Success = Finished Goals

Damn you Milt and Edie for being so right. Why are you so cruel in your eight words? Because you probably know your audience. Struggling screenwriters pounding the pavement in Burbank sipping their coffee at Priscilla's wondering why no one will hire them and their half completed screenplays.

Who is the master sign maker behind the voice of Milt and Edie? Someone with a PhD in get your butt off the chair and finish that damn thing. Maybe it's a nagging mother. Or a stage momager.

That's what I picture now, a frustrated stage momager. Like one of those crazy ladies on "I Know My Kid's A Star". The signmaker at Milt and Edie's is actually making these signs for one person in particular that they are trying to motivate to finish a particular project.

Oh jesus, I got. It's actually an elaborate plan to motivate Axl Rose to finish Chinese Democracy. I think Geffen might be somewhere near Milt and Edie. What if they are hoping Axl sees the signs? Or maybe even he picks up his leather jackets at Milt and Edie's?

And did everyone hear about this? Dr. Pepper will offer a free can of Dr Pepper to everyone in America — excluding former Guns N' Roses guitarists Buckethead and Slash — if the band releases Chinese Democracy in 2008.

I hope I can get a can of the Diet Cherry Vanilla stuff. That stuff tastes like candy.

Be Good For Something

This is pressure. To not simply be good, but to be good for something. Look, Milt and Edie, it's hard enough to be good in this world. Seriously. I work hard every day on that one. Just yesterday I backed into someone's car and I had to make that age old decision to leave a note or not leave a note. I didn't end up hurting their car except I left a pretty dark mark on a nice white car. So I left a note and then got yelled at for leaving a note but I felt good about leaving note.

So let's talk about the note leaving incident. Maybe that was my moment to be good for something. I was being good for all the people who had bumped into cars and hadn't left notes. Or all the times that I had opened up my car door and scratched the other car and hadn't left a note (okay let's be honest that's more than I'd like admit, I'm a "wide car door opener")

Being good for something is more than just leaving a note. Parents have a reason to be good, they get to be a role model. I swear like a truck driver but when I'm around kids I try to keep my mouth clean. Kids have a reason to be good, because if they aren't their parents will punish them.

So without kids or without parents who am I being good for?

This in-between stage, when you aren't a kid and you aren't a parent is kind of an interesting moral time when you don't really have to be good for anyone. You don't really have to save money, you can go out all the time, you don't have to leave notes on cars, you can do what ever the hell you want, you don't have to bother to be good, let alone to be good for something.

Good thing Milt and Edie reminded me to think about being good for something. Or else I would have just rushed past that part.

Starting

Milt and Edie. How do you know so much about me and my inner soul? You look deep within to find the procrastinator inside. Staring down at me from a simple sign on the corner of Alameda and Pass Avenue. Telling me so much. Just start. Somewhere. Most likely right where I am. Brilliant.

No need to go searching for some complicated answer somewhere else, there's no long winded journey through therapy to find myself, my true self, my inner self, my authentic self. Why go through all that, spend all that time and all that money and all that introspection? When the answer is staring me right in the face. Right there. Right where I am. If I really want to get somewhere in life, I just need to start where I am.

Should Milt and Edie start their own line of cryptic yet inspirational T-shirts made up of sayings from their signs? Or inspirational posters like Successories? A friend of mine once worked in that store during college. I think she was actually quick demotivated working there. Surrounded by all that happiness and positivity all day made her want to smack a kitten at the end of each day.

There's this razor thin line between motivation and annoyance I've noticed. I've always tried to be positive and inspire people around me, but that can come off as super annoying some times. Too much cheerleading comes off as artifical. What's that from? Cynicism? Realism? Maybe there's not as much need for inspiration as I think?

I love the Milt and Edie signs. They inspire me and make me think deeply about myself for a couple of minutes when I'm at the traffic like at Pass and Alameda. And I wonder how many people in Burbank, who work at Disney and NBC, who work throughout Toluca Lake, at Bob's Big Boy, Priscilla's, Mo's, and Patty's are equally inspired and challenged.