10 Minute Rule

All lives matter. That is just facts to me. I don’t choose to feel as though one color of skin has inherently more value over another. However, when people say ‘all lives matter’ they run the risk of falling into the same trap as saying, ‘I’m not racist, because I have black friends’. The term All Lives Matter argues against putting the focus on black lives and what is happening in the black community and the systemic racism that keeps my people down. Instead it argues that we should avoid looking too closely at any one group and institute change that impacts all groups. On the surface it may still sound like a good idea. However, change for everyone still ignores the specific issues that impact those of us who are the most vulnerable.

One of the most impactful conversations I’ve had about race in America was with a writer named Tim Wise. He used the analogy of his college roommates to describe the problem. To paraphrase, he talked about this pot full of some kind of stew a roommate had made. Now everyone ate the stew but the person who made it never cleaned it up. The stew sat there for better than a week collecting bugs and stinking up the place, but nobody felt the responsibility to clean it up. Instead they worked around it and the problems kept mounting.

In a sense this describes how we have been struggling with Race in America. Black Lives Matter as a movement seeks to speak to the pot that was never cleaned up. We never dealt with our history of slavery. We allowed slavery to morph into Jim Crow to morph into systemic racism in the laws we make (for example, why is the penalty for crack much higher than that for cocaine when they are chemically the exact same drug?). We have built a society that looks at black and brown people as criminals and something to be feared. This is why when the Black Panthers showed up on the steps of the capitol building with assault rifles there was movement for a ban, but when the Michigan militia did the same, nobody batted an eyelash. It is even more obvious in our humor. This scene from Whose Line is it Anyway, shows two white men and a black man in the middle and the Joke goes, “Can you pick out the man who robbed you?” The crowd (and all of us) instantly get the joke. That right there is the problem. It is a joke. Because it is a joke we tend to laugh and move on. But is it really all that funny when that joke is a reflection of how nearly every black man is treated? I personally have had a cop pull a gun on me while I was in my car with my kids. I have no record and have never been accused of a crime. So why did it happen? Who did the cop assume I was. More importantly, what led to that assumption?

Black Lives Matter exists as a slogan to draw attention to the specific plight of being black in America. All Lives Matter takes the focus off of that plight and encourages us to ignore the problems inherent in our racial and social class structure. All lives DO matter, but the problem is that we instinctively recognize that some lives matter and we instinctively don’t recognize that other lives do. Every friday for the last 28 years Dateline NBC has run a story about pretty white women being murdered. This is an inherent reminder of the value of that category of people. How often do we hear stories about pretty black women being murdered? How often do we hear stories about black people being murdered at all when it is not by the police? Black Lives Matter strives to bring attention to our struggle at a time when that attention is needed the most.

This is a tough one.

When I was a kid I used to have moments where I could actually feel the world move. I would lay there in the grass of Central Park and stare up at the gray-blue sky. There is a moment when you can feel yourself grow still and you can see the clouds drift past. That is when you widen your awareness and you start to feel that everything is moving. We are on this giant living planet and it is moving. If I stand still for too long and think about it, the way the world is moving around me terrifies me. Not so much in the physical sense. The world has always spun and will spin beyond the last of my great great great great grandchildren’s days. But what will that world be? What am I doing to preserve a space for my children where they can feel safe to bring up children of their own.

I’ve shielded my kids from the bad side of what it means to be black in America. Clearly the shield is cracked and the light of the real world is leaking in. I have been having honest and open dialogue with them about what is happening now, but I do not know what to say about what is to come. Certainly there will be blowback for all of this. Anytime a minority class has tried to buck the systemic chains of oppression, the blowback has been severe. Couple this with the fact that the GoP does not and will not ever see the democratic party as a valid form of leadership and we have a difficult road ahead. What world will I be responsible for leaving to my kids? I claim responsibility, because as an educator I am in a position to make some small measure of change. I have not.

I do not know what that change will or should look like.

Perhaps the change should start with narratives. Black Narratives Matter. As do any narrative that reminds us that stories come from many places and look many different ways. I do a good job of that in Mythology, I think. However, the work in ENG and Sci-fi has not been as strong. I have to do better.

Some Thoughts:

1. Been nearly a full week of Tabata workouts. I can do the 4 minute for one more week before I clearly need to add time and grow. I’ve lost no weight, but that will come in time…
2. I hope.

Thomas wondered if a person could taste sick. Not in the sense of if you put their finger in your mouth you could taste that they were sick but in the taste at the back of your mouth kind of way that people understood something was not quite right. Ever since Uncle Raheem had gotten sick Thomas had thought he was sick too. Of course he did. He’d been with Uncle all the time. They sat out on the stoop on 139th watching the people go by until there were less and less people going by; fewer and fewer cars dropping folks off at the houses. He’d been right there the first time Uncle coughed. They were already wearing masks by then. Summer was creeping into the city and Thomas could see that thin sheen of sweat atop Uncle’s near bald head. He never sweat until at least July when the humidity rose like a basketball shoved to the bottom of the city pool.

Now he sat in a blue hard backed chair listening to the other people in the Harlem Hospital waiting room talking about their family; who’d gotten sick and who hadn’t and he thought about the way it tasted right there at the back of his throat. That sick taste. Was he dying too?

Dad said they were just gonna let the black people die. Momma yelled at him and told him not to say that kind of stuff, but Dad just pointed to the television, leaned back and said, “mmm hmm.”

On the screen a black man who looked like he was Dad’s age was choking and moaning about not being able to breathe and three police officers sat on him. One had his knee on the man’s neck. After the stopped talking and looked like he stopped breathing, the police officer kept his knee on the man’s neck and Dad said, “That’s how they do us out there.”

Momma said, “Who are they? I am a police officer and I don’t do nobody like that.”

Dad shrugged and said, “mmm hmm.”

On Thomas’ birthday last year (he’d turned ten so it was a big one) Dad to him out to the playground where all the grown ups played basketball and he showed Thomas around and even introduced him to some of the players. Then a policeman’s car pulled up and Dad got real quiet when he said, “You growing up now, son, so you need to know this. Those people in them police cars aren’t there to help us. They there to hurt us.”

“But momma drives the police car.”

“Momma’s different, but there ain’t too many like her. Remember that.”

He did remember. As he watched his dad watch the TV he said under his breath, “mmm hmm.” He hoped his momma didn’t hear him.

I encountered a rival coach tonight and he was quick to remind me that his son was state champ. Mine too as we have two divisions. He tried to recruit my boy and I turned him down on the spot. I like where we are and what we are building there. I’ve been thinking more about that lately and about the development of my own son as an athlete and what role I play in that. To that end I have been developing a plan.

I was watching footage of his games last season and he really needs to work on stance and start. He needs to develop more explosiveness–especially out of his lateral movements. This is where he lacked last season–the ability to start quickly after stops. He was slow on the restarts, allowing defenders to close after he would break down for cuts. We have already been working on some of that but the stance and start is key. So is finishing blocks.

This is about the end of his youth football cycle. He has one more season after this and then it is over. So, I really want these next two to be fun and to be impactful to his growth. He wants to go far in the sports. He is willing to work hard. Let’s see how far he can go when he stays with the same group and develops.

Some Thoughts:

1. Delaying Covid Story#2 until tomorrow. Just not feeling it tonight.
2. Snowpiercer: The Series is legit.

I wanted to write the second of these 10 minute Covid tales, but I am not at the point where I know what story I want to tell. Instead I am going to let you in behind the scenes of how my brain works.

Stories for me are always about what I observe and what I am going through. I am observing what everyone else is right now: I am watching the country look at itself and try to pledge to change systemic racism. I strongly suspect there is a correlation between this and the number of people stuck at home and or laid off during Covid and frantic to do something. This is a cause they can get behind and feel good about.

On the me side I have not been feeling physically well and that is grinding down my mental side. I want to write about that concept–how physical energy can impact the mental. There is a spiraling affect that happens there and I can tell you first hand it is aided by the 24 hr news cycle.

Some Thoughts:

1. If you are on the so-called left you are supposed to think and feel one way. If you are on the so-called right you are supposed to think and feel the other way. This binary thinking leads to zero sum outcomes that fail to reflect the reality of human thought.
2. I suppose core to the above is the question: Who is making these decisions and designing the parameters of the zero sum game? Why are we letting them? Are we letting them mostly by not caring enough for the nuance to normalize the idea of nuance? It has been this way since roughly 1852, which marks the start of the binary styled presidency.
3. I suspect, based on this, the next ‘in threes’ story is going to be able to explosion of political parties that are not aligned with the major two. That is coming for sure.

“These things always happen in threes,” She said, and wrung out the cloth mask, casting colored droplets into the sink. This mask was tie-dyed. Pink and purple splotches mixed in with a galaxy of green. Arnold wasn’t even sure it was the right kind of cloth. He hadn’t done the research and he knew damn well she hadn’t. His sister wasn’t the research type. She just flipped through her phone to see what everyone else was doing and then found some version of that which worked for her.

Arnold sat on what passed for a couch in what passed for a living room in the cramped studio apartment. He was trying to watch the broadcast of the latest BLM march that’d gone bad, but dammit if Shelley didn’t keep talking. He thought silence my buy him some piece but it never had before. It was better to just answer and get the stupid conversation over with. He said, “What is the 3rd shoe?”

“What?”

“You said these things come in threes, so what is the 3rd shoe?”

“Shoes come in pairs.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So a 3rd shoe doesn’t make any sense. This is not that. What I’m saying is bad things always happen in threes.”

He sighed, turning his attention back to the TV where a reporter (he could tell she was pretty even though he could only see her eyes through the mask and the hood she wore) talked about the march being largely peaceful but both mounted and riot police were feet away ready to ‘enforce the law’. He knew what that actually meant. His dad used to ‘enforce the law’ on him when he was little.

Shelley said, “What I’m trying to get at is something else is gonna happen. Something really big.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Covid-19 and Floyd’s death aren’t even related.”

“I think they are. I really think they are, but they don’t have to be related for a third bad thing to happen. It’s just how things go. Do you remember when Farah Fawcett died? Then Ed McMahon died? We were all just waiting for that 3rd death. I told you then it would be somebody huge and guess what?”

She snapped her fingers so close to his ear that he jumped out his seat. She smiled and said, “Just like that Micheal Jackson died.”

What he wanted to say was, why the fuck did you do that? What he said was, “huh.”

“Huh indeed. So I am waiting for the 3rd bad thing and I think it is gonna be China.”

For starters, I am back to lists. Clearly I do not do well with time organization without some sort of cueing system. I am one to quickly fall into whatever I am doing and as of late that has been Apex Legends. No, not even Minecraft. I can definitely balance out the activities if I have a daily list of what I need to do. As a bonus, adding and starting the day with a workout tends to make this situation work better for me. I know this: I need to be writing more and getting back in shape, so those are the priorities at the top of my list on a daily basis.

Okay… maybe I haven’t been entirely about the writing lately. Why? Well, I cannot really say for certain, but part of it is not fully being able to process the situation going on around me in a way that serves for fictionalization or any paralleling in story outside of the ‘now’ and that feels problematic because we are all too close to it right now.

And it keeps piling on.

These things come in threes. Well, there it is. There is the fictionalization. I read that phrase early in life and now I think it could be the doorway to a story that captures some basic understanding of the situation happening outside my door. By that I mean to write (tomorrow?) a story imagining the 3rd thing to happen. We have the Covid-19 problem. We have the murder of a black man for little more than passing a bad $20 (not to mention all of the others that lined up before it like dominos waiting for the resolve of the establishment to topple beneath their fall). What could a 3rd thing be?

In the article, “Is Afrofuturism the Answer to our Current Crisis?” the author writes, “There is an urgent need among black folks to imagine ourselves in the future.” I accept that specific challenge with the earlier phrase as my lead prompt. These things come in threes. Perhaps this is the week of threes, with each prompt a different story imagining the 3rd wave of trouble hitting home for black people.

It isn’t actually going to change anything, but at least it can be the beginning of a conversation about what is happening to us.

I’m watching the Hunt and though it is not over I thought I would offer a ten minute review regarding characterization and set up.

Movies are known for taking shortcuts. Horror movies in particular rely on blondes as the damsel in distress or, to turn the trope on its head, the protagonist. The Hunt plays with that dynamic while switching perspectives often to keep the viewer guessing. The movie is fun in that way and early on you are not entirely sure what side you’re supposed to be cheering for. I found myself split down the middle early on and observing from a distance–never really settling down on a side. This was clearly part of the plan. In fact the plan was to pull us away from the characters so we saw them merely as sketched archetypes and the carnage as metaphor and comedy backed by the soundtrack.

So far the movie is more of an idea than a story, and already it feels heavy handed.

I am a huge fan of the Incredible Hulk. I even watched the TV show as a kid. I still believe that Hulk is one of the most enjoyable Marvel characters. World War Hulk (IMHO) is among the top 5 story arcs in Marvel history. That being said, the MCU screwed Hulk up by nerfing him. Basically, Marvel turned the Hulk into a level boss that allowed other characters to elevate to the next level of the story. Consider who has beaten Hulk in the MCU:

1. Thor (realizing his powers in Ragnarock)
2. Iron Man (ascending to over powered with the Hulk buster armor and all that followed it)
3. Thanos (this was basically his introduction)
4. The Ancient One (established her OPness and thus Strange’s own)

In truth Hulk was beaten so often that he eventually decided he was out. That Thanos fight really was the moment dude was like, “nope. you guys nerfed me.” In fact they had to ‘yada’ over the 5 year stretch where Banner brought him back. I wish we could have seen that story. I wish we could see any new story that helps reset the Hulk mythos, but all we have is Hulk the punching bag and the resulting destruction to the character’s arc.

In truth we should’ve been able to see the absolute rage that compels the Hulk to destruction. The Thor and Iron Man fight should’ve resulted in even more destruction and Tony’s victory should’ve come at a higher cost–one that taxed him beyond his limits (and required a gang of suits) as opposed to him flying away at every punch.

We don’t see the anger bring the escalation of size and strength, and that is what I believe is missing. We don’t fear Hulk and we should.

The key (for me at least) to real creativity is recharge. That means spending time unwinding with family and just not worrying about the words or the world. This is how I’ve spent my Friday evening. Between playing games and watching movies and snuggling up with the love of my life I have found that elusive recharge button that has me slipping out of this depressive funk triggered by tuning in to what is happening in these (occasionally) United States. It is a big deal to recharge. Likewise it is a big deal to step away from worlds you spend too much time in. If you ask me, George RR Martin cannot finish a Song of Ice and Fire because the man has spent too many years deeply immersed in the world. He has no perspective and he has lost the thread.

I’ve done that in my own way with worlds I am associated with. In truth it is happening now, and that is part of why I don’t want anything to do with the slate of projects happening right now. I need to step back from that and step into new thoughts and directions in my science fiction and even return to those fantasy roots. There are stories still to be told. I want to speak some of them here, and I believe I will start back at that tomorrow.

Some Thoughts:

1. Keyboard on this particular laptop is sticking and it bothers me something awful. I keep having to go back and add spaces between words.
2. NBA is moving to Disney! No, seriously. The plan is to finish off a small run of regular season-style games and then conduct the playoffs there as though it were the Vegas Summer League. Should be really interesting to watch.
3. Note: It will be watched, because there is nothing else happening in the sports world. It will also be a fine experiment to help us understand if football can return in any capacity.
4. Meanwhile, high school football is already returning and college is about to get underway. So much for Covid fears…