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Today I spent the morning sitting in the sun watching and occasionally filming my boys playing football at an exposure camp. It was a reminder of how serious people can be about the game. My 11 yr old who is a grade up found himself playing against kids who were much older while his teammates and brother played against a younger selection. This meant he was basically drowned out. He looked good, but he often looked like he was struggling to keep up with the larger and faster kids. On the other hand, his brother shone. Just not enough. He was not named MVP. He did not get any special team or camp invites. Neither boy did though their teammates clearly did.

This is a good moment for everyone involved. It is a reminder that they need to work hard to get what they want. It is also a reminder that I cannot ensure success for my kids. It is not up to me to spend my life making their lives right. That is the argument of balance. There is also the argument of fun in that too. I really have enjoyed working with them for the last few days trying to get them ready to show out at this combine and be ready for the upcoming season.

I want to find a balance in all of this and part of that means sitting down with my partner and deciding how much longer I am going to coach. I don’t have a real answer there. What I do know is that I want to see the boys be successful, and it is up to them and not me to see that achieved.

Some Thoughts:

1. Thinking about Mr. Nightmare’s page. I fell asleep listening to his Youtube videos this afternoon and find myself thinking about writing up a story to share with him. Maybe.
2. Figuring out what to do for myself for my bday. I want a new macbook (used, of course) and a chair.

Rough evening last night. I could feel my heart beating incredibly fast at several points during the night and it forced me into self reflection on my life. I am not one who is big on regrets. I believe I could have done a lot of things much much better and wound up in a different place than where I am now. I suppose one version of the afterlife is being able to restart from different points of that decision tree and explore new branches. Given how little I understand about the very concept and or nature of reality, who knows how real or possible that is (for example, why or even HOW does reality exist? What exists outside of it?)? But I digress. The moments of reflection reminded me that I still have much to do in this life and much to atone for. I’ve failed a lot of people often just through stubbornness and believing that I have to do X, Y or Z. I’ve been a selfish partner, selfish parent, selfish lover, and even a selfish friend. I’m left to wonder how much of that is purely my nature, how much is laziness (what is laziness anyhow?) and how much of it is just straight up fear–fear of change, of challenge, of success, of failure?

I am certain that I have forever ruined certain aspects of my partnership through my behaviors. I am equally certain that I am quite rudderless–wandering towards a destination that I should be fine tune steering towards.

Last night I watched yet another movie written by my high school classmate and thought again how he was able to solidly capitalize on his energy and his talent where I have floundered in a misguided effort to be liked and appreciated by small minded people or focused on ‘buffing’ my kids to be more successful than myself. The ‘buff’ does not upset me in the fashion that the floundering still does. I’ve wasted so much time and talent worrying about what other people think and feel that I know it has hamstrung my success everywhere I’ve been.

Now I am here, worrying about a heart that beats too fast and a soul that moves too slowly.

Recently my partner questioned my process. I am grateful for her and her thoughts and suggestions every day. My process has been 1000 new words on a draft a day. I’ve been at this for 18 days as of last night and the result has been well over 18,000 words of a story that is contracted for 20k. The issue came up because I have only 3-5 (haven’t decided) chapters remaining of that novella, which means it is going to end in the coming week. Now the book is not done. The 1000 words merely paints inside the lines of the chapter. It needs to be refined and redrawn and more. So, the question is what now?

We talked it out (though I am not entirely sure she always recognized when I am listening–that’s definitely something I am not clear about). I will continue putting down 1000 a day for the rest of my remaining days (I’m so damn morbid as of late… there’s gotta be something to that). However, I won’t move on from this story. I will add to the routine and continue putting an hour or more into the polishing of the novella in addition to the 1k requirement. The 1k will be part of the next story and the next and the next. My biggest problem as a writer has always been that once I finish a story it takes forever to wind back up again. This way I no longer need to worry about the wind up (or wind down) because I am still chugging along on something. I am still firing with all cylinders towards the next project.

This is the way I wrote as a carefree kid who had all the time in the world and not enough games (or platforms) to fill that void. Now I have begun to move my life in the direction where the primary focus is writing on the professional level and that helps tremendously.

Some Thoughts:

1. Recently returned from a vacation–a respite from the desert if you will. Great time was had on the beach and I continue to see that as a home away from home and a chance to fall into a simpler (video game reduced) routine with my partner and with my kids.
2. Speaking of games and gaming: I’m going to play for the rest of my life. Nobody is stopping me from playing, of course, but when I think about what really matters to me long term I find that games are top 5. I slip away in games the way I slip away in story. Games can be story but interactive.
3. Honestly, I hope I live long enough to see VR MMORPG fully realized. I’d like to appreciate that before I go.

Recently I climbed aboard the hype train. I’ve been coaching my kids and watching them grow as athletes for years. I have always felt they were top flight contenders, in spite of some other coaches downplaying the abilities of two of the three boys. The middle kid has always been the one everyone raved about, and when the eldest hit High School last year I full expected he was going to show up, get playing time, and be one of the better players. He was not. Turns out those coaches were right and he ended up being sorted into the lowest group in almost everything he tried. This left me wondering where I went wrong as a dad and a coach. Why was it he couldn’t get on the field to prove himself? How did he wind up being such an average to below average player/athlete? Well, one thought is that he is merely an okay athlete who excelled because he was surrounded by trash competition. Related to that is he didn’t get enough exposure and confidence to build him into a dominant force. The final answer is he doesn’t have it in him–not now and perhaps not ever. These three answers led me down the short flight of steps into the underground world of Youth Football Promotion. The machine exists largely because the parents (like me) exist. The machine promotes kids as future D1 talents though it comes at a huge cost both in time and money.

The High Schooler is at the point where he needs to work it out on his own. Once he started freshman year I switched my efforts to the younger two. My job–my goal–is to prepare them for the world of high school sports and to get them enough exposure to be able to have a chance to play at the high school level–or at least to be noticed by the coaches enough to get a fair shake in practice. I don’t feel the High schooler got that. In truth I was told by some of the other coaches that he did not.

So how is that done? These days it means having an instagram feed for your athlete and going to exposure camps and playing on all star teams. At least, that is what they want you to believe. The machine exists as a hype engine to promote both your kid and itself as a way to get your kid to play other top kids. However, the machine means constantly checking feeds and paying exorbitant fees for camps. Here is one example. My mid-kid was invited to participate in the ‘Invitation Only’ USA football National Team workouts. That would give him an opportunity to play in the National Team game pitting all the best players against each other–in theory. The camp costs $200 for a 2-day experience of running drills led by NCAA coaches. I feel like that would be very useful for a high school Jr. Still seeking scholarships, but a 7th grader?

I’ve seen the hype train and I am not getting on it. I did the instagram and we may do an all star team just as fun family jaunt to Cali over the summer, but this week in week out grind of camps and publicity is too much. I’m not entirely ducking out on getting my kids some good film, but I am out on promoting them like an agent.

I don’t have a clue what the Giants are thinking. You let a pro bowl safety walk away and then trade away the most popular player on the team and one of the top WRs in the league for a couple of draft picks and… a safety? To say I feel the Giants have gone full crazy would be a bit premature. I believe they have the appearance of insanity and are reinforcing what people said last year: The Barkley pick was a waste based on these hot QBs.

First of all, Barkley was an excellent pick. He is the kind of rare talent that OBJ is… that means do not trade him! I don’t believe they will. I feel like the OBJ trade was about coach feeling that Beckham hurt the locker room and had too much power in a space where a new QB needs to come in and gain ground quickly. It could also have been about the injuries. I think we will see Odell explode this year in that offense with that WR Coach.

But what happens to the Giants?

This is a team with a lot of draft capital, but not a team with a direction. Maybe the Rosen trade is a real thing and they can handle that while using early picks for transcendental players. Maybe they get N’Keal Harry and change their stars. Who knows? All I know is that there is a new factory of sadness and they call it Metlife Stadium.

Today I had to remind a student that there is little difference between myths and religions. I argued, that mythologies are “dead religions” much in the way that latin is a “dead language” these things existed and thrived for people of another generation and they were as real and important to them as monotheistic religion is to us. She also argued that myths are superseded by science and had people of that era had science they would not have attributed the things they attribute to their Gods. I didn’t say what I wanted to say, but next time I will write: We have science now. Yet in spite of this the overwhelming majority still believe in an All-father who takes the shape of a man.

It is natural to think they way you see the world is somehow better than the way it is seen by others. It is natural and it is a false construct we design purely out of ego and necessity. After all, who wants to feel like they are wrong or believe in something silly all of the time? That has to be demoralizing. So instead we form a sort of mental hierarchy or shield ourselves from the possibility of wrongness. I believe this is becoming more and more polarizing in the age of modern communication when all the people who see things one way can be a finger swipe away from legion. Remember the days when a flat earther was a lone idiot? How about an anti-vaccer? Because we have modernized communication to the point of being able to see people across the planet instantly, it is easier to find people with shared beliefs. Those beliefs are a powerful uniting force.

I’m writing a novel presently and each chapter feels worse than the last. It is a first draft and I generally take those very very seriously to the point where I get stuck on the language of a draft and fail to move the work forward because I can’t figure out a phrase or something doesn’t sound as great as I want. Over the last 15 days I’ve been putting in 1000 words a day on the novella I am presently writing. I’m doing it without going back and fixing things. I am doing it without worrying about anything but writing the 1000 words a day I’ve promised myself. It feels pretty damn good.

The story is bad. Woefully bad. It is about as bad and cliche as a draft can get, but that is the beauty of the thing. I don’t think it can be good on the first run. It needs a ton of editing to be remotely successful. In other words, I’ve removed the pressure of a perfect first draft. I did so with great difficulity, but having done so I feel amazing about it. I feel like I have the freedom to fail at a scene so long as I write it all the way through to the end.

Some Thoughts:

1. Still have this strange feeling I am living in a simulation and at times the simulation breaks down or oversimplifies as a way to conserve its memory banks.
2. One of those oversimplifications feels like the appearance of certain dogs once that kind of dog becomes important in my life. Another is the way that insects and birds instinctively move and ‘flock’

This is not a blog about Captain Marvel and the ‘important moment’ being generated by a female led comic film being produced by a female director (Wonder Woman already did that and in doing so helped the DC universe remain relevant). This is more about the divide between what is good and groundbreaking vs. what sells tickets and copies. Part of it is the conversation about best sellers vs. solid literature. Part of it is about movies that move ideas and the conversation forward vs. cool blockbusters.

I wish there was a place where those things met. I think Extinction lived in the junction–in spite of my distaste for the novel. I also think that the works of PKD do a lot for the written fiction while the films straight suck.

In short I don’t feel like people watch a lot of good stuff anymore or read a lot of good stuff anymore and as a result our overall appreciation of good cinema and literature has diminished. It has really gotten to the point where we don’t even appreciate good stuff because we are so used to stuff not being that good.

Some Thoughts:

1. It would be nice to adopt a dog.
2. It would be nicer if I could actually breed dogs
3. Considering getting myself a switch just to play Apex and Minecraft on the go. Price point is killing me.
4. This was really a trash blog. If I am not focused then the writing does not go well.

Look, this Trump thing is just out of control. I am not sure if people are just mad enough about perceived slights/racism/or whatever or if the media outlets for the right have just amassed so much trust and faith from their viewership that the sheep are willing to follow blindly. There’s a old Navajo saying: Sheep is life. I take that to mean that we have a service to the flock, and we lead that flock in a direction that is for the betterment of the earth.

But we don’t.

Thanks in large part to how good the republican machine is at churning out bullcrap, we find ourselves in an increasingly dangerous situation. It feels a lot like we jokingly let the kids climb into the driver’s seat to play, but then the little fracker’s strapped in, turned on the car, and drove away. Nobody has any real control over the situation. The party is too scared of decimating it’s lock step philosophy to fix the problem. Instead they are clearly looking to gain what they can from the present administration over the next term and a half and then put in a candidate they can sell to the American people.

The democrats? Still wishing Obama was coming back or AOC could come forward. Neither is happening, and like with Trump, the party has a real problem rallying behind Bernie Sanders, who represents the only legitimate chance the dems have of energizing the so-called base.

Here’s what I think: The republicans have a much larger base. Why? because the voting republicans–the ride or die folk–are the older generation of Americans who take the time to vote for one. This is compounded by gerrymandered districts that limit the voice of the mass of democrats. The older dems find themselves in voting districts where power is both concentrated and limited. The real power is in the young vote, and they aren’t coming out yet.

My partner said that, at moments, the film had an afterschool special feel to it. I agreed with her, nodding and thinking about the characters and the situation these people were placed in. For those who haven’t seen it, THUG is about a black teen named Starr who is in the car when her friend is shot and killed by a cop during a traffic stop. The shooting ignites racial tensions and forces Starr to question her life choices and her responsibility to stand up for what is right. The film is exactly what you’d guess it is and as such reflects a lot of that hallmark/after school special quality that comes across when you know you’re being taught a lesson. During that lesson I found myself asking a bunch of questions of myself. I asked me, for example, how much do people understand about me and how close I am to the experiences of the black men in that film? How lucky and fortunate was I to have a mom who, like the mom here, pulled me out of the depressed school system and sent me somewhere that I could use my brain to gain some advantage in life? It also made me think about where I am now, and where I want my kids to be when they are my age.

I’m no thug. I stopped fighting in elementary school. Football offered a very brief window into an escapist world where violence was okay, but even there I felt like I didn’t belong in the culture. I put that on my momma for training me as an intellectual and not giving a damn about sports—no matter how hard I worked at them or how well I did when provided opportunities to succeed. Your mind outlasts the talents of your body, and that is why in my forties I can still be an intellectual when I no longer have access to that second gear of speed I used to engage to kick it up and straight pass people.

Every parent I know sees a little of themselves in their kids. It becomes a dangerous view when those parents try to fulfill their dreams through their kids. I am aware of this because of how I treat my kids in sports. They have that talent and see that as a way up. Note that I said way up, because in the THUG world it was and still is a way out. One of these days I’ll write about the difference and how it impacts athletes. However, in regards to where the film brought me, it was a strong reminder that my kids don’t know that world. They’ve been in the car when I have been pulled over. They’ve been given ‘the talk’ yet they still feel like (and are still taught in the educational system that) racism –especially institutional racism is outdated and a relic of a past that people who don’t know how to move on hang on to. I hope they are right.

I know they are not. That is why I will continue to ready them for the day that reality looks down on them and reminds them they are still black.

Some Thoughts:

1. Impromptu Subway performances are yet another reason New York City is amazing and I have no choice but to spend more and more of my life in the city of my birth. If I can last out until my retirement, then I can probably afford for my partner and I to live there without working the ridiculous load we do presently.