Month: April 2015

I continue to create the conditions for my success and recognize some past failures and reent successes. This and the habits I have create a reality that is sometimes really good for me and sometimes equally bad. I am in a good space right now, though I am carrying the guilt of outstanding work. I gotta get stuff done, but I also want to prepare for future classes and set up a summer routine that will aid me in being successful. 

One such habit that might help is returning to evening coffee drinking. Without the caffeine I feel like I’m slow and, well, exhausted.

Some Thoughts:

1. 1800 marks the formation of the U.S. Library of Congress. It is important to note that this organization, at one point, archived every tweet ever sent. This means that there is a solid record of at least the first 800 entries in this 1800 entry long blog. 
2. Got the mid kid a bow and arrows for his bday. This may have been a terrible and dangerous mistake. Not that he’ll shoot anyone, but at some point in time he will become convinced that he is a DC superhero. Like for reals…
3. More folks moving on from the Daily Show. I suspect the new version will be a shade of the most recent.

There are a number of other things I ought to be doing in this ten minute burst. To hear it from my 10 yr old, I ought to be playing Dragon Ball Z: Xenoverse, because by not doing so I am confirming his suspicion that I will never play and thus wasted my money on the game. Of course his assessment neglects that I bought the game for him and further neglects life itself–beyond video games. That’s his crutch. Mine is still TV and finding all new and colorful shows designed to waste my time and further distract me from the actually important and meaningful tasks in my life.

These tasks don’t include NBA 2K or any manner of game, but they do include writing, which I’ve neglected as of late. I feel like I need to build up some more ‘life experience’ to really start producing ground breaking work again. I don’t know, I enjoy the stuff I produce but it hasn’t been special for a while. At this point I’m rambling, so on to…

Some Thoughts:

1. Children fascinate me. I had occasion to open my desk computer today and found an unfinished poem about sunlight. On the second screen was a poetry website with a sampling of Spring-themed poems the mid-kid was using to understand the cadence and specific imagery of seasonal poetry. Why he didn’t just ask me is a completely different conversation, but the fact that he went online and sought out this information to write a poem on his own gives me hope.
2. I’m having extensive shoulder (rotator cuff) problems. This is further evidence of aging that I can no longer deny.
3. 1799 indeed. This was the year New York began abolishing slavery and the year the slaver Eli Whitney began mass producing firearms. Those two things have been entangled ever since. There is a longstanding relationship between the fear historically attributed to black men and the use and control of firearms in the United States.

I thought I’d pay homage to the MMQB for producing really intelligent pieces about football this off season. As I move into the tackle world I start to real recognize that football is about human stories and about insider and outsider groups. I see that insider/outsider dynamic very clearly in the division between coaches and parents on my son’s team. The coaches are a click–almost a family. They are often the fathers of the best players (at the very least the fathers of the kids who get the ball) and have come to these relationships through the trials of past seasons and friendships that have come to extend beyond the playing field.  In truth, the majority of my (local) male relationships were built that way. It only stands out to me now because I am clearly on the parent side of the equation–an outsider who can only stand and watch and hope that my kid can play to the level deserving of touches.

The learning curve from flag to tackle is steep. Not only have I had to reach back years into my memory in order to remember the last time going through tackle drills, the offensive and defensive schemes are more advanced than before. Now, as a learner and perhaps future OC, I’m having to think about blocking assignments beyond merely the skill positions. I spent this last practice watching the team move through formations and picking out the possible plays and audibles out of those formations. It was good fun for me, and it showed me all the strengths and weaknesses of the team’s coach. One weakness is the lack of a backup QB.

I’m not quite ready to pull out a clipboard and get to work. I believe this summer’s basketball experience will be really helpful because I’ll be working with 6-7 year olds who don’t want to listen or do anything resembling teamwork. I’ll have to find a method through that and learn how to become a better manager. I’ll have to do something new with it all too, because the old way is limited and I’ve hit the wall.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. This body as temple ideal has turned into more of a distant ideology for me. My body is filled with junk food, excess fat, and coffee. Lots of coffee. Nothing I usually do to get my mind, body, and spirit in sync in working, which I suppose is the core reasoning behind trying to do things a different way.
2. They’re going to make this officer-involved murder about race, but it shouldn’t be. They in this case are the media and the people with a bone to pick. I haven’t seen evidence of systemic racism in this situation. I have seen a very terrible officer do something he immediately went all “Chicago PD” on and get caught doing it. One media truth: Without the video we would be hearing a very different narrative about the shooting… Or not hearing about it at all..
3. 1798 was the year the USA established the Marine Corps. This was, in part, a political response to the very brief French-American war of the same year. I’ve often believed that wars are declared for financial reasons more than moral or political. Wars make money and enable national funds to be spent in very specific ways. Nowadays we outsource our war capabilities to multi-billion dollar corps. I fear this too is a mistake, because a publicly traded company is beholden to its stockholders and not to the quickest path to peace. There is more profit in continuing conflicts than ending them.

Spent some time thinking about getting ‘back to one’ or in other words, getting back to the space where I am centered and organized and ready to face the world. I was there for a spell and then I went I blew up my life. That all starts by assessing where I am at vs. where I want to be and what I need to be working on in order to reach my goal–especially in terms of obstacles. For example, I recognize that I watch too much TV and tried to solve that problem by canceling DirecTV. When I called they were able to bend my already weak will to at least a month longer stint by offering a massive one month discount. I gotta be tougher than that.

Distractions are the spice of life and I all too often allow them to become a focus of my being. That isn’t the person I want to be. I see that person every day in class. Most of my students are that person. Anything that is going on in their lives is infinitely more important than everything happening in the rest of the known universe. Just recently I had a student decide to miss a week of class because she was fighting with her boyfriend and it made her feel unable to participate.

As the semester winds to a close I am happier and happier about the opportunity I have to get very focused and build my skills both as an online teacher and as a writer, given the significant amount of time I will have to pursue both. I’ll also have the urge–since nobody once to leave the house during the Arizona summer.

All in all I believe it is time for a change for the better in my life and I am ready to start realizing that change… Even though I’ve said it before.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. 1797 was the first year that scientists proved that diamonds were a rarified form of carbon formed, in part, by intense pressures. This immediately invalidated the Superman film produced almost 200 years later when that dude squeezed a piece of coal until it became a diamond he could present to Lois Lane… Is it weird that this is the one part of the film I was like, “that could never happen”
2. Sad and interesting perhaps only to me, 1797 was the year the capital of NY was moved out of NYC and placed in Albany. Now in defense of that snowy and distant place, Albany used to be a big deal in terms of commerce. On the other hand, it is the second time a significant capital was moved out of NYC. Did you know that NYC used to be the capital of the United States?

I had a chance to watch the Edward Snowden interview with John Oliver. Since I only have ten minutes I have to be a reductionist. I see his argument as, ‘Americans should not be spied upon and the NSA should only spy on outside threats.’ His argument is more nuanced than that and he goes on to argue that we have a right to know exactly how much we are being surveilled. I agree with him in that aspect, but I do so knowing that I likely should not have a huge say in controlling that.

In the John Oliver interview it became clear that people care about privacy when it comes to petty things like dick picks. Oliver called it a visible line in the sand. So based on his argument (which I agree with) we care about surveillance when it applies to us and don’t want to be watched. We don’t care about surveillance when it applies to people we have no contact with or when we can logically process the need for that surveillance to happen. It is a terrible double standard that we continue to perpetuate in this misguided effort for and understanding of safety.

I am all for safety. I am all for security from foreign threat.I just recognize that threats come from within and that those are far more dangerous than anything outside of the ‘hard protective shell’ of Amurrica.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Three things happened in America in 1796 that I found incredibly interesting. We got an elephant from India, started a black church, and
2. Despite the fact that collegiate athletics seem akin to modern slavery in many ways, I still want my kids to have the opportunity to explore the relationships and excitement that come with college athletics. I just hope the slavery part comes into national focus before then and people start to recognize how messed up college athletics really are and fix the problem.

New week, new start, evolving attitude. I’m one step closer to disconnecting from cable entirely and limiting one of my major vices. Life changes when you allow it to happen and for me it does slow quite slowly (and usually once I’ve removed the detritus of bad habits like hours of TV). Of course I’m writing this as a show streams on netflix. The real question is am I reducing a vice or just making it more financially manageable?

Change is an important thing and something I cant entirely plan out. I can create (continue to create) a path to being a more idealized version of myself but the real work of the experience is dealing with the obstacles that exist and discovering the obstacles I make for myself.

Turns out there are a lot of those…

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Still binge watching Kimmy Schmidt Season:1. I must admit I’d lost all faith in the ability of sitcoms to be even remotely entertaining. ‘One Big Happy’ represents the average crap and ‘New Girl’ represents the dying breed. Kimmy is better than both with excellent guest spots from stars of all kinds, including producer Tina Fey (you’ve been missed).
2. Fire destroyed 1/3rd of Copenhagen back in 1795. It is hard to imagine that something of that sort could happen in modern times, though something like that happening would make an incredible premise for a short story and possibly even a novel.

I’m borrowing from Ice Cube here, but the sentiment is legit. I finally got to watch one of my boys play tackle football. He only carried the rock one time and scored a 30 yd TD. That’s enough for me right there, but we followed it up with an easter interlude (very brief egg hunt-styled excitement), Subway sandwiches, and a Diamondbacks game.  I’m sort of a big kid when it really comes right down to it, so after all the excitement we watched the kid-version of a parkour action flick, and then I sent the kids to bed so I could binge watch the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

I’m completely aware of the loss of man card here.

Some Thoughts:

1. Kentucky got beat. MSU got whipped badly. I’m not sure I entirely care. In truth my aptitude for college basketball fell off the charts after the Cyclones exited (in the first round). I’m not afraid to admit that I stop caring about certain things once my teams depart…
2. Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin in 1794, but he didn’t event it himself. Legend has it the work was done by a slave named Sam who was looking for a way to ease his workload. Two ways we can look at this. 1) something good came out of slavery 2) folks have been taking credit for other people’s hard work for nearly the entire history of our country…

 

James Wan tried to make me cry. I’ll admit that I’m not the manliest man to begin with. I often cry during Casablanca. However, those tears are triggered by the meaning I pour into the film, the history of when and why I first discovered it and some legit acting across the board. Bogart is the real deal. Paul Walker is not. His death was tragic and very much in the vein of the Fast & Furious franchise, so that sucks. Still, I never much liked or respected him as an actor. That is why it pains me to recognize that James Wan go so deep into my head that I was choking up in the last ten minutes of Furious 7. I hate you James Wan. I kind of adore you too.

Furious 7 is not a good movie. It is a pretty collection of over-the-top stunts wrapped around a paper thin and barely followable plotline like a pig in a blanket. The premise of the story is that the villain from Fast 6 had a older bad ass brother. To prove just how bad ass they cast Jason Statham and made his first scene one where he is talking to his laid up bro (not dead–that spells sequel or spin off with the Rock). As the camera pans out we see the big bro has just whupped an elite SWAT platoon’s ass and destroyed the hospital just to get to his bro. He did this alone, mind you.

Thus begins the wild senseless action porn that is Furious 7.

The movie was a fun and fairly useless ride, but in the last 10 minutes the director, James Wan, comes to life with a poignant tribute to Paul Walker that doesn’t even make sense in the context of the senseless film, but really yanks deeply at the tear ducts and calls forth a stream of wow. See it, just for that.

Some Thoughts:

1. George Washington gave the shortest inauguration speech in American history back in 1793. This was the same year the first US Hot air balloon was launched, coincidentally the last time on record an American president wasn’t full of hot air.

I was at a workshop this morning enjoying the stylings of Myrlin Hepworth and I noticed how immature the students in the back of the room were. I started making attributions, remembering the ‘type of students’ that sit in the back of the room and thinking about maturity vs. immature behavior and really considering why students would act in this fashion. Let me begin by saying that I don’t teach high school. I’m a college professor and with that comes a built in set of expectations of student behavior. Of course, those expectations are shadowed by another set of expectations–the expectation that students are going to remain immature children who will create any opportunity to make the class stupid and rather pointless–in other words, they will create a reality that mirrors their concept of what class is.

I’m struggling between the two divergent sets of expectations. The standards are in fact a spectrum. On the one end you have immaturity. On the other hand you have understanding and commitment (perhaps misnamed). Two students showed up 30 minutes after the session began. These are the behaviors of children and children experience life (generally) in a carefree ‘in the moment’ sort of fashion. I don’t know that I entirely dislike that but I am working to appreciate it and to understand what it means.

To hear it from other instructors that immaturity comes from a lack of appreciation of the subject, from boredom, from an inability to connect with the material being shared, from nervousness, fear, apprehension, sometimes even as a direct result of the growing awareness that they are entering a world of responsibility and are utterly unprepared for that. This last impression of meaning stems from watching students live lives within the boundaries of everything they already know–in other words they never explore the world outside of the reality their parents created for them.

Maybe that’s okay. It isn’t okay for me or even for my job and role on this earth. My goal in life is to get people to realize that there is more–that they actually want more, which is often why I focus on the ones who are so limited and why so often they are the ones who piss me off the most.

Some Thoughts:
1. 1792 was the first year the USA celebrated Columbus Day. Thus began the indoctrination of a lie. I speak of it on the eve of another lie–the like of Easter. What is Easter supposed to represent? Easter predates the resurrection of Christ as does the tradition of Easter eggs (representing the struggle between good and evil) and the idea of resurrection as embodied by the Phoenix. None of this has anything to do with a bunny either, so what the heck are we celebrating?

It may take a bit to get to the point here. I have a lot of thoughts swirling around on this topic and as I write the facts and ideas coalesce into something meaningful. I think I’m starting to understand why people get so angry about concepts like gay marriage.

I was working with Myrlin Hepworth today and he was reminding my students about the difference between concrete and concept. As he talked it triggered a swirl of thoughts in my head. Love is a concept. Belief is a concept. Marriage is concrete. The Bible is concrete. These things are houses for what are essentially indefinable concepts. When I think about the idea of love and communicate that with figurative language I relate love to the concrete things and actions I define as love-related. Someone else may have the same conversation and pick a separate set of relational objects. One thing we are both supposed to agree on is the Universal Language of Marriage.

 

This is where things get tricky.

 

For a large portion of the religious population, marriage is defined by the bible (a concrete house for belief/faith) as the love-based binding of one man and one woman. Marriage then appears to be the concrete house for both love and faith for these people. On the other hand, people like me believe in marriage as the concrete house for love alone. There is no added component—no roommate named faith associated with that. As such, the idea of marriage between two men or two women is just marriage and doesn’t pull a big bad wolf on my house in any way.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Watched my son mail-in a practice today. He was very much the Allen Iverson of practice and this reflects negatively on him in the eyes of the coach. It reflects negatively on me as a dad who is supposed to prepare his kid and a coach who is supposed to expose his players to athletic rigor Clearly none of this surfaced tonight. Instead I watched a kid who was obviously checked out in the days leading up to his first home game. Speaking of that game, I can almost check ‘watch my kid play a tackle game’ off the bucket list. Everything following is about him and his (apparently limited) desire to play the sport. I didn’t (consciously) push him into it and I refuse to push him to continue if his head isn’t in the game. Then again, maybe he’s just having an off night.
2. Napolean Bonaparte was elevated to commander in chief back in 1791. Earlier that year the Big Bottom Massacre in Ohio kicked off the Northwest Indian War. Rough year.