Month: October 2018

They canceled Iron Fist a few weeks ago. They canceled Luke Cage just yesterday. I cannot help but think that something untoward is going on here. This may simply be a numbers decision, but my brimming mindsea of suspicion argues that there is more to this situation. Perhaps both shows were canceled as a way to create a joint show? Perhaps the narratives spun themselves out?

Honestly, any speculation this even would be a deep dive into the depths of that mindsea, which is presently polluted with the waters of dissolution. Maybe it is best if I just spent the remaining time falling into…

Some Thoughts:

1. I’ve recently come to the realization that unless you are willing to change everything you are not really willing to change everything. I need to meditate on that a lot longer, because change isn’t an independent thing. 
2. Sometimes tolerance and acceptance are absolutely poisonous. 
3. Ruinous even.
4. My sister has a fantasy football league. She did not invite me. I’m a bit pissed about that now.
5. When misery and disappointment are as common a feeling as the love you bring to the person you love the most, maybe the problem is you. 
6. 
   

I had my first Minecraft meditation in months today. For those of you new to the concept, a Minecraft meditation is in some ways the opposite of mindfulness meditation. In the Minecraft meditation the idea is to separate the mind from the body and allow your brain to slip into parts of the Brahmavih?ras. Specifically, this form of meditation helps me to experience metta and strive towards upekkha.

This is pretty heady stuff for Minecraft. Yet the crafting is what makes it go. A Minecraft meditation requires the game and an audio dharma talk to go with it. The crafting gives my body and senses something to do. I dig holes. The present iteration of this has me digging towards the 0, 15, 0 coordinates on the map, so I can erect King’s Dark Tower on the spot and surround it with roses. While my body digs I am also listening to the Dharma talk and it is shifting me into a highly reflective state. In this state I can reflect on my life and the universe I live in. I find peace and happiness with my body locked into the repetition of the action and my mind freed up to consider the profound.

 

Let me start off by saying the sports media can absolutely eat my shorts. You are gonna sit behind that desk and tell me how the Giants should’ve drafted one of these Qbs in the first round and pass on Barkley? No disrespect to Barkley? Come on, man! He is clear and away running away with offensive rookie of the year. These QBs the Giants should’ve taken and put behind that hodge podge line? Where are they now?

I can tell you Josh Rosen was threw 1 TD and 3 picks tonight, basically dumping off the ball on the way to 194 yards in 21 completions. He’s junk right now. I’m not even going to name the guy in Buffalo. The Jets got a guy who reminds me a lot of other failed USC QBs. He looks good on film until you really break down the film and the stats. If you have a back breaking for 200 yards a game behind a monster line  you can do damage in play action. Most of Darnold’s yards come from PA deep tosses. The rest are generally under 12 yards and also usually to the right side of the field. He’s a few games from being really exposed. 

Meanwhile Barkley is tearing up the league and college QBs like Drew Lock are proving that they are ready to step up to the next level in the draft. The Giants will probably get a guy in the draft this year or pick up Derek Carr when the Raiders inevitably move on from him. When the next guy gets here he will be incredibly grateful for the time and picks spent building a line and skill players for him to grow.

Wow, I really did lay a stinker yesterday. Let this be a lesson, dear reader, don’t write while fatigued. Consider it the way you do those warnings on the healing teas and cough medicine. Don’t operate heavy machinery, like a pen. The weight of the thing is often heavier than that of the sword. Yes, I paraphrased Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and I’m kind of proud of that fact. It makes me feel good–well read even–to be able to quote people and reference good writing. It is a form of the garbage in/garbage out theory that suggests that good writing being consumed is highly suggestive of good writing being spewed out. Of course, good ingredients are only a part of making the meal. You need to be a smart and I dare say crafty writer.

Once upon a time (that is code for I’m not digging back through the archive to find the post) I wrote about the qualities of a good writer. What it takes most of all is the dedication to lead that kind of lifestyle. I was picking up my kids from my ex the other night and noticed that she was reading a book. I mean actually reading. She had a book splayed open on the couch and the TV was off. I cannot recall the last time I sat at home and read a book. I’m so immersed in the culture of moving images that the stillness of words feels deeply foreign, like a vacation to a place I long to visit over and again. 

Being a part of that culture of stillness is a great deal of what it takes not only to be a writer but to write well.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. First time I’ve seen a particular student in about two weeks and she suddenly looks pregnant. I won’t ask, because she might not be…
2. Tomorrow will be Waiver Thursday…

I’m literally phoning this one in. I figured mobile works. I’m run down to the point where I don’t want to get the computer out. This is not about disrespecting the value of the blog but acknowledgement of how truly tired I am. 

This both takes longer and is happening as I dan d in and out of consciousness. This ten is far weaker than earlier work. I suppose I need to lay a stinker once in a while

I’ve been reading and watching a lot about cases of ‘Out while black’. The idea behind these things is that people (generally white and generally female) are calling the cops on black people for doing basic things in areas where these callers don’t think black people belong.

In some cases the callers are going to extraordinary lengths to pursue the black people. In one instance a woman believed that a black man who was leading around two white children had kidnapped the children. Her basis was racial and also due to the fact that the man would not let her talk to the kids privately. She stalked them in her car while she was on the line with the cops, following them from location to location until the cops could arrive. Another video showed a woman blocking the entrance to her apartment building because she didn’t believe the black man entering actually lived there. She demanded name and ID and ‘who he was there to see’ but when he claimed to live there she followed him to his apartment and still demanded his name after he opened his own door. 

I’m a bit old school when it comes to crime. I’m used to a world where criminals really are not polite. Here’s what I know from that world: If someone was kidnapping two kids and you followed them and demanded things of them, you would get hit. If you barred a person’s way to their home and then followed them to their door, you would get hit. In many of these cases history suggests you would get hit. The fact that you are not immediately being pummeled ought to indicate that this person is not a bad guy. 

Obviously that isn’t the real problem. The real problem is a certain stigma and expectation in regards to black men–particularly young black men. Moreover, we are in an era where people feel it is their right to get in your business and ultimately feel they have some manner of power over you, though I cannot understand where this feeling comes from.

It is a trip. See for yourself.

I have good days and bad days. On the good days everything clicks. I feel like the world is a good place for me and that I live in a good time. I feel the love from the people around me. I feel confident in my writing and the choices I’ve made in my life. On the bad days all of those things still exist, but a darkness creeps in around the edges. I feel listless.

Consider the etymology of that word. List-less or without list. The word list actually is an middle English way of saying desire. List in the modern parlance means tasks or chores, and it indicates that we are meant to relate our daily chores or tasks to desire. In other words we want to be doing something. Presently I don’t want to be doing anything though I have lists and lists of things that I should be doing. 

It is not that I feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities and precarious financial nature of my life. I’ve become so accustomed to being out of control in that sense that it feels normal–practical even–to be living in this fashion. Of course, the listlessness could be a subconscious (or more likely drain-based) response to the situation.

Last week I was in NYC. I felt that sense of listlessness for all of one evening. I could chalk that up to jetlag. However, here that low energy feels like a constant state of being, to which I argue that this may in fact be location or lifestyle based. 

The open speculation as to root cause is important. The writer part of me looks at it from a character perspective. In a sense I am diagnosing myself as a character and looking at life as story and figuring out the next steps that way. In another fashion the thinking helps to orient me in how I am actually feeling. Recognizing where I am when I am here is extremely important, because it helps me to understand the choices I make in this condition. 

Some Thoughts:

1. Been putting in some time on CODIV. The idea is to have a basic level of ability which makes me able to compete with my kids. They love this stuff. Video games represent their primary form of recreation (they consider sports a lifestyle and, in some cases, a future career, so not recreational but practical). I love playing with them and want to continue to see that be a part of our family life.

Today I watched my kid suck at football. It was, for me, a valuable life lesson both as a dad and really just as a human being. See, he was playing against arguably the worst football team in the league. His squad lost that game 18-6. It was closer than the score indicated, because for moments during the game he played hard. He was sick, but that isn’t even an excuse. The real issue to me was that he expected to win. He expected weak competition and he acted like it did not matter. 

This is how he behaves on a daily basis. He lowers himself to the level at which he plays, works, thinks, etc. I know exactly where he gets it. He is embodying the worst parts of me. He is taking them in and making them his own and living as that portion of myself and I hate it. I absolutely cannot stand excuse making and half efforts. Yet I am guilty of these things in my own life. I don’t choose it as my life course but there is enough of it that it has rubbed off on my children in the wrong way. 

So that is the lesson at play here: I cannot continue to be lazy and show them this person who doesn’t work hard, who doesn’t absolutely bring it in everything that he does, and still feigns success. I’m going to quote the Rock now: “Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.” He’s worked his ass off and hasn’t stopped working. He’s incredibly successful. He is absolutely not everyone’s favorite person, but he has built himself up and created the lifestyle and message and, yes, type of success he wanted. He did him and he worked hard to get there. Moreover, he doesn’t give a crap if you don’t like it or if you don’t care, because it ain’t about you. 

So, that is where I need to get back to. I need to get back to being the best version of me and putting in the work to do it. I’ve said it before on this very blog: The time for lazy and inefficient is over. It is grinding season.

So, you just finished a story. Maybe it was good. Maybe you felt like you could’ve done a lot more to make it right. No matter how you feel about the quality of the work, you’ve set it aside or sent it off for potential publication. There is that window–48 hrs for me–when you bask in the joy of completion before it is on to the next thing. However, what is the next thing? Can you spin up? Does 48 become 72? 144? A month?

The largest pitfall in writing is success. Be it success in terms of financial compensation or success in terms of completion, the victory bug can hit you hard. For me, at least, writing a story is not an easy thing. I used to think it was. When I was little the stories shot out of me so fast that I couldn’t write fast enough to keep up. Nowadays the pace is significantly slower and every finished product is a victory. I took a page from my sports history and allow myself two days to enjoy it before I get back to work. Except I don’t really get back to work that fast. 

In military parlance spinning up means activating for a immediate military action. Soldiers on call are expected to drop everything and ready themselves for a mission. Firefighters operate the same way. Writers like me take longer and what it takes to spin up feels different. Presently I have stories ready to be written, but in order to jump in I need to read my notes or chapters or background information. I don’t spin up so much as load up pre-story. The problem is that it is too easy to get stuck in the background preparation, because that is the easy stuff. When I do that instead of actually writing then I wind up taking a lot longer to get off the ground (hence spin up) or get back into writing actual pages. 

Starting this December I will be teaching a number of classes and workshops on the craft of writing and I feel like I need to have this part of it down to a science by then in order to pass that knowledge on to the next generation of talent.

Some Thoughts:

1. Being in love is just awesome.

My brother tried to convince me that the Giants need a rebuilding year. I denied that this could happen. Well, maybe it should happen. Tonight’s horrific loss was a clear indicator that the team is a mess. Few people in that locker room are happy. Even fewer offensive players have the right to hold their heads up high. Barkley can. Saquon Barkley was incredible this week in two games that showcased how explosive and impactful the young back can be moving forward. The only problem is that it will be hard to keep that energy and mentality high in the face of a QB that flat out sucks.

There. I said it. Eli is done. 

No, I don’t think they should’ve drafted a QB in the first round. Every year there is an outstanding crop of qb’s–at least according to the media–and every year most of them fall short. Barkley is the truth and has proven that. Eli deserved to leave on his own terms and hopefully he will at the end of this season. If not, then that gives the team the year to rebuild and prepare his replacement from the batch of talent graduating into the NFL come April. 

QB is not the only position of note to be fixed. The line is a sham. They have not been good for more than a few series all season. Over the last two games the Giants have converted 1 3rd down. One. Let that settle on you. 

One.

No wonder the D is tired and gives up points. The offense cannot stay on the field. Eli is broken and beyond fixing. Six games into the season the Giants have no chance of making the playoffs or even finishing above .500. This is a sad sad day for the Giants when you find yourselves looking up at the Browns in the power rankings and the standings. 

Next up is the Falcons. They suck too, but I am willing to wager the Giants will drop this one too.