Peanuts, Makeup, and Other Thoughts about Labor

Nobody’s Opinion

Today…is Labor Day. I’m not laboring at all, which is the point of Labor Day. I’m just daydreaming about peanuts and makeup.

Peanuts. And makeup.

The theme for today is THOU SHALT NOT LABOUR! —so I’m just daydreaming. That is the new National Strategy laid down by our ‘President’, who, has not told us lately he is the “Commander-in-Chief” because he’s trying to get out of that job at the moment. He wants to be able to blame Congress should ISIS attack us at home. He’ll say it was because the Tea Party blocked immigration.

It’s getting all too easy to predict, isn’t it? Yes, I can bet you Obama is daydreaming today on some golf course.

But, back to our labor. (Just THINKING of Obama is a labor.)

Basically— Labor Day is a National Holiday invented by Congress to celebrate union workers. They did it to ‘appease’ the unions in order to make up for the ‘deaths’ of workers at the hands of the U.S. military and Marshals during the Pullman Strike of 1894. (Pretty interesting history there, check it out.)

Congress decided to take matters in hand and give the ‘workers’ their own day, making SURE of course, that it didn’t coincide with May 1, which is as we all know, is— Have a Happy Communist Day! What happened is that George Pullmans lowered the wages of his employees but demanded the same housing rent. They went on strike.

(Sound familiar?)

Work in America is not too good right now, is it? Illegal’s are flooding the country, taking the few jobs that Americans will not get.

America is falling behind the rest of the world, because many Americans can’t find good paying jobs anymore. China and India’s middle class is expanding, ours is shrinking. Too many people are flipping hamburgers. Our educational system –lets just say it—-It  SUCKS. Why else do you think Obama wants high wages for fast food workers? Due to their education, they are doomed to be in fast food the rest of their lives. They can’t do anything else.

Inventiveness is way down.

I’m thinking: Peanuts. Makeup.

According to the news today, we watch football and riot, and our President plays golf.

He doesn’t work either. Bush wanted us to “shop.” Obama wants us to.. to play golf. Or better yet…watch HIM play golf.

So—- the question on this American Labor Day is: Is the entrepreneurship of the American worker and the spirit that fueled this nation into greatness gone?

Are there any George Washington’s Carvers out there in Ferguson? Do you think he would be burning down a Quickie Mart?

You won’t believe where I found the answer to that:

I was reading a makeup book yesterday, and found a passage, written by the author of the book, whose name is Kevyn Aucoin, which to me, describes perfectly, the real American spirit and WHY America has succeeded in the past while other nations lagged behind—it’s called imagination.

And America’s DNA has been built on it:

Here’s what Kevyn (who is gay) had to say about his success.

While the other boys in my school dreamed of traveling to the moon or winning the Super Bowl, I dreamt of glossy red lips and sparkling skin. By the age of eleven I knew I wanted to be a makeup artist. My first model was my six-year-old sister, Carla, and my first makeup tool was a single tube of tangerine lipstick. Armed with my father’s Polaroid camera and endless curiosity, I enthusiastically began what was to become my career. The fashion magazines I collected had an endless array of talent to choose from, but I only had one girl on my roster, so I set out to create as many looks as my limited resources would allow. Carla became my guinea pig for haircuts, perms, homemade clothing, and endless hours of amateur photo sessions. Over the years she and I experimented with every look imaginable.

And THIS is my favorite part:

Through it all both Carla and I learned not to be afraid of taking chances, and in the process, I learned how to do makeup. We had no real teachers, only photographs from fashion magazines. I would tear out my favorite faces, and try to replicate them on Carla. Learning to do makeup through trial and error taught me that my ‘mistakes’ were often exciting revelations. I came to realized that rules and words like “never’ and “always’ were (and are) sure death for creativity. And while I believe that education is very important, I am grateful for my lack of formal training in makeup. The journey itself may have taken longer but along the way I discovered things I could not have been “taught.” For me, new and exciting ideas are most often created when chances are taken and rules are broken.

Invention. YES! Break those rules! America has been GREAT at it, starting with the invention of the greatest concept of a republic in human history: Our Constitution. ‘Never’ was not in our vocabulary. (Nor in Captain’s Kirk’s.)

The words of Kevyn would have applied to Tom Edison, who dropped out of grade school, the Wright Brothers, who had a bike shop, to Einstein, whom everybody thought was dense, and to George Washington Carver, who was a slave and ended up with hundreds of patents:

In 1896, Booker T. Washington, the first principal and president of the Tuskegee Institute, invited Carver to head its Agriculture Department. Carver taught there for 47 years, developing the department into a strong research center and working with two additional college presidents during his tenure. He taught methods of crop rotation, introduced several alternative cash crops for farmers that would also improve the soil of areas heavily cultivated in cotton, initiated research into crop products (chemurgy), and taught generations of black students farming techniques for self-sufficiency.

America was all about, and always has been: imagination. Invention. Creativity. We NEED to reassert our hero’s.

The Individual, failing, making mistakes, getting up and trying again—-

Enough with the basketball players. The football players. The movie stars killing themselves on drugs. Our kids need new hero’s….inventors. The man. The woman. The lone individual.

Not the “You didn’t build this.” crap.

The good news: The American spirit is an idea. And it can be resurrected. Human beings don’t need to go to Harvard to think of the next cure for cancer. Simple people CAN do great things…if only the government will get out of their way.

Our government is literally choking the creativity out of us all. (Hi Homeland Security! Eat some peanuts!)

I certainly never thought I’d read one of the most profound statements on creatively from a gay makeup artist yesterday, but that’s what great about America still:  Somebody tomorrow could think of a way to take a peanut and invent permanent makeup.

Hey, I’m ready.

But getting rid of the progressive liberals? That’s going to take another George Washington Carver, and whoever that man is not going to be on the golf course. He’s going to working, every day will be labor day.

So, CAN America come back to the creative individual spirit that we once had?

Don’t ever say….NEVER.

Now swear….on your mother’s best peanut butter sandwich.

August 31, 2014 Posted by Joyanna Adams | American History, Beauty, Uncategorized | American History, fashion, liberals | 1 Comment