The Great Elsewhere

At Both Ends, To The Middle

2012-01-29T02:48:00.003-05:00

I look at the stars along the water in that place that's nowhere, where you can see the faintest fibers of our night's tapestry - visible tonight but never hidden on their own.
They move because you move.
At 17, you begin to expand,and the memories you have are set apart among only a few.
So then they are surprising when they come. Memories. They are the first setting aside that feels you growing.
Move forward ... there are more.
Time, you take it with you.
"Future is as future as future does."
Soon enough, the memories populate.
"This reminds of me of this - but, no, it's still new."
"This memory is unlike ...yes, it is like what I have seen."
At some point, you reach the place where you feel your true memories are borne only where they have been unexplored.
So at what point do you remember surrendering your beloved one to the world?
You remember it there, in that present.
But today ... the memories are surmounting.
And the time to make space for them is dwindling.
If you look at finiteness.
Unfortunately, being a human being, I am unable to be anything but human.
And anything else would be inhuman.
So I lose traction - but only because everything must be a forward-flowing-ness.
There's just now less to flow toward - and only so much newness left - a priceless blessing -
as finite presents itself to you.
The grand illusion, because it can never prevail.

Measure

2012-01-16T03:13:00.001-05:00

I've thought the measure of a man
is to be fair, honest and ... just.
Justice is righteous.
In justice, you know what the propondernece of the evidence would say.
Fair and honest to all
That's the thing it says.

But kind?
Fairness and honesty are not kindness.
Kindness can see into the abysss
Fairness, honesty ...
You are the illusion that I am a good man.

ec312am

It's A Plus When They Include Coupons

2011-12-17T02:28:00.000-05:00

Old calendars are worth keeping.

Where exactly, I don't know - but wherever you keep things you go back to on some unsuspected day.

The advent of the smartphone takes away much of the scribbling on the calendar tacked to the wall, but what is there makes the $6.99 re-gift priceless.

Your life is chronicled in a unique way. It shows what you're going to do, not how it turned out. There's value in seeing your anticipation (or dread) of something that - one way or another - has to be on the calendar.

The beach vacation you have to schedule for. The doctor visit for the Big Test. The basketball games you play or coach.

There was a concert you were going to that day. How could you know it would be one of the best times of your life?

How could you know that The Nutcracker elementary school field trip would inspire your child as you were once inspired?
Sure, much of what imprints upon our souls are those events that seem to schedule themselves.

But still ... while it was on the calendar, you just didn't know how it was going to turn out.

I try to make each day meaningful. Or at least I wish they could be.

So often the days breeze by.

Yet another. Then another.

But when I look back, between the squares with the Sharpie markings in four different handwritings, I can begin to document how significant my life has been for a year. And how I never knew how it would unfold.

Patchwork

2011-12-06T02:21:00.001-05:00

I remember a long time ago when I would duct-tape my entire life together.
Those days were ...
And now ... just right around the corner in an instant.

Close Enough

2011-09-09T14:55:00.001-04:00

I spend a good bit of my life writing things that I don't find interesting at all.

Yet when I do find myself writing something worthwhile, there is almost always one constant: I'm using a thesaurus.

It used to be this red book with half the cover torn off. Published in 1990. I think I picked it up at my first newspaper job almost 15 years ago.

Googling "thesaurus" doesn't seem nearly as artistic or sentimental, but in truth, it opens up a lot more in the way of possibilities to express something.

And that's what's at the center of it.

When you're trying to share a nuanced idea in a conversation, you might say, "Hold on ... I'm trying to find the right word ..."

You don't pick up a thesaurus.

You feel what it is that's in your mind and connect with the words.

Recently, I struggled with the best way to describe an unexpected event.

"Shocking" just seems so overused and non-specific and tabloid.

The idea was more subtle.

"Startlingly."

That was it. It was the perfect word for what I was trying to say.

It's like you tap into your life experiences, compare them with others and rely on a resource to offer you the best possible ways to share how you internalize an idea.

I know I'm writing something that is precious to me if I care enough to find a better way to share even the simplest of ideas.

P.S. - I probably should have used a thesaurus to write this.

In The Middle

2011-08-20T22:18:00.001-04:00

I didn't see this coming -- and oftentimes that's when things are best.

Every year on the first day of school, I struggle to deal with the fact that my oldest son is getting older.

I love him so much. We do everything together. I just never want that to end.

In the past 11 years, I've realized that it wasn't anything to worry about. He might have depended on me less, but he hasn't grown away from me -- at least not yet.

Sure, he doesn't go and do the things that I can only do if I have a kid with me. It usually just results in, "That's a bummer."

I wouldn't necessarily change my pattern of lamentations; they gave me real emotional moments that as I get older become less and less ... new. They were the kind that are marked with snapshots in my mind, images of him strolling away with his Darth Vader bookbag into kindergarten, music that brings me to that blend of melancholy and (would you call it?) pride.

The feeling of helplessness in the relentless march of time was always softened by the fact that the boys go to school with their mom, where she teaches. They were always in physical reach of one of their parents. And it helps that my younger son is always three years younger, though unfortunately for him he has to find a way to do something new that we've never seen.

---

So, I would expect that when Asa started middle school this week, I would be lamenting once again.

However, I've just felt this immense happiness.

There's still that part of me that wants to have him back to when my back problems forced me to lay on the floor for three days while he stood over me -- about 1 year old so so -- in a his light-blue onesie pajamas.

(I cared for him from his perspective - actually from a lower perspective as he towered over me, the drool dripping down from his overbite smile. He looked so tall, like a farcical giant-monster action movie).

My middle school years were very difficult. I went to three middle schools. I never made friends. I thought I was a loser, baby -- and when you do that, you kind of become one.

Asa couldn't sleep the night before. And he does this thing where he coughs violently when he's nervous (the worst was during his first flight, to Disney World). The cough never really surfaced as I dropped him off on his first day.

Only one of a number of surprises, which seem so large to me, though probably so banal to others (yeah, this one's more for me).

---

Last fall, Asa left a baseball team that he loved.

It wasn't working out from my perspective. The team wasn't very good, but I also thought that the kids he was surrounded by didn't work hard enough, didn't care as much as he did, and they didn't have much in common with him.

However, he loved his coach -- a friend of mine and one of the few men in this world who acts the part by putting children first, oftentimes to the detriment of his chances for winning and a reputation among the insecure coaches who define themselves through the success of their players.

To say Asa left the team is to say that I made him leave the team.

We went to another team where a group of guys were going to take it more seriously. It was with kids he had played recreation ball with for 5+ years, they were the All-Star team last year.

It seemed to be a good decision at the time -- and not the worst one.

But those guys lost their way, and my son could sense it from the beginning.

He never had the same love for them that he did for his previous coach.

This guy claimed Asa as his player even after he left -- giving him advice, rooting for him to succeed while simultaneously hoping he wouldn't pitch against him.

And I let him claim him - just not for his team.

Children's sports can be so complicated.

---

Now, Asa plays for yet another team -- except this time, I allowed him to pick.

Last month, I got a text at the beach from a coach I'd never met, and Asa got picked up as a guest player for a team called the Mustangs during an AAU nationals tournament.

We showed up straight from the beach 4 1/2 hours away. His grandparents brought his clothes to the ball park. He had about 10 minutes before they put him on the mound and told him go at it.

We won 5-1 and eventually won a division in the tournament (I never knew they gave out championship rings to children).

Asa immediately fell in love with the team.

They're from a rural area about 25 minutes south of Greenville.

Their country accents and demeanor remind him of his family back in small-town Winnsboro. He said they mostly remind him of his great-Grandma, and that's always a good thing.

The coaches believed him. And they weren't corporate.

Instead of chastising him for it, they liked his "fire" when he ran off the mound before the umpire called a third strike. There's a fine line there, but maybe he mirrors me when I err on the side of passion, at least for children.

He tried out, won a spot and now is excited to play with a new group of kids he has no history with.

It's a cliche that sports can be a metaphor for life. In this case, it's not a metaphor but more of another manifestation.

There's a running theme here, and I'm learning a new lesson -- kind of the easy way, this time.

---

Because Asa went to school with his mom, he didn't go to school with the children in his neighborhood (in fact an elementary school is so close to our house that in the winter when there's an ice storm we walk over to the hill above the playgrounds and sled).

This made him a bit of a novelty. His connection with his friends was connected solely to their exploits in the neighborhood. I suppose I'll never exactly what that means socially.

Likewise, he started tee ball at age 5 in a league across town.

I missed the sign-up for the closer league -- so for five years he played over in Mauldin with, again, a group of kids he neither went to school with nor who lived near him.

They were the children he played baseball with when they left rec ball for these more-serious tournament teams. They were the social components for his sports exploits.

When the time came to consider middle school, we didn't want him to go to school in our zone. There's just a little less ... curiousity ... in Hillcrest.

So we decided we'd asked for special permission to go to Mauldin schools (the zone my wife grew up in).

This would mean a number of things.

For the first time, I would be his sole means of transportation to school (you can't take a school bus for a school outside your zone).

He'd be going to school with no children he went to elementary school with. Nor would he go to school with children from his neighborhood. He would know about 10 people, all who know him through sports.

Not the worst thing ... but what would it mean?

---

As I drove him to middle school, I felt a peace about me.

I knew we made the right decision on school choice. We learned that when we experienced the culture at orientation.

But how would he adjust? There's a part of me, I think, that knew he was used to being different in the social fabric of things. Not weird, but maybe just novel.

By chance, we ended up in the school car line with one of his best baseball friends -- who's also joining him on the new team he picked and who happens to be a 7th grader almost as big as me. It couldn't hurt to walk into a new school with a guy like that.

I watched them walk in together. I took a mental snapshot that I will never forget.

I waited impatiently for that afternoon, the verdict.

Who would he end up having classes with? Would he feel like he fit in? Would he like school?

When he called, I heard the words I wanted to hear, "I love school."

His best friend from his first baseball team -- the one I guided him into leaving -- had all but two classes with him. They saved spots for each other, breathlessly told their parents of the wonderful news as soon as they could.

He had missed that kid. That kid was a reason he didn't want to leave.

He also made a new friend -- one who doesn't play baseball.

Asa practiced at home on his combination lock for hours. He timed himself. He wanted to be the kid who knew how to unlock his locker. The teachers love him too -- during the first days of middle school, they spend little time teaching subjects other than how to open your locker.

The third day, on Friday, I decided to leave work early and pick him up from school.

It didn't take long, but he asked me if I was taking him to the back-to-school dance later.

I didn't even know they did those anymore. I certainly didn't think Asa would want to go, at least not that soon.

When I drove him back to school for the event, I gave him my Droid phone. I told him he could use it for a leg up to look cool. I figure he could use any help I could give him.

"Hold on, baby, I'll just friend you on Facebook now."

He later told me an 8th grader got arrested for spiking her Monster energy drink with alcohol.

For all my past worrying, I wasn't fazed. I just shrugged my shoulders -- "Well, make sure you don't do that."

He went to his first practice this weekend for his new team, 25 minutes away in a place that he had to ask me whether it was north or south of his hometown.

I grilled him with questions before I allowed him to make the decision to join that team.

He answered the right ones.

What about your friends you've played with for 5 years?

"Daddy, I want to try something new."

I wasn't sure, but I felt like it was time to let him choose.

Now, he goes to school with his old baseball friends but plays the sport with a whole new group of kids he's only met for the latter part of a tournament a month ago.

It's three separate cultures he gets to experience -- neighborhood, school, sports. All different sets of children who don't know the other groups.

I've always felt this to be true, from the moment I knew I would become a parent.

You have a certain amount of time that they are yours and yours only.

You have your shot to mold them into the adult they will be.

And it's a one-shot deal. You can't go back.

I've not made these decisions knowing what will happen. I've tried to do what I thought was right this whole time. I certainly failed in some respects, mostly when I try to control events before they have had a chance to manifest themselves.

And there's still teenage years to come.

But I have to say, right now, I think he's going to make it by OK.

Doublethink

2011-08-10T02:11:00.003-04:00

The left side rests where it's right brain commands it.

The right side struggles .... commandeering vision, creating two images from one.

But, for left brains, it's not the time. The right has been given leave to do what it will.

For better or worse.

Asymmetrical.

Vowels

2011-07-29T19:18:00.004-04:00

I read somewhere that when Justin Vernon of Bon Iver was recording his first album, the lyrics to his songs were formulated only after he had created the sound of the vowels that give structure to the words.

So they actually weren't words yet -- just another complement to the layer of sounds as a song develops.

The music is first.

Then, he determined which words sounded like the vowels and chose words most appropriate to what he was trying to "say."

The result was a subconscious expression from the same source that was the genesis of the song.
I'm not a musician, but it seems that this would expand the vocabulary of a songwriter (even though words would have to be selected within the confines of a certain form based on vowels -- not unlike writing a poem in haiku).

The musician is freer to select the words that will ultimately be printed as the lyrics to his song, because he knows his aim isn't to tell an entirely conscious story.

The lyrics then don't have to mean much of anything -- though if the point of the artist is to share his experience, even if it's just in explaining his experience to himself, the words will bear some resemblence.

The listener is free to hear the words he wants to hear, to interpret what he feels more than what he thinks.

And the artist, by nature of how he arrived at his creation, encourages this.

Music, dance, poetry, painting, photography ...

It's best when comes from a place you have to express instead of explain.

Writing can only take a person so far on the journey to enlightenment.

It's like a boat carrying you through seas that are too deep and vast to swim -- but if you want to truly know, you're going to have to take a plunge eventually and let what creates the words be your source.

Shapes

2011-07-20T22:21:00.003-04:00

I see living things if I ever see anything in the clouds.

The plumes of atmosphere take infinite forms, smooth and fluid and textured.

I don't look into the clouds much, because I know I'm going to be staring into a reflection of myself.

The possibilities for imagining the beauty of the world are endless.

Try as I might, I don't.

The animals and personifications that emerge in the shades of pink and white are either dying or fighting to defend themselves or killing something.

I can't will myself into seeing what I want to see, or at least what I wish my mind would naturally summon.

Maybe one day I'll return to seeing what I saw as a child

Until then I'd rather just see nothing more than clouds.

P.S. Or what if I see a red cooler and a light blue beach body board on the other porch, looking to be having a conversation over cigarettes that looks like a love connection, and she looks like a Monsters Inc. character and he looks to be a mellow Power Ranger ...?

Traveling

2011-06-28T12:36:00.000-04:00

For months and months I've been trying to distill an analogy to accurately describe it.

What is up with this phenomenon of kids baseball that they call "travel ball?"

This is where kids are yanked from their community recreational baseball leagues to form private AAU teams, which compete in regional weekend tournaments that are supposed to represent the "best of the best" in your metropolitan area.

Something has always felt a little ... empty ... about the whole thing.

I couldn't describe why. It's just felt that way.

But now I think -- with the Gamecocks back in the College World Series and agonizingly close to winning its second national championship in a row -- I've finally put it together.

---

Earlier this spring, I took the boys to see the defending National Champions.

There is a spirit within this. This is our school. We're loyal to our school because ... it's our school. We identify with a common purpose.

These college players are heroes to the kids, who take their hats and balls and game programs and line up in droves along the right field line after the games to beg for autographs or a picture.

The players are generally local -- coming from communities like Sumter, Greer, Mauldin, Florence. Ordinary places. Places that speak to the sport's ingrained culture in our state.

They're from places that any of these kids could be. And they picked this place.

The kids make little distinction between the college players' popularity and that of a Major League player.

But here's what's probably more important, and it's what provides these players the adoration and interest they enjoy: Their following is less about them and more about the institution they are representing.

They play a part of something much larger than themselves.

We as fans and alumni of the University of South Carolina don't necessarily care who they are in the end. Yet through our mutual connection with our larger institution, these guys become special to us.

We feel like we're in it with them. And our passion shines brightest upon whoever puts the jersey on.

---

I was tasked some months back to do the Opening Day story for thee local Class A professional baseball team, the Greenville Drive.

The "Drive." It's the corporate-driven branding designed to tie into the area's automotive industry. Not quite as compelling -- or risky -- a mascot as a Gamecock.

I was interviewing these guys and I'm getting the "Glad to make it out of spring training and make it on a minor league team" and "This is my chance to show that I belong at a higher level."

They didn't grow up wanting to play for the Greenville Drive. Who would? Some aren't even sure where this place is. They're here to prove to the Red Sox that they belong somewhere else.

I go to a minor league game ... I don't watch it. It's a sideshow, a party. There is no emotional connection. If the hometown team commits five errors and loses, I'll laugh at the circumstances of it all.

As I talk to these guys, I want a little more.

Opening Day. A beautiful multimillion-dollar park. This is a higher level to live your dream, right?

It is ... but they're hesitant.

Ask them more and you'll find they live their dreams more in the past.

I thought it would be interesting for them to tell me where they hail from.

These guys didn't go to college.

They were too good.

In baseball, if you're top-shelf talent, you generally skip college and head into a life of traveling on buses and playing in towns like Asheville and Charleston and Greenville.

High school as an identity? Maybe.

But what is it that speaks almost universally? I believe you find what you're looking in that most often when you ask people about their childhood.

What T-ball team did you play for? What was its name? Who are you truly representing today as your name is called for starting line-up?

One player, who grew up New Orleans -- the Lockport Recreation T-ball Tigers, for those keeping track -- talked about being recruited by LSU out of high school. A part of him admits a little regret in not going.

But the money's not there. They don't pay for you to play in college -- except maybe the scholarship -- but even those in college baseball oftentimes don't cover the full ride.

It's a conscious choice -- you're good enough to go to the minor leagues, but you know you're just going to ride a bus with the Everett Aquasox or the Savannah Sandnats.

You trade in the ping of aluminum bats for the crack of a wooden one.

But that distant prize that only a small percentage ever claim is always there - the Boston Red Sox. The Green Monster. Ted Williams and Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez.

In college, you're adored by a base of true believers. The competition in terms of talent isn't as difficult (a minor league team is generally going to manhandle a college team) but the competition in spirit and purpose are.

All that to say ...

I heard a Gamecock baseball player interviewed by someone not long ago and they talked about this college team the Gamecocks were about to play and how it had a load of talent drafted by Major League Baseball.

How in the world could they ever stand up to such a challenge?

The player -- who wasn't good enough to get to the minor leagues but in the past four years has built his legacy as one of the university's greatest players of all time and now finds himself drafted to an MLB team -- made the comment, "We played against these types of players in high school, and we held our own."

That's when it hit me. I've got it figured out.

These Gamecock players -- and players for other baseball powerhouse colleges -- are rock stars.

But the truth is that, for the most part, you can bus the Myrtle Beach Pelicans in and just about any minor league team and they will beat those college boys.

There would be little joy in it for the pros -- because they've entered the realm where the joy has been sacrificed for professionalism.

And here is the parallel ...

College baseball is the rec league of 20 year olds.

Travel teams are the minor leagues of 10 year olds.

---

In kids recreation baseball, you represent your community -- a suburb, a town, a rural county.

It's come one, come all. There is no resume, just a minimal check for uniforms and umpires and property taxes to subsidize keeping up the fields.

The jerseys can simply have the name of your community, or maybe it mimics the Major League teams.

You spend five years in the league, often more, and over time you go out to the park and by the time your kid is 11, you know everybody.

Teams aren't allowed to stick together. You'll be playing against your friend who you won a championship with the year before.

The disparity in talent is pronounced. You can have a kid strike out 10 batters, then he reaches his pitch limit and another kid comes in and gives up 10 runs.

It's part of the chaos and comedy that make kids baseball so entertaining.

At the same time, as they develop, it begins to get frustrating.

A kid fields the ball at shortstop like a pro, but the 1st baseman can't ever catch it.

So parents pull their kids out and play "travel ball."

The tournaments are expensive. Parents have to pay admission. They are slickly produced.

The teams are finely tuned machines. There is no mercy -- relief might only come on the 10-run rule that leaves a losing team humiliated (yet, that's an outcome you accepted as part of the risk when you signed up).

They have fancy jerseys. And, interestingly, they have minor league sensibilities -- the Destroyers or the Dirt Devils or, in my son's case, the Sidewinders.

With a travel team, a coach has free reign not only over the name, but the players he picks.

They stay together -- yet you soon realize that the culture of winning can strain what would otherwise be normal relationships with your adult peers. And soon enough, the kids aren't together anymore.

In this area, a plush farm of nationally elite baseball talent, there has developed a neurotic urge for parents anxious to "keep up."

Parents talk about preparing their son to make the high school team and mention the dream of a college scholarship.

If you're playing rec, you're just not keeping up.

It becomes a status symbol --saying the word "my sons plays on a travel team."

I resisted my son joining this exclusive club.

I didn't want him to lose the joy of playing a sport he loves.

But with the exodus of talent, I soon realized that it wouldn't be much fun to effortlessly strike out the kid whose parents told him he had to play rec ball this year for the first time because he plays too many video games.

A year to this day, my son pitched a no-hitter for his 10-year-old All-Star team.

There was a lot of talk about it in our league, among parents and kids who've played together for half a decade.

It made the community newspaper.

But here's the thing: The only reason anybody cared is because what he did represented the community he played for.

Mauldin, a suburb of Greenville, vs. Dacusville, a rural mountain area near Clemson University.

If he had done this in some random, indistinguishable tournament that matters only to the people who paid their way into it, it would mean so much less.

And therein lies the distinction ...

What these college guys play for is what my son played for.

They're representing something larger than themselves.

And that's something to cherish.

'This Is Bound To Cause A Tornado"

2011-06-19T03:05:00.005-04:00

It's been a little unpredictable here in the Southeast lately.

So For The Last Time, 'What Do You Think?'

2011-03-01T22:59:00.006-05:00

I had rehearsed over and over in my head how I would handle the conversation.

I would want to say that, Yes, Santa isn't real. But that doesn't mean I wanted to lie to you or fool you out of some desire for the illusion of parental omnipotence.

I would want to say that I wasn't always comfortable with leading you to believe in some pseudo-supernatural being in the place of God during a season when your faith is celebrated.

I ever really liked that smug, distorted caricature of Christmas. The guy who gives more to rich kids than poor kids, even as he says you get things because you're good.

I would want to say that my distaste for Santa made it so that I wouldn't ever say he was real -- only that I let you believe it if you wanted, if only so that you wouldn't be that weird kid at school.

I wanted it to be a moment in which I could absolve myself of the deception, to finally come clean and explain that I never wanted to do it, anyway.

The Easter Bunny I was OK with. The Tooth Fairy I was fond of.

But when one falls, they all fall.

It was a lot less dramatic than I thought it would be.

Here's how it went for Asa tonight -- age 10, on March 1, 2011 ...

"Hey, Asa lost another tooth tonight. I've got a $2 bill in the truck that I can put under his pillow."

And then the sound of a little boy stirring.

It's late, but he's still awake. He comes out of his bedroom.

Then ... The Question.

He's smiling.

"Is the Tooth Fairy real?"

For the last time, I once again answered with a question -- "What do you think?"

He shook his head. "No."

What a heavy moment. I didn't realize it would have so much weight.

"I have two more questions," he says. "Is the Easter Bunny real?"

"What do you think?"

"No."

"And now the big one," he says.

"What?" I say. "The St. Patrick's Day leprechaun?"

He laughs.

"Santa Claus."

I shake my head.

I say, "What did I always tell you when you asked that question?"

"You asked me, 'What do you think?'" he says.

It comforts me to know that's how he remembers it.

I try to tell him that "I never wanted to ..."

But before I can really, truly go there, he says, "I read it online."

He tells me that he read that Santa Claus used to be a real and that he was a nice guy who would give people presents at Christmas.

I don't totally know the intricate details of the story of St. Nicholas, but I imagine that's about what it's like -- at least from the perspective of a 10 year old.

"I read it online."

Isn't that just the story nowadays?

I thought I would be the gatekeeper of such world-altering information.

The irony of it all.

And that's great.

The most important thing he cared about was that he keeps getting what he always got. And that is something I can appreciate.

I guess the speech is just unnecessary -- at least right now in this moment of awakening, where a little boy simply expresses what he's felt for awhile.

And he's smiling. Thank God for that.

Recession 101

2011-02-07T16:16:00.004-05:00

When the internet allows your average person to advertise anything just about anywhere for nothing, the average person doesn't need to pay a newspaper to place a classified ad.

When virtually no one will pay to place a classified ad, the employees who accept payment and make sure the classified ad gets in the paper have no money to accept and no ads to place.

When there's no money to accept, there's no need for employees.

When there's no need for employees, there's no need for desks or chairs in the place where the employees were once needed.

Well, maybe one chair.

Warning Labeled

2011-01-17T01:36:00.000-05:00

This is hilarious to me.

The commercials come on late at night (or during Judge Judy at 4 o'clock in the afternoon) where there's a law firm soliciting viewers to call if they might have been the potential victim of a particular product.

I guess they make money like that somehow.

Regardless, couldn't that be a real slick way to get revenge on somebody?

Commercial: "Have you made the acquaintance of Kimberly and experienced side effects? If so, dial this number immediately -- the people at Smith & Smith are ready to take your call."

Or ...

Commercial: "Did you taste the pan-seared tuna at Dominique's Elegant Cuisine downtown? If so, call this number immediately, we might be able to help you."

Then, you're all like, "What? What did I say? You must have taken that the wrong way. I just haven't had anyone to talk to since you cheated on me/refused to give me a free refill."

The Golden Vice

2011-01-06T14:41:00.014-05:00

The Man With The "Golden Voice"

I'm going to regret this one later, either way. But here goes ...

I don't think this is going to end well.

Isn't this the fantasy of our culture?

The so-called "American Dream." The notion that God gives you a talent and each man is the captain of the course he sails, just so long as he has the desire?

The Cleveland Cavaliers want to give Ted Williams a job and a house (the same NBA franchise owned by the czar of a major mortgage company).

CBS and NBC -- fighting over who gets to have the exclusive interview with him on the morning show, one having to settle for a sit-down with his mother.

Countless other media and corporate entities are clamouring to associate themselves with this man, who just days ago was homeless, using his talent as a gimmick to simply get by (and who can really blame him?).

And why do they do this? It's the story of instant success, a convenient, handsom package to offer comfort in the myth that there is indeed social justice in this world.

You don't have to think when you're intent on "feeling."

And where will they be if he fails?

They'll be there -- watching from a distance once the sugar crash sets in and gossip sites and reality television shows have their way with him.

Perhaps he won't succeed or fail any differently than anyone else. After all, you give a man a haircut and a collared shirt with a sweater on top and he looks like just about any other successful person with personal demons to suppress.

But I've seen this play out too many times on stages not so grand.

Maybe that isn't fair -- however, as I see it, it's not an indictment of the man.

It's an indictment of the myth.

Let's just be honest and we're probably OK.

Here's hoping this fellow can survive it.

Half Off

2010-12-29T01:44:00.005-05:00

This is my favorite time of year.

The week between Christmas and New Year's.

I take the week off. I see my wife and kids. I have basketball practices for my little team in the middle of the day and the middle of the week. I drink beers whose tops have to be popped off.

Nobody asks me, "So, are you ready for Christmas?"

The shelves empty. The music faintly plays. Attention turns to an empty number.

But guess what ...

I'm that guy who buys Christmas lights 50 percent off.

And then puts them up, and won't take them down until the 12th day of Christmas.

More lights than when I started!

Eat that, 2011!

Bun In The Oven

2010-12-21T21:57:00.002-05:00

So I heard this ad on the radio for an automatic dishwasher.

A woman is trying to tell her husband that they need to buy a quiet model because of the baby.

He's like, "What baby?"

And she says, "You're not getting the hint."

Of course he wouldn't. Am I the only one who thinks that's a crazy way to find out you're having a kid?

FYI

2010-11-13T01:08:00.002-05:00

You've got to love the ... flexibility ... of defense lawyers.

The arm band that marks you as being of age to buy beer at the hockey game cuts to the chase and offers you the solution to all the bad decisions you might soon make.

That, and they've sponsored a coozie for your beer.

Capitalism solely dependent on government regulation -- ridiculously appropriate.

"Man Ur So Obsolete"

2010-10-25T19:29:00.005-04:00

Remember the Walkman portable cassette player?

I do. You clicked it on your belt and put on these foam earphones and blasted "Brass Monkey" with a faint sizzle in the background.

I remember in 7th grade riding the school bus and Leroy Teague (who I thought was my friend because he served on the safety patrol as one of my deputies) asking me if he could borrow it.

Right when his stop came up, he handed me back an identical one -- except it was all beat up. Probably from tripping over his Barbie playhouse when he got out of bed every night he wet his sheets. I just like to think that.

So today Sony announced that it will no longer sell the Walkman in Japan (where everything is always all the rage).

Surprising to me they still make them -- and apparently they're going to still sell them to some countries in Asia and the Middle East (not surprising).

I can't say I'm feeling a nostalgic melancholy. It's just not coming naturally.

But it does make me think of what I think I'm seeing is the midst of a potentially embarrassing moment in technoligical pop culture history -- one perhaps that will be similar to looking back at that awkwardly bulky Walkman with the ear phones framing the mullet.

It's about texting and what we all thought would become the new language upheaval that would shape the future and give the old grammar nazis fits until they finally came around.

I'm talking about the shorthand -- like "ur" for "your" etc.

(By the way, at this time there is no more obvious way to date a movie than by looking at the cell phone being used in it. It was so high-tech in the "The Matrix" yet so monstrous, then they steadily got smaller, losing the attennae. But even as recently as in 2006 in "The Departed" the novel idea of gangster texting was done on the key pad phone, making the absence of a smart phone so less-impressive. In fact, even the idea of a smart phone being considered a phone will seem ridiculous soon enough. Or I could be wrong ...).

I resisted the shorthand at first. It felt childish.

But after wasting so much time finishing off the "you're" -- even spelling it with the apostrophe when it applied to "you are" and not possession of something -- I finally relented.

I figured that I was joining the mainstream, reluctantly staying current while shaking my head at the whole development.

But then something happened last spring.

I got a Droid.

With the touch-screen keyboard I soon realized that there was no reason not to type "you're" -- because I could type "yorue" and hit the space key and it would still spell it right.

Thanks to word completion, I don't have to be a college-educated person whose liberal arts education is moot. It's now more difficult to type "b/c" than it is to write "because."

I could be wrong, but it seems like that little period of texting will seem so obsolete.

It'll look like some big, awkward portable cassette player.

And Japan will begin typing full words again in 2030.

"Yes ...?"

2010-09-30T23:55:00.001-04:00

I'm getting at this age where I don't know when I'm supposed to call someone "sir."

I go with the obvious -- you know, the old guy with the cane (and definitely not the police officer just because he's wearing a badge).

I'm not sure about the 45-year-old guy whose hair (whatever's left of it) is gray. He seems old to me, at least old enough to call him "sir." But then again, I'm only nine years younger than him.

And there's these times when I see a picture taken of me that I didn't know was taken. And I think to myself, "Wow, that looks like a guy who's getting old."

But it's me.

I've never been good about "Yes, sir." I've always done better with "Yes, ma'am."

The other day an old fellow -- he was definitely old -- held the door open for me. It was almost out of my mouth ... "Thanks, man."

But I thought about it and realized that it was never natural for me to respect the authority of an older man. Then I thought about I've always been a bit of a punk.

And then I thought about how it's not too late and that saying "Thank you, sir" would be a gesture that made me feel right with the world.

The thing is ... there's just not as many people as there once were in the world left for me to call "sir."

Love It

2010-08-21T02:18:00.002-04:00

So in the alternate reality of Facebook tonight I actually -- for the first time -- acknowledged with someone else that I agreed with their sentiment that, indeed, "TGIF!!"

In fact, I "liked" it.

I liked it a lot.

For the first time in I can't remember, I actually spent my entire week trying to get to Friday.

So, yeah ... thank God.

I like it.

Play

2010-07-23T01:17:00.003-04:00

One of the few things I can control in my life is the playlist.

I can listen to what I want, when I want and in the order that I want to hear it.

I've never been one to press the "shuffle" button.

I've always wondered what the point was.

Well all I can say is that I've put my music on shuffle.

And while I can't articulate exactly why, I like my life on that setting.

Eclipsed

2010-07-18T18:41:00.007-04:00

As we were driving to the beach I thought about the past six years. The boys were little - more or less they still are.

Each trip we - mostly my oldest and I - go to the Broadway 16 and see the mega-huge, blowout action summer hit of the summer.

The ones with the Burger King toys.

I was thinking back on them - "Revenge Of The Sith," "Superman Returns," "Transformers," "Dark Knight," "Transformers 2."

Then I thought to this week. This part of the summer - not the beginning, not quite the end - is when whatever the summer movie was has been.

I thought back to "Iron Man 2" and how cool of a superhero movie that was. But so early too, mid-May.

"Karate Kid?" I liked it. Maybe the closest but still more a kid movie. No Burger King tie-in or 7-Eleven Slurpee cup.

So what do the boys get with their kids meals at the beach?

There it is, there the whole time in everything and everywhere.

"Eclipse!"

"Eclipse" hacky-sack." "Eclipse" miniature tote bag.

The female supermovie. Imagine that.

Eclipsing Summer Twenty Ten.

Pastimes

2010-06-28T17:33:00.002-04:00

This is a big night for my son.

His 10-year-old All-Star baseball team faces elimination from the tournament – and he’s the starting pitcher.

He’s waited two years for this moment.

Last year, questionable focus – a state of mind I attribute to a lack of maturity – left him relegated to right field, despite the fact that his strong arm and pitching in the regular season was largely what got him selected to the team.

Since then, he’s worked hard. He thinks more about what he does and appreciates the fact that it’s his choice to decide if he wants to be a good player or a great player.

He’s come through for his team, leading them on the mound to a regular season championship.

The thing is, this might be his last opportunity on the mound for a public league.

I want it to end well for him – not to brag, or feel better than anyone. But to leave in a better way than he started five years ago.

This part of the country and particularly this part of South Carolina is a breeding ground for baseball players.

Just look at the two state universities who battled it out over the weekend for who gets to play for a National Championship tonight. A look at the roster of players for the Gamecocks and Clemson shows the kids who play for the national powers come from the communities we all know.

At an early, age children in this area are pulled out of “rec ball,” the league where you play for your town and compete against your friends. By the time a player has gone from 5-year-old tee ball to 7-year-old coaches pitch to 10-year-old kids pitch, he’s played against and with nearly every player in his league.

They’ve grown up together playing baseball. The community comes to the park as the park lights flicker on with an orange and deep blue sunset taking form behind them. The parents become friends (and – yes – frenemies.)

It’s what it’s supposed to be.

However …

The pursuit of excellence in baseball here is relentless.

Parents want their kids to “keep up,” talking in the stands when the boys still haven’t lost their first tooth about how great it would be for their boy to get a scholarship to play.

By the time the boys are in 3rd grade, parents pull them from the recreation leagues and place them on private teams that play in bi-weekly tournaments. The term is “travel ball” because teams sometimes travel all over the Southeast to compete against the best.

“Rec ball” has become a pejorative. “Travel ball” is a term thrown around as a status symbol.

In “travel ball,” these superbly trained baseball machines show up with their matching bat bags and helmets and cleats and play other boys they’ve never seen and might only see another three or four times a year, if that. They play, then they disperse, back to their private, 3-days-a-week practices.

After Asa’s rec championship game, the parents talked with one another while the kids wearing different colors chased each other on the bases. You don’t see that in the private leagues.

There is a benefit: You can put together the team you want, a team with parents you know you’ll like with kids you know your boy will get along with. That is unless you’re in it for reasons that might lead you to be on a team simply because you want to play “travel ball.”

Everyone is trying to keep up, whatever that means. Left in the wake of hyper-competitiveness is the recreation league that is decimated by the exodus of talent.

As much as I don’t like the trend, my son will play the private leagues next year. He simply wouldn’t enjoy playing kids who are average players. The friends he’s played with for so long will all be moving over. They have to. There’s simply no fun in playing against kids who can’t catch or throw or hit. The best we can hope for is to try to get on the same teams, which is a problem in and of itself when you’ve only got 12 spots on a team.

While I will miss the nights at the city ball park where kids play their friends like they should, I’ll simply have to make the best of the culture around me.

I’m not concerned about my kid getting a scholarship.

I just want him to leave with the same sweet taste he had when we first put his little body in a tee ball uniform and let him do what he loves.

He’s lost a few baby teeth since then. And he still has a few now.

I hope this last night feels as special as all the years leading up to this moment have.

---

P.S.

Tastes Like Happy Chicken

2010-05-31T01:06:00.002-04:00

For some people, the only kind chopped up chicken they'll buy is the kind that was "free-range."

The feeling is that the chicken lived a good life, not one of confined cruelty.

Which is why I guess it seems better to eat eggs from chickens who were able to stretch their legs a bit. And apparently the chickens who get to run around as they please are healthier and therefore offer us a healthier food.

But the question I have is ...

If the chicken is happy, shouldn't we in fact feel bad for killing it? It's the non-free-rangers whose lives suck. Shouldn't we be doing all we can to put those poor, miserable animals out of their misery?

Everytime I see that green-colored label, I just can't help but think that I wasted the life of a perfectly happy chicken.

Great ... Now It's Stuck In My Head

2010-04-29T14:48:00.002-04:00

I was walking through the grocery store last night and heard that Carly Simon song, "You're So Vain."

I never liked that song, and I never really thought much about it.

But as I was looking at the SpongeBob SquarePants fruit snacks on the shelf, that famous line in the song struck me, "You're so vain/you probably think this song is about you."

I don't understand.

Maybe this isn't a new idea ... but if you're saying the song is about a specific guy -- and in your lyrics you make specific references to locales he has been etc. -- why would you carry on about how vain a guy is for thinking a song is about him when it's already clear that it is about him?

I know she feels like she's been thrown to the curb or whatever, but in this song I think the guy still comes out winning.

Pig Latin

2010-04-08T22:42:00.009-04:00

So in the case of The State of South Carolina against me -- regarding a speeding ticket for 10 mph over the speed limit last July -- I am advised that a jury trial is scheduled in 10 days.

Why am I fighting this, you might ask? They've offered me deals to not pay the $81 fine and just take the points on my license.

That's not going to happen. There isn't a scenario where I will admit I did something I didn't do.

I'm fighting it because the cop was hunting for drunk drivers, pulled me over and tried to bully me, got angry when I refused to let him not answer why he pulled me over while my children are sobbing and then wrote me a ticket while admitting that he never used a radar gun.

This isn't typical, obviously.

The court system can be an intimidating instrument.

It can be like sitting down with a bunch of rich people at a fancy restaurant not knowing which fork is used for the salad.

There are countless examples -- but I'll just stick to one.

In the case against me, I'm told in a letter first that I should "please be advised" of the trial date. Then I'm told where I'm supposed to go.

Then, in loud, all-caps, bold type reads this, followed by the signature of your local magistrate judge:

HEREIN FAIL NOT, ON PAIN OF FORFEITING THE LAWFUL PENALTY IN SUCH CASES MADE AND PROVIDED.

Seriously? Are we paying people to take the time to come up with this type of unnecessary, tortured language? Doesn't it suffice to say, "You have to show up or you'll lose your rights?"

This type of thing is one reason I think people end up begging in front of a judge and hoping mister/sir/officer/lawman will show some mercy.

Digits

2010-03-28T01:24:00.003-04:00

The text message conversation:

Me: This is my new cell number ... save it.

803***1010 : Who is this?

Me: Easy E - the oldest of the crew.

803***1010 : What is your last name and do I know you?

Me: Connor

803***1010: Do you go to Pelion?

Me: Yeah the joint don't pop til I walk in the room in Pelion

803***1010: What school do you go to?

Me: Journalism school.

803***1010: I don't know you. why do you have my number?

Me: Funny

803***1010: I am serious

After the conversation with the young sister of the 12-year-old who actually owns this cell phone number ...

Me: Sorry about that young lady ... I thought I was communicating with my cousin but was using a wrong #. I'll fix it ... have a nice day!

Don't the kids of today call this a FAIL?

An Elbow To The Vocal Chords Feels Like An Illness

2010-03-27T23:58:00.000-04:00

You can have epic nighttime adventures in your little neighborhood ... tortilla chips in trees, felines prostituting, the crowned asphalt, the unforgiving sewer drain, the ownership glueing it all together..

J-E-T-S ... Suck, Suck, Suck!

2010-03-16T11:34:00.005-04:00

Whew! Looking back, I saved my son just in time.

It was almost divine providence that the Dolphins played the Panthers last November and he converted after experiencing what it's like for Miami fans to turn a stadium into their own.

He had told me on the way to the game that day that he was a Chargers fan -- and if LaDanian Tomlinson ever left San Diego, he'd be a fan of whomever he went to.

I can't imagine having to endure my son rooting for the Jets.

Time to take a flame to that old powder-blue Tomlinson jersey of his.

I'm Drafting Him For My Curling Fantasy League

2010-02-24T14:37:00.003-05:00

There are a countless things I could conjur to say about the 2010 Winter Olympics, but there's one that sums up what I like about them so much.

But first:

-- If you're going to wear a costume with feathers for a figure skating competition, why would you do black feathers that makes you look like a crow instead of, say, an eagle or swan or some other majestic or graceful creature?

-- It's amazing that Shaun White is so much better than the best in the world.

-- They shouldn't have kicked that other American snowboarder out for letting a girl bite his bronze medal around his waist.

-- Forget Lindsey Vonn ... I'm more fond of Julia Mancuso.

-- I am actually willing to watch men and women ski for long stretches, stop and shoot at targets and then start skiing again. But I'm not willing to watch figure skating.

-- The guys doing color commentary for snowboarding and aerial skiing are so much better at blending commentary on technical miscues while maintaining a cool and calming narration of the overall events. The figure skating talkers ... "Whoa! Nailed it! Oh yes!"

-- I feel bad that I enjoy watching figure skaters wipe out.

-- I don't feel bad enjoying the snowboard wipeouts, because that's just what they do.

-- Super G sounds really cool.

-- I'm glad I finally educated myself on the rules of curling. It's not like darts; you don't get points for being in the green, etc. I'd rather watch it than hockey.

-- The Canadians are getting owned by the Americans.

-- Apollo Ohno. Looks goofy, but a lot tougher and less of a whiner than other celebrated athletes.

-- I would rather watch a taped, primetime package of the best of the day's events than have to find a way to watch my favorite events at 11 a.m. And I think NBC does a good job. I like the event logos frozen in ice.

-- Too bad if Lindsey Jacobellis was going to wipe out again she couldn't have done it with style like last time.

-- Did they really say that 50-degree temperatures in a ski race was a serious hindrance?

-- The bobsledders. Whoa with the ass slapping, guys.

-- Etc., etc., etc.

I'm drawn to the Olympics. Yesterday, an interview with an athlete cemented for me why.

The USA men's curling team has struggled. In fact, they've been terrible. The commentators were talking about how perhaps the USA should put together an all-star team instead of advancing teams already put together that qualify for the Olympics.

In any case, a reporter is interviewing John Shuster, the captain -- the "skip" -- of the team.

In watching the NFL or NBA or NCAA, I've become used to players and coaches being presented with confrontational questions. On the spot. The ones that stick the dagger right through.

And those questions are often appropriate. It's big business. Athletes and coaches and owners and schools making tons of money. Craving the spotlight.

With the good goes the bad.

Sure there are participants in the Olympics who stand to gain on their mercurial celebrity.

But not with this guy. Not the curling guy.

A bio on the curling guy from the USA Curling team website:

His hobbies include fishing, hunting, fantasy football, golf and playing and coaching softball. He also wakeboards and has three dogs. Nicknamed "Shoostie." Works as a bartender in Duluth, Minn., in the winters and on the grounds crew of a golf course in the summers.

The camera light shines on him, and you can tell he's inexperienced. He doesn't have the polish applied by the coaching of a publicist. He's smiling, uncomfortable.

The woman sets it up by enumerating the team's failures in the Olympics.

Then she asks him, "So is there anything positive at all that you can take from this?"

He's unsure of what to say, because he doesn't want to be impolite.

"Umm ... wow, that's harsh."

Then he goes on to answer the question as best he can, as if he's emulating what he sees when he's watching post-game interviews of the NFL players who are on his fantasy team.

It struck me then.

That was rude.

And the fact that it was is what makes me like this brand of athlete.

Why Dat?

2010-02-09T01:06:00.002-05:00

So if God sent Katrina to take out New Orleans because of the gays ...

Why did the Saints win the Super Bowl?

In The Year ...

2010-01-23T01:35:00.004-05:00

So what are we going to do now?

Twenty-Ten?

Two-Thousand-Ten?

Oh-Ten?

The answer for me is in the answer to this question: What are we going to do for the next 1,000 years?

Seriously, we've got to think ahead. I'm sure they'll look back at this little speck of a decade and say, "Did they really think we were going to call it the year Two-Thousand-One-Hundred-And-Seventy-Three?"

And "Oh-10?" Let's look beyond ourselves here. There are entire centuries ahead of us.

In fact, by the time the 2100s make their presence known, it'll just be a matter of "back in '73."

So -- for me -- "Twenty-Ten" it is.

And who said you need those images of the great, expanding universe to make you feel insignificant?

That's what mathematical linguistic semantics are for.

'Mom ...'

2009-12-24T10:59:00.003-05:00

The word "Mom" is so powerful.

By itself. Not "my mom ..." or "my mother..."

Just "Mom."

There's so much at stake when you say that single word, then wait for the response.

I don't say it much -- but when I do, I feel an overwhelming rush.

Just that one, elemental word suspends everything.

I don't think of what I probably will feel.

In that silence in between is a gulf.

That silence is holy.

'Oh Yeah, That Thing? I Sucked In '07'

2009-12-12T01:46:00.011-05:00

Each year, the boys and I paint Christmas ornaments. Nothing big, just some little stuff from the craft store. We just use Sharpie pens. Then put our names and the year on the back.

Eventually we'll have enough of the ornaments that we'll run out of room. Our trees are seeming to get smaller each year. I like that, but we're going to have to get rid of other ornaments from when I was a kid.

With some time between my time as a kid to my kids' time as a kid, I've realized that I don't care to keep my old ornaments.

Sometimes ever the lightest ones feel like they carry so much weight they're enough to topple a tree over by themselves.

The truth is ... you change each year. You become somebody you weren't.

I'm content that I like who I am now better than who I was then. Or in terms of Christmas ... I like Christmas more now than I did then.

I wouldn't choose to remember 1985 over 2005. I'd like those newer ornaments, traditions, etc. to define Christmas for my family.

So where does that put my 9-year-old son, Asa?

Frankly, I don't know what to make of what I'm doing with these kids.

But what I do know is this ...

Tonight, Asa impatiently painted his Christmas ornament, looked at his 6-year-old brother Aden's work and thought he did such a stupid job on his own that he turned his over and wrote, "Asa 2007" on the back.

It might seem convoluted, but his willingness to use a former Christmas self so unceremoniously and unsentimentally, to save face for a present self, makes me feel like Christmas must be going smoothly for these guys.

P.S. Of course, I told him it looked great. And it's got that Asa 2009 charm. But in all honesty, take a look at Aden's work, a full year behind Asa 2007, to see why Asa might have wanted to bend the space-time continuum ...

Of course, with my penguin with the Dolphins-colored scarf, I have to say I think I'm gonna go with Daddy 2009 ...

Nosce Te Ipsum

2009-11-26T22:20:00.004-05:00

I feel like my life would have been meaningless if I never had children.

It's not that I can't imagine what my life would have been like without them.

I think I can imagine it.

I imagine I'd be an older version of who I was when I was younger. I changed the first glorious moment I saw my first son and heard him cry -- changed into someone I needed to be, a better person, but nevertheless a person for the sake of someone else.

I suppose it's a good thing to put someone else before you -- to subjugate yourself and in turn allow yourself the opportunity to be more of something greater. And along the way I think I've learned things I couldn't have learned without the necessity of changing.

However, I'm beginning to feel like I'm missing something.

Like I've set aside who I was -- in particular the traits that can best be described as selfish, idealistic, distant -- but never transformed from it into something I needed to be, both for myself as an individual and for those who need me.

I find myself disconnected from an understanding of my own personal history -- yet a large part of the equation that makes up who I am is founded on the choices I made and the choices that were made for me.

I've lost my desire to be anything that defines me. I've left it to other people to define me.

In time I've come to feel that whoever I wanted to be on my own is not someone I'd like to be.

And then there it still is, waiting for me. The phantom of who I am -- on my own -- waiting for me when I can no longer justify ignoring it.

I used to live only for myself; now I feel like I live only because of my absolute importance to a few people whose lives, through no choice of their own, are intertwined with mine.

And what is that in the end?

A man who speaks to himself when he speaks to God, and hears nothing but the shrill noise of his own mind?

What is that in the end?

Perhaps it's nothing more than an illusion of a person.

Just Because

2009-11-24T17:50:00.004-05:00

I read this in a story in a local publication interviewing everyday people about the phenomenon of the "Twilight" book series and the opening of the second movie "New Moon."

This woman was not a fan:

"If there is something that 'everybody likes,' I'm going to want to hate it, just because I don't want to be told to like it. I can't stand to jump on a bandwagon just because everyone else is on it. It's so unoriginal and so cliche."

Interesting how trying not to be cliche can be so cliche.

Phinaticism

2009-11-22T00:40:00.003-05:00

It wasn't looking good two years ago.

The Dolphins went 1-15, and people would look at me and say, "If they ever manage to win the Super Bowl, I'll tell everybody you were wearing the shirt when they sucked."

I remember at the time thinking that there's no way my son is going to follow in my footsteps. There's just nothing for him there. As much as I want it, there's just nothing there.

The allegiances you owe to a team -- the true ones that are irreversible -- are born in childhood. You don't just "pick one" as an adult and really feel it.

I became a Dolphins fan in 1983, when I was 9 -- the same age he is now. One of my step-fathers was from Ft. Lauderdale and lived and died by the success (mostly success) of the team. I remember going down there and fishing coconuts out of the waterways.

When he up and left one day when I was 11, I decided I hated the Dolphins and would become a Broncos fan. It never worked. It wasn't real. The dolphin wearing a helmet jumping through a ring of fire (or is that a rendering of the sunshine?) just always held a place in my heart.

Twenty five years or so later, my son decided he liked LaDanian Tomlinson. Which means he became a Chargers fan.

I was skeptical. But he seemed to stay firm.

Fine with me.

But I still never lost hope.

When he was 2, I bought him a Ricky Williams poster for his room, hoping they could hold up their end of the deal. They didn't.

The domination of the '70s, the fireworks of the '80s and punking the Jets and Cowboys (and being punked by the Bills) in the '90s ... ancient history (though winning the AFC East last year did help me gain some traction).

I had thought about bribing him: "I'll buy you a Ronnie Brown jersey for Christmas if you become a Dolphins fan."

Of course, that goes against everything that I know to be true if the real goal is an authentic, undeniable loyalty.

It would have to happen on its own.

I'd always ask him, "You sure you don't want to be a Dolphins fan?"

"I like them," he said, "but I like the Chargers first."

I'd always end it with, "Well, you know as far as I'm concerned you can like whatever team you want."

And then I bought him a Tomlinson jersey.

But my opportunity had come.

On the way to Charlotte to see the Dolphins plays the Panthers on a Thursday night, I asked him one of the many probing questions I come up with to divine his heart.

"So what would happen if the Chargers traded Tomlinson? Who would your team be? The Chargers? Or the team Tomlinson plays for?"

He told me hoped that didn't happen. That he didn't think it could happen. But that he'd pull for whomever Tomlinson played for.

There was my glimmer of hope. I could see that his heart hadn't been set.

We rolled into Charlotte, and I knew there was still a chance.

All the Dolphins had to do was do their part.

As we're throwing the football in the parking lot, the Dolphins fans are everywhere.

On the way to the stadium. And inside the stadium -- the especially drunk ones hugging it up.

Everywhere I walk, somebody slaps me on the back or says "Go Dolphins!"

He began to feel it.

The proud tradition -- '72 undefeated, the Bears in '85, Marino to Clayton, the aqua jerseys glowing warmly like the Kool-Aid seas of Miami, etc.

All these people.

And then it happened.

As the Dolphins led 14-3, the chant gained steam, then rung throughout amid the blue and black.

"Let's Go, Dolphins!"

You would have thought we were in Miami.

By the end of the night, Ricky Williams -- that 32-year-old guy on his wall -- would score three touchdowns. And the Dolphins would wind up doing their part, 24-17.

I saw his eyes open wide, drinking it all in.

"Daddy, I'm a Dolphins fan."

"Really? What about the Chargers?"

"Daddy, I'm a Dolphins fan."

With the voices of thousands ringing, I spoke for them: "Well, we'll take you."

I can feel it. It's true. His heart is set on the righteous course.

And now -- only now that it's real -- the Ronnie Brown t-shirt jersey is coming.

I just can't resist.

And the great thing is ... now I don't have to.

Where You Are Is Where You're At

2009-11-12T22:22:00.004-05:00

One look from my son, and I can feel an entire decade's worth of my life has been spent well.

It was awards day for 4th graders, and I came to show my son that I didn't think that only his sports accomplishments are worth my time.

The principal went through great pains to make a big deal out of all the kids who were about to be called up for perfect attendance.

My son looked back at me, smiled and shook his head.

He's heard my feelings on perfect attendance before: It's fine if you get it, but children also shouldn't feel like they have to go to school if they're sick. And they shouldn't feel like they failed if they didn't make it.

I even believe that it's a good thing to take your kid out of school for something special. (I know for a fact he'll trade that perfect attendance certificate for having been able to go to that Thursday night game to see us beat #4 Ole Miss).

That said, there's reason I'm here. My son looks back at me to look for reassurance at mocking perfect attendance.

I wonder if I've done the right thing. But ... whatever.

So the principal extols the virtues of perfect attendance -- the challenge of the swine flu cast against kids who could fake a fever but choose not to.

Then, in search of a knowing nod of heads of the parents in attendance, he tells the children, "I know you don't always want to be here, though I can assure you that your parents always are ready to have you off to school."

My reaction to that is the same as if someone had told me, "Squirrels store nuts for the winter."

It could be just as meaningless to me.

Until my son turns around. Looks at me, smiles and again shakes his head.

In that moment, after nine years of being a father, I felt as if I have accomplished something. That my life has been meaningful.

My son conscientiously objects to the idea of anyone suggesting, even for jokes, that his father wants him to be somewhere other than with him -- ever.

That look made me feel like a winner, even if we didn't take home the perfect attendance certificate.

Farewell

2009-10-30T00:14:00.002-04:00

Everyone,

Well, after 5 years -- 5 years! -- of sharing my insights into everything I could imagine and enjoying all those who have shared their lives and insights with me, I have to announce the end of The Great Elsewhere.

It's been a great 5 years, but the time has come.

So may the wind be at your back and the sun and the stars shine their light ...

SIKE!

I just wanted to know how gay it feels to say that.

I'll never shut this thing down. NEVER. One day when I'm hitting a mid-life crisis and every stuck-up punk is heckling me for being a technological dinosaur, this place will be here.

I've always done this for reasons I can't explain. And, while it sounds cliche, I'd do it if absolutely nobody ever read it. I'd like to do it more-frequently. That's obviously completely under my control -- although I have to say I've felt like I've been in the Dark Ages for the past six months.

Those things always turn, or at least I hope they do this time.

In the meantime ... peace.

Anal-ytical

2009-09-24T00:45:00.003-04:00

Things feel good.

Except they don't, because I'm aware that they do.

There's not much comfort in surprises.

And I like to balance every equation.

Even if they aren't supposed to add up.

Regrets

2009-08-20T11:01:00.002-04:00

The $260 million lottery ticket yesterday was sold at a Wal-Mart gas station a half-mile from the apartments where I grew up.

It makes me wonder how much better my life could have been if I had never moved out of that shithole, never went to college and never left town to have a career, a marriage and two children.

He Said Matter-Of-Factly ...

2009-08-19T15:29:00.003-04:00

Staring out window
Wish for rotten milk to drink
Too sick for 4th grade

'Will I See Heaven In Mine?'

2009-08-11T03:48:00.005-04:00

The little boy says, "Look at me! I can jump in the pool."

The 33-year-old man who passes for 45 struggles to think how he is important enough for a little boy to care what someone like him thinks.

He is the guy ...

Who could have had so much. Who lost so much before he had it. All the unique human qualities we wish we had. Who has lost hope that he will ever fully return to the the good inside him that others tell them they see.

Who would tell you he remembers, almost 20 years later, when we'd tresspass on farm ponds and fish until somebody ran us off.

Who would steal your cell to score a rock.

Who you'd want to smile with, because there used to be more to smile about, and it felt good.

But nothing can just be good. Feel right.

Yet here he is, in this moment -- important, implored by uncorrupted acceptance.

Uncontrasted.

He feels what he can feel. And he says what he can say -- before walking away with a smile difficult to see because his nature is to turn his head from the thousands of eyes dissecting him.

"That's good. Keep jumpin' in, just as long as you can climb back out."

The victory in just surviving. This is how it happens.

Just Upining

2009-07-06T00:15:00.003-04:00

One of the more commonly used devices among the critics is to describe the movie "Up" as a film that intentionally keeps you grounded.

That is true.

The best way I can explain it:

You might find yourself emerging from the theater with a warm, melancholy smile cracking the dried salt on your cheeks.

'When The Groove Is Dead And Gone, You Know That Love Survives ... So We Can Rock Forever On'

2009-06-27T01:36:00.008-04:00

Michael Jackson's death has freed him now.

And us from our living mourning for the past two or so decades.

It was like watching someone slowly die and degenerate from a terminal disease -- but now all has been made whole. They don't typically show the state of those of people as they're dying, but we watched it unfold as each stranger year passed.

I feel a warm melancholy as I watch his performances in the early 80s. Music almost as essential to watch as to listen to.

All on his own, early 20s, full of an elegant self-confidence.

It's nice to be a 9-year-old kid when a definitive cultural moment arrives.

"Thriller."

It usurped my summer, 10-plus minute extended videos at a time.

Then he began his transformation ... and that's all need be said, now that he no longer lives.

And now, two and a half decades later, here are the tributes -- which from our generation can be told through music videos.

Once the tributes are done, I don't plan to watch any of the drama related to his death, both when he was alive and dead.

I am allowed freely to believe in what I remember on those summer nights of childhood, as we flipped the awkwardly large and cumbersome cable converter box remote (ironically still attched by a cord) to watch him perform daily eclipse's over MTV.

I really have missed that part of my life. I tried to moonwalk tonight. I think I did it.

It's strange how death brings these things to life.

Analog Purgatory

2009-06-24T00:44:00.000-04:00

I had thought I had watched the last analog TV of my life on my porch the night the Lakers went up 3-1 on the Magic (because Jameer Nelson decided to play the exact opposite defense you play when your team is up by 3 with only seconds left).

It was the night before the big June 12 digital switchover.

The game was over. I collapsed the attenae and watched as the screen went snowy. Then I clicked the TV off. Dropped it out into the garage.

I had long dreaded this moment, even after Obama extended the deadline from February.

I know there are options, but I just can't let it go. For whatever reason.

The other night I plugged it into a socket in the garage. I fished out the damaged antennae and attached it, just to see what would happen.

And I found ... glorious programming!

Analog purgatory. With the strongest signal coming from Charlotte, no less.

Looping info-packages on how to handle the digital switchover.

It's almost like the joy one of my dear cousins gets out of religiously watching the TV Guide channel scroll by, over and over, all day.

Like her, I can't get enough of it.

I turn on the analog purgatory as I grill food, drink a beer and smoke a clove.

The chatter is comforting, the feeling of having been left behind in the rapture. Battling post-apocalyptic isolation with but a few remaining survivors.

They even offer trivia on when the earliest digital signal was sent. Did you know it was like 1994 or something? Or maybe 1999? I don't know; I wasn't really paying attention.

Alas, nothing can last forever.

Throughout all the regurgitated instructions of how to screw a cable into a box then screw another cable into another place, and after all the interviews with electronics experts and the suprisingly clean graphics ... they let us know that they will stop doing what they're doing on July 6.

Well, just so you know, this one loyal viewer is melancholy.

Did The Druids Make Any Music? (Because That Would Be Convenient To Make This Flow)

2009-06-09T00:07:00.009-04:00

Atlanta won't be winning any awards for having the pulsing heart of a great American city, but I have my affections for it.

Among other things, it does have two of my most-favorite names for roads, off of Interstate 85:

1.) North Druid Hills.

That just sounds really cool. I don't live there, but if I somehow found myself living there, I would spare no opportunity to say, with a solemn pretension, that I lived in the "Druid Hills."

2.) Beaver Ruin.

I laugh every time I see this exit. Every time.

Beaver Ruin Road.

So ... blunt.

I'm proud to say I've never walked that road of Beaver Ruin.

P.S. The other road next to it on the exit sign -- "Lilburn."

---

But on to why I'm really here tonight ...

And not speaking of which ....

Bon Iver was a trascendent performance on Sunday evening down there at the Varity Playhouse.

The well-known story -- for fans like me --goes that Justin Vernon's life went into the shitter, so he retreated for three months to a remote cabin in the middle of winter in Wisconsin with no plans but isolation and whatever might come from that.

He wound up making some beautiful music with barest of means, including in that chopping wood to keep warm and killing deer to provide his means.

And I'm a bit jealous of his transformative experience. You don't come by them easy.

What impressed me about him last night -- among other things that I won't go into because ... well, I don't personally know anyone else besides my wife who likes him -- is that he took whatever it is he brought with him from that cabin and shared it, expanded upon it, and made it into something that we all were a part of.

Electricity sometimes ruins musical artists who made their names without it, but not in this case, where something is being carefully built with each tool available used to construct the greater masterpiece.

He dubbed his voice a million times over while in that cabin to create a texture of sound that you could squeeze in your hands.

When he implored the audience to sing the end to his song, it wasn't a showman's ploy.

It seemed he wanted a bigger piece of something, woven by sound waves, to touch.

I don't know to what he extent he planned the touch and texture of his music -- but the bass drum, each time it was sounded, felt as if it were physically rescusitating my heart, which hasn't been beating like it should these days.

I love transformative experiences.

Music that blesses you with feelable matter.

and ...

Bon Iver -- Re: Stacks

Sham-A-Lama-Ding-Dong

2009-05-29T23:45:00.005-04:00

Why is the ShamWow! guy wearing a headset while he's doing the informercial?

Is it because we could talk to him directly if we call? Is it that they want him to look like he's too busy to explain something so obvious that we'd be stupid not to buy it?

Or is it a corporate down-sizing thing where they're simultaneously recording the radio ad?

Isn't it also a curious advertising strategy that a product pushed on television would start with "sham?"

I know he beat up a hooker.

I'm just saying -- these are the questions that trouble me ...

Winning

2009-05-20T12:36:00.004-04:00

I can't call it an epiphany.

More like a new understanding -- in the way that it's new only because I was the only one who didn't understand.

It's not a secret that I don't get my youngest boy -- 6 years old -- as much as I do my oldest -- 9 years old. There's nothing wrong with that, because I appreciate who he is. But oftentimes it's more as an observer of who he is.

I don't care if my hands are super-clean before I eat. I don't find comfort in rules or standard procedures. I want to be better than other people at things.

My oldest is virtually a carbon-copy of me. For the good and for the bad. The comparable traits are too lengthy to list.

But something happened the other night that offered me a remarkable insight into my youngest little boy -- the theatre kid, the uncoordinated one, the one who loves little girls and isn't afraid to put himself in the spotlight.

I felt the essence of who he is -- in a moment, the kind of moment that is transformative even if it is only a moment.

---

Aden has never really cared about winning. He just wants someone to tell him he's done well.

I've come to learn that when he argues with his brother about who won something, it's not because he brought up the subject of who should be winning. He only argues about winning to defend himself from someone saying he has lost.

When he says, "Did we win the baseball game?", he only asks because it's what people talk about after a sports event. I tell him that I can tell him he didn't lose (because kids hitting a ball off a tee if they can't hit a pitch thrown to them by the coach doesn't result in a winner or a loser).

I remember when Asa first learned to play video games, winning was foremost in his mind. He's destroyed video games because he couldn't beat them. I always understood how he felt and understood what it's like to feel like you're not having fun unless you're winning.

The thing is, Asa has beaten me at things. And he lets me know it.

Aden never has.

That changed though.

Thanks to SpongeBob SquarePants.

---

Aden had been begging me to play this SpongeBob racing game on the computer, one of those where you use the arrow keys on the keyboard to accelerate and drive.

I don't have a lot of practice at that.

He's played quite a bit.

He wanted me to play it because he thought it was cool. He wanted me to be a part of it.

But he didn't care about beating me.

As I slammed Patrick's race car into walls repeatedly and couldn't figure out how to back up and get straight and then went the wrong way ... he smoked me.

Two minutes -- two minutes -- after he crossed the finish line, I richocheted my way to the merciful end.

All the while, he told me I was doing OK. Every little wall I managed to scrape away from was a "good job."

When I crossed the finish line, I was "awesome at this game."

"High five, Daddy."

And that's when I understood.

I can't articulate exactly what it is I understand.

I just know that I do.

ADEN'S AMAZING BASEBALL SLIDE:

Time And Space

2009-04-30T11:42:00.001-04:00

I wish that what seemed "just like yesterday" actually was just yesterday.

Happy Birthday, Dude

2009-04-01T22:32:00.006-04:00

About 10 minutes before 1:12 a.m., my oldest son began crying in his sleep.

Ten minutes from his 9th birthday and he was certifiably sick.

Five minutes before that, I ran my fingers through his hair, kissed his forehead, marveling at how far he has come in the nine years since he was a little baby that I could almost hold in the palm of my hand.

He had had a big day planned at school this morning ...

An awards ceremony for making all A's. Little spherical rice-krispie treats with baseball threads that my wife made for all 24 kids in the class. His name announced over the speaker, proclaiming it his day because he was the only one in the school born on April Fool's Day.

But it wasn't to be.

He was too sick to go to school.

I was barely awake when I decided that I was staying home with him. And not just because it was a rainy day.

I can't tell you how much I wish I could re-live those first days when he was born -- when spring's first flashes of pink, violet and powder-blue blooms begin to emerge tree-lined streets between the hospital and home.

Just to hold him and move him effortlessly. To watch the slightest turn of his lip, a hint of a smile that proves baby's want to be happy. To watch him wake up crying for food, being fed and happy, and then crying before he went back to sleep.

And then doing it all over again the course of a few hours.

I didn't really have any idea what I was doing, nor could I see beyond what I expected fatherhood to be compared to letting it be what it was going to be.

I didn't necessarily handle it well. And I can't say I do now.

However ...

Today was the closest I've been to living that time again.

He woke up and played his Madden '09, then came to wake me up.

He laid in the bed with me.

I told him how I was going to take care of him like when he was a little baby home for the first time.

I described his routine back then. He laughed. I told him how we had to set him beside a window because he was jaundiced. I didn't actually say "jaundiced." I said it was because his skin was weird and the sun would fix it.

I told him how he would squeak when he had the hiccups. I did an impression of that. He giggled.

I told him we would lay on the couch, him resting on my chest, and watch the Final Four

I gave him his medicine and cooked him eggs and sausage. He ate the sausage. The eggs weren't that good.

I ordered him the "Madagascar 2: Escape To Africa" movie on pay per view. It could play all day.

He asked me to play his WWE wrestling video game. I asked him to let me sleep for an hour. He came in frequently to wake me up for various reasons. I woke up and asked him if he was ready to play. He was asleep.

I opened up his little tin baby capsule. There was a lock of hair from his first haircut. A copy of the hospital's discharge paper on April 2, 2000. A ticket stub to his first Gamecock football -- September 21, 2002 vs. Temple.

When he woke up this afternoon, I asked him if he was ready. He told me he was, but that he wanted to watch the "Suite Life of Zach and Cody" first.

Of course he could.

Last night, I took the remnants of the Rice Krispy cutouts and molded them into a crude resemblance of circle. My wife painted some baseball threads on it but insisted that the mutated monstrosity wasn't going to school.

This morning, I put nine candles in that concoction and had him make a wish and blow them out.

Over the course of the day, he ate the whole thing ... one foot in diameter.

We played the wrestling game. I was Shelton Benjamin. He was Shawn Michaels. He won, because he's better. I let him download whatever music he wanted.

We picked his brother up from school. I let him sit in the front this time, because it was his birthday.

We went to a Walgreen's to pick out some sunglasses for baseball. I had promised we would do that. His eyes are sensitive like mine. While inside, he found a wrestling figure by the name of "MVP." It was $9.99. I bought it, because it's his birthday.

He came home and acted out a match with his new figure. And watched the Madagascar movie again.

Like a little kid who didn't just two days before -- as his team's starting pitcher for their first game of the season -- work his way out of bases-loaded jam and strike out one of the best hitters in his league.

That's where he is now.

On an edge between the babyhood I don't want to vanish and the growing kid who sometimes lapses and involuntarily calls me "dude" if I'm frustrating him.

"Dude."

He's embarrassed when I bring up that habit.

These years go by.

It's getting to where one day isn't enough to contain them.

And He Steps Calmly On The Cobra ...

2009-03-30T00:01:00.006-04:00

"It is like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all that heavenly glory."

'I Crouch Like A Crow, Contrast In The Snow'

2009-03-03T14:01:00.000-05:00

A sunrise in the winter has so much more significance when you're unable to summon artificial light.

Or if you had spent your night halfway sleeping to make sure the fire is kept alive.

Or in preparation in knowing that the whole of the neighborhood's children will flock in and out your home because it's one with a fireplace where they can get warm after playing in the snow makes your clothes wet and your cheeks red.

Just one night and six inches of snow and no electricity... I know it's presumptuous, but I feel a kinship with this sunrise like the ancients of necessity must have.

Idol Worship

2009-02-21T23:45:00.003-05:00

OK, this is the only place I write anything down ... so I just have to recount this series of events before I forget them ...

Today my little 7-8 year old Christ Church basketball team was in a dramatic basketball tournament championship game.

And at the center of it all was, ultimately, my son.

The whole regular season, we played in the A division against the toughest competition in the league. I don't know why we were put there, but ...

We won one game, lost a couple of semi-close ones, got blown out in others. You couldn't ask for a better group of children. The lesson all year was that there was character in losing with dignity. We did that pretty well and pretty often.

Come the post-season that started this month, they put us in the Division IV tournament -- the least of the tournament divisions.

Somehow, we got a first-round bye -- I suppose thanks to our trials and tribulations in the A division in the regular season. All we had to do was win one game and we would be in the championship.

I didn't know what to expect as the tournament started. I told my kids all year that I couldn't promise them they would win, only that I would consider them winners if they played the best they could.

Last Saturday, we won our first game 25-14. We could have scored 40, but I put in the second string for the whole 4th quarter.

I couldn't help it. For all the talk of losing with dignity, all week I was nervous.

"What if? Wouldn't that be cool? No. That's shallow. I've just got to let it be. Remember what it is I taught them all year and what made me most proud ...

... but wouldn't it be cool?"

Today, we matched up today with the #2 seed for the championship.

When I walked into the gym, I saw their team. They had a kid who looked like he was almost as tall as a middle-schooler. They were pumped. I heard their coach telling them, "Focus."

I was thinking they might be the youth basketball league version of Drago in Rocky IV.

The game didn't start well.

The big kid scored at will. We were down by 4 points twice -- which is an expansive sea of point differential at this age.

I told my tough center -- who was at least two inches shorter than her counterpart -- to put a body on the big kid and foul him if she had to.

I directed another little defender -- my #1 fouler -- to help her out. (Sorry, I'm not going to just let some kid pitch a tent in the lane and score flat-footed).

We shut him down. .

My son is the scorer. The flashy one who gets most of the glory -- even if he doesn't totally deserve it each time.

He wasn't shooting as well as normal, but he was playing point guard about as good as I could ask for. Driving, passing, taking reasonable shots, filling the defensive passing lanes, running full speed despite being winded.

I give Asa hell sometimes. I asked all the kids in practice one day, "Raise your hand if you wish Asa would pass it more." You could feel the breeze as their hands shot up.

All season I've told him to pass the ball. He hasn't always complied -- in part because of his confidence in himself, his desire for attention and because he has a hard time letting go of control over whether the ball is going to be stolen.

He always played hard, every second ... sometimes too hard where he tends to lose himself.

The truth is, the team wouldn't be where they are without him -- and they don't always catch the ball when it's thrown to them. I made the center the captain early in the season to prove a point: Do the dirty work and take the bruises with no one really noticing, and you're a leader.

The game didn't look good, didn't feel right, but we answered baskets with baskets. But all along the way, just a little short.

Until late in the 4th quarter.

One of my littler ones made a corner shot to tie it up 14-14.

During the time-out, I reminded them about what they were best at -- defense.

I instructed my center to front the big kid because I knew that's where they were going. That's not always a good idea, but I figured they weren't quite sophisticated yet to know to throw it over her head.

I backed her up with someone to play him from behind, too.

It worked.

We got the ball back.

Asa rushed it down the court. The other coach must have called for a double-team on him.

I called a time-out when he ended up trapped by two defenders on the sideline with about 20 seconds left.

Time for a decision.

All year I'd been yelling at Asa to pass the ball.

Not this time, though.

For the first time ever, I told him explicitly not to pass it. In front of all the team to hear. He worked hard all year and listened to a lot of griping from me and ultimately paid me heed ... but this was his moment and I was going to give it to him.

The plan?

Have a good passer in-bound the ball to Asa. Then dribble out the clock a little, drive it to the basket with nothing other than a shot on his mind and see what happens. It was our best chance.
He did what I told him. He sliced into the lane, got forced to his left and took his shot.

Foul.

With 10 seconds left, we're looking at two free throws to break the tie. If he just hits one of them ... well, the truth about kids basketball is that a team can't get the ball down the court and get a decent shot off within the span of 10 seconds.

Just one free throw.

I sit down.

I put my hand on my assistant coach's knee. I tell him, "All he has to do is hit one of them and we win."

He tells me don't worry.

I tell him I can't worry, because I know I've got no other choice. I have no control.

Asa looks around, calmly. He just looks like he belongs there. He looks like I don't think I could look if I were in his position.

The ref gives him the ball, he looks calmly to the basket ...

In there.

I sit down as if a small gust of wind blew a feather over.

Before his second shot, I call to him and he looks over.

"Make sure the ball hits the rim before you move into the lane."

He nods.

One of girls earlier in the game had a free throw that she made taken away because she entered the lane on the release.

He shoots it.

He waits for it to hit.

It bounces out.

He runs into the lane ...

The day before, he spent the afternoon practicing free throws in the driveway. Just for fun, he practiced missing the shot, then making a running rebound and tapping it in on one jump.

It didn't quite work out as spectaculary as in the driveway ...

But he darts into the lane, gets the rebound and puts it in the basket to go up by 3 with 6 seconds left.

Tears of pride come to my eyes. I'm embarrassed that I can't control it. Or guilty that I enjoy it too fully.

We did it.

All year I've held him to a higher standard. Maybe too much of one.

Play smart. Think about his team and not just himself.

Today, he did that. And, at the end, he found himself with all the responsibility on his shoulders.

The moment that he imagines in his driveway.

Today, the only yelling I did was to tell him to quit interrupting me and finishing my speeches in the huddle.

(He's heard it all before. But there's only so much time. Last week, they gave me my first technical foul ever ... for a substitution penalty as I struggled to sort out equal playing time for each kid and get them in the game quickly enough).

That rebound and basket allowed Asa and his co-MVP to come off the court and watch the seconds tick off from the sidelines.

The second string goes in -- their lack of defense be damned because 3 pointers don't count -- to have their moment to soak in the last seconds on the court.

We line up behind the captain to shake hands. I walk up and down the line and tell them be reserved and keep it cool. The other team's feelings are hurt, I tell them.

They know how that feels.

But ultimately ... the celebration, the pictures, the hugs.

Postgame ...

Now, no one can accuse Asa of a lack of self-confidence.

Nor a lack of vanity.

On the way home, he announces to me that he's retiring his #12 jersey. He tells me he's putting it in the "baby box," a large tin can where all his little baby stuff is kept from when he was an infant -- including the tiny YMCA jersey he wore during his first basketball season when he was only 4.

He tells me the jersey is not to be washed. Next year, when he moves up in age group, the kids start wearing powder blue tank-top jerseys. No more #12.

He gets home, opens up the garage, places the trophy at the edge of the driveway, puts on some hard-driving "Guitar Hero" and WWE entrance music -- which somehow manages to include "Beat It" -- that he burned on a CD and shoots his basketball the rest of the afternoon.

I didn't realize he was serious about the jersey. He actually pulled out the big tin can and put the jersey inside. Unwashed.

He's spent the rest of the night carrying the trophy around. He's held it up like a wrestler holds up a championship belt, special hand signals and all. He carried around one of those fake belts for months. Now he has something real.

He fell asleep with it.

On Monday, the trophy will go to another kid's house, to stay in his bedroom for a couple of nights. He can soak in his accomplishment. Take some pictures, show his friends. I understand he takes his first communion tomorrow morning and will insist on wearing his jersey underneath his tie.

Then it goes to another house, where she and her sister will have to figure out whose bedroom it goes in.

Until the big party, where we all return, as a team, to get our participation medals, triumphant ... champions.

Yeah, there's a little bit of idol worship going on.

I told Asa that we couldn't keep the trophy, that it wasn't just ours. But I told him he should enjoy it, because he worked hard all year for it.

He told me, "The team worked hard."

I couldn't be prouder.

X

2009-02-02T12:22:00.003-05:00

At 8 years old, my son isn't sophisticated enough nor has he had the experience yet to use the Internet/text message shorthand.

However, his experience with simply Googling pictures of fake wrestlers and playing video games has developed in him a secondary language of sorts.

When we quit something or get rid of something, we "X-out of it."

I love it.

"Tyler just X-ed out of doing his homework."

Or something like that.

So I guess today our cat is at the vet having his balls "X-ed" out.

I feel bad for the little guy -- because he's actually pretty likeable as far as cats go -- but there's already one cat for every satellite dish in this neighborhood.

In fact, I almost X-ed one out with my truck on the way to work this morning.

It's The Season ('Tis Is So Two Weeks Ago)

2009-01-04T01:39:00.006-05:00

This is such an awkwardly funereal time, these few days -- not after Christmas -- but after it finally has to be over.

I drive to the dump and there's a mountain of Christmas trees, still green from the owners who teased them with water that they were actually going to live inside their living rooms.

There's no good way to get rid of a Christmas tree. No way that isn't unceremonious given everything that you had made them out to be. We can say we're "recycling" them. I choose to burn them, at night, almost in effigy as if they were personified.

We treasure these living things. We're willing to have them inside our homes in spite of the fact that they could help our homes burn down. We water them. String electric lights around them. Put stuff under them. Smell them. Write songs about them.

"Oh, Christmas tree ... Oh, Christmas tree ..."

They're dying from the moment we cut them from the ground, which happens to be the same moment we take notice of them.

Yeah, nobody wants to hear about Christmas. If you look at it in terms of the Earth revolving its way toward another winter solstice light festival, we're about as far away from Christmas as we can be.

We'd rather hear about Christmas in July than Christmas a week after we tear open presents to show how much Jesus loves us.

As I unwound my Christmas lights from the porch today, it struck me as interesting how we put an end to things.

It struck me as interesting that I might not know whether someone with their lights still strung is a lazy, low-class redneck or whether that person is theologically aware that the Christmas season, by strict definition, begins on Christmas and ends 12 days later.

(I guess that's all in the timing. You can't know for sure until summertime, "they" say).

It's something we all do together. And we disagree less with when we start it than when we end it.

I particularly enjoy the time after Christmas until New Year's when there's still snowflakes and college marching-band holiday music on Sportscenter. That has a little to do with being on vacation, but more to do with having an opportunity to enjoy what you couldn't enjoy because you were so ... anxious.

In any case, I suppose it has to end somehow.

And I think you know Christmas and everything that goes with it is over when there's only one carton of egg nog left in the grocery store and it expires on Monday.

It's The Leading Cause ...

2008-12-31T19:13:00.005-05:00

I'm going to start a new New Year's tradition.

It's called the "New Year's Admonition."

The first one comes courtesy of my all-time favorite piece of public-service literature, something I picked up ten years ago from the lobby of the administrative offices of good old Jasper County, S.C.:

Awesome.

I'm thinking I'm going to use my no-interest-finance card to bankroll an animated feature film starring Brrr-nard.

It would be wacky and fun.

Dear ...

2008-12-24T15:58:00.004-05:00

I'm going to call a temporary, Christmas cease fire with Santa Claus...

The war against Santa Claus has made progress.

My 5 year old writes letters to Christmas itself.

Unfortunately, it's hard to persuade Christmas on this one when you live in South Carolina.

Peace, y'all.

Suck It, Santa

2008-12-19T23:57:00.004-05:00

You want to know why Santa Claus can suck it?

Other than because he's a gluttonous, sanctimonious, judgmental, materialistic slave driver who gives more to rich kids than poor kids even though he's supposed to give kids stuff because they're good?

Other than the fact that he's our children's first -- and fraudulent and shallow and unreliable -- introduction to faith in a higher power, during a time when parents are trying to teach children the spiritual nature of things only for them to find out it was all a big trick to satisfy their parents' desire to provide for their children as they'd like a higher power to?

Other than another million reasons why?

Here's reason 2008:

"Daddy, can I have a Hannah Montana bicycle for Christmas?"

"Well, sweetie, I lost my job last month and we just can't afford one right now, but I'm going to get you a little something to have under the tree."

"Thanks, Daddy ... but you don't have to worry ... I'll just ask Santa Claus for one."

Anyone who wants to dine on Santa Claus' freshly strewn entrails with me as his fat ass is stuck in the chimney, bring a pair of pliers and a blow torch.

Beer and Lattes, or, "You Think You Know Me ..."

2008-12-07T23:41:00.006-05:00

The nights would seem like snow on a hot summer's day -- except for the fact that they weren't entirely that foreign to one another.

On Friday, I took my older son to WWE "Smackdown!" at the arena. The evening started with basketball practice, then eating at a taproom.

The following night, my youngest boy and I dressed up and went downtown to the concert hall to see "The Nutcracker." The evening started at a coffee shop, sharing an apple muffin and sipping hot chocolate and a latte.

The choice of entertainment is emblematic of their personalities.

My third-grader is a sports disciple, whether he's playing it or watching it or reading about it or dreaming about it. Balls were his teddy bears. He's uncomfortable with girls. Fiction frustrates him. And he told me flat out today that he doesn't listen to music for the lyrics.

My kindergartner is an actor. An ebullient type who will entertain anyone who will pay attention. He doesn't play t-ball, he acts like a player playing tee ball. He couldn't catch a cold if you threw it to him. He'd rather live in a world of his own making -- or of someone else's making as long as it's interesting.

My oldest wears faded sports jerseys on his nights out; my youngest wears knitted sweaters.

I can genuinely identify with both my children's interests. It's not in me to be interested in one in spite of the other.

If I had to choose one, I might say I would have chosen the pro wrestling -- but only because I'd seen "The Nutcracker" before.

Yet, while I identify with both, I don't feel completely in place with either.

I find myself deconstructing the scene -- the theater of it, the scripted acrobatics, the choreographed attempts to evoke emotion.

Which one of them? Both.

I cheer the bad guys in wrestling because I enjoy the sardonic wit of what they do. Staring down children as they walk to the ring. Running from the good guys, then kicking them in the balls when they're not looking. I like that they say they hate your town.

In theater, I'm envious of those who can enter a state of consciousness combined with an empathy to share what's inside toto inspire others to feel a sense of magic. It's the kind of thing we bother living for.

Yet, in both, I feel a little detached.

Is there something strange in wishing that you could see Triple H smash a trash can over the Russian's head ... but watch it from a luxury box so that you don't have to suffer the masses who obviously think it's realer than it is?

Is it odd for me to admire the elegant flourish of a ballet dancer ... but amuse myself, at least quietly, that dancers and wrestlers aren't so different when they both wear tights that accentuate their penises?

It's not so a strange, I guess.

I can see my sons growing up and understanding one another's interests and appreciating both the synergy and the dissonance between things.

And if not ... well, is obsessive meta-cognition the worst thing you could avoid?

De- ...

2008-11-28T00:29:00.006-05:00

I close my eyes and I see a thousand bats flying in my head.

Swirling around furiously in the dark, with no purpose other than a blind, impulsive fear.

Every attempt to plead for an escape richocheting violently around.

With no way out.

The embrace of tiny arms feels like nothing more than the faint and distant vibration of someone trying to save you.

This is what happens when your body no longer belongs to you ... but you're still inside.

'Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, I'm Hungry. I've Got This Sweet Tooth'

2008-11-18T00:45:00.005-05:00

I'm not a Raiders fan, but I am a newfound fan of Johnnie Lee Higgins.

I can't remember a more visceral, detailed, complex mixed metaphor to describe that tragic marriage of personal success balanced against team failure.

Here's what happened:

With little faith in the Oakland Raiders' offense to score a touchdown late in the game, Johnnie Lee Higgins took the punt from the 7 yard line and ran it back for a touchdown -- a back-breaker putting the Raiders up 15-14 with little time left.

It looked like the play would seal the Dolphins' fate -- and make a hero of Higgins -- but moments later he watched helplessly as the Dolphins moved the ball in the closing seconds and kicked one through for the 17-15 win keeping them unbelievably in the wildcard chase.

Here's how he described the feeling:

It's like you're a little kid, you're at a candy store ... and you can eat all the candy you want, all the muffins and cupcakes you want. But at the end of the day, your stomach is going to be hurting, and that's exactly what it feels like.

I did something great, I'm eating all this candy. Mmm, mmm, mmm, I'm hungry. I've got this sweet tooth. Later on that night, you're going to be crying for Mama. ... And that's exactly how I feel.

We all feel that way sometimes ... I think.

Man Struggles With Columbus Day Tradition

2008-10-13T22:22:00.003-04:00

By Hugh Munn
STAFF WRITER
The Georgetown (S.C.) Tattler

SCUFFLETOWN, S.C. -- An area man said today that he's having trouble using the internet to find a Columbus Day present for his racist second cousin.

"I know I wanna to git 'em one of them screw-the-immigrants bumper stickers," Bill Boothauser said as he leaned over a desk trolling websites on a library computer. "He hates them Mexicans jumpin' over the fence and breathin' all the white man's air. But the Google ain't workin', and I ain't callin' up one of them Injuns overseas."

The recognition of Columbus Day in the Boothauser family is a tradition that stretches back generations.

Past presents have included a Toby Keith CD, several shotguns and a Native American dreamcatcher from "the Cherokee store."

"Me and cuz celebrate Columbus Day because that man was a great American," Boothauser said. "If he hadn't landed on Plymouth Rock, wouldn't nobody be here."

Earlier in the day, Boothauser said, he went to the Havana Leaves tobacco store to buy his cousin -- a self-proclaimed "citizen border agent on patrol" -- "some kind of 'cee-gar' they say's real fancy."

However, Boothauser said he left when the store attendant "smirked real suspicious-like" and asked him a strange question after he told the attendant the occasion.

"He asked me if I knew what a 'ironee' was," Boothauser said. "I told him I thought that was one them women what slid a iron over the clothes every mornin'. I figured he musta been a homo or somethin'."

There was no word late Monday on what Boothauser settled on.

Sleep Over

2008-10-11T21:44:00.002-04:00

So my son has his friend over to spend the night, and it was a lot of work to get the deal sealed.

A lot of negotiating back and forth which house they'd stay at. The friend says his mom is making him some cake and he wants to be able to eat that, so it should be his house.

My son says he wants sleep in his own bed, but his friend says he wants the cake.

My son says he can bring the cake with him, but his friend says he's afraid of the dark and can't bring the cake.

And that he never has anybody sleep at his house.

Eventually, they end up here.

It was a lot of work. Particularly after a long day of playing "Guitar Hero."

Anyway ... they're back there playing around, two elementary school kids trading football cards and generally exploring the evening, and I open the door and tell them, "There's only one rule: You can't play the Playstation."

The looks on their faces were priceless.

What a great sense of humor I have.

Wherever

2008-09-30T22:44:00.004-04:00

It feels empowering to be in a town an hour-and-a-half away, arriving at close to 10 p.m., after working for most of the day, knowing you'll be there until after midnight, then back home and going back to work early the next morning.

Like you are somehow a master of more than one world, allowing to live in both.

Like you don't actually have to pay for it.

I got to see, listen and talk with Mason Jennings last night/this morning, but going to sleep at 4 a.m. and being up in time to sit in a courtroom over the course of nearly the entire day has been a painful experience.

The experience has been like living in a parallel universe, where your life is what it is ... but different.

So this morning I awoke to find my son's bicycle laying unceremoniously at the edge of the front yard, dripping with morning mist, the kickstand unused.

He ditched it there, when it came time to do the homework and take a shower and go to bed ... blah, blah, blah ... everything that sucks when you're a kid.

There it was, like a remnant of a state of mind under suspension.

I realized looking at it that I've always liked to see children's bicycles just ditched ... wherever. And even moreso watching them practically fall off their bikes to ditch them when they've gotten where they need to be.

Kickstands ignored. Twisted however it lands.

There's too little time to waste on formalities when it comes to consuming all life has to offer after you've gotten wherever it was you were headed to.

(It's probably, somehow, why I like long, winding gravel driveways with a pair of wheel-worn tracks split by undisturbed grass. Just however).

It makes me want to figure out if I can remove the kickstands from the devices in my life.

... and this is us with Mason Jennings.

The Old Truck

2008-09-23T00:50:00.004-04:00

I enjoyed driving around in my father-in-law's little, beat-up pickup truck today as I waited for the brakes to be fixed on my newer, bigger, higher-rising, more-adorned Tacoma.

That little truck was my first vehicle out of college in 1997 and carried me to work at my first "real" job at a newspaper along the South Carolina coast.

It was an "old" 1993 Toyota pickup with a stick-shift and a cassette player.

I remember driving that truck that first day at work -- when I first realized that when I went home, I didn't then have to do any homework.

I remember being on the cusp of being married and being a renter and being excited about the place we could get with a joint income.

I carried a few drunk folks around in the back of it, and I managed to carry in my truck bed a bucket full of crabs from the marshes that somehow managed to stumble into being caught.

I drove it back in a haze to Columbia when I found out my uncle had died under a bridge. The seat didn't lean back. When my herniated disk flared up, it meant I couldn't turn to see the traffic when I changed lanes.

Four years went by, we moved to the Upstate, and along came my first son.

For the first year of his life, my wife drove the truck to work so that I could take the little baby in a car with a back seat.

As bad of a driver as she seems to (unsubstantially) think I am, she managed to dent the crap out of the rear side and all but crush the bumper. That warms my heart.

Then, we made the decision to take on some debt and buy a truck with some seats behind.

For the baby.

And for me. I always wanted a big truck. And with a CD player.

My father-in-law -- smart and successful and business savvy -- bought that thing off me and drives it regularly still. He managed to paint it himself, with a healthy dose of yoeman experimentation that adds to its charm.

I drove it around town today.

I could feel the gears moving in my hand. I had to make sure I didn't pop it into 1st when I meant for it to be in 3rd down a hill. I balanced downshifting with using the brakes in neutral -- (save brake pads or save gas?). I hated the guy who pulled so close behind me on a hill.

My back sat upright. It took me a while to realize that it wouldn't fall apart going 75 mph on the interstate.

No cassettes ... but no need ... because the radio doesn't work anymore.

As I approached a traffic light today, I thought,"This is cool. This was me when I was 23 -- simple, unencumbered, unassuming."

Driving the old truck was nice.

By the end of the day, I decided to take it to my son's soccer practice before picking up my truck. We would ride together. I could tell him a few stories.

He enjoyed hearing them.

But as I continued en route to pick up my truck -- the one I love in its own way -- I found myself ready to return to it.

As simple and unencumbered as everything was -- without the responsibilities that I now realize have come to define me in ways that I would have never known -- I missed my life as I know it now.

Would I want to go back?

Yes. To the freedom. And to the young legs.

But not.

Not to the loneliness and lack of purpose. Not to asking the questions that didn't matter.

It's nice to know:

I could go back to driving my old truck, and I would be happy.

I could go back to being 23, and I would be happy (and better looking).

Or I can be where I am now -- driving around with a nostalgic look less steeped in history. To the empty backseat where both of my boys have spoken and done things that will be enshrined forever in my heart.

I realize I like it where I am, too.

And I like enjoying automatic shift.

Especially now that they have cell phones.

"... That Means It Ain't Stepped On, Dig Me?"

2008-09-03T00:17:00.006-04:00

"Oops, I did it again..."

I mean, right?

Doesn't Sarah Palin in her '80s college days -- wearing a shirt that reads, "I may be broke but I'm not flat busted" -- look like a brunette, pre-psycho Britney?

I know it's offensive to objectify a former Alaskan beauty pageant queen wearing a t-shirt extolling the virtues of having large breasts in favor of a less-desirable state of personal economics ...

... especially when she's the Republican running for vice president ...

But, oops, it is what it is.

London's Going To Be Cool -- Like, Really, Is It Going To Be Hot There?

2008-08-25T00:31:00.006-04:00

"Go home. Your dad wouldn't even break my skateboard for me."

How often do you hear a kid in the neighborhood tell that to your kid?

Well, it happened this week. Seriously.

Anyway ...

* I know the Olympics are done, and they did whatever overblown ceremony to signal it, but I can't help but go out again on the porch and watch the men's volleyball team (the last event) win gold on the primetime replay.

* It's depressing. They just flash backed to the Jason Lezak relay split.

* I guess China wins because we heard the Chinese national anthem more than ours. We had more Americans on the medal stand, though. Not bad considering they've got about 500 gazillion more people and teach their children how to flip on a balance beam at age 3.

* How is it that John Williams composes every bad-ass song for every bad-ass visual spectacle?

* The basketball team won gold against Spain, thank goodness. They did it right -- and with as much humility as you can expect from guys who can do what they do. And Kobe has finally turned the corner in the hearts and minds of old, crotchety white guys who think all NBA players are criminals.

* I heard the gold medal game was one of the best international basketball games ever. I wouldn't know, because it started at 2:30 a.m. over here and I could only last the first half.

* Jeremy Wariner got a gold medal. But he couldn't do it without his archrival who beat him individually. It's interesting to watch individuals in such an individualistic, egocentric sport work together as a team. Watching the 400m relay is kind of awkward while at the same time compelling.

* Remember when we were so scared of the Russians, at least those of us who were born before the internet? Whatever happened to those guys?

* Oh, that's right. Sonya Richards chased down the Russian in the last leg of the 400m relay. There's nothing like watching an American haul ass past a former superpower.

* The table tennis guys are sweating. And using the paddles as fans. Who knew?

* I got to see a pole-vaulter for about a minute. And a high-jumper for about two minutes. Somehow I managed to miss every second of the long jump. When I was 10, how was it that I saw Carl Lewis and every single spec of dust? Maybe because it was in Los Angeles.

* When I watch diving, all I can really judge is whether there was a little splash or a big splash. Greg Louganis kind of hooked me 20 years ago when he cracked his head open on one of the diving platforms in Seoul. I'm not rooting for it to happen, but I keep wondering if it will.

* Bob Costas did a great job, no matter how goofy he might seem to be. And I enjoyed the sardonic moments, with the subversive double entendre -- like when he had to segue from a featurette on China's "Temple of Heaven."

"They say no nail was used to build the temple ... and I'm in no place to argue with them."

* The Chinese had a real '70s kind of color and design thing going on in every venue. I'm sure it was supposed to symbolize something, but I kept having flashbacks to the old Houston Astros jerseys.

* It's been real, China. Hope you get your shit together.

I Still Haven't Seen A Pole Vaulter ...

2008-08-21T23:06:00.000-04:00

The Olympics are nearing an end. Sad but true.

But they're not over yet:

* It looks like Michael Phelps winning that eighth gold medal to close the swimming competitions was like a summer solstice with the gradual decline that follows. It seems like just three days ago the kids were on summer vacation. That's because it was three days ago.

* The track and field competitions going on throughout the American daytime is screwing up the excitement live action like the swimming races. You can't escape the spoilers, but I don't get faulting NBC for airing it taped. What else are they supposed to do?

* Volleyball is live late at night. Two gold medals. Seeing it live really does make a difference. It's not like knowing already that the Americans dropped the baton in the relay. Or that Jeremy Wariner came in second in 400 meters.

* Bob Costas after both the men and the women dropped the baton in their relay events: "... And the Americans have laid a big egg in the Bird's Nest." Ouch.

* I love the woman (Mechelle Harris) who picked up the baton and refused not to finish the race -- like she did back in '04 when the same thing happened.

* The best part of the men's 400 meters -- or sprinting overall, for that matter -- was the American tonight who literally laid his body horizontal for the bronze (David Neville). He said, "Sometimes we have to sacrifice our body and mind and spirit for what we really want. In a split-second, I said 'I have to dive in order to get a medal.'''

* What are they chasing the Jamaicans with back in the Carribbean? Those folks look like they're running from something.

* They're saying some of the Chinese gymnasts might lose their gold medals because their ages were falsified by the government. Apparently you have to be 16. That means more hardware for us, but I have to say ... no matter how young those girls are, they were better.

* "Shawn Johnson" sounds a lot more Mary Lou Retton than "Nastia Liuken." But know this: You don't see Americans jumping over to the Russian or Chinese side to represent a country like the people who proudly adopt America as their new home.

* What's up with the Chinese divers? It's like they've got some superpower to keep water from splashing. Or that they only weigh 50 pounds.

* Watching BMX racing with guys and girls furiously pedaling kids bicycles -- as entertaining as it might be -- makes me laugh.

* That commericial with Marvin Gay singing the national anthem at a Laker's game decades ago played in concert with modern images of our basketball players practicing for gold was well done.

* I think I understand why you can't have coaches help you during the game in beach volleyball. Would it really be in the spirit of the sport to have a fat, bald guy with a whistle yelling at you as you enjoyed your day at the beach?

* Misty May and Keri Walsh must be the last two people on Earth who support President Bush. They took the time after winning the gold medal to thank the president "for all that you do" and "for your inspiration." Haven't heard that associated with the guy in a while.

* The men won, too ... but "Dalhausser?" Everytime they said "Dalhausser," I felt like I needed to perform the Heinlich on somebody. How about "Rogers and ... Smith?" Or "Jones?" Or "Davis?" That would have helped me ... for reasons I can't quite explanin.

* Do those two really need their names on the back of their jerseys? There's only two of them. I like how the Brazilian guys had "BRA" on their chests and backs of their jerseys. And apparently one of them has a life-sized poster of Karch Kiraly and asked the volleyball legend, "How do you win the Olympics?"

* Overall, the Olympics in Beijing have been a breeze. At least Wikipedia (which I consulted to see exactly what sports remain through Sunday) thinks so:

A variety of concerns over the games have been expressed by various entities; including allegations that China violated its pledge to allow open media access,^[96] various alleged human rights violations,^[97]^[98]^[99] air pollution in both the city of Beijing and in neighbouring areas,^[100]^[101] proposed boycotts,^[102]^[103] warnings of the possibility that the Beijing Olympics could be targeted by terrorist groups,^[104] foiled sabotage attempt, potentially violent disruption from pro-Tibetan protesters,^[105] religious persecutions,^[106] the banning of ethnic Tibetans from working in Beijing for the duration of the games,^[107] criticisms of policies mandating the electronic surveillance of internationally owned hotels,^[108]^[109]^[110] displacement of residents,^[111] ticket adversities,^[112] manhandling of foreign journalists,^[113]^[114] dubious protest zones,^[115] as well as alleged harassment, house arrests, forced disappearances, imprisonment, and torture of dissidents and protest applicants.^[116]^[117]^[118]^[119]^[120]^[121]^[122]

You Feed Them, And They Grow

2008-08-19T23:04:00.001-04:00

For the first time in my life since I was a 26-year-old, scared shitless father-to-be, I won't wake up and have at least one of my little boys with me in the morning.

I lost the first one three years ago when he went "on the grid" into kindergarten.

But, there was always the knowing that I still had my little guy, there to revel in sleeping in with me and making a fashionably late appearance to pre-school.

(The way it works is my boys go early with their mother to school, where she's employed as an assistant Minister of Truth).

I've been struggling to feel much of anything real lately. Who knows why that happens? No matter. It does. So be it.

But this morning, after I left my youngest son in the same kindergarten class his brother first entered three years ago, tears filled my eyes.

And they continued to well as I turned out of the school parking lot and merged into interstate traffic and prepared to struggle to find some justification for wearing a tie that feels right.

Real tears. Genuine tears. And, best of all, unexpected.

Each drop blended with a mix of melancholy and pride(the good kind).

There's sadness that they're both moving on -- one to K-5, the other to 3rd grade(where it's a stretch for me to take a walk by his class and offer a thumbs up in support).

There's the questioning whether you made the most of a time that will never exist again, but fulfilled because you know they're at least headed in the right direction and maybe, if you allow yourself, you'll begin to learn new things with them.

And you know something that helps me?

Something besides his big brother being there?

The little guy's a nerd. About the whole school thing. About everything.

A true believer in whatever he's into. No fear. No regrets. Owning the moment that presents itself.

We don't know where it comes from. Not from his mother or father or anybody else we know.

We didn't create it. It's from somewhere divine, unique to him.

And knowing he's bringing that to the world on the grid ...

It's good like the taste of salt on these world-weary cheeks.

Did The Athenians Have Streaming Video?

2008-08-16T23:57:00.001-04:00

I pretty much don't know of anything else that exists on television at the moment, and I've spent more time in front of a television than I have in years.

So, here's some thoughts a week into the Summer Olympics:

* Women's ping pong looks quite surreal at 3 a.m. on CNBC.

* I find myself uncharacteristically consumed with nationalism. I want American domination, no matter how compelling the story is for an athlete of another country. I feel like a cliche, and I often root for underdogs, but America's been a bit down on its luck lately, and I love what this country is meant to represent.

* I just can't get over how people wait four years for one moment. If an athlete fails, he's going to be four years older when tries to do it again.

* I don't prefer sports that rest on the whims of judges.

* I never knew how compelling swimming medley relays can be. Four guys each do a different stroke, which is a true testament to art in athletics. It's almost like a classic anthem rock group shredding guitar, bass and drum solos.

* The hero of this summer's Olympics is Jason Lezak. He sprinted faster than anyone in history to overcome a deficit over the last few seconds to beat that French guy in the first relay who was talking all that shit about "smashing the Americans." And tonight he held off the Australians to give Michael Phelps that last gold. He's the ultimate wingman.

* Gymnastics is all about waiting for somebody to screw up.

* Running is so iconic. No other Olympic sport evokes such epic historical moments (Jesse Owens in Berlin; Black Power in Mexico, Carl Lewis everywhere, etc.).

* The Romanian who won the "women's jogging" competition (as my son likes to call the marathon) must have felt like she conquered the world when she entered the stadium.

* I want the basketball team to embarrass anyone who dares stand in their way, unlike 2004 when I suffered from a contrarian satisfaction that we had to settle for the bronze.

* It's pretty easy to remember that everything is exactly 12 hours ahead -- at least on the East Coast.

* So it's kind of emblematic of the repeated misjudgments of the McCain campaign when it ran a negative political ad immediately after that inspiring Lezak comeback.

* And I don't understand making a negative ad that shows a picture of Obama looking especially positive and youthful instead of an embarrasing, scowling, mouth-wide-open video still.

* I don't quite understand "connection points" and "start values" ... and I question a sport in which a camera pans into a computer screen for drama ... but if we've got a dog in the gymnastics fight, I'm with it.

* Rowing ... I just can't stick with it.

* This thing about the Olympics being in China is a monument to dysfunction. Polluted air and 8-year-old gymnasts who look petrified and Tiannamen Square and a gluttonous opening ceremony that typifies an oppresive narcissism ...

* ... and I'm not buying the creepy "bird's nest"stadium architecture as a representation of organic Chinese culture.

* I thought it was cool when one of our gymnasts looked into the camera and said, "What's up, America?" as he sat down after spinning on a bar with one hand.

* The American girl gymnasts played it a lot smoother and looked a lot tougher than the guys.

* Americans generally look happy.

* I like that our volleyball players don't bitch at their teammates at every mistake like those Europeans.

* The president was right to attend the games.

* I didn't realize that Michael Phelps was double-jointed in his knees and ankles and has 14-sized flippers for feet and has a long torso with short legs and a massive wingspan that makes his body a prototype for swimming.

* It makes me wonder how many other people are built like that and don't realize they could be good swimmers.

* If I were a woman, would I think Michael Phelps is hot?

* That Jamaican runner shouldn't have slowed down.

* Sunglasses at night are cool in sprinting.

* The Olympics are a refreshing respite from professional sports. The pros aren't nearly as compelling to me in light of the Olympics and the lower-profile athletes who have one chance to make an indelible mark on American history.

* Good to see Kobe say that being proud to win for your country isn't an outdated notion. And I like how LeBron recognizes the Olympics as the "biggest stage of my life."

* Dara Torres earning the title of the world's second-fastest swimmer at the age of 41 after five Olympics (and two that she sat out in between) is reassuring.

* When does Jeremy Wariner run?

'Yes, We Shall'

2008-08-08T08:06:00.003-04:00

By Hugh Munn
The Georgetown (S.C.) Tattler
Capital Bureau

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Sen. Barack Obama on Friday launched a surprising new round of political ads designed to present the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee as the actual coming of the Antichrist -- a push that campaign advisers say could cultivate a new "apocalyptic voting bloc."

"There is a new hope for America, for the world, and I am He," Obama says in an ad showing him speaking before a hungry mass 150,000-strong gathered along the shores of the Gulf Coast in Corpus Christi, Texas. "Verily I tell ye: 'Yes, we shall.'"

The ads, airing in several states in the Southeast and Midwest, superimpose Obama's likeness in holy locales such as Mt. Sinai, Egypt, along with messianic-themed soundbites meant to impart the impression of pseudo-divinity.

The new angle, campaign insiders say, seeks to win over so-called evangelical Christians -- particularly those labeled as habitual email forwarders -- who have felt alienated by a Republican nominee who doesn't represent their values on pressing issues like gay marriage and the salacious content of reality television programming.

The ads each aim to raise a central question: Why would those who relish the idea of an imminent rapture try to thwart the election of a figure they believe will signal the coming of the return of Christ -- an event they have so long awaited?

Since Obama vanquished Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries, a loosely organized but prevalent contingent of conservative opponents have used the internet to undermine the Illinois senator.

The group has employed the use of forwarded emails and obscure, hastily created blogs to offer the theory of Obama as the coming of a messianic figure who will lure the masses into false idolatry and signal the coming of the Apocalypse.

Popular derivations of the apocalyptic theory presuppose that the Antichrist will be "a persuasive man in his 40s, of Muslim descent, who will deceive nations with a Christ-like appeal" -- a view disputed by a substantial sum of theological scholars.

While the proposed "apocalyptic voting bloc" as the Obama envisions it has yet to be created and cultivated, Obama advisors say the candidate has an opportunity to peel off a piece of the traditional Republican base.

"It's no secret that John McCain's standing among the 'evangelical base' is, shall we say, like the seed that was sown in rocky soil," senior Obama campaign advisor James Robertson said. "We believe we can appeal to the notion of 'change you'd be a hypocrite not to believe in.'"

The McCain campaign offered a swift response on Friday.

"We believe that people of faith believe in us, and we believe that belief is a cornerstone of the American dream," McCain campaign strategist Harvey Monde said. "And we believe that believers will reject the cynical notion that they aren't willing to cast off this mortal coil as their faith calls for them to believe in."

The ad campaign has drawn skepticism from political analysts who say the Obama camp has overestimated its powers of persuasion.

"This is the biggest gaffe of Obama's march to the White House since he refused to wear a flag lapel pin," says Muhman Abid, department chair of political studies at Tulane University. "Who's to say that this supposed voting bloc actually wants the world to end like they say they do?"

Still, one political expert says that given McCain's lackluster campaign strategy thus far, Obama has plenty of leeway "to throw some stuff up and see what sticks."

"Why not?" says Bill Spanasian, a lobbyist for the political action group Cynics For A Cynical Tomorrow. "You know, change we all can be duped to believe in that will mean the end of the world. Awesome."

Remnants

2008-07-27T23:34:00.001-04:00

It starts with an anxious scurry of doing.

Front flips marking the first plunge of the summer into a night-lit pool.

Then, days pass ...

Heavy legs and a subdued, fulfilling melancholy.

An inevitable sense of loss .

Strangers are friends.

Remembered, years later, for the part they played in a finite suspension of all that's wrong with life.

It's better that you never asked their name.

Demotivational Speakers On The Rise Nationwide

2008-07-18T00:15:00.001-04:00

'Accelerated voluntary attrition' the best way to make the most of companies' hiring freezes, analysts say

By B.L. O'Harde
Democratic American Motivator Magazine

They can only admit it privately behind closed doors, but the message is clear: Corporate executives across the land would rather their employees just quit.

The economy is spiraling. Shareholders are angry. Horseshoe-haired heads are on the chopping block.

Enter: the demotivational speaker.

With hiring freezes reaching sub-zero temperatures, companies are learning that crushing, corporate-wide employee cynicism is a weapon to be wielded, not a phenomenon to be feared, says Dr. Dan Douner, head of the National Demotivational Alliance, a consulting firm that is considered a pioneer in the field of demotivational speaking.

Key to the alliance's strategy is an initiative known behind closed doors as "AVC."

"We're incredibly honored to help companies downsize through what we call Accelerated Voluntary Attrition," Douner said. "Most executives these days are Baby Boomers who see outright firing or laying off employees as hypocritical to the worldview they held 30 years ago."

The program rests on the notion that employees effectively stripped of motivation will be encouraged to surrender their jobs, allowing salaries to be absorbed, Douner explains.

The process, however, requires a deliberate, concerted effort to target the most-appropriate employees to encourage to quit, he says.

The core of the program rests on training seminars designed to identify those best to keep and those who "would be best served to realize that we appreciate their past service but that we no longer have a place for their favorable performance and, more importantly, their competitive salaries," Douner says.

Among the seminars:

-- "Ask not what you can do for your company. Ask what the company likely believes you should avoid doing."

-- "The change will be painful, but we'll succeed as a team -- even if we fail."

-- "How not to blame the person who screwed it all up and still come out on top."

The cumulative effect of the seminars -- designed with intense sessions constructed to push the normal psyche into a state of survival mode -- provides insight necessary to identifying and classifying current employees, said Fuller Bolschitt, a leading demotivational trainer.

On one hand, Bolschitt said, a number of employees quit because they see the training seminars as metaphors for how the workplace has become a toxic environment.

These people -- labeled "unfortunate relics of constructive institutional insubordination"-- are immediately targeted as the main focus of the demotivational purging effort.

Meanwhile, the training helps retain those employees who have been identified as having superior passive-aggressive skills -- skills that will serve to further foment resentment in the workplace and alleviate pressure on actual decision-makers, Bolschitt says.

"Those employees are the lynch pin of an organization," he says. "Corporations keep them demotivated on the promise that their skills will lead them to the ranks of middle management, where petty power struggles will invariably force more people to quit and reverse-motivate themselves to protect their jobs."

And along the way, Bolschitt said, they will periodically force one another to quit, leaving vacant a frozen middle management position in addition to the lower-level job they had vacated that also is now frozen.

"In the short term, we have to increase management positions, which helps us give the impression that the tenets of our demotivational campaign are virtue" he said. "After a while, however, they end up hating one another and not the company and fail to notice the subsequent cuts in their management field."

That, he said, helps the company maintain the image that only the most-talented are allowed to continue working, giving them the foundation to rationalize carrying more workload and in turn keeping the company's most-basic functions operating.

"In all of this," Douner says, "we have to remember that everybody wins -- except those who lose."

To schedule a seminar, Douner suggests visiting the alliance's website or calling 1-800-INVECT.

I Really Need To Unplug That TV Outside

2008-07-10T22:57:00.009-04:00

Shouldn't the show's title be ... "Are You At Least As Smart As A 5th Grader?"

Because nobody's won the million yet, and even if they had, who's to say the kids couldn't answer questions above their grade level?

Or maybe we can only know if a contestant is smarter than a 5th grader if one or more of the 5th graders fails to answer the right question.

And how many questions would the kids have to get wrong -- and how many would have to get the questions wrong -- for the contestant to quantifiably be smarter than a 5th grader?

It seems like the show's rigged so that the kids' feelings never get hurt.

Even if they get it wrong, they can take solace that you wouldn't do any better. And they wouldn't recognize otherwise if you were.

Unless you win the million.

Let's see how a "Jeopardy" champ would do.

Or maybe the champ would freeze given the chance to lose more than $100,000 if he's wrong about whether the sun is 10,000 or 1 million degrees.

Which I was.

They Call It Feeling Brown

2008-07-06T13:26:00.008-04:00

The summer sunsets are descending in a cloudless haze.

Barely clothed like the dry, barren hills they slip behind, a disparate aura surrounds them.

A brown glow of desolation obscures the lines that draw where each little thing is supposed to end and begin.

It radiates a something that almost feels like a nothing.

Almost.

It would set the world on fire.

If only it could.

Until something lasting comes to wash it all clean ...

How Digital Foiled The Finals

2008-06-17T15:03:00.000-04:00

I guess I want the Lakers to win tonight, even though I want the Celtics to win it all.

Why? Because it's another night I can sit on my porch with my pre-historic television struggling to pick up the ABC airwave signal all the way from across from the Carolina state line and the Blue Ridge mountains.

Ever so slightly, with most minimal shifts in the wind, the stark contrast of the green shamrock against the flamboyant Laker yellow and purple will shift to black and white.

That makes watching television a true interactive experience.

This year, like other early Junes before them, since NBC handed over the torch to ABC (and with its broadcast rights, a far weaker signal), the use of tin foil has been vital to the tradition.

For without the tin foil scrunched onto the anntena rabbit ears, it wouldn't look as good as it does nor feel as industrious an endeavor.

It feels like you're tapping into something natural (though it's not) and yet at the same time have created your own technology with each sheet of foil you tear and crumple.

But ... they're going digital in 2009.

Who could forget with all the reminders to the (old) folks who use this as their primary source of having the bejesus scared out of them by the 11 o'clock news.

And it's OK, kind of. The government is going to help the people who like how it's done now to buy the digital converters to keep their crappy televisions functioning.

But for me, I'm losing something, even if I were to upgrade my TV.

Gone will be the satisfaction of twisting some tin foil on the edge of a prehistoric anntena and feeling like I personally am responsible for bringing to the porch enclave the Celtics 24-point comeback in Game 4 or the Lakers stumbling there way from elimination in Game 5.

I could convert the TV, but the point isn't pick up a digital signal.

The point is to manipulate are far simpler code with the use of a simple household item.

I don't really like the Lakers, but I want at least another night of grilling some food, drinking some beer and sitting with my son as we scrunch the tin foil ever-tighter and ever-pointier.

A view that we earned, not bought.

It's almost like sneaking into a live game.

If it goes to a Game 7, maybe I'll celebrate and buy another box of tin foil.

'I Love You Jesus 'Cause You Understand, How Hard It Is To Be A Man'

2008-06-05T00:22:00.004-04:00

That's what we all are.

Fingers and arms exploring what we can build or destroy, legs moving us around to do what it seems like we should do in the only we know how to get it done.

Breathing in and out some invisible gas that keeps this awkward, temporal collection of action together.

People.

Humans.

Always being cool.

Sounds like a religion.

It's Alliteration, So It Must Be Good

2008-05-26T21:01:00.001-04:00

"And, Bob, if you take a live look now at the line at the local gas station here this Memorial Day weekend you'll see the cost of a gallon of gas nearing $4 and causing some serious pain at the pump ..."

I swear, if I hear that phrase one more time ...

BOOM!

I'm sorry, did I break your concentration? You were saying something about ... "pain at the pump?"

Oh, you were finished. Well allow me to retort ...

... say "pain at the pump" again!

SAY "PAIN AT THE PUMP" AGAIN!

I dare you!

I DOUBLE dare you, MOTHERFUCKA!

SAY "PAIN AT THE PUMP" ONE MORE GODDAMN TIME!

Nameless

2008-05-16T23:56:00.008-04:00

This is a new world we're heading into.

We don't know what this is, let alone what's it's going to be.

But I'm here with him, no matter what happens.

He's handed a #14 jersey with athletic tape over the name on the back, over the name of a kid who's out for the season after his dad accidentally hit him with a softball and sent him to the hospital with a fractured head.

I forgot the copy of my son's birth certificate. He can't play without it. I left it on my desk at work, 15-20 minutes away. I race to work and back.

He sits in the dugout -- the new kid who knows no one, playing in an elite USSSA league for 9 year olds, the youngest on the team, just turning 8 years old on April Fool's Day -- watching the opposing pitcher throwing flames into the catcher's mitt.

Just the day before, he learned he'd have the opportunity to face this daunting challenge -- thanks to a neighbor who believes in him enough to vouch for him and, unfortunately, thanks to a softball to the face.

Up until now, he's played coaches pitch. If it weren't for the fact that this team was a private squad in a league featuring a parade of 9-year-old all-stars from the rec leagues, he wouldn't be allowed to face a pitcher, because he's not old enough.

"Do you want to do this? Do you realize you might get hit by a pitch? It's a lot faster. There's going to be things you don't know how to do. You're not going to know any of the kids. I can't promise you that you won't make mistakes. But it'll all be OK."

"I want to do it, Daddy."

Up to bat: the Southern Spinners (a tip of the cap to the old, early 1900s textile league semi-pros of Upstate South Carolina; where Shoeless Joe cut his teeth).

Strike out. Strike out. Hit. Strike out.

He sits on the bench, the only kid in the dugout, as the rest of the team takes the field.

After giving up a couple of runs, the Spinners are back up to bat.

I barely am prepared for when he steps into the on-deck circle.

He fires off a few authoratative practice swings, acting more than being the part of a player who is about to face a live pitch for the first time in his life.

I put my head between my legs for a moment; not worried, so much, just doing something with my body to express the visceral nature of the moment.

He steps into the batter's box, the strip of athletic tape leaving him to be labeled "unknown."

"What's his name?" a parent in the stands asks me.

"Asa," I tell her. "A-S-A."

"OK, come on Asa!" she yells.

The kids yell out for him.

"Come on, Asan. You can do it, Asan."

He takes the first pitch.

"Strike!" the umpire exclaims.

He swings at the second pitch. A good cut. "Strike!"

The third comes, above his chin, and he swings.

"Strike three!"

He runs back to the dugout.

"That's all right," the parents yell. "That's all right, Asa."

The coaches tell him not to swing at anything above his hands.

The kids take the field. Again he sits on the bench, alone.

Another inning goes by. And again the kids take the field as he sits alone in the dugout.

I walk over to him, differently than usual. Not in the way I usually do, not when I coached him in basketball, with a steady dose of "Yeah, you think you're awesome, but ..."

Not tonight.

I walk over to the back of the dugout.

"Asa, I want you to know something. It doesn't matter if you hit the ball. Just look for a good pitch to hit. Just do what you do. I don't care if you hit the ball. Just know that I'm over here, and I'm here with you. I'm with you."

He nods his head.

Back into the on-deck circle. And back into the batter's box, nameless, to face what turns out to be one of the best pitchers the team has faced halfway through the season.

He swings at the first pitch. "Strike!"

He swings at the second. "Strike!"

I clasp my hands. Taking nothing for granted. A slight grin on my face, watching my little boy battle his way through something that I never could have done myself. I smile, because I know that just him standing in that box is enough.

Just him going down swinging is enough.

The third pitch ...

"Ping!"

Foul ball.

He got hold of it. He nicked it. Just barely. And he's still alive. Even if he strikes out again, he got hold of it.

He digs his feet back in. He's going down swinging.

The next pitch ...

The pitcher let this one go with a slight hitch ...

It's just a bit slower ...

"You can get this one, son ..."

"I think you can get this one, son ..."

And ...

"PING!"

No name. No fanfare. No expectations.

A single.

Sprung

2008-04-03T19:43:00.001-04:00

It's hard to believe, but hurricane season is only two months away.

I heard this on the TV news this evening. Yes, it's April 3. Yes, it's 40-something degrees outside with daylight still left. And, yes, hurricane season is (only) two months away.

I'm not here to rant on about the news. They've got a difficult job, having to communicate with few words and curious selections of images.

But, kind of indirectly, it makes me think about something I've noticed after 34 years living in South Carolina. Something about the idea of springtime in a place that everybody assumes has to be warm all the time.

This is the Deep South. When you think of April 3 in the Deep South, you don't think of 40-something-degree highs. I would say, "Well, that's if you don't live here," but that's not the case.

For whatever reason, people who have lived here their entire lives seem to live under this delusion of expected warmth.

The truth is, it starts getting warm here in the spring ... but each and every year, there are plenty of days that it's cold. Cold as shit, in fact, if shit is cold.

Yet people who should know better say all the time when it's cold in March and April and even a bit into May that they "thought it was supposed to be springtime."

It took me awhile to realize this. When I was 19 this time of year, I distinctly remember shivering in shorts and t-shirts in denial of the fact that just because the sun had officially crossed the equator didn't mean it was license to so-easily put winter behind me.

Because putting winter behind you is work, an uncomfortable, plodding transformation.

Something that I've grown to like about where I live is the changing seasons. It's like a liturgy that binds you to a fundamental understanding. Each year, we live through a symbolic-yet-very-real cycle of life and death.

The dead, brown leaves that a March wind blows seem like ghosts hissing when the first blooms are emerging. On a day when the sun feels like a merciless taskmaster, you can't imagine that the ground your sweat drips on was and will be again covered in a sheet of ice.

It's taken me three decades, but I've learned that no amount of thinking otherwise will change the fact that spring is a season I just endure.

It's a harsh time, much like birth seems to be (though I neither remember being born nor have to bear the burden of giving birth).

I don't like the flowers of spring.

I don't listen to music in the spring.

I don't try to actively enjoy anything in the spring.

A 65-degree is not ideal to me. Nor is a 75-degree day.

I like it 85.

Or more.

Or 35.

Or less.

Spring here in South Carolina is a reflection of the general rawness of our culture.

It's ironic that the people of a state so used to dysfunction wouldn't recognize the bi-polar nature of its most-misunderstood season.

Double Time

2008-04-01T20:01:00.003-04:00

Eight years today he's breathed life on this planet -- beginning at 1:12 a.m. April Fool's Day 2000.

My first son. No more or less loved than my youngest son but presents to me a unique second-to-second series of revelations, because he and I are treading this path first together.

And after eight years, I've begun to see a pattern in how I lament each birthday that comes.

I've found myself indulging in a masochistic equation:

Age x 2 = a factor that increasingly scares me.

The equation takes into account a restrospective comparison on much time has actually passed, related to the sobering reality of how the fact that "they" said it would all go so fast was a cliche, but that cliches are recognizable because they are so true.

At first, it was easy.

Age 1: 1 x 1 = Yeah, whatever.

After all, when they're babies, I just look ahead to the time when they can wipe their own ass and cook their own cheese toast without waking me up in the morning.

Age 2: 2 x 2 = Cool.

Four? That sounds great. Maybe he'll be wiping his own ass and cooking his own cheese toast by then. And still, he's off the public school system grid, which means he's still a baby -- but without all the menial responsibility.

Age 3: 3 x 2 = Neat to think about.

Six? That doesn't sound too old. Sounds like it might be fun. I bet you can throw him a fastball. And I bet he still will give you a kiss and still call them "spoiled" peanuts. And that tooth-line will have a few gaps.

Age 4: 4 x 2 = Where we find ourselves today.

I bet he'll think a lava lamp is cool, and I bet he can appreciate and will remember forever his first Jack Johnson show in Atlanta. I bet his teacher will say during his cookie-cake party that she calls on him last when asking a math question because he always gets it right. And I bet he'll prove to be an all-star-caliber baseball player when he practices on his birthday and his coach tells him the only way to throw him out is to cheat. And I bet he'll still curl up with a stuffed animal that causes him to become severely distraught if it were left at a car wash.

Age 5: 5 x 2 = A decade. Hmmm. A decade. Have we talked about sex yet? I was 9. That was a little early, but not too bad. But maybe 10. We'll see. Whatever's natural.

(The 15-year-old down the street who plays baseball with him already told him that taking steriods causes your junk to shrink and that "you want that to be as big as possible." Not a bad lesson).

And I bet he's graduated to cooking a grill cheese sandwich over a stove.

Age 6: 6 x 2 = Middle school. And another stick of Right Guard to buy at the store. And hoping that the steady chipping away of my faults that I've tried to engage in have been enough and at a fast enough pace so that my glaring weaknesses are at best not obvious.

Age 7: 7 x 2 = "Yeah, high school's weird, son. And, no, you can't have that girl over at the house with you two all by yourself. I hate to do this to you, but I need to talk to you about that thing they call 'safe sex.' It sounds paradoxical, I know: telling you how to do something that I'm telling you that you just shouldn't do yet. I promise, your time will come. And when it does, realize that it's ideal to wait for marriage -- but good luck with that, man. Just have some self-respect. And I know Google is the name of a state now, but do you remember when we first realized it could be a verb, too?"

Age 8: 8 x 2 = "You might have a driver's license, but I told you when you were 8 that you had better start saving that piggy-bank money to buy your own car. Of course, that wouldn't have done you any good, because I stole all that money so that I could render your driver's license a distinction signifying nothing. Yes, I know you hate me, but you told me when you were 8 that you extra-promised you wouldn't."

Age 9: 9 x 2 = On to college. "Did you manage a baseball or math scholarship? Because that would really help us out a lot, kid."

Age 10: 10 x 2 = ... 20.

OK, no reason to go any further than where we're headed next.

Though watching him sleep, and thinking of his day today and who he's become in a short-yet-long eight years ... I'm hoping I'm correct in thinking that the worst problem I'll have is that I'll miss him.

I already do.

That's What She Said ...

2008-03-24T23:30:00.018-04:00

I worry about what this says about me that the very first thing I thought when I opened this press release this morning was that it had to be somebody's idea of a really, really, really over-the-top attempt at satire:

For Immediate Release

March 23, 2008 Re: Casting Call

BE A PART OF A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE

Seeking people from across the Carolinas for the Feature Film “NAILED”

HUNDREDS of 7-12 year old girls are needed for filming!
ALL TYPES and AGES are also needed.

It took a couple more (in my frame of mind amiguous) paragraphs before I realized exactly what we were talking about here:

“Nailed” is an original comedy about a small town waitress who gets a nail accidentally lodged in her head causing unpredictable behavior that leads her to Washington, DC, where sparks fly when she meets a clueless young senator who takes up her cause. Jessica Biel and Jake Gyllenhaal are slated to star under the direction of David O. Russell. Filming is scheduled to begin this spring in the Columbia area.

A ... unique ... plot. I certainly didn't nail that one.

All That's Left Of A Man

2008-03-20T23:33:00.002-04:00

Let me tell you about this belt I saw today ...

I'm sitting in a federal courthouse pew. Next to me are three people -- two young men and a young woman. They're there to be sentenced for their part in a drug conspiracy.

A peculiarity of the court system is that you can be sitting next to a condemned man and not know it. Not everyone who is about to spend a good portion of their life in prison is already in jail. If they behave well, they get to live free until their day of judgment comes (if you call it freedom with what's looming on the horizon).

The first man is called up to be sentenced.

He's given a break on his sentence because he wore a wire, bought drugs and helped bust up another drug ring. He's sentenced to several years in prison and allowed to leave the courtroom and report to prison on his own in the coming weeks.

The second man makes his way before the judge. This man is guilty of the same crime, except that in addition he had a gun in his possession when the house was raided.

The gun means that he gets a stiffer sentence and that he's required to be taken into custody the moment the sentence is rendered.

He cooperated similarly, providing enough information to force the first man to admit what he did instead of maintaining innocence and forcing a jury trial.

Like the first young man, his cooperation allowed him to mingle among society until his sentencing day came.

He's wearing a collared shirt with a tie, dress pants and a belt. He walked into court today knowing he wouldn't leave a free man. Still, he's dressed as if he weren't a criminal. You have to suppose it can't hurt.

***

Whenever someone steps forward from the crowd for sentencing (instead of being led through a side door wearing bright-colored jumpsuits and bound by chains), the U.S. Marshals -- dressed discretely in suits, blending in with the lawyers -- position themselves in anticipation of what they think a sentence might be.

If they know someone is on the verge of being taken into custody, they block any path back out the courtroom double doors. Just in case the passion of the moment takes hold.

It's a surreal display, watching someone being surrounded ever-so-subtly in a strange reality theater.

The young man gets 14 years.

He's been in jail before. This isn't his first crime. Once the sentence is imposed, he looks around for direction on what to do next. A mixture of confusion and familiarity.

The marshals lead him to a side door and point at his waist. The door closes and he's gone.

Immediately after, the young woman, who had been struggling to catch her breath before her turn, walks before the judge. She's in less trouble. She simply helped them keep the "stash house" in order.

The second young man was her boyfriend.

As she stands before the judge, sobbing and begging for forgiveness, a marshal re-enters the courtroom with a belt in his hand.

It's one of those kinds of laced belts that has all the holes where you can stick the metal clip through any part of the belt (the kind that people who seem to be uncomfortable dressing up often wear).

The marshal sits down casually in a chair as the woman is sentenced. She gets a couple of years behind bars and is allowed to leave and report to prison later.

As she walks by, the marshal hands her the belt and tells her someone has to take it. The alternative is that it's thrown away. The fear is that a desperate man might try to hang himself before he's stripped of his possessions and dressed in prison clothes.

This man won't be seeing another belt until he reaches his mid-life crisis.

***

We die with each second that ticks toward inevitability, whatever that might be. In this particular reality, we have created a manufactured inevitability. The kind that makes loss of life seem ordinary.

The belt is well-worn. The leathery material is crusting off.

The marshal is holding it like a dead, decapitated snake.

As I look at the belt, I think of how a young man died today.

Or at least a part of him.

Or at least the man he was.

A free man.

The belt looked like something a beast would expel from its stomach after it devoured a person.

Like spitting out indigestible bones.

"Missi ...Whatever"

2008-03-20T00:22:00.007-04:00

CLICK THE IMAGE FOR A LEGIBLE VIEW

The 13 things I love about my 7-year-old son's 2008 March Madness tournament bracket:

1.) On its face, it's a gutsy bracket with serious darkhorses but manages by the Final Four to maintain sanity with three #1 seeds along with one #2 seed (important because the tournament never works out to have all #1 seeds in the Final Four).

2.) "Oklahomea."

3.) Spelling all of the names of the schools out, but saying screw it on "Mississippi St." and just making sure there's a "St." and an "m" and an "s" and a "p."

4.) The random use of cursive for Kansas by the time they reach the Elite Eight.

5.) The ability to set aside emotions and go ahead and pick Clemson to win that game that we expect them to win (even though we don't want them to).

6.) Then to abruptly kick them out of the tournament when they meet an SEC team.

7.) The willingness jettison USC when they meet Kansas -- even though he thinks the USC he's axing from the tournament is his own beloved Gamecocks.

8.) "Miami (Fla)." Hey, he's been to Miami, and he knows it's in Florida, but that's what it says, man -- even if he has no idea why there would be a Miami anywhere else, let alone Ohio.

9.) Only one win for the weak Big Ten conference.

11.) Admitting to having no idea who Drake is and no idea how good they might or might not be, but still picking them over San Diego, even though a father would expect a kid his age would pick a team based on what his favorite NFL team is. He knows LaDainian Tomlinson isn't on scholarship.

12.) "Samford."

13.) UMBC to the Sweet 16. Who is that? I don't know. And I'm the adult.

My Self Esteem Is In Jeopardy

2008-03-04T23:43:00.001-05:00

I watched "Jeopardy" this evening and by the end of it felt a bit down on myself.

Was it because I didn't know in "Final Jeopardy" that the probe NASA sent last year to Mars was named "Phoenix?" Was it because I labored over whether it would be "HAL" or the more technically correct "HAL 9000" because the question made reference to a failed attempt to launch in 2001?

No.

And it's not because of the galactic knowledge curve that spikes upward between "Wheel Of Fourtune" and "Jeopardy." I'm resigned to getting at least half of the answers right and leaving the other half for those annoying triviaphants who always know something about everything.

The problem is ... I don't have a "Jeopardy" story to tell.

You know, that brief period when we the television viewers get to meet the contestants.

The contestants, surely with the help of producers, always concoct some story that paints their lives as having at least one thing interesting enough to re-tell on a nationally televised game show.

Tonight:

Contest 3: Woman went out on a blind date with a dentist. The date went horribly bad. Turns out he ended up doing a root canal on her some time later. The root canal was better than the date, she said. Alex laughs.

Contestant 2: Man went to live in Guatemala with his wife and is now bringing back his adopted Guatemalan kids to America. Inspiring.

Contestant 1: I can't remember, except that her story was interesting. I rooted against her. I didn't like the way she called out categories. And she celebrated too much when she won.

I've searched my cache of memories, and I simply can't think of any story I could use on a "Jeopardy" show.

Starting tomorrow, I will train my eyes and ears and enlist the help of acquaitances and strangers to help me identify just what pieces of my everyday life might qualify as the stuff worthy of a "Jeopardy Story Moment."

Or I could go the meta route and have Alex tell the viewing audience that my "Jeopardy" story is that I don't have a "Jeopardy" story.

Then again, I have no plans of going on "Jeopardy," so I guess I'll just have to do something interesting.

It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's A ... Super-Thong?

2008-02-19T23:36:00.005-05:00

Dwight Howard is now one of my favorite NBA players.

It's not just that he donned the cape and soared through the air and literally threw the ball down into the basket like he was tossing a balled-up piece of paper in the trash can ...

It's not just that, in the ultimately successful pursuit of winning the dunk contest over the weekend, the big man managed to find a Superman outfit to fit his 6' 11" frame ...

It has to be that he actually stayed true to the uniform and included the Super-Outside-The-Suit-Underwear in the design.

In fact, it looks like a Super-Thong.

Way to keep it fresh for a new generation, Dwight.

"Sir, What's Your Favorite Color?"

2008-02-08T21:40:00.001-05:00

Three possibilities on why I'm making this face, which today has been plastered across the homepage of a local television station's website ...

1.) I don't believe this guy.

or

2.) His bow-tie is really flaring out there.

or

3.) In regards to a student at a technical college who accidentally shot himself in the leg today-- and after several attempts by me to ask a substantive question -- only to be drowned out, as is customary, by super-eager television personalities -- a TV reporter asks the campus police chief: "Do you have a gun policy?"

Now, three guesses on what the answer was ...

Now Let's Just Draft Darren McFadden ...

2008-02-03T23:50:00.001-05:00

I heard somebody lost tonight.

For two weeks, one of the common things I heard among those who wanted to see the New England Patriots win Super Bowl XLII and go 19-0 was that they wanted to witness history.

Well, every time I scratch my ass I make history. Everything's a part of history. But it wouldn't be the first time a guy scratched his ass. Or the first time a team went undefeated.

However, tonight was a first that will be recorded in the annals of NFL history: It's the first time in NFL history that a team with a perfect record went to the Super Bowl and lost.

The last time a perfect team went to the Super Bowl?

The 1972 Miami Dolphins.

And who's the last and only perfect team to win the Super Bowl?

The 1972 Miami Dolphins.

Some will say, "You know, the Patriots went 18-0, so they won more games than when the '72 Dolphins went 17-0 after the Super Bowl when there were only 14 regular-season games."

To that I say that it's a whole lot different winning that last game. The one that, when all is said and done, matters the most whether you had no losses or six losses (like the Giants had).

And I also realize that I say this in the aftermath of the 2007 Dolphins managing to win one game.

But I do know that when Eli Manning threw that touchdown with less than a minute to go up 17-14, I was watching the Super Bowl in 2008 and there was the helmeted Dolphin flashing on the screen with a brief retrospection of the only franchise to ever finish a championship season undefeated.

It was a long time ago, yes (and it was a year before I was born). But it's important, because the accomplishment is one that outshines every Super Bowl winner up until this point -- no matter how many times a team has won it or by how much or by how little or by what singularly spectacular play.

And with that I'll leave this historic occasion with the words of Mercury Morris, the great Dolphins running back who complimented Larry Csonka in the backfield during that '72 season and tonight is popping the cork on the annual ceremonial champagne toast to the last undefeated team going down:

Like I said, don't call me when you're in my town, call me when you're on my block, and I see you next door moving your furniture in ... ... and if you win it, I'll be dressed up in a tuxedo waiting on my bride.

The Shirt They Give You Says Something About 'Life In The Fast Vein' ... YUCK!

2008-02-01T23:28:00.000-05:00

I donated blood for the first time today.

I don't like it. I knew I wouldn't. It's why I never did it before. It's an experience that makes my skin literally crawl. I'm just glad they played the radio on the blood bus so my feet flapping all around looked like I was keeping a beat to the music and not trying to play every mental trick on myself just to let them keep that needle in my arm.

They wanted me to clutch and release some roll of gauze to actually pump the blood out.

That just ... F@CK!

But, from what I understand, each pint of blood can save up to three lives.

That's really a satisfying thing if you think about it.

You can write a check to a charity or help an old lady with her groceries, but to actually have a piece of your life literally run through someone else who desperately needs it ...

It's a pretty good way for a generally aloof member of society to within a matter of six ... no, 10 ... no, now it's 12 ... minutes connect with is fellow man in a grand yet intimate way.

And, I got to thinking:

They give you free pizza, cookies and sodas. All that you want. Then they give you a movie pass. Then a free T-shirt. Then they tell you you're a great person.

You can actually feed yourself, clothe yourself and entertain yourself -- all after feeling like you did something more than sit on your ass and complain about needles.

And, of course, the guy who stuck me told me the beers I normally drink on a Friday night would hit me harder.

I'm still waiting on that to pan out ...

Sleeping Duty

2008-01-27T23:43:00.000-05:00

I told him ...

"The universe is in a constant state of balance between chaos and order, my son.

You must discipline yourself. You must be prepared at any time, for it is your duty to wield a righteous sword of justice, to bring order and render balance.

You must be ready, for the task is yours and yours alone.

At all times, known and unknown.

It is the path laid before you.

For you know ...

... the way of the samurai."

Hubris (Doesn't That Sound Like A Bone?)

2008-01-22T23:22:00.000-05:00

Each day is becoming brighter or darker than the one before it.

You are someone different each day, and you know this by recognizing that the epiphanies you experience are comprised of the countless series of things that happen.

No one, particular moment changes you.

Yet then again ... it does.

Lack Of Beer Vote Costs Obama In Clinton's Nevada Victory

2008-01-19T23:23:00.000-05:00

'Burrrrrp!' local drunk says

By Porter Brew
The Georgetown (S.C.) Tattler

LAS VEGAS -- Hillary Clinton edged Barack Obama in the Nevada Democratic presidential caucuses on Saturday -- a narrow victory that political experts say rested heavily on the lack of turnout of the so-called "beer vote."

Earlier in the week during a televised debate, Obama challenged the notion that the election "isn't about who you'd rather have a beer with."

Polls have shown that Obama leads substantially among voters who'd like a president they'd enjoy drinking a beer with. Clinton has struggled among that crucial voting bloc, which early polling data show failed to make it to the polls.

"I was going to totally wake up by noon and go vote for my bro', but he kind of pissed me off with that shit," said mall security guard Leon Idis, who had been chugging several beers with the regulars at Brewskie's Pub off a remote dirt road in Ely, Nev., on Tuesday when he heard Obama's beer comment.

Idis said he had considered bolting from the Obama camp and raising his mug to Clinton's campaign. In 2000 and 2004, he voted for the guy he'd rather have a beer with and had "heard that worked out great."

"I was all drunk and threw my bottle at the TV in whatever bar I passed out in that night," Idis said. "Then I woke up and was all like, 'Whatever,' you know?"

Yew Borous, a former political strategist during Bill Clinton's presidency, said that Obama tried reaching out to those who weren't taking him seriously because they viewed his candidacy "much like a student council presidential race based solely on likeability."

However, the move served to suppress the turnout of a key foundation of Obama's base, Borous said.

"It appeared to be a shrewd manuever, but never underestimate the fragile ego of a boozer," he said.

The comment also appeared to have farther-reaching ramifications, namely mobilizing the wine and liquor vote in favor of Clinton.

"What about us?" said Ginny Tawnac, a social drinker who says she detests the proletarian coarseness of seasonal wintertime black lagers. "We think the presidency is about more than beer. We're fun to hang out with, too, you know."

In a rally following his narrow defeat, Obama claimed victory heading into next Saturday's South Carolina primary and gave no signs that he would neglect the mecurial moods of boozers this time around.

"Thank you!" Obama told a raucus crowd of supporters. "Thank you. Yes. Thank you. OK. Thank you. Yes. Thanks. OK. Thank you. We walked a tight line here in Nevada. We were tested. We wobbled a bit, but we will put one foot in front of the other in South Carolina, and we don't plan on stumbling."

Barack Obama, holding a bottle of water he now says was spiked with Goldschlager , trades pleasantries with rival Hillary Clinton after Tuesday's debate in Las Vegas.

Make Them Wish They Had Never Been Loyal To Their Country

2008-01-13T23:44:00.001-05:00

The Chargers beat the Colts today.

I had been kind of torn by it.

The Dolphins have nothing to offer my oldest son, who is forming his allegiances at the crucial age of 7. It's at that tender age that you develop those deep, lasting bonds with a team (the kind that makes a 34-year-old man stick with a bunch of losers).

What do I offer him? Zach Thomas and Jason Taylor in the twilight of their careers? Some Mormon quarterback? The promise that some aging, self-important a-hole (Parcells) is going to ressurrect a once-proud franchise?

Well, at least they re-signed Ricky Williams.

Somehow, some way, he's picked the Chargers as his team. Playing that PS2, I imagine. All of a sudden it was all about LaDainian Tomlinson, so I got him a powder-blue L.T. jersey for Christmas.

During basketball practice today, a coach looks at him and wonders aloud how my boy's Chargers are doing against the Colts.

My boy and his team.

My boy. Not my team.

Interesting.

I'm pulling hard for the Chargers now that they've made it to the AFC championship game.

I want my boy's team to be good. I want the hero whose number he wears to do something ... heroic ... for him.

And something else: A part of me had wanted the Colts to win because I thought they had the best shot at ruining the Patriots' perfect season. After all, besides the one win we got this year, all we've got left is 16-0 perfection in 1972. Even though the Patriots have 17-0, I'd love to see it 17-1. Hell, I don't care if it's 18-1. Just don't let them end it perfect.

And, yes, that's what losers who use to be winners do. They become haters.

But, no, I've got to go with my boy.

And ... what if the Chargers could knock them off?

The Dolphins got two shots at the Patriots this season and couldn't do anything with it. No repeat of Marino ruining the Bears' perfect '85 season.

But what if my boy's team can do it for me? Save this old man's glimmer of faded glory?

And here I thought it'd be a while longer before I'd be leaving it to my children to handle my business.

Two Thousand Eighties

2008-01-01T16:42:00.002-05:00

This is the sad state of affairs entering 2008.

The fall from grace.

The times that try men's souls ...

... I'm at a 1980s-themed New Year's Eve party where people are karaokeing '80s songs and wearing any variety of '80s attire.

I don't have any semblance of '80s wear in my possession. What I like of the '80s would be too small, because I was a little boy.

And what I don't like of the '80s would still be too small (but I guess not undoably small, because what I don't like of the '80s I might actually be able to wear, because I became a teenager there toward the end when wearing tight jeans that make your junk show and making the jeans tighter at the ankle by rolling them up was the thing).

So, back to coming closer to the end of the first decade of the second millennium, I've just come with the boot-cut jeans (which, by the way, took way too long to hit the mainstream kind of long ago but not so long ago) and a reasonably contemporary wool sweater.

And seeing as I'm a bit shy in social situations, I'm wearing my favorite, salt-ringed Miami Dolphins hat pulled down low over my eyes.

It's a strange irony: Hiding your eyes with something so conspicuous.

A Miami Dolphins hat?

1-15.

In the same season as the New England Patriots became the first team since the '72 Dolphins to end the regular season with a perfect record. And in the same season as Brett Farve breaks the last remaining records Dan Marino set.

1-15.

(Thank heavens for the Ravens).

It's weird to feel out of place somewhere when you're not wearing '80s clothes. But here I've found myself, without my mullet and without my Swatch. The one a-hole refusing to cooperate and bearing the symbol of a crappy-ass squad.

I go to the bathroom, I look in the mirror and it's there I realize I can make it all right.

It strikes me as I examine the likeness of a reasonably focused dolphin wearing a football helmet jumping through what looks like a fiery hoop.

That symbol is a relic of my childhood.

Full of glowing, curl-up-with-your-Optimus-Prime-figure-and-watch-a-football-game memories:

Marino to Clayton. Marino to Duper. Marino hawking Isotoners.
The epic offense-a-thons against the Chargers and the Jets.
The Dolphins spoiling the Chicago Bears' perfect 1985 season against all odds late in the season on Monday Night Football and winning 50 cents from my Dad on a bet.

It strikes me as I wash my hands and grasp my Harvest Moon Pumpking Ale and head back into the social fray, with a new -- albeit somewhat humiliating -- perspective that, if shared, would signify a gesture of acquiescence.

The truth is, I'm wearing my Dolphins hat. And as much as I hate that it's the truth ... it's soooo '80s.

'Sprinkle This ... Because'

2007-12-24T01:15:00.000-05:00

What do you really use paprika for?

Maybe a lot. I don't know. But I do know it's what goes on top of a traditional macaroni & cheese casserole.

Paprika is one of those things I like about the holidays.

I pull out a tiny, old shaker of this stuff and spread it across a macaroni & cheese casserole for each of the family meals I make on three holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.

I use it three days of the year within a span of a month -- and there it sits for another 11 months. Waiting through the changing seasons for its moment to be used again.

There's a tinge of romanticism in knowing that as I'm now running out of paprika and I reach the bottom of the small container, I'm sprinkling the last remains of what I bought when I was, say, 24.

Tell me that stuff has been there 10 years, and I'll have no evidence to refute it, and in fact I'll be inclined to believe you.

There are things I don't like about Christmas. To sum that up, let's just say that the other night I was watching a peculiar 1964 movie called "Santa Clause Conquers the Martians," and I wish the Martians had won.

But there is so much more I like.

I do like an experience of spirituality, if you can see around Santa.

I do like lights and music and shows we know and more people being home.

Here we are. Near the end of it. And I've got a little bit of this curious spice left, but not enough to make it past the new year.

There is so much I see each year this time of year, and so much that is the same, yet different because it's years and years apart. Something about that is comforting and frightening at the same time.

Buying that new small container next week will be a seminal moment, because it could be until I reach middle age before I have to buy another one.

And, I guess, that's something I like.

'... And Then We Explode'

2007-12-05T23:36:00.000-05:00

I like learning about the universe via my television screen, but I always seem to find myself turning the channel because of the invariable introduction of "How This Means The Ultimate Destruction Of Earth."

You know, the grave movie-trailer voice invoking the cliche of all space docushockeries: "It's not if it happens ... but when."

Asteroids on a collision course. The sun exploding. Random mega gamma bursts that are bound to cross our path and mutate us within minutes.

And the strangely glib, Revenge of the Nerds astronomers chuckling about armageddon with analysis like "A supernova's cool, but you would want to wear your sunglasses ... that is, right before you would be incinerated."

However, last night I was watching an episode of "The Universe" on The History Channel regarding the search for planets in alien solar systems. It showed all these magnificent renderings of possible planets ravaged by gaseous solar storms in stilted orbits.

It showed all these possibilities, trillions of miles away, with the periodic reference to how the planets might or might not resemble Earth.

But for every mention of Earth, it focused on how our perception of what a world is had kept scientists from affirmatively discovering planets for years.

I awaited the cataclysmic connection to how our world is doomed.

And it never came.

The clever side of me says that I in some way wanted to know that whatever was going on out there would affect my world, even if it meant certain annihilation.

But leaving behind cleverness to make light of things I don't understand, I think I'm comforted knowing that there's things going on out there that have nothing to do with us -- which maybe means we'll actually understand better.

'Chill Out, Take It Slow, Then You Rock Out The Show' (Yes, I Know The Lyrics)

2007-11-06T20:24:00.000-05:00

I had a dream last night that Billy Ray Cyrus showed up on the latest "Hannah Montana" episode back in full-fludged mullet mode.

And somehow it all seemed to make sense, or at least made sense that you'd see why he thought he could get away with a ridiculous mullet like that again.

He had been reduced to a punchline. Bu like a well-manicured phoenix he has risen again.

A daughter he raised through that period of marginalizaton and ridicule has become a well-loved celebrity among children -- and in such a way that hasn't left adults wanting to throw up in our mouths quite the same way as when we were forced to watch that mullet tickle Billy Ray's flexed guns during a performance of "Achey Brakey Heart."

On today's popular kids show -- which I have watched more than I would have thought I would in a house of two boys -- Cyrus as both ficitional and real-life father gets to enjoy what must be a sublime experiene: having his beautiful, affable, 14-year-old daughter who obviously thinks the world of him looking at him lovingly as she sings the songs he writes for her.

And the songs today are exactly what they need to be. Songs for children. Which is what Billy Ray should have been doing all along if you think back to what level he was aiming for in the early 90s.

So, in my dream he shaves off the soul patch and transforms his surfer-manboy floppy hair of today and triumphantly re-appears with a magnificently producted Alpha-Male power 'doo.

And he's just looking at me like, "What?"

And I really don't know what to say.

"I Meant To Say, 'You're On Fire'''

2007-11-04T23:30:00.000-05:00

I really get into being the coach of my son's co-ed basketball team.

I feel a deep sense of fulfillment when a second-grader or third-grader learns something new because he or she is hungry to be something. Just watching somebody care, at such a young age, makes me want to be a better person myself. And I can make them better than anything I could hope to actually become myself.

I well up with pride for children who aren't mine -- except for that one hour of practice when they kind of are mine, in a way.

But sometimes I think I let my enthusiasm usurp me:

Great job!

Exactly like I told you!

Jumping when you shoot! Your legs are as important as your arms!

Perfect!

And then this pearl of coaching wisdom ...

You've got a ring of Jesus fire surrounding you!

Somehow, I'm not sure the little girl has ever watched or would have ever been allowed to watch "Three Kings." Nor does she probably who Ice Cube is.

But it is a church league, so maybe the parents will give me a pass if the girl asks them what a "ring of Jesus fire" means and why her coach told her she had one.

Still, I wouldn't blame them if they kept a lookout for when I might bring in the live snakes to exorcise a shooting slump.