Across the Pond: A Cheeky American's Take on Brits

The American Revolution. Sir Winston Churchill. The Beatles. Princess Diana. West End Girls. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The Spice Girls. Monty Python. Football. 007. The Office. Simon Cowell.

I bet if you ask most Americans what they think of when they bother to deem the Brits worth the brain power to concern themselves with at all, that would be close to list of items you might get as a response.

Now, it takes little creativity to know what we remember most about a culture is its culture. Namely, music, politics, art and entertainment. Since it goes little beyond that - except for those scholarly sorts that bring up Jane Austen or that stuffy old Will Shakespeare - ask yourself Brits: "do I take offense to me country being remembered for The Spice Girls, eh?"

For this author (ok, a bloody Yank without a noteworthy pub), Britain, England or The Isles are just as foreign as Russia, China or Zimbabwe. I can watch or listen to the BBC or take an course on Brit Lit or make me way to library and get something there. Or pull up Youtube and watch Susan Boyle again - isn't she smashingly good? (Drab dresser though.) But what does that really tell me about my older, wittier, more quirky and quizzical to fly-over America, British inhabitants?

Not much.

Like America, we have our extremist groups, slackers, important people doing important things, derelicts (not to be confused with The Derelicts) and plenty of accents to boot. In fact, there is no one America. Ergo no one British experience.

Back in April 2001, I had a plane ticket to the London ready to use for an escape from my life. It was a time of great upheaval for me. Not much seemed right about the situations I had gotten myself into. Friends, lacking. Foes, aplenty. But I decided against a relocation. Regret. Alas, 2009 and still stuck in the debt-riddled United States.

Recently, I rented 2004's Shaun of the Dead with Simon Pegg. (You guys and Simons...) Good fun and all. A slacker comes to realize he has to do something about his same old same old. Just happens to have zombies and romance thrown in it.

But it spoke to me. (Sorry, Will Shakespeare.)

It told me to get off me duff and get on with it. Do whatever comes naturally. And to others in my way: bugger off.

Granted, Shaun did revert to form. But in one inspired moment, he made himself a hero and did something.

So Brits, you do have mesmerizing powers on us wasteful and rude Americans. Not that British zombies and slackers were what you were shooting for, but eh, you take your victories as they come, right?

(Winston Churchill is probably spinning in his tomb right now.)
Take Care, Mates! (Um, sorry, wrong country, right language.)

A Beater with a Heater: Planes, Trains and Automobiles (& Bicycles)

It doesn't pay to be tied to a mechanical piece of equipment. Reliance on the operation and availability and possession of something that is just a 100,000 pieces of metal, fiberglass and plastic, but zooms along at inordinate speeds (sometimes), and people have the expectation that it works nearly 100% of the time is rather foolish, once you find yourself without it, or left with the carnage of financial deal gone bad, or at the mercy of some yah-hoo careening down the turnpike and smashing into your hot ride.

My family drew the low card in the game of asshole with the car problems. You can't even imagine what I go through with them over something I have come to despise as much for its presence as I do for its inadequate operation.

Now, I can hear you thinking: "Complaining again about whatever is his woes." No, that isn't my Johnny Quest here. My thinking is that I would rather never see another car again. They pollute. They take too much money to acquire and maintain. They have to be recycled somehow. And I always feel we miss out on the freedom of being unencumbered by their usage in getting our daily bread made.

We need machines - green ones would be nice - but I get tired of fact I must own one to have a way to pay for meals, live in a box that is worth less than a painting by Grandma Moses, or taking a woman to some overpriced Steak & Ale joint far as hades from the Sunset Strip of my Lost in Translation reality. Anytime I put myself in a car, I say, "Fuck I hate driving."

I remember driving on some last piece of Route 66 when I was young, thinking how awesome the feel of the wind and sun was in the car. It was foolish youth - in a new experience - that guided my thinking.

Now, after five years of driving 75-125 miles per day, I am over the fun of playing a bit role in the demise of the U.S. Economy. I don't need a car to have a life.

I like bicycles now. More freedom and joy comes from the pedaling and picking a path out to wherever than comes from my automotive experience. It's healthy - I need to lose 10-20 lbs. - and that might help America too.

Get off the planes, trains and automotive gerbel wheel and start loving your bike.

Failing Down on the Job: Blogging this summer

I've pretty busy trying to figure out my long term plan in life. It's complicated - not so much in what I perceive is the needed path to follow - but in trying to fit my close relatives into that picture. To be totally frank, it does not look good for them.

(We) just got a 20% pay cut on the delivery routes we've done for 4 years, this time. (All together over a decade of service to that cause.) The company, Lee Enterprises, somehow thinks it is a good practice to leave completely out of the picture those most affected by their bottom-line alterations. Lacking the class, or business sense, to at least bring in the carriers that will remain behind to craft a better operation and working relationship. I understand how hard the print media has been hit - but it seems they never learn how to run a more effective and efficient operation.

Meanwhile, my family refuses logic or long-term thinking. They still sit in foreclosure status. My aunt refuses to file for bankruptcy. Too many pets (14) and not enough assets. And I've made every possible attempt; and now, I must somehow get my own ideas moving forward without money or assistance from anyone of import. (So far.)

I continue to work on my baseball tome - with a completion date of November 15th of 2009. It will be (to me, anyways) a lasting work - which is why it has taken 4 years plus to research, read, write, edit, analyze, gather images, work out charts and diagrams. But I am tired of the project - in some ways. That means I need to move on to something fresh, inviting and stirring of those intellectual juices in a pot of potential.

Fiction writing and a new business of some sort. I do have a fledgling idea: an online to print-on-demand press for starters, but with a twist or two.

In today's world, your own business is the only way to keep from being at the mercy of mercinary management types that do not care as much or as often about their employees. It is fine and well established that customers are your revenues - but your employees are your potentials for innovations and future revenues. They work to put food on a table - but you must give them some security.

The Globalization of commerce put everyone in a too competitive framework - which I do know drives innovation - but it incumbent on employers to cut down the ruthlessness (and rapidity of workforce turnover) that some engage in for the sake of too oblivious wealthy stockholders.

Meanwhile, employees, you must engage in enrichment of your mind and keep your body able to roll with these punches. No free lunches. No slacking or exploiting the bosses good graces. You have to be a "mini-boss" while being flexible and likeable enough to stay a sound and savvy employee.

After that diatribe, I can say my problems have not changed significantly - but I have attempted a new attitude. I am looking for opportunities; utilizing what others toss away; taking in the best I find from people I meet, and discarding the rest (hopefully, not the person too.)

So, my blogging is way down, as I work on a book, trying to read and think up a new business plan, where I might have to live, and the adventure and pleasure of meeting new ideas and people behind them. My blogging energy to worry about Health Care, Erin Andrews of ESPN, the Cubs, the darfur genocide ,or a myriad of other world concerns is taxed. I can write about it - but does it really matter???

Tomorrow: American & Personal History, Synergy and Circumstances

In tribute to my grandfather, this nation and the National Pastime, I will post on that intertwining. I have to work on it tonight - with images, and hopefully fitting video links.

Stay Tuned...

Designing the Site: Soon!

I feel that I have let twist in the wind the concept of designing a web presence that actually works.

I have plenty of interests: sports, entertainment, politics, book thoughts, economics, business and entrepreneurial interests, to name the brief selection.

So when things calm down, and I get time, I will be redesigning all 4 sites:
Anything Written
Anything Written Too
No More Mr. Nice Guy
No More Mr. Nice Guy Too

To meet the needs of the people that visit. (Uh, yeah, should have done that a while back.)
It is my ultimate hope to put the best things I've written, proposed and dreamed up in the appropriate categories. I will make it visually stunning - ok, that's a stretch - but you will know what gives on the site.

I tried for 3 years to write all things considered in my noodle in 1/2 blogs. It really did not work.

Meanwhile, I am broaching a point where I can actually see my baseball book come to a decisive end. The title works. The chapters are filling in. The research done in the past two years improves upon the 1st draft done in late 2007. AND -- Wait for it -- It might be a publishable piece of baseball history and SELL!!??!!???

Well, the last part is more my wishes than reality. But we all have dreams - like sands through the hourglass - these are the summer days of our lives!!!

I'm excited and maybe, irrational at the moment. Irrational in thinking this year is THE Year!

So I hope the redesign is received well as I move forward to the year 2010.

Fourth Blog: The Vision & Design to come!!

Me: Oh, guess what?

You: What?

Me: I got a new blog.

You: Really...

Me (effusively): I hope to address the world's problems, show individuality, while caring for others ,and.. it will be the most entertaining place on the net.

You (bored): Sure.

This is how most blogs are started - oh, not the whole convo, and high ideals expressed out loud - but the hidden intent we put forth into the ether, hoping, hell, praying (for those without corporeal relationships) that someone will find what we think - palatable.

I may be the most guilty in this endeavor. It has its charms. No one sets out to create boredom - or run of the mill - even if, we are (maybe I am) indeed, a bore.

Or things aren't jumping off like they are daily in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, North Korea, China, Zimbabwe or name your troubled, developing and psychopathically-lead military arena where gladiators fighting are just a way of life in the Circus Maximus. And the normal, educated and democratically-prone persons are hiding, struggling to find a way to express their voice without becoming the next meal for the lions in said arena. Women: better be kung fu master and martial art whiz banger like Bruce Lee - else - I pity the fool that messes with the govs in these places.

In hoping to express opinions, make money, entertain, or scoop the scribblers at 20th century media conglomerate incorporated - now, learning to adapt, change and otherwise, get off their a-s-s-es and do their job - report the facts, ma'am - blogging is personal, social and well, democratic and sometimes, capitalistic.

In the world, you got your vapid players: Carrie Prejean took a stance, now she got her legs (gorgeous as they are) taken out from under her.

You got your rapid and repressive players: China will require software to block websites it doesn't like (and of course, monitor their country folk) while continuing to support, even if tacitly, the regime in North Korea, who is just itching for a fight - and the old, red, white and blue, might have to put their money and arms where the North Korean a-s-s is.

You got the movers and shakers of money: China now has the largest reserves of gold. Japan holds $634 Billion of our U.S. Debt. But China directly holds $739.6 Billion of Uncle Sam's bills.

Goldman Sachs, JPMorganChase, Citicorp, Bank of America, Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC are so large and complex, yet, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, ICBC (China) is now the largest by market capitalization -June 2008, also, China Construction (China) and Bank of China (China) make up this top ten. If any bank fails, of this size, the Great Recession will indeed become a Great Depression. Any of these banks is as large as a G20 nation.

Meanwhile, GM, the 9th largest company in the world by revenues in 2008 ($182 Billion) is no longer itself. It went to a home - an institution, for rehab - and well, it will be back. A little thinner, a bit more humble and definitely, a whole lot more in need of support from us Americans.

Other Titans of Wealth: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, that Mexico guy -Carlos Slim Helú and Lakshmi Mittal, who has a nice chuck of where I live under his control, but be damned if I see it being put to good use.

And their are many more categories, but you get the continental drift of this blogger. Or maybe its Climate Change that needs to be discussed???

Or maybe change in general.

We all need change - some have done this so often, so suddenly, it seems crazy to those that never see them or talk to them for months or years, at a crack - but, we definitely need perspective too. To see the good (and not so much), as discussed here today.

While I can't entertain too much longer in this diatribe, I hope the point in the future is clear as the vision, design and topics become more concrete.

You: So, are you going to post often?

Me: As often as my ho-hum life allows. And when the news is exciting...Or I need more space than twitter. Or Facebook doesn't do it justice..

You: Oh Boy...(sounding like Dr. Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap)

Now is the time when we dance... on Anything Written Too!

Jes-Ghost a favorite out of Chicago!