You can't rush reality
Archive for July, 2009
Michael Vick Set Free. . . Plus Paul’s New Video on The Magic of Children!
Jul 20th
Here’s to you Michael Vick. Today you walk out of the US penal system after 23 months of incarceration (in one form or another). PETA will demonize you, Roger Goodell will posture around you, and you’re middle name may as well be “puppy butcher” for the stigma stink you’ll carry around with you. But unlike most overpaid athletes with high priced lawyers who skirt the law, raping, murdering, shooting – you took your punishment.
It doesn’t matter whether you liked it or chose it, you took it. In a society that preaches individual responsibility but consistently acquits its sports heroes for their numerous and grave misdeeds, you set a new example by wearing the dog collar you made.
Killin’ It, friends, is taking the whip of misdeed, bearing the weight of your mistakes, and walking onward.
Express Crik Video! Make Your Own Reality. Tom Watson Wins British Open!
Jul 19th
59 year old golfer Tom Watson just a few seconds ago won the 2009 British open! Alright, so maybe according to ESPN he didn’t. BUT I KNOW THAT YOU ALL WOULD HAVE LIKED TO SEE IT! Somebody even joked on twitter that Stewart Cink’s own parents would have liked to see it. Sometimes you just want to see something happen so much that you just make it so for yourself; you create your own reality and you bask in it, no matter what the rest of the world believes. I wanted Tom Watson to win the British open so badly, to show us all that even at the seasoned age of 59 you can still be a real player in the game, to remind us that we can all still be vital even at the dawn of our sunset years. Here’s to you Tom Watson! You’re Killin’ It!
Cute Wildlife: Killin’ it with Force!
Jul 18th
All you young jedis could take an entry from this Kid’s blog. Note how her sheer concentration on her little brother has lifted him off the ground, negating his charge. That’s Killing it! Way to go lil’ bleater.
Marmots Watch Youtube Too
Jul 18th
There I am taking a soul recharge trek into the mountain tops, complete with rain jacket and whiskey to ensure Killing It rain or shine, when this little crit-crat pops his head up for a squeaky monologue. As you can see he’s Killing It with his use of natural backdrop to heighten the effect of his invaluable squeakings!
PC vs. MAC: The greatest ad battle since the late 80′s cola wars.
Jul 17th
PC strikes Mac. Clocking its first win in the computer company version of the great cola war ad campaigns, Microsoft finally addressed “I’m a Mac’s” ownership of cool with a spot suggesting that Mac’s cool has crossed the line into elitism (and lets face it, with Mac’s poster boy Justin Long doing Bruce Willis movies and banging Drew Barrymore, his presence suggests status more than subversion). In the spot “Lauren” turns to camera and voices her irritation that she might not be cool enough to be a Mac – that Mac has become the kind of insular institution that charges high admission fees for branding cache alone. Since Mac’s inception of “I’m a Mac” its the first time PC has a hit a retaliatory note of any weight, in this case enough to raise the ire of Apple who has demanded PC cease and desist the advert (a ridiculous case of moxy given apples ceaseless point blank denegration of pc). But slaying a marketing Goliath takes more than a moment, and Mac has already answered the Lauren ads with a Megan spot. Softly named white females being the target market in what will surely be the most entertaining ad battle since Coke and Pepsi did battle. Whose cool and whose the rule? Or…plainly, who’s killin’ it and who’s getting killed?
Remi Gaillard – The Follow Through is Killin’ It
Jul 13th
This is a prime example of killin’ it in action. Remi Gaillard, the now infamous french prankster has been Killin’ It for awhile now, and you can see how in the way he moves. This collage of target kicks is impressive, sure, but even more wowing is his calm follow through. The casual walkaway just after he makes a spot-on kick. The energy in that stride is the same energy that goes into the kick, part of the thing that makes the kick successful in the first place. That balanced, even-keeled focus is plain killin’ it. So many people get one thing to go right and start celebrating like a wild banshee. Wrong. That type of reaction is really never Killin’ it. When you’re Killin’ it, you make a half court shot and sit down, or like Remi Gaillard, just keep walking until you meet the next hurdle with the same cool.
The Age of The Cyber Cemetery
Jul 11th
This week it was discovered that a cemetery in Alsip, Illinois was digging up the bodies of deceased in order to resell the grave-plots. Within days, groups of people were gathered outside of the Cemetery office desperately trying to find out information on the whereabouts of their loved ones.
I imagine it’s horrifying to feel the last access you have to a loved one on earth is carelessly eliminated. Finality is an essential part of the human condition, but somehow our brains don’t accept it easily. Facebook, Twitter and other online social networking sites are realms where long lost playmates, schoolmates, co-workers and lovers track one another down, making the reality of an end to relationships even more remote. Those with a large amount of online connections may find there is not much room in their lives for these people anymore, at least for anything more than virtual connection. When these virtual connections die, will we preserve years of emails, text messages, and status updates as virtual headstones?
The glib statement you make today may become your virtual epitaph.
So please think before you write!
FridayBlogging: Ask Paul!
Jul 10th
Every Friday this summer I’ll be taking a few of your questions to share with the rest of the viewers on this site. This is completely anonymous, so feel free to use the contact form to submit more questions for future Fridays!
Is Killin’ It a cult?
Cult, disease, depression, addiction – these are all things that are in our world that people generally want no part of. If a “disease” could make you feel better and had no negative effects, wouldn’t you want that disease? That’s what a vaccine is. And if a sudden feeling of dissatisfaction would cause you to push for a better life than you ever imagined, wouldn’t you wish for that feeling? And if an addiction could give meaning to an empty life, wouldn’t it be reasonable to find that one thing you want to give yourself over to? Life is full of systems natural and man made, that we like to label either good or bad. If we restrict our selves to making use of only that which is called good (most often a label given by others’ experience and not our own) then do we not throw away half the tools in our toolbox? I think the answer is obvious. Keep Killin’ It!
Why haven’t I heard of Killin’ It until now?
There is an old Roman myth in which a young scribe returns from to the library of Alexandria after it has burned, lamenting to his mentor and teacher that since fire has destroyed the great library and its vast store of knowledge, he will be deprived in his studies and searches. To which the teacher replies, “Truth can no more be stored than the fire which freed it. When you need to know, the truth will find you.” Keep Killin’ It!
Paul, how do YOU find the motivation to keep killin’ it?
Let me answer that with this video that I made during a difficult time in my life:
