Thanks and appreciation

Yesterday I was talking about how easy it is to get yourself stuck in a negative spin that you can't get out of and why its so important at those times to start thinking about the things that you appreciate in your life in order to change your energy and put you into a positive frame of mind.

Well, with tomorrow being Thanksgiving I thought it would be a perfect time for me to talk about many of the things that I'm thankful for and appreciate. Don't get offended if you get left out though, I'm very thankful for my family, my friends, and you good fans that read me everyday and make this worth while.

 

I appreciate the fact that my dog Jack (short for Jackass!) looks just like Animal from the muppets. He came from a litter of 7, and while his brother and sisters all played together, all he ever did since he opened his eyes was sit at my feet and bark to sit on my lap. So he chose me.

After the ex left, when he was about 6 months old, he caught meningitis and almost died. He was in the hospital for weeks, and after a few thousand dollars it was a last effort guess when the neurologist and I were brainstorming that came up with the cure. After I got him home he slept on my neck for weeks.

 

This is Jack's mom, Leia, my other dog. She's the toughest 15lb dog I've ever heard of, spent more than 6 months in the desert of Nevada on her own before the girlfriend found her. How she survived I have no idea. She had all 7 of her babies right in my hand, and would let me do whatever I wanted to with the pups, but wouldn't even let the ex go near them. That should have told me all I needed to know right there. 

I had spent some time in some really dark places and I think these 2 dogs were the only thing that kept me going, so I'm very thankful for that, don't know what I'd do without them. 

 I love the small of a woman's back. There's something just right when your hand rests in the spot just above the round of her backside and you pull her close to you. I'm thankful for women that are soft and sweet, which I need to balance the manimal within me.



I really appreciate a good story, in any form. Its one of my favorite things. I also love baseball, Kevin Costner baseball movies, and great nicknames that last forever.

 

This is my Rotty Circe. There's something manly about having a dog, and I don't know that you can have a home without one. A dog is a sign that a man is coming home, because he may leave you, but there's no way he leaves his dog. I have a hard time believing that she's been gone for 5 years now, half the time I still feel her walking next to me, but I have so many great memories of her and could never imagine a better dog, or a better friend.

I appreciate a brilliant smile that can just light up the room from a beautiful woman, especially when its aimed at me. Sometimes, when you least expect it, an angel comes and lifts you up, and some people do that for everyone that they touch because their heart is so big it radiates. I'm glad I knew her.

Don't tase me Bro!

My God I can't tell you have much I appreciate this photo, or all the dumbasses in the world that give me something to laugh at. Life is the BEST! You just can't make this stuff up.

Mentors are so important, and I never really had one, but I'm really thankful for the one's that had to serve as such for me. I appreciate the fact that I was shown the path, that I was taught early that more luminous beings are we, not this crude matter, and that the force is with me.... always.

I appreciate Nick Nolte and all that he does. WE LOVE YOU NICK NOLTE!

I really love women, pretty much everything about them, so I appreciate the beauty of the female form

And I'm thankful for women that are down for anything

Especially when they're down for anything in bed, like sexy Kelly Brook here.

But there's nothing sexier than a woman who reads. I need a woman of intelligence; nothing stirs me up quite like intelligent conversation, so as much as I show off scantily clad ladies, there's nothing I appreciate more than when they show off their great big brains. 

If you look at this picture closely you can see, just above the trees, Death blowing something up towards the light, plain as day.

How great is it when you get something you never expected that just completely blows your mind? I'm thankful that there's something more out there, and great gods show themselves to us once and a while, just to remind us that they're there, and that we're not alone.

And I really appreciate Elvis! I love the King, and Graceland is a place you really have to visit at least once.

What's not to love about great trips with the fam? I love when I get the opportunity to be the crazy, over the top, fun loving lunatic I am when I'm comfortable being myself, and the people who accept me and let me be that way.

After this shot she said to me "Thanks for nothing Hatter!" in a sexy English accent. To this day I'm still unsure if she meant it as something out of the story or if I didn't do something for her that she was wanting me to do. But then, she could have just been English, that's what my experience with their women has been

Operation Fishbone was one of the best weekends of my life. It's an inside joke I guess, so here's to inside jokes then, and to the stupid shit you did when you were much younger that you'd never even consider now, but MAN did you have a good time doing it! Those are the things you laugh about forever, and how can you not be happy about those?

Thank God for heroes that you can relate to, crossing the line, cold sterile bathrooms and the nudey bar! Lets Rock!

I'm really thankful for that last trip, and those last days and months, and that special friend who takes you from one stage of your life into the next, but never really leaves you even when you can't see them anymore. And even more so, I couldn't be thankful enough for that smile on her face, and knowing that despite being blind, barely able to move and taking 2 shots a day just to keep her food down, she was still very happy until the end, and that I gave her a good life.

I really appreciate the guys on my softball team. For a long time I was the best player on a really bad team and it completely sucked, but I love playing ball too much to give it up. And as we got better it was with all the wrong kinds of people, grown men acting like babies, constant fighting and nonsense.

Now its hard to tell who the best player is, we're a championship caliber team and I expect to win every game. But the best part of it is that we all fit together really well. This is the best team and the best group of guys I've ever played with, and its an interesting collection of people if you take a look, but we make it work. They make playing ball a lot of fun again and I couldn't be happier about that.

Bacon, country fried steak, good coffee, sweet tea, biscuits and gravy, country cooking..... CRACKER BARREL!!! What's not to love?

I love pictures that say it all. That's the Man back there with his finger up, you know of him from our many adventures, and the girl in front is the Ex. This is the first time I showed a picture of her. I wasn't with her for looks, but because we got along really well and I trusted her more than anyone. We all know how that turned out.

But I'm thankful for my time with her, and more thankful for the things it taught me, which include never settle for anyone, and if your closest friends and your brother hate your girl, there's probably something wrong there that you can't or won't see.

I appreciate positive role models that always show you how its supposed to be done, and do it the right way. And I'm very thankful that my childhood hero never let me down.

I really appreciate the unique talents and fine acting skills of my favorite living on screen star Monique Alexander. She never disappoints me.

That's Patrick Wayne, son of one of my idols, John Wayne, with me on one side and my dear mother on the other. She was so nervous going to talk to him that she couldn't do it, so I had to go over for her and make sure she got a picture. That was a great day, and I'm very thankful that I was there for it.

I really love being able to sit around in my underwear doing nothing but watchin TV all day.

And I love the greatest love story of all time, my favorite movie with my favorite actor.

Here's lookin at you kid!

What can be more manly than a good fire? And what's better than some good friends, some good music and good beer around that fire? I appreciate the beauty of moments like that, and I'm thankful for the times I've been able to do it.

And thank God I'm a Yankee Fan!

Wow! All this to be thankful for and I'm just getting started. I can be at this all day if I really got deep into it, and I bet you can say the same thing if you really stop to think about all the things you love in your life.

But mostly, I want to thank you for being here, and spending part of your day with me every morning.

And now that Thanksgiving will soon be behind us... its time to get ready for Xmas!

Later People

Joe Paterno, Child Molesters and why we need a hero!

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke

As of this writing, Joe Paterno is expected to announce his retirement, forced out by the scandalous news that his former Defensive Coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, was a kid toucher, molesting little boys, and while Paterno went directly to his boss upon learning of it, allowed it to be swept under the rug.

This was a man, loved, respected, admired, for being an example of all that is right in the world, a beacon, a guide showing us that through the years what was once great can still be great. Someone who stood for doing it right. And now, like so many before him, that legacy is now forever destroyed. Its been raped like the children he chose not to stand up for, pillaged, like the soul of all of us who believe in something better, and the people who symbolize that ideal.

Its been a long time now since Charles Barkley famously stated "I'm not a role model". That message was always misconstrued, he meant that its the responsibility of parents to be role models for their own children, something he was dead on about, and has only become an epidemic in our world, the shirking of that most important job description. But he was wrong also, so wrong, because its the responsibility of us all to try to be and show the best of ourselves, give those younger who look to us for guidance a positive image to live up to. And our stars, our icons, are the very ones that are supposed to be leading that charge.

Since that time our leaders have betrayed us, showing us all how completely corrupt our entire system, our way of life, truly is, and how very little they care about their own people so long as their pockets are lined.

The people we are supposed to look up to have been exposed as frauds, lying and cheating and swindling every one on their way to the top.

Showing their true colors, that like Hilary Swank with ruthless dictators, these people are little more than mercenaries, taking the money and running off to the next party satisfied with their own greatness while looking down on the people who believed in them, who needed them.

What was it that LeBron said.... in the morning he'll still be rich, but the rest of us will have to wake up and go back to our miserable lives? I'm paraphrasing, but this was the message Lebron had for all of us. That's what it means these days to be great.

The other day someone who should know better yelled at me for things I've said, having this to say:

"Yes, Steve Jobs was a dick, but he changed a lot of things, created jobs and technology that's being put to use in hospitals and to help aid in third world countries. He was openly an ass, never faked anything but. Can't fault him for that."

So its ok to be a total prick, ruin the lives of these people over here, so long as you admit you're an ass, invent some gadgets, and throw some of your money at the problems of those people over there.



The very fact that this person finds this acceptable highlights so much of what's wrong with us today, doesn't it? The fact that they don't see how asinine that really is shows how disillusioned we've become.

And when we were promised change, filled with the hope for a return to better days, nothing was done, and the only thing to change is that we no longer believe that there's anything to hope for. The future looks as bleak and as doomed as it ever has. The morale of the nation, of the world, and the people has never been lower. I've never felt so much despair from so many people and like most of you out there, I don't know if things will ever get better. There's no image to make me believe that it will.



There was once a time when we did everything that we could to protect that saintly image of our heroes, no matter how many or how gruesome the skeletons in their closet were. Sure, part of that was because you weren't going to get the story if you ripped into guys back then, but part of it was because we better understood the sanctity of that thing to aspire to, that greatness in all of us we could all reach if only we had someone to show us the way.

And now the world has become so cynical, so nasty and cruel, that even when we find a true winner, a good man, a man of heart, of soul, of conscious, that uses all of what's in them and every effort to do it right, just for the sake of doing it the right way, we do everything we can to tear them down and rip them apart in every way.

It makes me sick. But what's worse, it makes all of us sick, in our souls, in ways we can't see.

I was 18 years old in 1995 when the Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs, and that night I bawled my eyes out, cried like a baby, because Don Mattingly was never going to win it all. I'm a grown ass man, and to this day whenever I see pictures of Donnie Baseball tears fill my eyes, and a smile crosses my face. He was an example of every way you play the game right. I wanted to be him. I love him. He's my hero.

Now more than ever, we as a people need someone to bridge the gap between one era of greatness to the next, someone to make us believe again, have hope, when there's nothing else to cheer for.

We need a Dragon Slayer, a champion, someone who sees the road ahead, knows what has to be done, and is willing to take the weight of the world on their shoulders, to put us on their shoulders, and lead us to the promised land.

We need someone who understands that we're more than just the sum of our parts, that is able to look passed our differences, look passed what separates us, always finds the beauty in us whether we're black, white, yellow, blue, purple or green, whether we have pointy ears or hairy feet

Someone who doesn't believe in unbeatable scenarios, and is always able to find ways to accentuate our strengths rather than bash our weaknesses, and brings us together, rallies us behind them to use those strengths in synergy to get the job done. Someone who makes us better than we could be by ourselves.

What we need now more than anything else, more than ever, is a miracle. Something to makes us believe again, to believe in each other, to believe in ourselves.

But this is hard to come by, because integrity is so hard to come by. Because sometimes it requires making the ultimate sacrifice, giving everything, your very life if need be, to stand up to the slings and arrows, to hold on to what you believe.

And that's a lonely road very few want, or are willing, to walk.

Yet still, we need a rallying cry, someone to rise up an galvanize the people into action now for a better tomorrow, no matter the cost.

"But Cap, you'll DIE!"

"I know... AVENGERS.... ASSEMBLE!"

But then.... my heroes have always been Captains.

Later People!



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