Open letter to Owen, i guess, not really YOU, owen, not the real human being I do not know at all. the mythical famous character of a person we are allowed to bother in public places at will for a stupid 'autograph' to tell the rest of the world 'I must matter, I was NEAR someone who does!!!' woopdee fucking do?!
so I apologize if the real owen or his family for that matter are reading this, likely never will but you never know, anyway, I have no fucking right to talk to you directly, I dont own you, I rented your work product many times, you got a few mil, me and many other people got a great laugh, fair trade. you dont owe us jack.
so everyone I know has been really close to this dark place you just went, some of them as close, some of them really close to me. myself, I'm a tad different, while I have spent most of my life wishing I wasnt born, I have very quickly gotten to the realization that if nothing really matters then sticking around is no different than leaving and perhaps, just maybe someday things might fucking matter, on top of that I have lost people, my best friend run over by a drunk driver when we were 11, was supposed to be with him at the time, and my dad died when I was 21. so I know what a deep dark black hole of hell it puts people around you through to leave them like that. I cant take the guilt, that has saved my life more than anything else.
one of my favorite quotes, life is pain, anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell you something. sofa king true. and it doesnt matter who you are, lets get all obtuse and american, bill gates is worth more than most countries. so?
stop, I know the answer to that, believe me, just told my wife to schedule a meeting with someone on payday just in case it seemed like we should pick up the tab for lunch. its that utterly pathetic constant humiliation that we all go through, yes all of us, those of us who can always pick up the tab for lunch had to spend many years being sensible dweebs all the damn time paying attention to how many mochas we bought in a month, ugh! how humiliating anyway you slice it to be a normal everyday working stiff.
so owen doesnt have that problem, bill could make FIFTY THOUSAND of us not have that problem (millionaires) so we all think, if only I didnt have that ONE huge problem I would be happy and would never feel like this.
bullshit.
and owen just proved it.
my mom always says, people who think money cant buy happiness dont know where to shop.
this is cute and funny until someone with money tries to take a step off the merry-go-round, then we all scratch our heads and say, wtf??!!
but down deep the statement is true, one way or another owen doesnt know where to shop, neither do we, but its our fault, what really pushes people like that over the edge is that everyone out there thinks they are supposed to be happy. how utterly fucking lonely that must be, the whole world knows you and has no idea how much you hurt inside? man, that just makes me want to cry, makes me feel lucky not to be him.
I have a wife and 3 kids who really love me, and really LIKE me, even though I am a total dork and they dont love me for my money, just me, who I am, I keep making more money, keep getting more 'famous' and more important and more powerful but they liked me long before that. Owen doesnt have that, and some parts of that might be the one thing he wishes he had and no matter how hard he tries, just like the rest of us try to get money and power, he just cant force it to happen, especially with all of us fucking watching all the time.
dude, I respect your privacy and I thank you for making at least that statement, I'm only one of 6 billion, but I for one will totally leave you the fuck alone, and I will never judge you.
I wont pretend to know you, I like your work product, you make me laugh, make me feel good, and I hope that is part of why you do what you do, but like your job, my job isnt my life, it matters to me that what I do matters to people, affects people, leaves my positive mark on the world. but then I go home and so much more matters to me that has nothing to do with MY work product that you will likely never hear of.
so, purely for my own selfish happiness, I thank you for failing and I thank Luke for finding you, I like you too Luke and now even more, I want to say you are a good brother, but I dont know, I dont know you or owen, maybe you suck but still, thanks for giving us more owen and thanks for showing us more of you, even though that was the last thing on your mind.
you guys matter to us, you are part of what we get, when we DO know where to shop.
Thank you.
A president is supposed to represent US not THEM. It is no mistake that the guy just above the chairman of the joint chiefs doesn't have to have a 30 year military career and 4 stars on his shoulder. So it all comes down to this, how many of 'us' does Barak represent? More than you might think. Remember Reagan? the last real republican we have had in office? Though he didnt shy away from the subject, 'God' wasnt a major cornerstone of his presidency. His #1 focus seemed to be money, appealing solidly to his fiscally conservative base. Since then however it seems as though more and more republicans have been trying to court the religious right to add size to their base. Quite humorously this has led us to King George, not much at all different than the first one we had to get rid of, money religion and governance all mashed together in one giant corrupt unthinking ball.
So how is Barak any different? He's not on 'my ' side of that issue, he is far more like the founding fathers than any candidate in my lifetime, he happens to have very strong, personal, faith, he happens to be christian and has derived much of his inspiration to lead from that calling. However, he also believes very strongly in the separation of church and state and as he puts it, every bit as much for the benefit of the church as it is for the state. So just on this huge dividing issue alone, my sister who is an evangelical christian can identify with him and his motivations and I, a person of no faith, can feel like he is going to protect my rights. So that leaves the republicans with the fiscally conservative, whom, they have also lost, my best friend who votes republican right down the line with a blindfold on, voted for Kerry because Bush was and is spending us into a black hole faster than any tax and spend liberal could dream of.
So the promise of Barak, is that he might actually hear is presidential oath 1/20/09 word for word and follow it, he might actually take great care in the spending of OUR money and the risk of life to OUR young men and women in the armed forces. He really seems like he would not take that duty lightly, like he might actually be doing this because we have begged him to and he sees it as his calling to oblige.
His honesty alone has my vote, I think he may actually be human, how refreshing would that be?