Growing up most kids have superhero’s they idolize and aspire to be like. Batman, Superman. GI Joe. Astronauts, Race car drives and Knight Rider. Navy seals, Cowboys, Detectives, cops, and Spies. Even Indiana Jones, or Luke Skywalker were heros in the struggle of good vs evil . My hero, or idol, as in the person I aspired to be like to keep the world safe (#38 aside) was MacGyver. Angus MacGyver as portrayed by Richard Dean Anderson in the show of the same name was a hero, but also kind of an anti-hero. The heroic self sacrificing part was there, but not the overt strength, and thirst for danger. If anything Mac was always stumbling into bad situations on accident. An accidental hero who really just wants to take a nap, eat a veggie burger and play hockey, Monday’s at 8/7 central on ABC. 
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This one will be short and sweet. My first “friends” that I can actually remember were Mitchell and Matthew Brownfield. They were twins. Identical twins. Which means I got 2 friends for the price of one. 
So here we have the first 40 for 40 that was an original 30 for 30. I think what I said in the 30 for 30 pretty much stands up for the last 10 years. Of course there was a recent surge of Jordan hysteria thanks to the recent Last Dance documentary on ESPN. I watched the 10 part series as religiously and as excitedly as anyone. But while the miniseries was billed as “never before seen inside look at Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls,” I’m not sure I actually learned anything new. Growing up I read every Michael Jordan biography, basketball card, and magazine article. I watched every highlight video and documentary. I actually was hoping to learn more about the other Bulls in the documentary. I learned things about Pippen, Rodman, Kukoc, and Kerr. But all the Jordan stuff was pretty much old news. Except for the flu game actually being bad pizza/food poisoning, that I had not heard before. I was kind of bored and disappointed at the supposed controversies and conversations after each episode. 
Everyone always has a “best friend.” That one person you identify above all others. And it has no objective criteria. It doesn’t have to be your oldest friend, or the friend you have known the longest, or the person you have the most in common with. It doesn’t even mean the person you trust the most as plenty of best friends exist in kind of a hazy rivalry and exploitation territory were, where you expect them to take your money, steal your girlfriend/boyfriend, and leave you hanging in a Mexican Jail cell, and then simultaneously expect they would take a bullet for you or cut off a foot a la Saw for you and so you trust them with your life, even though you may not trust them with anything else. Usually forged by random circumstances and chance encounters, there is no rhyme or reason for any particular pairing. Best friends are Best friends, period. My Best Friend is Casey Richard. Now the temptation for me here is to just start telling stories from our childhood together. Particularly ones that are cherry picked to embarrass him, which is exactly what Casey did for his best man toast at my wedding. But my intention here is to demonstrate the profound impact my Best Friend has had on the first 40 years of my life,........... and embarrass him in the process. 
Growing up as a kid in the 80’s I pretty much had no choice but to become a He-man fan. Thanks to the culture of cartoons and the billion dollar (Even in 80’s terms, hate to think what the numbers would be in today’s terms, accounting for inflation) toy market, He-man was literally designed as the bait in a trap for young boys like me. Through the cartoons, comics, books, bed sheets, movies and every other avenue possible He-man and the masters of the Universe was broadcast into my awareness and I of course was powerless to resist. Now days, “the product is the marketing” and every detail of a product is designed and tailored to a specific demographic. But before He-man is was kind of the other way around. People created movies or books or what ever, and then they had to find ways to make them into toys and find ways to appeal to the general population. Star Wars was the quintessential example and it was The fact that Mattel passed on making Star Wars toys that led them to invent a line of toys and media they could mass market. And the result was He-man and the Masters if the Universe. This was a product line designed specifically to ensnare me, the little American boy, and ensnare me it did! 
Hands down, without a doubt; the funniest, most entertaining, easy going, laugh a minute, fun to be around person I have ever known is Carlos Cruz. No one ever laughed harder, or more inappropriately than the collective crowd surrounding Carlos Cruz at any given moment, except for maybe Carlos himself. My sense of humor has always been described as “dry.” I have no idea what that means, but if that is true, then Carlos’s sense of humor must be dripping “Wet.” We could not be more different in terms of our styles of humor. And that is why I always secretly thought we could of been a smash comedy team. The reinvention of Abbot and Costello, or at least Farley and Spade. I would obviously be the straight man. And Carlos would just be hilarious. 
So the whole reason I am endeavoring to do this 40 for 40 is because I did not complete my planned 30 for 30 before my 30th birthday. I had started a count down from 30 about 6 weeks from my birthday and made it to #23 before the whole project was completely abandoned and forgotten. The reason it was abandoned was I got a job. It was my first real job.” I know I was almost 30 and never had a real job? Yeah, the truth be told I had been in and out of school so often through my 20’s that I had never had the time or opportunity to move into anything more than entry level employment. I had worked my way through grad school doing the graveyard shift at a hote, get off at 7am, and then I’d race to class or my internship by 8am. Before that I worked as a janitor at the school, or I worked Security swing shift (I know, me, working security, it doesn’t make sense. I couldn’t believe they actually hired me. I was totally riot fodder). I tried selling cars for a very short period of time. I worked a summer at the book bindery. You see my undergraduate college education was about 1 thing and 1 thing only and I will exhaust you with that story in the Future. But the point is I didn’t have any career Plans or aspirations until after grad school. So my first real J.O.B. was when I started as a counselor at Boys and Girls Town of Missouri on February 28th, 2011.   An executive, be it a ceo, a principal, a nonprofit director or any other top person in charge, usually fullfills 2 main responsibilities... 1 is to Enforce Policy so that it is followed throughout the agency. 2 is to Bring in New Money. Fundraise, negotiate new contracts, solicit donations, find new revenue streams, etc. So when I think of it that way, sales and discipline, it sounds awful. Does this apply to being president of the United States? I always hear that there is no real job description for president, but at the same time we think executive experience is one of the top qualifications for the job. Does the president enforce laws? I guess that is what signing a bill means.... The president is accepting the obligation for the government to enforce the new law. Does the president make the country money? Republicans must thinks so, because that has basically been every republican politician's entire platform ever. More money will solve most republican problems (except for the moral issues, like abortion and marriage). There are trade agreements and embargoes and tariffs and what not, but is getting new money a real objective of a president? If you think of it for any country other than the USA the answer is definitely yes, be it humanitarian aid or just opening up new markets. It only seems less of an issue in America because we have had the world’s dominant economy for a while. However, it does take effort to stay on top. So there it is. Even after all our years of work towards equality of the sexes and woman occupying more corporate leadership positions, the model for high level executives is expected to be disciplinarian and breadwinner, straight out of classic male stereotype gender roles from the 50’s. The most important, highest valued, most acclaimed, esteemed and top compensated job is being a "Dad."  Happy Fathers Day! |
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