FTW

This past Thursday night we were all privileged enough to see the documentary titled “Facing The Waves.” It told us the story of the Von Dutch co-founder Bobby Vaughn, his recent struggles and how he plans on “bouncing back” from those struggles. The main controversy that surrounded Vaughn was the justified homicide charge against him for the killing of his life long friend Mark Rivas. Bobby told the documentarians the story of the night in very broad strokes: alcohol fueled rage, getting stabbed by a beer bottle and finally wrestling the gun away from his friend and unloading it into him. In the aftermath Bobby lost custody of his son and fled to the East Coast where he opened a surf shop and set out on creating a new clothing line “FTW”.

Bobby’s whole clothing line, and really his whole way of life, is about self- expression and doing what he wants.  He purposely left the name of this clothing line in acronym form so that everyone would apply his or her own “FTW.”  Examples he gave ranged from “For The Win” and “Fix The World” to other more vulgar expressions.  The documentarians related stories where Bobby would show up late and high or turn the music up in hi store causing copious problems for them.  Bobby’s whole world is about doing what he wants and expressing himself.

The lesson we can all take from Bobby Vaughn is to never give up on our self-expression.   While not of all of us should get arrested or tattoo all parts of our bodies, the important part is that were all born with a certain set of skills and a certain amount of creativity, and we should never let anyone try to suppress it or tell us that it means nothing.