John Joyce

There’s been a lot of talk going on lately about there being too much talking going on. But who is saying anything worth listening to? Politicians are sound-byting each other to death, the pre-Superbowl coverage was fraught with analysts over-analyzing one another’s analysis, and the Mob Wives are threatening to cut the Basketball Wives and the Housewives of whatever city they are in this week.

Now more than ever, we all need someone we can talk to. In between the mocking and bullying that passes these days for social networking and the texting so many of us are doing while driving, no wonder nobody wants to hear anyone talk to them in person.

There’s the rub, though. No one is truly communicating anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want her talking while I’m watching SportsCenter or the game, or even the post-game for that matter. But men if we don’t listen to our women once in a while, we won’t have anyone to shush while Sir Charles is making fun of Kenny and Shaq!

Besides that, they don’t want us to solve their problems anyway. Trust me. She just wants you to listen while she tells you every detail of her day including who said what to whom with the full names, titles and proximity in which they each where to her when it happened, whatever happened. Who cares?! She’s going to tell you again anyway and force you to listen when her sister calls and recounts the entire…(sigh).

You have to admit, though, it can be pretty aggravating when they turn mute toward us. All of a sudden, we feel a mixture of guilt and helplessness and an eagerness to please. Sooner or later, all talk ceases, the passion follows and the hollowness is all that’s left when the door slams and locks behind her.

Ok, so we’re not all single. Maybe the early spring-like weather has warmed my sentiments a bit. But a comedy of errors can quickly turn to tragedy when a person feels consistently misunderstood. I have friends who are dealing with some issues now that range in severity from loneliness to the loss of loved ones. The economy is bogged down, and the contempt for the institution of the government is at an all-time high. The political rhetoric that passes for discourse in the current election cycle has turned us all a touch more cynical. And we still have to trudge to work, navigate our income-to-debt ratios, and find the means and the time to eat food that won’t cut our life spans short by 20 years.

Is there hope? Can we maintain civility long enough to find our way back to positivity? Not to advocate faith in an imposing sense of grandiosity, but we need a little more compassion in our conversation. So full of pomp and circumstance are the most mundane modern behaviors that a simple discussion of relevance or substance is scoffed at as a waist of time. If we touched one another a fraction of the amount of time we spend tapping the keys of technology in our attempts at self-expression, we might find the world a more comfortable and welcoming place to inhabit.

People who talk too much are usually either crying out for attention or telling you something you might be resistant to hearing. Either way it might serve us well to listen more and talk less. I did so recently and was blessed with a gift I had no idea I was in need of. It cost her nothing and took no time, but I was instantly grateful. I didn’t even ask for it. I was just sitting there, and she gave me two laughs and a smile.

John Joyce

A series of elephant speakers are converging on a college-campus for a fracas! They will be smashing their faces together in death-gripped grimaces of disgust and contempt for one-another’s behemoth egos and pompous attitudes. A circus blew through town last week, maybe that’s when they escaped. Snuck out the back of a trailer and climbed into tour buses headed for a grand old party (also known as a “donkey-bash”) on the property of a public university! I wonder who they’re going to get to clean that?

This epidemic of rampant tusk-wielding, trunk trumpeting has already impacted thousands of pedestrians in Iowa, New Hampshire and as near-by as South Carolina.  Pseudo-journalists from every major media network had hoped at least a few of them would get stuck in the mud in the swampy sections of the Carolinian wetlands. Two or three carcasses have already been deposited in the wake of these grey-skinned, stampeding animals.

This just in, a wolf has been tasked with shepherding these bulls in musk into some sense of civility once they are congregated at the school, now identified as the University of North Florida. Lazzara Performance Hall. Fine Arts Center. A media blitz will ensue as soon as the spectacle of the dusty floor-scrapping trunk scuffling begins, exactly 8p.m. Speculators estimate it will take two hours before any one of them might be killed off, wounded past the point of continuing, or they get so bored donkey-kicking the competition that they’ll simple bugger off and reconvene somewhere as far south as Tampa after grazing for a day or two. I wish the wolf luck after the last two charged with his task, Juan and John, were roughed up.

The largest of them, dubbed “Newt” in the infinite wisdom of modern oxy-moronic entertainment-news peddlers, is apparently the pack leader and has been showing a blatant disregard for women, children and darker-skinned persons that can only be assumed he is confusing for an inferior species. He’s wreaked most of his havoc in the poorer sections of town allowing his would-be wranglers to take somewhat of a laissez-faire approach to corralling him and his pack of stump stompers.

Battling “Newt” for dominance of the herd is the smaller yet greedier rogue they’ve named “Mitt”. This far more treacherous and stone-faced gargantuan seems more docile, but elephant hunters across the country warn he’s already destroyed factories and office parks in numerous cities and towns most of us have never even heard of. One public disservice announcement whose makers, oddly enough not thought to have coordinated with “Newt”, says that “Mitt” even ravaged his own quarters once and was forced to find bigger accommodations. Curse the circus that taught these animals to drive and make television commercials!

Rounding out the pack is the runt more affectionately called “Paul”, who’s shown moments of toughness but, along with being the daintier of the beasts, is also the oldest. Elephants are famous for their wisdom, but the headstrong “Newt” and the plundering “Mitt” consistently disregard the elder “Paul”.  It’s a wonder he’s kept up his share of the rampage this long, although pictures of him and sound-bytes of his muted trumpet calls are wildly popular with the savage surveillance squads of the Internet safari-land.

The remaining thunder foot was thought to have fallen behind the pack, but new information shows he has caused the most damage in Iowa where the pachyderm-driven pandemonium began. His name is “Santorum”, and do not dare underestimate this sweater-vest costumed circus ring escapee.

Snookie, Pauly D, Mike ‘The Situation” and all the rest of the notoriously famous cast of Jersey Shore are highly recognizable to millions of young Americans. What about names like Joe Biden, Alvin Brown, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich? Do these names hold value in comparison to the inebriated rendezvous of the exceedingly tan persons who dictate the happenings of some college student’s Jersday night?

Last week the Political Science Society randomly asked over fifty students a series of five questions pertaining to the political eminence of Jacksonville, Florida and the United States as a whole. The questions were asked as follows: 1. Can you name two of the GOP Presidential Candidates? 2. Who is the current Vice President of the United States? 3. Can you name one of Florida’s United States Senators? 4. Who is the current mayor of Jacksonville? 5. What was the year Americans gained Independence?

While, there are some students who can be defined as Fox news junkies or CNN aficionados, yearning for the words of Bill O’Reilly or Piers Morgan every morning with a cup of coffee in one hand and the Jacksonville Times in the other, there is another side of the spectrum containing those who may not know the answers to these unadorned questions. Should they?

The results of the poll are nothing less than unfortunate. With the GOP Primaries looming around the corner, results plastered on news channels active throughout the United States and the flimsy signs lining countless roads, it is no surprise that the majority of students answered question number one correctly: forty-three named at least two of the candidates while nine could not. Quite possibly, not everyone is interested in the political intentions of the red elephant race, but the results to question two are suggestive otherwise: only thirty-eight students could name the current Democratic Vice President while a disappointing fourteen could not. Question number three had a notable information lapse: only twenty-six students could name one of the United States Senators of Florida and an equal twenty-six could not. The answers to question four were considerably the most dismal, Alvin Brown, alumni to Jacksonville University, rendered unmemorable to nineteen students and only retraceable to thirty-three. Only thirty-five of the fifty-two students polled were able to acknowledge, the seemingly common fact that American Independence was established in 1776.

It is questionable whether or not a symposium on the importance of political and historical American ideals would render helpful in the wake of these unfortunate results, but what can be certain is that there is a lack of severity and concern among students. Answers like “I don’t care” and “American Independence was in 1886” are not only disappointing, but they can be calamitous. With the gargantuan debt and forever climbing unemployment rate, college students are a generation who one would think should be especially concerned. For some, graduation is farther around the corner, for others it will arrive quickly. On either account, the murky outlook of acquiring an occupation should be motivation enough to care on some level about the elected officials affecting students’ everyday lives. If not, the toned, tanned and crisp t-shirt life is relatively undemanding and entails no considerable amount of talent to acquire.

John Joyce

Life. Risk. Clue? Many of us played these games as children, some of us as adults. We continue to play them long after the boards and pieces have been tucked away and forgotten, the application of early life lessons in family, goal setting and strategy, deductive reasoning.

“That’s an interesting idea. I’ve been trying to put something like that together myself. We should talk.”

“We’re talking…”.

So went a recent conversation I had with a new acquaintance at a party I recently attended. The seeds of entrepreneurship fall all around us.

Midway through my senior year of college I am now experiencing a perception shift reminiscent of a John Woo or Martin Scorsese camera shot. Recall the “Goodfellas” scene where Henry and Karen enter the Copa through the kitchen; at its time, it is the longest single-camera shot in cinematic history.

I have, as my father likes to caution those in need of mentoring, spent too much time driving the car while looking in the rearview mirror. People like metaphors. People like my father.

Hindsight is 20/20, but the scene becomes monotonous. As I near graduation and will finally see something I began through to fruition, all eyes are on the horizon. It’s not land or the rising sun I seek to find. It’s opportunity I thirst for.

I, like many in this difficult economic landscape, have become parched from the barren wells of missed opportunities and dried up riverbeds of past emotions. I want something fresh, organic. And, like the food in the “natural” sections sprouting up in grocery stores and market places across America, I know its going to cost more than the bargain brand offerings of corporate giants and their mom and pop store fronts that are neither farms nor fresh.

My new friend is a 28 year-old business owner and entrepreneur who hails from Puerto Rico and has found a home for hisself and his start-up on the world-wide market that is the internet. He is not alone, far from it.

More and more young people are skipping college and going straight to the digital boardroom.  I have been hearing lately a growing number of pundits and purveyors of “wisdom” inspiring young adults to forego debt-consuming student loans for an education in life experience. They, mostly conservative talk radio and television hosts, espouse that college professors are hippie liberals who give free grades and teach the impressionable lazy job evaders how to apply for welfare.

Extreme as their stance is, I agree that college, and the seemingly insurmountable debt, is not for everyone. Some are able, and imaginative enough, to start their own companies from scratch and build small empires in relatively short time frames. For each that succeeds, however, thousands flounder.

I have enjoyed the benefit of military service and the college experience, the former having made the latter possible, and for me, affordable. I would not have been able or willing or empowered enough to start my own business straight out of high school or even the Air Force. I needed the maturity and education and mentoring that universities provide; things my new friend and potential business partner did not require.

My shift of focus came later than it would to most, I am aware. Still, there are thousands, maybe millions, of students out there who, at their own pace, are flowering into business moguls and innovators and inventors. We should have means for those who can’t or won’t go to college to find their own path to success. We do. The military, trade schools, entry-level jobs with companies that educate and promote from within provide these kinds of things.

What I have learned is that I will need to work to support myself at a job I may like but not love, until I have poured enough of my own time, sweat and tears (not too much blood if I can prevent it) into my passion until it becomes profitable. That is the American spirit and rugged individualism in practice. And I’m fairly liberal.

So, to all my hippie-professors who somehow find the time to turn off the Lennon, put the pot down and their clothes on, and who come to work every day and teach a little bit more than just the curriculum year after year to class after class, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m not on welfare. I’m sorry I’m not afraid to shoot for the dream even though I know most businesses fail in their first year. I apologize that I listened as you talked and learned more than just your last name and grading scale. I took from you all the experiences you carry in your leather attaché case filled with our still ungraded papers and the Grateful Dead sticker on the side. I stole your “wisdom”. I made-off with your hard earned insights and your peace-providing tolerances and those hate-healing methods of encouraging diversity and unity. God forbid, I abscond with a lifetime of racism-free thought and sexism free practices and genderism-free securities and sensibilities.

Oh, and don’t let me and my new friend put our individual and collective entrepreneurial moxie into the heads of our ilk. The 99 percent might start to lose numbers; the one percent could gain neighbors. Perhaps we will inspire enough young people to turn off the talk radio and news abusers and tune in to a PBS or NPR program, or worse yet, to enroll in HWU! What’s that, you ask? Hippie Welfare University, an institution of hired-learning.

Happy Holidays friends, and be safe. We’ll see you again in 2012!

John Joyce

I recall the day Sinatra died. I opened the door to retrieve the paper from the porch. It was seasonably cool. I slid back the plastic sleeve and unfolded the mass of bundled pages and adverts. I read the headline; blinked at the photo. The Chairman of the Board, 82, was no longer with us.

March 10th, 1997. My sister Christine and I had driven up to St. Mary’s, Ga. for the weekend. She would hang with her high school friend Sarah. Sarah’s husband Brian and I would watch football. He snuck me drinks even though I was underage.

I awoke on the floor of Sarah and Brian’s second floor apartment.  The news was on. The night before, in Los Angeles, rapper Notorious B.I.G., real name Christopher Wallace had been gunned-down in an act of street violence.

Other than my two grandmothers’ passing’s-on and that of my Air Force buddy in 2001, no other persons’ passing has ever affected me the way those two icons had. My grandmothers, parents and the rest of the world had been huge fans of Ole Blue Eyes. For my generation, at least those interested in Hip-Hop music and culture, Biggie Smalls was sure to be our “Frankie Baby.”

In the last 48 hours, two other legends of the same respective periods of the former passed away. The 1960’s and 70’s were marred by much controversy and marked by huge talents. One, a boxing legend and cultural-counterpart to the iconic Muhammad Ali, was Smokin’ Joe Frazier, 67. The other, whose career began well before Wallace’s and was on the precipice of resurgence, was Heavy D, 44.

Joe Frazier rose through the ranks of boxing after winning the ’64 Olympic Gold Medal. In 1970 he earned the Heavyweight Championship Title vacated by Muhammad Ali who had his belt stripped for conscientiously objecting to the draft.  Ali would taunt, harass and publically embarrass Frazier at every opportunity from then on until the two fought. And after. Their three bouts are part of boxing lore that harkens to a time when the sport was one of this country’s most revered events. The “Thrilla in Manilla” is a constant slot-filler on ESPN Classics. Kids, run and Youtube that.

Heavy D, a.k.a. Dwight Errington Myers, entered the rap scene around the same time as Parental Advisory for Explicit Lyrics. Yet his weren’t. The “Overweight Lover Emcee” was known for rap songs about relationships. Up-tempo beats and dance moves men similar in size would struggle to pull off made him as easy to poke fun at as he was to fall in love with. He was an entrepreneur, a producer of hits for his group, Heavy D and the Boys, and for others. Hev’ was a friend to contemporaries and fans.

For me, Sinatra and Frazier were icons of a previous generation that felt more like uncles I’d never met. Their legends lasted longer than their active careers and their followings linger today. Biggie (Wallace) and Heavy D (Myers) were guys I grew up listening to, watching and aspiring to one day be like. They were the cool, strong and successful guys whose accomplishments didn’t seem so impossible but would never really be duplicated. Even as teenager I knew this to be true.

Certainly losing my grandparents to cancer impacted me more. And as much as I hate to divulge this, the abrupt death of my friend and fellow Airman Andre has really stayed with me. Hauntingly so. In those I am not alone. I share those burdens with my family and friends. As for Frank, Christopher, Joe and Dwight, legions of fans whether one, a few or of all four will continue to mourn the losses of these men for years and years to come. More sadly still, friends, family and famous icons that might only feel like such will leave us before we, or they, are ready to say goodbye.

But for today, and just for today I choose to remember them each fondly and with love and admiration, and will try to do so tomorrow and the next day as well. One person, one emotion, one day at a time.

John Joyce

College consists of a lot of “B” words. Broke, most specifically! But seriously, you’ve got books and book-bags, or backpacks depending on where you are from. You’ve got brothers and sisters for fraternities and sororities, boxes in your dorm room and big stacks of homework. Bothersome room mates. A bunch of debt from all the money you have to borrow.

There are beautiful women and big men on campus, a budget you can’t seem to stick to. Then there’s the bathroom some one else is always in but no one ever wants to clean. By the way, who is the bozo passed out in the bathtub? Which reminds me…beer. Lots of beer.

Maybe you have a bike, which means you’ll be looking for a bike rack close to class and a bust-proof lock.  You’ve got a busy schedule with a bunch to do and only a little bit of time left to get it done before it’s late. That’ll bring your “A” average down to a, you guessed it, “B”.  Ok, that was a stretch; it’s been a long day.

On top everything else, you are trying to be the best you can be to broaden your horizons and land that big post-grad job you’ve been dreaming of. Grad school looms if you want that MBA or masters of whatever you’ve been studying.

Half way through the semester and you begin thinking about break, spring, Christmas, summer or what-have-you. You haven’t been home in a while but the beach is calling your name, bikinis and board-shorts, boogie-boards…and beer. Lots of beer.

Break up with the boyfriend or girlfriend before your trip, during or after? Better believe it because if you haven’t proposed yet he or she had better be going with you.  Otherwise, see above.

Better call home and tell Mom how you’ve been doing before another week goes by.

Now you have to adjust that budget for your travel plans which means you will need a part-time gig. Tend bar? Bus or wait tables? Rental cars cost money. Budget, Hertz or Avis? Big body or compact?

Ok, back to work. You’ve got a bibliography to complete and the big game is this weekend. Basketball, football, the NCAA and the BCS. Maybe you can beg your professor for an extension or blow off a night at the bar and finish the paper then. Blood pressure.

The neighbor is beating on the wall again because your bass is bumping too hard and the books are falling of his shelf. Bet that’s the first time he’s seen the inside of ‘em since he bought them.

You get bombarded with texts from busy-bodies in your business, emails with a bunch of spam that bypass your junk folder to your in-box, all on a smart phone with a boat load of apps you bought but never use. By the end of each day you are burnt out, ready to break down and wanting to ball your eyes out. But you don’t. You buck up, buckle down and burn the midnight oil until daybreak begins again

College is a pain in the butt, but it beats flippin’ those burgers you swear you’re going to stop binging on. The Battle of the Bulge went straight from Bastogne to your bathroom scale. Hey look at that, you learned something after all.  Bet you’re pretty proud of yourself now. Beaming!

Time for a beer. Lots of beer.