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American dream paradox 

A harsh reality that many people come to the United States in order to start over and live a better life by having freedom, social equality, better education, and money, but yet for most people who come to this country, this dream will be impossible to completely achieve until several generations later, assuming they have a family with children, because of limited resource access and education, poor understanding of the social norms that most people in America actually follow, and distrust of immigrants in some parts of the country.
Pema and her family moved to America from Nicaragua in the hopes of starting over and help her children live better lives than what they had in their homeland, but they found it was exceedingly difficult to live in the U.S. because of the differences of America’s social norms compared to Nicaragua’s social norms and difficulty getting a job and finding decent housing. They are experiencing the American dream paradox.

Austin-American dream

The pursuit of a career in an area one is passionate about, often living on limited resources, when higher paying careers, though unwanted, are attainable

The juggling of several part time jobs, ideally related to one's passion, to earn enough money to live off of which allows time to develop a creative skill

The desire for a more fulfilling livelihood often stymied by crippling debt and/or self-doubt

A play on words based on the Austin-American Statesman newspaper in Austin, Texas.
Sheila hated her old job as a curriculum developer. Now she has two part time jobs teaching kids music and writing, and she has time to pursue her acting career. She's happier getting by on less because she's living the Austin-American dream.

Dylan's been working at the record store forever. He's an expert in music especially obscure stuff. He'll never sell out. He's living the Austin-American dream, for real.

Melody teaches art classes all over town and has shows of her own. She tried working at a collections agency once and walked out. She knows the Austin-American dream is the only life for her.

Janice wishes she could quit her job and become a fashion designer, but she has too much debt and doesn't think she could make money. She doesn't think the Austin-American dream is realistic enough for her, at least not now.

the american dream 

Getting paid a whole lot to do not a whole hell of a lot.
Person 1: Man, I don't want to go to work today. I just want to get paid to sit on my ass.
Person 2: Ahhh, the American Dream lives on.
the american dream by maryla January 14, 2008

Gatsbys American Dream 

Gatsbys American Dream (there is no apostrophe) is the sliver of hope amongst a world of shitty, generic, thoughtless, pop punk shit.
The band has their roots in indie, pop punk, and folk, but incorporates several other genres including metal and post-hardcore.

Each member of the band has made a risky move by learning the ancient arts of music making:

The singer's lyrics are poetic, metaphorical, and instead of singing about ex-girlfriends, he sings about events in literature, therefore forcing the listener to use his or her brain.

The guitars (Mainly Bobby) have looked into the past and learned what we once called "guitar chords", in oppose to the modern "power chord". Bobby often uses minor chords, bar chords, and sevenths.

The bassist read an encyclopedia and learned that bass is short for bass GUITAR, and actually plays it like one, instead of constantly playing rythm.

"When Vin Diesel invented the drums, he appointed Rudy Gajadhar as the overseer to the instrument. You can't top his skillz." Unlike all drummers in modern music, the drummer has developed his skills to keep rythm, and stand out at the same time, like God intended.

I haven't heard enough of the keys, but it's not often someone makes a ringing organ sound good.

The bands only shortcoming is that, after their debut album, the went hysterical and decided NOT to use the mind-numbing chorus-verse-chorus song structure in EVERY SONG, making the band unbelievably better, but sadly, angering the mighty money thirsty record labels.

If you like talent, and lots of it. Give any CD by this band a listen.
If you like Green Day and think power chords are always good, I highly recomend you stay away, this might scare you.

Members:
Nic Newsham- Sings and writes
Bobby Darling- Plays beast guitar and sings
Kirk Huffman- Plays bass guitar and sings
Kyle O'Quin- Plays keys in the last album
Rudy Gajadhar- Drums like a god
Ryan Van W*$(&*- PLayed the guitar in the first to albums, and sings some of Badlands on the CD Volcano
Dustin- Drums in the first CD, although he ain't no Rudy, he is magnificent.
Listening to Gatsbys American Dream will raise your standards of creative music to a new level:

Unenlightened guitarist: Hey you wanna hear a song I wrote?

Enlightened guitarist: Sure!

*Unenlightened plays a solid three minutes of nothing but the same 4 power chord progressions and wails about how his ex left him*

Enlightened: ...didn't Sum 41 make that song already?
Why didn't you play any chords?

Unenlightened: What's a chord?

The American Dream 

"The american dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with oppertunity for each according to ability or achievement. it is a difficult dream for the european upper classes to interpret adequatly, and too many of ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. it is not a dream of motercars and high wages mearly, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognised by others regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." (taken from "the epic of america" by Truslow Adams 1921 i.e the first time the words 'the american dream were used')- translation...the americans cant fulfill this as long as they try to out live everyone else and allways have a bigger and better thing then everyone else regardless of wether or not everyone else is, in fact american. it can also be said that this is an idea of absoloute equality, how is this the case when there exsts a president of the united states that can go to was with whatever country it feels like. AS LONG AS THERE IS AN EMPLOYER AND AN EMPLOYEE THERE IS NO EQUALITY
The American Dream by Mr cheese November 17, 2004