 hours of worry and fear at a job they may not have tomorrow to pay for their exaggerated life and style.

Not playing this year means Carolina Panther fans don’t have to flip a coin as to which professional sport is gonna get access to their ATM.

How did we get on this subject? Three or four paragraphs ago I was publically admitting my weakness of not being supportive of the Wall Street Occupiers until scenes of people being arrested were fed into the daily process of digesting as much media as they’ll give us.

It’s extremely difficult to support any issue these days because the walls that Humpty Dumpty fell from no longer exist. Or do they?

Does anybody believe Ashton is a Billionaire on Two in a Half Men? Do you think the success of the CBS show 2 Broke Girls is based on it being funny or is it 20 minutes of something a lot of broke people can relate with? Tim Allen has three daughters and one of them is a very young single mother. In The Middle puts focus on Patricia Heaton’s working Mom career but you never see what the father does. Family Guy and American Dad are brutal on abuse and not one group is standing up to calm down Seth MacFarlane.

Don’t like the Black Eyed Pea’s I Gotta Feeling…hit the button; can’t stand the commercials on TV hit the fast forward; life becomes too real to slip into your day jump on Face Book and vocal up the frontlines. You aren’t doing anything wrong!

Following is a safe place to be.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

By God! I was there!

2011-11-16T05:47:00.000-08:00

Today is Wednesday the most boring day of the week!

As a writer, author and as Julia Cameron would call it: a painter of the room…I shall describe this ripened moment as being the perfect recipe for an optimistic pessimist’s balmy ocean front property; the week is half finished with a long drawn out entirely different other half to go.

To make it fun I’ve shattered the code of silence that protects travelers of time and entered the realm of the 16th century to do nothing more than steal from the village the powers of the King and Queen at the Carolina Renaissance Festival by officially declaring this day: Blog something stupidly weird day!

Glasses! Not what you wear to read fine print and not necessarily the type you drink from during moments when the body just…can’t go on…until you pour something of liquid value from a bottle of choice. Not from Belk! Not even from Wal-Mart, a pesky flea market or early bird Saturday morning garage sale!

I’m talking about those tall, colorful when they get cold, purty printed kitchen cupboard space takers that robbed you blind while on vacation. It’s a mile marker keep sake that says, “I was here and I have the glass to prove it! Wanna fight about it?”

Late summer 1999; after a blinding whiteout high atop Mount Rainier boldly planted in the core of the soul of Washington State…I stood in the center of self serving ego maniac hell trying to decide how getting kicked off that skyscraping snowcapped

Mother nature created pimple before reaching the summit could be turned into a positive.

“Alcohol!”

Wait! Not a bottle, cup, jigger or something as tiny as a water source…I was in a mood and this drinking moment had to be 1,000 times better than the food. I wanted an instant release from reality and it had to come in that extremely expensive very tall collector’s edition cylinder that featured more ice than buzz maker.

“But sir…the drink you’re asking for doesn’t come in that glass…”

“It does tonight!”

I didn’t want just one! I had to have four! To complete the set while proving to my neighbors, friends and people forced to become my coworkers back home in the Carolina’s could see that I nearly, almost, kind of made it to the top of Mount Rainier!

I had never forked out so much money for something so stupid and yet after twelve grueling years that most would choose to forget but because I write every morning at sunrise I’m reminded of the rooms I paint every damn second of every single twenty four hour period I held in my hand this morning one of the four very tall glasses from the great state of Washington filled not with alcohol but an energy powder called N-sane.

While slurping down that green apple flavor like the true mountaineer I used to be it occurred to me, “My God Dude! This glass is the Twinkie of vacation purchased junk! You hold in your hand the cockroach that nuclear war can’t step on! 12 years of dishwashing, 144 months of me tipping dropping it on the deck, patio and during unheard amounts of fun New Years Eve celebrations! It still has the amazing power to scream, “You didn’t reach the summit because of an unexpected whiteout!”

Did I toss it? Did I break it into a billion snowflake pieces? Would I sell it to help pay for the dollar menu at McDonalds? Never!

It’s evolved into a new challenge; can I outlast the very tall glass?

If I pass before a single crack is created then it shall be willed out to my Mother in Montana to place in a safe box in her bone chilling cellar where corn, potatoes and jelly are stored; and with it a tiny note that which I scribbled on a boring Wednesday where half the week is over but the long drawn out other half remains: To whom it may concern—this isn’t just the glass that kicked my a**…let it serve as a purpose why you should never say no to your kids and spouse. The importance of purchasing vacation trinkets and dream catchers seems materialistic until you realize memories will forever be marked in the books of history as being priceless and it’s always more fun to share when you can prove you were there.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Stop busting your ass trying to be one of them!

2011-11-15T06:34:00.001-08:00

Brian Andreas is an author/illustrator who’s comical as well as thought provoking. The depths of his quotes can either move you or slide the unwritten into slivers of darkness to later be found by a different generation during a different recession.

I laughed out loud at his quote, “My great aunt told me to remember that old people need bananas.”

Instantly I could hear the vocal tones of countless teachers; be it a brother, mother, preacher or former 60’s child turned next door neighbor…we’re all invited to the quirkiest places when meaning well turns into a blurred moment I call: What the hell are you talking about?

Because 98.7% of what I write daily, share on the radio, sing by way of giving a poet a voice or pout like a child about while trying to figure out the constantly changing surface of a dead American economy I can spew out heartedly on the subject without shattering the protective devices that shelter the innocent from such political incorrectness.

What? Exactly!

Brian’s great aunt reminded him that old people need bananas. I on the other page have mastered the fine art of run on sentence structure; having a willingness to turn what could’ve easily been a simple thought into a skyscraper weight on life’s paper plate.

Wal-Mart, Target, Kohl’s, Kmart and Exxon are great examples of the purification of communication. It doesn’t matter where you travel the term “locals” has been replaced by “everybody’s the same.”

I remember reading a newspaper article about the president of Food Lion who clearly made it his daily goal to guarantee shoppers that no matter where they purchased Food Lion groceries they’d always find the items in the same row in Salisbury, NC to Charleston to Invisible town USA.

Fifteen years down the road such practices hit me in the temple while in hot pursuit of a product.

My wife looked at me with shock asking, “How did you know it was here? You’ve never been in this store!”

“Tom told me!”

Today, while the hygienist performed her magic I found myself being 98.7% over her head. She went 99%.

I learned so much about life in pre and post Soviet Union/Russia during the Gorbechev years that I’m now a certified history teacher at Independence High School.

That’s what’s missing from our daily duties! Rather than focusing solely on a universal presentation of discussion the true mission is to make your own statement. Create a voice and stick to its character.

I love it when people say I suck on the radio. The Broadcaster in me perks up and pays close attention to the shape of their conversation. Not everybody wants to talk about the Occupying protestors making headlines in Oregon, NY and I’d say Charlotte but their purpose hasn’t been justified. Has anyone heard a burp, fart or tooth picking from any of them? Oh wait…it’s that Wal-Mart thing…you don’t really have to make noise just put a store in anywhere USA.

I was shocked to learn that Jennifer Roberts has publically unveiled her political plans and it no longer includes another run for city council. Her vocal strength and ability to move through a defensive line of aggressive deal makers has always been incredibly inspiring.

I had to write to her in my Arroe 98.7% way!

Is it selfish to have wanted you as our Mayor? Then to see you are leaving our council. Your leadership is unlike anything. You are strong, bold and caring. You are the type of leader that inspires as well influences positive change while setting out to offer change. Whatever your plans I am so proud of you and your strength to lead in a time when such positions are places of weakness. The future belongs to you.

She wasted no time writing back:

Thanks so much for your support. There is much I am interested in, so after this coming year on the Commission I will be exploring many new ways to serve this community. I am not leaving this community, nor am I walking away from service. I am taking time to thoughtfully and deliberately find the next place to apply my energy and talent!

Missing from our world is the term “Locals.”

It’s our language…from writing, to talking, whistling to humming a few bars while slowly walking through the huge collection of perfume scented lanes at Belk South Park. You could blind fold me and I’d know that store from the billions trying to copy its style.

I sat with a business owner recently whose mission is to sell Lake Wylie property. Being a Carolinian of only 27 years I cranked up my local to 98%.

What is the true term of Lake Wylie?

What club sat on the corner of Tyvola and I-77?

Why are there so many roads named Sharon in south Charlotte?

What did John Boy and Billy call the statue they wanted to put outside of the old coliseum?

Why is it called the Grady Cole Center?

I’m just saying…a little over the head conversation is a good thing on days when everything around us has been designed by

out of towner’s that have no fricken clue what Charlottean’s do, say or react to. Make fun of us during the threat of snow but don’t you dare tell us BBQ from St Louis is greater than that secret something something they douce on the pork in Lexington.

Be you even if it means someone’s gonna look at you with no intent of paying attention. You weren’t born to make the world happy. The day has come that we put our vocal foot down and realize businesses don’t make the people. People make the business. What you bring to the center of that companies energy is the very reason why so many companies used to keep their doors open for 50 to 100 years. Now that businesses have decided to shape their people the only thing we see are out of business signs.

Just saying…

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

No blog today...a much higher power has spoken.

2011-11-14T06:25:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uU_knKCvEI

Old dogs can be taught new tricks...

2011-11-09T05:44:00.001-08:00

Do you remember Think and Do books?

Before smart boards, Ipads and teacher approved solar powered calculators elementary students were taught how to add, read and write through coloring book sized bundled papers with your name in big black print on the front.

Ten minutes after getting mine Mrs. Knight, Keefe and Stephenson would shout, “Stop drawing skyscrapers, mountain houses and pigeons coops on the front!”

It’s the Think and Do book that influenced the publisher to design my first book “One Man’s 1,021 Thoughts” almost too big to hold. He believed if my true goal was to invite readers to write, the pages needed to be exactly what we’ve grown accustom to.

Big Business mogul and author Art Williams might be on the same path… If the Kindle, Nook or smart phone is your book worm fetish, Art’s leadership guide Pushing Up People towers over Mount Mitchell in size!

But you can’t judge a book by the size of its cover.

Pushing up people is Art’s way of learning how to restructure the daily arrival of employees. Although we’ve spent the past twenty years being talked down to and taught just enough basics to survive; the recession, outsourcing and Wall Street supported downsizing has left the walls of many onetime success stories bare.

Art believes inside qualities are more important than outside. Family backgrounds and education don’t necessarily lead to business success. He points to American history as being a key source of information based on the enormous amount of hard working, dedicated and loyal people that made this nation an industrial empire.

Ford didn’t hire college graduates to build the worlds set of wheels.

In his words, “Universities and big business make every day average people think they’re failures.”

We see and hear it on TV, the radio, Face Book and Twitter: You can’t reach a higher level of life and style without dumping thousands of dollars in the pockets of: We can take you there.”

Inside Art’s heart, “Victory doesn’t always go to the smartest people. Brilliant minds tend to talk a good game while totally intimidating people. Smart people spend too much valuable time analyzing.”

An incredible picture to watch is a martial arts class where the Master or highest level student stands in front of thirty to fifty path makers shouting out commands which are immediately followed by a class room echo, “Yes sir!”

I’m not a rule breaker just a tester. On several occasions I’ve dropped the seventh article of student commitment of establishing trust between teacher and student spouted, “Ever thought about joining us in this sweat bath? It doesn’t seem fair that we’re doing 50 squat thrusts and I’ve yet to see you do one!”

This is very much the reason why I removed my black belt and started the journey over in the back of the class. You learn a lot as a leader when the choice is to no longer be afraid of getting your hands muddy.

Art Williams knows of another leader dubbed the pretty people; not as in looks but privileged. The attitude is bent on being a little better than most with an end result of over confidently seizing control of a department they get credit for running but ultimately it’s the white belts holding true to the sport.

I study everyone I meet…

Keith Hawthorne is a hawk. I first met the car dealer in 1993; an upbeat full of big dreams but deeply dedicated to achieving them kid that hand washed cars so those purchasing them would instantly take note of that new car smell. His loyalty, determination to learning the art of salesmanship while crafting the skills of marketing and finance has lifted Mr. Hawthorne to a center ring inside the core of a of living tree.

Jeff Siegel the man behind the curtain at the Renaissance Festival. A passion for the circus opened his eyes to uncover the roots of entertainment. Not a Ringling Brother’s shout it out loud, “Come one come all…” but a heart held together by strings constantly connected to visualizing how every one of us has the potential of being something great and better. I love listening to him tell me the stories about knowing Penn and Teller before fame caught up with them. I crave his chapters based on collecting circus toys of rides he jumped on while dressed up in kid’s clothes and one day dreams.

I’ve now been introduced to Scott from Tucked Away Storage; proof there’s life after death. Economic twists and unexpected arrivals of unheard of fate put this man on the cold lonely often ignored street. He was homeless! He could’ve turned to drugs, cheap alcohol and handouts from people he’ll never meet but chose instead to lift up his day during every sunrise. From the outside his invested purpose is firmly planted in American business but in reality his every hour vow is to put his open palms back into the channels of lost and thrown away and give life to new beginnings. It’s my mission to make his story wrap around the World Wide Web globe.

Art believes inside qualities are more important than outside. Family backgrounds and education don’t necessarily lead to business success.

He continues, “There has never been a test, there never will be a test that can measure the heart of a man and woman. You can’t look into the eyes of a person and know what they’re made of. You’ve got to put them on the playing field then offer them true leadership that takes on the shape of success.”

I will always believe in you first…

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Do you know anything about tomorrow?

2011-11-08T06:33:00.000-08:00

Every so often I judge a book by its cover but if first impressions determines the distance the heart travels…I’ve gotta wonder why someone would suggest the book The Dream Manager as a must read.

Its opening pages feed the curved and constantly changing river banks of an ocean floor not yet shaped making no room for snails and starfish to paste themselves to. That’s my poetic way of saying, “There’s a disconnection between the head office and worker bees with no mediator to bounce the ball back into play.

No wonder the NBA is locked up and fans are without!

Matthew Kelly and Patrick Lencioni pen out, “Even the most cynical manager will admit that one of the most important competitive advantages a company can have is the ability to keep and motivate the human capitol that is in short supply.”

Short supply? Is the NBC Nightly News propaganda?

From this side of the white picket fence the media has painted rose colored glasses on spoiled Gen Xer’s, Boomer’s and the unemployed occupying New York, LA, Atlanta, Charlotte and other major corporate cities around the world. Radio talk show hosts come across as selling out to big business because if they chose to support the occupation they risk losing valuable fourth quarter advertising revenue.

The distant image softly represents a presence created by a companies need to create a short supply. Then to complain they’re losing the competitive edge that made them a success?

Who’s playing Robin Hood?

I’m thinking the The Dream Manager has the upper hand, “Manager’s and Human Resource professionals have traditionally focused most of their attention on levers like compensation and benefits. They’ve raised salaries, increased bonuses, awarded stock options, increased vacation time and let people bring their pets to work. The end result is limited success.”

Shocking and almost as unsightly as SAW1-2-3 and 4 is this quote, “Few people, if any, work for money alone. But when it comes to inspiring people and creating the kind of environment where employees laugh at the notion of leaving there’s something far more powerful and less expensive that companies have largely overlooked…”

Please fill in the blank ____________________________________________

The Dream Manager clearly believes employees are actively disengaged. People don’t feel connected not only with the organization but those they work with. Like a wildfire set free on a mountainside it infected morale, efficiency, productivity and profitability.

But that’s big business talk!

Where are the books and blogs that embrace the overworked, underpaid now divorced or turned into a drug abusing alcoholic because numb was better none? Where are the voices of radio, television and newspaper that represent real people?

We lost Andy Rooney and John Stewart is too funny to take serious. Brian Williams is reimaging his NBC presence with a Monday night variety of conversations while Anderson Cooper has gone daytime. If Howard Stern took the filth out of his performance he’d be the only radio voice of reason.

One hundred years from now a brilliant media executive will do a VH1 Behind the Music special on the early decades that shaped the 21st Century and within a single breath he’ll captivate the imaginations of Gamer’s and Iphone 64 junkies when he text, “Lost…”

We are the Lost Generation.

I can hear my Mother’s voice, “its 7:30!” It was her way of saying the chickens needed to be fed, the trash taken out,

Cocoa needed a fresh bed of hay and school demands need to be met.

Like Buddhist Monk Tich Nhat Hahn who was invited to protest the presence of American forces in his home country of Vietnam; he raised no banner, he shouted not once, he didn’t gather with angry at heart…he walked in peace…that’s who I am.

After four years of truly being misunderstood which led to multiple arrests due to protests, in August of 1980 Lech Walesa put real people on the map in Poland when helped negotiate ground breaking agreements that began the process of protecting the people.

The Dream Manager continues, “The right people are an organizations greatest asset. Large or small for a business to become successful employees need to become actively engaged. The goal should be to retain talent.”

Why can something so simple be so visible but neither side feels inspiration or influence to move?

We are the Lost Generation. Does anyone have Lech Walesa as a friend on Face Book? Just checked…he ain’t there. The Queen of England is though. So is Casey Kasum and Gene Simmons of KISS.

What were we talking about before this?

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Happy Birthday to a true world hero!

2011-11-07T05:37:00.001-08:00

Happy 93rd birthday to Reverend Billy Graham!

Over six decades of on the job training with no desire to dock the origin of his purpose.

His written thoughts have inspired, influenced, offered options while taking all that’s crowded in the separate worlds we keep and lined billions of shelves with a committed understanding that’s better explained as being an item called unconditional love.

In an age of constant change and quicker avenues to locate answers or assumed solutions, through choice Mr. Graham has served Presidents, decision makers from other nations while never locating reasons to stop placing a writing instrument between his index fingertip and thumb; for what he’s set free for newspapers, book and blogs readers to pick up is what champions words like loyalty, dedication, determination and integrity.

I’ve not met too many that don’t have a personal Billy Graham story; be it waking up early on a chilly fall

Sunday morning expecting to watch Bullwinkle only to stop channel surfing on a face you knew, so for that moment you called him friend. ..or putting everything in life on hold to pull the legs that brought you to the dance into a giant arena where Billy spoke and the message shared never came across as a dare but rather an invitation that through choice fed the rivers of too many questions with a reason to believe in yourself a little more than yesterday.

A friend told me she reads Billy’s human friendly questions and answers printed locally every day; through devotion a set of eyes he’ll never meet changes.

I love the title of his new book: Nearing Home!

Millions know of the home he speaks of while others might hold a different landscape that of a barn shaped museum with a tiny log cabin behind its strong stature.

The Billy Graham Library is barely a mile from where I’m currently sitting; I pass it every morning knowing the repercussions of what happens when choice becomes your guide. Billy symbolizes choice. He chose to listen. He chose to react. He chose to believe. He chose to help heal. You don’t have to have an ounce of religion in your spirit to know that having a choice is one two gifts handed to you at birth. It became his choice to share it.

The other…is trust…

In 1994 I stood high atop a mountain in Montana staring in the soul of six glaciers, one hundred foot free flowing waterfalls diving in a lake over a mile deep and on that day I came to the conclusion that no matter how creative I am there’s nothing I can do to masterfully design something so incredibly breathtaking.

Then I read Billy Graham’s autobiography…

This should be a national day of celebration!

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Pretending to be Morgan Fogarty...

2011-11-03T05:49:00.000-07:00

Honest talk…up front, to the point, no beating around the bush.

Whoa…it almost sounds like I’m doing a promo for the ten o’clock news on Fox 18 WCCB with Morgan Fogarty and Israel

Balderas.

Simple question: Why do we publically discuss a person’s weight loss more than weight gain?

Example: 1. Are you experiencing a lot of stress? You’re losing weight.

2. I’ve noticed some changes, are you sick and don’t want to tell us?

3. Wow! You look different! Everything ok at home?

Being from both sides of the white picket fence that gives me politically correct permission to shout out.

Weight gain is an extremely touchy subject; instantly you’re branded rude, crude and unfriendly yet if someone had questioned the path I traveled before my heart attack it could’ve been prevented.

I’m no expert but over the past couple of years I’ve deeply studied the cause and effect of what happens when the ego teaches itself to ignore the signs and road blocks the body hangs in front of you everyday. I was convinced that being actively involved with a workout program my chances of becoming ill were lessoned. And that’s where we are wrong.

If I hadn’t been with Master Todd Harris at Martial Arts University I wouldn’t have learned the valuable art of listening to the body speak.

I knew something wasn’t right a month before the heart attack. I sat on top of my house trimming the limbs and without warning signs or an angel’s sweet soft vocal my lungs stopped asking for the future. Gradually it grew; pushup levels dropped to barely ten, I couldn’t run longer than a minute in class, I was no longer participating with members of our school choosing instead to slip the black belt from my waist so I could stand in the back.

The doctor replied, “Your blood pressure is a little high, I can get you a pill. “

He said nothing about being a six foot one inch Montana man that weighs 242 pounds. Records clearly show the preferred weight should be 195.

My addiction wasn’t alcohol, drugs, work or too much play…it was fast food. I constantly craved the mixture of catsup, mustard, a pickle or two topped with a sliver of beef from the dollar menu. To have just one was never enough…the lucky digit was five. I’ll work it off tonight in class. And that’s where we are wrong.

Only one person stood up; Bob from the avid movie premiere patron walked up and placed his hand on my stomach and said, “Maybe it’s time you back off.”

Offended but not as taken back as I am during these extremely controlled days; is it because weight loss is connected to sickness but we’re too afraid to say the other way is too?

This is why I’ve chosen to be like Fogarty and Balderas and ask the questions that truly involve the chapters you write.

We’re six inches shy of walking under the brightly lit holiday spirit but three feet from January and February where we want to work it off.

There’s nothing I can write, share over the intro of a song on the radio or deliver face to face that isn’t going to offend you when in reality it’s nothing more than a six foot one inch Montana man openly admitting he’s been to Hell and doesn’t want you to stop in for a visit.

Why do we publicly discuss a person’s weight loss more than weight gain?

I’ve made the mistake of congratulating someone who wasn’t pregnant. The embarrassment and guilt continue to haunt the path. I also watched myself grow in the mirror and pretended it was muscle but in a more rounded less grocery store magazine way. And that’s where we are wrong.

The web is over saturated with innocent questions based on how to better handle every situation connected to weight; be it gaining or losing too much. The real solution is to physically face a professional. Keep asking questions and never settle on the first answer.

December 2010; inside a week the frame that carries my name dropped seventeen pounds inside seven days. Christmas Eve was spent listening to a doctor scream, “Your body is telling you to slow down!”

And that’s where he was wrong.

My body was telling me the medication he had me taking was reacting in a negative way and muscle degeneration had reached a dangerous level.

Keep asking questions and never settle on the first answer.

And that’s where you’re going to be right.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

The weakness of this nation are bosses that want to see your resume...

2011-11-02T06:17:00.001-07:00

Las Vegas night club crooner Dean Martin set hearts on fire when he’d torch the stage with, “Everybody needs somebody…to love.”

Yeah ok…

Outside those four nicotine stained walls it’s a different game reality plays; everybody wants to be somebody and love is the billion dollar chip dropped on the alcohol flooded floor.

Reaching such a point has evolved into the new millennium/post recession back into another recession guessing game. How can companies survive when those in control of budgets and decisions are stuck in the middle of believing they can do it all by them self?

Bosses are just as much injured as worker bees! Companies that once promised can no longer be trusted because somewhere on the food chain is a pyramid of investors expecting a high return that isn’t being met.

Dented is the American dream with no inspiration, influence or leadership to properly grow the mind, body and soul.

If we can resurface a seventy five year old California desert hot highway there’s hope to be found in what little is left in our desire to keep giving and not receiving.

Author and big business mentor Art Williams clearly paints the truth, “Too many managers fail to recognize their people’s potential.”

Walk through any door in Whoop tee doo U.S.A and the stories are the same. From bank tellers to Wal-Mart greeters, Big

Mac Builders to roofing specialists that have just learned insurance companies will pay for hail damaged tiles; work being done doesn’t reach quality status because managers have been trained or have elected to let go of seeing the importance of recognizing someone’s full potential.

One of my pet peeves is the over used have nothing better to say because it hurts to be creative, “You da man!”

For the longest time I’d be a smart a** and quickly return, “If I was truly the man I’d be in Los Angeles or Chicago. Not in Charlotte, NC.”

One problem…such sloppy talk infected what the city reflected. Faded from the city were the tingles the Charlotte skyline generates even on cloudy windy bitterly cold mornings. The Boom Boom Pow was 2008 and I was extremely late. Gone was the passion to play in the streets electing instead to stop dreaming of being and just do…nothing.

Art Williams has a solution, “True leaders recognize the hidden qualities that bring about success, and focus on the specialness of their people.”

Which walks side by side with Julia Cameron’s book The Artist Way At Work; a room blessed with overachievers, over sellers, eager to get success, an ice addicted fanatic, two computer nerds and an employee that seemingly never brings anything to the meetings…which one do you want to invest in?

The quiet one that never brings anything to the game; while everyone else seems connected to the spirit of winning for the team…they aren’t interested in bending their ways to improve the game. The quiet one is the thinker. He quietly waits to plan things out. The quiet one doesn’t need an ego stroke to feel important. They appeared at the meeting as told and will continue doing a brilliant job when the leader unties their grip and lets them slip back into a normal workday.

Art explains, “There’s a difference between someone who thinks they’re special and someone who is someone. We all know a person who’s attained the right to lead. They helped the company pull in the bucks while motivating the staff to give, give and give a little more. But do you see yourself as that person?”

People want to sit in the giant chair but once there…hmmmm

I sit with Broadcasting interns everyday and although we’ve been introduced to internet radio, IPods, MP3 players, I Heart Radio, YouTube and blah blah blah…landing that morning radio show gig is still the big stick they want most, “I can do it! I’m ready right now! I just need someone to believe in me.”

Have you ever stared into the eyes of a morning show talent at three in the afternoon? When I did mornings on 95.1 my worst fear wasn’t waking up late but getting hit by a drunk driver. My three in the morning rush hour was their wrapping up the party hour. I trained myself to never stop for gas that early due to a phobia of walking in on a robbery. Going to bed at eight at night gives you no life so the decision to stay up until eleven makes you feel like a better man which rips to shreds the desire to meet the demands in less than seven hours.

“I can’t wait to do a morning show!” They instantly shout back, “People have always said I’m funny! I can be funny that early!”

That’s the only sprinkle of realty I put at the base of their tree. From that moment forward the door is wide open for them to explore the paths that could very well lead them beyond John Boy and Billy.

I’m sure Wal-Mart greeters get the same people.

Art Williams believes in a Push up Principal: There’s more to a person than what is on their resume. If you want a leadership driven job then you better have the right credentials.

Just because my waist is decorated with a second degree black belt doesn’t guarantee my life will be saved outside the school. Living the black belt path means being on the dirt and knowing the way of peace not clouding up the situation with sparring and wrist locks. Bosses have been trained to exceed the limits of business success without understanding the end results of what it is they’re truly accomplishing. The numbers may show but the people didn’t grow.

The Push up Principal won’t start in the leader’s office. It begins with you. Stop racing around hollering, “You da man!” and get back to proper coaching. Look Cam Newton in those Carolina Panther eyes and say, “You might be good but your team is keeping that end of the year ring from being wrapped around your finger. Be a leader and let’s motivate the quiet ones in the meeting to begin the process of believing even in those that take, take, take.”

I will always believe in you first…

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Use it and lose it...its the American way!

2011-11-01T05:57:00.001-07:00

HA! LOL! LMFAO! I love today’s entry from dailychallenge.com: Put three things back where they belong…

Instantly a vision of my overbearing strict commanding Dad begins to play inside the brains movie theater called Memory; a man that held only one rule within his tattered and torn clinched WW II American veteran fist, “When you use something…put it away!”

It’s become his legacy.

I never heard him ask, “Where did I lay the hammer?”

Nor did he lose car keys, single socks, his kids in a mall or a shiny penny picked up on a rocky path somewhere in the middle of those tall snow capped peaks called Montana mountains.

It seems like an easy task; grab a plate, eat off it, put it in the dishwasher then slide it back into the cupboard.

I wish I could say it’s easy! I’d jump on the bike, ride it beyond parental limits, jump off at the park and misplace it somewhere between the Little League Field and the Craft House. If you lose enough things eventually the bank account begins to reflect your faults.

Why is it so important to put things back where they belong?

Being the lowest of the low on the totem pole of radio disc jockey requires a pair of earphones; big, small, expensive or Wal-Mart cheap…it doesn’t matter; they’re the most important tool of the trade. The day you don’t have them is like standing on the corner of walk and don’t walk; what are you going to do? Without them you have no radio show! Everybody knows where the morning people hide their earphones; do you shatter the rules of respect and latch onto it or figure out a way to sway an assumed friend to bail you out?

Call me a freak but I know when someone’s stinky ears have been in contact with what connects me to the music headed straight for a listener’s day.

Why is it so important to put things back where they belong?

One word: organization. When you’re organized you’re in control. Being in control relieves stress. Less stress leads to productivity.

I can’t tell you how many interns have walked into my radio station studio with no earphones expecting to locate success in a business where there’s 3,000 people applying for a single opening. Thank God Taco Bell provides their window order takers with sound devices!

Can you imagine watching an NFL Carolina Panther’s game and Cam Newton forgot his jersey?

“Today, you’re going to be number zero! No wait! Let’s see if the opposing team has an extra jersey with your number on it?”

Lost somewhere in the 80’s was the discipline required to hold people accountable for their lack of respecting tools. Could it be the first step of memory loss? Might it be just a test? I constantly blame my dog Harold for playing Patrick Swayze Ghost tricks on me, “Harold! I’m serious…I really do need to find that hook that’ll hang this painting straight and not lean like everything else in my life!”

If elected into the North Carolina State House of Representatives the first bill I’ll put into motion is the introduction of A bright bold and beautiful tag that clearly states: WARNING: Not putting this away when finished will lead to cussing, accusing and no ice cream before bed!

My luck an elected official from Gaston County will challenge it claiming how unfair the label would be to video Gamer’s that lose stuff all the time, “How dare you attack their lack of commitment!”

I’ve often believed Lowes and Home Depot sprinkle metal devouring salts on their tools that over time dissolve screw drivers, drill bits and carpet nails.

Why is it so important to put things back where they belong?

It saves time. Time you don’t know you have until you get there. When you’ve got extra time you want to spend it! If lost then its back to cussing, accusing and using other items that have nothing in common with the task but by God you’re going to try it and in doing so more damage is done.

Only one time have I forgotten where the car was parked; Laurel, Montana 1979 during a major out of this century celebration without Disco where the cups were tossed and the line to Keg Dive was a great place to meet new people. It was social media the old fashioned face to face way!

By the time I’m 60 the picture taking device in the Droid will take on a new mission: never stop taking snap shots of every destination.

Why is it so important to put things back where they belong?

There is a positive to this blogging message: if you don’t put things back…America might get back to working. The more you lose the bigger the demand for light brown pants worn while working at the Petco. Losing those gloves is a good thing; they’re making more in Spokane, Washington!

Is this why we lose the need to feed our bodies with common sense? Up until the recession, before multitasking and micro-managing; making sense made you a pocket protecting computer nerd; today, if you break enough dishes you won’t be asked to them anymore. Compliments to Kris Stevens from 969 The Kat for that line. At least he brings his own earphones. That makes him an on-air hero!

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Halloween teaches you to face the beast!

2011-10-31T06:31:00.001-07:00

The average Joe, Moe or Arroe on Halloween Day, not a race to place but a mid-fall nestle next to a different pace; never a need to liberate but an agreement to feed not the desire but willingness to paint without acrylic a single word or several haunted by the lack thereof.

To a writer…silence is the beast.

Assumption locks the passerby onto an street named “Easy to Bleed” when in fact the man, woman or child holding the writing instrument can’t explain the arrival of phrases sent through the veins of empty spaces; for it’s the eyes that convince the prints left by fingertips that the heart requires music but not what radio plays on dusty workdays when being set free would be the best way all too many sell out for.

The cavern’s cut from the soul of a thinker devours ink like BBQ sauce cuddles the ribs tickling your tummy on any given Sunday. To quickly wipe from sight hides the strength of what writers exchange for the opportunity is to do nothing more than bleed like raindrops parachuting from a cloudless sky yet it caught your wandering eye.

To choose to write is the core of my laughter.

Authors, lyricists, sports reporters and Presidential speech makers aren’t gifted with options; they do to do and when done some quickly run. To write is the only air you might get to tonight. To scribble like a child sometimes larger than hands on a clock doesn’t purify the reason but soothes the center of a region never spoke of because life on the outside never understands the presence of word shapes; until put in their language. To which I’ve never understood so I rely on proof readers to calmly invite the way of the poet to seek better ways to communicate.

If only you could see the way it was meant to be! Not really; too many have made up new names for me. Great friends believe my biggest faults are found in my writing because you can’t see the expressions that create wrinkles in my forehead while curving the tips of my cheeks resembling a middle aged smile from the heels of realism and not taught by radio program directors that preached, “It’s not what you say…it how you say it…” so I fake laugh a lot!

That’s my Halloween haunt! My laugh is no better than a beady eyed witches with a big hairy lazy faced werewolf that’s been redesigned by a Twilight writer to hate Vampires.

In Batman Jack Nicholson asked, “Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?”

He, she or “it” that swiped it from thin air while the ghost was looking elsewhere was honestly asking, “Have you ever found yourself in a horrifying situation when no one is around to assist?”

Completing a writing project! Ouch!

No doctor not even a brain surgeon will touch the gritty edges of where the writer has been.

It’s completely natural to want to hide!

Casting thoughts like stones skipping through the morning sunrise of an even flowing stream or lake is but the fantasy.

Writing as a profession, hobby, game or shape of communication makes funny waves inside invisible days for travelers commanding to be covered by fleece blankets that reached outward at Wal-Mart begging shoppers to take them home for a self deserved moment of aloneness.

Lost or disconnected isn’t any place, rhyme or reason for the reader to think the one sharing is in a safe place; even Darth Vader became weak. Obe One Kanobe sacrificed his journey for Luke to grow.

Artist Way author Julia Cameron was the first to speak directly to me about the middle of the night itch that couldn’t be scratched; the ill feeling of never reaching complete; the emptiness that Krispy Kreme’s could never fill or the horrid delivery of learning all that energy wasted was because being a perfectionist is the wizard holding the gun.

Julia didn’t pour great wisdom into a coffee cup or open a gate for enlightened feelers to skate across frozen empires offering tingles like a weekend beer buzz.

Julia wrote, “Forgive yourself.”

You have the right to write.

At no other time during the chapters of world history has writing been more accepted than during The Great Social Media Movement.

Halloween costumes will never change.

The end result of not writing is far greater the scare than something weird and freaky crazy out there.

The best part about writing every day is holding the keys to a vehicle called “Unknown.”

Not knowing what I’m going to write about doesn’t scare me nor do the images of a faces I’ll never meet. It’s not important during an age of big banking money, 3-D movies and a video game kingdom that teaches teens to kill on our streets then we spend the rest of lives denying it.

What matters is the mystery.

Julia talks about painting a room. Take not what you know but what you have and share it with someone whose choice was to stop in for a brief moment.

To my left is a painting of John Lennon and his creative connections; it’s natural to think, assume and pretend to properly put into place reasons for such a painting; it’s a radio station studio; having the Beatles present is expected. Until you look beyond the writer and take note; four separate paths that happened to make harmony. It teaches me to trust new ideas from outside sources. But to write that will earn me an email, “Thank you Casey Kasum!”

It’s Halloween! Face your beast!

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Happy! Have an incredible... What can we get away with?

2011-10-28T05:48:00.001-07:00

Growing up in an open door Baptist Church in south central Montana came with only one rule: do everything you can to get people in the seats on Sunday. That meant wacky marketing! The most memorable was a goldfish eating peer pressure contest where the class leader vowed to down the innocent fins of a water creature if his class didn’t increase by ten by month’s end.

Being a lover of all living things including wild weeds that grow between the cracks in the driveway; little Arroe hit the road like a Girl Scout hawking cookies. I sold the message of that church before long haired ministering became cool. For it; the goldfish survived another eight years in the nice warm larger than life 50 gallon comforts of my stepfather’s living room.

I don’t think the church would survive the constant commands of today’s political correctness. Although Pastor White meant well…the healing methods of sharing the word would quickly come under attack by other makers of visions and decisions.

Which is why it’s so difficult to talk about Halloween, Christmas, July 4th and Columbus Day; in reality the Dude that guaranteed his queen something special didn’t discover anything! I did read that his shipmates carried with them several Chinese Crested dogs whose body temperature is always 104 degrees. But they ate them at the end of the journey. No wonder they earn ugliest dog of the year contests all the time! Humans won’t eat ugly things!

My neighbor Betty discovered a copperhead snake colony over the summer…I’m thinking she should get something for potentially saving the life of multiple dogs and cats that might have nosed their way into a situation they couldn’t get out of.

I find Christmas to be an incredible subject to discuss because I celebrate it every day. Yeah, now locate someone who thinks the same. Like birthdays…Native American studies showcase a day of celebration not for the one born on that day but for the mother who gave life to; which is why you always hear me say, “Call your mother!”

Halloween seems to be losing strength. Although adults party like rock stars those holding the reins of the future are kept in locked cars. The best part about being a kid was once a year we were given permission to stay up late while walking way, way, way outside the parental boarders of protection to collect candy from strangers.

What in God’s name were Mom and Dad thinking? It wasn’t a different world there was just less social media to get the word out.

I totally grasp the lawmaker’s introduction of making Halloween the final Saturday of every October; fewer drunk drivers and the economy is given one last push before the bigger more marketed holiday’s steal what little cash is left. Yet…October 31st is the Christmas of the sugar rush world. To take it away is like having to reinvent the classroom globe.

“Mrs. Smith what is the Soviet Union? Why does it say East Germany?”

How foolish of me to think this way—Google Map is always up to date you freak!

Attending public school it was never discussed why some did or didn’t or why others stayed away on Thanksgiving lunch day. I’d say a little prayer hoping all was ok. Today, I’d be tossed into the councilor’s office and reprimanded for publically bowing my head. No judgment! To get along is my song.

To be is to be to not to be doesn’t mean take someone on. Just be because being is what makes you unique. I feel sorry for the talking Elmo’s on the shelf at Wal-Mart; nobody wants to be the last one picked even if the red fur is a little green. It happens when you’re best friend is Kermit!

No matter what day you’ve decided to pull off a celebration this weekend; be it to spook or cheer on the Carolina Panthers…if there’s one thing we’ve learned from college sports fans Ohio State and the Florida Gators might seem like bitter creatures on the open fields of play but in the end we’re still part of this thing called the U.S.A.

Now I’ve offended blog readers in Canada and Latvia! My South Korean collectors of thought are tossing their Ipads in the trash. How dare I do that to passers of time in India, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Russia, Germany and according to the latest stats 260 Denmark-ian’s. Is that a word? If you’re from North or South Carolina you’re Carolinians but being from Montana they’d trip me in the mall for saying Montanian.

Happy! Day! Goooooooo world!

Wow! If I had bigger teeth you’d think I was the perfectly pitched up positively driven lost brother of the Osmond family.

Ho hum…Merry Halloween everyone!

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

If today ended up being....

2011-10-27T06:56:00.001-07:00

Is author Seth Godin on to something?

The world’s lingering bad economic conditions could be an addiction to “thinking” things are going to return to normal.

Godin points to a one time monster sized music industry that’s totally ignoring Itunes, MP3 players and smart phones connected to I Heart Radio; writers, producers and masters of marketing are convinced that compact discs are the money maker.

Microsoft was said, “Google isn’t a real company. It’s a house of cards.”

I downloaded a video of Sean Lennon occupying Wall Street…the Rollingstone Magazine description clearly stated John Lennon’s son was going to sing Madonna’s Material Girl. What viewers got was a behind the scenes view of the occupation that looked more like a wedding than a demonstration. The speaker would blurt out five words, the crowd would repeat him. Another five words, the crowd repeated. Wait! Another five words…here come the same words.

By the time I reached Sean Lennon singing Material Girl the payoff was a famous man’s son singing the hook over and over kind of like John doing, “All we are saying is give peace a chance.”

“Living in a martial world, living in a material world, living in a material world, living in a material world, living in a material world, living in a material world…”

Please write to me when you’ve been moved to do something about our future.

“Living in a martial world, living in a material world, living in a material world, living in a material world, living in a material world, living in a material world…”

Are we addicted to thinking that things will return to normal?

What is normal? I was a newlywed during Ronald Reagan’s bout with bad economic luck. Normal was being able to afford Kraft Macaroni and Cheese versus generic. Normal in 2011 is returning to an overpriced market where bowling in uptown

Charlotte is $50 an hour. Normal is the divorce rate hitting 52%. Normal is KFC returning to Kentucky Fried Chicken only introduce a new dish blessed with fried chicken, steaming hot mashed potatoes and bacon chunks on top.

Seriously? Do we truly want to go backwards to locate what drove us to the party? If we go back there’s not enough noise in the world to convince Wal-Mart not to take over.

If we’re going back to find happiness we might as well wake up the Bee Gee’s and do Disco again. Call up Harrison Ford and put him in the front seat of American Graffiti. George Lucas who? Monica did what? Not on my President’s dime!

I get it! But let’s not reinvent it. The age of growing forward is what shapes our roots that run deep. This year for Christmas why can’t we just be happy about having each other? Talk about an incredible inactive game! I ask a question and you respond. I throw a ball and you catch it. Who invented this game?

When the body comes under attack from the flu or a bad cold the last thing I’m reaching for are the moments before the system was weakened. I stopped drinking in my teens not because it was an illegal buzz but the hangovers kept me from discovering new beginnings.

I love the idea that hundreds of thousands are protesting around the world against big business but what’s the point if you have no listeners? CEO’s, GM’s and coworker Eddie the butt kisser are focused on tomorrow.

Pictures from a past last forever because the future holds no truth until after it’s happened.

If you truly are disgusted with the way big business America has failed its nation of worker bees the one voice you have that can be louder than protesters on Wall Street are the vocals inside your heart. When you regain control of the life you want to life…never treat people the way you were. Be fair. Be loyal. Be dedicated, determined and for the love of God have some integrity.

Now go out there and score me a point, maybe two, ten or twelve. Win this ballgame with class! We are America! We love the bright colors that shine red white and blue! We succeed in areas other nations become weak! We love burgers! We can’t get enough of Super Bowl Sunday! Christmas is every day! Being on this soil is the greatest gift you’ll ever be handed! So stand up and believe in the threads that hold your family photo album together. There’s more incredible memories to make and it requires your participation!

I will always believe in you first…

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Hahahaha laughing at you until numb.

2011-10-26T05:50:00.001-07:00

Difficult to digest are the number of years that have passed since taking my final step out of high school; yet I still hear my mother’s strong voice clearing the path of debris brought on by a fear of tests, unexplained shyness, a lack of interest in science and every other excuse used to keep from pulling my feet from beneath those warm Montana covers.

“It’s 7:30!”

I honestly believe I went to school so I wouldn’t hear my Mom’s out of tune vocal range. Why else would I set the alarm clock today and consistently beat it up before it blares its ear shattering zip, zing and pow into the arrival of a new sun?

I’m not bragging but having perfect attendance from the sixth grade to the eleventh was an accomplishment that continues to control the journey toward the horizon. Because of my mother’s passion to guarantee her children an education…the remnants of her values have poured onto the floor of every personality I’ve become thirty one year’s deeper into the chapters.

She didn’t accept excuses. Nor do I, which is why it’s extremely difficult to support the protesting voices attempting to land a giant dent or ding in big business on Wall Street.

There are two sides of the fence; corporate mistreatment is accepted behavior. Why is anyone shocked? Have you read Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee?

Standing on street corners fighting the system is what kids do when deciding that today is the moment when going to school is the last opportunity requiring a need to be achieved.

The people on Wall Street aren’t representing anyone but themselves. Being an exempt employee isn’t a freedom or luxury to have insurance but every reason to use what little the company is willing to hand out because you’re going to get sick; some days worse but look who still shows up in the trenches.

Teddy Roosevelt once said, “People are always neglecting something they can do and trying to do something they can’t do.”

Rollingstone Magazine clearly prints out the five areas that would get the attention of big business and none of it includes standing on corners chanting like a Chicago Cubs fan hoping to win a world series. The magazine is truthful when exposing a need to hit big business where it counts…in the pocket.

This might be the reason why the Saturday after Thanksgiving November 26th has been officially declared by our United States lawmakers as being National Small Business Day. It’s been designed to convince consumers to buy small, buy local and make our economy work.

I sat up proud and began to cheer like a wild monkey at the city zoo located somewhere other than Ohio! Then I realized National Small Business Day is sponsored by this country’s largest big business corporations.

Seriously?

Ok Wall Street protestors…the ball is in your court!

Convince this country not to wait until Saturday the 26th of November to buy small business goods. Hit Corporate America in the gut on Black Friday!

Ken Keys believes, “To be upset over what you don’t have is to waste what you do have.”

Big business has connected this generation to unheard of amounts of technology carefully crafted to make life easier. We’ve traveled farther in the past one hundred years than any other time in history.

To attain simplicity and share it!

Now we’ve chosen to lie in bed and complain about having to wake up and go to school.

Henri Frederic said, “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was among the things only hoped for.”

I love the idea that thousands of voices are beginning to be heard inside the makings of our government controlled environment. Having the freedom to speak out is a privilege put into play by every man and woman that’s dedicated their life to protecting our United States constitution.

But wouldn’t the true protest be to stop buying big business so they’ll quit financing politicians running for office in November? Your freedom of speech comes with no power inside a business world where you’re told what to say, do and how to react and if someone from the media approaches you the only answer shared is no comment.

Billions will be spent to convince you how to vote. Was your vote heard during the primaries? Yeah that soccer game did seem a little more important. I know, 50% off at the mall won over the popular vote. Is it possible that those making laws closely work with big business owners to divert your attention? Billions are spent to take your mind off the game.

Who’s running against Mayor Fox in Charlotte?

I’m out of bed and this new day has begun! I write to not to right but give you something to think about during days when everything you own is nothing.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Your boss pays the bills ultimately you pay the price...

2011-10-24T05:33:00.001-07:00

Losing weight has always been a private issue. I’m easily embarrassed and feel incredibly uncomfortable. Compliments fall short of reaching my ears because I don’t know how to say, “Thank you,”

I feel as if I owe them a compliment back, “Um, the colorful fall leaves in the trees dance like angels kissing the horizons summer’s edge.”

I fall tremendously short by shifting the attention off me, “Maybe it’s you that’s losing weight and you’re seeing something new in everyone you meet.”

Is it selfish to wonder where they were when the last hole on the large leather belt was barely reached?

The number one reason why I’ll never be a true on-air radio talent is because I refuse to promote weight loss or fat reduction products.

Somewhere in the center of the message I’d pop on the guilt trip, “Are you doing sit ups? When was the last time you took on your heart and gave it room to live? While visiting the gym are you lost on the same treadmill speed as yesterday or have you challenged your legs to stop walking like a second grader?”

My first wife was horribly addicted to the concept of losing weight by way of shoving manmade products down her throat. I swam in daily nightmares watching as she destroyed a natural life.

I saw Jane Fonda so many times in my living room that as an on-air radio station prank I physically wrote a letter to her workout company asking that she pay part of the rent. They replied, “Thank you for being so incredibly loyal to our product. Don’t forget to share it with a neighbor!”

My friend Todd is a weight loss preacher. He’s dedicated his life to the value of helping hundreds set themselves free while building a better mind, body and soul without a single pill falling from his pocket. The foundation that which we all carry is no different than the engines that take us to and from work each morning. Ignore the oil and antifreeze and this winter something isn’t going to crank.

I won’t shove good health onto your daily diet. Winning is a choice and ultimately that decision must come from the core of your purpose for being.

I do plant seeds. They’re mental boogers for the mind to pick as a way to remind you to do butt crunches while sitting in a chair at work. Feel stress? Find a place to gift your thoughts with a set of ten sit ups, a round of pushups, squats or speedy walk around the building.

The dailychallenge.com believes no workday should go without personally designing a perimeter then walk it.

Right away the shy side of my multiple personalities begins to act up like a kid doped up on sugar, “You’ll never catch me in an act of regaining control of the limits of weight.” The choice is to run and hide. Once solitude is met; the journey begins.

Dailychallenge.com believes such perimeters are needed to lower blood pressure, improve moods while decreasing waistlines. Picking a perimeter adds variety because it motives the human desire to constantly discover new things.

Author Julia Cameron from Artist Way fame clearly paints the trail of a daily delivery to always include a short stroll because

it’s amazing what’s waiting for you outside those office windows.

Yesterday morning I felt the need to walk outside to the forest that surrounds my home only to instantly take note of a six point white tail buck staring at me. Without going all out totem on you…let’s just say it was the human ego that elected to leave the animal kingdom and through patience and a willingness to walk you’ll learn the wildly shaped and vividly colored eyes of a passerby has a lot more to say to you than smartphones, IPads and your neighbor Kevin whose impatiently waiting for the Panther’s to hit the football field.

Although I’ve guaranteed my dreams to stop chasing the color of a martial arts belt…the black belt path refuses to stop whispering. To hold true to this 2,000 year old lesson a third degree can’t be attained unless there is to be 10,000 sit ups inside a ten week period; 10,000 pushups, run 105 miles, fight 210 ninety second sparring rounds, perform 10,500 basic kicks and do each Tae Kwon Do form 1,500 times.

Martial arts is like radio…no moment passes that you don’t meet someone that’s done one or the other in college, high school or because there was nothing better to do. Sadly, both are taught by too many that think they know the truth.

I haven’t lost weight. I’ve gained knowledge.

Steal my art…

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

To do or not to do or just give up and not move...

2011-10-20T13:32:00.001-07:00

Actor/ Comedian Tim Allen is pulling off what Reality TV killed off on ABC. His new thirty minute sitcom Last Man Standing has latched on to 19 million new viewers.

You’d think getting back on the tube would be easy; after all Tim the Tool Man Taylor on Home Improvement became a household institution. ABC is owned by Disney; Mickey’s parent company captivated every age group with Toy Story’s one through a billion.

Welcome back or where the hell have you been?

If you’ve caught his most recent interviews he wastes no time talking about the struggle to climb back on the horse. Rather than fight it, it became his daily duty to shove acting aside.

If you stand still too long the world passes you by.

Julia Carney has a great quote, “I’m still not where I want to be but I’m not where I once was.”

I meet future Broadcaster’s everyday that want to replace Ace and TJ and John Boy and Billy tomorrow. Not three to six years. They’ve convinced themselves that this is a make it or break it moment and its all out gusto or its back to retail and Taco Bell they go.

Famed motivational speaker Dale Carnegie reminds us, “Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are the small jobs. Everything you conquer makes you stronger. If you do the little job well the bigger expectation will take care of itself.”

How many people do you meet on a weekly basis whose focus is on success and nothing less? Be it the top seller, greatest driver in the delivery department, the biggest muscles to lift the giant trash barrels to the fastest on the phones to convince donations to increase for your non-profit organization? It’s completely natural to be the over achiever and the under-deliverer. It’s another great moment in humbled sports history!

Helen Keller said, “I long to accomplish a great and noble task but it will be my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”

Tim Allen is one of very few Hollywood actors that can say, “I was Santa Claus!”

Yet in his interviews he still comes across that he’s totally missed the ship on accepting personal success. In some people’s lives Buzz Lightyear is mightier than Superman. I better stop; look what happened to John Lennon when he casually told reporters about how the Beatles were more popular than the creator of Christmas.

Edmund Burke writes, “Nobody makes the greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.”

Might that be the reason why the lads and lassies after Gen-X have bluntly been accused of being the laziest collection of future leaders born this side of the year zero? What makes that statement powerful is intern Chris from Western Carolina who says, “It’s sad but true!”

How can we fix it? Is it even broken?

David Storey might paint a different picture; the new generation might not be lazy after all, but rather best represent what happens to a growing imagination when there’s no confidence.

Seized from your grips from the overbearing decision makers of constantly growing companies has been the single most potent energy given to the human race…confidence. When you have it there’s always going to be success. When you are paid very little, given horrid insurance, teamed up with office leaders that micro manage you, the janitor and every ant and cricket that sneak in through the back door…the end result is going to be an extremely weak next generation.

If you aren’t confident you can’t teach someone to lead. If you don’t hold the reins of where you want to grow…why should there be a reason to try? If this is where the boss wants me to sit, I hope my butt doesn’t fall asleep because it’s gonna be tough to walk when I find the time to pick my dreams back up and start walking again.

Tim Allen is moving again. His eyes and voice tell a different tale. How dare a bigger than life Hollywood actor make his way back to ABC? It’s like taking twenty three steps backwards and in America we can’t seem to find a reason to invest in this policy so we stay unemployed even after the checks from the government stop coming in. Our only voice is to create protest groups that march on Wall Street.

It’s an extremely small start and should be looked upon as being a brilliant display of your freedom to speak. Dante Alighieri couldn’t have said it better when softly chanting, “From a little spark may burst a mighty flame.”

A great book to read is Believe You Can from John Mason. It truly is the fuel required to reignite the little engine that could.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Step up to the microphone and own the show...

2011-10-19T12:51:00.001-07:00

Wow! They play rough at the top of the pyramid!

It’s completely politically in-correct to put faith in Winston Churchill’s quote, “Responsibility is the price of greatness.”

Within these modern ways forget Margaret Thatcher’s thunderous way, “If you want to cut your own throat don’t come to me for a bandage.”

How about Goethe, “Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.”

According to martial arts Master Richard Andrew King if there are fingers to be pointed the act of doing so is degrading to all of us because it speaks directly to our lack of character.

Hit any newspaper or entertainment magazine website and it’s all spelled out: non-accountability has spread like wildfire in our culture.

Master King believes such actions have destroyed the nobility of man. We’ve lost the answer to this extremely simple question: What’s more important one’s character or one’s feelings?

Drug addiction, a passion for fruits turned into wine, overweight, heart disease…for those who don’t believe in evolution the proof is in the pudding! We’ve evolved into a nation of finger pointers. Who needs the other three when texting and accusing requires only one dangly thingy?

Master King believes its time grownup’s own up. At his school of Karate if a student is injured; it’s their fault. If the choice is to engage then you’ve made a decision to accept responsibility.

Is it tough love to own up?

If the best investment is to sink energy into self worth and dignity then owning up would be the best lesson learned correct? Who’s doing the teaching? To lead requires responsibility. To be responsible takes on the shape of being held accountable. 98% of my daily readers have already bolted from this website. Why are you still here?

Wait! Come back! We’ll talk about my stepfather Joe whopping me upside the think maker, “If you’re going to use that mouth in ways that upset people I’m only demonstrating what someone might do when you aren’t under my roof.”

If I were to ask him about it today he wouldn’t deny it took place. He’s got no problem owning up.

Which brings me to the protestors on Wall Street that continue to feel a need to barely be heard about Corporate America’s brutal treatment of this nation’s most creative generation. Gosh…you accepted the job. The snake you picked up was a rattler…um they bite and so does landing a great job. It comes with a price and now you want to protest it?

If enough hard working skill minded performers gather to build a product better than the trash Wal-Mart sells daily…that’s how you put a dent in the side of the big guy’s engine. Not with complaints and finger points. Just good old fashioned quality driven products.

I once got a swat from the Dean of Boys for starting at food fight at Riverside Jr High. Once my a** was set on fire I didn’t stand up accusing the decision maker of abusing my rights to speak freely with bad behavior. I remember standing at his desk and calmly whimpering, “I accept responsibility for the actions that took place.”

When you get bad ratings in radio…please stop blaming Lady Gaga, burned out Lionel Richie and a new group called Boone Doggie Fo Fo and take a look at your performance between the tracks. Oh wait…barely 1% of those in radio volunteer to do community involvement projects and yet the FCC requires that all broadcast outlets serve their local community or there can’t be a license renewal.

Martin Sheen accepted responsibility for Charlie’s crazy antics. Although it wasn’t his fault he and his son Emilio vividly pointed out, “All families have troubles and together we’re working our way through this.”

Grownup’s own up…

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Why can't everyday be with Pam Stone?

2011-10-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

We do a lot of things out of the ordinary.

Who ate the first banana? Did the gang of five chastise the peeling fool?

Who and what’s normal? I’m not! I’m having too much fun not wanting to be the popular kid on the radio.

I used to think quickly rushing outside to jump onto an auction purchased homemade ten speed bike with a jet black banana seat to arrest the crooks Batman and Robin couldn’t catch was what every boy did.

My friend Steve elected one morning to take a pellet gun and shoot what he assumed were pesky messy pigeons only to learn my music makers served a bigger plan.

No matter what day American businesses do things out of the ordinary. Steve Jobs changed the world while insurance companies, banks and Wall Street stockholder’s rob the world without raising a weapon.

Why do so many people race to be called President when once you arrive you’ve got no voice?

There are no bodyguards in Heaven so I can’t wait to ask Roosevelt why his drive to put people back to work stopped with him. Reagan needs to share the message behind why catsup was officially declared a vegetable during his administration. Did Ford truly trip or was it a gimmick to get people to talk?

A very famous American Idol contestant once had me escorted from his presence for asking an out of the ordinary question: You’re a common man with a common background are you the reincarnation of Elvis Presley?

I asked Richard Marx if he was the Hunchback of Notre dame and he laughingly said, “Yes…”

While doing morning television news reporting I fell off horses on purpose, hooked my skates while on the ice with Disney, slid the Mayor of a small town down the large slide in the middle of the interview! I got in big trouble when asking the Chief of police where the donuts were.

We do a lot of things out of the ordinary. Reality television is making a mint while true writers and actors have been forced to host radio shows, voice radio commercials and or create websites like Daryl Hall from Hall and Oates where it’s all about them doing what makes all that is them very happy.

I’m not the bully on the block that would inspire someone to set aside the rules about jumping off the house. I’m just the one that won’t talk you out of it.

A Broadcasting student comes up to me and says, “I expect to do this and make that amount in two years! It’s make or break! I’ll be the next or I’m out of here!”

I’m not gonna be the weighty well oiled heavily researched shirt behind the desk that drove the stake into the center of my dreams. As crazy silly as it seems, dreams are what feed reality. If you’re going to step out of the ordinary I’ll always be your first fan.

Can you imagine being there when John Lennon was introduced to Paul McCartney? What if Lee Iacocca had come to you about designing the first Mustang? The pickle! Whose wise idea was it to boil a cucumber then add the itty bitty mindless seeds called dill? The cardboard sleeve that slips around that hot cup of Beantown coffee? Now Starbucks has round cake on a stick!

Does everybody truly have to invent the world around you for you to enjoy life?

Bank of America is failing because they stopped listening to the little guy with out of the ordinary ideas. Yet Clear Channel has taken radio to a completely new playing field by introducing the single most important chunk of music history since the IPOD…free music, anytime, every time just ask.

Albums, 45’s, cassettes, 8-track tapes, MP3’s and now I Heart Radio. Where the hell was I when Bob Pittman stepped out of the ordinary and said, “Umm got an idea.”

And so this is how it goes. I’m gonna stop writing and you’re gonna stop reading. Both of our endeavors are going to return to a world where being plastic, fake, numb and puppet like is what keeps a boss in a great mood. I’m not saying do something whacky buzzer in their face bizarre but I’ll be the first to cheer when someone walking down the hall says, “It was a boring damn day until _________ did that thing.”

Do you know why decision makers and parents don’t like people like me? I’m too willing to say, “Wow that would be too fricken cool.” Nationally recognized comedian Pam Stone is the only one in my 32 years of radio to reply back, “Can we do it now?”

I miss her show so much!

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

I've been telling you a lie and its time to come clean...

2011-10-11T05:47:00.000-07:00

Today I wish to laugh. Not to laugh at. Not necessarily to laugh with.
To laugh…
From which shadow does a laugh begin?
Might the corners of my mouth be inspired to share its journey?
How difficult can it be to laugh on a rainy Tuesday?
If this were a kid’s movie there would be farting and burping.
Adults tend to laugh through a method called following.
We laugh to laugh because the laugh came from someone accepting.
Laughing is a bodily function.
It should be natural…
Only to learn radio people fake laugh.
Comedians have mastered the nervous laugh.
Politicians and car dealers laugh their way to the bank.
While banker’s laugh about how stupid we are to accept their $5 ATM service charge.
We laugh out loud.
We laugh with a crowd.
We laugh when we fear.
We laugh at the sight of tight jeans and all that rear.
More importantly we laugh when we don’t understand.
I laughed when the Emergency Room said I was having a heart attack.
The doctor made me laugh while inside the ticker…we were impersonating car commercials.
Laughing is our green leaves of spring.
Laughter doesn’t wait for Fall to glide freely to the ground beneath.
Laughing can be irritating.
A child’s laugh steals my breath.
When my boss laughs I no longer trust.
So I believe laughter is a disease.
Does laughing really lead to a cure?
I was kicked out of class for too much laughing.
I heard the principal laugh after swatting my a**
My friend Zondra has breast cancer stage four and I’m not laughing.
I’ve spent two weeks trying to keep it from you.
Wearing bright pink shirts has made many people laugh here at work.
To hear it pours faith into the veins of a laugh that went up in flames
I think God might be calling and he isn’t laughing.
My friend Zondra didn’t do anything wrong then again she made me laugh during times we were supposed to be focused.
I feel guilty about laughing.
It’s unfair to laugh knowing Zondra is in that hospital bed.
If I didn’t have so many incredible memories of her I’d be laugh-less.
But no she always had to be that friend who always did funny things during awkward moments.
Her two daughters made us all laugh when they gushed over the sight of Justin Bieber.
The doctor wasn’t laughing when he asked them, “Where will you be living?”
Is there a laugh to be found when asking why?
Are laughs washed away when you have tears in your eyes?
If I trapped a laugh and stored it in a bottle; would it be wasted if I pulled it out right now?
If Zondra caught me writing this blog she’d stand beside me laughing.
That’s who she is…
No matter how strong the struggle she laughs.
No matter how bad the singers perform on American Idol she doesn’t judge she laughs.
No matter how many school students race to greet her while knocking her weak legs to the cold floor she always comes up laughing.
I often wonder how many of students know of her genuine laugh.
How many of them spell it Laff?
Who wrote the rules on making a laugh look like low-g-hhhh or loff-gg-hh?
When I laugh with tears in my eyes boogers can’t wait to shoot from my nose.
When I laugh while thinking about Zondra’s incredible strength I find a reason to believe.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Time is worth more than gold yet you are willing to give it away...

2011-10-10T05:58:00.001-07:00

Time

What is it?

What is good for?

Why am I addicted to its uncaring power of recklessly taking over everybody’s life and style?

Is there such a thing as being addicted to time? On my path, three hours early is six hours too late. Introduce that to an outsider and honestly I can’t figure out why coworkers, friends and family don’t see eye to eye with me.

According to scientists new addictions are created every day. The brain wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s a large mechanism that unlike a manmade computer finds complete fascination with every reason to develop a relationship with itty bitty can’t be seen by the naked eye neurons that the body generates when feeling good great and phenomenal.

According to science neurons reward the pathway by releasing neurotransmitters called dopamine into the nucleus accumbens and other brain areas.

If it’s got the strength to make you feel wow wee! Chances are you’re addicted. Being early is my rush. But is it an addiction?

I arrived at a wedding on Saturday four hours before the I do’s…the event coordinator quickly halted my walk forward claiming I was too early. A 5pm Sunday afternoon meeting at a local coffee shop requires me to be in the chair by 3:30. At 4:55 my employee calls to tell me he’ll be 15 to 30 minutes late. I exploded. I dealt with it by eating Chinese food for dinner. Today my weight is up, blood pressure is through the roof and the MSG has laid upon me a headache the size of NYC.

But I was up by 4 am to be to work by 7! Sweet! It’s going to be a beautiful day!

Physic forums clearly point out a person can have an obsession with time but not be addicted. Aren’t they one in the same? Nope!

There are 3,200,000 different websites that take on the subject, each being fair to the others presence and yet you walk away still wondering if what you suffer from is a lack of understanding what a synonym is. Obsession and addiction are not related but the shape of their eyes easily comes across as being kissing cousins.

My sister’s love for life is to publically admit that she was once addicted to alcohol and has spent her entire life educating others not only how to battle the disease but live with the constant need to feed other addictions that might disguise itself.

I think Gene Simmons of KISS is a genius in the world of marketing. I’ve heard he’s a rock star but who cares…it’s his mind and the way he processes the items tossed into his thinker that have made reading everything he touches a must have in my life because the bass guitarist is a master at trusting gut instinct and putting just enough energy into it to make it work. I find that to be incredibly inspiring.

I’m not addicted to Simmons…I’m obsessed with his business state of mind.

Face Book and Twitter are addiction makers. Where else can you make friends at the click of a button? There’s no need to have eye to eye contact like Skype, having to use volume in verbal discussions such as your cell phone or locate a reason to get dressed up and waste good smelling mall store cologne on a cheap date at an uptown nightclub.

Time gives me reason to have hope. If I allow time to breathe the end result is quality. I can’t be accused of having too much time on my hands because no day passes that I haven’t spent hours fine tuning a personal tour that has me doing something every moment of every 24 hour period.

I heard the best quote yesterday after the Carolina Panther loss to The Saints; people complaining about our team not being connected to a winning season. It was accusation after accusation, hit! Pow! Boom! Biff! Swing! Clunk! Then the radio announcer says, “What you need to do is stop and think…the other team is taking the time to practice. They know what our team is made of and they spend lots of time during the week making sure they won’t be beat.”

I laughed so hard the man sitting in the car next to me at the traffic light physically reached over to try and find the radio station I was listening to.

My coworkers think I’m insane because I’ve passionately embraced I Heart Radio. Not because of the music…I spend hours listening to the commercials on radio stations in Hawaii, Seattle, Boston, Tampa, Milwaukee and Minot, North Dakota. Somewhere in the mix I’m going to locate the secret combination of words, phrases and vocal deliveries that will be accepted by radio listeners. Instantly I know a fake jock! Immediately I want to tune out. I choose instead to patiently wade through radio’s rip and read methods of processing information and teach up and coming Broadcasters what to listen for. Once you identify a weakness before it occurs time allows you to find success in quality.

Am I addicted to commercials or obsessed? Why don’t listeners and television viewers find it to be entertaining to sit through commercial breaks? We love the Super Bowl not for the game but what’s in between. The other 51 weeks of the year are spent tossing words away.

I’ve always wanted to watch a Sunday morning preacher just toss a sermon away. Just get up there and bang it out. It takes time to build foundations. No wonder thousands are beginning to protest around the country against Corporate

America…time isn’t money; time is what stands in the way of Wall Street making gains. Businesses need acceptance and fine tuning your machine to the point of attaining quality requires time they don’t have. Hire and fire…it no longer matters because colleges and universities are spitting out the fresh meat every day.

Time…

No day passes that I don’t dress up like a clown for the fake face I show isn’t my true identity…it is the sad heart of an entertainer that can’t find an audience to support his stage…so I choose to go along with because there are moments that time truly isn’t worth fighting for…and that’s why our nation’s financial rating is no longer a solid three. Time means nothing to way too many decision makers.

Outside a Harris Teeter store in Ballantyne hangs a banner that reads: Don’t forget your Boss on Bosses Day! Instantly I became sick to my stomach. What are the chances my boss even knows my name. I held onto it all night. I couldn’t wait to write this morning. Three sentences deep into this blog and in walks my boss with a handwritten letter that clearly states: Thank you for taking the time to create incredible radio commercial production.

Time…it really is worth your investment.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Don't read this unless you feel trapped...until then do things that make you feel trapped then read this...

2011-10-06T06:03:00.000-07:00

How many times a day or week do you feel trapped?

It’s not always a career or relationship; the feeling of being trapped can be generated by something as simple as the image in the bathroom mirror. Songs on the radio can trap you in a mindset time won’t let you forget. Walking through a department store that features unforgettable fragrances heightens the boarders that lock you side an invisible fortress.

In The Black Belt Book of Life author Richard Andrew Kings takes on the subject of having to live trapped within yourself; calling peace at any price not peace but slavery.

Artists, writers, musicians, horticulturists to ministers in a very tiny church lost in the middle of America on a dirt road leading nowhere have self taught their fears that trusting freedom is a destination worth chasing.

Richard writes, “Freedom must be fought for every moment of everyday with our will, discipline, mind and body acting as guards of self defense.”

Stop! You read the words Self Defense and right away the message sent to the brain clearly states, “Oh oh he likes to fight.” Instantly you’re put on defense when in reality those protecting freedom walk in peace.

Pythagoras said, “No man is free who cannot control himself.”

Katherine Hepburn reminded us, “Without discipline, there’s no life at all.”

King continues, “Too often people operate under the premise that peace should be maintained at all costs.”

He sharply questions that wondering why you don’t place more value in self worth.

If asked to write down every reason why feeling trapped has overtaken your dreams, goals, ambitions and fears, one of two things would happen: you wouldn’t write anything down or you’d spend the next six weeks staring at your faults rather than what makes you incredible.

Having had a heart attack at 47 has trapped me. I’m more active today than those crazy teens and twenties. Everything I wanted to do is currently being done with no respect for the two hands on the everyday clock. Sometimes I’ll go 52 hours without a break. I absolutely without a doubt don’t understand the arrival of new radio people that aren’t willing to give 300%. True Broadcasters are like comedians; when gathered in a room the tales told are never through lip service but through the windows of the soul and that requires blood and guts or according to Richard King…the feeling of being trapped.

Not too good…

King is convinced that we’ve been trained since birth that to every positive there must be a negative. If you’re having a brilliant day at work then expect a bad night ahead. If losing ten pounds has earned you compliments then looking good will inspire someone in your life to make accusations you don’t deserve. We trap ourselves only to blame it on other people.

20th Century Martial Arts Master Charan Singh advised his students to live in the creation then get out of it.

Now you know why I write everyday at sunrise.

I cannot create if there’s weight. I will not make waves if all I did yesterday was saved. I cannot be if what was to be has already been done. A green leaf on a tree knows its connection with the tree is over by mid-October. You’ll never see the collector of water and sun crying tears at the base of the trunk; it’s lived in the creation and gotten away from it. The new journey is to feed the earth, to warm the ground for a passerby worm or ant. A leaf provides a soft bed for deer bedding late at night. Leaves crunch like a scary movie sending chills through Halloween night.

Live in the creation then get out of it…

En Vogue couldn’t have sang it sweeter, “Free your mind and the rest will follow…”

I will always believe in you first.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Stop ignoring what you already know...

2011-10-05T06:37:00.001-07:00

I’ve spent too much time writing about how to survive the current multi-tasking crisis damaging the American storefront.

To hit the subject again comes across tiring and un-digestible until you fade the cameras back and see what’s truly taking place while these words smudge brain prints on the face of your flat screen.

I’m multi-tasking!

Another 5 am wakeup call to create radio commercials while sharing a conversation with Channel 961’s Brotha Fred’s producer David about how Motown’s backup band scored more hits then Elvis and the Beatles combined…while maintaining a firm grip on which Clear Channel stations need voices for their clients in Miami, Boston, Milwaukee and Minot, ND.

None of this would be taking place if Bill Gates hadn’t wasted his sleeping hours trying to outperform Apple. This is one shape of the monkey evolution God didn’t have anything to do with. It was if the creator said, “Ok…here’s the reins…show me something entertaining.”

Through the use of computers companies save billions of dollars downsizing. I used to think my Grandparents were the hardest working generation. They couldn’t survive an hour in my shoes.

Heart attacks, strokes, cancer and other viral sicknesses are draining the accounts of insurance companies and Corporate America can’t see why their pockets are empty. Multi-tasking employees have weakened the foundation of success.

Office health issues would improve if the United States Government had the courage to halt the abuse. But they won’t…it’s a state by state issue and the decision maker’s elected into office couldn’t get there without big business paying for billboards and radio advertisements that paint impossible to reach destinations but because we hear the name over and over again, good bad or ugly it’s the lever touched on election day.

Middle and elementary school students know more about publically elected people then parents holding the right to vote. Because of multi-tasking the right choices are masked by incredible marketing departments that spend millions of dollars studying your habits of being too busy to care until it’s too late.

There’ll be no change in America until those dressed up in modern day teen clothes and behavior can no longer get access to video games, the dollar menu, cable TV, cell phone texting and 3-D Friday night movies. If the kids are happy parents are happy.

Why won’t you admit there’s nothing left in your dream drive?

Why is it so damn important for me to keep bringing up the dangers of multi-tasking?

We’ve been brainwashed to believe multi-tasking makes us more productive but research is telling the true Hollywood Story. Impossible has been met. Meeting deadlines is the new American dream. Sacrificed is family, friends and or relationships with people that count. Face Book is loved by Corporate America because CEO’s and GM’s know your need to be loved and accepted is just two clicks away from them getting what they need.

Shattered is the one thing humans were born to do…focus. Multi-tasking cheapens the product because we’ve stopped demanding quality. I’m convinced the best restaurants in town are those with 80 point ratings. Oh wait…that’s multi-tasking talking!

A childhood friend from Montana is a nurse in Washington State…she is the voice cancer patients hear after the doctor’s told them it’s almost over. Cancer patients no longer come in the shape of old parents. You know the age. You know the face. But it doesn’t matter because it’s not happening to you therefore it can’t be real.

Now I sound like my first wife.

Solution…from the pages of Daily Challenges: set aside ten minutes a day to do one thing.

Stop trying to write blogs while talking about law firms with a sales rep while being focused on another reps client coming in for a session in less than an hour only to take note you forgot the Granny Smith Apple on the kitchen counter which means a craving for something sweet is going to take you to the candy machine leading to more weight around your waste and this was the weekend that you and the girls were getting together and damn if you don’t feel fat.

10 minutes…just you doing one thing.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Taking on the day and winning...

2011-10-04T06:10:00.000-07:00

Countless times I’m given different names because those within the circle still haven’t seen my true purpose. And yet Marcus Aurelius said, “Without a purpose nothing should be done.”

Myles Monroe believed there is something for you to start that is destined for you to finish.

John Mason writes in his book Believe You Can, “Many people know what they are running from but not what they’re running to.”

From the book of Proverbs: Whatever your plan is, you know that nothing else will satisfy you.

As a writer, reporter, radio talker…I could go on forever. No matter what book you read there’s always a package of seeds. Books are designed to call out to readers; readers in return entertain their resting self without realizing a truer purpose was shared by way of the writing instrument.

If someone told me thirty two years ago that I’d be one day be writing, producing and voicing radio and television commercials presented in boxes all over the world I would’ve chased a college education in search of a different destination. Then one night in the center of a child’s dream dressed up in adult clothes it occurred to me how badly produced commercials are. I claimed to be a fan of broadcasting only to locate my ears racing away from its playing field.

Music critics have shared countless times that 1970’s Disco was born when record producers took over the industry. Left behind were the writers, guitar strokes and folks that woke up in the middle of the night humming notes that were instantly taped to the recorder sitting next to the bed. It didn’t matter what fell from the tips of your fingers and corners of your lips…to make it big in music you needed a producer that was designed to create beats and rhythms that inspired couples to dance.

Radio is no different. Before the Dick Clark influenced payola scandal that crushed radio legend Alan Freed; the Pied Pipers of Rock n Roll crafted their daily performances on stages that drew listeners to their core source of energy. The moment radio station GM’s and Programmers learned the United States government would fine them heavily for accepting money to play music the first step toward making radio a success was to shut down the imagination of the microphone addicted talent that was born to teach your imagination to take mental vacations without spinning out of town.

Liner cards, music formats, micro-managing not video killed the radio star.

Kurt Anthony, Alan Moss and Major Dan Miller at KOOK in Billings, Montana shook me like a California earthquake. Their decisions to take sound and break ground fueled a generation to believe that it couldn’t live a second without those two speakers on the kitchen counter, next to the bed or in the front seat of your car.

Then one night in the center of a child’s dream dressed up in adult clothes it occurred to me how badly produced commercials are. Rather than waste my dream on constantly telling and not sharing with listeners that this is the greatest four in a row mix of music they’ll hear this side of Kansas…the door opened to a different side of the business where creative flow was accepted; the only stick in the mud were sales people that didn’t understand your purpose.

Fred Story, Jon Causby and Charles Holloman replaced Miller, Moss and Anthony. Being on the air to do nothing but rip and read was for interns. The true creative radio flow is in the commercials.

Today, through modern methods of radio gaga imperfectly methodized by computer geeks that work for Clear Channel I’m offered the opportunity to communicate with producers and writers from all over the country every moment offered in a single twenty four hour period. If listeners could touch the mindsets of those behind the scenes they’d realize that not every station sounds the same. The passion to listen might in fact return if the given purpose was given the opportunity to be believed in.

But radio doesn’t work that way. Like Disco, the controlling interest doesn’t rest on the laurels of the artist but instead the moneymaker. 80% of what interrupts your favorite song has been written and voiced by someone that’s never done a day of radio or television. Someone has failed to tell them that inexperience is reason number one why Cable TV DVR’s have four speeds on fast forward. Radio has six buttons and search.

Ouch!

Then one night in the center of a child’s dream dressed up in adult clothes it occurred to me how badly produced commercials are. It’s become my dream to be the nation’s first on-air radio talent that will perform open heart surgery on a patient without having to get an education first.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”

The only way to create better radio commercials is to locate the future first. I’ve yet to say no to a broadcasting school, college drama class, high school message center or a medical student named Austin from CPCC who wasn’t bit by the radio bug until after he stepped into a giant pile of my purpose.

Oprah couldn’t have been more correct when she shared the secret…life isn’t about success until you understand the people you are connecting. Through radio commercials I see two people: a listener that wants to better their life and a store that sells the items that will make the listeners life better. Every breath I take is locating the right words, music and seconds offered to get people on the right path. When radio commercials work lives change.

That’s my purpose…what’s yours?

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

The Daily Blog I Never Wanted to Continue....

2011-09-30T05:30:00.001-07:00

Not because its Breast Cancer Awareness Month but because Breast Cancer awareness is everyday. Especially when you think those close to you have won the war and the attacker's retreat only to come back stronger.

Dear God, what am I feeling: Zondra's story.

We laugh, we cry and playfully bend stories to better suit the shoes we fill. We walk, we run, chase, dodge and when we least expect it the feet that have carried us into the unwritten chapters kept trip, stumble then fall. Quickly reaching to grab hold of any object to pull, lift or shove aside the body begins to speak, “Not today. Please not today.”

A bathroom mirror is trained to lie. It’s almost too easy to convince a reflection that it is what it isn’t. Slowly each eye scans the surface of your skin wondering while fearing the depths of what’s happening. The assumed trembles in the tips of your fingers so often ignored, the unexplained tiredness the same, bedtime at 8:40 the norm; an agreement with the system of self asking for nothing more than the opportunity to rest.

The journey becomes a challenge in places high school never taught.

Shared are the commands to pick your self up and dust off the butt of a one time slick pair of now faded and weathered jeans.

The voices in your heart have now taken over, “Get up! Get back in the game! Play like you mean it! Give it everything you’ve got!”

Held in the corners of the smiles that paste positive reactions together outside the shell carried are the softly spoken whispers, “Not today. Please not today. Dear God, tell me what I’m feeling.”

Life plays mystery like a master. Each time you’re forced to guess gives life new reasons to change.

Bank accounts can be low, favorite football teams can have losing seasons; grocery prices can reach new car levels but nothing compares to the value of air when it escapes your body the moment the doctor says, “You have breast cancer.”

As a writer I’m not being truthful to you if I continue to ignore the stories, the empowerment of personal survival that’s met the face of the beast and continues to find purpose in battles that nearly steal your name. Through encouragement and trust the creative side of this daily dedication of pouring ink on the continuation of a living tree I’ve tried to convince so many to place their journey into journals to help teach.

Then God whispered to me, “I asked you to do it not them…”

And so I heard the word…

I introduce to you Zondra; one of the most optimistic, highly spirited, deeply devoted to her school and community human creations I’ve met in thirty two years of radio broadcast. A champion, a physically visible master of sharing, caring and selfless leader; the missing lyric to everybody’s favorite song becomes whole the moment she walks through the door.

Before a writer sets out to words in motion we’re taught to build a beginning, middle and end. Know the path before emotion sets in. Become the character hidden within the parenthesis. Feel not what your reader cannot therefore you must speak in a language taken directly from the street.

I do not know the outcome of Zondra’s story. It makes me extremely angry to think the artist I am with giant canvas’s on walls of so many could deliver a portrait of incredible peace, one that she hasn’t begged for but holds on the other side of the fence keeping her from touching a horizon we’re all destined to chase.

In the days, weeks, months and I pray years from this page forward it’s within the purposes I keep to share with you the willingness of her gentle, “Yes…” A single word shared when asked, “In the name of saving lives can I please share your journey?”

“Yes…”

Tuesday January 25, 2011

We've read the same story's and have been taught about the affects of breast cancer. I must be a cat with nine lives because eight of my closest friends have been diagnosed. October is always set aside as breast cancer awareness month. It's my dedication and loyalty to those I've lost to make it every day.

This story is real. No blinders, no marketing managers reaching for politically correct presentations. This is the life of a teacher that students look up to everyday and through every storm she hasn't let anything stand in the way of teaching.

Forty eight hours from surgery; a prayer service titled Healing and Wholeness is planned for tomorrow evening. If your body has the ability to create thunder I feel the vibrations everywhere including my fingers.

If Zondra is nervous or scared she doesn’t show it. A couple of times a day she has alone time to lie down and rest under a warm blanket. I often wonder what she thinks, allows her imagination to design, plans out or releases into the universe for a passerby to pick up and help her carry.

Fellow teachers continue to share what little money they make to help Zondra with the high price of medication. Ask any of them why…a union of faith and support takes the shape of light stealing from the cold a shadows curse.

I will be at the prayer vigil listening to the heart felt compassion from a community of leaders and supporters. Two questions play over and over in my mind: what sort of peace does she find while covered under the warmth of the blanket hidden away from a world of constant change? What does she feel knowing in two days hope can become her new place of happiness?

I wait for her reply…

While under my blanket I sometimes think about what I should be or wish I was doing. I am a person who is always on the go but since chemo I am not able to move and go about as I would like for example this year is the first time since my daughter was in preschool that I have missed open house and she is now in 11th grade. I was really upset. I thought the world would end; my daughter assured me it wouldn’t. I also thought my church was going to fall down because I was not there for a WHOLE week LOL (I am usually there multiple times a week). Other times I welcome the peace and quiet, because people actually let me sleep and get the rest I need. They are not calling, texting, and saying ma, auntie, Zondra can you please………….

That didn’t happen until now.

In two days I will be going into surgery and leaving this old place of breast cancer behind and starting a new chapter of healing. It’s exciting and scary at the same time part of me will be gone and the healing process long, but I will have a bright new beginning. I am overjoyed by the fact that my surgery will help others because I am participating in research that will try to understand breast cancer more. I look forward to seeing what the future holds.

January 26, 2011: The interview on the night before surgery

The night before breast cancer surgery plays games with assumption when you’ve never been part of a circle of love.

Zondra’s mother races around the church to make sure there’s enough chairs available for guests offering their warmth and compassion. She speaks in quick overtones about how she wishes her daughter of 31 would talk more about resting rather than running back to work or getting back involved with the church, “She needs to understand the doctor wants six weeks of rest. I don’t understand how we’re going to get her to slow down.”

School teachers begin to arrive one by one followed by principals and other community involved leaders; there are hugs, questions filled with fear and yet no one has let go of hope and faith.

Maybe because we know Zondra wouldn’t want it that way. An extremely positive outlook not only on the present but how such a stumble through life can be turned into a tool to help educate people she’ll never meet.

One such person, the friend of a friend who through chance or fate crossed paths with Zondra; she’s a breast cancer survivor. She talks of the surgery openly, no fear, no embarrassment, a constant, “Praise God and thank you God,” comes from nearly every paragraph. She begins to laugh when she speaks of the medicines that have helped her calling shopping in thrift stores the greatest pill there is.

The closer we move toward 7:30 the room becomes flooded with guests not expected; Zondra’s eyes become wide as love slips into the corners of a soul that has only questioned during times when chemo nearly had her too weak to lift that unforgettable smile.

Her minister speaks out, “You can’t stop Zondra! Sickness couldn’t keep her away. She would lie down on the sofa outside this room and ask me to keep the door open so the message could find her heart.”

Her mother locates the courage to stand before the collection of open palms and hearts, "I found out about Zondra's cancer through a note she left on the back of a Walmart reciept." Which made each of us wonder about our own stories and what if's? Where would the strength come from to be able to inform those I love if changes came with a face called there's a chance?

Back at work, a charter school set in the center of downtown fellow teachers have lined up at the board on the wall selecting times available to pick up Zondra’s children, to make sure dinner has been prepared and to do whatever else is required to make sure her life carries with it no worries and in Zondra’s case no reason to break the doctors six week resting rule.

I’ll never forget watching Zondra’s mother during a time of open prayer; she shook uncontrollably, fists clinched, face buried in the shoulder of the one God chose to lead the ministry. Whispering words I’ll never know, she found peace allowing the birth of new beginnings to blossom rather than giving permission to anger to paint pictures in places they weren't welcome.

I didn’t sleep last night knowing Zondra didn’t either. Six in the morning would arrive too quickly and the world of medicine was prepared to help lift the shadow off Zondra’s cloudy day.

10:52 am is where I stand at the present moment and no word has arrived. Life isn’t a DSL connection to the internet nor can the art of healing be sent through a UPS overnight package.

Hope and faith…

4:37 pm: Word from those closest, "They got it."

January 29, 2011

Texting is a beautiful tool; got word late last night that Zondra is home. The one place her mother and friends feared most. Why? Zondra has more energy than me. Her personal embodiment of positve energy requires places to be displayed and if not given life, movement is given permission to unwrap.

I still laugh at the way I reacted to my heart attack; heart surgery on Tuesday back to work Monday. If people are shaped by the same molds, my fear for Zondra is her inability to let go.

A Native American Medicine Man taught me, "Western Medicine Doctors practice medicine. They can't cure you nor can I...what we offer are substances that bring peace to the body so it can heal."

This story is far from over...not until someone tells the poet in my fingertips that all has been cleared and Zondra's breast cancer is truly over. I'd be lieing if I didn't admit to holding onto fear; they said my very good friend Theresa was in full recovery; we celebrated with dance; honored with family love and togetherness then without warning the phone rang when none of us were expecting a good day to suddenly twist.

I'm thinking, praying and helping to deliver positive vibrations from the universe but the most haunting part of the breast cancer journey are the invisible portraits of everything's going to be peachy keen and then... Its the part of life I've constantly questioned leading me deeper into spiritual studies. It's the part of breast cancer you don't read about during the 31 days of October. This is why I'm dedicated to sharing the true face of this horrid disease. I pray every second that Zondra is perfect. Her positive view make it so much easier for her family and friends to find peace.

Right now...my goal is to guarantee that she find it too. She needs to rest for the six weeks the doctor requires so the true healing can silence every fear I hold as a friend. Getting mad isn't the answer. Understanding the several levels exposed is the quest then sharing each dip, trip and unfocused reminder with anyone willing to listen to the truths that surround the silence so many women are feeling.

Wednesday February 2, 2011

The measurement of time is constantly changing; for some it might be a song, three city blocks, a Wednesday night in front of American Idol or the heart beats connected to the passing minutes where the pain isn’t as bad as it was yesterday.

A week after breast cancer surgery I was invited to Zondra’s house not knowing what to expect; I didn’t know what “time” might have done to her.

Wednesday February 9, 2011

A medically trained professional sternly told me on Christmas Eve 2010 that the body has a way of letting you know when it’s had enough and ultimately there’s nothing I can do to fight it because in the end it will always win. Staring into the doctors eyes I accepted his challenge by sending a valuable message to the body that’s carried my dreams for forty eight years, “You should’ve picked someone else to be your mind and soul because I’m not quitting.”

I continue to see that same vibration of embodiment in the spirit of Zondra two weeks after the world of medicine reached onto her path and took from her part of the luggage.

I’ve met the root of her endless attraction to developing a positive outlook; Zondra’s mother is like shaking hands with God. A gift of trust, faith, healing and leadership has placed her feet on the backstreets of this nation that only get talked about on late night newscasts and yet she hasn’t stopped touching those areas of silence that need love most.

Her outlook, vision and decision to remain attracted to the higher creations doesn’t go anywhere near anger, disgust or failure, “I was put here for a reason and I will do what I am told until I’m no longer needed and I am far from that.”

Zondra watches the two of us talk about spiritual leaders as if they’re our neighbor, Joel Olsteen being the one who shines brightest in her smile, “I heard you speak the other day at Zondra’s prayer meeting; I thought Joel was standing in the same room.”

“Oh yeah? You should see me at a wedding ceremony,” I laughed back…

Zondra opened the door for me to document the real face of breast cancer and through it someone higher has added a teacher to my family. I love listening to people talk. Inside these chapters, roads where dreams can be connected to drug abuse, gang violence, hatred and fear; Zondra and her family continue to symbolize what Buddhist Monk Thick Nhat Hahn teaches, “Love is why we were born…”

Two weeks since the surgery and tonight is the first time I felt something different…the microphone unknowingly turning off during a deep question might be a higher decision maker’s way of saying, “Not now…”

Zondra and I spoke softly about how she keeps from being bored and what its like to be trapped in a home while her imagination is placed in a world of escape in distant places only she can see. Tonight I felt a tear crack her voice; the laugh she’s known for faded as she explained the difficulties of having the energy to reach beyond expectation but the body refuses to abide by the rules of listening to what its been commanded to perform.

Her story about the first round of stitches coming out and how horribly bad it hurt gripped my heart; her nervous laugh no medicine for the fear I now felt. She got a picture of everything…there was silence…for her imagination train had pulled into a station of disbelief for the body that carried her for thirty one years no longer looked or felt the same.

Monday February 21, 2011

The minds eye is too quick to forget. When things become out of sight human connection begins its journey toward becoming unimportant. This is why I’ve dedicated my life to the art of attracting then re-attracting.

Four weeks after Zondra’s surgery her positive presence is still missing from the school where she teaches. I had hoped heavily on her making an appearance at Friday nights Valentine’s Dance. The students would have flipped with excitement which might serve as the reason why the distance continues. The doctor said six weeks.

Today I reached out wanting to record another interview. No answer. I refuse to rest while believing she’s resting.

Her silence has forced me to dig deeper into the chapters already written by actresses who’ve battled this disease; Jaclyn Smith of Charlie’s Angels fame one the most haunting, “It’s the news nobody wants to hear. I remember going home and telling my husband to get it off me! Just get it off!”

Although Zondra granted me permission to step into the private levels of struggles she would face, it’s this silence I want to write about most. She isn’t the first but through her disconnections we can all learn how to walk stronger.

I miss hearing the laugh; a burst of energy that shoots from the corners of an imagination locked on always being first in line for something great to say. I know of the doctor’s visit last week but know nothing of what was spoken behind the doors closed to cut off the world still moving forward.

My wife and granddaughter Mia were with Zondra; it’s so important that the seven year old is able to see the unexpected changes delivered at times when having fun should’ve been taking place but a different ending was designed. Mia was with me at the heart specialist carefully staring at the nurses and doctor studying every page of the reports my ticker was sending. These are the lessons untaught in school and kept far away from the canals that feed the journey soon to be called reality.

I’m told Zondra’s eyes lit up when she saw Mia. Hidden behind a mask, smiles were shared but not germs. The student and the teacher meeting in ways that poets can’t write about because there aren’t enough descriptive words created that best paint the portrait of compassion led by affectively being involved.

Come on phone ring! I want to hear your voice! Biting the edges of these writing fingers…it’s difficult to keep assumption from falling onto a page not already written on.

Tuesday February 22, 2011

A reconnection is made...the interview

Wedesday March 2, 2011

Week number five…to the average person time moves too quickly. Months feel like seconds, years can be lived out inside an hour. For someone with breast cancer the view of the world is flipped; time isn’t something you’ve lost but rather you can’t get enough of.

I caught up with Zondra in her car. She’s been given permission to step back into a more normal life and style only to realize it’s still not enough compared to the freedoms she once had. She laughs about driving being more of a gift rather than something we do automatically. So is the way her body moves as its being taught how to relocate motion in an area once taken for granted.

Her voice remains chipper but being in tune with vocals and how we use them to push our way through conversations I can hear restlessness. She wants to get back to living. She’s ready to take the reins of the shell called Zondra and guide it back onto the path of everyday occurrences and begin the journey of making new memories to stuff inside invisible pages of later chapters and horizons.

Her efforts remind me deeply of the poetry that fell from my fingertips during my most recent challenges:

All the darkness I assumed would be

Has painted pictures I can’t see

I always wanted to know what it would be like

Only to learn its me against me

Im not chasing rainbows

Im not walking in circles

I wanna get back…to living

I wanna get back…oh so back…to living…

I’ve walked 10,000 chapters in self created books

Beat the odds by breaking the rules

I’ve worked a lot of games to make love with the wind

Only to learn Im not my best friend

Im not chasing rainbows

Im not walking in circles

I wanna get back…to living

I wanna get back…oh so back…to living…

A thousand hearts to hold

A million smiles to feed

You came along for the ride

I’m not chasing rainbows

Not walking in circles…

I’m here because I’m alive…

Written by Arroe Collins

October 2009

More to come...

And that's how the story ended...doctors were excited about helping Zondra find a place in her life no longer threatened.

Today September 30, 2011 I've learned the cancer is back much stronger than its last visit. As a loving friend you want to scream at the passing clouds. As a writer you never walk into a paragraph knowing a new chapter silently waits in places you least expect and because I refuse to allow readers to be blind sided by an act we can't control...the origin of why she wants to share the story must continue to rise above the flooded valleys.

You don't want success. Stop lieing to yourself!

2011-09-29T05:56:00.001-07:00

Is locating success truly the calling? Are we born to do nothing more than put a thumb print on the avenues that shape the inside lining of someone’s pocket? What’s wrong with being the white stitching that generates interest in the physical fashion?

How do you become the selected one?

Author John Mason tells the tale of a spiritual guru that chose to point followers to their intended destinations rather than verbally communicate. One by one they’d shoot toward the horizon only to return badly bruised, cut up, splattered and without confidence.

Demanding to be treated differently one follower shouted, “No more pointing! Where will I find success?”

Softly, peacefully and without fear the spiritual guru turned to his student and gently shared, “Success is that way. Just a little after the splat.”

Over-achiever versus non-achiever:

You don’t have to sell your soul in 2011…in the name of having insurance, cell phones and HBO it’s given away every morning at eight. The preacher man won’t talk about that will he or she? The religious term saving someone needs to grow a new pair of wings strong enough to fly over this new depth of a sink or swim performance. The higher power is the image of success.

What keeps travelers from maintaining the garden?

Since 1994 my personal endeavor has been to easily pick from a crowd of faceless wanderers the perfectionist from the student that grows by way of synchronicity. If all you have to offer is dissatisfaction in the level of art you invite to the chapters we write; you aren’t someone worth investing in.

A perfectionist is never happy. Eventually they settle for third to fifth best when more success could’ve been attained by trusting the core of the original source.

Legendary Indy racer Rick Mears believes that to finish first, first you must finish.

If having a fat bank account connected to an unforgettably beautiful house is the highest of your peaks met then conquered; congratulations! If days that become night are spent cuddled up to a wishful thought to one day walk into Belks to buy a $290 bottle of cologne or a sweet smelling cream that guarantees to rejuvenate the wrinkles from your face; congratulations!

Success has no shape. Like a chameleon its colors serve only one purpose…survival.

I spent the latter part of the 1970’s believing life after high school would be angelic if what I loved most took me to every city the Pro-Bowler’s tour traveled. While some went the way of football, basketball or track…my strength was rolling a ball down a single lane of traffic. Kicked out of the AJBC for tackling the men's league by 15 the mission was to score like my hero Earl Anthony. Only to learn, the successful people I surrounded myself with forgot my age. The golden rule of league bowling; do not bring your wife or girlfriend to the center of your attention. Toss in a budding radio career at Country 910 KOYN and I carried with me two major distractions.

The harder I tried to keep my bowling average over 200 the angrier I became. Every ball thrown had to hit the pocket. I had developed a perfectionist’s way of life which infected everything. I became the kid that kicked the ball return. I developed a winning attitude fed by a need to win all the time or the beast would bare its teeth. I was asked to leave.

Over-achiever versus non-achiever:

John Mason introduces us to a diamond cutter; a master of the rock. Through patience the hard chunk of earth is given new air to breathe whereas if you or I chopped at it…two hits and poof the rock is split in two bringing no value to a bride to be.

I love Joel Hause’s quote, “Determine to be something in the world and you will be something.”

He didn’t say, “Locate success.” He didn’t say, “Sell out what you passion for most.” He didn’t say, “Become the very best and nothing less.”

It took me 32 years of Broadcasting to realize why I love radio: Every time I pop open the microphone it’s a blank canvas that’s fully capable of being displayed in places you least expect. Combine that with our new found connection to Social Media and being a Broadcaster carries with it a new purpose…except this time I’m not going to give away my soul or vow until I die to make it perfectly perfect. This is who I am. This is who I’ve always been. Love me, hate me, disconnect me from Face Book or Twitter; burp, cough, trip, stumble, blow my snotty nose all over your shirt…it’s not the success I’m looking for.

I just want to write…that’s it nothing more nothing less. Some days it might touch, influence or suck so bad that stink has a new meaning…but it doesn’t matter…I wrote and writing is how I breathe. From it comes everything else.

There is success after the splat.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Shut your office door and let go...

2011-09-28T06:00:00.001-07:00

You can’t fight the feeling! Domo Arigoto Mr. Roboto…You Give Love a Bad Name…She’s Got Betty Davis Eyes. Holy Hollywood Batman! Movies that made waves during the adventuresome days of ignoring parents and flicking quarters into the gas tank just so you could cruise downtown at midnight keep coming!

The popcorn munching Kevin Bacon 80’s classic Footloose isn’t cramped on style as it prepares to pump up the volume this weekend!

It’s the flick with a totally reshaped cast and soundtrack that’ll stick to the roof of your Karaoke mouth.

Again, nobody wants to buck the system…the small town ordinance clearly proclaims those under the age of 18 are prohibited from dancing in public. Until the new kid on the block discovers that such prohibitions aren’t part of the mechanics of the human mind, body and soul. Dancing is a way to communicate; it expresses celebration, gratitude, the embodiment of emotion shoved into twists, dips and shapes that resemble everything from animals to spinning tops.

There’s a “Ren McCormack” in every school… It’s not a rebel attitude but rather a distinct need to lead people to better places.

Show me a map of the Carolina’s and we’ll spend the next three weeks deeply discussing my twenty year dedication to igniting high school dance floors on Friday and Saturday nights. In every room stands the soloist…their movement a musical instrument. Christmas performances put on by the band and orchestra would incorporate more imagination if principals and PTA voters would include the human need to dance.

Businesses locked up by this raging recession might find an open window of success if college trained leaders understood the art of the human mind.

Today…

I invite you to step into the shoes worn by Ren McCormack. Make a moment happen. Take a musical note and let it float. Let your body react the way it was designed to receive.

Why does it matter?

The Daily Challenge.com reports that light to moderate physical activity like dancing gets your heart pumping, blood flowing and burns calories. The signal sent to your brain and heart is you’re having fun. Music not coffee or power drinks provide the boost required to having a better day.

Herb, my Rock Star neighbor finds me to be the odd ball of the hood gang…because openly I discuss that today’s modern sound blessed with Lady GaGa, Usher, Jay Z, Ke$ha, Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, Flo Rida, Big and Rich, Blake Shelton, Carrie Underwood and Nicki Minaj will far exceed where the R&B beats and Elvis and the Beatles rhythms took young adults in the 50’s and 60’s.

Although getting through the Bump and Grind movement of the mid-90’s earned me a ton of flack from teachers and parents that accepted Michael Jackson’s crotch groping, the decision to dance that close wasn’t tolerated and pretty much led to the gymnasium lights constantly being on. Toss in Nirvana’s Grunge and Mosh Pit gatherings tore up anybodies reasons for wanting to celebrate in the name of dance. Yet it was ok for decision makers to argue with their television screens on Sunday afternoons when NFL and NBA players didn’t huddle the way a winning team should but how dare students feel the need to do the same.

Water under the bridge…

As an adult stop shaming your need to be free; dancing in the front seat of your car shouldn’t be the only floor made available to the other side of your personality.

The Group E.U. pulled off a daring stunt when releasing the song Da Butt. How dare that man sing about Betty having a big ole butt! What about Sir Mix-a-lot’s Baby Got Back? I laugh a child’s giggle when watching people react to their favorite songs easily convinced that it’s not the lyrics postered to our memory makers but the bass beats, hidden guitar strings combined with an undertone drone that shakes up body’s system until it begins to crack then poof you’re dancing.

Crank That from Soulja Boy. Thanks to Youtube students all over the world generated tremendous amounts of energy to create a dance that didn’t resemble the Electric Slide, Cha Cha Slide, Cupid Shuffle, Mississippi Slide or the Boot Scootin Boogie. The Crank That dance is brilliant to watch but never, never, never catch yourself listening to the lyrics. Same goes for the Beach Classic 60 Minute Man.

Television’s attitude clearly states: So you think you can dance…

Why wait for the stars? Be you doing the floor your own special way. If someone catches you…laugh it off. I’d rather be

labeled the freak then earn the honor of being just another face in the crowd.

Now challenge yourself to participate with a Flash Dance. They’re all over Face Book!

I love it when you drop the act and finally become you…

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Heyyyyyyyyyy!

2011-09-27T06:33:00.001-07:00

I’m a little confused…

After spending the weekend at a campground designed for dogs and their human pets …an unexpected passerby would’ve quickly realized how building a relationship served as an important piece of the communication offered to each side of leadership rather than a pimped out role of domination.

When a dog hears a command to sit, lay, spin or walk he or she receives a treat; the four legged fuzzy responds with an amazing tail wagging, a bright unforgettable smile with a connected willingness to do it again.

120 ticks then tocks deep into the class and the vision caught between my eyes fed not the moment but how such a reward system would benefit Corporate America.

The term: Just be lucky you have a job has worn out the environment.

We keep getting weaker in the wallet and we’re gonna be lucky to have a country.

I’m tired of hearing how Gen X-er’s and those after find no importance in loyalty, dedication, determination and the spirit of working to achieve higher levels of success. They know what’s required to get a Game Boy and Nintendo, fast food and a weekend movie. Why should they have to work for it when Boomer’s and Tweener’s wanted to be different by setting aside their parents constant command and demand for discipline and respect for, “Use your words… Go find your favorite place to think about what you’ve done and when you’re ready come back and be with us.”

As a pre-teen that would’ve rocked my world! You mean I could’ve swiped a record from JC Penny’s without getting a strap across my a**? I would’ve raced up to my bedroom to be instantly connected to the internet, have cable television and a cell phone to text messages! I love America!

Then comes high school graduation, gotta get a job and suddenly the requirements of generating the mental mechanisms that inspire, influence and offer guidance to participate with change affects everyone on the team and there’s no place to race toward to think about my wrong doing. Only to hear, “That’s ok…this new generation is a little bit different.”

I’m not angry! I’m doing something about it. I don’t say no to a high school or college class that invites me over to speak. We can’t change the present but taking the time to invest in the future re-attracts the attention to the fine details required to rejuvenate a sleeping bear.

Think of it as Paying Forward. What you spend today in an effort of influencing a group of students that come from a weak foundation shall enhance the presence of our world performance.

Next month I’ve been invited to participate with a middle school music class. My first question was, “Can I bring my writing instruments to show the students the importance of how song lyrics come from places you can’t see?”

Students aren’t being taught how to write only how to compress. Jazz comes from the soul. Hip Hop arrived from the streets. Country is a lifestyle and Rock n Roll is every boys dream.

If you can’t teach an old dog new tricks why are we expecting young adults to follow rules at work?

Building bridges toward the next generation requires a dirt path which starts out as a single foot print. Be a leader and let tomorrow’s teachers steal your art. I’ve yet to meet the student that doesn’t want to learn. Those that fall asleep during my lectures are quickly shaken back to life by the presence of something that was supposed to fade ten years into the radio biz…passion.

Challenge your boss to set you free for an hour…if they say no…I’ve gotta ask; are they someone you truly want to be working for? What’s the reward?

It’s time to stop accepting bad treatment at work. A dog that sits, spins, walks then lies down with the command of an empty palm is a tortured soul. Why is it ok for local television stations to air commercials about mistreated dogs but you never see them paste stories together about Corporate American conditions?

Make a move toward the future by participating with its growth

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

David Soul once sang Don't Give Up On Us...someone wasn't listening.

2011-09-22T05:34:00.000-07:00

Ralph Kramden never skipped a Honeymooner’s episode where he didn’t find something wrong with his job. George Jetson’s Spacely Sprockets complaints were relentless. Ted Mosby could be a brilliant architect but on How I Met Your Mother he’s had to settle for a university professor’s position of leadership.

Get where I’m going here?

Thanks to television we hate our jobs. We’ve been trained for decades to locate bad taste then spill it on the circles we make.

In his book Tribes; We Need You To Lead author Seth Godin reminds us of the darker days of Corporate America when Kodak forced their employees to work in dark rooms. Letters to department heads sat in stacks of unread junk mail. The thought of working side by side with a coworker meant selling out; having personal endeavors released into the public gave permission to the strongest on the team to lay claim to what you could’ve made a success.

As horrible, gut wrenchingly painful as today’s unheard of inhumane treatment seems to come across Godin explains,

“Business owners and managers need leaders. People that don’t fear standing up to make noise; men and women heretics that engage by making change a positive step forward.”

Fearing the loss of your job is completely 1974…by now you should be physically conditioned that six days, six weeks, ten months or a year is acceptable business behavior.

According to Godin American workers shouldn’t just tell their story but thrive on it being told.

Why has Google become the top search engine in the world?

Because two unknown computer geeks from Stanford University believed helping other students easily locate information was an endeavor that would bring an end to the days of microfiche and ripped up newspapers and magazines shoved into a cardboard box.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page didn’t change a college campus they influenced the world to dig a little deeper.

Today the United States Government has publically accused Google of shattering our nation’s monopoly laws; which is pretty much a law makers way of saying, “This is what happens when you don’t send me re-election money or do nothing to promote the rich that put me in office. You gotta pay for what you didn’t do.”

My dream is to one day invent a device that makes having the flu less painful. For decades we’ve nearly broke our backs tossing our giant bodies to the cold bathroom floor to do nothing more than vomit in the Great White Porcelain; if the British can have a bidet…we need a ba-night. Because that’s when it usually hits us hardest…when finished a sprinkle of water warms your face so it can easily be washed off.

Did you know that grandparents.com was created by a man that once marketed coffee makers?

In my most recent lectures to future Broadcaster’s I blatantly spew, “If all you want to do is sink your energy into being just an on-air disc jockey expect a dead air career. Listeners have become watchers and in this age of I Heart Radio if you aren’t blogging, videoing, Tweeting and whatever else has been invented this week then you cannot call yourself a Broadcaster…congratulations you’re now a member of the Used To Be Club.

I always thought my Grandpa Dobrenz had a brilliant life until I realized he raised pigs in Wyoming.

Life in 2011 may smell just as bad but the truer picture painted by Seth Godin exposes we have more control of success than every generation before us.

Interestingly enough it’s this generation that’s decided to let go of the American dream.

Wanna fight about it?

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

Don't argue with me! Write!

2011-09-21T05:53:00.001-07:00

To blog or not to blog…that is the question! To be so selfish by not writing isn’t the answer.

Therefore what shall become the single thought that evolves into a whisper of inspiration and or influence and where shall it be read Russia, Indonesia, South Korea or Butte, Montana?

Being just a radio disc jockey seems so small when man and woman scientists and computer geeks have created for the human a stage that can be seen in every corner of the universe.

Elvis Presley would’ve been extremely jealous.

One of the best stories shared by legendary speaker talker Wolfman Jack is the heartfelt drama created when the King of Rock n Roll verbally spouted his discomfort for the Wildman of nighttime radio. Elvis loved being on stage which he paid heavily for; not only in sweat and gut wrenching unheard of chances taken but Tom Parker wanted his managerial chuck of the cha-ching.

Wolfman’s stage was radio…thanks to a 500,000 watt monster signal from Mexico and later WNBC NY the vibrations generated by studio passion tore up the souls of a passerby that happened to punch in.

To say radio will never be like that again is a pie in the face of Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, Ryan Seacrest and Big Willie McAlister who doesn’t know it but he’s going to graduate from a Broadcasting school in twenty six years and what he brings to the stage will be a continuation of what radio is, was and will forever be; just regular people doing regular things in a regular world on a planet that happens to have water and oxygen.

Ask any radio jock how they got here and no two stories are the same. Ask them why they stay and nearly everyone will makeup lies to save face.

Broadcasting isn’t just for television news reporters seeking secrets while solving murder mysteries and song intro invaders with fancy stories and bad jokes. Just like Benjamin Franklin’s printing press the internet provides an empty page blessed by the makers of the universe to be anything, everything, too much and sometimes too little…no matter how thick the challenge or easy it might seem…staying silent keeps the need to be or not to be wrapped tightly in a box called: it’s all about me.

When Chaz Bono was invited to walk on a surface oversaturated with uneducated judgment there was no way he knew that being while most have chosen not to be would invite peace to a life of potholes and un-located highways. Millions beyond this moment will be because writing with honesty was broadcast in places people escape to.

Recognized by the world as being one of the most expressive artists of our time, Peter Max chose one night to raise his vocals in my presence, “What you create doesn’t belong to you! You were born to share it!”

Wanna know why we’ve slid into a second recession inside a single ten year period; we’ve allowed the news media to do the talking for us. If more people spent ten to thirty minutes a day blogging what its like to be on welfare and medicare or working at a job where its become legal to abuse employees like Farrah Faucett in The Burning Bed; the weaknesses that keep our secrets in mental boxes would be released and there would be change.

A collection of foreigners made a choice to make their way across an open sea to find a land that would give birth to a voice that required nothing more then to be heard. It is this generation that has chosen to be seen but not heard. So…there is no need to be because the decision been made…it’s all about me.

Now you know my inspiration to rush into the recording studio and drop the tracks on my newest song. Slipped from the pen to which I write a wordy word picture was painted about our American way of life.

When I looked at you I began to see, reasons why I became me.

I chased you my entire life daring to change what I can’t face

I don’t dare to be different, didn’t want to be this way.

Not a fame game or web page surprise…look into my eyes!

(chorus)

Everywhere I go there are you with me.

Everywhere I play there you are with me.

Every breath I take I’m watching me…

Iphone smart phone totally digital,

Google Facebook nothing original

When I decide to look your way I try never to say your name.

Fact-uation means nothing I’m too infatuated with me.

600,000 YouTube views…didn’t want it to be this way.

Not a fame game or web page surprise…it’s all in the eyes.

(Chorus repeats)

I don’t care to make you happy…wouldn’t it be a waste?

It’s my eyes you’ve come to see…

(Chorus repeats)

Double click free pics…take all you want. It’s all in the eyes.

Written by the Poet in Me called M’e (May) because it truly isn’t about me so “May” the sun rise above your tears.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

For those moments when you feel like cussing...

2011-09-20T06:15:00.003-07:00

I don’t believe in the present because there’s too much to discover in the future.

Who said that? The faceless voice racing to free itself from my head.

When an idiotic set of words like these slip from the damp tip of my writing instrument I know to expect unfiltered energy to ignite the engines of twelve cars capable of reaching 200 mph.

Through experience I’ve learned we’ve got a common connection to thoughts and phrases that arrive from unheard of places, un-scene environments and completely unrehearsed stages therefore making what we say, write or sing a blurb, burp, skip or rip in the pages of the chapters we paste together during each passing day.

While studying the paths of Native American Medicine Men students become circles within circles which invite even more circles. A Medicine Man as most know it is what Hollywood has painted onto the surface of their blizzard white canvas. Few realize that there were several Medicine Men inside each nation; some studied the weather while others took on the role of identifying plant life, animal behavior or paid close enough attention to human traits that newer and better ways to live became the walk of decisions made.

It’s like the Dream Catcher that hangs over unmade beds, from fingerprint stained rearview mirrors and on lifeless walls at work; it is taught that catchers purify dreams but barely a story is shared about why its shape becomes the wired web of cleanse. True Dream Catchers were originally designed to tell the story of a family. Usually created by a woman, it spoke to other nations like a pen, keyboard and or cell phone.

If a traveler stepped into a collection of families, it was the Dream Catcher that documented their journey.

The term Indian Giver has been completely taken off its proper path. Native American’s are blessed with tremendous pride and being someone who constantly gives to those in need made you a strong leader. To be called an Indian Giver meant you put people first. Like someone who’s never ending with their dedication to a church, nonprofit organization or neighbor revitalization projects. It was the arrival of the settlers that took from rather than added to.

I don’t believe in the present because there’s too much to discover in the future.

Through devotion trusting the unknown creature of thought becomes planted rows of corn in fields of vivid imaginations.

Humans are trained to believe dogs are loyal. We invest tremendous amounts of time, energy and hard to locate money in an unforgettable creation blessed with unconditional measures of love. The hardest thing for me to deal with is how something so overflowing with an aura of peace and music that seems stronger than family and best friends can turn on a dime; no moment passes that I don’t whisper into the ears of my dogs how much I miss them knowing that in the seconds that pass so might I and with no shame in their heart a dog instantly selects its next companion.

I don’t believe in the present because there’s too much to discover in the future.

Clouds change with every breath you take. Careers are no different. In the 90’s we knew the economy was too good to be true but who knew we’d transfer positions of comfort at a rate of too many, too fast with a past that too many refuse to let go of.

Why should we expect change when radio stations play the same songs you heard while growing up. Television isn’t interested in sharing brave new beginnings or Dharma and Greg wouldn’t have appeared on the season opener of Two in a Half Men. John Stamos rocked one of the opening scenes making way for visions of General Hospital’s Blackie Perish and Jesse from ABC’s Full House to races through your melon and blood pumper.

Modern forms of media addicted to the almighty dollar know where we live… The past.

The problem with that is I’m getting tired of hearing the same two Led Zeppelin songs. Now that Michael Bolton is making fun of himself on the Emmy’s does that mean his music is set to be called a classic? The dude’s got a brilliant set of pipes but radio killed the video star. I nearly drove off the road when Jeff Kent on The Fox said, “Queen is celebrating their 40th year of music success.”

I don’t believe in the present because there’s too much to discover in the future.

Having hair at 49 gives me energy to paint it. Some years I wear it long with bright streaks of blonde, red, purple, blue…whatever the rock n roll attitude. The moment I get it cut above my ears like a big city banker every person I meet accuses me of coloring it. No… you idiot, the streaks of blonde, red, purple and blue was coloring it. That cr** didn’t naturally grow that way.

Tattoo’s fade and body parts fall. Nowhere is it written that dreams are supposed to be left behind. Betty White is 90 years old. George Burns hit 100. My dog Larry was 19…which is 126 in dog years yet that fuzzy give me all you’ve got sofa cuddler kept his mind and body in shape refusing to believe in the present because there’s too much to discover in the future.

32 years in radio and no day passes that I don’t feel like that punk kid from Riverside Jr. High School in Billings, Montana spinning 45’s and 8-tracks connected to a Mr. Microphone redesigned to broadcast a half mile from his Kiss postered bedroom. As much as it seems like I’m living in the past is nothing more than someone who thinks Dream Catchers eliminate nightmares.

In America teens are given permission to explore while adults are expected to get old. Maybe it’s time we begin the process of ending our need to take away and start giving back to the heartbeats that brought you to the parade.

I will always believe in you first…but don’t ask me to live in your past. Those are fighting words.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

If you pick enough boogers eventually you'll reach the itch!

2011-09-19T06:57:00.001-07:00

What’s a “goal” but something that tends to get in the way?

To achieve a self respected level of success requires the guts to set a major chunk of what you’ve grown accustom to aside. New and improved needs space and that means facing as well as accepting change. More importantly reprogramming coworkers, family members and your other twelve personalities that something new is being moved in and it doesn’t matter what’s said or done getting off the path isn’t going to happen.

It’s not that we give up easy. We let other people do it for us. The moment you give permission to someone to make up your mind and or decide the steps of an assumed importance…expect it to bite you in the a** during the years when you whisper to the image in the mirror, “I wonder what would’ve happened if?”

Who has the time to readjust? The top goal is to give it to a spouse or friend to hold. They know you! They feel your energy! They support every decision you make! You’ll one day turn on them and scream,

“Why did you let this happen?”

Ummm wow that one kinda hurts.

If what’s been projected is truly geared toward being a happy place then the first rule to follow is accepting the role of defusing manipulating master controllers you put in charge of protecting your heart.

If professional bowling was meant to be easy…dogs and cats would’ve taken up the sport in the 70’s.

I love the idea that Carolina Panther Cam Newton is throwing a billion yards and not coming out with a Sunday victory. Legends require shape. Losses generate hunger which fires up a reprogramming device allowing him to become a teacher and through his lessons and open communication with players there shall be a Steelers wall that will dominate the mind, body and soul of armchair quarterback Hall of Famer’s.

It doesn’t matter if you’re crunching numbers in your late 20’s, 30, 40’s and beyond becoming a champion cannot fall into the ranks of the description labeled: Late in the game?

Wasn’t Betsy Ross something like 200 when she sewed thirteen stars and stripes together?

Life begins when you let it. Don’t just make a goal. Break it down! You’ll feel incredibly positive and from that sprouts confidence. That’s the tiny print junk required to leap over dead shrubs and black snakes sporting copperhead Halloween costumes.

Stop relying on the encouragement of others and coach yourself through the mess.

I don’t accept compliments because those doing the offering usually end up wanting something. If you think I’m good, then let me teach you how I got this mud on my face. To properly stick your foot in your mouth requires precision and the wrong thing to say at the right time. Not everybody can do it! Rather than say, “Wow you are great at being an imp!” Let me show you what it’s really like to be the imp. Once you experience my reality then you can say, “Nobody can imp like you imp and whatever magic you use to put that foot in that mouth every time is just flat out impishly spectacular.”

When the boss slams your Monday into overtime or he’s benched you for not living up to his bosses expectations; roll forward. No matter what challenges you face ultimately you are in full control of the final destination. Hate your job…get a new one. Doing the job because you need insurance stop complaining and keep looking for a better job.

America hasn’t reached the final two minutes of the game…we just act like it.

Put that helmet on and get your newly shaped attitude back in the sport and find something other than victory to pull from the end zone. Maybe just maybe…you’re soul purpose is to teach the man or woman who shall become the next big something. If you do your job right; there’s not enough money in the world that pays off more than someone saying, “Thanks.”

I will always believe in you first…

arroecollins@clearchannel.com