My Favourite Americans ( Damn Yankees )
I'm in conflict... with myself. I love lots of things about America and also have a great love of teasing Americans , about America. On Monday, the 4th of July, Independence Day, I emailed my good friend John Weber to wish him a very happy "Buffalo Slaughtering Day" and told him that in his honour I was going to drink Budweiser, eat a hotdog , watch the Simpsons and spell lots of words phonetically rather than properly. John, as always took it in good humour and wished me well. John lives in Montana and I've been there on a few occassions and love the big sky, open spaces and small town feel of the place. I've had a drink with John in his favourite redneck bar, the Cannery, argued with his creationist friends, played pool, and got a Testicle Festival tee shirt( Don't ask, and if you're ever offered a "Rocky Mountain Oyster" say no thanks).
Why is it that I love to dismiss so easily so many opinions and attitudes of Americans and yet spend most of my time watching or listening to or using so many great ideas, programmes and people that come from there.
It really is a land of contradictions. Fox News, Walt Disney, Apple, Futurama, The Gap, The Tea Party all from the same wonderfully bizarre, vulgar and beautiful place.
Anyway it made me think of some of my favourite Yankees at the moment and here they are , and the reasons why ...
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This is Chris Brogan he
writes a lot of blogs on a wide range of topics and to me, is one of
those people that you spend most of your life oblivious to but once
you become aware of them they seem to be everywhere.
Chris writes on a wide range of topics. I first came across him in an article on social media, I looked him up, liked what he said and how he said it and signed up to his newsletter. I look forward to it every day and 4 times out of 5 there is something worth following up. He also runs a great company called Kitchen Table Companies where I seem to turn to for lots of advice. What I also really like about him is that he doesn't pontificate at all or maintain that he has all the answers and unlike a lot of people that set themselves up as social media gurus he seems to be an all round good guy with a heck of a lot of interesting things to say on a myriad of topics. By the way I've nothing against gurus, per se, whatever they get up to within the confines of their own homes and they're not hurting anyone, is fine by me. Someday, when I grow up, I want to be Chris Brogan. |
| The one and only Bender from Futurama !
While I still love the Simpsons this show has a slightly sharper edge and in the character of Bender has one of the all time comedy greats. His catch phrase of " Bite my shiny metal ass !" has always made me smile, initially in it's own right, and then as a reminder of the day when my then 5 year old son Jake, quoted it in a reply to his uncle Stephen's request to leave his empty mug back in the kitchen. My favourite episode is "Godfellas" where, ( you have to stay with me here people ) , a tiny civilisation grows on Benders surface as he floats lost in space. He finally meets God and we witness a fascinating converstaion where Bender and God discuss "light touch" interference on the destiny of man. This episode contains a line from God which the older I get the truer it appears to be : "When you do things right people won't be sure you've done anything at all" I think this applies to the role of blogging in particular ! |
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Hamilton Carhartt , founder of Carhartt
, probably the best workwear company in the world. I've written a
little about him before. I do genuinely love the work wear, we wear it,
we stock it and ( if you have any morality about you at all) you
lovely people buy it from us.
Any man who adds another letter to his name , just because he can, and because he thinks it makes him more distinguished, well ladies and gentlemen, that man has an eye for detail and a mad creative spark that will lead to great things. The company today still makes some of the original product that he himself pioneered, the C01 coat and the B01 trousers are almost 90 year old designs now and are testament to his vision and innovation. |
| The best childrens author ever, (no offence JK ). I remember being a
child in the old public library in Dundalk and seeing the cover of "The
Cat in the Hat" for the first time and being absolutely blown away,
mesmerised, transported to a wonderful world of green eggs, Grinchs
,Fox in Socks, Sneetches, Zax and later on in life reading "Green Eggs
and ham" repeatedly at bedtime to my children and possibly enjoying it
more than they did.
If you read up on Theodor himself you get a real sense of what a maverick, rebellious genius he was. There are abundant worthwhile sayings in the writings of Dr.Seuss but my favouite is always : "Be yourself , because the people who mind don't matter. And the people that matter don't mind." |
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As this is Thursday, and knowing that a lot of you only read this blog in order to determine a clue to this weeks quiz prize it would be churlish of me to let you down. This weeks prize is a pair of the indestructible Carhartt B01 work trousers for the winner and 4 packs of equally indestructible Carhartt all season work socks for the ones I feel sorry for.
Simply answer these two questions :
1. Who are your 4 favourite Americans ?
2. What ridiculously low price do we sell, no , practically give away the Carhartt B01 trousers for ?
That's it . Next week , as it's Bastille day, my favourite French people....a much shorter list....
Cheers,
Paul
P.S. Mr.Weber , my Yankee buddy, and I share very little common ground in our musical tastes, but we both agree on this fine example of the good things that America can do , The Band and The night they drove Old Dixie down