Many people are now familiar with Lost's Terry O'Quinn. He plays the character, John Locke, who is arguably the second most complex character on the show. Locke goes from a cripple with low self esteem, to a full fledged messiah, back to a doubting Thomas who struggles with his new found power, to a new incarnation of the Great Satan (this could be a bit of premature speculation).

He has had quite a ride in the show's relatively brief history, but the actor himself probably has an even more intriguing raise to fame. Born in 1952, his first blip on the Hollywood radar occurred in 1980, playing James Roosevelt on a TV show called F.D.R.: The Last Years. Even after bursting onto the scene at 28...it seems reasonable to say he was a D-lister (appearing mostly in guest spots on various TV dramas like Jag (which at the time seemed like a heterosexual TV adaptation of Top Gun) for 52 years of his life. But he never gave up the proverbial dream. This is INCREDIBLE to me. What if your father was still trying to get a role on Gossip Girl?

I am finding out more and more, that to truly succeed at something, you have to 1. Love doing it. 2. Work hard at it to get good, and #3. Be patient.

Not patient like waiting at the DMV, but patient like John Locke.

This post is actually about Wilco.

Granted, both parties seem totally unrelated, but stay with me here. (My tired brain is actually very pleased with the path I have chosen.) Listen to the song "Country Disappeared" off Wilco's new s/t release. Right now its the only song I can really listen to after dealing with MJ's untimely demise. I don't know how I stumbled on this (Wikipedia, actually), but note that Wilco lead singer Jeff Tweedy's first band (dubbed The Plebes) formed in the early 1980's. I first got into Wilco in 2004 with their pretty, yet completely paranoid, release "A Ghost Is Born."

The most interesting thing to me is that both of these entities (Terry and Wilco) have been working diligently at their trades since before I was born, and a quarter of a century later, here I am talking about them, and I don't think I'm the only one. Here are some of the lyrics to "Country Disappeared," the song that won't leave me alone.

So every evening we can watch from above,
crushed cities like a bug
Fold ourselves into each others guts,
and turn our faces up to the sun.