Just Do It

so i'm working on a new piece of music. a song that requires a lot of work and thought and i'm actually figuring out what notes i want and there is this whole intricate side of this particular piece. work - real and actual work - not the kind of music i normal make - not the familair "it just poured out of me" sort of music. what i'm doing today is what i usually run away from. i like easy, i like it fell from the sky, i like it when the sounds just pour out.


but i'm taking a break because i've realized i need to create this piece in a different sequence and i'd really like carl's help in getting the microphone right and the levels correct. this all at the end of a day where i attacked several other projects and while i am not happy with those results so much i still made an effort to make things the way i wanted them, and now it all just needs a little tweaking.


this all comes after a summer of what i consider dragging my ass - i've done tons of tiny things but no real projects - not much painting, no new music, just fiddling with things and wasting time. i'm very good at wasting time. and i seem to live in this odd fantasy world of nothing ever changing - time does not move forward, even though my hair is grey and we've planted 2 summers worth of veggie gardens in the new house. time does not go this fast - even though it's been 3 years now since i was in portland last visiting friends who in my head still live in the same places and know the same folks, and yet the city changes every day and many of the places i saw and people i met are not there anymore. it's a time warp - it is a refusal to admit that a day will come where i am dead and gone, and before that comes there will be a day when my eyes quit working, and before that the arthritis will stop me from painting or playing my guitar. i live in eternal avoidance of those thoughts and actions - i will never get old, my friends will never get old, my siblings will not pass before me because they will not pass. i am in denial at the passing of time.


and it is the passing of time that i wirte about today, and again about an iconic advertsing slogan. one known the world over. one known for a simple little mark, a little swoosh of a trademark.


nike.


one of the world's largest and most well known of all brand names and trademarks. a multi-billion dollar corporation known not just for the folks who wear it but for the kids who sew it. yes, the world's largest companies often employ child labor, and extremely poor people, and do not pay them near enough for them to even imagine escaping from the confines they are in. we all know this - everyone who wears nike anything who has a conscience knows this - all you people who eat organic, buy local, eat whole fresh foods and avoid canned tomatoes - you live with thoughtfulness on every level, including your intense love of physical activity - running, biking, jogging, playing any myriad of sports - you know this practice is so commonplace we cannot avoid it. so you wear nike. it's a good brand. they are well made. they look cool. when you are sweating on the basketball court and trying to win that bet against your buddy so he has to buy beers at the bar  you do not think of the poor and the under privilidged, or the children, who made the shoes on your feet. you just want to win.


nike. known world over. hugely famous. a ridiculously wealthy company who has one of the best slogans you could ever come up with. the words i thought of today while i was painting and working on music. while i was lamenting ove this odd avoidance phobia i seem to have (well, i know i most certainly have) and the slogan was right there - right on the tip of my tongue.


just do it.


just do it. 3 simple words that have propelled a million atheletes into giving their best, giving their all, or at least getting off the couch. 3 words that will, for my entire lifetime, be associated with the nike brand. with the idea, ie the dream, that anything is possible, and therefor you should Just Do It. dream that dream, live that life, walk that walk and not just talk it - do it. just do it.


who on earth came up with that slogan? i bet i could wiki it, but i am trying to not break my stream of words here - i'll look it up later. i most certainly hope whoever coined the slogan is filthy rich - although i feel, in my gut, that the person who wrote it was probably just some dude getting paid by the hour to write propelling ad words for all sorts of stuff.


have you ever seen Crazy People? the movie with dudley moore where he is an ad guy? where he writes about volvos being boxy? i love that movie.


do you think whoever wrote Just Do It is rich? i wonder if they copyrighted it. if they own it. nah - i'm sure nike proper owns it. OWNS IT. like you try to do when you are out on that basketball court, or that 50 mile bike ride, or whatever it is you do while wearing your sneakers and staying off the couch.


oh, sneakers you say? sneakers, sneaky. word play. YES! eureka!! word play is exactly what i'm talking about here. the nike slogan is one of the best examples of word play i could ever imagine. other than scrabble.


the average joe is not gonna think any farther past just do it than get off the couch and go win at something. for yourself or for your team go win - go be All That You Can Be (we'll tackle the army in a subsequent episode). but if you honestly think about it, the nike slogan is very layered, very deep, and potentially worrisome.


just do it. you hear it purred into your ear - you are a teenager thinking of hitting that very first joint that very first time. your peers - that really cute girl you've been dying to impress just so she'll say hello to you - she leans over and hands you that joint and purrs - just do it. and you'd leap to your death if that was what was presented to you at the moment. the words are sultry, smokey, they curl and hang in the air with a mystery and a sexuality you cannot ignore.


yes, a sexuality - just do it. that same girl is whispering in your ear again and this time it's not about smokin'. well it is actually except a differnet kind of smokin', and now those words are egging you on to strip off all your clothes and have whatever kind of relations with whoever you are with. throw caution to the wind and just do it. now, stop waiting, come on come on and hurry up we ain't got all day JUST DO IT.


Hurry Hurry Hurry - you're robbing the bank, you're running ut of time to crack the safe, your hands are shaking, just do it already! hop in the getaway car and drive as fast as you can - skip town, go to jamaica, get a swiss bank account.


just do it. are you starting to see, or hear, the layers of connotations those 3 words carry with them? the underlying effect of those words on your psyche, like an opiate in word form, the verbal equivalent of a night of heavy drinking. you are immortal, you are impervious, and you can Just Do It!! whatever it is, no matter how impossible or how wrong or how underhanded or sleazy or forbidden, you can just do it. do it do it do it.


when you bought those shoes with the swoosh, you never knew this was what they meant. you just figured you'd get some new shoes that looked cool to go play hoops in. but deep down in your mind, under the layers of day to day reality and conscious thought and awareness, your psyche knew what the connotations were. your subconscious mind felt the allure of the sleaze factor, of the "i can get away with it" factor that each of us tries to hide each day, hide from our own eyes and the public's view. all those personal thoughts you have that you never share with another soul - all those dirty things.


what a slogan - what an incredibly powerful all encomapassing mind fuck of a slogan. and you never knew, cuz you were just doin' it.