Month: July 2013

I truly believe the short attention spanning 24 hr news culture of America makes it impossible for us to have real conversations about the country’s cultural and racial history. “That’s old news, so get over it” is so much a part of our culture now that we aren’t allowed to even think about the damage that has been done to groups and subcultures and how that damage affects us all even today.

Years ago Carson interviewed Richard Pryor and referenced Pryor’s use of the word, ‘Nigger’. Carson said the word almost conversationally–on late night TV–Pryor followed it with a joke and everyone laughed. It wasn’t a controversy. Just last month Paula Deen admitted to using the word, albeit in a different context, over a decade ago and lost her entire empire. We crack down now. We try to distance ourselves in order to reinforce the fact that we are supposedly a post-racist society. However, the quick reinforcement only shows that we are not past it. It is such a festering wound that is not being properly addressed that we are entering an age where hiding these proclivities is going to become the norm. That zero-sum game that is free speech has slowly eroded to a miasma of political correctness.

I don’t have any answers here, just reflections. The more I see us struggling to mask this idea that we still have deep seeded divisions in our country, the more I fear those divisions will fester and eventually tear us apart. I think the best example of that is the unwillingness of congress to engage on immigration reform. Republicans supposedly won’t engage, because it benefits democrats with votes and enrages their aging white base. Well, that sounds like the different sides are taking their ball and going home. That only points to more division in the long run, from which nobody will benefit.

I miss football. I miss it to the point that I’ve started prepping a playbook for the January season. The playbook prep led to research, which led to a deeper understanding of how to run the pistol, which led to understanding that I really don’t know the best way to coach a 5 man defensive unit of mixed skill players against a more talented group. That’s the flag coach dilemma right there, and a post for later on. This one is going to be about the pros.

I like pro football better than the college game, which makes me about as rare as a Red Panda. I’m extra excited about this upcoming season, because the Giants have a WR in a contract year. While the college theory suggests that college students play harder than the pros, that theory breaks down when it comes to contract year. This is the time where everybody plays like it matters, because it does. How you play in the contract year determines where you go (or stay) for the next few. Knowing the Giants have mercilessly released supposed pro-bowl caliber guys, Hakeem Nicks is going to play football like his hair is on fire. In fact it will be, because his buddy in the slot just nailed a huge extension. Nicks knows it is on.

Some Thoughts:

1. One should not write posts on little to no sleep. This usually ends badly and or incomplete as yesterday’s post suggests.
2. Big moment for me in the ‘back in the saddle of health’ drive. I was laying flat on my back watching bad TV and thinking about doing push ups. I did the push ups.
3. The amount of real numbers that can be squeezed into the space between two numbers–0 and 1 perhaps, is close to infinity, which means it is possible that our known universe occupies the space between 0 (nothing) and 1 (the next universe). Access to a black hole, the theoretical extra-universal pinhole, could prove this theory.

It occurs to me that there is little difference between magic and science; so little in fact that  noted sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke once claimed, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Now there is where he and I agree. Magic is in truth no different from science. We laugh at magic, because we don’t see it or any evidence of the systems required to allow it function. However, the reason we tend not to laugh at science is because we can see those laws. We can prove that science exists. We see evidence of it in the circuitry that, these days, controls our lives.

I am not saying magic exists, but I think we need to look at it as another type of system. Perhaps we should see it in the same way we see electricity. When lightning lunges out of the sky, the TV doesn’t automatically turn on. No, we needed to create a circuit structure to take advantage of that. What if magic were the same way–another energy in need of translation and of people who know how to create the systems to put it into use.

This weekend all my kids’ basketball teams won their games. Like I said in an earlier post, that stuff matters. It isn’t because my kids are winning–losing has a much higher importance at this stage of their competitive development–it is because of who we are beating. Youth leagues are filled with coaches who don’t do things the right way. There are a slew of win first or look good first or even humiliate the opposition coaches who snap the fun out of a sport like they are wringing a towel. When I come up against one of these coaches I want to win. I coach harder, our whole coaching team bands together to squeeze every ounce of hustle out of our kids that we can. Sure, we want the hustle to become their mantra, but in those moments we also want to win.

Beating other coaches shouldn’t matter as much as it does, but it does. These guys come dressed in their matching outfits looking all the world like wannabe professionals and it bothers me when they beat my teams. It reminds me that shortcuts work. I says that if you find one kid who is extraordinary then you can ignore the development of the kids around them in pursuit of your winning. We don’t do it and sometimes we lose because of that. It serves as a reminder that there is always someone out there a bit cooler, faster, smarter than you are–someone who gets the job done better. Things like that push me to be more successful–even if less than they did before I had kids. Before the kids I was a lot more focused in mind, body, and spirit. Now it feels like I spend any free moments just trying to catch my breath.

Some Thoughts:

1. I think I figured out what hurts me most about the loss of my father-in-law. He is the last male father figure I have left. Sure, my biological dad is out there somewhere, but somewhere is a large place-especially when you don’t have any real interest in being found. So, that’s it. No more male role model to turn to and see what it means to grow old wisely. I need to figure out the rest of my journey on my own.
2. At some point I think I’ll take a pilgrimage to see the grave sights of my dad, Clarence and my father-in-law. It may be a journey I need to make alone, so I will need to figure out what to do about the wife and kids…

I’ve come to realize that my children are evil.

I’m not talking in the Dahmer “eat your face” or Damien “I am of the devil” evil, but a more subtle evil which masks itself as youthful folly and boredom. Kids in general are evil. We like to pretend they are sweet and cherubic, but they are trying out all the things life has to offer; all the manipulations and exploits they can discover. A child will lie to your face and, once caught, shrug it off as if it never mattered to begin with. Their quickly developing self-preservation instinct will lead them to manipulate and cajole at levels reserved for sociopaths and politicians. God forbid you challenge these antics. One small punishment becomes the line separating life from death–a line you placed them on the wrong side of with your actions, because kids no not responsibility or, often, guilt.

So, life quickly devolves into a stress-filled negotiation with these…minions. You learn to be strong and firm and stress to the point of exhaustion and none of it changes the way they behave. You spank and take stuff away and scream and listen to screams and fights and tattling and all the while you wonder why you put yourself through it.

Because you love them. They are the part of you that remains when you are gone. They are meant to be the best of you, even if they start out as the worst. They grow into adults and, hopefully, remember the time you had with them as some of the best days of their lives.

Some Thoughts:

1. The phone is still trashed. I’m trying to figure out the problem, but I believe I’ll need to go to the Verizon store tomorrow–after I go to Walmart to figure out if the fact that I purchased it at Walmart makes a difference. It turns on for a while and then drains immediately. I don’t feel safe making a 22 hr road trip with that phone.
2. After watching Amy Sedaris and listening to her brother, David, I am very interested to know what the rest of the Sedaris clan is like.

I have an Iphone. This is the first phone I’ve bought from Apple and twice now the darn thing has stopped working, claiming that a fully charged battery is dead. I know it is a software error; some miscommunication between parts of the device. I read about it on the Apple support site as well as blogs on the subject. However, my knowledge is useless when it comes to the hermetically sealed products developed by the technomagi at the Apple research department. You cannot open anything Apple without incurring a visit from the secret service, so while my often failing Droid X was a POS, I could tear out the battery for a hard reset. I can’t do that here, and that is where my story begins.

One of my handful of male friends called me and asked if I wanted to come over and hang. I said yes and had him text me his address (because I can remember nothing and I am tech dependent). Moments later the text came in and the phone shut down. It went in that bam, bam order. I plugged it in the charger and finished up dinner with the kids. Afterwards I checked the phone and it was completely dead.

It remains dead.

The toughest part of this transition to a totally wireless world is understanding what to do if your phone fails. I don’t have a back up, so without my phone I cannot reach anyone. That doesn’t mean it is time for a Casa-Talislegger home invasion. It means I couldn’t go see a friend, because I had no idea where to go or how to tell him I didn’t have a phone. So, I ended up stuck at home with angry kids and a whole lot of disappointment.

 

I could use a burner phone right about now.

Still at a bit of a loss for words. I need to find them soon, less the meager writing talent dry up and blow away. I’m on the verge of starting movie reviews under the perspective screen name of B-Reel. It has a hop hop feel to it and is clever to boot–or corny. I’ll keep thinking about that one. Anything to keep me from thinking about this grief stuff. When I lost my father it took me a good year to actually accept the fact that he hadn’t simply gotten on a bus and rode away. I kept looking for him on busses but never found him. I’m certain now that he is gone, but that understanding was a long time in the making.

I’ll probably end up doing what I do best–throw money at the problem. The office isn’t finished and the kids room needs curtains. I can handle that; keep my arms moving with the labors of love as I prepare to step slowly into that pool of work waiting for me. I’m sure there is even a high degree of organizing I could be doing. There is all sorts of stuff I can fall back on to get my head and emotions back to centre.

I just need to figure out how to move towards one of them.

My wife had two fathers. The first was by blood and marriage and he lived a good long life. The marriage failed and years later his Parkinson’s Disease took his life. We mourned his death not much more than a year ago, 2.4.12. Today her second father died suddenly leaving all of us shocked and unable to understand how fragile life can really be.

Au (a way of saying uncle in Lao) suffered what appears to be a brain hemorrhage and died this afternoon. He was healthy. He was planning to drive to Colorado to surprise my wife on her vacation. I cannot say what caused the aneurism, but I can say that it shocks me to the core. I felt invincible as a teen; less so now, but I never before imagined that there could be that tiny killer inside of me that could rip me from this life so suddenly. Eventually I will be able to process what happened and effectively deal with the loss. I can say this about the man: I lost my stepfather at 12 and until I met Au I never had a male role model who believed in me, respected me, and loved me.

We tend to define ourselves by our accomplishments. That could mean what we do, how much money we have, or who loves us. I feel like the definition of who we are has nothing to do with those things. I think the definition of an individual is about who we inspire. Au’s love inspired me to be everything I could be for the family. I will miss his voice, his smile, his jokes, and most of all, his love.

The Aaron Hernandez case highlighted some of the difficulties that NFL teams face in investing in people who are entirely unscrupulous if talented players. The Hernandez gamble backfired leaving at least one dead and a team trading back jerseys so fans can erase the memory of 81 and start fresh. That is the Patriot Way. Who are we kidding here? Since the Belichick, winning is the Patriot Way, but the loss of both TE’s puts that in jeopardy.

I’m an ardent Jet fan and looking at the rest of the division I have to believe the team has a legitimate divisional crown shot now. The Patriots will be a tough 9-7 if Brady can sustain a passing game with no receivers. The Jets will run first and put up decent numbers so long as Sanchez is out of the way. The Bills will still stink, leaving the Dolphins as the team to look to as the wildcard. I don’t know who the Dolphins are or who they will be behind second year QB Ryan Tannehill.

So, can the Jets make the playoffs? Yes, because they have to. They have to in spite of Sanchez. They have to, because if they don’t Coach Ryan is gone, and I’m not ready for that yet.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. The Paula Deen fallout continues. She seems to me to be a target–a touchstone or even a talisman for our current feelings about racism. We want to believe we are past it so we shun anyone (anyone who isn’t too powerful) who has even the slightest perception of being racist. 
2. Haven’t seen a big screen release of a stand up comic since Eddie Murphy. Is Kevin Hart the new Murphy?

I’ve been coaching youth sports for a few years now and everything I read and hear from other coaches and professionals points to the idea that the kids are supposed to be playing for fun. Winning is not the objective at all. This is reinforced in the leagues I participate in by not even keeping score in most cases. In basketball the scoreboard isn’t even turned on until the 8-9 level. It is shut off once the score reaches a 20 point disparity. The kids aren’t supposed to care about winning, or awards, or accolades, but they do. It feels schizophrenic to tell kids from the time they are born that winning doesn’t matter and then sit them down in front of a TV or in a stadium where it is immediately apparent that winning is all that matters. I don’t think the problem is introducing kids to professional athletics. I think the problem is not being upfront about the value of winning and losing.

People like Michael Jordan, Steve Jobs, and Stephen King are only successful thanks to the fortitude they built through failure. Jordan even made a commercial about it. When we remove the specter of loss we remove the opportunity for victory and take away the very sense of competitive closure that is necessary for kids to grow to appreciate competition. If you give everyone an identical medal you might as well give no metal at all, because it limits the meaning to ‘I participated in a sport!’

They have uniforms and photos for that.

Some Thoughts:

1. Not spending a lot of time being an intellectual means not having very much to write about.
2. Cold Justice creator Dick Wolf found the two most attractive competent female criminal specialists he could and slid them into pantsuits in order to create his new show, Cold Justice. The real question is: How old is Dick Wolf?!
3. Been watching Perception where the lead character has delusions. The main delusion is of a woman he met years ago. This season that woman, Dr. Newsome, is part of the show as the real person and the delusion and the love triangle is between those three. Wow. Crazy does work on TV.