The GETTY!!!!!

Being proud of the life you are living is something that is very important.  I personally know this because it feels like for the better part of the last five years that was not the case for me. I don't really know why I decided to start this post out like that but to say that if I say nothing else.  If you read this and take nothing else from me that would be the one thing I want anybody to take.

It took a big chance, some help and love from so many people, and quiet a bit of loneliness but I am doing just that.  At this very moment I am so proud of the life that I am living.  And I wake up thinking that this all has to be a dream.  I've wanted to write about this pretty much since the moment I left the building but to be completely honest with you I just didn't have the words.  

Last Saturday Me and Cooper went to the Getty Museum.  I've been to museums before, but none on this level.  I'm trying to process it all with my mind right now, but I do not know if I'll ever be able to do so. 

A little while ago, I decided I was going to broaden my horizons and get some kind of knowledge about art.  It always seemed to be one of the frontiers that I should be all about but I just never got into it.  And with the help of a dear friend of mine, one AMY MILLER and a couple of art books, my art education began.  When I first started reading the books that she had sent me I found it hard to get into.  I saw these works in the book, but I just couldn't quite connect with them.

But the funny thing is the more I read about these different pieces and stared at this different works in the books that she game me the more I began to think about art.  I remember having very vivid dreams about some of the pieces that I had been looking at in my books and I would spend a good portion of the next day trying to figure out what it all meant.  And even though I was beginning to have all of these different thoughts I still had not really been up close and seen some of these works that I had read about, but that was all about to change.

I stood in front of a Monet.  I stood in front of the painting that was said to have started the impressionism movement and I was completely blown away.  I got lost in the painting trying to study ever subtle detail.  And then I stood on the other side of the room and looked at that same painting and was completely blown away by what I saw.  I will try my best to leave something of value behind to this world when I die, but I know that it will be nothing compared to some of the great and beautiful pieces that I got to experience.  And I say experience because that was exactly what it was, and experience.

I was in a room named the Rembrandt room, and I got to look at famous pieces that I've seen in books and in various pop art.  And it was really me.  I was so close I could touch them.  That places like this even exist just blow my mind.  And that every person in America is getting up and trying to get to these places equally blows my mind.  Stared at a Jackson Pollock mural for almost 30 minutes.  The colors, the shapes, the images... I was completely and utterly mesmerized.  I can't quite put my finger on what exactly I felt staring at that mural, but there was something inside me that was burning up.  I was completely lost in the beauty of it all.  And at that moment I realized just why people pay so much for art.

I stared at that mural for about a half hour and I promise you I could have stared at it for 30 more hours without breaking a sweat.  The crazy thing about going to the Getty is that within a blink of an eye three hours had past and I felt like I hadn't seen anything.  As much as I had already seen I felt like it wasn't enough and I needed three more hours to study everything more.  And yes my brain was completely overloaded, but I didn't care.  Hell I don't know how many more days in the world I will get like that one, but I'm going to make it my life's mission to get as many as humanly possible.  

I know there are a lot of things on TV to watch, and I spend more time than most in front of my TV.  After all if I'm not in front of it who will watch all the pretty picture shows?  But don't do that this weekend.  This weekend go out to a museum, or to a play, or just go downtown and look at some of the wonderful architecture of your city.  Put some things in your life that are going to elevate your mind, body, and soul.  And I know the Thunder are playing right now, but honestly this is better.  Believe me it is so much better.  Tonight I watched the thunder beat the LA Clippers, and I loved every minute of it.  (On a side note Blake Griffin can write in his diary tonight today was the saddest day of my life getting beat by the Thunder, not to be confused with the luckiest day of my life.  That day of course being the day my buddy stole to vodka from that tailgate and that guy Brandon Ponder decided not to whip my ass)  Anyway, this game has nothing on what I saw last Saturday, doesn't eve hold a candle.

I don't know what else to say but this... There are important things out there in the world.  Important things created by people long ago and some by people not so long ago, and it would be a damn shame that you missed out on all of that because you are sitting at home numbing your brain in front of a TV.  Thank you so much Cooper Hagedorn and thank you so very much Amy Miller.