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I’m not ashamed of my decisions or ambition over the past six years, but I am at a raw point in my life where I have to look back and wonder what good came from all of my busy-ness. I’m afraid I am an over-committed workaholic who never really did anything of substance.

To some degree, I think I am wired to always be doing something. I didn’t get busy because society told me too. I was hurrying about in the rural South as a kid when everyone around me was content with the simple life. I like that I have my hand on a new project on any given day. I like being unpredictable. But I’m also motivated by fear. What if I stop moving, designing, and writing? Will I miss my big break or sink into anonymity?;

I’m hearing more and more on the news (especially NPR) of the darker side of our new technology-obsessed society. It’s common to hear people how the Internet promised us a feeling of connectedness, but it’s only driven us further apart. This notion is nothing new, but in it’s simplicity it remains insightful. No matter how new and exciting a technology may be, it never brings our society more joy. Technology promises to free up time, and we end up just giving that time to some other mindless technology. I mean really, why the hell would anyone text-message someone while they are driving? Is moving at 75 miles an hour not enough of an accomplishment?

Maybe it’s that I don’t know what an aging idealist looks like. A college-aged idealist stands on a perceived moral high ground, carries a lot of political statements, and channels conviction through an organized cause. So you get a degree in political science and venture on to the Peace Corp. Or you move to Africa to help dig wells or put pressure on local militia groups. But what happens once the locals drink up all the water, or you realize the militia groups maybe weren’t the bad guys? What do idealists do when they return home? Is it okay to join your peers who wake up each day in a wealthy, stable nation?

We’re all flying around doing business nowadays, we’ve become disconnected from our families and our communities. You come back to your city, but it’s not home. It’s like we are a bunch of ambitious drifters setting up camp in nice hotels only to ward off loneliness by watching porn.

So I’m not greedy, and that makes you mad?

I didn’t know that me not being greedy could piss off a stranger. Really. I can think back to a several situations when strangers have been openly disappointed with me that I didn’t exploit my fame to get rich. Here I am today, perplexed by these random people who’ve crossed my path over the past five years.

I’m not talking about young greedy people who think materials are fashionable etc. I’m talking about adults who appear smart and well-balanced.; One minute we’ll be talking about socially-conscious current events, and the next minute they are reprimanding me for not getting paid. You can disregard “greed” as being subjective moral territory, but you can’t argue that social behavior like that is rational. It’s simply impolite.

Here’s an example. I met one lady on a cross-country flight while sitting in first class, and she was openly disgusted that I—in her words—“didn’t get paid.” She shook her head in silence, looking at me with a mix of pity and disbelief. I felt so awkward that I quickly explained that it wasn’t worth writing a trashy tell-all book because I knew in the end, it would’ve required that I exploit my roommates. And quite frankly, you have no chance at being a real author of respectable books if you compile a piece of trash like that. It’s like she didn’t even hear me. She was still disgusted that I watched my boat of cash float to someone else standing on the beach of greed.

Just because you can make money doing something doesn’t mean that you should. The end doesn’t justify the means. Strippers think that they are actually winning by undressing in public. So what if you make a thousand dollars in a night? Is that worth losing the respect of every male in the room? Without respect, you are one hour away from being forgotten, raped, or beaten. Period.

I know greed is real. Greed moves a lot of wheels in this society. I just figured that along the way, most adults realize that greed is destructive and ultimately useless.; Plus, it’s socially cumbersome to be greedy. Nobody likes self-serving person.

I don’t know. I don’t have this figured out. I’m just here, sitting behind my computer, staring at my blinking cursor, trying to moralize this story—or at least bring some clarity. But I can’t. I just can’t understand such greed.

Growing up on a farm, the only activity that warranted exhaustion was; a day’s work under the hot sun. Loading bails of hay into the barn, re-roofing a house, these were the things that made you tired. If you got tired from anything less than back-breaking labor, it’s boredom you are experiencing, not exhaustion.

In college, I whined with my friends that going to class was exhausting, but deep down I knew it wasn’t true. Sitting docile in a chair and scribbling letters on a sheet of paper was hardly labor intensive. Nor was going back into the studio at the end of the day to draw pictures for a few hours. That was just playing.

I’ve carried this tough-guy attitude onto airplanes with me as an adult. As exciting as flying around the country may appear, all you really do is sit and stand. You stand in lines for about forty five minutes before you can get on a plane (checking baggage, security, and when you board at the gate.) The rest of the time is spent sitting down and watching TV. It’s a tight fit, but in reality, an airplane seat isn’t much different from a Lay-Z-boy. And on an airplane, you even get a flight attendant to bring you water, peanuts, and an occasional cocktail. The only time you even have to move at all is if you have to wobble back the bathroom.

Knowing this, I storm off the airplane into the airport so I can get back to real work. After sitting and standing and doing nothing all day, it was time to get out and do something. But I’m not like that anymore. Flying one day is enough for that day. Because flying isn’t just sitting and standing—it’s gambling with your life.

The airline industry’s biggest goal is to numb people from the terrifying reality that we are floating 25,000 feet above the earth. Quite simply, humans were not meant to leave the ground. We have no way to stay alive if we fall. We can’t bounce like a little bug. We can’t absorb the blow like a furry squirrel.; No wings like a bird. If we fall from 40 feet, we’re dead. So instinctually, we know that we must avoid heights if we are to stay alive.

That’s why you freak out as a kid when you climb a tree that’s too high. And that’s maybe 20 feet. The only way we are able to leave the ground is when we are reassured that we won’t fall. Fearless rock climbers wouldn’t be climbing rocks at all if they weren’t secured with rope. Telephone company workers wouldn’t scale up and down telephone polls if they weren’t equipped with spiked shoes and harnesses. Folks on a plane won’t leave the earth unless they know it’s not much different than sitting in their own living room.

This is why people get drunk on airplanes. It’s the only way they can numb themselves from the reality that this might be there last day on earth, and that they might die with 200 strangers that don’t love them. Even if someone doesn’t knowingly get drunk out of fear of death, it’s hard to argue you’d get drunk for any other reason. A nasty cocktail is $5, and there’s no friends to enjoy it with. All things considered, an airplane is the worst place to hang out. People are sweaty, the room is stuffy, and you can’t mingle.

My flight from Phoenix to Atlanta was a few days ago was;truly scary. It was a 4-hour flight, and all but 30 minutes of it was rough. It was three and a half hours of our little plane bobbing and bouncing in the vast atmosphere. At one point, it was like our plane drove over a house. It felt like it, it sounded like it.; And in my mind, I know that there is a resurgence in terrorist plots to take down airplanes. Every other day you hear about someone trying to slip something crazy on an airplane. Or they’ll find something suspicious on a plane and divert to another airport. There is no “fun” left in flying.

So my plane lands. I’m emotionally and physically drained. That is real exhaustion.

Earlier this week I posted a journal about the Jeep Gladiator and H3 Pickup concept cars. Since then, I’ve searched for website that compared new retro-styled production cars with the original models they were based on. I couldn’t find a site like that, so I scoured want ads, company websites, and flickr for photos. What I found was so interesting, I decided to include the images in a journal. Here’s my top 9 list of new old cars, starting with the most recent:

1. 2009 Chevy Camaro
2. 2008 Dodge Challenger
3. 200? Jeep Gladiator
4. 200? Ford Bronco
5. 2007 Toyota Landcruiser / FJ
6. 2005 Ford Mustang, Mustang Eleanor
7. 2005 Ford GT-40
8. 2002 Ford Thunderbird
9. 1998 VW Beetle

1. 2009 Chevy Camaro
The re-release of the new Camaro with its muscle car looks will finish Detroit’s Big 3 reinventing of their heritage cars. Ford did it with the 2005 Mustang (see below) and soon Dodge will re-release the Challenger (see below.) I always thought the 1969 Camaro looked more mild than mean, so I was happy to see Chevy gave the new Camaro some growl. Notice the laid back windshield and the razor sharp lines of the fenders, hood, and sideview mirrors.

The 1968 Camaro compared to the 2009 Camaro

2008 Dodge Challenger
Out of the whole list, the Challenger looks almost exactly like the original 1970 Challenger. This car was made famous again to young audiences by the race scene from the “Fast and Furious Movie.”

I went to a muscle car museum a few years ago before I really new anything about muscle cars. (I prefer customs from the 1950s, and I was intimidated by the shear number of special edition muscle cars.) But as I walked through the museum, I kept coming back to a 1970 Challenger. It was undeniably the coolest car in the museum.Because the new Challenger looks like the old, Dodge will have to load the new Challenger with a ferocious engine and new technology or otherwise it’ll be known as a modern mistake. The image on the bottom gives an idea of how people will be customizing the 2008 when it comes out.

The 1970 Challeger compared to the Challenger concept car.

200? Jeep Gladiator
I gave a full impression of this Jeep truck in a previous journal, but I want to hit a couple highlights here. First of all, Jeep has never gotten its trucks right. They’ve always been interesting to look at because they retain the masculine Jeep trademarks, but they’ve never developed the same cult following as the original Jeep. Once the novelty wears off, they become odd balls on used car lot.

Jeep has to do this truck right, or the Gladiator will be forgotten just like the rest of ‘em. How they will do this, I don’t know. Off-road enthusiasts will clamor for rugged durability out on the trail. I’d prefer a slide-back cloth roof to set this truck apart from the more capable pickups produced by Toyota.

The antique Jeep pickup looks much like the Gladiator concept.

200? Ford Bronco, 2008 Fairlane
Although the most famous Ford Bronco is the white, full-sized escape wagon for OJ Simpson, the coolest Broncos will always be from the 1960s and early 1970s, which competed for the same customers at the Toyota FJ, the International Scout, and the Jeep. What made the Bronco fun was it’s upright posture and boxy silhouette. Plus, the roof could be removed to enjoy the summer. Like it’s rivals from that period, early Bronco’s have kept their value, largely because of demand from off-road enthusiasts.

At the 2004 North American International Auto Show, Ford introduced a concept for the new Bronco. You can see it keeps the sturdy dimensions of the early Bronco, yet looks refined and clean. Concept cars usually don’t get manufactured, but they often hint the visual direction of future vehicles. In this case, the Bronco’s style pointed to the Ford Fairlane concept which debuted a year later in 2005. Although the Fairlane and Bronco have similar lines, the rumor is that the Fairlane will be released as a 2008 replacement for their minivan. I’m afraid the Fairlane will become a bore as soon as it’s marketed as practical and economical.

The 1967 Ford Bronco shares many traits with the Bronco Concept, and the 2008 Ford Fairlane.

2007 Toyota FJ (Landcruiser)
The Landcruiser is one of the few vehicles–much like the Jeep–that will remain cool, regardless of it’s age. Most cars become dull once they become eight years old, but at that age, the Landcruiser becomes vintage while other SUVs turn ghetto.

The Landcruiser began is strictly a utility vehicle, similar to early Jeeps. The height of this “FJ 40 Series” Landcruiser is a highly-coveted boxy Jeep vehicle (see below) that is legendary today for it’s off-road capabilities. I tried to buy one of these in high school because I thought they’d be cheap, but they were a butt-load of money.

For the record, somewhere along the way in the 60s, Toyota produced the wagon/SUV that evolved into the modern, high-class SUV that rich people like to drive to Starbucks. So this new FJ is a re-issue of the original tough-guy Landcruiser, and it will share space on the car lot with it’s more refined brother.

Like father like son.

2005 Ford GT-40
The original Ford GT came out way before my time, so I was unfamiliar with the car until the car magazines started buzzing about it’s comeback. I believe that it was one of the first commercials during the Superbowl that year, and it was just straight-forward footage of the car on the racetrack. I don’ t think the original Ford GT was available to the public it was a pure race car.

By the time the GT was arriving at car lots, many original buyers had already turned around and sold the car for much more money. Supply and demand. The sticker price was between $125,000 and $150,000, but they were being sold for over $200,000. I got an up-close look at one of these cars at that was auctioned off at Barret-Jackson in early 2006, and it was stunning.

I think they got it right the second time.

2005 Ford Mustang
American cars had some really tough years in the mid-1970s into the 1980s. Very few cars made in that time will be remembered as cool, and the Ford Mustang was no exception. It was a pitiful, moronic looking car. Just look at this all dressed up 1978 King Cobra:

1978 was a bad bad time for the Mustang. It looked like the dorky kid brother who got a tattoo to look like his older brother, the Pontiac Firebird.

It wasn’t until the late 1980s that it started to get some muscle in it’s lean body and under the hood. The first totally new Mustang hit in 1994, officially ending the awkward years that began twenty years before. Most people won’t remember it today, but the 1994 Mustang was modeled after the 1964/1965 Mustang. It had side scoops, louvered-looking rear tail lights, and similar grills.

I had a fold-out poster of the 1994 Mustang my mom found in USA Today in 1993. I lusted after that car on the wall. Back then the TV show “Beverly Hills 90210″ was uber-popular, and one of the main characters, the beloved Brandon Walsh, drove a 1965 convertible Mustang. Everyone knew in 1994 that that 1965 Mustang coupe and convertible were awesome.

Ironically, the 2005 Mustang is modeled after the 1967 Mustang fastback, which was the second generation Mustang. How weird is that? Two years of design evolution in the 1960s equals twelve years by today’s standards. That’s one way to look at it, but I believe the reality is that over the course of the late 90s and early 00s, people remember that Shelby edition GT-500’s and GT-350’s were freakin’ cool (thanks in part to the custom GT-500 called Eleanor in Gone in 60 Seconds.) And that’s what set the stage for the re-introduction of the Mustang in 2005.

The 1967 Mustang had a strong identity in the early years of Pony Cars and Muscle Cars. If you look at the same year Plymouth Barracuda, you can see that the designers at Ford knew what they were doing.

Aside from the modern wheels on the 1967 Mustang above, both of these cars are purely stock. You can see the striking similarities.

The infamous 1967 Eleanor above looks good, but I’m afraid the new Eleanor might look better.

2002 Ford Thunderbird
This was the first modern interpretation of a classic American car. Although the 1994 Mustang took some styling cues from the 1965 Mustang, the 2002 Thunderbird had an undeniable likeness to the late 1950s Thunderbird.

Notice the similar grills and headlights.

1998 New Beetle
Although the New Beetle was released in 1998, the concept was revealed in 1993 (codenamed Concept-1.) Young people today don’t understand the excitement we had in the 1990s about this car coming back.

I was 14 at the time, I will never forget when I first saw the concept car in my VW trends magazine. I bought the subscription because I saw some cool original VWs customized on my family’s trips down to Florida. A wildly-painted drop-top VW driving on a street lined with palm trees was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. It’s been 13 years since I first saw the concept for the New Beetle, so the newness has worn off. But I can honestly say the New Beetle is better looking than the original.

Again, I think the new one looks better.

Every car company wish they had the tradition and cult following that Jeep has. Jeep vehicles remain cool no matter how old they get. If it’s a Jeep, it’s cool. Period. This means that Jeep can always dig a couple decades back and re-introduce something nostalgic with a modern twist. Old Jeep fans love the good old days, and young buyers like the idea of getting something that is timeless. I saw this happen to the Jeep Wrangler when I was in high school.

I was 15 and I was saving hard to buy a Jeep Wrangler, but all I could afford was a ten-year-old; CJ-7, the older version of the Wrangler. I was too young to realize that an old Jeep was still cool, so I was very conscious of the CJ-7’s full canvas doors instead of the hip new metal half doors. Plus, the headlights were round, and all new Wranglers had square headlights. It blew my mind a year later when the new Jeep Wrangler had round headlights again. After a decade, it was time to bring it back.

Concept cars rarely come to life. They seem mostly to generate hype for a car company, and to hint to car buyers a direction they are going. So I was thrilled to see that Jeep wants to re-introduce the Gladiator, a Jeep truck.

The Gladiator concept;looks pretty damn cool. The design is clean and understated, not as outrageous as other recent Jeep concepts. (Which leads me to believe that this will actually get manufactured.) I like the rugged exposed hinges, notched windows, and flat windshield. I read somewhere that it might even have a rag top that you can slide back. That would be bad to the bone.

I’m not a Jeep historian, but I believe this would be Jeep’s 5th version of a pickup. You can see elements in each of these trucks woven into the Gladiator Concept.
The first was a military truck built from the 1940s Jeep Willys. I’ve actually seen a couple of these lowered and turned into hot rods. Even with big rims under the fenders,;a Jeep can’t;look quite right when lowered.

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The second truck was the 1962 Jeep Gladiator, a full-size pickup truck based on the SJ Jeep Wagoneer SUV. I don’t think they sold many of these, because I’ve never seen one in real life.

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The third Jeep truck was the 1982 Jeep Scrambler, which was a long-bed version of the classic Jeep. Unlike the first-generation truck, you could actually remove the hard-top roof over the cab. The Methodist minister in town had a Jeep Scrambler when I was in middle school. I was stunned by how different it was than the modern Jeeps around school, but I knew it was a cool.

The four truck was 1986 Jeep Comanche, which was based off of the Jeep Cherokee SUV that was introduced two years earlier in 1984. The Comanche was sold for the next six years until 1992. But the boxy Cherokee SUV;looked the same for almost;15 years, until 2001 when it stopped being produced. That year it shared the car lots with the SUV that what would eventually replace it, the Jeep Liberty. My buddy had a Comanche in high school, and we cruised town in it and had a lot of fun.

As I mentioned earlier, the tame looks of this Comanche concept probably means they’re going to put this vehicle into production.; But I’m afraid it will be too late. By then, the Hummer H3 Truck will already rule the block:

How can you not like this truck? It’s futuristic, badass, and just cool. I’ve never thought about it, but Hummer and Jeep share similar stories. Jeep was a military issue vehicle, and so was Hummer. Jeep was then sold the general public and eventually bought up by Dodge/Chrysler. Hummer was sold to the public, then bought up by General Motors. And both Jeep and Hummer keep their off-road appeal, but get comfortable enough for day-to-day use. But the most common attribute shared by Jeep and Hummer is that they are beautiful and high maintanence, just like the women they attract.

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