Now Appearing in an Extended Engagement! Join David Robison as he takes you into his world and his daily life of reviving a stand-up comedy career. Prepare for side trips exploring the "art" of salesmanship and business ethics and his experience with Multi-level Marketing. Enjoy some frequent detours describing his observations on life. Read the exploits of this self-proclaimed Renaissance-man and blooming blogger as you go
On The Road With Dave.
"The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey - and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins."
In 1620, "Pilgrims" traveling on the sailing ship, Mayflower, from England arrived in America and established the Plimouth or Plymouth Colony. Later on, these Pilgrims are credited with America's first Thanksgiving Day.
On this day, as we celebrate another Thanksgiving Day in commemoration of that day; I thought it was appropriate to "give thanks" for one of the Pilgrims' first acts. Their forethought in settling a dispute onboard the Mayflower regarding the proposed settlement led to the Mayflower Compact.
The Compact was a democracy in theory and in action.
"Having undertaken, for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith and Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the First Colony in the Northern Parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, Covenant and Combine ourselves together into a Civil Body Politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience."
I'd like to think that we, as Americans, are still striving to act "for the general good of the Colony." For that I am Thankful.
On this day, when we give thanks for our blessings and bounty; let us all remember to act for the good of our fellow brothers and sisters.
And no matter the quantity of our blessings, be they meek or mighty, let us remember that others may have less.
Also, as we proclaim our thanksgiving for the massive amounts of food we ate today; the football game we watched; the money set aside for Christmas shopping tomorrow; our homes and apartments and all of our material things--let's remember the simple things that we should be grateful for each and everyday--our friends, our family, and our love for one another.
Renee Aaron Erica Cole Brad Damian Syd Polly Gene Richard Pressley Dell Pearl Nora Rowena John Jim Doug Tyson John B. Ruston Barney Gary Mary Sherrill Cheryl Eric Thomas Carol Sue Bilbo Dwight Jean Frankie Liba Colleen Clinton Danny Flanagan Brent Jerry Buck Johnny Edgar Jay Ron Fred Pat Brian Bill Mark Van
In just under 15 minutes I came up with the names of the preceding people that have influenced me over the last 40 odd years. These people I owe an eternal thanks. Many others exist.
"If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability."
"Finished! Now that this picture has been taken, I'll sign both photo and puppet and get him carefully packed for his flight to Australia where Thomas eagerly waits, according to a note from his "mum". And this fellow has already been named "Dillan Detweiler" by his future owner. How cool is that!
...(I would be remiss if I did not mention that it was Mike Brose who referred Mrs. Hoare and her son to me, which allowed me to be of service. Thank you, Mike.)"
Hey Clinton, you're still too cool for the room in my opinion.
I just received word from Dino Baskovic, blog administrator for the Alticor Media Blog that the last blog entry for the Alticor Media Blog has been posted.
"In 2006, our public persona was divided among four companies – Alticor, Amway, Quixtar and Access. Going forward, however, we will do most of our communicating to public audiences under the Amway and Amway Global flags; continuing an "Alticor" blog seems out of place. So we'll lock up the place, flip out the lights, and pack the old threads and recipe cards in archives."
I always liked the Alticor Media Blog, even though in its early days, it was used to discuss Michigan politics and Amway's President, Dick DeVos' bid for the Gubernatorial seat in Michigan.
Later on, the blog pulled no punches with its commentary regarding terminated Quixtar-affiliated business owners. I recall many Independent Business Owners miffed over the tone of the blog entries. I, personally, read those entries with a smile on my face. I was thinking, "Finally, they are cleaning house".
I had the chance to meet Dino Baskovic while attending an Alticor conference in Prague. He's a cool guy, that I think has brought a lot of good to Alticor during his time with the company. Dino understands PR, Business, and the culture of being a MLM business owner. Since, the Amway Media Blog will continue, I can only hope that Dino will still have a hand in its direction.
And according to the last entry of the Alticor Media Blog:
"We expect it to remain a place for breaking news, public statements and straight talk. And the OZone blogs are of course alive and well. We hope you visit them early and often.
And away we go."
Okay, I'm sure somebody will say, "Just GO". But it won't be me.
If you watch Comedy Central, are interested in ventriloquism, or you are one of the 50 million people who have viewed "Achmed The Dead Terrorist" on YouTube; then you know who Ventriloquist, Jeff Dunham is.
Until tomorrow night, view some of Jeff's video at Comedy Central or on YouTube or stay right here at "On The Road With Dave" and watch this video of Jeff on "Live At Gotham." Consider this your Saturday Diversion.
Comedians talk about finding their "voice" all the time. Authors learn to write in a unique "voice". Singers fear losing their "voice".
Ventriloquists share all these attributes. We develop a comedic "voice" for ourselves and devise a entirely different "voice" for our sidekicks. And the fear of losing our voice, either literally or figuratively weighs on our mind.
But all this pales in comparison, to a recent story I read at Clinton Detweiler's NEWSY VENTS blog.
If you don't know by now; Clinton was my instructor on becoming a ventriloquist via his course on ventriloquism. He is "retired" now, but still makes and repairs ventriloquist dummies.
Thomas Hoare is a 14 year old from Australia who is autistic. He will only speak through a puppet, also named Thomas. Two months ago, Thomas' puppet was stolen and for the last two months, Thomas has been silent.
It appears that my recent changes here at the "OTRWD" site are finished. Everything seems to be in working order.
The only problem I was having over the past day or two was not being able to see my favicon on Firefox or Internet Explore 7. It would show for a millisecond and then was replaced by the Blogger icon. I think that is fixed now. I don't have IE7 but the Firefox browser is picking it up. Ya'll let me know of any other problems.
From time to time, you may notice that the "Feed Box" for Comedy This Exit and Skyler's Gravel Road sometimes does not appear or is slow to load. That's a problem with the code that I'm using. It's a good code, but is used by several people and may fail to respond at times. I'm assuming it has to do with traffic load.
(On a side note--Both "Comedy This Exit" and "Skyler's Gravel Road" have been tweaked in the last six months with some different colors and images added that were not in the original template. "Comedy This Exit" features a new green exit sign-type title)
I've had some fun doing this as well as some frustration, but I think it turned out pretty good.
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918, an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of "the war to end all wars."
In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words:
"To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations..."
In keeping with the whole "Road" theme, I've gone with red links...cause, you "STOP" on a link...yeah I know--pretty cheesy. If you don't want to think about it that way, then it's also a homage to my blogger mentor, Eric Janssen, and his site The Quixtar Blog, One Man's Perceptions. Eric uses red links, too. I like them.
I wasn't able to find the old background wrap pattern that was once used on the site, but the blue color is almost exact.
So, tell me what you think. Better? Worse? Who cares?
"The Internet is clearly about more than sports scores and email now. It's a place where we can conduct our democracy and get very large amounts of data to very large numbers of people."
OK, Now I've added color...but it was supposed to only wrap the border and not cover the entire blog. It appears that I have to "border off" some separate elements of the page and then make sure their corresponding backgrounds are white, so you, the reader, can actually read the blog with some ease, while having the splash of blue on the edges of the page.
I'm still looking for the border gif that my website designer originally used along with the blue color. If I can't find it, I'll just use the blue color.
I'm tinkering with the HTML of "On The Road With Dave" trying to re-capture some borders and color that were part of the site a couple of years ago. I've messed with the stylesheet and things look different.
The borders are a bit off and the color hasn't been added yet. I can add the old blue color on a "test" blog ran by Blogger; but I haven't seemed to be able to figure out where I make the blog template react to the stylesheet change for the color. Also, the Archive Listing is whack.
But, I'm learning and they say "change" is good. So hang in there with me and we'll see if I get it right, or revert back to the way it was.
I'm not sure if Barack Obama won the Presidential election last night. I haven't seen any news or heard any analysis of the election yet.
Okay, that's a lie. I watched the election coverage all the way through to John McCain's concession speech and Barack Obama's "Yes We Can" victory speech. (Sorry Tex, but my recent streak is intact)
And I've listened to a good deal of today's analysis and recap of last night's historic election. Barack Obama is the nation's President-elect.
I'm not even going to attempt to re-analyze what other smarter people than me are saying. By now, a lot of you are looking at the news coverage and saying, "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Yackity-Shmackity". We call it the "Katrina effect" around my house. (After Hurricane Katrina; we experienced it, we watched it, and finally we grew tired of hearing about it) Yeah, it's important, we want to stay informed. We want to either celebrate or commiserate, but the "news-fatigue" begins to set in.
So, let me just bring up two points about the election and I'll call it quits for now.
Number One--If you'll recall; my wife cast her vote for Independent Ralph Nader. I haven't seen any news coverage about Ralph Nader's efforts, but I found it interesting to note that Nader received 6609 votes in the State of Alabama, of which 1 was my wife's. I was surprised by the amount considering the overwhelming win by McCain in the state and the remaining votes for Obama. 6609 Alabamians voted "out of the box". That's promising.
Overall, Nationwide Ralph Nader hit the 1% mark with 658,393 Total US votes. This was accomplished with just $4 Million dollars in donations over 8 months. (Obama's budget for one day) Continued little steps for Third Party candidates to build upon.
Number Two--The election is over. I'm a comedian. When Obama takes office, it is my hope that he governs the country well. But...BUT, he will be President and Presidents make mistakes. He will and SHOULD be fair game to all comedians, improv players, film makers, purveyors of parody everywhere. I will mention his middle name. I will mention his big ears. I will make references to his race. I'll even make fun of his girls' new puppy if it pees in the Oval Office.
He should be caricaturize, cartoonified, and classified by his gaffes as well as his successes. He'll be President, it comes with the territory. And I don't want to hear anything about racism or that a subject is "off-limits". If it's funny, I'm gonna mention it on stage.
Let the record show that at approximately 7:30AM this morning, My wife, my son, and I exercised our Constitutional right to vote. My daughter followed shortly thereafter.
Let the record also show that regarding my workplace, all my fellow employees minus two people, also voted. About two weeks ago, my wife and a fellow employee managed to register the "un-voted" that remained in our office, except the aforementioned two people. One co-worker registered and voted for the very first time. She is finally convinced that voting is a right not to be ignored.
Less than 12 hours since I cast my ballot, I'm now watching Election coverage on CNN and already the reporters, commentators, and pundits are beginning to predict winners in each state. My goodness, the polls only closed 15 minutes ago in my state. "C'est la vie."
I'll continue to watch the coverage into the night, and look forward to the process playing out. After the winner is announced, it'll be time once again to support the new President, criticize the new President, and make sure the new President knows that this whole process starts again in just over two years as challengers will begin to announce their intentions for 2012.
Well, 24 months without an election advertisement is about all we can hope for.
"On The Road With Dave" Makes Presidential Endorsement
As a private citizen of the United States of America, I believe wholeheartedly in the secret ballot. A voter enters a voting booth and casts his vote according to his conscience, in private.
But, as a blogger, I write about my opinions and my views on topics that interests me. The 2008 US Presidential Election interests me.
I have heard many times over that this election is "Historic". My belief is that every election is historic. During the primaries, a woman was running for President, though this was not the first time a woman has campaigned to be President. During a previous election, and also during 2008, Alan Keyes ran for President. Keyes is an African-American conservative Independent. If the gender or race of a candidate makes an election historic, then the candidates of this year's election are not historic or groundbreaking.
What might be historic about this election is the phenomenal interest, money, and excitement generated by the nominees of the Democrat and Republican parties. Hopefully, the topic of "Change" espoused by the Democrat nominee, Barack Obama, will not only be change from the current administration, but more importantly; a change in how we view elections, and how we, as Americans, involve ourselves in the election process. This is the kind of change future elections need.
With that being said, change is taking place in the Robison household as we go to the polls tomorrow. My oldest son, who had Republican leanings during the primaries has decided that he will vote for Barack Obama in tomorow's election.
My wife has decided that she will encourage further change in the election process by advocating and supporting the dissolution of an archaic two-party system and encouraging a more diverse candidate pool. She will be voting for Independent Ralph Nader.
And the moment you have all been waiting for--I have carefully considered the issues most important to me and have decided to break with my Democratic party and I will be voting for Senator John McCain.
I agree that this is a time when the country needs change; we need a transition away from the last eight years. John McCain represents this transition. We do not need a revolution against the past, but rather an evolution toward the future.
Whether you agree with me or disagree, I encourage each of you to make the trip to your voting booth tomorrow. Stand in line, smile, chat with your neighbor, and make a little history for yourself, as you should on every election day.
GO VOTE!
"People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote - a very different thing."
Presidential Election Memories: Part 4 / "Getting Political"
I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it.
--Alexander Woollcott
When I began this series of Presidential Election Memories last Thursday, my aim was to analyze my thought processes regarding my choices for President throughout my voting history. But, now our country is less than forty-eight hours away from electing the 44th President and on Monday, November 3rd, I will reveal my choice here at "On The Road With Dave".
Time will not permit a detailed description of the remaining elections that I haven't covered. So I will try to briefly described today my choices for the remainder of the previous elections.
1988
Michael Dukakis – Lloyd Bentsen (Democrat) George H. W. Bush – Dan Quayle (Republican) Ron Paul – Andre Marrou (Libertarian) Lenora Fulani – (various) (New Alliance)
In 1988, I felt as many voters today feel; I did not want George H.W. Bush to continue the policies and "feel" of the previous administration. I did not want a "second" Ronald Reagan. My choice was Michael Dukakis.
Dukakis' pick of Lloyd Bentsen and Bush's choice of Dan Quayle factored in to my choice. But, I had other choices in the Democratic primaries, that did not garner the nomination. In the end, Dukakis was a vote "against" Bush, and not a positive for Michael Dukakis.
1992
Bill Clinton – Al Gore George (Democrat) H. W. Bush – Dan Quayle (Republican) Ross Perot – James Stockdale (Independent) Andre Marrou – Nancy Lord (Libertarian) Lenora Fulani – Maria Elizabeth Muñoz (New Alliance)
The 1992 election generated, for me, the same excitement of this year's election has done for many Democrats. I watched every news story and talk show featuring Democrat nominee Bill Clinton. I had first heard of Al Gore back during the 1988 election and was impressed with Gore. I watched every debate, even recording them on VHS to watch again.
The addition of Third Party candidate Ross Perot's coverage furthered the excitement. I had been initially impressed by Perot's biography and his financing his own Iran Hostage rescue for employees of his company. His use of his own money to finance part of his campaign was also impressive. In the end though, I felt his volatility would not make him a good President.
I eagerly voted for the man from Hope, Arkansas; Bill Clinton. To this day, somewhere in my storage is a VHS videotape with Bill Clinton's inauguration speech on it.
1996
Bill Clinton – Al Gore (Democrat) Bob Dole – Jack Kemp (Republican) Ross Perot – Patrick Choate (Reform) Harry Browne – Jo Jorgensen (Libertarian) Howard Phillips – Herb Titus (Taxpayers) John Hagelin – Michael Tompkins (Natural Law)
I respected Bob Dole, although I believe that Bob Dole of today is much more "Presidential" than the Bob Dole of 1996. That being said, I was and still am pleased with Bill Clinton's re-election in 1996. My critique of Clinton is not because of the Monica Lewinski affair but more targeted to his Military decisions. It was during Clinton's term that I began to understand "measured responses" and what I perceive as a weakness in that strategy.
2000
Al Gore – Joe Lieberman (Democrat) George W. Bush – Dick Cheney (Republican) Ralph Nader – Winona LaDuke (Green) Pat Buchanan – Ezola Foster (Reform) Harry Browne – Art Olivier (Libertarian) Howard Phillips – Curtis Frazier (Constitution) John Hagelin – Nat Goldhaber (Natural Law)
Plain and simple, I voted for Al Gore and still feel Al Gore should have been elected and would have been the President that all great Presidents would have been compared to.
2004
John Kerry – John Edwards (Democrat) George W. Bush – Dick Cheney (Republican) Ralph Nader – Peter Camejo (Independent/Reform) Michael Badnarik – Richard Campagna (Libertarian) Michael Peroutka – Chuck Baldwin (Constitution) David Cobb – Pat LaMarche (Green)
In 2004, if it had been my choice the Democratic ticket would have again had Al Gore as the nominee. Since that did not happen, my second choice would have been a transposing of the ticket with John Edwards in the top spot and Kerry as the VP. Still, I threw my support to the Gentleman from Massachusetts, John Kerry.
It is my contention that if the events of September 11th had not happened, George Bush would have been a one-term President.
And that, dear readers, leads us to the 2008 Presidential Election. At this juncture, the minds of the American people should be made up. It is doubtful that anyone will walk into the voting booth on Tuesday and flip a coin. My opinion will not matter. If I can have any influence, I hope that I can persuade you to vote on Tuesday for your candidate. Do not fail to cast your ballot. Your vote does count. The election is not over. The "fat lady" has not sung. And, if your candidate does not win, embrace your new President with the respect of an American who exercised his right to be represented in a Democracy that still works after 232 years.
