Innovate - it don't cost anything

One of the things that I'm personally looking forward to is .. Progress. Innovation. New techniques. New music. New style. Something different.

In these hard economic times, necessity (the old mother of invention) will bring us some stuff, some culture, some style that we have yet to experience. It might be half-recycled. It might be a quarter-replay of some earlier motif. But something new will come, because like I sorta said - it don't cost anything.

Run-DMC, rap music and hip-hop came out of the late 1970s, early 1980s. Guitar became electrified in the late part of the Great Depression of the 1930s. What will come from the recession/depression of 2008-09? Only time will tell.

It's all about the finish

Sometimes, we get lost in the journey. We have grand expectations. We have the latest technology and gear. We map it all out.

And, somewhere along the way, it all falls in the gutter.

So then it's back to the drawing board - and in the words of the Kinks & Ray Davies - time to "Do it all over again."

So why am I harping on this?

I just watched the baseball team I coach, play a roller coaster of a game and tie our opponents, 12-12. We had the big lead (5-0); We gave up big runs (then 6-5). We had the clutch homer to tie (6-6). We jumped ahead again (9-6). Set them down in order in the sixth with blazing fastballs and three straight strikeouts. We fell apart, with the same exact pitcher and defense (12-9 to fall behind). Then we staged the heroic rally to tie it at 12, before being set down. All in a scrimmage baseball game that will be forgotten sooner than anyone will realize.

The point that should not be forgotten, is - if we could have found a way to finish the job, complete the mission, bring about resolution - we would have proven to be winners. Winners find a way to finish on the winning side. They don't make mistakes. They don't give away the game. The put pressure on opposing teams and opponents.

Winners finish. Winners don't go home 12-12.

Blinding By the Light

Ok blogging world, here goes my latest attempt to pursue a goal that started more than 20+ years ago when I was taking journalism classes at the University of Delaware - a goal to write on a regular basis and have people read what I write.

The 2nd part of that statement will be the challenge!

I chose to title this entry "Blinded by the Light" after the Bruce Springsteen penned song. The song, with its jangly guitar riff opening, introduced the world to Bruce Springsteen as it is the first song on his first album "Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ." I look at it as representing life, a baby coming out of the womb - and behold - being blinded by the light. Or someone on the way to stardom.

Ironically, as I drove my wife to the hospital on the morning of Feb. 6, 1997, when she was to be induced into labor - as we turned on the radio dial to one of NY City's rock'n'roll radio stations - the first sounds we heard was - you guessed it - "Blinded by the Light." A few hours later, we were parents as we witnessed the birth of twin daughters.