I have accepted the fact that one of my baseball heroes, Berry Bonds, is a roid'r. Even though he never tested positive for performance enhancing drugs, he did admit to unknowingly using them. Then some guys says "hey, he told me he was using them" and the U.S. Senate wants him in jail for perjury and he is dead in the court of public opinion.

Now my man Clemens is accused of using steroids and he says "I never tested positive and it's not true" and everyone says that's cool; Roger Clemens could never have used drugs.

This is nothing but racism in sports at its worst. Black athletes catch about all of our touchdowns, hit most home runs, jump out of the gym in basketball, and if more black people lived up north, I'm sure that they would be shooting our goals on the ice too. White men are quickly becoming a minority in sports. Those few white dominate athletes that are left are the poster boys for suburban America, while we are looking for any reason to trash fine black men who have done nothing wrong. They are sport's workhorses, and scapegoats.

Who cares that when all other pitchers were aging and losing speed (and games), Roger Clemens was actually getting better. So he is doing amazing things when most people his age in baseball are waiting for their turn in Cooperstown. Clemens was a skinny pitcher for the Red Sox when I was little, throwing his little heart out just like skinny old Barry was hitting home runs in Pittsburgh. Now look at both of them. They are monsters, huge men doing things that should not be possible. Are they evolutions of humans? No, they are machines fueled by the public's need for greater and greater achievement (and roids).

But why is Barry possibly looking at jail time while Clemens is looking at retirement and a tribute for his career on an ESPN special? Clemens is a user, mark my words, as well as half of baseball. He should be standing with Barry pointing the real finger, at the league's insistence on home runs and 95 mph pitches. Selig didn't care how that came about as long as it put butts in the seats until the Grand Jury started asking questions. Bud Selig is the criminal here, not Barry Bonds, and I hope Clemens gets every bit of what Bonds did. He's not a role model: he's a coward.

     Driving along in my automobile.  My good friend at the wheel.  That was fun, but seriously.  Dave and I were heading to the gym the other day when a Sum 41 song came on.  "God, I can't stand them anymore."  I said.  "Yeah, I really feel like I need more mature lyrics." said Dave. 

     Holy crap!  Has it happened?  I contemplated this statement for a second.  "Yeah", I thought, "I just can't relate to what they're singing about."  And it then hit me that it had happened.  I am getting old.  The fast "I hate school, and my parents, and the jocks in school, hell yeah, yeah yeah yeah" I just can't relate to them anymore.  I don't hate my parents, and I love school, and I haven't thought about highschool for so long.  That angst I felt as a teenager, that feeling that I didn't belong, and "you can't keep me down!" is all but a distant memory.  The fast agressive lyrics of my favorite punk bands I enjoy now simply for nastalgia sake, and not because they have real meaning to me. 

     If we can no longer relate to youth just 4 years out of highschool, then are we all really doomed to become our un-cool, out of touch parents? 

     Remember way back when: life in high school seemed so simple.  Study hard, and make sure to have enough extra-curricular activities and volunteer hours.  Then you'll get into a good school.  You will meet a girl, or boy, or both (it is 2006), you will fall in love and get married.  You'll finish school and then a great job will fall into your lap.  A nice house and children will follow.

     Now that we are all graduating however, reality is setting in.  We don't know what we want to do.  Those people that we fell in love with, now we have to work and we don't have time for them.  That American dream never really surfaced.  We are lost when everything was suppose to be coming together.  The end of college isn't the beginning of our lives, it's the end of our innocence.  The end of naivety. 

     My mother still pounds in my head that college will open doors and greatly increases your income, which I know to be truth.  It has greatly open my eyes to all kinds of new ideas and lifestyles.  I love college: the problem is finishing college.  Then what?  My best options that I can come up with all include going back to college.  With no real relationship in sight and no idea what I am going to do careerwise, I, along with a number of friends and family members am officially freaking out. 

     What will become of us?  Or is the truth that we are the future, so what will become of America?  We are the middle chidren of history.  We have to common cause, no rally point, no moral ground that we all want to climb.  We are just wondering trying to find our place.  This is a cry for someone out there to stand up and be my hero (though Matt Janzen is currently my hero).  Not just my hero, but a hero to us all.  J.F.K, Martin Luther King, hell, I'd even take Ronald Regan.  Give me something to believe in, before we all start beliveing in mediocrity...

     The return to Denver and to normality.  Normality?  Maybe that isn't the word.  The thing that I learned while being away all summer (Did anyone know I was gone lol) is that there is no such thing as normal.  Everyone who I met this summer who would appear to be "normal" would pull something out on me.  Even those people who strove for that title were just hiding the truth of their uniqueness.

     The pursuit of normality is really what sets people apart.  There are those that try so hard to get there, buy the clothes read the books and have the job.  But then you are only normal in that group of people that you are working towards.  The suits will think that your are an ant, the punks will think you are a loser, the families will think you are a pity, and the truth will know you are lying. 

     I will write for men, because I don't know what it is like to be a woman.  America has stolen our masculinity.  Our society has trained boys to be like girls.  Running and jumping and hitting in school is punished while being quite and controlled, like all the girls, is rewarded.  Normal...  Go to school, get to college, find a girl, make a family.  Be a nice guy.  Normal is nice.  I have seen the fearlessness in men this summer.  I have seen their desire to be dangerous, courageous.  But their women sit there and make sure their men are nice. 

     I'm calling to all the men out there to return to our normalcy; lets become men again.  We are all wild at heart and I know you can feel it.  Great men are not nice, they were not well behaved; they are bold and dangerous; dangerous to the rules of our society.  Forget what you have learned and face your fears and don't be afraid to fail and fail again and fail and fail, because true failure isn't not succeeding, it's not trying.  It's tucking tail and running to what is safe: a job that your not happy with, but what pays the bills, a girl you don't really love but who you know wont leave you. That is failure.

     Go and run to what you love.  Seek that job you've always wanted.  Pursue that girl you've always loved, and don't stop pursuing her, ever.  "Always do what you love, desires revels design: design revels destiny."  Lay your armor down, swallow your pride and never stop seeking what you truly love.  Find your hearts again.  Face the wound that made you think you weren't good enough for what you wanted and fight it until you are good enough.  Then you will feel normal.  Then you will feel like you fit in because you will finally be yourself.  Then the world will fit in around you. 

     "Don't ask what the world needs, instead ask yourself what makes you feel alive, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

     Many of you might have seen the T.V. show call to greatness.  It is pretty rad, but we are going one step further.  Dave Boche and I are anouncing to all able individuals out there to come and join actual greatness. 

     We are jet-setting this city on August 15th of two thousand and six to become legends in our own time.  The highest moutnains, the biggest roallercoasters, the scariest hounted mansions, the higest cliff dives, will be no match for this group of rag tag individuals.  If you desire to be part of the "most" epic jouney ever, than please do respond.

     There are a couple of rules; a, you must wear epic sunglasses such as aviators, b, head and wrist bands are a must.   For one week in August, we will not be ordianry road trippers: we will be legends.

     On a side note: I am leaving Denver in seventeen hours to go to Buena Vista, Colorado for the summer.  I will be a raft guide for Performance Tours which is the coolest raft company.  If you are looking for something to do this summer, do call me and set up a raft trip.  303-547-7375.  I will miss everyone and look foward to seeing you up there.  Have a great summer ya'll!!!  (If I didn't get to hang out with you before I left I am super sorry, I have been ridiculously busy the last few weeks)