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Trump is a jerk. He’s the kind of dude I’d kick out of class. This isn’t about his politics at all. He just isn’t a great person. The way he behaved in that debate showed a man who felt that he was above everyone else in the room and could talk down to and talk over them. I really wanted to tell him to shut up and let someone else speak. His manner is juvenile and drips with privilege.

You govern the way you act. He acts like an ass.

I’m watching CNN try to break down the debate and it is making me sick. Why? It is so sadly clear that the station is painted in stereotypes. Here is their token republican:

She fits right in with the Fox News bunch below:

 

Here is the token democrat:

Need I say more? I will. The blonde, Kayleigh, sounds a lot like Tomi Lahren of the Blaze and fits a rather specific stereotype of the forceful rightwing blonde. It is as if they are recruiting versions of people in order to create the illusion of diversity.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’m tired of people who have never ever had to worry about being stopped and frisked tell me how effective it was. Effective for who? For what? Effective for those who feel like the problem is young minorities? Because the effect it had on people like me is to further alienate us and harken back to a day of Jim Crow Laws.
2. If you call it a ‘Spin Room’ then you are openly admitting that everything spoken within those walls is bullshit.

six interceptions is the tagline you’ll see following Fitzpatrick for the next few weeks. In reality he threw closer to 12, but the rest were dropped. He had the worst QB performance recorded in my lifetime. He was so bad that in trying to throw that many picks in Madden 17 I failed. repeatedly. There is no chance the Jets plan to keep Geno Smith less they would have put him in to stop the bleeding. Fitz couldn’t find a Jets receiver if he were outlined in neon, but the KC folks ate just fine.

The Giants didn’t eat. They tried and even got to the point where they broke Josh Norman, but it didn’t matter. See, the G-men caught a case of the Fitz too. Eli was rifling it to the other team and the score reflected it.

Here are your blue skies: Both games were in a position where they could have been one. I mean the Giants  the Jets had a chance to win after all those dang TOs. That to me says that both teams have a program that is working, but didn’t work at all today. This is the new face of utter failure.

What say we hope he become the face of success next week, eh?

Meanwhile, embattles coach Rex Ryan won big in his tilt. He was—is—on the hot seat but that doesn’t change the fact that he is the only one of the NY teams to win a game.

Young Black Men are dangerous.

There, I said it. That is what generations of media socialized people have been thinking, right? Young black men–hell black men in general–are dangerous. Black women are brash and loud and believe themselves to be queens. I’m not making this up. Someone is making this up. No matter how you personally feel about back people it is difficult to deny the optics of an entire century. Only in the last twenty years are we seeing black men seen on screen as leading men and heroes nearly as often as they are portrayed as gang bangers and thieves. Back in 1996 the top film was Independence Day, in which Will Smith played on the stereotype of the street smart black man done good to help spawn a new generation of black heroes who were at once black and only moderately stereotyped (note: He played the same exact dude in Suicide Squad). Down at #17 on that list (imdb) is the next time you even see a black person on screen and that is in the film A Time to kill where, “A young lawyer defends a black man accused of murdering two men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, sparking a rebirth of the K.K.K.”

Yep, a film where a dude avenges the rape of his daughter sparks the rebirth of the K.K.K. Nowadays we call that trope ‘Taken” and we don’t have the gravitas and racial discussion. We just say, oh he handled what he had to handle.

I don’t think black men are as dangerous as the myth perpetuates. Yeah, I am a black man and yeah I can walk through the hood and not expect to get shot straight away. But I can’t walk through a small town in the south and not expect to get shot straight away. The difference is we call the people in the hood predators.

All people are dangerous. We just spend our time focused on the black ones.

Building a life is tricky work. This is made all the more difficult when you realize you don’t even know what that term means. If you define a life as a routine during which you form long-lasting relationships, interact with people outside the home, and grow, I don’t know that I have really had ‘a life’ since college. I was married for 14 years, most of which were spent under the haze of childrearing and commuting. I suppose that was a life of sorts, but not of any sort that meets the definition of what I think I am looking for now. I am told that this is supposed to be sad information. To live the last two decades without actually having a life or more than a handful of genuine friendships to show for it does seem a bit odd.

I have Facebook friends, some of whom read this blog. I have work friends. I think. There be daggers in several smiles. I don’t have a great deal of neighborhood friends. Once I tried to make a friend–a guy I thought was pretty cool, but I got divorced and suddenly I was the guy people thought was a bad guy or a quitter or just didn’t know how to deal with. I watched the sympathy card pop up for the ex and the majority of my female friends abandon me, replacing genuine warmth with toothy smiles and empty talk. Most of the husbands came around, but there is still a distance there–the space that builds when you know you aren’t going to be invited to any of the get togethers.

Beyond the one, I don’t have what you would call ‘daily friends’. I have a woman in my life who is like a sister to me and a man who, blood not withstanding, is my brother. These are not daily friends. They are family. One I try to see weekly and the other must realize by now I am allergic to phone calls.

What all of this adds up to is a lack of life. What I do on a daily basis is hang with my kids. I coach, I play video games (often alone and after they’ve gone to bed). I form bad habits, stay up too late, and get ready for the next day. It is a was of existing without actually moving forward. It should both terrify and depress me, but it doesn’t. I have never thought long term–not even sure I know how. Instead I live in the moment, mindful and joyful of where I am at.

It isn’t a life, actually. It is a collection of happy seconds strung together like a flip book of a good life. It is what I have and I want more. Trouble is figuring out how to do that and what it looks like.

Tonight I’m going to empty out the ole brain sac and fill the page with…

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Had a chance to listen to a painfully accurate assessment of the new Magnificent Seven film, which churned up the old Mag 7 and reminded us that this too was not that great. I wish someone had done such things for Ghostbusters. Bottom line: Fun times by not a keeper.
2. Also watched the new Lethal Weapon TV show. It is produced by McG and created by Shane Black and dedicated to everything that is wrong with modern TV. How you reduce the entire movie conflict into a 40(ish) minute pilot is baffling. It brings to mind the American Horror Story series, which I still find to be a meth addicts version of horror writing. Or Under The Dome which…yeah.
3. I need to clean my house.
4. And my yard.
5. I might need help.
6. This is the first evening in a month that I haven’t had night coffee. I’m exhausted as I write, but not drunk so I am at least coherent.
7. Been observing some really good and true partnership marriages lately and in most of them religion plays a significant role. I want to know more bout that.
8. Worst moment for a sports dad: When the coach tells you your kid matters to the team and it is immediately clear he is saying it to appease you.
9. I don’t want to be a sports dad forever. Yet I want my kids to have the freedom to play sports.
10. Sleep now.

What matters are the people who love you and the ones you love back. All too often we are caught up in the cycle of power and success and wealth and envy and greed and anger and hurt. All of that is part of life. Still, life is about giving and receiving love in any way possible. Lately I have been struggling with the conundrum of creating a life with the woman I love. This is made more difficult by the fact that the life I live is likely incompatible with anyone. I’m not very good to myself. I am a candle at both ends kind of guy who, sadly, was not expecting life past 60. I just push too hard and maintain too little for that to be a reality.

Plus ca change.

I’m eating vitamins and one day soon I’ll get serious about the gym. In the meanwhile I am getting serious about my finances and serious about my writing. It is all a part of that life we want to forge together. However, change is really hard. There are parts of my old life that I feel like are making actual headway in terms of that old standard stuff–respect, power, position, etc. While it matters to me so much less there is a kind of muscle memory that wants to see it completed and wants to see me pursue some of these goals to the end. I think maybe the concept of ‘the end’ should really be more of a ‘next act’ sort of thing, if I can wrap my mind around that. For example, I don’t think I will be coaching city league sports in this town anymore. Still I would not mind a ‘farewell’ season to know that I took the kids to a good level and left them better than I got them. How much of that is selfishness? I don’t know.

The more things change is what I said before. The second part of that, plus ca meme chose, is the more things stay the same. It all lies in the interpretation. I coach, I write, I work hard at teaching all as a way to give and receive love, so whatever I do in my next stage will be to give and receive love as well. Only this time I might try and give a little bit more to myself.

Call it rebound week! I lost every fantasy league game in week one. I got 2-3 in week two. The 3rd league is a lost cause–a league joined by accident as I was searching for mock drafts online. I have no skin in the game, nor did I draft the team myself. I allowed the autodraft to handle my business and it did not. The Giants and Jets both handled their business this week, and I have reason to believe the trend will continue. Which brings me to my picks.

NE over HOU
I know I am reaching here, but Bill B is that good. He can take a rookie 3rd rounder who wouldn’t know a rep from a representative and turn that kid into a game winner. Remember, Jimmy G was on pace or 500 before he was hurt.

AZ over BUF
Rex Ryan, meet the hot seat. Your 3 missing D starters and timid secondary means that David Johnson is going to go off. My youngest went off this weekend and Johnson gonna look like him running over the tiny mites. Sorry, Rex.

CAR over MIN
The injury bug is crushing MIN. No Bridge, No AP. We already know Bradford is SAWFT. There shall be a lot of the dab 2.0...

DEN over CIN

GB over DET

JAX over BAL

MIA over CLE
Please keep your QB upright this week. There really isn’t anyone left…

NY over WAS

OAK over TEN

SEA over SF 
Less than 20 points scored.

LA over TB

IND over SD

NYJ over KC

PIT over PHI

DAL over CHI

ATL over NO

 

I didn’t really know how to name this post. It is sparked by an article on CNN.com discussing American’s lost tribe–namely the white working class. I have been more race aware over the past few years in light of an increase in shootings of black men (I was pulled over the other day and man was I terrified) by cops, and the political rhetoric generated by the Trump camp. What bothered me the most about all of it is the similarities inherent in the plight of working class people of all races. We have the same problems–American problems.

One middle class individual in the article lamented for a time when small towns were thriving and rural areas were gaining residents as opposed to losing them. If you’re wondering why people leave rural areas, it has a lot to do with the shifting state of the American dream. The dream is far more urban and technologically driven than ever before, lending itself to urban landscapes and the ever-populous suburb teeming with Target big box stores and a Starbucks on every corner. Nobody cares about main street anymore. As a result, those areas lose people and lose wealth. When the wealth goes away from those areas it becomes a matter of economics that people will start to become angry about poverty and look for someone to blame.

Trump is able to feed off of that with the slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ which really translates as ‘bring the money back to my hood’. In other words, what we are seeing is a lot of people being tricked into believing that the problem is one thing when the problem is something else entirely.

I think politics can solve the issue of people leaving rural areas. I think, politically, we can instill a sense of economic value to those parts of America and, as a result, entice new types of business to populate the spaces that outmoded businesses have fled. These towns; these people are relics of an industrial age in the midsts of a post-industrial American landscape.

In the last minutes of Sabrina I find myself thinking of another sort of love story. I have been listening to Girl on the Train on my rides to and from work, marveling at the peculiar characters. I feel the need to discuss the book, to talk about what was created and where I feel it went wrong.

The characters in the book are limited to two distinct categories: Predator and Prey. All of the women in the text are predatory and all of the men are prey animals. This is a simplistic break down of the book, but it is there writ plain on every page. The problem with all of this is that I am a male reader and this book is written for females. I truly believe it has the same sort of appeal as E.L. James’ sexual fantasy version of Twilight. I feel this version is far more reserved and much better written. However, it does have the same feel.

This book is a fantasy about a lost woman who seeks comfort after being pushed aside by those in her life who matter. She’ll stop at nothing to get it.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. It would be dope to have a brain hotspot. Perhaps it will wind itself into my next grand tale

Remember that jerky rich kid from school? You know the one. S/he used to say and do a bunch of ridiculous and mean crap simply because s/he could. S/he’d never get in trouble because nobody would ever say anything to them. I was never sure why. Maybe it was because they said the stuff we secretly wanted to say or said it to people we hated or was so rich that we didn’t want to get in trouble for tattling on them or be cast out for not liking/supporting/respecting them. I remember thinking for a minute, ‘that kid is hot. I want to be with them.’ It was like basking in the glow of a sunlamp, because all the attention was on them and that made me special or part of the in crowd in a way.

That person is running for president.

No, not Hillary. In many ways she fits the bill (pun intended). She’s always been the rich girl who got everything she wanted and played by her own rules. She isn’t nice and never will be. On the other hand, she is not evil and her megalomania includes quite a bit of concern for the people who aren’t as well to do as her. In other words, she’s a rich know-it-all who wants to make herself feel better by bringing you up.

The other guy is a rich know-it-all who wants to make his name and fortune bigger by anointing himself ruler of the free world. It is that last bit that scares me, because he doesn’t exactly want the world to be free. He wants to world to listen to him and adore him and cower when he talks his trash. Unfortunately, the threats and action of litigation don’t extend outside of our borders. He is going to have to find a new stick. Unfortunately the one we have is tipped with soldiers–with American lives–and he already plans to stick it into places we don’t belong.

Obama gets a horrible rap for trying to pull us out of international conflicts, replacing human shields with drones. The other guy–Trump is his name–doesn’t really care about the loss of American lives. He doesn’t think in terms of individuals but in terms of slights and gains to his own name. What, Iran came too close to our boats on his watch? They need to be taught a very big lesson. Trust me, they’ll learn.

But I don’t trust him. I worry about what we become underneath his boot. I’ve already seen what can happen when we put Cartman in charge of stuff. Don’t let that happen outside of South Park.