Month: August 2015

Apologies for the creative yet completely silly title, but that is where my headspace is right now. You cannot talk fantasy football and not feel at least a little bit silly. That being said, lets put ten minutes o the clock and let it rip!

Surprises
I shouldn’t have any of these left at this point in my ‘fantasy career’ but every year something nutty goes down in at least one draft. In the league I’ve been with the longest, one of my fellow players drafted a team that is 50% injured or suspended through week 4. I guess he is looking for the late push?

The biggest surprise was the Seattle team. Now, I get that we all love our teams, but this dude drafted nothing but Seattle players for the first 4 rounds and ended up with about 75% of his roster being nothing but Seahawks. I suppose he is willing to eat the week 9 bye week loss, just to remain a symbol of the 12th man. I think he’s going to eat more than the one loss overall…

Victories
Draft day is where seasons can be won or lost. I had the first pick in my 2 QB league draft and snagged Le’Veon Bell. Truth be told, this was an auto pick. I wanted to get AP and watch him redeem himself, but I was late to the draft, because, life. Still I scored some big victories with my RBs on that team while managing to grab Romo and the Cutlet’s dad. I still cannot shake the memory of Michael Irvin working out with the Bears receiving corps and that group making some dazzling catches and Irvin sitting back like, I don’t have hands like that. This didn’t pay out last season but I believe it will now. If not, I grabbed RGIII for a song.

Flyers
I took a chance on Vic Cruz and Darren McFadden. I believe in McFadden more than Cruz this year even, but I acknowledge that both are risky picks. When the snake came round my way late in the draft I risked it all and connected the 1-2 pick. Later that same draft I snagged Jonas Gray and everybody laughed at me.

We’ll see who is laughing week 2.

I’ve been struggling to come to terms with a lot of things in life. Some big, some small. Some made of words, others of emotions. Choices, stratagems, shortcomings, goals–all making up the terms on which I choose to lead my life. Terms. The word itself invokes a sense of surrender that I once was very uncomfortable with. When I was a kid and secure in my belief that I would one day have and do everything I’d ever found whimsy to imagine, the thought of terms never occurred to me. As a man, cautious, aware, and wounded, I am still uncomfortable with terms, but I recognize that they occasionally provide me with solace and structure, creating livable meaning in an existence wrought with possibility.

We are who we allow ourselves to be. This is no platitude. It is a time worn truth visited over and again through literature, parenting, and even religion. We can be who or whatever we want, so long as we allow ourselves the space, time, and dedication to rise above the barriers set before us. We can do, so long as the terms we set for ourselves are absolute and driven.

On the other hand, we are one and all limited by terms. We choose to live our lives in service of our needs–first physical and then mental. It is the combination of those–the mental poker that occurs when we decide anything–that causes us to live in the space we choose or simply choose to accept.

Most of us are stuck.

Most of us look at the bonds of what holds us and say, ‘that is just how it is.’ but it isn’t hardly ever that way. I grew up in Harlem in the 70’s and 80’s. Stereotypically, I should be on drugs and in jail but neither are real. In truth, my ‘hood offered me those choices and also offered me the choice to be more. I chose more.

Many will argue that I had help, and I don’t argue that I did. I sought out help and created a means for success. At some point I grew fat on success and stopped trying. I cam to terms with my reality and withered greatly. Therein lies the truth and the rub. My complacency; my inability to continue to grow bore a psychological cancer in me that I continue to treat this day.

I still have to deal with the ice of terms, but being more aware of it allows me to better create the terms of my life moving forward, and never ever settle for sitting still.

Amidst a chorus of barking dogs and churning air conditioners I write through the Phoenix night. It isn’t the wisest of times to find the words. Last night was another nail in the coffin of the theory that I can still be productive at that point in the evening (of course, that time frame is way beyond evening). Part of being the best version of yourself is making the best choices you can make, and writing during that time frame clearly isn’t one of them.

Instead of doing the not so bright stuff–i.e. doing what is easy–I need to re-jigger my focus on doing what is wise and helps me grow as a human and keeps me grounded. That is so much more easier said than actually done. Unfortunately there isn’t ‘one weird trick’ to help me out there. I just gotta grind out some serious hard work and stick to a schedule.

It also means reducing the hours of video games played to a reasonable number. This is, of course right when I’ve picked up the new Madden… such is the way life goes sometimes and perhaps the way life should go.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’m considering putting together a kitten obstacle course in my office. These little ones are completely ready to play and have fun. If a mesh garbage can is entertaining them then an obstacle course ought to be super fun. I’ll involve the boys. They may have some cool ideas.

Once in a while I mention the great work happening over on the sci-fi channel. The USA network affiliate is pushing post-earth space fiction pretty hard. I’m not talking space opera here or hard science (though that would be epic). I’m talking about colonized space, often stories about the Rim Worlds that are held by corporate or royal forces and the stories that dot those worlds. The arrival of The Expanse in December only furthers my belief that this is going to be a trend or even a movement.

Down the road I’m going to give a more productive post about this growing trend, but for now I’m going to check out because it is super late and I’m deleting and retyping words that are repeatedly being misspelled. It eats at my ten… and my patience.

Some Thoughts:

1. My eldest went to his first school dance today and had a blast. Life is very good, no matter the complications.

I sat down with my screenplay class to dissect the opening story beats in Collateral. I noticed something for the first time: How much of the Cruise character is developed outside of the actor himself. He is literally a study in contrasts. It starts with the Jason Statham meet up at the very beginning. Where Cruise is hairy (facial and head), Statham is bald and very reserved. Even the British accent builds a contrast between him and Cruise, which, given everything we know about Statham as an archetype, is meant to tell the viewer something.

The contrast continues when you look at the female lead (Jada Pinkett-Smith). She is dark skinned with eyes lightened around the edges to an almost white color. Cruise is pale with sunglasses. These two characters are meant to contrast each other–a fact already established by the initial in-car conversations that both have with Jamie Foxx.

Cruise is the Antagonist in the film, and he is designed to play off both the female and male leads as a larger-than-life individual whose presence far outstrips his minimal size. He and Foxx toy openly with the idea of control as they enter the driver/passenger dynamic but also throughout the conversation with jabs and queries about the life of Foxx outside of the cab company–information he was forced to give Cruise but willingly offered to Pinkett-Smith.

The first twenty minutes of the film represents roughly six pages of actual dialogue, which means that a lot of this character creation is purely driven by the visual aspects of the film as well as the diegetic and especially non-diegetic elements (which frequently are the same sounds moved in and out of the story world) as a way to create POV.

This Darabont/Mann production represents for me a small explosion of wonder in film and I am grateful to be able to use it in a class.

Turns out after a certain distance of years students stop recognizing adults as even being human. I think I will call this the Peanuts effect, though I am certain an actual trained psychologist uncovered the age disparity conflict and I just don’t know it. It reared its ugly head in class today when my students were getting to know each other and having conversations about subjects they felt only pertained to them and I actually understood.

Minds blown.

They were talking about dealing with roommates and figuring out meals and the uncomfortable necessity of what, in the John Hughes days, was known as the sock on door compact. You would think they forgot I ever went to college or had roommates or even understood the basics of person to person physical attraction.

I’m 40. I’m not paleolithic or anything. Moreover the conflicts they are talking about are timeless. It doesn’t end there though. Often 18 yr olds describe 25 as ‘ancient’ often using other more heinous terms to describe the thirties and anything over that doesn’t even compute. I was likely the same way, assuming these oldies were so far removed from my reality that they had no concept of what it even looked like.

Now I’m living on the other side of that reality and wondering why and how the young bucks can e so very stupid. But is it stupid at all?

They orbit a set of activities and organizational elements that are indeed foreign to me. I don’t use tinder. My pintrest is woeful. I have never have and never will acquire a snapchat. I think Juicy J is an idiot. Drake is powerfully overrated. I live in the haze of B.I.G. and remember when Jay-Z was still just that wack dude that everyone ignored.

I recognize that Tupac is actually dead.

Now I know I’m belittling an entire generation in some ways by making my stuff sound better than theirs but that too appears to be part of the generational gap. Our stuff is always better than their stuff. Its better than the new and better than the old and entirely ours. This is perhaps the insular situation that creates a sense of dismissal of past generations and often an abject distaste or disregard or disappointment (I’m about them D’s today) when thinking about the ‘next generation’. I remember when one past generation called itself the ‘best generation’. What kind of madness is that. So, for the rest of creation you guys are the pinnacle? It is all downhill from there?

Somehow every generation seems to feel that way for a time. Somehow every generation forgets that their elders went through a lot of the same stuff and dealt with it in a lot of the same ways. I wish more of us saw that and more of us communicated. Maybe the generations would be closer.

Maybe we wouldn’t be quite so worried about the kids screwing everything up.

I found a few minutes this evening to sit down and test out the new Madden 16 on the PS4. I chose the Giants, because thats how I roll–at least it was until I played them. I think Madden got it right with the team, trading the excitement of Beckham’s energy, ability, and personality for the lack of all three emanating from the G-men’s O-line. Still, sometimes realistic is just a bit too realistic and I’m left to wonder if Madden is good or just accurate. Either way, the game is one more thing: over the top.

The Ps4 version has been rebuilt from the ground up. I spent some time in the beginning forced into a strange tutorial that picks up early in a Steelers v. Cardinals game. At key moments in the game I was directed to try to catch a pass or intercept one and other in-game promises that read like a who’s who of world class game element design. The stuff they put in isn’t only good, it feels crucial to the two plus decade old franchise that birthed it. Still, the presentation of the add on’s felt forced and non-engaging, if only for the reason that I have no desire to walkthrough with a team I’d never be playing with on my own.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of the franchise. I only had time for one regular season game, a brutal thumping courtesy of the Cowboys. I did enjoy the level of competition, though it exposes my many weaknesses in trying to move from a three to a four.

Time and practice will make perfect.

I remember the excitement I used to feel as a student walking into a classroom on day one. I’m a guy, so my first tingle of excitement was about meeting all the new girls walking through the door. Hot on the heels of wanton desire was the urge to learn something new and applicable to my life. I wanted to be everything when I was a student. I went through so many majors and minors that by the time I finally got into a teaching career it turned out I could teach a bunch of stuff.

Once I became a teacher that excitement shifted. No longer about them girls, my excitement for day one turned into seeing all the faces and hoping to find reflected in them that same urge to learn something applicable that I felt as a student. Honestly, I don’t see that flicker in every face. More and more I get the disinterested stares of the caged student and I wonder why they are here.

Still, that flicker does exist for many and it is those that drive me to be truly good at what I do. I recognize the role a teacher has in the classroom. It isn’t to stand up there and deliver content, but to ignite the imagination and educational desire of each new student that walks through that door. Because we live in an information age, the role of the college instructor has shifted. Most students are savvy enough to figure something out if they really want to. Look at any video game and you’ll find that it always starts with a decoding–a period in which the user must decode the controls and learn how to apply physical response to on-screen cues.

The game provides the motivation to learn in the same way the instructor must provide positive motivation for student engagement and success. This is the lesson we new breed of instructors still struggle to accept.

NOTE: I woke up to find this post sitting on my desktop. In all the excitement of preparing for the first day of class I neglected to hit the publish button…

 

I believe the new American story starts with, “Nobody ever thought I was good at everything…” I came by that feeling after watching a series of commercials that focused on individuals from different walks of life who’d failed at everything they’d tried until aided by one lending startup or another or even just decided to focus on leisure (seriously, a beer dude said he sucked at working so he made a beer and sold it). The general idea behind this is that we are all successful on the inside and no matter how much we fail we still have within us the ability to succeed.

Thats the good version.

That is the version I desperately cling to. However, I fear that this message is going to be misconstrued as, “doesn’t matter if you screw up. You’ll get it right when you’re ready.” I can see how the two might get confused. Teaching at a Community College I run into a large volume of students who feel like its okay to screw things up for a while and not give a dang about what they are doing until the decide that it is time to turn it on and be heroes.

Not everyone has that switch. Often success is the result of long term planning and persistent hard work. I fear this specific message is lost to the masses who are tuned in to ‘think not’ TV.

 

Some Thoughts

1. At one point there were five members of the Cromartie family in the NFL. There are still three. That’s some serious familial dedication to the sport.
2. Yesterday’s post made no friends… Not surprising. It is a difficult truth. I stand by my statement that a sport must stand on its own. Cheer does not exist in the absence of other sports. Who would you cheer for?

This is going to be a rant.

Cheerleading is not a sport. I am aware that I sound like an ass for saying so, but it ought to be said. Cheerleading isn’t a sport. I sat down my boys the other day to watch a bit of gymnastics and they were blown away by how athletic and cool the whole thing was. They are still at that tender age when girls only seem to matter if they can do something fantastically athletic (keep your heads out of the gutter) and these girls mattered. All three boys were very impressed with the gymnasts.

They have never been impressed by a cheerleader.

I have been very impressed, though it was more of an admiration of the synchronized dance as opposed to any real deep sense of a competitive aura. Heck, i’ve even watched cheer competitions and.. yeah, no. Not a sport.

This isn’t about the hitting or the physical demands of the act. This is just a gut thing. I’m not the type of feminist that thinks that women ought to feel like they have to do everything a man does. I’m more of a ‘get yours, girl’ type of dude. However, the ‘yours’ in this case is utter bollucks.

I just don’t get why it needs to be turned into a sport.

I can’t think of one other ‘sport’ that exists solely to support other sports.

Some Thoughts:

1. Keep an eye on JJ Nelson #14 of the AZ Cardinals. I’ve mentioned him before, because he has that Vic Cruz vibe I talked about in the preseason before he straight blew up. Nelson might be a year out as well…