It’s been close to twenty years since the smart phone has invaded our lives. My phone has a sexy British accent that often says, “Jumbo, you’ve turned me on….”
This damn thing can tell me how many steps I’ve taken during the day and It shows the places I’ve liked on Google Maps.
If I span out on Google Maps so I can see the earth, Chicago has a red blob over it. The hundreds of places I’ve liked these last twenty years are all concentrated in Chicagoland.
There are some red splats here and there across the country and very few around the world. Google maps shows that I haven’t gone too far away from Chicagoland.
Google map shows that I’m stuck in a rut, nowhere to go….
When I was a boy, I did boy things. When I was a man, I did boy things.
I ask myself often….. why didn’t I end up with the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect wife, the perfect life and I always answer myself with one word….. immaturity!
Immaturity always knocked me back a couple steps in the course of life.
I could have let immaturity keep me stuck in a rut, keep me from growing, but I adapted and moved along.
My Google map has hearts on pizza places, jazz clubs, breakfast joints, taverns, hotdog stands, massage parlors, book stores, cigar shops, bakeries, big and tall men shops…. You get the picture.
It defines me by the places I’ve gone, the places I’ve liked.
Maybe life is all about leaving big red hearts all over the fucking place.
Twenty years ago I wouldn’t have liked a coffee shop in BoysTown or a pub that shows English Premier League soccer in Lincoln Square. Hell, there are places or events that I would have never placed a red heart over just a few years ago.
....But life has a funny way of making us change and adapt. If you do it right…. even the immature kid can grow up and become a better dude.
Place your “likes” on as many things you can, but instead of liking an Italian beef stand on Cermak or an Indian restaurant on Devon, place your "like" on a stranger with a flat tire on Mannheim Road. Place a big red heart on the Immigrant in need of Hope or Person that needs a Helping Hand.
Be the man that people disliked in the past and are now lost in kindness.
Sure "that" John Shepley does some stupid fucking things, but he is kind and makes the world seem better.
That’s what I want to do… make my piece of Google Maps Mo Betta.
If I have to hold the bakery door open for an old Italian lady or tell a story at the diner that made a black guy laugh…. Put a big red fucking heart over “Italian lady at bakery” and “black guy at diner.”
Be the guy who flies a Pride flag every June, the same guy that called a kid in high school a faggot.
If the faggot you bullied in 1982 finds out that you fly a flag that supports him in 2022…. He will know you’re not the same person. Some people will think you are a hypocrite, but not the kid from gym class.
Flock of Seagulls sucked in 1982 and they still suck forty years later…. Doesn’t mean you have to suck as well!
I put today’s Chalkboard together because a guy that fought for my right to party eventually became a Buddhist. MCA was someone who made his Google maps Mo’ Betta…..
It’s Tuesday morning, always the best time to be in a daydream…
…. It’s also a good day to place big red fucking hearts across your Google Maps…..
