Juxtaposed

In Jersey City, NJ watching the Red Bull Air Race. Our view is tremendous. We are 26 floors up in our own little perch, watching all the events pan out below.

We took dinner in down in Greenwich Village. Years ago, when I was surrounded by guitar amplifiers and drumsets instead of propellers and parachutes, the Village was mecca. I read books about Dylan, Hendrix, and anyone else that at some point set one foot on these streets on their way towards immortality. I built all these people up to be Gods. Flying hasn’t turned me off from their music but it has brought them down a peg or two.

Sitting on St. Marks, I’m watching people scroll past my window. It’s amazing. Every single person it seems, has spent years leading up to today deciding what image they want to portray. That guy is wearing all black; that girl is wearing a tutu, leather jacket, and feathers; those folks over there clearly worship The Ramones. Its cool. I get it. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t the same way quite often. In places like this your identity revolves largely around the image that you portray. You can back this up with clichéd arguments about expressing oneself…the “this is who I really am” speech. I’ve heard it a thousand times and after hearing it so often, I stopped believing it. It’s not who you are, its who you want to be. Strangely enough, this relates straight back to flying for me.

The airplane doesn’t care who you want to be, only who you are. It doesn’t care what you look like, what you are wearing, what your name is, what brand sunglasses you have on, what gender you are, what age you are, how many friends you have, what your GPA was, whether you have car, an iphone, or an ipad. It doesn’t matter if you’re married, single, gay, straight, loved, hated, missed, or worshipped. The only thing the airplane cares about, the only thing that matters at that given second when you are in the air is whether or not you can do it. Can you pull this turn through? Can you make this landing? Can you shoot this instrument approach? The airplane, even though we build them up giving them names and souls will only be a machine at the end of the day. It doesn’t know you nor does it care to know you. It just wants to know whether or not you can do it.

In this corner: Brutal honesty resulting in life or death. And in this corner: Ed Hardy t-shirts selling for $100. I’ll take the former.