Lewis update

I was driving my car down Holloway in Ballwin yesterday on the way to an ass whopping from every GNOD in town. I couldn't believe how many geezers were down at Castlewood Saturday and it was going to my first mountain bike workout in two weeks. I am SO glad I took the week off, NOT. The week before I was in Florida on the road bike, too flat to get much of an interval workout. It was pretty sad, my performance. I will now train for 9 days straight as not to fall off. Especially after the all encompassing ego article on re-invention that came out while I was gone. Thanks to everyone for helping me get my health back the last eight years. Enough said about that.

Suddenly a familiar sight drove in front of me. A black sports car with.....yes....stickers! It was Lewis Greenberg, famed artist and color-coffee-conversationalist-of-the-county. I interviewed Lewis a while back. Feel free to catch up on him here in case you missed the article.

Lewis was feeling good and it was great to see him. I felt a little awkward since I hadn't visited with him since our last interview at his home in Ballwin. I needed to follow up as he has a few more things to say. I thought I would give him a direct quote/response to some questions this time, in order not to slant the discussion from my perspectives, which, I was afraid that I had done. Let’s face it. It’s a bit of a challenge to capture what it is he is most interested in "getting out there". I need to be diligent, as this is important. This time I will make sure that he clarifies anything that might have been wrong in the last interview, as well as make an effort to report on things that he really wants to talk about or cares about, like his art.

I am not a real writer, I am a blogger. As a friend of mines ultra liberal mother-in-law told me the other day, “bloggers” don't have any formal training from school, journalism or "whatnot", therefore, they really don't matter when it comes to delivering the justice of the media”. Now Mary (not her real name) is a liberal minded past generative, meaning, she is a lefter, but only in the context of her generation, not mine. She is old enough to be my mother. To claim that blogging is not substantial media drops her in to the box of uninspired do-gooders in terms of her inability to absorb unconventional thought through modern media. The newspapers, CNN, Fox News, are all a bit slanted in my opinion and fall short of that which is real, that which is intellectualized by real people, with real cross sections of opinion in our communities. I feel sorry for Mary; she is being led by the biased machine of common media. Sad, as she had recently returned from the largest peace march ever; the recent peace march on the columns at Mizzou in and effort to bring our boys home from Iraq. She feels good about her work and I was resistant to get into a pissing match with her on politics, and so requested by her son and ex-husband sitting on my right and my left respectively. I told her that her marching was an interesting expression of her interest and if she didn't mind, I will continue blogging as an expression of mine.

So blogging is significant media (I would have told her), she just doesn't understand the concept yet--that newspapers might be a thing of the past-- propaganda hasn't really changed much, it has just taken on new forms and is in a varying state of evolution through electronic media. Armchair opinions on blogs are no different than a letter to the editor, a message or slant of personal agenda from the community.

So that was my reason for doing Lewis's story, the expression. I thought Lewis needed to be explained for the good of the community for many reasons. It was a challenge and I am in to that. I like to express myself. And, I am jealous of anyone who can devote their life to such rampant expression at the risk of everything. He laid it all out there for me to provide a canvas of my own expression for everyone to see. That was pretty cool if you ask me, especially as insignificant blogger as I am. Mary, respectfully, kiss my ass.

If you remember my opening rants you might agree that unconditional expression is necessary if you want to shed the weight of conformity. As I get older, I wish to do this. I happen to live for the day when I can adequately express my opinions and live my life without concern for going against "anyone’s" grain or compromise a relationship with someone who might not feel the same as I on certain things. Being a business owner is the biggest challenge, many things to consider here. However, I am making positive changes in order to embrace the concept of true expression in our company culture; becoming "greener", “sustained”, using the outdoors as a palate, the concept of my distaste for childhood and adult obesity, my emphasis on health and nutrition for life fulfillment, encouraging others to re-invent in to that which is real, encouraging young people to get in to independent business. I am pretty darned lucky to be able to embrace these things and introduce them in to our market, looking for new ways to increase revenues by exploiting the things that are important to me in an effort to change the world.

These are "light" convictions. There are “heavy” ones too, but they will have to wait, as me and my group of kick-ass managers and employees want to make something out of the business that nobody else is going to be able to do. We want to get to retirement, put our kids through school. We will “whitepicketfence” our way to success. True non-conformity will have to wait until then. I don’t want to take any chances. Until then, I will look for real subjects like Lewis, heroes in their own right, those that make life more interesting.

Talking through the window of our cars, I told Lewis we would get together next week and do another coffee conversation. No less than three people stopped by to see who was emerging from the car with the stickers, a 65 year old pearl Izumi clad character on his way in to Starbuck's for some turbo bean burn-up.