Lessons I've learned from Keith Richards

I was perusing the official Keith Richards site a few days ago and came across the Q&A section. I’ve always been a Stones fan and have been fascinated by the well worn and near incoherent guitar legend that is Keith. As it turns out, there’s some things one can learn from the man. So without any further ado, these are the lessons I learned from Keith Richards.

Lesson #1: Be yourself. Holy hell! Has anyone seen or heard Keith lately? His wardrobe is a fanfare of odd leopard patterns, loud colors, and crappy jeans or leather pants! It looks like he shut his eyes, grabbed some things out of the closet, then dressed with the lights out. Add to this the odd rainbow colored headband and you have an ensemble only a drunken circus clown could love.
Then there’s the practically untranslatable mumbling brought on by decades of substance abuse. I think Keith actually has his own language! Keith speak! I saw a Stones concert on HBO where Keith took over the stage for about 20 minutes. Aside from when he was singing, I didn’t understand a bloody word! Not one!
And you know what? It works! He’s Keith and there’s no two ways about it. No padding, no spinning, no dolling it up for public consumption. He’s 100% himself and damn proud of it, thank you very much!
As we should all be. How many times do we water ourselves down to fit in? Probably more than we’d like to admit. By doing this, we become sellouts. Be yourself! Unashamed, unabashed. Be like Keith!

Lesson#2: Don’t care what others think.
Seriously, if Keith cared about what others thought for one nano second do you think he would be like he is? If anyone's opinion mattered don’t you think he’d look in the mirror and think “(insert favorite expletive)...I’m a bloody freak!” and immediately hire a fashion consultant and speech therapist? Fact is, he doesn’t care. Not one bit. He’s 100% Keith. Imagine a world where we all allowed ourselves this freedom? How colorful and wonderfully weird life would be!

Lesson #3: Do your thing, do it well, do it with passion. As I’m reading this Q&A with Keith (or “Keef” as the web page says) I got a real sense that Keith loves, cares, and is truly passionate about what he does. It’s not just rock and roll on auto pilot for him. H e loves playing guitar and writing music. He does it all the time. Guitars are scattered about his home in case inspiration hits. He wanders around carrying a guitar so he can plop down when the mood hits him and start to play. It’s not about writing the next radio friendly Stones hit. It’s not about making enough money to buy the next mansion. It’s about the passion and joy of the pursuit of writing and performing great music.
Day to day we all get bored with our jobs. I bet even Keith has days like that. I’m lucky in that I’ve got a great job that I love. I get to create and teach art for a living. But even my passion for it sometimes wanes, making it easy to drift into drudgery. We all need to sustain that passion to do what we do and do it well. It may not even be work! It may be a hobby. Whatever it is, we need to pursue it with all our might! Damn the torpedos and full speed ahead! Don’t just do to get by! Do to make something great!
Just like Keith...

Lesson #4, the last and greatest: No regrets! Keith, for all of us that have followed the career of the Stones know, has had an interesting and wild life. He’s ingested more drugs and alcohol than the population of a small country. He’s been arrested, sent to jail, and done a host of really stupid things. When asked if he had any regrets he said...
“None.”
He admitted to making mistakes but it was all just part of the journey. "What’s done is done, get over it, learn, move on." is the Keith way. I tend to beat myself up over the asinine things I’ve done in my past. What has all this angst done for me? Nothing. Make amends where we wrong others, realize our stupidity, learn from it, then cast it to the winds and move on. Never to look back. Never again to regret. Just like Keith.

It’s amazing what you can learn from a weather rock star, isn't’ it? Thanks for the lessons Keith!

Oil Execs and the fiasco in congress

It's that time of year again. The time where big oil makes record profits, the people get outraged and congress, in feigned concern, hauls the big oil executives to the capitol for answers.

Let the dog and pony show commence! Way to go Senator Boxer! That Kinkos created graphic will really show them who's boss! I can see them cowering in fear over the might of the "urgings" made by other congressional members! I'm sure the multi-billionaire oil executives will take your advice to heart senators!

Big oil defends its profits, congressional members make recommendations, and everybody leaves with nothing accomplished and nothing changed.

It's all just a lot of PR and posturing for the next election anyway, isn't it? It's a useless exercise where the democrats and republicans grandstand to impress their constituents. This constituent isn't impressed. Not one bit.

The problem of big oil uber profits and the gouging of the public won't be solved by an impotent congressional meeting. Bottom line is that the questions the congress should be asking (see CNN article here: http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/07/news/economy/oil_questions/index.htm ) wont' get asked. Nothing significant will be done for fear of rocking the boat and taking unpopular stances that the senator's latest polls indicate won't get them re-elected.

I'm all for companies making profits. I'm a capitalist at heart and see nothing wrong with a company making money off of a good product. Like the Apple iPod. It's a bit pricey compared to other music players ($300 for the new 30gb model). It's also packed full of more features and bells and whistles than the average player plus it's got a superior interface and design. The quality of the product makes the extra money spent worth it to me. Imagine if iPods were the only music players out there! It might be complete crap and the price could still be astronomical!

As we all know by now the problem with big oil is choice. As the public we have no real choice. Gas prices are consistently high no matter what station we go to. We buy gas because we have to. We have to get to work. We have to run errands. We have to live our lives.

With no real choice, what are we going to do when gas goes up to $4 a gallon or more? Nothing. Just continue to buy gas and watch the executives get richer and richer on our dime. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the oil companies know this. We will continue to be gouged, and they will continue to be rich.