Making Time for Reality

So yah, we're back. What a great place to call home. Four hours in traffic to the heart of Manhattan. Two hours to Philly if you like Mummers and cheese. Two and a half hours speeding east to the great Atlantic. And a mere forty minutes to the nation's capital, give or take the unforeseen, like an accident or enforcement radar.

Gotta love being able to get up and go, something so many of us take for granted. We'll travel when we have the time, explore an old stomping ground when there's more time, take a vacation in due time.

It's cliche I know, but there is no time like the present. What ever happened to finding time to be alive?

Wistfully breezing about the blogosphere, I landed upon a blast from the past. Shirtless John-John courtesy of Kenneth in the (212). Now there's a blogger who isn't afraid to take chances. Talk about the edge of good taste, how long has it been since the end of that political dynasty crashed and burned? Yet, there's bold and sassy Kenneth paying tribute to the tragic son as if still perusing The Hamptons with nothing but sunshine beating down on the promise of tomorrow.

More like the promise that should have been.

I suppose I should be sad, perhaps angry about the cavalier exploitation of a young man with no choice but to live in the public eye. Pimped out like a '62 Chevy, another icon of the past. Hot beefcake for the masses, let's ogle and swoon. But strangely, instead I saw hope and promise forever etched into a steely gaze. The handsome devil-may-care curls stylishly transformed into power hairdo by the fashionistas of 5th Avenue. A gleam in the eye of a generation with nothing but time.

That's the problem with unfulfilled expectations. Even those who are truly great don't get forever to shine. Kenneth's retrospective of JFK, Jr. as shirtless hunk may be sacrilegious to some, but then, what exactly did he leave behind? An aspiring magazine and the body of an Adonis. Pretty impressive for a gym rat. Not so much for the scion of Camelot.

Strike. Strike while the striking is good. Strike like there's no tomorrow. Strike proudly and free. You know what I'm trying to say. The rest is just commentary.