Month: May 2014

Forgive me if this is short.

When I close my eyes to blink the counter timer says one thing. When they open again minutes have faded into history. I’m that tired. It is a fine fatigue though. I’ve earned it by playing with my kids, going out with friends, and finally being unshackled from my latest writing project. I’ve gotten into the mode of putting things to bed. This burst of productivity feels like it comes from a dam that is no longer willing to be stuffed up.

When it starts to flow, there are many opportunities fro creativity. The key is to not get overwhelmed and to think about the details that matter the most.

I’ve been sending myself texts–cryptic messages 140 characters long and revealing bits of story trapped up in my head and anxious to be released. My life feels life that these days–cryptic moments trapped in routine and anxious to be released. In my line of work summer allows a particular level of freedom that cannot be replicated in a 9-5 setting. The last few years have seen this freedom slip away, through responsibilities and tragedies. It wears on me. It builds up like a thick plaque until I’m unable to recognize how far from relaxed and alright I really am.

Tonight I put a piece of work to bed that I’d been fretting over for months. I could not find a way to get over the hurdle of the last few pages. I have no reason for why this happened. It is less Writer’s Block than burnout than an urgent need to step away and fill my mind with new material.

Tomorrow I’m going to buy a video game and sit down with my kids and play as if I am one of them. Near the surface I am one of them, and I’ve dressed in my grown up clothes for way too long.

Not too long ago I talked about a fleeting interest in owning a bar. Not so much to sell drinks or to be ‘that guy’ but to see people enjoy themselves. I got the idea by watching Bar Rescue, a reality show on Spike TV. Now that I’ve done my research on the unreality of Bar Rescue, I’m turned off by the whole thing.

My experience in bars dates back to my college years when I DJ’d for several establishments. I stuck around after hours long enough to here about how things worked (or more often didn’t work) from the business end. Even then I had an interest. However then I was more in tune with the reality of the situation. I don’t know how even 15 yrs away from the scene I was able to be snowed by the terrible illusion of Bar Rescue. Here is what I know about bars: It is hard to stay cool and relevant for very long. Here is what I know about Bar Rescue: They pitch this illusion that bringing in a fresh coat of paint, a trained up staff, and (of course) a new POS system is going to do the trick. But the real trick here is what the show leads you to believe.

You cannot watch Bar Rescue without recognizing the show is staged. Need proof? Check the lights in the bars. In what world are the lights fully up in a bar? What sort of atmosphere does that create. The more you watch the more you realize how much of these situations are sought out and amped up or even straight up contrived in order to allow the host to appear holier than and scream like he is working with children. It has gotten to the point where I cannot even watch anymore.

So I wont. Nor will I think about opening a bar anytime soon. I remember now how hard and soul sucking that life is.

Some Thoughts:

1. Kanye West got married to Kim Kardashian, signaling the end of his career. Jay-Z and Beyonce did not attend. This wasn’t one of those situations where the best man says, “I cannot stand up for you on this, bro” but moreso a commentary on the guest list–specifically Dame Dash’s ex-wife Rachel Roy. If you can remember back to the elevator fight, it is rumored that she is the cause of all that scuffle. She is uber tight with Jigga–so much so that Beyonce has concerns. She went to the wedding, so Beyonce wouldn’t and wouldn’t let that Jigga go. So, as with all things human, it boils down to insecurity. This is useless information, but it makes me giggle.

1. Karma is a real bitch. Just days after ranting about how much I hate the Pacers, my 5 yr old’s basketball team that I am now coaching is the Pacers. My co-coach already promised to rock his Reggie Miller jersey. There may be blood.
2. I’ve been working on a modern day treatment of The Wonder Years. The show represented a simpler time and one virtually devoid of social media. What that means is that the retelling of the story as it happened in the show would not have happened short of a diary or someone telling a story a la How I met your mother.
3. My wonder years would be rife with social media and be a more down to earth and drama-centric portrayal of a chronicle type collection of kids living around an protagonist who is trying to escape town.
4. When I write these at night–not good.

I think I want to own a bar. That’s the twisted affect of shows like Bar Rescue that offer a hint of reality caked in a stage mess of glitz and drama. It isn’t the drama I want. I think I’m at a place right now where I appreciate the simplicity of seeing the immediate result of my hard work. I’d love to know that customer X walked into my joint and left later on a happy and satisfied customer. You don’t get that sort of quick jazz with writing.

This is not a tacit admission that I’m losing my patience with writing. In fact, I’m looking to move my writing in new and exciting directions. However, quick satisfaction feels good sometimes. I don’t get much of that because all that I do is either the long game or fairly thankless work. The real satisfaction of that work comes from knowing I did my best. It is a flavor of satisfaction that is richer and more enduring than the quick jazz of seeing someone momentarily happy.

Still, that quick jazz does have appeal.

There is a moment, hours before the last day of the semester, when your kids become unmanageable. The excitement of nearing freedom, the promise of summer adventure, the enticement of everlasting video games… All of this adds up to a very rough day. I had that day and then I had another and another on into sunday night where we are now. In my boys’ defense, I’m very distracted. I have some writing that needs to get done and 3 classes to prepare by tuesday. It isn’t an excuse for their behavior or mine, but it is me being aware of the obstacles to a happy summer.

My kids want to have fun. For them that means 100% go hard until they fall unconscious watching cartoons on hand held devices. When they get bored of doing A they expect B to be ready and C after that. This is the result of being in school where 8-2:30 is scripted. Without a script the kids aren’t alright.

My wife and I are in a debate over this point (not to mention the standing debate over tackle football). She feels the kids should be able to find their own fun and we should sit back and let that happen. I agree that they should be able to find their own fun, but I recognize that going from  total structure to nothing can be painful, and I want to ease that transition. I need to ease that transition, because I’m the one who is home with them watching them tear the house apart in their bored insanity.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. I’m learning more and more about the beer culture. There are two cultures at work here. There is the culture of beer connoisseurs, people who enjoy the taste of beer and understand it. The other culture is the casual drinker culture, those who feel that beer is what you’re ‘supposed’ to drink as part of the social script. I’ve been falling into that second category. That ought to stop.

Perhaps the most startling part of the new X-men movie takes place after the movie ends. With the lights still off many of us were riveted to our seats waiting for something–anything–that would promise more. That delivery came in a delightful ‘haboob’ of action that can only point to one conclusion.  Everything that came before those post credit moments were a build-up–not to the post credit moments, but to the singular idea: The story of the X-men is far from over.

Days of Future past is a Retcon that marries the 1981 comic storyline of the same name to the 20th Century Fox Film franchise. In the film the mutants of the world are being hunted be powerful Sentinel robots created by Trask Industries. Wolverine must go back in time to prevent a key assassination that triggered the rise of the Sentinels before he himself is murdered in his own timeline.

Days of Future Past doesn’t lack for coolness. Between Blink’s awesome teleportation combat scenes and the Quicksilver set-piece (perfectly choreographed to Jim Croce’s ‘Time in a Bottle’), the movie was a visual tour de force. However, two hours isn’t enough time to fully explore what amounts to a complex storyline made even more so by the rich characters that dominate it.

There is plenty of room to grow here. The after-credit scenes point in two separate directions at once. There is the ability to continue the storyline with the character from X-men: First Class. The opportunity is also there (and possibly implicitly stated) that the franchise can return to the x-men 3 universe with a near complete retcon of most of what came before.

In the end, the two hour ride is worth it. There are enough thrills, surprises, action, and comedy to satisfy the ardent x-men fans. For those new to the franchise however,  this is a poor entry point as it assumes knowledge of at least X-men First Class and both Wolverine films.

Since the end of this latest youth soccer season I’ve been rethinking my approach to being a coach and to being the parent of an athlete. In some ways it is easier to be a dad to kids who have no athletic ability. I recognize how arrogant that sounds, but arrogance is not my intention. My concern is with doing what is best for the kid athletically as well as socially. It is the same problem I ran into when my mid-kid skipped Kindergarten and could have skipped first grade just as easily. The issue was not ability, but social misplacement. As a result of letting him skip ahead, I have a kid who is always the youngest in his grade and, at times, lacks the maturity of others at his grade level.

Lets ignore for a moment the question of how mature a 2nd grader can be anyway. Project this dilemma on to sports where the same kid is playing with much older kids. When we started the season he was 6 yrs old and his oldest teammate was 10. I’m stuck between this place of, do I let him play with other 6-7 year olds and watch his skill level remain constant (or at worse sink down to the level of the age group he is with), or do I put him up and force him to push his skills to that next level. This is what happened during soccer, and the boy was a constant starter–one of the top 6 on a 14 boy roster. Still, as the season wore on I could see the maturity gap. I could also see that I’d sacrificed the social side of the equation. A couple of his older classmates had moved up with him, but the bulk of his friendships remained at the 6-7 level. I asked him if he wanted to play 8-9 in the fall or go back to playing 6-7 and he struggled with a decision. Finally he asked to move back to play with his friends.

I see parents making this kind of choice every season. One of the players on my squad this year hadn’t turned 8 when the season began. Come fall his dad is moving him to the 10-12 team. While the child is talented, I wonder if parents like he and I are forgetting that youth league sports are as much about having fun and being a kid as they are about learning teamwork and basic skills. Once I recognized that I’d forgotten that I had to ask the boy what he wanted.

Now what he wants is to play tackle football–a passion he shares with his big brother. This may be the perfect time to put him in the game. Given his age and weight he will be at the top of the 5-7 bracket. That is a good a training ground as any to learn the fundamentals without fear of the bigger kids hurting you.

I just have to force that rationale past my wife…

Call him Melo, swift, the curse, or as he is affectionately known in my home, The Black Hole (once you pass him the ball you never see it again). Just don’t call him for another contract. The Knicks debacle that reached epic lows in the Isiah Thomas era is now in the hands of Phil Jackson, an on-court genius and personality super-smith, who can coach superstars better than any in the business. The question is, does he need this particular superstar? I say no. In fact, I say resigning Carmelo Anthony openly guarantees the Knicks will go no further than the first round of the playoffs for as long as he wears the uniform.

My beliefs are rooted in game film and financial data. One thing is certain, Carmelo means to command the max contract from whomever signs him. He is too well known and too obviously proficient as a scorer. However, I see what George Karl saw, a selfish scorer who isn’t worth the money he expects to be paid. Some will dismiss my analysis on the grounds that I don’t like ‘Black Hole’s’ style of play. I don’t. However, I also know that there are a wealth of prolific scorers in the NBA who can give you a good percentage of what he gives you while leaving enough cap space and ball handling time to develop and please other members of the roster. I’m not a singleton operator here. When talking about the future landing spot of Kevin Love, the empirically driven website Numberfire said that Love could put up numbers comparable to Melo, and that dude passes. 

Carmelo the player is good. Carmelo the contract is not. Once you can begin to see the two as separate entities, you can begin to understand that basketball is no longer a 1 star show. The best teams–The Spurs of the world–are built around depth and role play. You need people who are able to fill positions and exploit mismatches. One star is not enough. Two often cannot defeat the overwhelming mismatch-driven strategy of a deep club (see Spurs v. Thunder).

Get rid of Melo, Phil. You have some of the tools already in place to run the Triangle. Go get some more and build something worth cheering for again.

Yesterday the Heat regained form and defeated the team I despise most in the NBA. I watched the Pacers flop, complain, cajole, and whimper their way to a 1-1 deadlock in the Eastern Conference Finals. I admit a certain bias here. I’ve despised the Pacers since Reggie Miller suited up. That hatred rose to a fever pitch when Miller single-handedly wiped the floor with my beloved Knicks by scoring 8 points in 9 seconds.

<Reggie the Slayer>

The new look Pacers don’t have Miller’s killer instinct. They flop and put on airs, making them the worst kind of NBA team–the anti-bad boys.In my opinion, a team like this doesn’t deserve to see the NBA Finals. I’d like that honor to go to the Heat, a team comprised of NBA all-stars, former all-stars, and talented role players, many of whom took a pay cut in order to become a dynasty. I’d like them to meet up with the Spurs, a class-act of a franchise that has been demolishing the Oklahoma City Thunder with the pre-season ease. Ten Spurs scored in tonight’s 112-77 thumping of the Thunder. Spurs now lead the series 2-0, and neither game was remotely close. Perhaps there is hope of a Heat-Spurs clash after all.