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I just returned from a ‘date’ with my now ten yr old boy. We don’t get many chances to have one on one time, so when he suggested that he wanted some daddy time I was more than happy to make that happen. The hours before our night out were spent celebrating his birthday. I spent most of that time in frustrated silence, because the day did not go nearly as fabulously as I hoped. You only get one, maybe two chances to add a digit, so ten is a big deal to me. There is little chance I’ll see the boy turn 100, so this is the one shot I get for a digit birthday. Unfortunately his two younger siblings didn’t get the ‘this kind matters’ memo and decided to spend the day fighting each other over ownership of everything from the air being breathed to proxy battles over the space they so clearly rent in each other’s heads.

Things did not go well. By noon the bday boy was yelling at them too and we four struggled to find even the most basic enjoyment. We considered going to the pool but the motivation was tempered by the outrageous behaviors of the younger two. They calmed for a spell while cake was shared and the eldest opened his smattering of gifts. He got 10 gifts–8 of his own choosing and one chosen by mom and one chosen by dad. The 10 was meant to represent one gift for each year of his life. One gift was also meant to serve as the connection between years lived and the growth of tomorrow.

Afterwards he and I left to watch a film at the local theater. He remarked it was the 3rd film we’d seen–just the two of us–in his whole life. He pointed out that two of the three came this year. What struck me was that he counted and he remembered these rare solo times. I love that kid. I love them all and they each deserve a chance to have a one on one with each parent. The whole day and into the night when we were together I was logging the moments like photos rolled into my datacard. It seems like kids are tiny forever when you’re changing diapers and feeding them strained peas. Then they start school and suddenly their off to college. Time is never enough to have wonderful memories with your kids. That is why tonight was so important. It was a moment–our moment to be who we are when we are alone with each other; a father and a first born kid enjoying a movie and good conversation.

When news of the Ferguson killing broke I found my inbox inundated with news alerts from all the usual suspects—CNN, FOX, MSNBC, etc. They all told the same story albeit from different sides. After a day or so of this it became clear that these news outlets were reaching. They clamored to find something new and exciting about the case to reveal to me so I’d tune in. Unfortunately, the evidence collection and examination process doesn’t run on their light speed schedule, so the conversations devolved into opinion, conjecture, and an absurd amount of finger pointing. It was par for the course of every big news story that has come out over the last few years. There wasn’t more to the story, so they needed to manifest more of the same story to fill hourly time blocks 24 hours a day. I largely abandoned the major news networks as my daily source of news for this very reason. I wanted careful considerate pieces instead of the ‘what can I say to make you love me?’ attitude found on all of these channels. For a time all I watched was sports news, figuring that in the refuge of sport I could find stories that avoided the neediness proliferated by the big three. Sadly, I was wrong. In fact, I discovered that sports news was possibly worse than the network news stations, because there were less stories they were willing to tell, and as a result, ‘what can I say to make you love me?’ was more apparent than ever.

I want to talk about Johnny Football. The late first round draft pick spent the summer battling for a starting role on the otherwise irrelevant Cleveland Browns. He lost. Despite news coverage to the contrary, he lost in a fairly dramatic fashion. Coach Pettine hinted at this, reflecting on the maturity and poise of his starter, Brian Hoyer. What Pettine didn’t say was Manziel flipped the bird to the opposing sideline, showing his glaring immaturity in the process. He didn’t say the media’s narrowly focused glare was so harsh that all anyone was willing to do was watch the story play out as expected—with the award winning college QB coming to the big show and wrecking shop. The media didn’t let it go. Brian Hoyer is not a story guy. Nobody cares or even knows about him. He doesn’t do Snickers commercials or party with Lebron. He doesn’t make ridiculous money signs every time he manages to do something relevant on the field. In defense of some analysts, Brian Hoyer isn’t great either. If he was, there wouldn’t be a Johnny Cleveland saga. There’d be a Johnny Cowboy saga instead. Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones all but acquiesced to this when he talked about how someone like Manziel would help the team remain relevant. Note: He didn’t say good. He even parsed the statement by talking about 8-8 records vs. Super Bowl wins.

The point is, the story isn’t even about good football anymore. The story exists almost entirely for itself. Johnny Football is a self-sustaining media organism that weaves, Kardashian-like through popular culture dragging with it some derivative slug wake of the American dream. Maybe he’ll be a top-notch QB one day, and maybe he won’t, but it is interesting to note that he gets more media attention than most of the QBs in the league—proven winners who have achieved again and again. He has been discussed more on Sportscenter than any other rookie QB, despite being one of two first rounder’s (Blake Bortles is supposedly on the shelf all year) that has no real chance to start week one

There was a MMQB article about football in Ferguson that may be the most poignant and useful story on the situation down there yet. What MMQB tries to do is tell the stories around football. This is the same site that had a deep and revealing story about the character of Richie Incognito months before bullying allegations cropped up. The same site that spoke with Jason Avant about the very real and troubling Locker Room Culture in America.

There are real sports stories out there for stations like ESPN, just like there are real personal interest and public interest stories out there for the big three. These stations actively choose not to tell them, because they want to lure viewers with the lowest common denominator: flash and attention. This is the reason why the blogosphere blew up when Coach Pettine wouldn’t say whether or not Manziel would get snaps on Sunday. Even not saying something is news there. However, the real news is happening all around it. The real news is about the Cleveland D and a rookie corner who could be Pettine’s key piece to what is likely to be a top 5 Defense. These are the stories not being told, and the stories not being told are the ones that matter.

 

We need better sports stories.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Yesterday I tried to convince my kids that my computer does not have voice recognition capabilities and they told me I was wrong. Then they said, “Ok Google, show daddy you can talk and use his computer” And it did. It looked up a bunch of stuff related to the prompt. Then it filtered down and selected the best million or so results based on what it thought I’d want to see. Technology is starting to freak me out.

Faulkner once complained, “It’s a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can’t eat for eight hours; he can’t drink for eight hours; he can’t make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work.” Yet so often we try to do all of those other things in an effort to actively avoid work, to shun it the way we push aside our siblings and parents in public when we think we are being cool or brave or somehow forging ahead with the strength and passion of a singular dedicated soul. I think we do this–I do this–as an instinctive emotional response, this avoidance. I for one try to avoid putting myself in the path of failure. I do too much of what is easy or what plays to my strengths and not enough of what is hard for me and what I need to do to be a better person and to be a more developed me.

Ann Landers writes, “To those who need encouragement, remember this: beware of quitting too soon. Dr. Seuss’s first children’s book was rejected by twenty-three publishers. The twenty-fourth publisher sold six million copies.” I could’ve found a similar quote for JK Rowling or Dan Brown. The point being made is simple. Work can be a refuge, a temple, an opportunity, or just a long fail. It is a canvas that I must make full use of in order to reach my potential. Even if I fail–at writing, at teaching–the trying is the real thing. Getting to be the best I can be is the real thing.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’m using WordPress 4.0 (Benny) for the first time. It feels the same visually, but I’m looking forward to exploring what has changed under the hood.
2. Football is back and the Packers still suck. This makes me feel bad for my eldest as he is slowly becoming a Packers fan.

Week One! I’m going to start this thing slow, if for no better reason than I want to focus my ten minutes on the two NY teams that matter the most to me. I’ll go in order of importance.

NY Giants DEFEAT Detroit Lions
Yep, I’m fairly certain that the Eli show is going to kick off slowly but get going by the second half. I believe so much that I’ve put Cruz in my starting fantasy lineup. The line issues that plagued the team last year haven’t gone away, but they upgraded the RB position in a number of ways, which means there is always the fear of the run–a fear that wasn’t there last year. The NY Defense is a stronger unit overall, despite the loss of some high value linemen. Put those things together vs. a porous Detroit secondary, and you get a recipe for Giants success this monday night.

New York Jets DEFEAT Oakland Raiders
I’m sold on Carr as the future of the Raiders franchise. I even think he’ll find success this year. Heck, I think the guy is gonna get a TD against the J-E-T-S, but just the one. MJD won’t get it going against this stout run defense, and for all the coolness under pressure that the man shows, everyone in NY knows that Smith needs to produce quickly in order to avoid a still dynamic Mike Vick taking his job.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. So it ends up being the go. The game triggered something in me. I really had fun and I really wanted to be able to move better than I did. The hands are there if I can focus. The agility is there as shown by some pretty nice open field flag grabs, and I can work on getting the speed back. That ship has sailed, but it anchored somewhere offshore.
2. I’m really tired–drained in the way only athleticism brings. If I’m invited back to my basketball team (50/50 chance there), I’m going to give them a version of me they haven’t seen yet…

I struggle with the 39 thing a lot. As a result I put myself in positions where I’m forced to attempt athleticism and replenished youth when I physically cannot pull it off. That cycle is what finds me suiting up tomorrow evening for a all-too-public flag football game. I haven’t played with the Sunday Gang in over 9 months and my foray into basketball was abysmal. Yet, here I go again. Why, I ask myself? Because deep down inside I think it is too easy to let go of the person you want to be, and we ought to never settle for what direction life pushes us in. Believe me, it pushes real hard.

I’m just talking about the physical stuff here; about the result of choices made and habits formed. One day you wake up and realize 20 years of cupcakes and lemon bread was a really stupid idea. You think about making healthy choices now, but habit is a bitch. I mean nicotine, thats a physical addictive. The body craves it. Still, I’m a biofeedback guy. My body is a chump, but my mind… Yeah my mind is 3 pounds of electro-stimulated bad-assery. It pushes my body around the way Tyson used to manhandle punks in the ring. It tells me that I can or can’t and changing that momentum is hard work. Of course, this is the same brain that sabotages me and tells me I’m lazy, so there’s that.

I can still win though. I can still hurl myself in the path of utter humiliation and through this possible Epic Fail find a new momentum–a drive to be at my best physically… or at least shed the man boobs.

This isn’t a post about right or wrong, good or evil, Republican or Democrat or any of that stuff. It is the result of a dream I had last night that felt more like a town hall meeting. The people were debating the effectiveness of Obama and the choices he made over the last 7 years. Some were talking about his dovelike approach to world politics and longing for the days of the American hawks storming the world stage guns blazing. I think the dream was my way of processing what I’ve been hearing out of politicians and the media as of late. There is a lot of talk about how America is not aggressive enough on the world stage and how that is costing us influence on the world stage. There is truth in that but is it the whole truth?

 

Remember a few years ago when all the new was about how terrible it was for us to be sending unmanned drones around the world bombing people we felt were terrorists? Popular opinion was that this was a bad thing. Obama’s drone army was the wrong approach to the war on terror. Fast forward to today and the same president is being bashed for not having a strong enough military response to what is happening in the middle east and the Ukraine.

 

I don’t have great answers. I recognize that we don’t have the troops to backstop Ukraine, Isreal, and battle Isis. I also recognize that drones aren’t going to be enough. On the other hand, I don’t know what is going to happen if we don’t get involved. The one thing I do recognize for certain is that our national arrogance has reached the point where we feel it is both our right and obligation to do something. Why? Because we are Team America: World Police?

 

It is at least important to acknowledge the arrogance here. Whenever there is a conflict in the world the question of ‘should we help?’ inevitably pops up. That help always comes at great cost to our nation in the form of wealth and lives. The benefits to us as a nation are always limited and fleeting. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that ISIS is ravaging the region we just left largely because the region has no interest in keeping the democracy we left there. Why would they suddenly want a secular government when they’ve been doing things a totally different way since long before Columbus landed on what he thought was India?

 

There is more to talk about here than 10 minutes allows, so I’ll add this to the list of topics that are to be continued…

Sitting in a Tuscon suburb this morning I watched the sun crawl crawl high into the sky and kiss the mountains. I looked at a handful of Starbucks faithful taking in the post dawn beside me a noticed, not for the first time, how they gauged me. At times I’ve been accused of being ‘in my own head’ about stuff, but here was a moment and an ongoing situation that was not the case at all. In fact, it started yesterday in the line to get my hotel room at a Tuscon resort.

We’d all decided to stay at the Westin La Paloma. There were three families and we all arrived within moments of each other at the resort. One of the families could be mistaken as purely caucasian, one actually was, and we are not. We pre-arranged to have our rooms blocked together, making it a family outing. When the first two families checked in they were given rooms immediately and given a pool access wristband for up to 5 family members. When I, checked in right behind them I was told no room was prepared for us. They had no idea when a room for us would possibly be ready. They offered me 4 passes and when I mentioned that we are a family of five, I was told that there was no possible way to get five passes. I asked if I could pay separately for a fifth pass and again I was told no. This despite the fact that the people directly in front of me — the people I came with– just walked off with five passes.

Three hours later we were still waiting for a room.

That’s the point where the people I came with and myself decided to stop being nice and start demanding action. The Westin claimed there wasn’t racism involved. They stopped short of suggesting that some of their best customers were black. I would’ve seen right through that lie and they knew it. After we resolved the issue (we got a room), I took a careful look around the resort and later observed the suburb itself in closer detail. I found myself at Starbucks this morning with a lot of people who were not like me and no people–even in passing cars–who were.

Sociology tells us that people gravitate towards those who are like them. When planning a society–or in this case a community–people sometimes seek to be amongst those like themselves and away from those they find different or threatening. This is the other side of racism. This is the practical side that people hide behind when creating these enclaves. This is what also blinds them to the fact that by creating exclusionary communities they exclude everyone in a particular group by creating a place where racism can not only survive, but thrive in such a way that the people responsible don’t even recognize that they are being racist. Instead they feel like they are fighting for their rights and freedoms to choose and to create a space that they feel safe in and that they can protect and populate in any way they see fit. It is the same misconception and dimness that birthed a thousand White Student Unions ignorant of the history and persecution that established their counterparts. That’s where ‘some of my best friends are black’ is born.

I can’t promise I’ll ever come back to the Westin La Paloma, but part of me wants to return for no better reason than to be present and be black and be that symbol of what we are as real people and not the MTV/CNN/FOX driven perceptions that leaves them so broken and confused. Maybe next time I won’t have to wait so many hours for a room.

I fielded a few questions about my well being tonight which led me to go back in the blog and think about what may have triggered this sense that everything isn’t okay. Looking at recent posts, I get how that impression was formed. However, everything is good. Better than good. I’ve reached a level of clarity that has me seeing neo-like into the world and recognizing the pathway to my greater happiness and fulfillment. What sucks and yet compels me is the journey ahead. Sitting here and waiting for Chinese delivery I find myself in a calm and pleasant state. Even on the days where things are really tough and anger provoking I’m finding ways to recognize those flecks of silver; those moments of true friendship, happiness, and joy that are the seeds upon which life is meant to grow.

We all live in the suck from time to time. We all have moments when we wish that things could be better, different, or just any way but as they are in that moment. What I think–no what I believe–now is that each of those moments have purpose. Every moment of joy, hurt, glee, misery, confusion, compulsion, and even wrath exist to move us towards the path and people we are meant to be or at least offer us an understanding of that path and of our true light. What terrifies me more than anything are the blind people–the ones who are unable to see the message in action and happenstance or worse, actively refuse to read the world. I can say that, because I spent a long time being that guy. I did whatever and road life like a roller coaster and not like the kaleidoscopic choose your own adventure dream realm it actually is.

The beauty of an electronic football game is knowing what every player can offer you prior to ever drafting them. Even if the game prevents such things there are cheats and walkthroughs created by the players who came before you, or workarounds that enable you to vet the players to the fullest possible extent before the time to draft arrives. This is not the way of real football. The real world is messy, unpredictable, cruel, and utterly fast paced. This world is the realm of the Fantasy Football game where overnight injuries (and waywrd keystrokes) can effect a draft and thus a season.

I waited days to write about my draft, largely because I picked up Andre Johnson in the early rounds. I did not do this on purpose. He, as my league leader likes to say, ‘Crapped the Bed’ last season and I have no doubt that will go down again. I was bitter about it for a while, and I am still not over that situation, but I am well enough to discuss it. Mistakes happen, and all we can go off of in fantasy football (and in real FB) is our assumptions based on last season’s situation and how good a player looked in the preseason.

I take heart in Andrew Bernstein’s assertion that, “The truth is that stress doesn’t come from your boss, your kids, your spouse, traffic jams, health challenges, or other circumstances. It comes from your thoughts about these circumstances.” Over the past few decades I’ve come around to understanding a few things. Often I fail to apply these basic truths to my life. At this point I’m at least aware of my failures and able to recognize them in myself and in others. Slowly, I’m correcting the little things and putting myself in position to have a better life than I’ve have–a fulfilled life. Part of that journey is sharing these sometimes meaningful and sometimes damn funny lessons. So, here we go.

Lesson 1: Kids smell weakness and will seek to exploit it
Like Santa, kids know everything going on in your reality. Any time you are feeling run down, tired, angry, etc. They will take it upon themselves to torture you until the point where murdering them or the more common murder/suicide seems like a viable solution. Here’s how that plays out:

Son: Dad, you look like you need a nap.

Dad: How thoughtful of you, son.

Son: Yeah, well, I need you to stay awake and help me not be bored…

Lesson 2: People who care about themselves too much view you as an accessory
This isn’t an intentional thing all the time. We can each get wrapped up in our own stuff. However, there are signs. If the person never asks you about your life, they A) don’t care about your life, B) don’t care to have a conversation about your life, C) don’t care to have a conversation at all unless it is about their stuff. You ought to recognize that this is akin to a genetic deficiency. There is no way you can genuinely change such a person, because any interaction would then be false. Better to just accept it or move on.

Lesson 3: Some people have nothing but work and those are the ones you don’t want to mess with.
I’d kill for my kids. I’m not just talking about slaying roaches and the rogue mosquito either. Some people don’t have kids, or cats, or dogs, or even a gerbil. They have their job, and in a real way that job becomes the focal point of all that biological energy normally attributed towards familial connection. These are the people who become mired in the work and are unable to adapt when the work environment changed in any meaningful way. I’ve clashed with these types in the past and realized early on that there is no way to lead them to reason short of employing the same tactic angry parents or ISIS terrorist seek to employ.

Lesson 4: Some stereotypes are real
Guys like football and beer. I’m not much for the beer but the social aspect of it appeals to me. Women like clothing and conversation. That’s just real.