I never saw the good side of the city til I hitched a ride on a riverboat queen. (Day 199)

Artist - Ike & Tina Turner (cover song, originally done by Creedence Clearwater Revival.)

Song - Proud Mary

Album - Proud Mary: The Best of Ike & Tina Turner.





This song is what music should embody at all times. Unbridled passion and soul. Tina turner has one of those voices that can cut you to the core of your being, and she could probably do it singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

This song gets me to thinking. I've lived in this city most of my life, and I've pretty much written it off as a small town trap not worth an ounce of salt in the ocean. But so many people have made this town an extension of themselves. Generation after generation resides here, and everyone knows this history of everyone else.

While I know this country was built on that very ideal, it's that characteristic that drives me to the brink of insanity.

I want to live in a city you have to work hard at to get to know anyone.

I want life to be that way. If I were to meet someone and we struck it off well, I'd want to keep that person in my life until one of us croaks quite honestly.

See I'm lucky to know people who can encounter the darkest trials that could possibly be thrown at them and still march forward defiantly and claim their lives back.

Welcome to the river, we're gonna keep on rolling on a river.

Despite what currents can be thrown at someone, it's almost an art form to be able to look life directly in the eye, and spit in that same optical receptor.

You look across the world and right now a lot of people are hearing about places they never realized truly existed. Take Tehran, Iran for example.

For the past 8 years most American's have kept a hairy eyeball on that country because we were told to believe that there was nothing there but sand and terrorists. Yet these people now flood us with images of heroic beings, everyday people (Such as Neda) and it stirs something deep inside a lot of us.

There's not much difference between Iran and America. Both lived (and in Iran's case) lived under a Presidency that was spotty at best. Our representatives have given us black eyes, and we've both strived for change. And seeing images of bloody descenders wakes up the ire in a lot of us American's because we can relate. Enough so that we'd take to the streets. A principle we have deeply imbued in us, to rise up and fight when things disgust us on a level so unimaginable that we'd collectivley march with people who are pretty much strangers...

And that makes me wonder why so many people, Conservitives especially, wish to shut down the boarders to keep people from escaping a dreadful life to build a new one in a land of opportunity, where as the land prior was one that might as well display a caste system as it's main tourist attraction. Where else can you go and barter for a donkey show, chicklets and an 8-ball for under 50 dollars? You can sell people for colorfull blankets.

And that surprises me that we'd turn down people floating on a raft in tretourus waters to escape a land that doesn't provide a future they feel is bright.

"They're taking our jobs."

Probably not. But if that's the case, why shouldn't we shut down every border between States as well? How many people transfer to new positions in Cleveland after having worked in Biloxi for x amount of years? Is it that improbable that someone already in that city is more than qualified for that position?

But we fight. Some battles we shouldn't, some battles we should. It just takes so much time to discover which battles we should fight. Following your heart is the most romantic idealization of the fight, but the thing is...sometimes our hearts don't know jack.

So it boils down to the human condition, spirit and will to survive. Mixtures of both heart and mind (while often favoring one more than the other) and knowing when to take a calculated risk versus taking a hasty risk...

You just have to fight. Despite differences, most people have one thing in common: the desire to rise above and be something better than the generation before them and lay a better path for their predecessors than what they had.

So keep on rolling.

-Until tomorrow.