Month: September 2019

I found myself reading an article in Wired early this morning on the heels of a very very bad dream. The article, which should be read, concerns the concept of Cancel Culture. By my understanding this is an evolution of PC culture in which persons who say things that don’t fit what the cultural zeitgeist (or who think they are such) want to hear are silenced. I find this fundamentally anti-American. I also find it really really limited and, in its own way, promoting of some real nonsense.

I want to start this argument with the ‘all or nothing’ argument. Recently I became aware of a teenage youtube star named James Charles. He is ostensibly a gay man who dresses in drag and wears and sells makeup. He is pretty good at the makeup stuff, but I don’t really like him. I think his look is over the top and very very Kardashian. However, my dislike isn’t the point here. The point is that any expression of dislike of Charles is immediately credited to his lifestyle choice and his (apparent since I know little about him) homosexuality. Since he is publicly defined by one thing any dislike of him is unerringly ascribed to that one thing. However, it should not be. We are starting to fall into stereotype style behavior in this fashion.

The Chapelle situation is much the same. He is being attacked for ‘attacking’ the victims of sexual abuse without people considering the individual situations he is discussing and joking about and even pausing to consider the message underneath.

I’ll wrap there because I wrote the quick thought below first and now the clock is coming for me.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am slowly coming to accept that ego, personal failure, a lack of self awareness, and an inability to accept the shortcomings of my own children factor heavily into the decision to continue letting my kids play football. My youngest, once heralded for his talent, has shown himself to be flat out not good when it comes to dealing with a higher level organization. He still talks like he is better than this person and that person, etc. However, on the field I see someone who is not at all comfortable with his body, is degrading his running form, and flat out looking like a small child when he on the verge of being a middle school kid. He is regressing physically and psycho-socially and I am struggling to understand how to stop it…
2. There is a potential story in all of this… Call it my silver lining.

Saturday is the new Sunday. In many ways it has become the close of week for me. Sunday is football and relaxation while Saturday is about getting everything done and preparing for the coming week. I’ve been doing a ton of grading and trying to get deep down into the story I am telling. It is an NDA thing, so I cannot say much other than I am trying to convey a ton of meaning through a single scene. It is starting to feel a lot like Atwood, and given that I am reading her now it is likely she is infecting my consciousness in some foul way.

I am trying to get back into the writing zone; my so called zone of proximal success. Vygostky’s zone works for writers as well, you know. I’m very familiar with it because the zone for my youngest kid is smaller than the strike zone for a legless midget. I see more and more that if he isn’t challenged just the right amount he falls completely apart. It could be that he gets that from me. I’m not consciously that way, but getting in my writing zone is really difficult and hitting the so-called sweet spot of said zone is difficult at best.

Meanwhile the hard work continues to happen. I continue to try to maintain a household and maintain connections with the kids in a positive and developmental way and I continue to try to be the best possible pops I can be. Part of that is showing them me working hard and being successful in that work.

Some Thoughts:

1. Here is a follow up on yesterday: Brown was cut. He lost 30 million. Then he was signed by the defending Super Bowl champs later that day. It is revenge season…

I’m inspired by the personalities I see from day to day. When I see those personalities shift or fall deeper into a tinge of crazy then I know that there is something afoot with them. Aaron Hernandez, the former NFL TE convicted of murder who later died by suicide, was found to have Atrophy of the Fornix, a condition which was likely triggered by repeated blows to the head. The condition was caused by CTE, a condition which impacted 87 out of 91 former NFL of players tested. The disease causes a protein called tau to form around blood vessels in the brain which tends to lead to changes in behavior including increased violence.

Given this information one would argue that football is stupid and I shouldn’t let my kids play. I argue that I need to be smarter about teaching them how to play and protecting them with better helmets that help them move better and avoid hits. I don’t think I suffer from CTE personally, whatever degenerative brain issues I am presently feeling is likely unrelated. However, I am fairly certain that Antonio Brown is suffering from CTE. He’s grown crazier since a terrifying blow to the head by Vontaze Burfict. Pictured Below:

That did it. I cannot protect my kids from nonsense like that, but I can recognize the lasting impact on the victim. He’s appeared in the news more and more since then for just flat out crazy stuff. He’s been in the news for going after his wife (excuse me, baby momma) on social media and most recently threatening to punch his GM. On a side note, he is now on the same team as the dude who laid him out. Maybe it is the flashbacks. Maybe he is feeling the effects of brain damage. One thing is certain, the man has had an explosion of personality. He is deeply emotional and volatile now whereas he had a sense of self control in the past.

I take all these moments and situations and store them away because they are learning moments that I will bring into stories and define characters through these situations and perhaps through that bring light to some of these problems we would rather ignore.

Some Thoughts:

1. On the advice of my partner it is time to stop talking about why I don’t and actually do.

We have entered the beginning of the 2019-2020 football season. Everyone who loves the sport is excited. Meanwhile I see the day as another moment that I am letting hours slip into the past. Here is what I mean: What have I truly accomplished since the last season? People’s clocks turn on different numbers. Mine often turns on football. It is a chance to realize how quickly another year has slipped by with little growth to show for it.

I am being negative, I know. In truth I have published multiple stories, fallen into a rhythm in terms of what classes I want to teach from semester to semester, and developed a new home life. All of this is progress of a sort. It is not the change of life and health and wealth I want, but it is on the path.

I wonder in these moment what will it be like next year? I’ll have a kid in middle school and two in high school. Life will certainly feel different as a result. However, the lasting changes that come from daily writing and physical exercise can only be implemented by me. So far I’ve been very inconsistent and show little desire to do more than I already am.

These are the conversations that often devolve into the ‘I should quit’ and ‘should I quit’ moments, but this is not that moment. More and more I realize the hopelessness of that path. I won’t quit. If I would then this blog would be long gone. There is no part of my brain that wants to be assembling thoughts at 11:25 coming off a 35 minute drive coming off a two hour and fifty minute Stephen King film (he’s actually in this one!). I am crazy burned out, but not so crazy that I can believe I can quit. Not so crazy that I can imagine a life where I don’t want to be able to run fast and keep up with the partner. Not so crazy that I can’t imagine a life filled with travel.

Not crazy, but not as motivated as required to make that life happen. I’m lazy. It has become my nature or perhaps it always was.

We went with NFL network. Afterwards I decided that my family draft would go with NFL network. This was after the letter. The letter changed everything.

I should start with an explanation of how this all went down. I joined a friend’s league and discovered that I was really rusty at drafting fantasy. I did not tell myself this. The system told me so. It said, “Giants are Forever was positioned nicely with a favorable draft pick, but put together a team that will need to overachieve according to the pundits” It went on to explain that I would likely go 1-12 with the one win only being in the 52% range of chance of victory. In other words, it talked a ton of trash. That talk continued into the new league draft where I knocked off some of the rust to move from a C rated 1-12 possibility to a 6-8 B ranked draft with a 56% chance of victory for my best possible victory. The AI went on to note, “After drafting fifth in the opening round, Last G Standing will look to outperform their post-draft prognostication. ” More smack.

Here is the thing though: all of this is based on the projections and other drafts and all sorts of possibilities that go out of the window when the cleats come on. All we can ever do is guess in this kind of thing and that guess doesn’t often account for new offensive rules and strategies and players aging or moving or when in the season people play vs. when they rest or mature or any number of things that impact the game.

I don’t believe the draft recap, but I enjoy the hype and the fun of the thing. I think I drafted well in both drafts. I know I took more chances in the first one. I took a flyer on Kyler Murray and amassed 4 QBs in that particular draft. In the second PPR based league I grabbed Lamar Jackson as my chance guy and added a few other guys I think will get me volume points. One more I am considering is Hunter Renfrow. He seems poised to get points as AB is a huge target.

I was standing at the line of sidewalk where beach begins when I saw a man walking towards the beach with a bow and arrow. I thought, “That’s a compound bow.” Then I thought–I mean I really thought–about the profound influence D&D has had on my life.

Who would imagine a kid from Harlem might even know what a compound bow looks like? Moreover, that this would be the first thought running through my mind as the man approached the shore with the high quiet steps of a hunter stalking prey. I didn’t know what prey he was stalking. He had a single white arrow and a bow that, based on the size had a draw weight of close to 50 pounds. I am not supposed to know things like that. Given my earliest surroundings I ought to know how to size up a guy to know if he’s going to jump me. I ought to know how to play basketball and run fast, zoom down staircases, and hop fences–American parkour. I know some of those things. I received my Harlem education with open eyes. However, my afternoons and evenings were spent eyeballs deep in fantasy novels and the musings of Gary Gygax. Eventually I came around to video games. I lost my 3rd grade year on Pitfall. My writing was born out of a culture of dragons and pixel-driven video games. I never left that culture behind. It evolved as I did. The Dragons learned how to hack the internet. The video games found higher levels of resolution.

It was in that manner that I wound up on the beach watching a man with a compound bow hunting waterborne prey. He never did find what he was looking for at the shore. I’ve never quite figured out how to translate my past influences into a story that honors them. He moved on after a while. I’m still trying.

So, I am at the beach.

Usually I am not big on revealing my location less the robbers come and get my empty home. No, I am not daring you. I’ll be home soon. In the meanwhile I am falling back into the routine of writing and thinking and processing and finding quieter moments in an all too noisy world. So, what do I hear in the new silence? Strange relationships and connections that form across the world.

I found myself watching some show on the gameshow network where the contestants had all met in an Uber. The four of them became close friends and intend to spend the money together. Those unusual meetups–those meet cute moments are really interesting to me, because it reminds me that as a writer those are the surprise moments that keep readers engaged and coming back.

How does that work for me as a writer? More and more I find myself collecting these… life codes? and trying to capture how to put them into the stories that I write. Perhaps one day I will do what all writers apparently do and write a book about writing and give these clues away. I don’t really have a problem with sharing the information because it isn’t about having cheat codes (hmm… that is a sweet title) but it is about the stories you really end up speaking from the heart. The cheat codes are what makes it easier to strip away all the extra stuff and fill in the blanks you need to fill in as a writer while telling the story.

Some Thoughts:

1. Hurt the back again. This is a major setback, because it is impacting the workout and I know I am slowly growing fatter instead of fitter. I need to fix this.
2. Random, but boring people are really important in stories. They are like the base to which you add a splash of color.
3. Had the beach fantasy draft. Waiting for the AI generated article to poop on me again. I used to be so good at this.

Not a lot. Just…

Some Thoughts:

1. Perhaps the most truly horrible thing about porn is the doxxing. Presently girlsdoporn is being sued by multiple women who were lied to about how and where their one-time video would be distributed. As a result they quickly found themselves outed to friends and family. Moreover they found themselves to be the targets of the many loyal fans of the site who exchange model information in an attempt to learn everything they can about these women and some who even hope to see them in real life. Stalking is a huge concern in the porn industry where the fantasy is crafted to resemble a possible (impossible) reality that these so-called hobbyist porn watchers can become a part of so long as they are in the right place at the right time near these supposedly willing women. In a disgusting twist, the owners of the girlsdoporn site also happened to be the owners of the largest pornstar doxxing site, pornwikileaks. All of this came out recently as part of the case and thanks to another pornsite purchasing pornwikileaks and destroying the site.
2. I find this engaging because there are classes of people that we simply don’t care about and sex workers are definitely one of those classes. Over the last few years former stars have been committing suicide and turning up homeless in the tunnels below Vegas. I know it is widely seen as one of those, ‘that is what you get’ scenarios, but I personally am trying to work on not treating people like less than. It is hard, but it matters.
3. Drafting tomorrow. I have a few things to say about the draft AI but I want to wait until this second draft unfolds and I have a clear sense of how the system is responding to my choices…

I am empowered by stepping outside of my daily life; to go to another place and adopt another lifestyle that is not dominated by the daily travel routine and bookmarked by classes and homework. It is not only a chance to separate from the work conditions but to be a family longer than the handful of hours that we spend together between things.

It isn’t always that way. Summer allows for engagement that is more involved than the demands of the school year; of the sports year. I recognize the value of those things too. I enjoy the sports life. I want my kids in school learning daily. I enjoy the moments of teaching.

I enjoy standing in the ocean and watching the kids play. I enjoy holding hands with the love of my life as the waves crash against the shore and the tide flattens shells into the slick sand.

I love the opportunity to reset and to gather and to prepare for what life looks like when it is not this; and to have real time with the people I love. It reminds me that I want more. It reminds me that this life is the life I wish I lived 60-80% of the time instead of 20-40%. It reminds me that I need to cultivate more change towards a life that is leisurely.

Maybe I am ready to retire.

Maybe being in the city and in the confines of my daily life doesn’t afford me the opportunity to really see how things can be. Part of the allure of the now is the utter lack of a routine and the freedom to do whatever mixed with proximity to everything I need. That feels like an ideal life. That feels like a life filled with conversation and closeness and bonding unbroken by the tribulations of routine.

I cannot make it 100% my life right now, but sooner than later I can make it more.