I remember the picture of Mary Lou Retton on that Wheaties box.  That bright winning smile, an American icon of winning and success.  I remember, too, that my father used to come home from the turkey ranch, stinking of shit.  The stench was so bad that it was difficult to be anywhere near him until he had washed and changed out of his work clothes.

I don?t think he ever saw that Wheaties box but he went to work every day, whether it was to that turkey farm or some other menial job.  He worked, brought home the paycheck, and supported his wife and kids.  I don?t know if he ever dreamed of doing anything that would land him on a cereal box or in a magazine, but I do know that working in shit was worth it to him.

Some times I think about some of the people I know and their dreams.  I don?t know that many people, but there are lots of people with dreams in LA so I?m bound to meet one here and there.  I wonder to myself what it is that is so terrible about their lives in Iowa or Illinois, etc., that makes them so desperate to chase their dreams out here.  What is it that they are chasing? or running away from?  Maybe they worked in horse shit.  I?ve seen horse shit, and they come in bigger piles than turkey shit.

In LA, images are flashed at me everyday about what I ought to be.  I ought to be a party kid on Sunset, my name on every guest list.  I ought to be a playa in a jogging suit with 14 carat electroplated bling.  A baller, an outcast, a greaser, a neo-hippie, a Democrat, a wheeler and a dealer.

The message is that I ought to be someone other than me.  I?m a reasonably open-minded person, and I?m open to the notion that I ought to be someone aside from me, but it?s not clear who ?me? is.  If I knew who I am, then it?d be a cinch to not be me.  I see parts of me in the billboards and the images, but I?m not sure if I came first or I became them.  If I dig deep into the center of myself, that warm spot two inches below the navel, I find that the one thing I am absolutely certain of is that I don?t want to work in shit.  That?s a start at least.