Quick Thinking: You Can't Handle the Truth

We live in an uncertain world, y'all. One filled with political strife, a racial divide, terrorist threats and socio-economic turmoil. Not to mention one where elected officials are having sexting affairs with 15-year olds and people have a stronger opinion about some football team's quarterback kneeling before a game than the actual problems he's kneeling about.

And, amidst all the dissent, us day-to-day folks wanderlust for better times and claim truth is the currency that trumps all currency. Simply "knowing the truth" becomes a mantra, the imaginary elixir to ease troubled minds during troubled times. People think "truth" will provide peace-of-mind in a world with very little of it.

But, in my experience, it's not the truth people want.

What people really want is their version of the truth to be confirmed. Anything contrary to their personal truth is typically met with ardent skepticism and, in most cases, dismissed. Think about that for a minute. Like, really, think about that. Most people, even when given the truth, deny it to formulate their own opinion on the matter even if that opinion is contrary to the actual truth.

Like my man Talib says, "You can have your own opinion, but not your own facts."

Bottom line, most people simply believe what they want, regardless of actual facts, leaving truth as the lowest form of currency in our lives. Imagine that, huh? One of the true pillars of a healthy and satisfying life, an ideal people have dedicated their lives to exploring and a concept Jason Bourne has made 4 movies trying to figure out -- the idea of truth -- is no more real to most than the imagined stories in our head disputing it.

Unbelievable, indeed.

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Quick Thinking
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-- Do you think it's a coincidence the Minnesota Vikings made a serious playoff push the year before their new stadium opened?

-- Or that they beat the Green Bay Packers on opening night of said stadium?

-- The sooner you realize the NFL is simply the WWF on a larger scale, the more enjoyable it will be for you.

-- Trust me, brother.

-- Woooo!!

-- Not sure what it really means but watching the Patriots without Tom Brady this year has been a lot of fun.

-- Same can be said for the Red Sox the past month.

-- But they're always without Tom Brady.

-- Managing 3 fantasy football this season has learned me one valuable lesson: fantasy football teams are like girlfriends, one is more than enough.

--  The desire to improve oneself should always be greater than any fear of being single.

-- Always.

-- Life Lesson of the Week: the act of politely saying "no" to a woman, while upfront, honest and respectful from most people's perspective, garners the same hateful response as skinning a puppy and wearing its pelt as underwear.

-- Which, by the way, I'm sure would be very comfortable.

-- Anyone who doesn't think Tom Brady quietly celebrated a bit when Jimmy G. was injured against Miami isn't paying attention.

-- I mean, I know he's the GOAT and all, but human nature dictates when a younger replacement is doing your job, you want to see them fail.

-- It's like closing your eyes when you sneeze. 

-- You can't help it.

-- Ask any aging supermodel about it if you don't believe me.

Quick Thinking: The Naked Truth

Lines are being drawn, y'all.

Hard lines.

Hard lines are being drawn around hard topics and we're all being force fed -- whether we realize it or not -- information to make us pick a side.

It's unavoidable.

Today's news cycle, from social media to print to local news, is spinning on race and the value of life, religion and the danger of extremists, sexual identification and bathroom use as well as politics and the illusion of choice. In light of the noise, I would ask all of you -- all of us, really -- to make sure you don't get caught in the media machine attempting to dictate the narrative.

I'm not saying be an anarchist. I'm not saying we should all be conspiracy theorists. I'm not saying we need to question all authority. I'm not saying any of those things. What I am saying is try not to let the governing powers convert you into the useful idiots they want us all to be.

Don't take the bait. Don't pick sides.

Instead, do something far more difficult: try to erase the lines. Focus on your reflection, refuse to the give the lines power and I promise they will start to disappear. Not overnight, of course. But eventually they will. Maybe even entirely.

So my message is cheesy and simple, y'all: Write your own narrative and stay clear of the pitfalls of "group thinking." As the old idiom goes: individuals are smart, people are dumb. Try and focus on the content of life, not the color in which its painted by outside forces. 

And if that doesn't work, let's hope the Zombie Apocalypse happens sooner than later, because, if we're not gonna use them, we might as well serve them up as snacks for the undead. #brains

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Quick Thinking
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-- Having one's version of the truth confirmed seems to be far more important than the actual truth these days.

-- The equation would look something like: 
your truth > actual truth.

-- It's an amazing phenomenon.

-- And it's true for most people.

-- Or, well, at least I think it is.

-- Kevin Durant signing with Golden State just feels cheap to me. #ifyoucantbeatthem

-- It also feels like the personification of the instant gratification mentality that seems to be dominating today's world.

-- Quote of the Week goes to my coworker JFRY who shared the following with me over a conversation about our favorite things while enjoying a few Trillium brews, "I really enjoy cleaning my ears with q-tips while I pee."

-- Truth is stranger, indeed.

-- Note of the Week goes to all the ladies out there. Listen, I get the whole "it's my body and I can do what I want" thing. I get it. I do.

-- Seriously, much respect.

-- I mean, I can't twerk, give birth or look sexy sitting naked on a horse.



-- But if a guy walked around with his cock out screaming "Power to the penis! It's my body and I can do what I want!" a lot of you ladies would be the first in line to protest.

-- Or applaud.

-- Either way, maybe empowerment via nudity needs to be reexamined.

-- Because the very cause it champions create the issues that need to be championed in the first place.

-- But, hey, at least your tits look great.

-- Speaking of penis power, who do you think would win in a sword fight: Caitlyn Jenner or Hillary Clinton?

-- I vote Clinton.

-- Old Man Thought of the Week: I miss the world I grew up in...a place where Trump's social impact was relegated to combover jokes and a board game.

-- But if he gets elected I'm really looking forward the Reality TV show that will be his presidency.

-- It's gonna be HUGE!

-- Quote of the Week II comes from the song Human Mic by my man Talib Qweli, "You can have your own opinion but not your own facts."

-- I'd invite most of my ex's to listen to that song.

-- At least a few times.

Quick Thinking: Safe Zone

The debate is making me tired, dear readers.

No, not the presidential one.

The debate making me tired is the one that always seems to come up this time of year: baseball players and their tie to Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs). The fact that we still debate the "right" and "wrong" of whether or not an athlete -- ANY athlete -- should/shouldn't/is doing steroids or HGH is a joke.

A joke. 

The vast majority of professional athletes take or have taken performance enhancing drugs. There, I said it. They're expected to perform at an elite level and, truth of the matter is, most can't without some sort of synthetic cocktail. 

Don't believe me? Really? There are countless examples from baseball to the olympics to cyclists to football to horse racing (that's right, friggin' horse racing) of athletes using PEDs. And, in every instance, the accused vehemently denied any wrongdoing until the evidence against them became undeniable. I mean, how many of us fell for the Lance Armstrong "LIVESTRONG" marketing machine with those yellow wristbands before it came crumbling down? 

Exactly.

My point? We shouldn't care if athletes take performance enhancing drugs. They want to perform better in a certain area of life so they take a drug to do so. So what? They know the risk; it's on them to rule on the reward proposition. Not us. Just because we, as fans, pay to watch them we think we have a say? Well, we don't.  

And we shouldn't.  

Take the purists who put an asterisk next to Barry Bonds homerun total, for example. The same practice happens everyday with dick pills in most bedrooms across America yet no one is championing the morals of that PED use. Viagra didn't generate 1.708 billion of revenue in the U.S. last year for Pfizer because no one is using it, y'all. 

With our backwards sports rationale, we'd have to put an asterisk next to the number of orgasms any man gave his sexual partners over his "career" based on whether or not he took dick pills. Think about it. Performance, and the resulting multimillion dollar contracts or orgasms, aren't measured by morals, y'all. They're measured by results. So let's stop kidding each other like we care about how those results are obtained.

There are more important things to worry about. 

Like the country's Restless Leg Syndrome epidemic. 

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Quick Thinking
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-- Johnny Manziel's wasteful lifestyle makes him the poster child for today's entitled youth who don't understand the value of effort and accountability.

-- His social media comment from 4/29 sums it up best:



-- Self-awareness at its best.

-- But, hey, at least he has 1.38M followers on Twitter.

-- Which is a lot more than he'll make not playing football this season.

-- Watching Big Papi perform so well at the age of 40 begs the obvious question.

-- No, I'm not typing the question. 

-- Then it wouldn't be obvious, would it? 

-- Another player performing incredibly well on the Red Sox, JBJ's  27-game hit streak has been attributed to the young player "finally starting to get it" and "feeling more comfortable at the plate."

-- The obvious muscle mass increase and resulting bat speed probably have nothing to do with. 

-- I'm starting to realize my son's awful farts are simply the ghosts of poor nutrition choices haunting me.

-- Seriously. They're awful.

-- Is #fartshaming your kids a thing yet?

-- It should be.

-- Shame...shame...shame.

-- Speaking of Game of Thrones, watching Hodor meet his demise protecting the person he literally carried on his back as we learned said person was ultimately the one responsible for his diminished mental faculties in the first place was difficult to watch.

-- Never thought the loss of a fictional TV character would have such an effect on me.

-- Must be what makes "reality" shows like the Bachelor and Bachelorette so popular with the ladies. 

-- Despite being so short, Devvon Terrell's remix of Rhianna's Work is absolute fire.

-- Much like Rhianna herself, actually.



-- Work, work, work, work, work.

-- Most say "hate" is the ugliest word in the English language.

-- I think "can't" is.

-- And "moist" gets an honorable mention.

-- I can't think of any other words I truly hate.

-- Oh, wait...

Cooler Yet Warmer

Rhode Island's new brand, tagline and tourism image was recently released. The reviews have not been promising. 



Lukewarm(er) at best.

Watching my home state dance in the crosshairs is nothing new, dear readers. She's well versed at it. RI's failed list of monikers -- The Biggest Little State in the Union, The Beehive of Industry, Buddyville or The Creative Capital -- serve as proof she's been experiencing an identity crisis while walking that fine line between success & failure for decades.

What really concerns me is the echoing of complaints from "everyone" about "everything" about the project. Particularly from those who have no idea what working in a creative environment entails.

[SIDE NOTE: START]

The 4.5 million dollar budget wasn't simply for a "logo", y'all. That's an investment for the entire program. And, when you think of the type of money tourism is supposed to generate, it's a reasonable fee. 

Chalk it up to the cost of doing business. 

As for folks talking about others doing a "better" job for free as a contest are an even bigger concern. Classic oversimplification. Do you really want to devalue the creative process so much that you think a state's tourism message should be created by an amateur? Or as a contest? How will students who just spent all that money on their design education pay their loans and bills? With contest awards? 

Let's put this into a different context. 

Would you advocate for someone to do the state's taxes simply because they can use a calculator? Or, better yet, would you expect an accountant to do the state's taxes for free or as the result of a contest? 

Of course you wouldn't. And you know why you wouldn't? 

Because you project inherent value on what an accountant is and what he/she does. You simply don't apply that same level of value to an individual working in a creative industry.

[SIDE NOTE: END]

All the backlash comes down to faulty thinking, really. Assuming creative work is so "easy" and "should be free" is the crux of the issue. Creative work, like any other profession, has its own unique set of challenges and those challenges require education and experience to overcome. 

The fact is, most people simply can't relate to creative the same way they can to, say, a mechanic or a doctor. Would you trust someone to perform a successful surgery just because they're wearing scrubs and watch Grey's Anatomy?

[SIDE NOTE II: START]

My guess is the shortcomings with "Rhode Island: Cooler & Warmer" are a result of the creative teams involved being handcuffed by the client. The entire program smells like a decision made by committee or a "frankenstein job" of different brand ideas that were "liked" and pieced together. 

Contrary to popular belief, brands aren't about what people like. Save that elementary thinking for social media ego boosts. Brands are about finding a message that people will connect to with supporting graphics, images and text that, if done well, evoke reaction. 

Good brands are loved by many. 

But the best brands are loved by many...and hated by others. 

#polarize

[SIDE NOTE II: END]

Working in the industry, I try to temper my judgment on projects I'm not involved in. Or at least wait until the entire program is launched before doing so. Obviously there are serious problems with the "Cooler & Warmer" tag. Shit, it's a tagline for a dual temp cooler called Koolatron. Which also happens to be my favorite transformer, by the way. 

The bottom line: not everyone is a creative. And the overwhelming "I could do better" mentality is a bit of a joke. Everyone who can use photoshop thinks they're a great designer and everyone who writes think they can be a copywriter or name specialist. Just like everyone with a license thinks they're a good driver. Obviously that's not the case and the majority of them are wrong. 

Creative Capital, indeed.

Do my profession a favor: focus your ire elsewhere. The "I could do better" attitude does little to help Rhode Island find her identity. It also devalues the entire creative process along with pigeonholing our state in a perpetual identity crisis. Try being cooler about it. 

Or maybe even warmer.

Quick Thinking: Mercy Rules

I'm glad the Patriots lost yesterday.

There, I said it. 

I'm glad they lost because the loss, as sour as it may taste today, protects Tom Brady's legacy. How does it protect TB12's legacy you ask? Great question! And I love where your head is at...

The loss protects Brady's legacy because the New England Patriots would've lost to the Carolina Panthers dropping his Super Bowl record to 4-3. And please don't argue that point. The Panthers are a run away train right now and nothing will stop them. Not even Brady & Belichick. 

Reaching 7 Super Bowls is incredible, sure, but losing almost half of them doesn't ring "Greatest of all Time," does it? 4-3 feels sufficient, but it certainly doesn't feel great. 4-3 feels ok. 4-3 feels mortal, it feels mediocre. 

As a bonus, Peyton Manning, Brady's comparative contemporary, will suffer yet another Super Bowl loss in Denver dropping his "big game" record to a meager 1-3 while solidifying his historic inadequacies in games when the stakes are their highest.

Subtraction by addition at its finest. 

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-- With 2 of the greatest clutch catches in AFC Championship history, even in defeat, Gronk's legend grows.




-- #snowday

-- It would have grown more if Brady saw him wide open in the back of the end zone on that 2pt. conversion. 

-- Speaking of tight ends, thinking about what the Patriots offense could be with Hernandez makes me want to murder him.

-- Carolina's success this season has learned me very few people like Cam Newton.

-- And I'm one of the few.

-- Mark Farina's Mushroom Jazz series is worth listening to.

-- Particularly Autumn Evening Breeze feat. Chali 2na from Volume 5.

-- I can't understand how Brady looked so poised trailing by 14 in the Super Bowl last year to Seattle's vaunted defense but seemed so rattled trailing by 5 or 8 to Denver in this year's AFC Championship Game.

-- Same goes for Belichick. 

-- I think I'm in the minority when I say, after watching the Making A Murderer documentary series, which is clearly tilted towards innocence, that Steven Avery and his nephew Bobby Dassey are guilty.

-- Like bones in a barnfire guilty.

-- Behind the Curtain Note of the Week: with terms agreed upon earlier in the month, my divorce will become officially official tomorrow morning.   

-- Any and all cliche idioms apply to the aftermath, of course: everything happens for a reason, life is too short, stupid is as stupid does or, my favorite, you can't put a price tag on happiness.

-- But you can put one on a person.

-- And what it takes to buy that person out of your life. 

-- Ride or die, indeed.