Day: September 11, 2016

I am starting the blog before football. I ought to be meeting with my writing group this morning, but instead I am in my office preparing to produce something they can actually see. I wouldn’t say I am stalled as a writer so much as I am hesitant. Steinback famously quipped, “When I face the desolate impossiblity of writing 500 pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day’s work is all I can permit myself to contemplate.”

I’m pretty sure he spelled impossibility correctly when he wrote it. I’m also certain that the idea of the impossible, while terrifying to him, was something he overcame quickly. He stood on the edge of the cliff and jumped. I stand on the edge of the cliff and pontificate. This is indicative of our relative success.

So here I stand and prepare to find an excuse not to write. Perhaps I will deal with school work, or sort files, or do laundry. Or maybe, just maybe, I will write.

Some Thoughts:

1. The greatest indication of M. Shymalan’s skill as a director is the utter dissapointment people had when first seeing the creature in Signs. Think about it. What could he have put on screen to meet your expectations? What rough beast, its time come round at last, could’ve shambled unto the screen and been greater than the expectations birthed inside of your own head? Where did those expectations come from? I’ll tell you where: He built up a level of suspense and expectation so complete that when we first see the thing so many of us laughed at how far short it fell of the horror we expected in our minds.
2. I looked up a few reviews of my work last night. Not too many. It felt the way I imagine it does to hear a noise somewhere in the basement and go to the top of the stairs, call out into the darkness, and perhaps flip on the lights. You look, but not terribly hard because you are afraid of what you might find. As expected, I saw nothing to terrify me. Still, I remained at the top of the stairs.

I have a lot on my mind this Saturday. Had a great Bday bash for the boy, and coached some football. Here are my thoughts…

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Had a tough football loss today in the MM league. The National Champions took us down 14-6, but in doing so really showed us that we have the talent and design to beat that team. We made mistakes early, but once we settled in we had them cold.
2. Meanwhile the JPW team is pure trash. I really hate putting people’s business in the street, but with this situation I couldn’t hold back. They forfeited the first game at the half because they were getting their butts kicked. That head coach lost his job. We are without a head coach now and effectively are without leadership. I don’t like it. I like the individuals running the program but what they are doing is totally ineffective for the talent and caliber of player they have. As a result they have failed to gain a first down in three straight games, loosing each by a minimum of 32 points (see forfeit). This latest game was stopped by the referee because it was just too ugly. We did not compete. Moreover we put a kid back there to play QB who hadn’t played QB with this team. It was a mess. Yet the coaches continue to offer platitudes like, ‘we are getting better every week.’ and ‘our kids did good out there’. The program above the MM level is a joke and everyone knows it. Unfortunately that means we are losing a lot of talent to other teams. So the handful of complimentary players that form the nucleus of our skill player set are being treated like top talent when, including my own kid, they are not.  I can forgive the TM team for losing all the time, because they lack enough talent and they really lack experience. 20 kids on that team and only 8 can play at a time. You just cannot keep your talent on the field and when the noobs come in… Look, it is little kid football, but these things are impactful. This is how they will remember the sport moving forward.