Month: January 2017

Finished watching my new annual tradition of The Golden Globes, a show that pokes fun at Hollywood while simultaneously praising some of the best in the biz. I watched it with a heavy heart as my beloved Giants were being slaughtered by the Packers and Odell’s too-cold-to-catch hands. What I enjoy most about the show is that it does take the time to recognize some of our most important actors. Viola Davis got the nod for her work in Fences. Having seen clips alone I know she absolutely killed it. It is on my short list of films to watch. Also on that list is Elle, which took home a couple of awards and Manchester by the Sea. Nocturnal Animals was all but snubbed and that gave me confidence in the industry. The film was junk based on a junk novel that Ford morphed into what is trying to be an art piece but winds up being something, in my opinion, you really have to reach to find legitimate depth in. Now Vulture Mag took a healthy swipe at finding meaning there, but beware of spoilers. Seriously, they explain the ending. Well, I don’t expect any reasonable person to watch the flick, so go ahead and read. Go on. I’ll wait.

There.

Now you see: Junk.

On a lighter note, Deadpool earned Globe nominations. I’m glad it did and equally glad it did not win. The flick was great and funny and this 11 year journey for our dear Wade Wilson is deserving of a sequel, but not an award. Not yet. Blow me away with part II.

That’s enough from me for now. I’m going to retire my opinions for the moment and go back to writing the stuff that makes me feel good about being a writer.

There are a few terms that have been rolling around in my head lately: One note, Single Story. They both cater to the idea of stereotypes and preconceived notions. Yesterday I had the opportunity to enjoy a show called The Whole Story, which focused on the idea of storytellers sharing various aspects of the minority experience. It relied heavily on african american narratives that did not follow the presumed cultural norms, and really forced the listeners to uncouple from their expectations and let these speakers tell a new story.

It made me hungrier to tell my story. This story is longer than ten minutes allows and spans the entirety of my life. I always jokingly refer to myself as a chocolate chip in a sugar cookie, a term that I either made up or liberated from a comedian when I was in elementary school. It fit. There were only a handful of black kids in the elementary school and one was a famous musician while another was dating the tap dance kid. Needless to say, the boulder on my shoulder took form at an early age.

It pushed me to be good at something and good for something more than having ‘really cool hair that girls like to play with’. This selling point lost its luster by grade 3. Not coincidentally, I began getting really interested in athleticism and writing in grade four.

There is a lot of my past to unpack, and a forum about telling the whole story seems like an excellent place to do that. Lets see what happens…

I am sick and tired of hearing that Barack Obama is a failed president. Every time I turn on the news someone is saying this. Today as I dropped my eldest off for school we listened to the local hip hop station chronicle the abuse leveled at a handicapped white man by four black kids. What those kids did is deplorable. The fact that it is being deemed a hate crime based on race alone is, IMHO, a mistake because it appeared to be more about the disability than the color of his skin. Furthermore, the coverage by this sham of a radio news minute was more about Obama’s reaction and raising the question ‘would he have felt differently if the racial roles were reversed?’ That is a stupid question. As a result, it led to a caller saying this: “President Obama is a lame duck. Being half white and half black he should have been able to bring our country together.” That is a prime example of magical thinking. Really? How was he supposed to bring us together? How does the appearance of one man suddenly make everything better? This is the same manner of thinking that made people think that baseball was suddenly not racist because they let Jackie Robinson play, and as a result let more black (and eventually other races) players play. Of course we ignore the extremely painful period that Robinson himself suffered and the far worse treatment that the next series of black players suffered because the spotlight was on Robinson, so the others in the league could continue to openly abuse the next batch of non-white players.

Obama will never be able to live up to the expectations of the majority of the American people, because the expectations were unrealistic. Based on what I continue to hear, Obama didn’t do a damn thing as president for anyone or anything. I won’t scroll through his accomplishments here, but needless to say he did a hell of a lot for our nation and could’ve done quite a bit more had the Republican party been willing to engage him at all in a conversation. Instead they built an 8 year platform around the idea of making sure he failed and actively resisting everything he did regardless of whether it was good for the country and their constituency or not.

That is what a black president faced in America: Unimaginable odds and no support from half the country’s politicians. So, when we say Obama is a failure lets rethink that. He did the best he could ice skating uphill in an ice storm. He made it further than anyone else would have.

 

There are missing posts out there. I know where they live–in notebooks and text messages. They will appear here over time, but the importance of getting them here right away has faded. This is largely due to the fact that practically nobody reads the blog. For me the writing of the post and the application of ten minutes of my life minimum each day to the cause is enough for me to be satisfied with the writing. The posting itself has been problematic and has become less important as my hits dwindle down to one or two a day. That brings me to the question of why do I do it at all? Some of it is accountability. Some of it ego. The better part of it is this idea of having a presence on the web and a history that goes with that presence so that I may one day look back on this and say, ‘I made something.’ 2614 straight days of blogging is no small feat. Who knows the number count when I shed this mortal coil.

Okay that may have been over the top. In a more realistic and down to earth sense, the blog keeps me grounded. It lets me know that I am a writer first and I am writing for an audience. I can forget that on occasion and I can go in the other direction and think of nothing more than the audience, losing my sense of story and joy in the need to create something for a specific type of reader.

10 minutes is really not enough and once it becomes enough I know that means I’m burned out and need to do serious soul searching to get back in the writer’s mind.

1. About a year ago I was coaching three flag football teams and working really hard physically to achieve that. I wound up throwing out my back and even missed a game. Tonight my back is in nearly as much pain and I’m doing a fraction of the workload and not even coaching. Turns out the issue is not the workload but the worker. I need to get right.
2. Further evidence: Second straight handwritten monday post not to make it to the digital page. It was a good one. There were resolutions. You’ll see it someday.
3. All things considered, life is better for me when I have a manner of schedule. Without such structure I tend to drift and wind up being terribly unproductive.
4. I also eat a lot of donuts when schedules aren’t in existence. Perhaps I just eat a lot of donuts anyhow.
5. Not the best or most productive post but writing while you are tired and in pain never ends particularly well for me.

I am a helicopter parent in once specific way: Education.

I am the dad who checks out the teacher’s reputation amongst staff and students to get a gauge of who I am dealing with. I want to know that when my kid enters the learning space, they are getting one full year of learning, no matter where they start from. If my kid started from way behind, he ought to get to a point where he’s learned as much of the catching up as he can. If my kid started way ahead, he ought to keep or extend that distance in learning from the rest of the pack. I apply this rule to all kinds of teaching, and that includes youth sports.

I get it. Youth sports don’t matter–especially small town rec leagues. I agree. Nobody is signing my kid to a college scholarship because he went beast mode on the 6-7 Maricopa Youth Football League. Nobody outside of ‘copa actually cares. Heck, most folks inside of ‘copa don’t care. But that isn’t the point. The teaching is where I get all messed up.

Why? It is just rec ball! Yeah, well you never hear a parent say, “well its just the 2nd grade” No, because we realize that this is where children learn their fundamentals. Sports are the same way. A bad rec coach and crush the desire and development of a young man just as quickly as any other bad teacher can. Moreover, these are people working in a strictly volunteer position and more often than not they appear to be doing it more for ego-driven reasons than for the sheer service of developing kids.

I am not immune to this. I want to win every game. I want to see my kids win every game. Sure, I’d like them to lose as well and become hardened and smarter for the experience, but I want the loss to be based on merit not on bad coaching. In other words, I want losses that there are no pre-built excuses for. I want losses that make you step back and say, ‘okay there are people out there flat out better than me. So what do I do now?’

As I watch my 7 year old prepare to take the field as a flag player for the first time ever without me as his coach I find myself being particularly hard on his coach. I expect the level of commitment and skill that I bring to the task, and if I don’t feel that is happening I am left to wonder why he is coaching my kid and I am not. In this instance it is because I was too worn down to coach. Heck only one of the three is even playing and that took some doing to convince me to get him on a roster. Part of the stress was knowing that I would not be coaching and would be incredibly scrutinizing of whoever was.

How is it going so far? I allowed myself to go to one practice and wound up helping coach it. One season of learning is all that I ask, and if I have to provide that myself then so be it.

 

I found a really good article about productivity. The key wasn’t that I learned a ton of new information but I learned strategies to bring and string that information into a productive set of patterns for myself. In simpler terms, I figured out how to use what I know in order to make me better. That is the theme for the year. For once I am going to fall into that familiar well of wishes for the new year. I am making a resolution to strive and achieve the best version of myself.

I need this the way a body needs water and air. I want to live this year like it could be my last while preparing for the eventuality that it is not. What I want above all else is to be back in a place where I feel constantly happy and confident in every aspect of my life where I can exercise a modicum of control. Honestly, I don’t know that I feel that confidence in any area and the happiness in fleeting in all areas save one.

Luke Cage is fond of saying ‘Always Forward’ so I will continue to honor that by not trying to be some long forgotten version of myself, but instead the me that is and can be, focused on what I need and want and desire most in this world. It is a tough charge that involves getting out of my comfort zone in a number of areas, but I think it is a challenge and I need a challenge as of late. I need to stop feeling like a victim and get back in control of what is and what is to be.

I always liked how that felt.