The Ragbag of My Mind

I am reading Steve Martin's autobiography, Born Standing Up. It is interesting because Steve Martin is interesting. Parts of it are very amusing because Steve Martin is funny. It's a little suspenseful, because I keep waiting for the part where he talks about the woman he is destined to meet and marry because then he'll be talking about me but I haven't gotten there yet.

The book is highly readable and interesting from a pop cultural perspective. But it is missing one thing I've come to expect from Steve Martin in the printed word...poetry. Or, if there is poetry it is a phrase tucked in among the recounting of names, places and ideas. I'm not complaining, because it's still Steve Martin and therefore well written.

Last night, though, I read something that made me stop and read again. Then I read it one more time and then I turned down the corner of the page so I could come back to it and it is this:

"The consistent work enhanced my act. I learned a lesson: It was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical: Like lucky cards in poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be good, consistently good, night after night, no matter what the abominable circumstances".

And I thought, wow. Isn't that just a general lesson for life? "It is easy to be great...what is hard is to be good, consistently good"... I think I'm going to put that up over my desk.

Everyone knows that feeling of hitting it out of the park; thinking specifically of blogging, we've all had those days of 100 hits (or 1000, depending on who you are), of rafts of comments left saying, 'oh, my but you are brilliant!' and it feels great. But, yeah, that whole notion of "great" as a statistical fact versus the challenging of effort of striving to be "consistently good"...that has some wheels turning. And it applies to everything, not just comedy or blogging, lest you think I missed my own point.

"Consistently good"... gonna be sitting with that one for a while.

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I realized last night what I am loving most about this election cycle: it's a free-for-all. In a good way. It isn't often that we have an election where there is no incumbent on either side and it's been even longer, I think, since we've seen a cycle without an "heir apparent".

Consequently, we do not know what is going to happen from week to week...Barack in Iowa, Hillary in New Hampshire...hey, Edwards could win South Carolina...we just don't know. And good on Clinton for winning last night. But the 3 point margin by which she won over Obama suggests that she's not going to be coasting into the White House. No, pups, we've got a 3 way race on the Democratic side and part of what is awesome is that it is reflective of a very important fact, one we have not enjoyed for many a year: we have 3 strong candidates in the front-runner position and most Democrats would be perfectly content with either of them.

Hello? How long has it been since you felt excited, truly excited, about your candidate? (Sure, Bill. How far back do you have to go to find someone else? Yeah, see, most of you weren't even born yet).

On the GOP side we have the same thing. And pardon my mess, but I'm just giddy about McCain's victory. "Que?" says you. A) I have always liked John McCain. I hate his position on the war and I would never vote for him but 2) anyone who hands another "silver" to Mitt Romney is OK in my book. Mitt Romney makes my skin crawl, in a "maggots on the garbage can lid" sort of way. I would love to see a back and forth between Huckabee and McCain...it would only take a few weeks I suspect, and Mitt would go away. (Oh, wait. Forgot about the fact that he's loaded and could probably finance his own campaign up until the convention. Shoot. I want to be shod of him).

Yep, I love this wonky stuff.

OH! and there was this analysis sort of thing going on at NPR last night and the question went to why all the enthusiasm and the huge turnouts among Democrats and blah, blah, blah and they were talking about what Clinton has and what Obama has blah blah blah and I thought, "Ding, dong! The enthusiasm and high turnout owe to the fact that we're sick to death of what has happened in this country over the last 7 years and we want it the h-e-double hockey sticks to change, ya morons". Only I didn't actually think they were morons because it was NPR we are talking about. But still. Seriously.

And you know me...we could go on and on like this for days but I have a client today so must away.

Go out there and be consistently good.