Author: admin

It is six in the morning and I’m sitting on the beach under a towel blogging about Star Wars. I needed this. That being said, I also need to be honest about the cultural importance of the film I started talking about yesterday. In short, I don’t think it bears the same kind of cultural relevance to today’s audience that it did in the 70’s and 80’s when it was first ultra popularized. I don’t think we are the same kind of society. The role media plays in our socialization has shifted along with the merchandizing and extra market media that works together to form the ‘Movie Universe’

 

Take Marvel for example. They have movies and TV shows and Netflix shows that all swirl around the central advancing world. Meanwhile they have toys and product placement that enhance the visibility of every character. Finally they tell parallel stories to children through cartoons that prepare them for the films and the characters and show those characters in a very different light.

 

Star Wars doesn’t do the same thing. Star Wars is trying to tell an entire history, so all of the shows you see are telling different time periods of the same circular tale. Even the cartoons (Clone Wars, Rebels) are meant to fill the gaps. So, that brings me back to the central argument about the new movie.

 

There are Gaps and Missed Opportunities.

 

However, are these things purposefully placed in order to create space for the cartoons to continue building the world story and for other films and TV shows to fill in the gaps? Are the movies simply the summary story that continues to follow everything a handful (or in this case one) of droids sees and in that tell the story of the big things happening to the world and leave it to the side shows to fill in the blanks. If that is the case, I’m a bit pissed that I am being robbed of a deeper and more thorough story in pursuit of a quickly rendered fairy tale.

The ‘new’ finally wore off Star Wars and I found myself able to sit and watch the film without giggling like a teenager. Through a critical lens the film is very much a mirror of Episode 4 with a lot of purposeful placement of characters and even actors. Still, Abrams went to great links to delve into this world and make it his own out of the pieces that Lucas first created.

This is a movie that starts on the desert world of Jakku much like episode 4. This setting returns us to our first and likewise Abrams’ first view of the universe and does so in a way that shows us how he saw it. Where he missed an opportunity was to seize on some of the relationships in that world. We know Rey is an outsider and lives in the wreckage of a AT AT, but who does she know? What is the real value of those chips? Who are the other players on this world? Where is our bar full of colorful creatures? We see rough glimpses of that world but never stay put long enough to recognize who makes it tick.

When we hit space we are introduced (quite roughly and horribly) to Han Solo who just happens to be in the right sector of space to pick up the Falcon’s signal. I’m not going to remark on how the Falcon wound up in Jakku (sometimes you have to believe in the force). The missed opportunity here is two-fold. There was a chance to build on the Rey-Finn relationship in a way that made their connection more believable and a way to better build the mystery of who she is in relation to Solo. It just went too fast.

I have more to say but ten are up. More soon…

 

 

 

I’m writing this beachfront on a brisk sunday evening as the sun falls deeper beyond the horizon. I can hear the ocean crashing against itself like rich cymbals. Overhead the pelicans swirl and circle looking for an evening of food and fun. The taste of salt whispers against my tongue and fills my nose with a sense of joy and wonder I haven’t felt since New York. This is not my coast or my city or my world even but I enjoy it all the same. It feels me with joy, peace, and wonder.

My bestie reminded me that I need to take a moment to love myself every once in a while and I admit that she is right. I knew last night that the me moment was long overdue. Today all of that anger and futile rage has dissipated in a ball of wet sand sucked back into the ocean of my joy.

I’m a happy person–now, generally, and mostly when I write and I love and I live life this way. I have everything I want at my fingertips at this moment except for my kids. That is a big part of my joy too and I promised myself this morning that I will bring them here to sit under the same sun and hear the waves crash and the pelicans sing and the people laugh and play and be pleasant. They ought to know my joy so that they can see what I call happiness and, in time, find their own path there.

Some Thoughts:

1. I was able to catch the second half of the Heat-Raptors game and watched a team give up on itself. That is terrible, but I can see so many of those Heat players with the hunger and urgency to come back and do this right next year. This year was never their year. It belongs to the fated match between the restocked and healthy Cavs and the ‘Golden Warriors’
2. I need to go back to my CRT glasses because my eyes are the red of chiba with far less of the peaceful joy. Now where did I put those things…
3. Fantasy novel is going to happen soon. It lives in the back of my mind but keeps creeping forward like summer weeds.
4. The wordpress update is still terrible and I continue to have to cut and paste my entire post and reload to a new entry to post anything.

Suddenly you just quit.

You’ve had enough. That is enough of being a single dad, of being a son–all of it. You just tap out and say, “I’m done.”

Except you can’t quit because you don’t have that kind of job. You have the lifelong kind, the kind where people are going to beat up on you and demand everything and leave nothing. So instead you keep going and you lose that very important idea of who you are and what your needs are in sacrifice for everyone else’s shit. You think that is easier, but it isn’t because the shit continues to pile and, at least for this one day everyone once a piece. Everyone decides that no matter how pressing anything else is in the world, the stuff they need from you right that very second is more important. There is no such thing as a back burner for you. They expect it will be handled post haste.

So what if you don’t? Well that depends on who they are. It could be tears, it could be threats, it could be passive aggressive nonsense, it could be court dates. It could be a great many things because they don’t actually care to stop and consider what is up with you or how tired or run down or drained or overwhelmed you are. They just care that their needs aren’t being met.

I have created a life for myself that exists in days. There are days things are nice and simple and fun. There are days where the world catches fire and I can’t stop it all from burning. I didn’t realize how much of an issue this was until I realized that I had stopped even looking at weeks as something that existed. Its Friday then Saturday and so on.

This is clearly no way to live and I refuse to stay on the roller coaster much longer. I sacrifice a lot for the people I love. While I don’t for one second expect them to ever notice, I do need to start expecting a moment or two each day to breathe. I can guess what you are thinking: You get 10 every day! Indeed, but there is something to be said about being bombarded. It means the time and energy you can devote to your ten minutes of you time is largely spent struggling to crawl back from the brink of a stroke.

I’m not saying my life is a total nightmare. I am saying my life is not mine. It belongs to the people in my life and sometimes, if i’m lucky, they let me live it. Tomorrow I intend to escape and live that life, if only for a few sunlit days.

So, this is the end of the semester. I have a ton of grading left to accomplish before the weekend is out and probably need a few days more to really decompress ad disconnect from the semester, but it is in fact over. I learned a lot. A few great talks with colleagues helped me to put the whole thing in perspective. Being a teacher can be a lot like being a poker player. Every semester you are dealt a new hand and you have no way of knowing what is going to be in that hand. Try as you might, it is very difficult to be successful with every hand. The results vary and when you merge your skill with what is provided, things can go very well for you. On the other hand, if you let the cards be all that creates the game, you’re in for a rough one.

I had a rough one.

That’s over now and I can look towards a year where I am trying to put myself in the best possible position. I’m happy and relatively healthy and actually losing weight on occasion. Tomorrow is the last day of soccer games, football is largely behind me for a few months (unless I can field a team for the San Diego Nationals) and I’m not coaching basketball. That part of my life is wrapped and bagged for a spell, and instead it is all about the words.

Expect an uptick in word count as my brain focuses fully on the writing career. That, a few online classes, and Minecraft are the only ‘work’ I plan to do this summer.

There is a reason I hang around new writers: They have spirit. After a while it becomes clear to every writer that their goals and intentions aren’t seated in reality and not everyone on earth wants to compare them to Vonnegut or Wells. We all find our niche and write and write and tire and become jaded and the world kicks us and punches out our soul and eventually we get run down.

I got run down a while back and didn’t want to do anything that wasn’t safe and easy. Being around my writers woke me up and reminded me that writing is about being daring and expressing yourself right down the the hidden core of who you are and want to say to the world. It invigorates me to see that in others and to help nurture that is why I do what I do.

Some Thoughts:

1. Ran around with the kids today. Felt good. Felt impossibly tiring. I’m ready to move towards reintegrating exercise into my lifestyle.
2. Prop 123 isn’t going to pass. There were some shenanigans that went down that helped this situation. Secretary Reagan is at fault and is truly showing how procedure is more important than doing what is right.

There isn’t a damn thing to say about football right now. This isn’t an exaggeration. NFL.com posted an article about a player having the umlaut approved for his jersey. That is a real article on the premier football website. In other words, there is nothing to say right now. Nothing.

There are a few things to say about basketball. Steph Curry was unanimously named MVP–a rare honor for a player in any sport. His team beat the win record of the 72-10 Bulls and all that remains is to take home the title. If they don’t take home that title, are they still a legendary team? I’ve been thinking about this idea for a while now. My own 8u tackle team lost the championship despite an otherwise perfect season and giving up only 6 points the entire season. We are slightly diminished by the championship loss. We are also not pros. Professionals are far more diminished by losing a championship because fans expect far more for their money. The undefeated Patriots realized this when they lost to the Giants in the Superbowl.

I have every reason to believe the Warriors will feel that same wrath.

 

There are some people in life who make you want to sing out loud. There are some people in life who make you wish you could stab yourself in the brain repeatedly. I am blessed to have encountered both extremes in my life as it creates an understanding of what I need in order to be happy, healthy, and wise.

Or what I don’t need.

I’ll avoid specifics to protect the innocent and the guilty, but it goes like this: I’m stressed. I don’t have a lot of good people in my life and I continue to face what Flight Officer Ferro referred to as “Chop” in developing those relationships in a healthy way. I’m plum not good at it. From what I’ve been told (and is mostly true) I trend towards unhealthy relationships–specifically with the fairer gender. Of course, I’ve been doing it for most of my adult life so its invisible to me and, if i’m being honest, a part of my personality to do so. This stems from having a specific set of emotional needs and failing to have them met in any way shape or form for the majority of my adult life.

These are common needs–nothing that would earn me a trip to the dungeon or psychiatrist. Basic stuff like respect, dedication, even the idea of being first and foremost in someone’s mind. All of these things I want and have wanted from people since birth. Rarely have the ones who are supposed to offer such things provided them. Instead I quilted these emotional responses together from the relationships in my life forming a protective cover of relationships that weren’t always healthy, effective, or helpful outside of filling a niche need.

I don’t need that anymore, though I still wish I could have gotten the necessary emotional capital from where it should’ve come. What I need now is… well, I haven’t figured that out yet.

The average research scientist pulls in around 76K a year, which is equivalent to what a professor makes and still far below the 4 million average salary you get for playing baseball. I’m not talking about football or any of the other sports where CTE is known to be or have been an issue. I’m talking about boring old baseball. Granted its the national past time, but it isn’t even an olympic sport at this juncture. Meanwhile, real estate agents pulled in a median of 40K with a modicum of the talent and education required for any of the other two jobs. I suppose my point is this:  All of this talk about what jobs people should train for and making your kid into this or that is ridiculous. The jobs we direct them towards are merely shades of what we were directed towards and or what we feel is worthwhile and profitable.

But there are a lot of profitable professions.

I chose the path of teaching because I get a lot of of it. I adore the interaction between myself and students at all ages. I love watching new talent grow, go on to be productive, and hopefully return to show students that there is a path to their own success. We spend so much of our lives working that it feels ludicrous to even consider working a job you don’t enjoy. I get that we all have to do things we want to at some point in life, but your job is a major facet of your life. Living with and hating it is just as bad as being in a destructive relationship.

I don’t always love my job, but I’m as much of a fan of it as anyone can be. And at least we aren’t trying to kill each other.

As the school year spins to a close I find myself looking backwards with one eye and forward with another, anxious to assess what has come to past and figure out a plan moving forward. Life is change and assessment. We can only get better by recognizing who and what we have been and trying to become better versions of ourselves and placing that better self in the most advantageous situation. I speak jargonese here, but the key point is that I can only get bette by seeing exactly where I am at, what got me here, and deciding how to best proceed forward.

So, I’m at a place where I want to be a better partner, parent, writer, teacher, and I want to do these things from a place of financial stability. Honestly, I give myself a C grade for all listed save for financials which I mark as a low F. The blog has been a strong indicator of the other grades as of late, but the financials is something more about trying to live far outside of my means and recognizing that it doesn’t work.

Being a better partner is about being available for your loved one and putting them first. That is a tough one for me, because I spent a lot of time putting everyone else’s needs ahead of my own and it hurt me as a writer, teacher, and even a parent. Still, there has to be a way to merge these things Voltron-like as opposed to compartmentalizing and ultimately not applying time to the things that need it when they need it.

Part of these revelations emerge from having more time on my hands. I’m coaching less, which means less mental energy devoted to that pursuit. Now, I recognize that I am more effective when I coach less, but I also recognize how much I enjoy coaching and how much a part of my life that is. So, I’m going to restrict myself to one sport at a time moving forward and no more than two teams close enough in age that I can combine a fair number of the practices in order to limit how much time I spend coaching. If I have my kids three weeknights, I shouldn’t really spend more than two on coaching.

So thats a bit on partnership, parenting, and finance. With these ten minutes behind me, I’ll marinate on the rest.