Month: January 2017

I’m fed up with youth sports. My girlfriend says it is really about my inability to have much control in a situation where my kids end up in a bad spot. She isn’t wrong. I dislike putting the boys in a bad situation and time and again this is exactly where they end up. My 5th grader went from starting on the Jr. High Basketball team to earning a minute of playing time per game following some concerns I voiced to the Athletic Director. I still don’t think I was wrong for speaking out. The coach cussed out the team during half time of the game, he failed to provide any substantive training, and he refused to coach both during the warmups and the majority of actual games. Yeah, I had cause to be pissed. Still, when did I become the dad who bitches every time a kid is in a less than perfect situation?

I bitched about that coach. I bitched about previous coaches in other sports. After a time the common denominator looks to be me. The latest situation has me feeling like I’m seen as the bad guy when in reality I’m trying to be a stand up dad. Here’s what happened: Due to unforeseen league circumstances, my 9 and seven year olds are required to play in the same division. The head coach of the team I coach with doesn’t want both boys. He wants the kid he had and to let the other kid play for a different team in the division. I don’t want to do that. See, I’m a single dad and, for all intents and purposes, the only parent who regularly attends game. So, the real choice I’m being asked to make is to put the kids on separate teams and leave one kid without parents to support him for the season. That’s a really crappy choice. In fact it is no choice at all.

At this age siblings ought to be a package deal, but that is not always the case. As a result I am left to either pull the one kid off his team to join the other on a new (and likely lesser) team or split and leave one kid dangling. It is not worth the drama and mental stress. It also isn’t like I’m forcing a terrible athlete down the coaches throat. I’m giving him a solid young athlete who led his team in the previous season.

This brings us back to the control part.  If I had more control I wouldn’t be asked to choose between my kids. In reality, I am not going to. It might mean both kids play for the lesser team or it could mean leaving the organization entirely. One thing is for certain, I’m not going to break up dem franchise boys.

There is a dearth of really good science fiction these days, so when I heard the Wachowskis teamed with Micheal Straczynski of b5 fame, I was hooked. I tried to see it as a new look at humanity through the eyes of masters but wound up seeing it as the Wachowskis trying to work out a few things surrounding lana’s sex change.

Sense8 is supposed to be about a new stage of human evolution where people are linked mentally in clusters of 8. The non. Clustered are trying hard to hold them down. In reality it is a soap opera delving into the romantic lives of multiple characters suddenly faced with the situation where they have other people linked to them.

Want to know the hardest part of the show? The show lives in the edge of retardation and it is so very easy to slide off. The 8 alternate between failing to acknowledge the cluster to acting like they’ve always known. The opposition is driven by unthinking fear. And that hasn’t worked well to establish motivation. The protagonists feel disparate and lack appeal as a collective beyond a few episodes. Sleep is closing too fast. More tomorrow

 

Note: This was written via text messages to my email and published tonight prior to the new blog.

My latest undertaking is a passion project called 2626east.com. The site is a magazine of sorts published and populated by student work. I picked the name as a nod to the college located at 2626 East Pecos Rd. The idea for the magazine is one i’ve taken stabs at my entire career. I feel like this could, finally, be the culmination of that idea and something that, once I fully breathe life into, will maintain a life of its own.

There are but a handful of articles already up on the site. It uses the familiar wordpress backbone as a GUI and images of the campus or freestock gathered from the internet. The site is nascent, but I feel like this is the semester it really becomes a thing of value for the students. I have access to far more students this semester and they will be able to interact with the site to let me know if it is viable.

I lack a certain amount of knowledge about this endeavor and find that I am passionate to learn more.

Decided to ‘pen’ tonight’s blog from an iPad. This was much harder than first envisioned as not much seems functional in terms of writing text unless you are wired into the internet. This is an oversight from the folks at apple or another click in the mechanism moving us towards ubiquitous internet. I worry about that ubiquity right now because there is a real push from the corp world to further monetize the net, even so far as to limit how much non proprietary data moves across private wires. In other words, how can Netflix hope to cast on an ATT service?

I was alive when Ma bell got broken up and it feels like those days are long gone. In truth and in Trumps triumph it feels like we are moving towards corporate extraterritoriality. I.e. Corporate states. In such a world, fictionalized by myself and others, the corporations have all the power. We the people live on their land and follow their laws which supersede the liberties of the USA. Now this fiction edges closer to reality each day. Anyone who rents knows that you are basically living in such a world. Your recourse for civil rights violations is the courts and perhaps the media, but nobody tells the stories of redlining and far worse grievances anymore. With real estate president I can only imagine that his personal business interests will be improved by his political actions.

Regardless of what president hands us off to the corps, it is going to happen. I can only hope that I’ve gained a corporate foothold by then. Of course, I am not even trying to do so. Instead I am trying to open a Charter School and deliver next gen education to an audience that absolutely needs to be taught in a way more aligned with the world they live in.

I took a break from the matrix and the dog, making my way toward the nearest Starbucks. The blustery Arizona evening delivered all of the unfamiliar cold without the promise of stars, so I sat indoors, taking stock of the customers and the ambiance. I needed to get out and write somewhere I hadn’t in a while. Familiarity can be a writer’s nemesis if what is familiar is not also stimulating. I’d almost bought a Bonsai tree earlier in the day. I was seeking to add a little extra to my environment. I needed something to get me going and engaged in the overlapping practices of writing and zen. Lately it has been hard to eek out a moment of either.

 

So for almost ten minutes I’ve been sitting here trying to strike accords with the writing force (like the speed force but slower), sacrificing word after word to this blog in search of story and seeing my actions pass into that void to return as a sprinkle of inspiration the way minecraft mobs are distilled into tiny green globules of experience.

 

It is a work in progress, but my patience is near an end. I need to be more productive and more driven right now. Opportunity abounds and I seize very little of it these days.

 

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Ran into a former student working at the ‘bucks (and yes, I am going to call it that). Conversation was good and light until I asked him about how he was doing. That was the moment his smile withered. He didn’t say it but he still seeks more than what he is presently doing with his life. I can empathize. In the space between being with my partner and my kids I feel exactly as he does.

I am writing this during a (hopefully) once in a lifetime headaches, the kind that hurts everywhere. I can feel it in my stomach and behind my eyelids. A terrible movie is playing in the background and it has me wondering how much of what we see in film and TV is remotely original and how much of it corresponds to one version of a thing someone created and was successful and everyone else decided to copy for the sake of ease. The same is true of specific actors who become typecast, limiting what they are capable of doing to a fraction of what their actual skill allows.

I suppose the same can be said of writers.

 

I’m supposed to say something stirring and exciting to prep myself for the coming semester. Obama said something pretty ‘on the nose’ so I think I’ll share that instead. “If every economic issue is framed as a struggle between a hardworking white middle class and an undeserving minority, then workers of all shades are going to be left fighting for scraps while the wealthy withdraw further into their private enclaves.” (B. Obama, President)

Here’s the thing: He’s right. I know a number of racist people. They weren’t born like that and largely would not consider themselves racist. They are socially racist, a term denoting those who indeed come from that economic framing that Obama suggested in his speech. I’d like to develop a deeper dialogue with these kinds of people to really help myself understand and perhaps build bridges of understanding between us that can help shorten the divide between us all.

I have a personal stake in it too. I’ve been on the dirty end of racism way too long and I have come to live a life where I expect dang near anyone who doesn’t look like me to be at least a little racist towards me. Perhaps expect is too strong but I am never ever surprised when someone trots out the race card. Just a few months ago I was playing with a friend’s kid and the kid said, “No! I’m allergic to black people!” Where kids get this from is no surprise nor is the fact that a seven year old felt totally comfortable saying that. Why wouldn’t he. The kid lives in a world where I am the anomaly–the outsider in the room who is perfectly fine to have around, so long as you understand who he is and what his stereotypical limitations are. That is the kind of racism I live with every day. I want it to stop.

This week I’ve had the chance to experience multiple coaches and coaching styles as my kids (in their freaking off season!) continue to move through multiple sports. I keep coming back to one key observation: All coaches are invested in the job for the sake of ego, but many are over-invested to the point where they can lose sight of the families being coached and in some cases the kids being coached. I watched a basketball coach ignore the fact that he is in way over his head and instead slowly destroy a basketball program and the kids in it, because he is unwilling to step aside and let someone more skilled take the reigns. This is ego. It is ego to place the blame on the kids and overlook the errors you are committing.

I see this in a number of coaching situations, but when it comes to youth sports, I worry a great deal about a team who’s coach is the parent of a star athlete on that team. When that happens it stops being about the team and more about the kid and often the coach. I’ve watched this time and again and even been guilty of it myself many times.

Here is what I realized: 1. The head coach is the only one taking home the major trophy. 2. I don’t want to be head coach because I don’t want to become more about the win then the learning or planning. 3. I like planning and scheming and the chess aspect of most sports more than any other part of said sport. This is ego talking. This is me saying, I contributed by putting kids in the best position to succeed whereas without me that might not have happened. 4. I’m happiest in sports when I know the kids are enjoying the game and want to return.

I’m switching teams this year, letting my mid kid stay with his squad while I coach another team in the same league and division that has my youngest kid. The fact that my kids are on opposing teams is stupid, but it all goes back to the coaching. It is another example of not identifying the family situation or simply not caring about it. Nonetheless, I am dealing with it by coaching the little guy and making sure there is some balance.

Some Thoughts:

1. When did Marky Mark Wahlberg, a guy who grew up beating up kids because they weren’t white, become the prototypical American hero? Deepwater Horizon, Patriots Day, etc. The dude becomes our view of the American hero on screen and we forget who he is off screen. He’s not only that guy, but the guy Entourage was patterned on. I kid you not.
2. Begin Again is a dope movie. Again, I kid you not.
3. Started putting together a solid work schedule and scheduling book which includes a ton of butt in chair time for writing. Time to stop being lazy. It can be really hard to get back into the flow of things after a long break.

Today as I sat at Barnes and Noble sipping iced coffee and dreaming up stories to tell, my ears and later my eyes caught hold of three young black professionals. The oldest of the three was still in his twenties and they were dressed impeccably. The conversation was of instagram followers and gaining influence through social media and personally connecting with individuals who could advance them in their own careers. What they did for a living remains unclear. One spoke of models and friends booking modeling jobs for various types of magazines from ‘mainstream’ to plus size ads and shows in both genders. It felt much like the elder was advising the younger two on a great many subjects, but mostly on how and what it means to be a black man in this day and age.

I recognized the cadence of the conversation from some of the talks I had with my father as a child. I had two fathers, actually, and both fed me the same kind conversation filled with ideas of advancing the ideal black male image. That man is quiet and proud. He is strong of will and body, dressed in clothes that reflect a station unexpected of a black man until your very presence as a fixture in the community redefines that expectation. He is also a mentor. My ears still burn a little thinking of the ways I fell short of that goal. It felt good to see the ideal still promoted and advanced in such a way that even here in a desert peppered with so relatively few black faces it trickles down through the generations. I felt proud of my people and the tradition so few of us strive to carry on.

1. This blog is getting ragged. At what point do I start posting the handwritten stuff?
2. I’ve been experiencing serious insomnia. Strangely it only happens the nights I’m alone.
3. When I started this Some thoughts section I patterned it off of 10 things I think I think by Peter King. I read that website again today for the first time in months and was reminded that I do not like the majority of sports reporters. Jenny Vrentas is case and point. The former Biochem major is a solid writer but lacks the ethos to really say all the stuff she does about athletes, how they should behave, and how they should respond to the pressure they are under. Her latest article, a rant against Odell Beckham, amounted to little more than shit talk by someone who has no idea what it feels like to be an athlete under the competitive pressure of college and beyond. Lets not even get into how it feels to be an athlete in NYC. Instead she, like many others, focused on how he makes himself a target of harassment by, well, living a life outside of his job and participating in social media while he does it. At least she takes a moment to point out that his trip to Miami with his teammates isn’t why he dropped balls. The fact that he’s never played in conditions like he experienced in Lambeau played itself out on the field and the Giants lost because of it. Next year won’t be like that.
4. I’m back to teaching come tuesday.