Month: August 2013

This American life can be summed up in a series of montages that mostly involve shopping and watching TV. There is other stuff that happens in between–writing, teaching, conversations with the people I love–but if you added up the time of everything I do it would be bookended by large swaths of my life spent doing those two things. If there is one thing in my life that makes me unhappy, it is that. Yet I somehow feel powerless against those dual forces.

TV in particular is one that vexes me. I include video games with the TV time. Games are an interactive form of television watching. Instead of merely observing the action unfold, you are participating and even directing the action as it unfolds. Now I’ve been gaming for near on 33 years, and it is only recently that I’ve felt the time spent gaming actually eroded my ability to be productive. The TV has always nipped and my productivity, yet as if it were a drug, I cannot see myself giving up these shows I watch.

I suppose what I’m getting at here is the lifestyle I live. It needs to get better in some sense. I’m a writer first, but I spend so much time doing the other things that the productivity I have is but a shade of the productivity I could and probably should have. Of course, recognizing problems is somewhat easy. Fixing them is the hard part.

This is going to be a short post, because there isn’t a whole hunk of energy left in the tank.

Half-exhausted, I sat down to write this post and my eyes closed. Look: there they go again. 10 minutes is a lot harder to concentrate for when your body wants to shut down. Before I nod off for good I want to write about the Wire. I decided to incorporate episodes from the series into my SOC curriculum. I’d never studied the film through the social structures and implications. I walked my students through episode one and afterwards reminded them that everything, even street drug sales, has a structure. We’ll be talking about that structure next week. Maybe I am more awake then.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. I can’t say that I am surprised that a QB other than the two presumed Jet starters put up good numbers tonight. The battle between Sanchez and Smith overshadows the quality backups this team.

I am half hoping to get to bed before midnight and half hoping I stay up a little bit longer to advance a week in Madden. Every year about this time I go into full Madden mode. I plunk down $60 to buy a game I bought so readily a year ago. There are upgrades here and there, but the experience rarely changes so dramatically that it alters the game experience. Case and point: I am still playing NBA 2K. Still the hype and allure of a new Madden game is generally too much to fight off. Given that this is the 25th anniversary edition, I had to go buy it.

I’m not disappointed…yet.

Madden is a game that lets you experience football at every level of the game. I can be a player, coach, or owner. I plan to experience all of these levels over the next 12 months, but I started with Player, so this is where I can start my review. I created a player and decided to make him an undrafted free agent. In last year’s experience, this choice would’ve meant nothing. This time around I am fighting for a roster spot and appreciating the little bit of time I get on field in the preseason and through special teams. I want to fight to line up alongside the stars. Getting it handed to me reduces the value I place on the roster spot.

I haven’t had the play experience to deliver a full review, but from what I can see I will have a lot to write about. Not tonight–I still have playing to do.

When it comes to the extremely niche market of the role player, popularity is a moving target. Unlike the wide open fiction market, you don’t become popular by overnight success. This is the turtle vs. turtle, book by book slow saturation of the market that makes you popular. You become known by knowing, by becoming approachable, and by maintaining the appearance of reliability. Instead of being the high flying super author known for creating movie adaptations and wallowing in your own personal version of the Hank Moody life, you are a friend to people who write good stuff. You go out for a beer at the Rula Bula and maybe watch the game at someone’s house.

The fact is I’ve looked at success all wrong for a long time. It isn’t about how many books you sell or how many total strangers know your name. I started writing because I wanted to tell stories that made my friends feel something. Now I feel that is the only sort of popularity worthwhile.

Some Thoughts:

1. Waiver Wednesday is likely to be a Madden edition as I unboxed the 25th anniversary edition of the popular game today. Yeah, it is dope again.
2. Early shout to my buddy and fellow writer Alex A. He’s going to hit 40 two years before I do.
3. My youngest recently asked me if I’d still sit and play games with him when he turns 63. I lied and said yes, but I knew that I would already be dead by then. It is a terrible feeling to know that you won’t always be there for your kids when they need you. At the same time it is somewhat of an inspiration, because it forces me to be healthy for as long as my body is willing to hold out. They deserve at least that from me.

Another long night of getting right for the semester. The beginning of a school year is a time of great stress and bonkers crazy chaos. I made it through the better part of the storm with my classes intact and my sanity as well. Tonight as  I prepare the second unit of my online class, I find myself thinking about planning for the rest of the school year. Seems high time to get back ahead of the game. Of course, I said that last week and I’m right back here again.

The culprit this time is fantasy football. I spent a bit of time preparing for and then drafting a  fantasy football squad that is primed to roast the competition. Of course, having three skill players from the same team might qualify for the stupidest move ever, but I saw a couple of opportunities in those three Eagles and I decided to fly with them. This season almost cannot be worse than last year’s 2-12 shellacking. I so bad that Rex Ryan called me up and offered to tattoo my jersey number on his arm. None of that this time around. I’m in the mood for dominance.

 

Yesterday I spent 10 minutes talking about the relationship between heroes and villains. Tonight I sat down and watched Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. with the kids followed by a few other shows that featured the great green one. I find the Hulk to be a prime example of a poorly designed character. Once upon a time the Hulk was a modern representation of Jekyll and Hyde. Today he is a washed out super who seems to fill the ‘adequate thug’ roll without any attention being paid to the nuance of character and character development that made the Hulk an attention grabbing character and someone, who at one point, could carry a TV series.

The Hulk I was raised on shared a body with scientist Bruce Banner. When Banner lost control the monster would come out. Hulk had little self control and a strength that had no ceiling. In fact, the angrier he became the stronger he grew. It was once said that the Hulk could destroy the Earth if he was pissed off enough. One day a bunch of heroes figured that out and launched him into space, figuring a preemptive strike was the best way to go. It wasn’t. Needless to say he was pissed when he came back and wreaked havoc upon the world. That World War Hulk highlighted the relationship between big green and Banner as well as creating a sense of character for the once unthinking beast. It showed that he was vulnerable emotionally.

Today’s cartoon Hulk is big and strong and occasionally stupid. All he wants is to be appreciated. As a bit character in every show but his own, he is treated like a character with a strength ceiling and one who is easily knocked down or knocked out to the point where he is defeated every episode. In essence, the Hulk has been degraded to a Green Man’s B.A. Baracus. That is not enough of a strong man character to make a difference.

I think it is time to bring back powerful characters whose power is their curse. I want to see a Hulk afraid to let go. I want to see the beast unchained and the beast that loves and fears and hunts. I want a character that is funny, thoughtful, and powerful. I guess I must not want the Hulk.

One of the hardest things for developing authors to grasp is the idea that the villain is inherently stronger than the hero. The reason this is so hard to swallow is because a story is supposedly about the hero, and most developing authors, particularly in the fantasy and sci-fi genres, are looking for heroes that are more than mere protagonists, but are unique and outstanding individuals who are probably misunderstood and definitely have a wealth of power or skill in them that cannot be matched by any individual.

This is where things get hard for the author. The heart wants what the heart wants, and if the heart desires a powerful protagonist it feels antithetical to that desire to create an even more powerful antagonist. It doesn’t have to. Of course, the other side of that coin is the David and Goliath/Tortoise and Hare conundrum. In these classic tales an obviously powerful antag is defeated by a protag with minimal skills and a lot of heart and patience. This dichotomy feels to me as false as the all powerful hero, and it is explained by Proverbs 16:18 which says something along the lines of Pride goes before destruction. In other words, the antag screwed up so royally that it left an opportunity for the underdog to succeed. Most writers I work with aren’t writing that story. The story they are writing is about the superman-esque character, and they cannot find their Luthor.

A villain has to be strong where the hero is weak. They need to be willing to take chances and do things a hero would never try. The reason the Joker is such a great foil for Batman (not the Affleck Batman, because that is just nonsense. Heath Ledger would kill himself again over that noise) is because he is willing to do and act in ways Batman ever could. So, even if your hero is powerful in one way, there is always a way they are weak. That is where you find the strengths of your villain.

And you better make those strengths more powerful than your hero can possibly imagine.

 

Recently Sportscenter ran a report on the work of the Make a Wish Foundation.

Sportcenter’s report followed a segment on Ryan Braun’s recent ‘revelation’ that he’s been using banned substances. Braun, a hero to many in this city of Milwaukee and beyond, stood before the cameras less than a year ago and blasted the world for accusing him of using banned substances. While we wait for the soon-to-be-ex-Yankee A-Rod to admit to his substance abuse, I started thinking about the old question of athletes as heroes.

The Sportscenter segment on Make a Wish showed a handful of top athletes from Football to NASCAR interacting with kids and providing them a glance into the public life of a pro athlete. In the segment you get to see athletes behaving like heroes to these young people and being the kind of people so many of us expect public figures and athletes to be. In an era where so much media attention is levied towards showing exactly how and when pubic figures screw up, it is nice to realize that heroism still exists.

I realize that being a professional athlete doesn’t automatically qualify you as a hero to everyone. A person’s background and their ability to overcome incredible odds or simply do the right thing in the face of pressure not to is what most likely defines individuals as heroes. For better or worse, we are most often treated to that hero’s journey in the form of a professional athlete. It is usually the young black or Hispanic player who grew up with a slew of brothers and sisters in a single or even no parent household located somewhere near the epicenter of ‘the hood’.

Rags to riches is what so many of us strive to emulate. To believe the media and the crime statistics, More of us go the ‘Avon Barksdale’ route than the Mike Vick route. Like Vick, once the hot glare of the spotlight strikes these newly formed stars, all of the desires and learned behaviors of yesteryear are expected to burn away. Vick grew up in a culture of dog fighting. Right or wrong it was what his parents did, his relatives did, his neighbors, the local cops, and everyone else who served as an agent of socialization in his life. The legality of the thing didn’t matter, even after his rise to fame. We implore athletes to remember where they came from, well he did remember where he came from and we vilified him for it. Jay-Z once rapped about expectations, quipping, “If you grew up with holes in your zapatos you’d be celebrating the minute you was having dough.” This is an overlooked truth about rags to riches. Those not raised with wealth have no idea how to manage wealth, so there is a learning process involved and there is also a learning process involved in managing public behaviors. The superstars that persist without becoming known as bad boys are the ones who quickly learn how to manage those behaviors. Still, it doesn’t mean the others have no heart.

For better or worse, our collective culture treats professional athletes as heroes. When we in the media tend to dwell on the stars that make athletes look bad, the players who truly give back and provide for their communities get overlooked.

At some point I became the poster boy for weight fluctuation. I’m not fat–at least by my standards. Much of the 214 is masked by height. 10 of the 214 wasn’t there a few months ago. A death, kid stresses, and a lazy summer saw the weight matriculate back around my gut in a most unflattering way. To hear it from my more fit friends, the solution is hard work and better eating. Others go under the knife, twist and tie the pounds away. I research. I scour the web looking for a compromise or even a boost to get me going and back on the road to 195. Nothing so far.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a million poser wonder cures out there. Everything from Hydroxycut to Green Tea claim to help. Unfortunately I cannot verify that any of this stuff, even teamed with an increase in physical activity, will help burn away that extra luggage and allow me to get back into the kind of physical shape that allows me to keep up with my kids.

I suppose if there was a magical bullet, everyone would take the shot.

Some Thoughts:

1. During the 1st week of school all thoughts of writing go away, and that is a terrible thing. I’ve barely had ten minutes to throw something up on the blog. Meanwhile, I have a ton of story ideas kicking around in here with no real opportunity to better my craft till at least tomorrow.
2. I enjoyed the 1st 4-5yr old soccer practice. I learned that this kids are hard to focus and if I want to keep their focus then I have to be fast about moving them through stations and not having them sit around or stand on line.

It is on now.

Considering how close we are to the regular season, I gotta get back into the normal routine of Wednesday peeks at the waiver wire to see who I gleaned and who was culled. Over time I’ve become more of a student of the game than I ever was in the past. I long dabbled in the idea of football, even played a little, but I don’t think I ever showed the level of effort to match how serious I thought I was about the game.

Age brings wisdom and renews effort. I recognize that I can’t be everything, and trying to be only dilutes my effectiveness at the things I want to be good at. So, I’ve lightened the load of psychological responsibility but left room for being very good at understanding, coaching, predicting, and even playing football. I’ve done what I should have done 20 years ago but didn’t. I’ve created a list of priorities that doesn’t leave room for nonsense. It makes me an effective coach and a dangerous fantasy leaguer.

What’s the next step? I won’t reveal too much about my draft plan, because interlopers may be listening. Suffice to say the number of sleepers available this year makes last year’s sleeperpalooza look lame. David Wilson was supposed to be part of that list, but given the sudden rash of injuries to the Giants O-Line, the 2^nd year running back may need to become a 3^rd year running back before gaining any significant traction. On the other hand, he is quite elusive. I think elusive is the magic word this year. I might even incorporate it into my team name…