Month: August 2015

This isn’t a blog about football but it involves football players. By now the news waves are flooded with the sad tale of Geno Smith. The erstwhile quarterback of the NY Jets was involved in a locker room altercation with a teammate. Now there are some facts and sociological rules to put in place before I tell you what happened. Fact: at the time Smith was the starting QB for the Jets. He was a second round draft pick and tapped to be the leader of the franchise. Sociological Rule: The QB is a team’s lifeblood. Nobody touches the QB. Fact: a backup linebacker dropped Geno Smith with one punch in plain view of his team mates. Nobody hit that dude back.

How can we rationalize that rule with those facts? Upon closer inspection I learned that the altercation began over a failed appearance at a football camp. He made a promise to appear and then didn’t. As a result the ‘puncher’ looked bad. He in turn asked Geno to pay the $600 he was out because Geno didn’t do what he said he would. After a few weeks of Geno not paying, the player confronted Geno. Words were exchanged. At some point Geno apparently stood up and walked over to the other guy, a Linebacker 1.5 times his size, and put a finger in the man’s face. Geno Smith was punched so hard that his jaw was broken in two places. One punch. This was not a sucker punch as is being sensationalized. This was a reaction. This was a reaction that ignored a lot of social rules. My question is, how did it happen?

I think it boils down to immaturity and an inability to lead. Peyton Manning would never ever get punched out in his own locker room. Geno’s issues are clearly on display when you consider what both he and his attacker tweeted out after the incident. Smith’s attacker, who was fired, tweeted a major apology. Smith snapped a selfie with the tagline ‘I’ll be back‘. This is pure and unavoidable evidence of the man’s immaturity and inability to handle such a public job. This is further evidenced by the fact that no one stopped the attack. Once the altercation heated up, someone should have stopped it. There were several witnesses who spoke under conditions of anonymity, because nobody wanted to admit that they were there and did not act. If they did not act, there are deeper issues at play here. Geno was allowed to be hit.

Some Thoughts:

1. 2014 was the most difficult year of my life. Between dealing with the emotional fallout of deaths over the two previous years and the incredible heartache of divorce, I just broke. My teaching suffered. My writing suffered even more. I am making the best of a 2015 recovery, but I vow that 2016 will bring me to new heights.

I’m at peace with the world. Some of that is about feeling happiness for the little things in my life and some of it is knowing that I have the incredible opportunity to work with students that is happening very soon. Normally this transition to teaching is associated with a feeling for creeping dread. This is because normally I don’t have my act together mentally as I am heading into the semester. For the first time in about a decade this isn’t the case. I’m mentally set to teach and the majority of work I need to attend to has been handled.

There are a few things that remain on the to do list. I gotta finish up the lesson planning, close down a few house projects, and prep diligently for a pair of fantasy drafts. None of that is getting to me anymore. In fact, the greatest bit of stress in my life is figuring out whether or not my tires are too low. I don’t want to jinx it. I feel like it is important to recognize where I am in life vs. where I have been and the all too real issues that others face. I mentioned the AZ homeless last night and spent some time reading about the Ikea stabbing today. Fact is folks lose their minds everyday as a result of not finding a lick of balance. I refuse to be ‘that guy’ any longer. I want to ride off into the sunset knowing that I created a life of peace, balance, and all manner of kick-assery.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. NPR led me to this delightful bit of podcasting called the Mystery Show. These mysteries are not the ones shaping the world. They are light, fun, and solved by the end of the episode.
2. Every year I update my work office in one manner or another. This year I think I will attend to some more art reflective of me. Not sure what or how yet, but there is this Iron Man image calling my name. The beauty of that is how reflective the action can be of showing where you are in life right now vs. where you have been…
3. Football. I missed seeing AP run and Bridgewater didn’t score, but there is something about those Vikings that promises some fantasy value. I’ll be keeping a closer eye on them as the draft approaches.

I’ve been through a lot in my life–even moments of uncertainty about having a home. Still, nothing I’ve been through compares to what I think the AZ homeless go through. 108 degrees and nowhere to turn to escape the heat?

I’ve escaped the Gilmore Girls series intact. I watched on recommendation and the recommendation had merit. The show follows the life of three generations of the Gilmore family, charting how they grow and age and live life… It sounds incredibly less cool than it was.

I cannot write tonight for whatever reason. I find myself going slowly and caving to fatigue. Some nights have that sleepy quality to them, which slows the ‘pen’ and crowds the mind.

 

What do you really want? Why? What are you willing to do and or surrender in order to fulfill your desire? A sociology interesting fact about the U.S.A. is how well scripted our paths to desire and sex are. In part we learn about our desires from our parents–watching them and discovering what they find important and mirroring that in our own lives. However, parents only take us part of the way. External influences are largely responsible for what we want and ultimately play a role in whether or not we are capable of lasting happiness.

I no longer believe in purely self-created desires. We did not suddenly decide to be into fantasy or science fiction. This is debatable, of course. I chose sci-fi–going into it on my own and enjoying the material. Still, someone pointed me to that rack of books near the back of the library. Once exposed to the idea of such things I chose what I liked. Such is the key: Exposure. External forces helped point me in the right direction.

External forces point us on a daily basis. Shows and ads tell us who to like and what to wear. Subculture points out niches of place and passion, opening doors to specific types of desire and wanting.

I think it is important to discern the influences that led to desire, because understanding why you want those things makes it easier to recognize what desires are legitimate and which are routed in something else entirely.

Recently I made a point to return to the idea of mindfulness and extending my actions beyond mindless button pushing, trying to find a connection between action and thought. This is all a very nice way of saying that I’ve been playing Minecraft and listening to the teachings of Buddha while I do so. There are connections there. Minecraft is, in a sense, a meditation on creation. The game is what is called a Sandbox, where the primary goal is to thrive and create. This then is not much different than real life in which we search for goal and meaning and are always drawn back to those two constants: Thrive and Create. As I was listening and playing I was reminded of the five mental hinderances. In specific I was reminded of the idea of middha or torpor, which is best described as mental fatigue. I realized that in trying to recover from that I we often overlook torpor or criticize it as weakness in our society. While it is perfectly fine to feel physically exhausted, the exhaustion of the mind is considered less acceptable. Dr. Frank Lipman’s book, Spent, talks about this dichotomy of understanding in depth. Here I have less than ten minutes remaining so I’ll say what I can.

Work burn-out is a real thing and for teachers like myself–those expected to be ‘on’ all the time, it can come quickly and if left untreated can be permanently damaging. This isn’t my primary problem. In truth, I have no single issue but a series of small mental drains that add up to a tank that doesn’t always get refilled, leading to torpor. Another one of my issues is being a dad. I love the job. I live for it in so many ways, but it sucks the very life out of me. As a single dad my kids are at my house 6 out of 7 mornings each week and full of need and energy. They don’t always have the wherewithal to recognize that each scream (either of glee or anger) and question and accusation and slight or insult peels away another layer of mental strength. They also fail to grasp that the blank stares and wonton inaction they offer when I tell them to do something (such as get dressed) also peels away at the energy banks. By the time they are off to school I’ve already lost energy and then I have to go to work and endure additional drain.

Anyone who has enjoyed a roleplaying game or video game is familiar with the concept of hit points. You only have so many and each shot takes that number down closer to zero. Fortunately video games strategically place health packs throughout the digital world to ensure that you don’t get dead. Unfortunately, in life we are responsible for our own health and must create a situation that allows us not to get drained to the point where we are ineffective. For me, torpor is the result of ‘low health’ coupled with the inability to regularly heal. The nightly Minecraft meditations and the writing help.

Still, more is needed to be back to full health.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. It occurred to me that the blog number will pass this year in less than a week. Meaningless moment of note, but all moments of note are meaningless short of the history and the context specifically assigned to them by the people who are closest to the moment.
2. My mid-kid did an in-class assignment that asked him to write and draw about his life. It was all sports and video games and the word family over and again. Apparently we don’t do much else. This is to be corrected post haste.
3. Fantasy Drafts are around the corner. Soon I will speak on such things at length. Equipped with my DirecTV Sunday Ticket MAX, and a ton of guides, I’ll be a draft problem…

Note: forgot to post this one…

Sam Esmail’s Mr. Robot is one of a handful of shows to hold my attention this summer. There are great moments of self-awareness that start with the episode names themselves. As we watch this neurotic/psychotic hacker unravel we are often left with the idea of what is real and what is merely his perception of what the hacker life should/could become. In fact, there is a near 4^th wall moment where one of the hackers remarks that some TV guy is gonna come along and define how the world perceives the next generation of hackers. Touché. Only, that isn’t the only thing defined by the actions of the show. In truth the portrayal of the villain, the aptly named Evil Corp, the show also defines the corporate rat race. Where Mr. Robot seeks to create a hacker identity it instead develops a compelling corporate identity that feels all to real and accessible.

As an only child I was pretty proud of the stuff I had. As mentioned here before, I owned several G.I. Joe figures, a doll house, a Hulk Hogan (why, Hulk? Why? Sucks that they snatched your job though) action figure, and a complete metal model of the Five Lion Voltron. I mention the last one to afford an air of cool to an otherwise cool-free childhood. The rest of the stuff made me feel like I made it. My points of comparison were few and far between, however. Once I started going to friends houses, I recognized that my made it was in fact quite minimal. That, my friends, is the corporate rat race. It doesn’t matter how much you have in comparison to those below you. Corpers are never graded on that. It matters how much more you have than those who should be considered your equal in some measure. In truth, you haven’t made it at all until you discover you have no equal in the hierarchy.

That is the vision that Mr. Robot puts forward, and one I intend to further in my own writings about capitalism.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. The website will be back sometime tomorrow. That’s a good thing.

So, the site is back, Stewart is gone, and the strange reality show that is the Trump campaign rolls on. Life is a very interesting miracle and one that has brought many new things to think about and consider. I failed to watch the debate tonight, but I saw the highlights and the resulting discussion on the news channels. What is interesting about the entire situation from a sociological perspective is the role of ‘buzz’ and black and white thinking in the political election system. The news heads are talking about who won and whether or not Trump looked presidential and failing to capture the real story, which is the fact that this entire situation is about popularity and how to ‘look’ presidential. What are the good sound bytes? Who delivered them? How were the candidates able to explain away or make up for earlier guffaws? How long did it take for 9/11 to be dredged up?

The winner of that last one is Christie who talked about his famous hug with Obama by saying he remembers hugging the families of the victims of 9/11. He was largely applauded by the media (and crowd) for this bit of slickness. I think the better bit of news head work would’ve been to ask why hugging Obama matters one dang bit. ‘Optics’ I guess, something we’ve come to appreciate in the new political world.

Moving away from politics, I have little to say about the last Daily Show. I haven’t watched it yet. I’m waiting for the right time. I do think it is interesting to live in an era between shows–where so many iconic bits of entertainment are ending and so many more are only beginning. Letterman, Leno, Stewart.. they are an important part of the American cultural makeup. For many they served as rallying points for ideas and interests. I wonder who that role falls to now?

 

I’ve encountered no less than a dozen highly publicized wrongful death cases involving police officers this year. Not once did I make or even hear a call for the national defunding of the police force. Recently some damning footage has surfaced showing a Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast exec basically selling harvested tissue. This is wrong on every level, but it doesn’t match what happened as a result. The senate moved to defund Planned Parenthood. Now I’m clearly not giving the whole story—Repubs have been pushing for a PP defund vote for a long time, but the fact is this polarized environment allows everything to serve as a catalyst for absolute response.

 

What ever happened to moderation?

 

I remember being raised under the banner of ‘don’t throw the baby out with the bath water’. The core philosophy of my youth was nuance. Nothing existed under a black and white dichotomy, yet now everything exists in the vein. If you have a problem with something, destroy it. We are a disposable society in that way…

 

Some Thoughts:

1. There is something really wrong with Ted Cruz’s appearance. I’m not sure if it is bad plastic surgery or what, but the dude makes me very uncomfortable.
2. Since we are on the subject of the political realm, the Trump thing doesn’t seem real to me, but it is. In fact, I have a real fear that Trump has the sort of ‘it factor’ to draw a new demographic to the polls and use that to catapult into a legitimate candidacy. The base has flipped. Today I heard a republican pundit call Jeb Bush ‘almost hispanic’ because he has a Hispanic wife. They are reaching for anything that draws in enough people to break the Hillary-hold.
3. Recently I published a story that features flooding in India. I short sold the conditions. Today I heard about two trains swept off the road by flooding out there. Conditions in many parts of the world are so bad that it makes me feel very guilty to have space and comforts…. This laptop is a comfort.

Preface: The following blogs cover a brief period of poverty during which I was unable to restart my site. Instead I wrote offline and gathered the files with hopes of posting them shorty. This is shortly…

 

I woke this morning to discover my website was down. This is an unusual occurrence, which is usually predicated by weather or nuclear strike. This time the culprit was cold hard cash. I run the talislegger website on a biennial subscription and as it turns out it is time to pay the piper. That raised an interesting question: Do I actually need to own a piece of a server in order to effectively run a website?

 

Short answer: No. I picked up the server space around the turn of the century when I masqueraded as Djmalik and had a lot of proprietary data housed at djmalik.com. I had kids in triplicate and retired from the biz (though I feel a mixtape coming on). Djmalik died out alongside thoughtwired.com and a handful of other websites I maintained for various purposes.

 

Today I don’t have those sites or any real need for server space. The 10 Minute rule is more or less the extent of my web presence, so I’m basically parking a domain name with limited use. No, don’t go hack my extra storage. Bad hacker. Bad! The truth is the server remains as a promise and an opportunity for growth. I did more on the web once, and one day I could do more again.

 

Once I figure out what exactly I want from the Interwebs…

I’m still on my movies in the summer kick and looking forward to taking in Mission Impossible. Perhaps looking forward is a bit much. I’m doing as expected, much as I will do with Fantastic 4  but with much less hope that the film is going to turn out okay. One film that did turn out okay was Trainwreck. Amy Schumer plays a chick who is a bit of a mess–not in terms of her out there sexuality but mores because of her being a total asshole. Yep, she’s an ass and totally out there about it. This is an important aspect of the story because this isn’t about the really sweet and wonderful girl getting the dude. This is about real people who aren’t perfect getting something that works for them.

It is also crazy funny.

Without giving too much away, John Cena plays a character that I couldn’t stop laughing about. He stole most of the scenes he was in. My favorite was the movie theater scene. I’m in love with the line, ‘You ain’t about that life’–once you see it you’ll understand.

I’m about done with this ten minute stretch, much like the boys are about done with the summer. School starts in the morning and I’m looking forward to having a few extra moments to myself.