Month: July 2019

I had to step away from character construction to tackle a subject that continues to resonate with me. Here is my thesis: People on average are more willing to manipulate facts to reshape reality than they are willing to admit that they were wrong. There is not a universal measure of when and how people will dig in, but everyone I have ever encountered will dig in about something. The rare ones will dig in about everything as if the mere reflection of wrongness in their mirrored selves will distort their image to an unacceptable degree.

I came to this conversation not by personal interaction but instead by listening to Chris Simms speak out and express his belief that Sam Darnold is the best QB of the draft. He dismissed the others and made special emphasis to dismiss Lamar Jackson (while completely ignoring the existence of the #1 pick by not so much as mentioning his name –though he’s profiled him as a better QB than Darnold only days earlier). When I hear contradictory information it is my base reaction to think: Man, you just are not willing to be wrong. Moreover, you are not willing to admit that wrongness. I think a failure to do so is a failure to grow. We grow from failure. We harden from success. We decide what we did is all we ever have to do in order to continue being successful. This is, of course, unrealistic.

We need to get dirty to understand clean. We need to fail to understand what it takes to be successful. Unfortunately this feels like less and less of a substantial thing. I’ve watched the people around me (and even myself) grow so unwilling to fail that they’ll call anything success. It is worse when you think about politics. Here’s the thing: Failure teaches us understanding and appreciation in a way that nothing else does. It also happens to everyone eventually, but nowadays we try to shelter ourselves from seeing it. Failure is no Gorgon. We shouldn’t pretend it is.

Some Thoughts:

1. Looked up Hands Across America after watching Us and it made me recognize the depth of what Jordan Peele is trying to accomplish in terms of creating a thematic message. Dude is on point–perhaps too on point for the audience he is attracting. Most people apparently did not get it and that is the curse of Shymalan right there. Don’t get cursed! Don’t dumb down your shit either though. I guess just hope the audience starts to step up?

I’m delving into the world of Shadowrun this evening, creating a character that could live in that world. Maybe, if I like him, I’ll put him in the world as such…

Horatio ‘Long John’ Marquez

Long John wouldn’t be caught dead in Seattle. There was talk once, years ago, about a run up there by Puget Sound. The yen was solid. All he had to do was ride shotgun on a hacker’s deal. The hacker had the heavy lifting–wreck the sewage system controls. He just needed to turn a few physical nobs to ensure the system was gonna go down as expected.

He didn’t take the gig. He didn’t take it even after the Johnson upped the yen by 35%. He didn’t do Seattle. The backstory never came out–not after the fight with his crew. Not after they took the job without him, made the yen and stayed on and he had to explain to the next crew why he was looking for work.

Work didn’t come hard for Long John. Dang near three meters of Troll, inked from neck to navel in full nano-color that reacted to his mood–or more specifically, reacted to what he wanted people to think he was feeling. It worked as a type of poker face. That helped when his face was marred by tusks and, usually, face paint. Still, none of that was why he wouldn’t go to Seattle.

No, it was the Arcology. They didn’t call it that anymore, but when he was a kid he knew it by it’s right name. His parents knew it too…

After thoughtful consideration I have come to the conclusion that I despise Neal Stephenson. The man has discovered a portal to jack directly into my brain, read my innermost thoughts and story forms, and write them better than me. It is the last part that gets me. Someone capable of being you better than you is beyond a Skrull nightmare. He is, God mode.

I started listening to Fall: Or Dodge in Hell and discovered that everything I have been thinking and writing about in my most recent fiction was digested, reorganized and superiorly characterized within the first section of his book. I’m talking first scene. I cannot compete with that. I also refuse to pack up my shit and go home ( I mean how can I? He lives inside of my head). So, I am left with a terrible and simple choice largely reflective of the sports world I come from.

I have to embrace the suck.

In many ways you can argue that I’ve been bred to live in the dual reality of being a second class citizen and trying to stand out as something more. The nature of New York sports reflects that (just look at our teams). The nature of my family reflects that, me being one of a handful of men who exist within the femisphere. Finally, as a black man I come from a legacy of being considered and categorized as less than. Yet, still we rise. Therefore still I rise and will effort to find my space and my niche beneath the overarching greatness that is Neal.

So, I’m not gonna be the best at what I do. That doesn’t mean I cannot be damn good at it. However, it does mean that I have to start working harder and faster to avoid appearing as a shadow of that dude over there.

Some Thoughts:

1. Bright days ahead. I’m excited and energized by the last few days of class.
2. I ought to get started on that brighter version of me sometime here too…

I’ve heard tell that analytics are not at the heart of the recent NBA trades. This new nomadacy (my word) is solely driven by the emotional ‘feel’ players have for each other, systems, and how they feel they would best work together in situations. Coaches seem almost secondary outside of Doc Rivers. Players want to play in a place and feel they know best how to do that. No analytics needed, unless the analytics are being performed in the biological computers they house behind their eyes.

Less so for football. I’m convinced that analytics played a part in a number of signings this season. These are teams that understand the systems their coaches are running and have signed players suited to exploit or at least enhance those systems. I feel that personally, because I spent a few months working on a system that plays to the talents of a handful of players I am working with and I have been out aggressively recruiting the others I need to make that system whole. I hope the Giants are thinking the same thing, because it looks like they’ve assembled pieces with a mindset of playing chess on both sides of the ball. I’m a fan. I’m hoping it goes the way that it can with that team. I am hoping Eli rides off into the sunset with a playoff appearance and maybe more under his belt. Football is unpredictable. We will need to wait and enjoy seeing.

Some Thoughts:

1. Found out today that there is a major conflict with my boy’s team in terms of when and where practice is being held. This is going to be a situation for a number of reasons. He cannot make all the practices and to make matters worse, the team he is on is playing unweighted football and in Pop Warner that means you need to weigh 105 minimum. He’s 83. He isn’t going to make weight.

I’ve been playing Pokemon and other distracting games more and more as the summer edges to a close. I still have one last gasp of freedom remaining once I finish this class. There is a small spat of days where everyone below the age of 17 is at school and my time opens up in a wave of freedom. I intend to take advantage of some of that time and apply it liberally to myself. I’ll write. I’ll play Madden. I’ll read a book. The are the leisures commonly associated with summer that I want to take advantage of before the fall.

Some Thoughts:

1. It seemed silly not to make this the ‘information’ post. Likewise it seemed corny to make this the ‘information’ post. I believe I am starting to settle into not being quite as corny… Sometimes.
2. Convinced the computer I am working on has a bad battery. I planned to have the thing fully operational by summer’s end, but the battery represents a setback. I know it is bad, because under intense performance it looses battery power while still plugged in.
3. Changed office chairs and the impact is clear. My back feels better sitting in the new chair for longer stretches of time. When I, eventually, start looking into setting up a space at the new house I may need to consider this type of chair as the way to go.
4. I also need to consider the way to going back to the gym. I fell right off there post injury. I lost the momentum and I am back to square… well, back to round. I’m fat.
5. Tomorrow we are back to the waiver wire and then it is character development for a few days. Thanks for reading!

I feel like I’m on an island here–delving into thoughts of family and society and reflecting on both what I’m experiencing in my life and what I’m witnessing through the magic of fiction.

It feels like the world moves as the oceans do–great waves of action generated by small currents but building upon each other in a torrent of likeness until a simple action becomes a movement. I remember first thinking this at the start of the Arab Spring and then again when this wave of populism and insular racism kicked off around the world. These are the large waves; the Tsunami’s that reshape worlds. I am writing today about smaller flows even similar data points in a sea of difference that make me look up and say, wait…

I’ve watched several shows and listened to several books as of late where the protagonist is alone in the world. By alone I mean s/he has no family and is attached to someone else’s family–finding family in that grouping. Michelle Obama’s book speaks of Barack in that fashion after his Grandmother died. He was alone. Many other titular characters are alone. I am becoming more and more isolated in that same fashion. I have attachments and I am grateful for them, but in the sense of having a family of my own I am largely reduced to one family member that I am connected to and the kids that I have. When I and my remaining parent pass on they will have nothing left to signify this side of the family. I cannot imagine anything more sad than that.

Some Thoughts:

1. Just another morbid Monday. Call it hangover from Sunday. That was not a fun day. It was an–Okay. I’m not going to riff off that song any longer. Or ever again.

Sitting in my office I am the picture of rage. Earlier I was disrespected by one of our kids –one who is not my own– and it happened in front of a large group of the family including one of the boys who is my own. Long story short, this kid told me to shut up. Nobody reacted to it but me and I had to shove down my immediate reaction of, ‘excuse me, who do you think you are to tell me to shut up?’ and just take it.

I don’t really know how to act. I walk around on pins and needles more often than I should, because I don’t want to show anger or feed into any of the negative behaviors these kids grew up around. I don’t want to be just another version of that guy. I also don’t want to be disrespected. I also don’t want to swallow my anger. I also don’t want to take my anger out on my partner. I also don’t want my kids to be raised seeing me be openly disrespected and feel like it is okay. Honestly, I don’t know what to do or how to do it in order to create a situation where I feel respected and am able to feel like I am teaching the kids here how to be respectful.

This too is the rare situation where I feel like I am fighting the battle alone, because of the culture clash. What I deem as disrespect feels like it is seen as nothing at all. Walking in the house and not saying hello to me is disrespectful in my book, but seemingly not in theirs. This is one of a small list of problems that appear when you are working to merge lives and cultures and dealing with the habits of people. It is difficult for me, because the way I want to behave is unacceptable and I really have no outlet beyond the words for dealing with the emotions that crop up in these circumstances.

There is no merging families manual. Perhaps here in these pages I’ve been writing one. Call it a ‘how not to’ guide, based on how well I’ve managed things thus far. In fact this very blog–this public airing of things is likely tops of that list. As such, I am not going to be approaching such life topics ever again.

When I was at my best writing I was developing characters on a daily basis. I want to get back to that level of competency and creative output. I think the best way to start is for me to start creating lives. By that I mean it is time to reopen the idea archive and start to produce characters and story threads. Tonight is character night. His name is Elden Taylor

Elden is a black man born in northern Utah to parents who practiced the Mormon faith. Elden saw what his parents saw growing up. He saw a town, Grouse Creek, that practiced the faith but saw little value in black people. He saw the constant struggle they went through to maintain their business. He saw the further struggle best emphasized by the tragedy of his mother losing the ability to bear children after she had him. Already an outcast amongst the mothers of the faith this fresh failure led her further down a road of depression and, conversely, deeper into her reliance on her faith. It is for these reasons that Elden, a smart boy and solid athlete, opted to turn down his scholarship to BYU. He left behind the few friends that tolerated his difference, climbed into his car, and drove.

He headed east. He took the trail that settlers rode but in the opposite direction. He drove for twenty three hours, stopping only for gas and whatever fast food he could find at the stations. Finally, he found himself in Wildoak, just south of Shreveport, Louisiana. He didn’t have a plan, he didn’t have a job, and he hardly had the money to last a week.

Still, he had something he hadn’t since he was a small boy: Possibility.

I’m listening to the boys play fortnite all over the house. I’m not a fan. I wish they had other things going on. Honestly, my part in that has been a regularly scheduled fail. I’m not directing activities as much as I have in the past and it is clear that they are not yet willing to find more for themselves beyond the game.

I tried to do some basic workout sessions, but the level of complaining drove me crazy. I no longer intend to do sessions for all three boys. I might work one on one with the eldest, but the others are truly struggling to show me the respect required for me to put in the work.

Another issue is lack of equipment. I don’t have all the right stuff I need in order to properly prepare them for their fall seasons. Specifically, there is a drill with garbage cans I want to do, and the hula hoops turned out to be a poor substitute. Still, I am not going to keep dumping money into a pit filled with ungrateful and angry and short cut taking kids. I want them to dedicate themselves before I dedicate myself. That is part of what growing up has to be about.

Beyond that the true reflection has to be on where I am at with the words. I am slogging through the work in order to get to the point where I can get back to writing stories that are in my worlds–not someone else’s. That is taking longer than imagined.

Some Thoughts:

1. Some major printer issues are messing up my plan to deliver a ‘just the basics’ print of the offense to the HC this Sunday. I do not think he will run it. I’m still going to do my part.
2. Those printer issues include a printer that is remarkably slow and largely fails to print. I do not understand what the issue is and it is a difficult thing for me to recognize that there are some problems I seem completely unable to solve.

This hasn’t been the best 72 hours. Late in the evening last night I found myself examining various ‘when will I die’ websites. Most had me making it to my 60’s, which doesn’t necessarily give me a whole lot of time to live. That makes today all the worse because it feels like today was a series of mishaps building distance between myself and my partner. It is 100 percent on me. I have been making a lot of missteps in my day to day life and it feels like they always result in us loosing opportunities to be together. I could also be overthinking a bad day.

I doubt it. My instincts feel right about this—about a few things really. Feels like I’m seeing the world around me as if I’m watching myself in a movie and it’s one of those movies where you see the characters do stuff they should not and you are not able to look away.

My life isn’t quite that much of a car wreck, but if I don’t change course from having days like today it certainly will be. Take for example the fact that I am blogging in bed on my phone because I didn’t get to it today.

I suppose the real fear here is that I have the same problem putting together a day as I do with putting together a class or a life—I am solid in the first part but then it eventually falls apart.

Some Thoughts:

1. Stranger Things 3 is done. Really enjoyed the 80’s callbacks and I am looking forward to season 4.
2. Also looking forward to a three day weekend. Should be good times all around.