I was expecting to at least get some cool thunderstorms...
All we got was wind though. F' that noise.
24 September 2005
18 September 2005
Changing Priorities
If my mom wanted me to give up on playing baseball, all she had to do was put beer, girls, and music in front of me long enough to become overwhelmed, as it were.
When I was in high school, I had an above-average arm -- not a Major League arm, not even a professional ball arm, but one with which I should have been able to play some school ball with. Coming into St. Ignatius, my body was far from an athletic one. In short, I was fat and slow. I guess I was absolutely determined to change all that.
Having not played with the local travelling teams during junior high, I was at a distinct disadvantage in comparison to my fellow freshmen competitors (with well over 100 frosh showing up for the first day of pitchers and catchers try-out, the competition promised to be far from lax). In the weeks leading up to try-outs though, my mom came through for me and brought to my attention that Cleveland State University would be holding a winter baseball camp for junior high and high school students. I would attend those and really absorbed a lot about how the game is played. I still carry a lot of that knowledge with me today, and it really affects how i even watch a game. The pitching coach at CSU was a young man called Coach Healy. He offered one-on-one pitching clinics for the low, low price of $25/hour. I quickly convinced my father to let me set up a clinic with him every weekend leading up to and through the first weeks of freshmen tryouts. From the clinics I learned a lot about the intricacies of pitching mechanics, and every night I would practice my form and perform the various drills in front of a mirror in order to perfect my delivery. Every now and then, I find myself working on my mechanics even today, when I get bored or anxious.
I learned how to throw a great circle change-up pitch while working with Coach Healy. Had I not been dumb and lost confidence in that pitch, I would have thrown well enough during a scrimmage on the last week of tryouts to make the team. I was too dumb to realize that the reason my change was bouncing in front of the catcher while I was warming-up was because I was throwing from a distance greater than the regulation 60 feet 6 inches from the rubber to the plate. I was convinced that I was throwing in the 70-75 mph range that day of the scrimmage against the farm boys from Orange High. I was blowing my fastball by them but was having trouble putting them away without the aid of plus change.
As a result of that severe miscalculation, I had a less than impressive performance that day and ended up not making the freshmen team. I worked hard all off-season and played both summer and fall ball for the city of Parma. I went into tryouts the next year on a roll. The weekend before tryouts, I threw a bullpen at around 70 feet from the catcher where I had pinpoint control of my two-seam, change and curve. That was the one moment in my life where pitching seemed effortless. I was completely zoned in and had such great command of those pitches that I felt that nothing was going to keep me off that Ignatius JV roster. I must have worked my body too hard though, between workouts with the team and doing extra work at Cleveland State, because I ended up being sidelined with painful shin splints.
The next year, my elbow gave up on me.
As a senior, I tried out again. My heart definitely was not in it though. I was more interested in participating in things like Kairos and SEARCH retreats to care as much as I had in the past. I went through the motions anyway and got cut for an inauspicious fourth time, out of spite of course.
I loved baseball more than anything at the time, but it never loved my back. That's what my mother would tell me. She's a smarter lady than I had given her credit for. During that time, I think she felt that I was wasting my time. At least she let me discover that for myself, because I wanted baseball badly. I'd spend countless evenings in a row going through the mechanics of my delivery as though I were in a deep meditative, contemplative state. It became prayer for me in its own way. Oftentimes, my mind would wander to delusions of grandeur -- like pitching Ignatius into the state championship or toe-ing the rubber from my hometown Tribe. This is not to say that I never had any successes as a ballplayer. I really enjoyed playing summer ball with the other kids that got cut in my class, and I really felt that I was their undisputed leader whenever I stepped onto the rubber. There was the one summer where I pitched four complete games and only incurred one loss. But that was just not enough for me, I wanted it all of course. I worked so hard every day -- running and lifting and working on my mechanics. I worked in the vain hope that one day I'd wake up with the gift of having a "thunderbolt for a right arm."
When I graduated from Ignatius, I was excited at the possibility of playing as a non-recruit for Wabash. The change in scenery, diet, and routine made it so difficult to keep my focus like I did back in high school though. I found myself struggling to stay off the bottom of the depth charts with my dead, sore arm and inability to stay awake during weekend fall ball games while sitting on the bench and charting pitches.
One of those first weekends at Kappa Sigma, I found myself at the movie theater with my pledge brother Bob Chapman watching Zoolander. We left the house because we both did not want to drink. I had not even touched alcohol yet at this point. We came back to see many of my pledge brothers hammered beyond recognition. Everyone was yelling, running, and someone had fried Howard's pants.
The next weekend, I was at a party at the Fiji house. I met some of the other baseball players there, had a great drunk time, and danced on some girls. The next morning, we were to leave for an away game. I stayed in bed. I told Coach Flynn of my decision the next day.
My dead and sore arm would thank me for the break, although every now and then, it likes to wake me up in the middle of the night, screaming in pain. I think it misses the days when I'd raise it over my head and bring it thundering down back towards the earth. I think it gets nightmares due to separation anxiety. My right arm loved baseball as much as I did, and it thinks it can still blow a fastball by some poor sap of a hitter. I should have thought more highly of it and treated it with more respect when I had the chance.
I guess no one will ever know though.
When I was in high school, I had an above-average arm -- not a Major League arm, not even a professional ball arm, but one with which I should have been able to play some school ball with. Coming into St. Ignatius, my body was far from an athletic one. In short, I was fat and slow. I guess I was absolutely determined to change all that.
Having not played with the local travelling teams during junior high, I was at a distinct disadvantage in comparison to my fellow freshmen competitors (with well over 100 frosh showing up for the first day of pitchers and catchers try-out, the competition promised to be far from lax). In the weeks leading up to try-outs though, my mom came through for me and brought to my attention that Cleveland State University would be holding a winter baseball camp for junior high and high school students. I would attend those and really absorbed a lot about how the game is played. I still carry a lot of that knowledge with me today, and it really affects how i even watch a game. The pitching coach at CSU was a young man called Coach Healy. He offered one-on-one pitching clinics for the low, low price of $25/hour. I quickly convinced my father to let me set up a clinic with him every weekend leading up to and through the first weeks of freshmen tryouts. From the clinics I learned a lot about the intricacies of pitching mechanics, and every night I would practice my form and perform the various drills in front of a mirror in order to perfect my delivery. Every now and then, I find myself working on my mechanics even today, when I get bored or anxious.
I learned how to throw a great circle change-up pitch while working with Coach Healy. Had I not been dumb and lost confidence in that pitch, I would have thrown well enough during a scrimmage on the last week of tryouts to make the team. I was too dumb to realize that the reason my change was bouncing in front of the catcher while I was warming-up was because I was throwing from a distance greater than the regulation 60 feet 6 inches from the rubber to the plate. I was convinced that I was throwing in the 70-75 mph range that day of the scrimmage against the farm boys from Orange High. I was blowing my fastball by them but was having trouble putting them away without the aid of plus change.
As a result of that severe miscalculation, I had a less than impressive performance that day and ended up not making the freshmen team. I worked hard all off-season and played both summer and fall ball for the city of Parma. I went into tryouts the next year on a roll. The weekend before tryouts, I threw a bullpen at around 70 feet from the catcher where I had pinpoint control of my two-seam, change and curve. That was the one moment in my life where pitching seemed effortless. I was completely zoned in and had such great command of those pitches that I felt that nothing was going to keep me off that Ignatius JV roster. I must have worked my body too hard though, between workouts with the team and doing extra work at Cleveland State, because I ended up being sidelined with painful shin splints.
The next year, my elbow gave up on me.
As a senior, I tried out again. My heart definitely was not in it though. I was more interested in participating in things like Kairos and SEARCH retreats to care as much as I had in the past. I went through the motions anyway and got cut for an inauspicious fourth time, out of spite of course.
I loved baseball more than anything at the time, but it never loved my back. That's what my mother would tell me. She's a smarter lady than I had given her credit for. During that time, I think she felt that I was wasting my time. At least she let me discover that for myself, because I wanted baseball badly. I'd spend countless evenings in a row going through the mechanics of my delivery as though I were in a deep meditative, contemplative state. It became prayer for me in its own way. Oftentimes, my mind would wander to delusions of grandeur -- like pitching Ignatius into the state championship or toe-ing the rubber from my hometown Tribe. This is not to say that I never had any successes as a ballplayer. I really enjoyed playing summer ball with the other kids that got cut in my class, and I really felt that I was their undisputed leader whenever I stepped onto the rubber. There was the one summer where I pitched four complete games and only incurred one loss. But that was just not enough for me, I wanted it all of course. I worked so hard every day -- running and lifting and working on my mechanics. I worked in the vain hope that one day I'd wake up with the gift of having a "thunderbolt for a right arm."
When I graduated from Ignatius, I was excited at the possibility of playing as a non-recruit for Wabash. The change in scenery, diet, and routine made it so difficult to keep my focus like I did back in high school though. I found myself struggling to stay off the bottom of the depth charts with my dead, sore arm and inability to stay awake during weekend fall ball games while sitting on the bench and charting pitches.
One of those first weekends at Kappa Sigma, I found myself at the movie theater with my pledge brother Bob Chapman watching Zoolander. We left the house because we both did not want to drink. I had not even touched alcohol yet at this point. We came back to see many of my pledge brothers hammered beyond recognition. Everyone was yelling, running, and someone had fried Howard's pants.
The next weekend, I was at a party at the Fiji house. I met some of the other baseball players there, had a great drunk time, and danced on some girls. The next morning, we were to leave for an away game. I stayed in bed. I told Coach Flynn of my decision the next day.
My dead and sore arm would thank me for the break, although every now and then, it likes to wake me up in the middle of the night, screaming in pain. I think it misses the days when I'd raise it over my head and bring it thundering down back towards the earth. I think it gets nightmares due to separation anxiety. My right arm loved baseball as much as I did, and it thinks it can still blow a fastball by some poor sap of a hitter. I should have thought more highly of it and treated it with more respect when I had the chance.
I guess no one will ever know though.
The Weekly Ten
1. "You know I got what it takes to make the club go outta control." -- Curtis "50 cent" Jackson
I think this statement sums up my teaching philosophy as a whole, mostly because it is so difficult to even seem engaging to a group of students when your sole responsibility is to do homework problems on the board. Last Thursday, I was so tired by the time recitation came around that I felt like I was going through the motions, as it were. The thing is, I like the solutions to the assigned problems that I draw up for class, and I think that they're interesting and enlightening and helpful to undergraduates who want to learn how to do these problems efficiently while getting a wild grasp of these introductory physical concepts.
Taking a similar course as the one I'm teaching as a senior in high school was what got me excited to be a physics major in the first place...even though it was mostly due to the fact that I rocked that class's face off. I guess I had the false impression early on that the study of physics is extremely easy. And that misunderstanding was exacerbated by the fact that the first two years of undergraduate physics is really easy as well.
The frowny and pouty version of myself must be extremely boring to listen to, that pretty much sums up how Thursday afternoon recitation went last week. I forced a couple smiles though for those that braved the torture of sitting through an hour long review for next week's exam after having suffered through an hour of extremely boring recitation with me.
2. Yelling and standing in the bleachers during the course of an Aggie football game will leave you feeling wilted, spent, and strangely fulfilled. Yelling, "Whoop!" feels so good as it leaves your throat, and it's good for your soul too.
If this sounds like good sex to you (well, people yelling "Whoop!" in bed seems rather disturbing), maybe it's because there is a similarity.
3. Completing problem sets for graduate level quantum mechanics is a labor of love. The moment when a wave of realization hits you as to the nature of a problem's solution is very intellectually gratifying. Unfortunately, those moments are few and far between.
4. "Can lay in your bed all day? I'll be your best keep secret and your biggest mistake..." -- Fall Out Boy
5. I miss being caught out in the rain on Main St. and candlelit dinners at Hobnob.
6. "Don't pet me, I am working."
There was a seeing-eye dog in church this morning. Reading that tag on him made me think up some morbid thought involving hapless twits petting seeing-eye dogs and horrible things happening to the person they are assisting as a result. It also made me consider my own inabilities at multi-tasking and that my own attention span must not be all that much greater than that of a dog's.
That dog is so cool.
7. "Get off your knees ump, you're blowing the game!!" -- random Red Sox fan in the movie Fever Pitch
This is definitely one of the greatest epithets concerning baseball umps that I have heard in a long time.
I thought this movie was pretty good. It's based on a Nick Hornby novel (of High Fidelty and About a Boy fame). I keep seeing his movies but haven't read a single one of his books. Maybe I should get on that.
8. Cleveland Indians: 3.5 games back of the White Sox in the Central Division, .5 game up on the Yankees in the Wild Card race. I'm watching the game on mlb.tv, and they're beating the Royals by 2 after 4 innings of play.
9. I rub my baby blue koala bracelet between my thumb and index finger for good luck.
10. Grading lab reports is tedious... Especially when you really don't have any scoring rubric so to speak of and are grading reports based on how warm and fuzzy they make you feel after you are done reading.
I think this statement sums up my teaching philosophy as a whole, mostly because it is so difficult to even seem engaging to a group of students when your sole responsibility is to do homework problems on the board. Last Thursday, I was so tired by the time recitation came around that I felt like I was going through the motions, as it were. The thing is, I like the solutions to the assigned problems that I draw up for class, and I think that they're interesting and enlightening and helpful to undergraduates who want to learn how to do these problems efficiently while getting a wild grasp of these introductory physical concepts.
Taking a similar course as the one I'm teaching as a senior in high school was what got me excited to be a physics major in the first place...even though it was mostly due to the fact that I rocked that class's face off. I guess I had the false impression early on that the study of physics is extremely easy. And that misunderstanding was exacerbated by the fact that the first two years of undergraduate physics is really easy as well.
The frowny and pouty version of myself must be extremely boring to listen to, that pretty much sums up how Thursday afternoon recitation went last week. I forced a couple smiles though for those that braved the torture of sitting through an hour long review for next week's exam after having suffered through an hour of extremely boring recitation with me.
2. Yelling and standing in the bleachers during the course of an Aggie football game will leave you feeling wilted, spent, and strangely fulfilled. Yelling, "Whoop!" feels so good as it leaves your throat, and it's good for your soul too.
If this sounds like good sex to you (well, people yelling "Whoop!" in bed seems rather disturbing), maybe it's because there is a similarity.
3. Completing problem sets for graduate level quantum mechanics is a labor of love. The moment when a wave of realization hits you as to the nature of a problem's solution is very intellectually gratifying. Unfortunately, those moments are few and far between.
4. "Can lay in your bed all day? I'll be your best keep secret and your biggest mistake..." -- Fall Out Boy
5. I miss being caught out in the rain on Main St. and candlelit dinners at Hobnob.
6. "Don't pet me, I am working."
There was a seeing-eye dog in church this morning. Reading that tag on him made me think up some morbid thought involving hapless twits petting seeing-eye dogs and horrible things happening to the person they are assisting as a result. It also made me consider my own inabilities at multi-tasking and that my own attention span must not be all that much greater than that of a dog's.
That dog is so cool.
7. "Get off your knees ump, you're blowing the game!!" -- random Red Sox fan in the movie Fever Pitch
This is definitely one of the greatest epithets concerning baseball umps that I have heard in a long time.
I thought this movie was pretty good. It's based on a Nick Hornby novel (of High Fidelty and About a Boy fame). I keep seeing his movies but haven't read a single one of his books. Maybe I should get on that.
8. Cleveland Indians: 3.5 games back of the White Sox in the Central Division, .5 game up on the Yankees in the Wild Card race. I'm watching the game on mlb.tv, and they're beating the Royals by 2 after 4 innings of play.
9. I rub my baby blue koala bracelet between my thumb and index finger for good luck.
10. Grading lab reports is tedious... Especially when you really don't have any scoring rubric so to speak of and are grading reports based on how warm and fuzzy they make you feel after you are done reading.
17 September 2005
The Indians are so Hot Right now
There is a really nice article about the Indians by Albert Chen that appeared on Sept. 19 on cnnsi.com. You need a subscription to SI to read it, so instead of doing that....I'm putting the story in its entirety on this blog.
In the center of the home clubhouse at Cleveland's Jacobs Field, atop the big-screen TV, sit two wobbly stacks of DVDs, a collection of bawdy comedies you'd expect to find in a college dorm room. In the lazy hours preceding home games Indians players slouch on leather sofas watching classics such as Deuce Bigalow and Old School. "Other teams may have fancy mottos to rally the troops," says 25-year-old leftfielder Coco Crisp. "Here we draw inspiration from Will Ferrell."
Last Saturday, however, the lighthearted programming on the big screen was preempted by more serious fare: the latest happenings in the American League wild-card race. Three hours before their game against the Minnesota Twins, Cleveland's players eschewed Anchorman in favor of the final innings of a showdown between the Yankees and the Red Sox. After watching Boston prevail 9-2, the Indians took the field and won their sixth straight, 7-5, to extend their wild-card lead over the Yankees to 1 1/2 games. After a 12-4 win over Minnesota on Sunday, Cleveland maintained its lead over the Yankees and pushed the Oakland A's 2 1/2 back.
"It's nice to be the hot team today," first baseman Ben Broussard said on Saturday of the Indians, who had the league's best record since Aug. 1 (27-10 at week's end). "But we know how quickly things can change in a race like this. Blink, and we could be back looking up at two teams in the standings. That's how things will be until the very end of the season."
With the majors' 26th-highest payroll at $41.5 million ($14 million less than the famously low-budget A's), the Indians have ascended to the wild-card lead so suddenly and unexpectedly that even their own fans, it seems, haven't noticed. Although they are poised to advance to the postseason for the first time in four years, the Indians rank 25th in attendance. "It's been the best sports season in Cleveland that no one saw," one team official groaned last Friday night, when only 26,078 fans (half its capacity) turned out at Jacobs Field to see the Tribe beat 2004 AL Cy Young winner Johan Santana for the first time in 19 tries.
In June 2002, seven months after taking over a team that had won six AL Central titles in the last seven years, general manager Mark Shapiro set about dismantling it, unloading ace righthander Bartolo Colon for a package of prospects that included outfielder Grady Sizemore and lefthander Cliff Lee. Shapiro (pronounced sha-PIE-roe) jettisoned other expensive veterans such as outfielder Kenny Lofton, starting pitcher Chuck Finley and relievers Ricardo Rincon and Terry Mulholland, and declared in a press conference that the Indians wouldn't be contenders again for three years.
"I felt like George Bush saying, 'No new taxes' -- there hasn't been a month since then that someone hasn't brought up that I said we wouldn't contend until 2005," says the Princeton-educated Shapiro, 38, a devotee of baseball's new math who had spent three seasons as an assistant G.M. in Cleveland before his promotion. "But even though we were a playoff team in 2001, we knew, privately, going into '02 that we were moving toward a dramatic rebuilding process, given how thin we were in our farm system, combined with the aging of our players and the expiration of contracts. We had to accelerate the rebuilding process, which meant restocking the upper levels of our farm system through trades."
Reporters criticized the rookie G.M. for tearing apart a perennial contender, and fans called radio talk shows comparing Shapiro to reviled former Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell.
Fast-forward three years. The rebuilt Indians have risen as contenders again, not only for this year but well beyond. In '02 Shapiro acquired his current starting outfield (Crisp, Sizemore, 23, and Casey Blake, 32), his biggest bat (designated hitter Travis Hafner, 28) and his winningest pitcher (Lee, 27, who was 16-4 with a 3.69 ERA through Sunday). Cleveland has also developed players like 26-year-old catcher Victor Martinez (a major-league-best .378 average since the All-Star break) and 23-year-old Jhonny Peralta, who at week's end ranked second only to Baltimore's Miguel Tejada in slugging percentage (.520) among American League shortstops. "They've got some great young talent, guys who are ready to win now," says injured Twins centerfielder Torii Hunter. "No one around the league is surprised they're in it. What's scary is that they're just going to get better over the next few years."
Scariest of all the Indians' hitters is Hafner (.304, 25 homers, 88 RBIs), whose 1.967 OPS over the last two seasons ranks first in the majors. Hafner reminds many of the first baseman he succeeded in Cleveland, Jim Thome. A fan favorite and the Indians' alltime home run hitter, Thome was a humble, lumbering lefthanded slugger from Peoria, Ill. The 6'3", 240-pound Hafner, who grew up idolizing Thome, is a humble, lumbering lefthanded slugger from Sykeston, N.D., a town of less than 150 that, according to Hafner, has "no stoplights, four stop signs, a post office and one café -- and that's pretty much it."
Hafner's graduating class at Sykeston High totaled eight students, and he arrived at Cowley County (Kans.) Community College with little experience playing organized ball; even in American Legion play he had never seen a pitch over 80 mph. How raw was Hafner? "One day my first year [at Cowley] the coach said we were going down to the field to take some fungoes, and I asked, 'What's a fungo?'" Hafner says. "When he talked about getting a runner from first to third by going the other way, I figured that was some real top-secret information. I had no idea what he was talking about."
Despite his rough edges, Hafner dominated at the junior college level -- in '97 he was a juco All-America and MVP of the juco World Series -- and the Rangers chose him in the 31st round of the '96 amateur draft. He broke in with Texas in 2002, playing in 23 games, but Shapiro acquired him that winter for catcher Einar Diaz and righthander Ryan Drese. In his first season with the Indians, Hafner had the daunting task of replacing Thome at first base, but after a yo-yo rookie season in which he hit .254 in 91 games, he settled in as the team's every-day DH in '04, hitting .311 with 28 homers and a .583 slugging percentage. The Indians' recent hot streak coincided with Hafner's return on Aug. 1, after he'd missed 17 games with a concussion; since then they have ranked third in the majors in runs and second in homers. "Everyone seemed to hit a little better when he came back," says Sizemore, "and that's no coincidence. His presence alone changes the whole dynamic of the lineup."
If the Indians do win the wild card, they could be a tough out in October. Beyond their balanced lineup, which, according to Detroit Tigers lefty Mike Maroth, doesn't really have "a weak link," Cleveland has the best bullpen in baseball (anchored by AL saves leader Bob Wickman) and an underrated trio of starters -- Kevin Millwood (3.11 ERA with a league-low 3.23 run support), C.C. Sabathia (7-0, 2.37 ERA in his last seven starts) and Lee (6-0, 3.37 ERA over his last 10 starts) -- who are peaking at the right time. "I've said since the start of the season that they were a dangerous team," says White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. "I love that lineup and the pitching. Cleveland is one of those teams that can put a lot of runs up on the board, so you have to swing the bats."
A year ago the Indians were one game out of first in the AL Central on Aug. 14, then lost nine straight to drop out of contention. "We were young, we were inexperienced, and we ran out of gas," says Broussard. "Last year we learned how hard it is to get into the playoffs, but now we're ready to go the distance. Everyone says how young we are, how our future is bright, but we don't care about the future. We're here to win this year."
In the center of the home clubhouse at Cleveland's Jacobs Field, atop the big-screen TV, sit two wobbly stacks of DVDs, a collection of bawdy comedies you'd expect to find in a college dorm room. In the lazy hours preceding home games Indians players slouch on leather sofas watching classics such as Deuce Bigalow and Old School. "Other teams may have fancy mottos to rally the troops," says 25-year-old leftfielder Coco Crisp. "Here we draw inspiration from Will Ferrell."
Last Saturday, however, the lighthearted programming on the big screen was preempted by more serious fare: the latest happenings in the American League wild-card race. Three hours before their game against the Minnesota Twins, Cleveland's players eschewed Anchorman in favor of the final innings of a showdown between the Yankees and the Red Sox. After watching Boston prevail 9-2, the Indians took the field and won their sixth straight, 7-5, to extend their wild-card lead over the Yankees to 1 1/2 games. After a 12-4 win over Minnesota on Sunday, Cleveland maintained its lead over the Yankees and pushed the Oakland A's 2 1/2 back.
"It's nice to be the hot team today," first baseman Ben Broussard said on Saturday of the Indians, who had the league's best record since Aug. 1 (27-10 at week's end). "But we know how quickly things can change in a race like this. Blink, and we could be back looking up at two teams in the standings. That's how things will be until the very end of the season."
With the majors' 26th-highest payroll at $41.5 million ($14 million less than the famously low-budget A's), the Indians have ascended to the wild-card lead so suddenly and unexpectedly that even their own fans, it seems, haven't noticed. Although they are poised to advance to the postseason for the first time in four years, the Indians rank 25th in attendance. "It's been the best sports season in Cleveland that no one saw," one team official groaned last Friday night, when only 26,078 fans (half its capacity) turned out at Jacobs Field to see the Tribe beat 2004 AL Cy Young winner Johan Santana for the first time in 19 tries.
In June 2002, seven months after taking over a team that had won six AL Central titles in the last seven years, general manager Mark Shapiro set about dismantling it, unloading ace righthander Bartolo Colon for a package of prospects that included outfielder Grady Sizemore and lefthander Cliff Lee. Shapiro (pronounced sha-PIE-roe) jettisoned other expensive veterans such as outfielder Kenny Lofton, starting pitcher Chuck Finley and relievers Ricardo Rincon and Terry Mulholland, and declared in a press conference that the Indians wouldn't be contenders again for three years.
"I felt like George Bush saying, 'No new taxes' -- there hasn't been a month since then that someone hasn't brought up that I said we wouldn't contend until 2005," says the Princeton-educated Shapiro, 38, a devotee of baseball's new math who had spent three seasons as an assistant G.M. in Cleveland before his promotion. "But even though we were a playoff team in 2001, we knew, privately, going into '02 that we were moving toward a dramatic rebuilding process, given how thin we were in our farm system, combined with the aging of our players and the expiration of contracts. We had to accelerate the rebuilding process, which meant restocking the upper levels of our farm system through trades."
Reporters criticized the rookie G.M. for tearing apart a perennial contender, and fans called radio talk shows comparing Shapiro to reviled former Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell.
Fast-forward three years. The rebuilt Indians have risen as contenders again, not only for this year but well beyond. In '02 Shapiro acquired his current starting outfield (Crisp, Sizemore, 23, and Casey Blake, 32), his biggest bat (designated hitter Travis Hafner, 28) and his winningest pitcher (Lee, 27, who was 16-4 with a 3.69 ERA through Sunday). Cleveland has also developed players like 26-year-old catcher Victor Martinez (a major-league-best .378 average since the All-Star break) and 23-year-old Jhonny Peralta, who at week's end ranked second only to Baltimore's Miguel Tejada in slugging percentage (.520) among American League shortstops. "They've got some great young talent, guys who are ready to win now," says injured Twins centerfielder Torii Hunter. "No one around the league is surprised they're in it. What's scary is that they're just going to get better over the next few years."
Scariest of all the Indians' hitters is Hafner (.304, 25 homers, 88 RBIs), whose 1.967 OPS over the last two seasons ranks first in the majors. Hafner reminds many of the first baseman he succeeded in Cleveland, Jim Thome. A fan favorite and the Indians' alltime home run hitter, Thome was a humble, lumbering lefthanded slugger from Peoria, Ill. The 6'3", 240-pound Hafner, who grew up idolizing Thome, is a humble, lumbering lefthanded slugger from Sykeston, N.D., a town of less than 150 that, according to Hafner, has "no stoplights, four stop signs, a post office and one café -- and that's pretty much it."
Hafner's graduating class at Sykeston High totaled eight students, and he arrived at Cowley County (Kans.) Community College with little experience playing organized ball; even in American Legion play he had never seen a pitch over 80 mph. How raw was Hafner? "One day my first year [at Cowley] the coach said we were going down to the field to take some fungoes, and I asked, 'What's a fungo?'" Hafner says. "When he talked about getting a runner from first to third by going the other way, I figured that was some real top-secret information. I had no idea what he was talking about."
Despite his rough edges, Hafner dominated at the junior college level -- in '97 he was a juco All-America and MVP of the juco World Series -- and the Rangers chose him in the 31st round of the '96 amateur draft. He broke in with Texas in 2002, playing in 23 games, but Shapiro acquired him that winter for catcher Einar Diaz and righthander Ryan Drese. In his first season with the Indians, Hafner had the daunting task of replacing Thome at first base, but after a yo-yo rookie season in which he hit .254 in 91 games, he settled in as the team's every-day DH in '04, hitting .311 with 28 homers and a .583 slugging percentage. The Indians' recent hot streak coincided with Hafner's return on Aug. 1, after he'd missed 17 games with a concussion; since then they have ranked third in the majors in runs and second in homers. "Everyone seemed to hit a little better when he came back," says Sizemore, "and that's no coincidence. His presence alone changes the whole dynamic of the lineup."
If the Indians do win the wild card, they could be a tough out in October. Beyond their balanced lineup, which, according to Detroit Tigers lefty Mike Maroth, doesn't really have "a weak link," Cleveland has the best bullpen in baseball (anchored by AL saves leader Bob Wickman) and an underrated trio of starters -- Kevin Millwood (3.11 ERA with a league-low 3.23 run support), C.C. Sabathia (7-0, 2.37 ERA in his last seven starts) and Lee (6-0, 3.37 ERA over his last 10 starts) -- who are peaking at the right time. "I've said since the start of the season that they were a dangerous team," says White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. "I love that lineup and the pitching. Cleveland is one of those teams that can put a lot of runs up on the board, so you have to swing the bats."
A year ago the Indians were one game out of first in the AL Central on Aug. 14, then lost nine straight to drop out of contention. "We were young, we were inexperienced, and we ran out of gas," says Broussard. "Last year we learned how hard it is to get into the playoffs, but now we're ready to go the distance. Everyone says how young we are, how our future is bright, but we don't care about the future. We're here to win this year."
15 September 2005
Lost in the Penumbra
"Alastair honey, draw the bath so we can get you into bed soon."
"Ok mom."
Alastair was a very quiet boy, always doing as his sweet mother told him. His mother Chelsea loved him dearly and doted on the poor lad severely. Alastair clung to his mother at all times. The loss of his work obsessed father nearly two years ago merely exacerbated the child's intense shyness and social anxieties. Chelsea saw past this and only saw her model child. He was praised magnificently by his teachers for his incredible work ethic and behaviour. He never talked out of turn, was always prepared for class, and showed incredible potential in reading comprehension and the such.
Alastair was tucked into bed, and the lights were turned off after Chelsea planted a nice kiss upon his forehead. When he heard the click of the door, he immediately grabbed for the flashligh he left hidden between the mattress and headboard. Alastair reached under his bed, patted the ground until he found what he was looking for. It was his old, dear friend Huckleberry Finn. Together they went to go find poor Jim sleeping under the tree outside. They played a good trick on him and had a great laugh about it later.
Alastair could see, really see what Huck saw. He felt the power of Twain's words jump from the living page, and the resonant mode of the incident words sent his thoughts into an excited state. Floating down the Mississippi lulled him into a deeply relaxed state. His heart raced as the dauphine was nearly tarred and feathered. He teared up when he realized his best friend Jim was a free man.
The young boy could absolutely tear his way through a text. But he found himself hanging on at some points. He didn't want to leave that place, like when they tried to pass themselves off as girls or while amidst the great joy of finding each other reunited with Jim once again. These moments conspired to slow the movement of time down to an intolerably slow space, staving off the sunlight for what seemed like an eternity.
He dreaded the prospect of waking up to face his tormentors for the nth day in a row. Alastair felt abandoned, but he durst not say a single word.
...Some More
"Ok mom."
Alastair was a very quiet boy, always doing as his sweet mother told him. His mother Chelsea loved him dearly and doted on the poor lad severely. Alastair clung to his mother at all times. The loss of his work obsessed father nearly two years ago merely exacerbated the child's intense shyness and social anxieties. Chelsea saw past this and only saw her model child. He was praised magnificently by his teachers for his incredible work ethic and behaviour. He never talked out of turn, was always prepared for class, and showed incredible potential in reading comprehension and the such.
Alastair was tucked into bed, and the lights were turned off after Chelsea planted a nice kiss upon his forehead. When he heard the click of the door, he immediately grabbed for the flashligh he left hidden between the mattress and headboard. Alastair reached under his bed, patted the ground until he found what he was looking for. It was his old, dear friend Huckleberry Finn. Together they went to go find poor Jim sleeping under the tree outside. They played a good trick on him and had a great laugh about it later.
Alastair could see, really see what Huck saw. He felt the power of Twain's words jump from the living page, and the resonant mode of the incident words sent his thoughts into an excited state. Floating down the Mississippi lulled him into a deeply relaxed state. His heart raced as the dauphine was nearly tarred and feathered. He teared up when he realized his best friend Jim was a free man.
The young boy could absolutely tear his way through a text. But he found himself hanging on at some points. He didn't want to leave that place, like when they tried to pass themselves off as girls or while amidst the great joy of finding each other reunited with Jim once again. These moments conspired to slow the movement of time down to an intolerably slow space, staving off the sunlight for what seemed like an eternity.
He dreaded the prospect of waking up to face his tormentors for the nth day in a row. Alastair felt abandoned, but he durst not say a single word.
...Some More
14 September 2005
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
I saw this movie the past weekend with Beth. (But Jon, don't you live in College Station, which is several states away from Atlanta?) The movie is interesting. It really creeped me out and made me long for the days when saying the rosary at home was an everday activity.
I attended grade school at the Incarnate Word Academy (or The Academy, for those in the know). In the seventh grade, a priest by the name of Fr. Herron would come in to talk with us every now and then. Typically, he would tell us his ghost stories. These stories though, which wasn't obvious at the time, were pretty much vehicles for warning us against the dangers of the occult, devil-worship, or what have you.
Once he told the story of a priest who would frequently be overwhelmed with his study late into the night. He studied alone, in a creaky, old house relying solely upon candlelight to aid his vision. He was a holy man of famed repute for his skills as a theologian. One night, while reading on the signs and symbols of the early Church, this priest came across something very curious. He was spurred by such curiousity that he called a friend and colleague in hopes of collaboration in an effort to confirm his dark suspicions.
His friend, using his sound priestly instincts, warned the priest against putting too much stock in the material that he was currently reading. He warned him against exploring such tenebrous realms. The paganism found therein could have extraordinarily dire consequences. The priest mechanically agreed to his suggestions, but his own curiousity continued to gnaw and ache at his very soul. He wished to experience for himself the mystic, incredible power that the texts outlined for him in great detail. For years, the priest had been absorbed in fruitless meditation, He found that his concentration was lacking, with the exception of his innate ability to become absorbed in study.
The chants and ritual all seemed so simple. The texts promised great mysteries would be revealed to him through the course of intense meditation. He began one night with great trepidation in his heart. Finally the warnings he had received through his friend began to sink in. Slowly, he reopened the by now familiar text. His hand shook greatly. He began. The chant sounded in his head like a thousand walls crashing to the ground. Immediately, he felt as though he was right in exploring these dark rites. Blood started shooting out his nose and ears. The last thing he saw was a flaming pentacle appear floating before his very eyes. The medic would declare this the result of massive hemorrhaging of the brain.
But we know better, don't we?
So, my reproduction of that story is very poor (a tenuous one at best). What stuck with me though was how stern he looked at each of us when telling us to never, ever mess with anything dealing with the occult or the devil or whatever....because it is REAL! That's an intense moment for a seventh grader to have. I was honestly scared shitless after that (trust me, the story as told by him was much scarier and had a billion times better details).
I had bought an oujia board approximately a month before that incident. I went home and threw it away.
Word of the Day:
afflatus \uh-FLAY-tuhs\, noun:
A divine imparting of knowledge; inspiration.
13 September 2005
America's Pastime
"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come." -- Actor James Earl Jones, talking to Ray Kinella, played by Kevin Costner, in the movie "Field of Dreams"
You can hear James Earl Jones' booming voice in that quote. If you really want to see me sob like a little girl, all you really need to do is make me watch this movie. It never fails. I guess what I miss most about being away from home is being able to play catch with either my father or brother. And really, I guess that's why Ray goes to the trouble of building a ball diamond over valuable crop land at a time when he is desperately struggling to make ends meet. Ray wanted to play a game of catch. Ray's father shows up as a ghost. They play catch, and I start to cry. Life is hard sometimes.
At any rate, the Indians are in first place in the AL wild card race over the hated Yankees by a full game (5.5 games back of the dreaded White Sox in the AL central after gaining 9 games on them since August 1st). It's September, the season is winding down, and the Indians are contending again. No one in Cleveland seems to care. Home attendance is still hovering around the 20,000 mark. I guess after selling out a Major League record 455 some odd home games in a row, you can give the hometown support a break for awhile. When that streak began, the Indians were entering a new ballpark and were good for the first time in nearly 40 years.
More people show up for a Browns practice during the off-season. What's the great attraction there, Trent Dilfer?
The old Cleveland Municipal Stadium (read: Mistake by the Lake, seating capacity of 78,000) remains in my memory a hallowed ground. The former home of both the Browns and Indians, the stadium bespoke a time marked by remarkable industrial prowess in the city of Cleveland. The factories of that era are, of course, long gone. The imposing steel girders which would oftentimes block a fan's view of the playing field bespoke of a time when you didn't need a plenitude of distractions and bright lights to keep a fan entertained. Seats angled towards home plate? You wouldn't have seen any of that bull honkey here. But if that weren't enough to keep me wanting to come back, there was always Cleveland's own Stadium Mustard. This spicy condiment, slathered on a hot dog in a bun is quintessential Cleveland baseball.
Of course, when I knew the old stadium, I was much younger. I was at an age when baseball was the biggest thing out there. I vaguely remember the first game I went to. It was just me and my dad. Roger Clemens led the Red Sox into town and absolutely beat the Indians senseless. John Farrel pitched that game for the Tribe and gave up a couple of homers. The Red Sox were still wearing those old gray jerseys with "Boston" written across the chest in black block-letters. It was a day game and a beautiful day at that. The moment that hit me, as an impressionable youth, was emerging from the bowels of the stadium to enter the section where we were seated. The sensation of going from dark into light with Stadium Mustard dog in hand is an incredible one, especially when the backdrop is of an expansive green field where ballplayers are stretching and warming up in preparation for a game. Can you imagine the luxury...batting practice with clean, white balls on a real Major League field?
Those were the days of Brook Jacoby, Jerry Browne, Chris James, Sergio Valdez, Rudy Seanez, Cory Snyder, Tom Candiotti, Bud Black, Greg Swindell...
Wow, they sucked a lot.
The Tribe was my first love.
You can hear James Earl Jones' booming voice in that quote. If you really want to see me sob like a little girl, all you really need to do is make me watch this movie. It never fails. I guess what I miss most about being away from home is being able to play catch with either my father or brother. And really, I guess that's why Ray goes to the trouble of building a ball diamond over valuable crop land at a time when he is desperately struggling to make ends meet. Ray wanted to play a game of catch. Ray's father shows up as a ghost. They play catch, and I start to cry. Life is hard sometimes.
At any rate, the Indians are in first place in the AL wild card race over the hated Yankees by a full game (5.5 games back of the dreaded White Sox in the AL central after gaining 9 games on them since August 1st). It's September, the season is winding down, and the Indians are contending again. No one in Cleveland seems to care. Home attendance is still hovering around the 20,000 mark. I guess after selling out a Major League record 455 some odd home games in a row, you can give the hometown support a break for awhile. When that streak began, the Indians were entering a new ballpark and were good for the first time in nearly 40 years.
More people show up for a Browns practice during the off-season. What's the great attraction there, Trent Dilfer?
The old Cleveland Municipal Stadium (read: Mistake by the Lake, seating capacity of 78,000) remains in my memory a hallowed ground. The former home of both the Browns and Indians, the stadium bespoke a time marked by remarkable industrial prowess in the city of Cleveland. The factories of that era are, of course, long gone. The imposing steel girders which would oftentimes block a fan's view of the playing field bespoke of a time when you didn't need a plenitude of distractions and bright lights to keep a fan entertained. Seats angled towards home plate? You wouldn't have seen any of that bull honkey here. But if that weren't enough to keep me wanting to come back, there was always Cleveland's own Stadium Mustard. This spicy condiment, slathered on a hot dog in a bun is quintessential Cleveland baseball.
Of course, when I knew the old stadium, I was much younger. I was at an age when baseball was the biggest thing out there. I vaguely remember the first game I went to. It was just me and my dad. Roger Clemens led the Red Sox into town and absolutely beat the Indians senseless. John Farrel pitched that game for the Tribe and gave up a couple of homers. The Red Sox were still wearing those old gray jerseys with "Boston" written across the chest in black block-letters. It was a day game and a beautiful day at that. The moment that hit me, as an impressionable youth, was emerging from the bowels of the stadium to enter the section where we were seated. The sensation of going from dark into light with Stadium Mustard dog in hand is an incredible one, especially when the backdrop is of an expansive green field where ballplayers are stretching and warming up in preparation for a game. Can you imagine the luxury...batting practice with clean, white balls on a real Major League field?
Those were the days of Brook Jacoby, Jerry Browne, Chris James, Sergio Valdez, Rudy Seanez, Cory Snyder, Tom Candiotti, Bud Black, Greg Swindell...
Wow, they sucked a lot.
The Tribe was my first love.
Aggie Traditions: Midnight Yell
Yell Practice began as a post dinner activity in 1913, when different corps companies would gather together to "learn heartily the old time pep." However, it was not until 1931, that Yell Practice as it is known today, was held before the t.u. game. It began, when a group of cadets were gathered in Peanut Owen's dorm room in Puryear Hall. Someone suggested that all of the freshmen should fall out and meet on the steps of the YMCA building at midnight. The cadets notified senior yell leaders Horsefly Berryhill and Two Gun Herman from Sherman, who could not authorize it, but said that they may just show up. Well, needless to say, the word spread quickly, and when the freshmen began to arrive, there were railroad flares and torpedoes stuck in flower pots around the YMCA building to light the area. The first Midnight Yell had begun!!!
Today, Midnight Yell is held the night before a home game in Kyle Field and at the Grove on Thursday nights before away games. Also for away games, a site is designated for a Midnight Yell in the city of our opponent on the night before the game. For example, for the t.u. game, it is held at the Texas Capitol in Austin. For a yell at Kyle Field, yell leaders lead the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band and the Twelfth Man into the stadium. The yell leaders lead the crowd in old army yells, the singing of the fight song, and tell fables of how the Aggies are going to beat the everlivin' hell out of our opponent for the next day. Lastly, the lights go out, and Aggies kiss their dates. If they don't have a date, all they have to do is flick their Bicks. As the story goes, the flames make it easier for two dateless people to find each other, and maybe they won't be dateless anymore!
The purpose of Midnight Yell is to pump up the Twelfth Man for the next day's big game!
In September 17, 1999, a new tradition was formed... First Yell (the first Midnight Yell of the school year) brought with it many related activities for everyone on Friday and Saturday including concerts, BBQ, and a Former Yell Leaders Reunion.
-- Taken directly from aggietraditions.tamu.edu
Today, Midnight Yell is held the night before a home game in Kyle Field and at the Grove on Thursday nights before away games. Also for away games, a site is designated for a Midnight Yell in the city of our opponent on the night before the game. For example, for the t.u. game, it is held at the Texas Capitol in Austin. For a yell at Kyle Field, yell leaders lead the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band and the Twelfth Man into the stadium. The yell leaders lead the crowd in old army yells, the singing of the fight song, and tell fables of how the Aggies are going to beat the everlivin' hell out of our opponent for the next day. Lastly, the lights go out, and Aggies kiss their dates. If they don't have a date, all they have to do is flick their Bicks. As the story goes, the flames make it easier for two dateless people to find each other, and maybe they won't be dateless anymore!
The purpose of Midnight Yell is to pump up the Twelfth Man for the next day's big game!
In September 17, 1999, a new tradition was formed... First Yell (the first Midnight Yell of the school year) brought with it many related activities for everyone on Friday and Saturday including concerts, BBQ, and a Former Yell Leaders Reunion.
-- Taken directly from aggietraditions.tamu.edu
12 September 2005
I hear words like "handsomness" and "incredibly chiseled features" and for me that's like a vanity that I don't buy into.
It turns out that flash photography is still my mortal enemy. Who is this guy?
I suppose that I have a relationship with picture taking that is akin to one of mutual distrust. I think it's sad really. I think I could have really been someone. My mom took me to one of those cutest baby things that you'll frequently see at the mall. Although apparently I was plenty cute for the world of professional baby modelling, I was too "inactive" in front of the camera. It's just wonderful to think about how much of a dumpy, sad sack of a baby I looked like when I was little.
There was the time in pre-school where I was clearly upset over something random. If you can imagine a non-curly haired, five year old version of myself pouting and fidgeting with his fingers in his lap, I think you have got a very good idea of how that particular photo turned out.
Then there was that awkward phase where I really didn't realize that my hair was becoming curly. This was around the second or third grade or so. My hair was suddenly puffy and was so stubborn as to not yield to the demands I exacted by force using hairbrush and plenty of water every morning. Pictures from this era were problematic because I tended to look greasy or intoxicated. This is indeed a very sad, sad fate.
Adolescence....there's no conceivable reason why we should even broach this topic.
Somewhere near the end of that period, I started getting my hair cut in a fade. That was worthless, because you should not get that kind of a haircut if you cannot end up looking like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or at least Play, from Kid n' Play. Luckily, I think that sort of ghastliness was adequately compensated by the removal of my braces and eyeglasses from my life. Contacts are definitely the way to go.
Minus the flash, I still look goofy (note the profile pic and here's an extra piece of evidence: REU-TASTIC!!?).
While we're on the topic, candid photography is not my bag either: I'm goofy.
I suppose that I have a relationship with picture taking that is akin to one of mutual distrust. I think it's sad really. I think I could have really been someone. My mom took me to one of those cutest baby things that you'll frequently see at the mall. Although apparently I was plenty cute for the world of professional baby modelling, I was too "inactive" in front of the camera. It's just wonderful to think about how much of a dumpy, sad sack of a baby I looked like when I was little.
There was the time in pre-school where I was clearly upset over something random. If you can imagine a non-curly haired, five year old version of myself pouting and fidgeting with his fingers in his lap, I think you have got a very good idea of how that particular photo turned out.
Then there was that awkward phase where I really didn't realize that my hair was becoming curly. This was around the second or third grade or so. My hair was suddenly puffy and was so stubborn as to not yield to the demands I exacted by force using hairbrush and plenty of water every morning. Pictures from this era were problematic because I tended to look greasy or intoxicated. This is indeed a very sad, sad fate.
Adolescence....there's no conceivable reason why we should even broach this topic.
Somewhere near the end of that period, I started getting my hair cut in a fade. That was worthless, because you should not get that kind of a haircut if you cannot end up looking like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or at least Play, from Kid n' Play. Luckily, I think that sort of ghastliness was adequately compensated by the removal of my braces and eyeglasses from my life. Contacts are definitely the way to go.
Minus the flash, I still look goofy (note the profile pic and here's an extra piece of evidence: REU-TASTIC!!?).
While we're on the topic, candid photography is not my bag either: I'm goofy.
Alastair
Young Alastair approached his father, Aristotle, and asked him to play catch outside. The eight year old boy grasped his miniature ball glove in his hands and wore his cap doffed messily to the side, his unkempt blond hair spilling out the sides and back. Aristotle though was busy pouring over his equations, combing each line for the supposed mistake that he was sure he had made. Aristotle said, "In just a minute son." Alastair sat in the corner of Aristotle's expansive study with ball in hand. His small hands could barely make a sure-grip on the ball. He flipped it in the air to himself, keeping his eyes focused on the red seams. As the ball began rotating faster and faster, the seams blurred into a continuum. He strained his eyes in vain to keep each seam as a discrete mark as perceived by his poor vision. Alastair meditated on each individual seam, trying to keep them all separate from one other and in their rightful place in the order of things. The blur was strangely disagreeable to him, so he fought it as hard as he could. He pictured the ball as large as basketball and then a beach ball. Surely, at that size, the seams could be kept from unfairly intermingling with one another. The oversized baseball tumbled slowly in the air. The motion itself became discrete, as though rotating in front of a flashing strobe. The image made Alastair feel warm inside, and he began longing to go outside with his father. The longing began to tie knots in his innards, and he wanted to cry out and grab his father's attention away from his work.
Strange combinations of letters and symbols danced in front of Aristotle's face, mocking him for his efforts. By playing with funny topological spaces, he sought to unlock the world at the quantum scale. The small permutations that he made in his hand failed to make any sense. His concentration wore extremely thin, his eyes lost their focus, and the page became a blurry mess to him. His head came down with a loud thud, displacing young Alastair from his reverie. "Father!" He ran up and shook him, but Aristotle was unresponsive.
Not sure of what to do, Alastair started to cry. He ran to get his mother from downstairs.
Strange combinations of letters and symbols danced in front of Aristotle's face, mocking him for his efforts. By playing with funny topological spaces, he sought to unlock the world at the quantum scale. The small permutations that he made in his hand failed to make any sense. His concentration wore extremely thin, his eyes lost their focus, and the page became a blurry mess to him. His head came down with a loud thud, displacing young Alastair from his reverie. "Father!" He ran up and shook him, but Aristotle was unresponsive.
Not sure of what to do, Alastair started to cry. He ran to get his mother from downstairs.
08 September 2005
Ten Things
1. Apparently, 2 minutes really is the operable blender run-time for making delicious smoothies. After countless experimental runs and after pouring through mountains of chocolatey and flavorful data sets, 2 minutes appears to be the hands down winner.
2. After nearly 8 years, whenever I hear someone offhandedly refer to the 1997 seventh game loss by the Cleveland Indians to the Florida Marlins in the World Series (or consequently discusses such banal topics as Jose Mesa or Edgar Renteria), the heartbreak feels pretty much the same as while watching it live on television.
3. I didn't tell either of the classes for which I am the teaching assistant that I have a facebook profile, which implies that I did not give them explicit permission to do this, but I'm curious to see if anyone shall dare to become my facebook friend. Furthermore, if no one wants to be my facebook friend...I suppose that's just fine by me.
4. I drink a LOT of caffeine. On an average day, I normally consume upwards of 8 shots of espresso and a 16 oz. energy drink (lo-carb of course). As if that were not enough to keep any normal person's energy levels way below the ground state, I also supplement my diet with a Centrum Performance vitamin tablet (with ginseng, gingko bilboa, and all the vitamin B's you could ever want). I also frequently snack on trail mix. If productivity falls below 300%, I may need to employ other energy giving resources as a precaution.
5. Now that I've taken to buying my water in cute half-liter bottles, my room is absolutely strewn with empty plastic bottles. I'm thinking after a couple months, I may be able to melt them all down (while wearing a proper mask to protect myself from the awful fumes?) and construct a large plastic cube or maybe a bust of Thomas Edison's head.
6. Taking only two courses (albeit graduate level) in one semester seems quite alright to me.
7. I forgot that going into a hot tub is only awesome when the weather is cold or at least cool. Jon and Mindy invited me to go along with them to their friends' apartment, where we relaxed and drank beers (read: shotgunned beers) in the hot tub. Of course, I was sweating profusely after about 2 minutes (this is Texas after all). One of their friends is Vietnamese. Another guy showed up later who is half-English, half-Indonesian. I probably seemed to eager too talk to them, but I never really had the opportunity to meet (or at least drink) with many different Asian types.
One more tidbit of information from this night: Tito's Vodka is incredible. At $11 for a fifth of this 40% alcohol per volume product, you would expect this delectable treat to go down rough -- fighting you all the way down to your stomach and even afterwards. This is the smoothest vodka I have ever had.
8. What is this?!?!...A center for ANTS!
9. a. When I told my class today that I did my undergraduate studies at The Wabash College of Crawfordsville, Indiana, I had the pleasure of being outed by one of my students. I claimed that none of them have probably ever heard of it. One of my students was apparently recruited for a time to play football for my beloved Little Giants. After the words "Wabash" and "College" left my mouth, the student's hand was raised, and he asked me, "Isn't that an all-male school?" Per usual, I put the dopiest grin I could muster upon my face and replied with the affirmative. After some incoherent hemming and hawing about Wabash, I began the class.
b. I told my class about significant figures today during the lab period. I warned them not to confuse that with significant others. I had a very nice polite chuckle emanate from the class. Being humorous is hard.
10. It is far too hot out here to drink hot coffee. I'll take mine iced. Thank you and gig(gle) 'em Aggies!
2. After nearly 8 years, whenever I hear someone offhandedly refer to the 1997 seventh game loss by the Cleveland Indians to the Florida Marlins in the World Series (or consequently discusses such banal topics as Jose Mesa or Edgar Renteria), the heartbreak feels pretty much the same as while watching it live on television.
3. I didn't tell either of the classes for which I am the teaching assistant that I have a facebook profile, which implies that I did not give them explicit permission to do this, but I'm curious to see if anyone shall dare to become my facebook friend. Furthermore, if no one wants to be my facebook friend...I suppose that's just fine by me.
4. I drink a LOT of caffeine. On an average day, I normally consume upwards of 8 shots of espresso and a 16 oz. energy drink (lo-carb of course). As if that were not enough to keep any normal person's energy levels way below the ground state, I also supplement my diet with a Centrum Performance vitamin tablet (with ginseng, gingko bilboa, and all the vitamin B's you could ever want). I also frequently snack on trail mix. If productivity falls below 300%, I may need to employ other energy giving resources as a precaution.
5. Now that I've taken to buying my water in cute half-liter bottles, my room is absolutely strewn with empty plastic bottles. I'm thinking after a couple months, I may be able to melt them all down (while wearing a proper mask to protect myself from the awful fumes?) and construct a large plastic cube or maybe a bust of Thomas Edison's head.
6. Taking only two courses (albeit graduate level) in one semester seems quite alright to me.
7. I forgot that going into a hot tub is only awesome when the weather is cold or at least cool. Jon and Mindy invited me to go along with them to their friends' apartment, where we relaxed and drank beers (read: shotgunned beers) in the hot tub. Of course, I was sweating profusely after about 2 minutes (this is Texas after all). One of their friends is Vietnamese. Another guy showed up later who is half-English, half-Indonesian. I probably seemed to eager too talk to them, but I never really had the opportunity to meet (or at least drink) with many different Asian types.
One more tidbit of information from this night: Tito's Vodka is incredible. At $11 for a fifth of this 40% alcohol per volume product, you would expect this delectable treat to go down rough -- fighting you all the way down to your stomach and even afterwards. This is the smoothest vodka I have ever had.
8. What is this?!?!...A center for ANTS!
9. a. When I told my class today that I did my undergraduate studies at The Wabash College of Crawfordsville, Indiana, I had the pleasure of being outed by one of my students. I claimed that none of them have probably ever heard of it. One of my students was apparently recruited for a time to play football for my beloved Little Giants. After the words "Wabash" and "College" left my mouth, the student's hand was raised, and he asked me, "Isn't that an all-male school?" Per usual, I put the dopiest grin I could muster upon my face and replied with the affirmative. After some incoherent hemming and hawing about Wabash, I began the class.
b. I told my class about significant figures today during the lab period. I warned them not to confuse that with significant others. I had a very nice polite chuckle emanate from the class. Being humorous is hard.
10. It is far too hot out here to drink hot coffee. I'll take mine iced. Thank you and gig(gle) 'em Aggies!
05 September 2005
Seeing God
By no means am I any sort of mystic, but there are certain moments that give the inimitable impression and overall sensation of presence.
"Aaron is eight years old when he sees God. He is on a night flight home from his grandfather's funeral, a man he never met while living. He has a window seat and has spent the entire flight staring at the tiny lights below which, intellectually, he knows correspond to buildings but which seem more like sequins on an endless black blanket. When the plane flies into a cloud, Aaron's sense of unlimited span and distance disappears. His window is swathed in white. A pulsing red light emanates from the cloud's whiteness. Aaron stares, awestruck. With each pulse of light the cloud is transformed into something magical. Aaron wonders if God lives in all clouds, or if his plane just happened to pick the right one."
-- Bee Season by Myla Goldberg
Junior and Senior year at St. Ignatius the Jesuit Preparatory School of Cleveland, Ohio is a special time for one specific, distinct reason: the Kairos retreat. The fact that this was an experience that occurred so long ago makes the memory a blurred one at best. So when I think of it, there are only several significant things that come to mind. The retreat is a four-day escape to the Jesuit Retreat House in Parma, which is my de facto hometown. On the expansive ground of the retreat house, there are two distinct landmarks that fill one with the feeling that only the sublime can proffer. The one is a tall and oppressive stone statue of Christ, with palms open. The other is a clearing in a wooded area where a Jesuit cemetery lays, in the middle of which stands a large, wooden cross. As often happens, in the daytime, these two respective landmarks lose their mystic, sublime qualities. Imagine for a moment, though, the experience of walking with a close friend and coming to a clearing where the sky and its endless stars open themselves onto you. The moon, large and full and seemingly within reach over the cross, provides a soft glow to guide your way.
When I was a junior, I went on Kairos for the first time. We had all heard the stories and early reports of mystic happenings occurring at the Christ statue. Rest assured, we would have senior guides to aid us in this unofficial part of the Kairos programme. We would later learn that the Jesuits generally frown upon such behavior, but that really is not enough to stop a precocious bunch of adolescents from amateur pursuits in mysticism. Every night, we'd sneak out and stay out late exploring the outside grounds of the complex. A group of us would begin gathering around the Christ statue for prayer. Spontaneously, one of us would be so moved as to approach the statue and climb up onto its base. Some would gather near as well and place their hands in solidarity about his feet. All would continue in prayer. Some would be admittedly distracted from their prayerful state by the seemingly random happenings around them. The young man standing at the base of that statue would then grab the hands of Christ and stare deeply into His eyes.
A lot of people would immediately identify this as some sort of idol worship. In a lot of ways, that may be true, but there was a definite sense of presence. Also, this is what young males are supposed to do. Look at Knowles' A Separate Peace. This really was like Phineas climbing out onto the longest tree limb overhanging a river and jumping. For all intensive purposes, this seemed to be where one could prove his ultimate worth as an Ignatian. I look back on it now as a sort of rite of passage.
One by one, I watched them all hop up onto the base of that statue and feel the emotional shock of His presence. Some would say that they could see tears in Christ's eyes or feel warmth from his hands. There always seemed to be some sense of being displaced, feeling as though the statue was welcoming the young retreatant.
I went up timid and shy, and didn't feel a thing. I was disappointed, but I wasn't really surprised. Looking back, I realize it was because I was still innocent, and I didn't hurt from anything. I would soon realize the connection, after conversation with thme, that they hurt from something and that they needed that presence to be felt. That period of adolescence is an awkward one, because the small things don't fill you with the same sense of awe and amazement anymore.
I would go back to that place my senior year as a retreat leader. I remember walking around with my friend Michael at night. We went past the statue, where a new host of Ignatians were getting their fill of presence, and we came across that clearing in the woods. I hadn't noticed it on previous occassions. The sky just seemed to open up out of nowhere and sent down upon us a very soft glow of moonlight. Maybe that's what let him release his hurt. He told me stuff that I would have never been able to guess on my own about him. I never realized how much stress he was under. He went through the pain of having lost his virginity and then of having that same girl tell him she was pregnant. The rub was that she really wasn't pregnant, but she had kept up the charade for awhile. She made it all up to get back at him for breaking up with her. Later she claimed to have had an abortion or maybe a miscarriage. But it was certainly a host of lies and undeserved pain.
Secretly, I was jealous because I had never known pain. I never felt a real need to cry and let out emotion. I would feel it later and realize how naive I was to think like that. I tried to be there for my friend, but I never know the right things to say. I never will. But at the same time, he got to experience a closeness to that presence which can only be made possible by a painful separation. I wish I had understood more clearly, for Michael's sake.
Michael was the one who would introduce me to Lewis Black. After school one day in the weeks before graduation, we rode around downtown Cleveland and then made our way towards Parma while listening to Black's White Album. I laughed so hard that I cried. I've listened to it so often since then that the humor seems to be a part of me. The jokes are like old and reliable friends. I look back to that now and wonder if I had an innocent laugh that he was jealous of. I wouldn't even know if I had lost that. I laughed a lot then, and I still do today. I wish I knew, because it would clear up a lot. I can only suppose.
"Aaron is eight years old when he sees God. He is on a night flight home from his grandfather's funeral, a man he never met while living. He has a window seat and has spent the entire flight staring at the tiny lights below which, intellectually, he knows correspond to buildings but which seem more like sequins on an endless black blanket. When the plane flies into a cloud, Aaron's sense of unlimited span and distance disappears. His window is swathed in white. A pulsing red light emanates from the cloud's whiteness. Aaron stares, awestruck. With each pulse of light the cloud is transformed into something magical. Aaron wonders if God lives in all clouds, or if his plane just happened to pick the right one."
-- Bee Season by Myla Goldberg
Junior and Senior year at St. Ignatius the Jesuit Preparatory School of Cleveland, Ohio is a special time for one specific, distinct reason: the Kairos retreat. The fact that this was an experience that occurred so long ago makes the memory a blurred one at best. So when I think of it, there are only several significant things that come to mind. The retreat is a four-day escape to the Jesuit Retreat House in Parma, which is my de facto hometown. On the expansive ground of the retreat house, there are two distinct landmarks that fill one with the feeling that only the sublime can proffer. The one is a tall and oppressive stone statue of Christ, with palms open. The other is a clearing in a wooded area where a Jesuit cemetery lays, in the middle of which stands a large, wooden cross. As often happens, in the daytime, these two respective landmarks lose their mystic, sublime qualities. Imagine for a moment, though, the experience of walking with a close friend and coming to a clearing where the sky and its endless stars open themselves onto you. The moon, large and full and seemingly within reach over the cross, provides a soft glow to guide your way.
When I was a junior, I went on Kairos for the first time. We had all heard the stories and early reports of mystic happenings occurring at the Christ statue. Rest assured, we would have senior guides to aid us in this unofficial part of the Kairos programme. We would later learn that the Jesuits generally frown upon such behavior, but that really is not enough to stop a precocious bunch of adolescents from amateur pursuits in mysticism. Every night, we'd sneak out and stay out late exploring the outside grounds of the complex. A group of us would begin gathering around the Christ statue for prayer. Spontaneously, one of us would be so moved as to approach the statue and climb up onto its base. Some would gather near as well and place their hands in solidarity about his feet. All would continue in prayer. Some would be admittedly distracted from their prayerful state by the seemingly random happenings around them. The young man standing at the base of that statue would then grab the hands of Christ and stare deeply into His eyes.
A lot of people would immediately identify this as some sort of idol worship. In a lot of ways, that may be true, but there was a definite sense of presence. Also, this is what young males are supposed to do. Look at Knowles' A Separate Peace. This really was like Phineas climbing out onto the longest tree limb overhanging a river and jumping. For all intensive purposes, this seemed to be where one could prove his ultimate worth as an Ignatian. I look back on it now as a sort of rite of passage.
One by one, I watched them all hop up onto the base of that statue and feel the emotional shock of His presence. Some would say that they could see tears in Christ's eyes or feel warmth from his hands. There always seemed to be some sense of being displaced, feeling as though the statue was welcoming the young retreatant.
I went up timid and shy, and didn't feel a thing. I was disappointed, but I wasn't really surprised. Looking back, I realize it was because I was still innocent, and I didn't hurt from anything. I would soon realize the connection, after conversation with thme, that they hurt from something and that they needed that presence to be felt. That period of adolescence is an awkward one, because the small things don't fill you with the same sense of awe and amazement anymore.
I would go back to that place my senior year as a retreat leader. I remember walking around with my friend Michael at night. We went past the statue, where a new host of Ignatians were getting their fill of presence, and we came across that clearing in the woods. I hadn't noticed it on previous occassions. The sky just seemed to open up out of nowhere and sent down upon us a very soft glow of moonlight. Maybe that's what let him release his hurt. He told me stuff that I would have never been able to guess on my own about him. I never realized how much stress he was under. He went through the pain of having lost his virginity and then of having that same girl tell him she was pregnant. The rub was that she really wasn't pregnant, but she had kept up the charade for awhile. She made it all up to get back at him for breaking up with her. Later she claimed to have had an abortion or maybe a miscarriage. But it was certainly a host of lies and undeserved pain.
Secretly, I was jealous because I had never known pain. I never felt a real need to cry and let out emotion. I would feel it later and realize how naive I was to think like that. I tried to be there for my friend, but I never know the right things to say. I never will. But at the same time, he got to experience a closeness to that presence which can only be made possible by a painful separation. I wish I had understood more clearly, for Michael's sake.
Michael was the one who would introduce me to Lewis Black. After school one day in the weeks before graduation, we rode around downtown Cleveland and then made our way towards Parma while listening to Black's White Album. I laughed so hard that I cried. I've listened to it so often since then that the humor seems to be a part of me. The jokes are like old and reliable friends. I look back to that now and wonder if I had an innocent laugh that he was jealous of. I wouldn't even know if I had lost that. I laughed a lot then, and I still do today. I wish I knew, because it would clear up a lot. I can only suppose.
04 September 2005
Alastair Templeton
"The most important thing to remember is to change your ways while you're still young." That was the last thing I heard from the crazy, wound-up bastard. I could never understand how he got that way. Maybe it comes with trying to beat off urges that come as natural as breathing. I didn't see it at first, but over time, one could easily tell that the paranoia was tearing him apart from the inside. His insides were crumbling like a weathered and bombed out villa. The scene though wasn't as majestic and not nearly as sublime as one.
I could never figure what day to day living could have been like for that guy. His life must have been absolute torture. A speck of dirt would enter into the scope of his vision, and he could feel the shivers run up and down his spine. He'd see a plate of rotting food, and panic would hit him hard in the chest. Hyperventilating and beginning to perspire, he'd need a seat to regain his composure. His world was an absolute nightmare, and it was a wonder that he had made it this far.
Maybe his obsession was the product of a simple denial at first. I suppose that is most likely the case, since most big things grow out of some weird small thing that really doesn't resemble the end-product in the least bit. It just never made much sense to me is all. I'd say hello on a daily basis, I was friendly with him all the time. Maybe he didn't like all that, and it made it exponentially worse for him, my co-worker.
Some relationships start off so simply but grow into that of mutual distrust. What thing or person did he have such a relationship with? I didn't have such a relationship with him. I trusted his instinct when it came to matters concerning the job. His expertise was well-known and respected in the field. He knew how to dissect a problem, an issue, a matter of grave seriousness like no other -- a physicist nonpareil. He was at his most calm and relaxed when relied upon. Maybe that was the issue all in itself. The filth, the entropy of it all, maybe it got to him in the worst way as age crept up and over him -- supplanting his outmoded self.
A month before his tragic end, he looked at me with piercing, deeply reflective eyes and bared all. He said, "Get out while you still can and take the kids with you." I had no idea what he could have possibly been talking about. I didn't know if he had family lost to him, or if he just decided to just up and go crazy on us.
I could never figure what day to day living could have been like for that guy. His life must have been absolute torture. A speck of dirt would enter into the scope of his vision, and he could feel the shivers run up and down his spine. He'd see a plate of rotting food, and panic would hit him hard in the chest. Hyperventilating and beginning to perspire, he'd need a seat to regain his composure. His world was an absolute nightmare, and it was a wonder that he had made it this far.
Maybe his obsession was the product of a simple denial at first. I suppose that is most likely the case, since most big things grow out of some weird small thing that really doesn't resemble the end-product in the least bit. It just never made much sense to me is all. I'd say hello on a daily basis, I was friendly with him all the time. Maybe he didn't like all that, and it made it exponentially worse for him, my co-worker.
Some relationships start off so simply but grow into that of mutual distrust. What thing or person did he have such a relationship with? I didn't have such a relationship with him. I trusted his instinct when it came to matters concerning the job. His expertise was well-known and respected in the field. He knew how to dissect a problem, an issue, a matter of grave seriousness like no other -- a physicist nonpareil. He was at his most calm and relaxed when relied upon. Maybe that was the issue all in itself. The filth, the entropy of it all, maybe it got to him in the worst way as age crept up and over him -- supplanting his outmoded self.
A month before his tragic end, he looked at me with piercing, deeply reflective eyes and bared all. He said, "Get out while you still can and take the kids with you." I had no idea what he could have possibly been talking about. I didn't know if he had family lost to him, or if he just decided to just up and go crazy on us.
03 September 2005
Growing Up
I think for a long time, when you're little, the idea of growing up really just doesn't make much sense. Growing up is confined to the idea of losing your baby teeth and just getting outright bigger. What you don't realize is that as you grow up something dies in you. It so often happens, and too often people give in to that. What you don't realize is that all the best things will happen to you when you were younger. You'll forget that and be so lost to the world that you won't stop to have any fun.
There was Rheka (or Reyhka even?) who, when I was a first grader at the Incarnate Word Academy, would taunt me for not having lost any of my baby teeth yet. She always threatened to punch them out for me. I felt like I was missing out, and I wanted to grow up so badly and lose those teeth. She was an Indian girl, which I suppose is significant because there were so few non-white kids in my school. And although we may not have been the best of friends, anytime you're thrust into a new situation you seek out those that may be somewhat like yourself. For all intensive purposes, I was like her in many ways, except for the fact that I was falling desperately behind in the race to grow up. She would ask me everyday at recess if I had lost any teeth yet. And when I would give her my reply to indicate the negative, she would threaten to punch them out for me. I guess it's nice to have someone who is willing to put in that special extra effort to help you along the way. I wanted to lose those teeth so badly, but it just wasn't happening. Not until the next year would I start losing my baby teeth. I have to admit that I was excited about it. I just didn't realize it would hurt so bad. Losing a tooth is never any fun.
Coincidentally, it would turn out that the two front baby teeth in the lower part of my mouth would hang around for much longer than expected. I really don't think there's a term for that, my dentist just said that I had congenitally missing teeth. Now there's an awkward thought, because if I have congenitally missing teeth, isn't it remotely possible that I had congenitally missing other body parts as well? It's a severely discomforting thought indeed. I was eighteen, and I was guilty of the crime of hanging on to those last two baby teeth. Maybe I was able to conspire, out of spite for those like Rheka, to not let those adult teeth grow in. Those teeth would have to be knocked out for me, and I now have a dental bridge in place of those adult teeth that would never grow in.
If anything, I really do just ape the motions of a real, mature, adult male.
There was Rheka (or Reyhka even?) who, when I was a first grader at the Incarnate Word Academy, would taunt me for not having lost any of my baby teeth yet. She always threatened to punch them out for me. I felt like I was missing out, and I wanted to grow up so badly and lose those teeth. She was an Indian girl, which I suppose is significant because there were so few non-white kids in my school. And although we may not have been the best of friends, anytime you're thrust into a new situation you seek out those that may be somewhat like yourself. For all intensive purposes, I was like her in many ways, except for the fact that I was falling desperately behind in the race to grow up. She would ask me everyday at recess if I had lost any teeth yet. And when I would give her my reply to indicate the negative, she would threaten to punch them out for me. I guess it's nice to have someone who is willing to put in that special extra effort to help you along the way. I wanted to lose those teeth so badly, but it just wasn't happening. Not until the next year would I start losing my baby teeth. I have to admit that I was excited about it. I just didn't realize it would hurt so bad. Losing a tooth is never any fun.
Coincidentally, it would turn out that the two front baby teeth in the lower part of my mouth would hang around for much longer than expected. I really don't think there's a term for that, my dentist just said that I had congenitally missing teeth. Now there's an awkward thought, because if I have congenitally missing teeth, isn't it remotely possible that I had congenitally missing other body parts as well? It's a severely discomforting thought indeed. I was eighteen, and I was guilty of the crime of hanging on to those last two baby teeth. Maybe I was able to conspire, out of spite for those like Rheka, to not let those adult teeth grow in. Those teeth would have to be knocked out for me, and I now have a dental bridge in place of those adult teeth that would never grow in.
If anything, I really do just ape the motions of a real, mature, adult male.
02 September 2005
Poop Jokes
I think one of the few things that I'm able to do fairly well is to laugh at myself with great regularity and with the precision of a well-tuned (but nevertheless haphazard) Swiss time-keeping device. There was the time where I was playing rec league baseball. My dad was the coach of the team, and I remember waking up that morning to eat my raisin bran before the game. It was one of those wet mornings, where the sky is grey and dark, and the onset of rain is imminent. Rain fell hard the night before, and as a result the infield proved to be unplayable. We moved the game out onto the outfield though and made a make-shift diamond. We always did the best that we could to fit games inbetween the wet, cold spring and the fall that would arrive so fast. I guess it really is fitting that we were playing in the wrong direction. In physics, we refer to this sort of nonsense as some sort of coordinate transformation. The field had the look and feel of real ball diamond, with the exception that the action was transposed in the wrong angle. Regardless of the inertial frame though, the same laws of physics apply. Today would prove to be no exception.
At any rate, the game played on, and I felt uncomfortable from the get-go. Nothing seemed right, and the grass was slick from rain. The batting helmets felt too tight. Maybe my head was absorbing the moisture from the air around me, causing it to swell to some significant portion above normal. Some people get big heads from their achievements, but not me. No sir, I'm a simple type, and I only get a big head when it rains. Several innings into the game we got a nice drizzle. I remember walking up to the plate for my at-bat when my bowels made the first indication that not all was well in Brownstown. I don't think the Cleveland Browns left town that year, but let's pretend that they did for the sake of argument.
As often happens, the physical limitations seem to disappear when the opportunity to shine arises. When a beautifully fat pitched ball came floating towards the plate, my body transformed from that of an awkward and chubby pre-adolescent to that of a steroid-inflated Barry Bonds. I was really in the zone, like you'll often hear Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods refer to. You could count the number of seams sticking out of that moist, dirty baseball. With great coordination and grace and symmetry and power, bat met ball. The all to familiar metallic clank off my trusty Easton Magnum sounded in the air, alerting fan and player alike to the excitement to take place on the bases. The black and gold beauty sent the ball screaming out towards the gap in left-centerfield.
Per expectation of a boy my size, the idea of running quickly returned my body to its previous, less impressive form. I struggled towards first, concentrating extremely hard on preventing myself from slipping due to the moisture on the ground. Wind and drizzle conspired to impede my progress. And as I rounded first, my bowels made there second indication. I couldn't hold it. One fart, two, three, four...it wouldn't stop. The second baseman looked at his counterpart at short and made a chuckle. When it became evident that the rapid succession would continue, full out laughter began to build in the infield. Meanwhile, I managed to motor all the way towards third. A quick slap on the back from my dad coaching third, plus his trademarked ridiculous laugh made me burst out into laughter as well. I looked around and could not believe what I just did. I didn't make a single comment about it, I just looked sheepishly around and felt completely embarassed. But it really was funny, and I like the sound of laughter. "Yeah Jon, you really turned the jets on for that one, didn't you?"
"I sure did pop, I sure did."
That was one of the earliest memories that I have of the mutual distrust that would grow between myself and my bowels.
At any rate, the game played on, and I felt uncomfortable from the get-go. Nothing seemed right, and the grass was slick from rain. The batting helmets felt too tight. Maybe my head was absorbing the moisture from the air around me, causing it to swell to some significant portion above normal. Some people get big heads from their achievements, but not me. No sir, I'm a simple type, and I only get a big head when it rains. Several innings into the game we got a nice drizzle. I remember walking up to the plate for my at-bat when my bowels made the first indication that not all was well in Brownstown. I don't think the Cleveland Browns left town that year, but let's pretend that they did for the sake of argument.
As often happens, the physical limitations seem to disappear when the opportunity to shine arises. When a beautifully fat pitched ball came floating towards the plate, my body transformed from that of an awkward and chubby pre-adolescent to that of a steroid-inflated Barry Bonds. I was really in the zone, like you'll often hear Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods refer to. You could count the number of seams sticking out of that moist, dirty baseball. With great coordination and grace and symmetry and power, bat met ball. The all to familiar metallic clank off my trusty Easton Magnum sounded in the air, alerting fan and player alike to the excitement to take place on the bases. The black and gold beauty sent the ball screaming out towards the gap in left-centerfield.
Per expectation of a boy my size, the idea of running quickly returned my body to its previous, less impressive form. I struggled towards first, concentrating extremely hard on preventing myself from slipping due to the moisture on the ground. Wind and drizzle conspired to impede my progress. And as I rounded first, my bowels made there second indication. I couldn't hold it. One fart, two, three, four...it wouldn't stop. The second baseman looked at his counterpart at short and made a chuckle. When it became evident that the rapid succession would continue, full out laughter began to build in the infield. Meanwhile, I managed to motor all the way towards third. A quick slap on the back from my dad coaching third, plus his trademarked ridiculous laugh made me burst out into laughter as well. I looked around and could not believe what I just did. I didn't make a single comment about it, I just looked sheepishly around and felt completely embarassed. But it really was funny, and I like the sound of laughter. "Yeah Jon, you really turned the jets on for that one, didn't you?"
"I sure did pop, I sure did."
That was one of the earliest memories that I have of the mutual distrust that would grow between myself and my bowels.
01 September 2005
Living Life in both the Imaginary and Real Plane
"There's nothing that is against the rules. If I feel that I want to write in first person and completely make it up, then I'm going to do it. And I realize that it is a powerful...um...that the I in songwriting is powerful because people tap into the celebrity of it really. They go, 'Oh, that guy,' and I don't mean that I'm a celebrity, but that they're interested in the personality behind the celebrity. 'The guy that's singing that actually did that.'"
-- excerpted from "A Really Tough Year" off of the iTunes Originals: Ben Folds
This quote is really about the song "Brick." Here, though, as a lot of people know, Ben was actually writing about stuff that happened after his 16 year old girlfriend got pregnant. It's weird thinking that he really did have to go around town selling christmas gifts that he got. He went to go sell this stereo, a JVC tape deck that he really wanted and that his entire family pitched in for so that he could get it as a gift; and as he was getting the money from the clerk at the stereo shop, his parents walked in. And seeing that, you know that they had to suspect that something was going on in young Ben's life.
Ben also goes on to talk about how difficult it was to write the experience as song. It was not until Darren Jesse came by with a chorus he was working on that the song really took shape. And with that really memorable chorus, the experience became abstract enough to really drive the whole effect home, as it were.
And so, as I often do, I was looking at some old stuff that I had written. I realized that a lot of what was going on there was based in reality too much, whether fictional or not. I think it's paradoxical that the abstraction can make something appear and have the effect of being more real. And the abstraction need not be complicated, although it often takes the shape of metaphor or irony. Of course, maybe that really is what makes true genius. I had a high school biology teacher who would remark on genius being a statement on the uniqueness (and correctness also, I suppose) of ones vision of the world. So finding that special abstraction makes people feel giddy inside. Two unlike things become like, and the world seems to be turned upside down while bearing down upon you the sense that nothing has ever been so right. Dealing with abstraction in a literary sense though seems to be helpful because it can really take away the sense that there is some conceit that is driving the piece as a whole. I think it's a funny thing that if you can make a real experience seem abstract enough, the effect can be something along the lines of, "wow, that's some profound shit."
Maybe what I'm really trying to say is that when a writer puts in the effort to make his piece driven by an abstract idea, rather than some personal vendetta for example, then there is a simple honesty and sense of reflectiveness that makes that piece substantially more powerful. And when you look at a song like "Brick," at least in this instance it seems to be true.
********************************************************************
The phone rings. Scott angrily storms through the gaping window opening. With the grace of an enraged idiot, he stumbles and falls flat on his face. Cursing the damn irony of it all, he gets to his cordless and answers the phone.
“Scott, I need you, come meet me.”
“Where are you? Where the fuck are you?”
“I need you.” There was a distinct apprehension in her voice that Scott was able to pick up on right away. The apprehension drifts into the room and chokes the life out of a young man convinced that he’s been fucked in some way. Incensed and passionate, these current qualities infecting his life are clearly counter-indicative of large-scale Nyquil consumption.
“You’re over there right now with him, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please come get me.”
The phone goes click. The stubbornness of his father might be a counter-indication of Scott’s unshakeable, yet altogether untenable, belief in his own cool self. He grabs the un-installed window and slams it indiscriminately towards the open air, landing squarely upon the hood of someone’s car. “Oh shit.” He slumps over and the tears come. Scott reasons that the terrible emptiness could be filled if he played it off right. He waited for her to call back. The quick fix in his mind became entangled with the hope that later they’d fuck anyway. Sadly passionate sex seems like an odd way to patch up broken relationships. No matter how much vengeance he exacted on the poor window, re-installation clearly would not be in the cards tonight. The Nyquil makes its warm, slender, and kind grasp upon poor Scott’s brain. The crying, the rage, the lack of sex, the poor ineptitude paled in comparison to the anxiety that made its iron grip squarely around poor Scott’s gastrointestinal inner-workings. Tiredness wages its losing battle versus the 420 pound gorilla making knots out of Scott’s innards.
The phone rings.
“I FUCKING HATE YOU.”
Click goes the phone. Crash as it strikes the brick wall on the opposite side of the room.
“She’ll be here soon but only to torment me further,” he reasons with the lucidity of a senile, old man battling medicinally induced hallucinations
********************************************************************
So, in this above thing that I wrote, what I was trying to accomplish (unwittingly of course) was to really place some of the emotional ties that I felt for a semi-real moment and place them onto my new, and improved, third person protagonist type character. I also see that there are some interesting images at work. The theme of self-medication, a popular one in our self-help culture, also adds an interesting slant on things. But, this example was also one that I don't think really captures the abject loneliness and hopelessness that this experience is really about. I really do like how there is this heavy sense that the character has misdirected his anger. The misdirection really intensifies the emotion, and things quickly come to a boil near the end here.
Here though, is a situation where I thought I got things right (at least to my tastes).
********************************************************************
Without a care, they laugh hysterically throughout the night, wrapped within their own local universe. Like a true inertial frame, the movement between them is constant and unfaltering, time and space does not speed up or slow down. Talking for hours and hours and frightened by the rising sun as light glimmers through the window blinds, slowly working to separate the two from their wholly good, yet mistimed and misplaced, tryst. They know deep within their consciousnesses that questions and problems abound once they leave this sanctuary from reality. Escapism at its finest, those thoughts are furthest from their minds. Instead, they wrap each other in exploration in thought and in body. Minds reel as time advances forward and synapses oddly fire. Fueled by this strange passion and curiosity, the pair move forward together slowly through time and space.
The boy asks, “How am I going to get out of this place?” The girl has no real reply. She didn’t think that far ahead. Reckless and irrational, their cruel fate leaves for but a moment. Severe irony does not escape them because there is no escape from this place. Hearts were not made hard enough and tempers not steeled well enough against harsh realities. Sneak out the window… no that’s too far of a drop. Wear a disguise…that’s just ridiculous. Walk out brazenly, without a care in the world…that’s just insane. Sneak out carefully, through the side door…that’s going to have to do. Getting by on good enough seems to be the course of the day, and leave well enough alone seems to get thrown out and kept away from the pair’s feast upon fate’s expense.
********************************************************************
I thought I got things right in this one, primarily because the 'characters' are not introduced until later on. Also, there is a dream-like quality and a proper amount of physics references to satiate my tastes. I thought I had made enough abstractions from reality to give this moment its proper due -- by revealing a lot without having to do too much. And when you look at the first example I threw up there, I really do think that too much was revealed to allow for it to hide from its own reality.
Is it a cop-out that I'm using old material to write new posts? I apologize.
-- excerpted from "A Really Tough Year" off of the iTunes Originals: Ben Folds
This quote is really about the song "Brick." Here, though, as a lot of people know, Ben was actually writing about stuff that happened after his 16 year old girlfriend got pregnant. It's weird thinking that he really did have to go around town selling christmas gifts that he got. He went to go sell this stereo, a JVC tape deck that he really wanted and that his entire family pitched in for so that he could get it as a gift; and as he was getting the money from the clerk at the stereo shop, his parents walked in. And seeing that, you know that they had to suspect that something was going on in young Ben's life.
Ben also goes on to talk about how difficult it was to write the experience as song. It was not until Darren Jesse came by with a chorus he was working on that the song really took shape. And with that really memorable chorus, the experience became abstract enough to really drive the whole effect home, as it were.
And so, as I often do, I was looking at some old stuff that I had written. I realized that a lot of what was going on there was based in reality too much, whether fictional or not. I think it's paradoxical that the abstraction can make something appear and have the effect of being more real. And the abstraction need not be complicated, although it often takes the shape of metaphor or irony. Of course, maybe that really is what makes true genius. I had a high school biology teacher who would remark on genius being a statement on the uniqueness (and correctness also, I suppose) of ones vision of the world. So finding that special abstraction makes people feel giddy inside. Two unlike things become like, and the world seems to be turned upside down while bearing down upon you the sense that nothing has ever been so right. Dealing with abstraction in a literary sense though seems to be helpful because it can really take away the sense that there is some conceit that is driving the piece as a whole. I think it's a funny thing that if you can make a real experience seem abstract enough, the effect can be something along the lines of, "wow, that's some profound shit."
Maybe what I'm really trying to say is that when a writer puts in the effort to make his piece driven by an abstract idea, rather than some personal vendetta for example, then there is a simple honesty and sense of reflectiveness that makes that piece substantially more powerful. And when you look at a song like "Brick," at least in this instance it seems to be true.
********************************************************************
The phone rings. Scott angrily storms through the gaping window opening. With the grace of an enraged idiot, he stumbles and falls flat on his face. Cursing the damn irony of it all, he gets to his cordless and answers the phone.
“Scott, I need you, come meet me.”
“Where are you? Where the fuck are you?”
“I need you.” There was a distinct apprehension in her voice that Scott was able to pick up on right away. The apprehension drifts into the room and chokes the life out of a young man convinced that he’s been fucked in some way. Incensed and passionate, these current qualities infecting his life are clearly counter-indicative of large-scale Nyquil consumption.
“You’re over there right now with him, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please come get me.”
The phone goes click. The stubbornness of his father might be a counter-indication of Scott’s unshakeable, yet altogether untenable, belief in his own cool self. He grabs the un-installed window and slams it indiscriminately towards the open air, landing squarely upon the hood of someone’s car. “Oh shit.” He slumps over and the tears come. Scott reasons that the terrible emptiness could be filled if he played it off right. He waited for her to call back. The quick fix in his mind became entangled with the hope that later they’d fuck anyway. Sadly passionate sex seems like an odd way to patch up broken relationships. No matter how much vengeance he exacted on the poor window, re-installation clearly would not be in the cards tonight. The Nyquil makes its warm, slender, and kind grasp upon poor Scott’s brain. The crying, the rage, the lack of sex, the poor ineptitude paled in comparison to the anxiety that made its iron grip squarely around poor Scott’s gastrointestinal inner-workings. Tiredness wages its losing battle versus the 420 pound gorilla making knots out of Scott’s innards.
The phone rings.
“I FUCKING HATE YOU.”
Click goes the phone. Crash as it strikes the brick wall on the opposite side of the room.
“She’ll be here soon but only to torment me further,” he reasons with the lucidity of a senile, old man battling medicinally induced hallucinations
********************************************************************
So, in this above thing that I wrote, what I was trying to accomplish (unwittingly of course) was to really place some of the emotional ties that I felt for a semi-real moment and place them onto my new, and improved, third person protagonist type character. I also see that there are some interesting images at work. The theme of self-medication, a popular one in our self-help culture, also adds an interesting slant on things. But, this example was also one that I don't think really captures the abject loneliness and hopelessness that this experience is really about. I really do like how there is this heavy sense that the character has misdirected his anger. The misdirection really intensifies the emotion, and things quickly come to a boil near the end here.
Here though, is a situation where I thought I got things right (at least to my tastes).
********************************************************************
Without a care, they laugh hysterically throughout the night, wrapped within their own local universe. Like a true inertial frame, the movement between them is constant and unfaltering, time and space does not speed up or slow down. Talking for hours and hours and frightened by the rising sun as light glimmers through the window blinds, slowly working to separate the two from their wholly good, yet mistimed and misplaced, tryst. They know deep within their consciousnesses that questions and problems abound once they leave this sanctuary from reality. Escapism at its finest, those thoughts are furthest from their minds. Instead, they wrap each other in exploration in thought and in body. Minds reel as time advances forward and synapses oddly fire. Fueled by this strange passion and curiosity, the pair move forward together slowly through time and space.
The boy asks, “How am I going to get out of this place?” The girl has no real reply. She didn’t think that far ahead. Reckless and irrational, their cruel fate leaves for but a moment. Severe irony does not escape them because there is no escape from this place. Hearts were not made hard enough and tempers not steeled well enough against harsh realities. Sneak out the window… no that’s too far of a drop. Wear a disguise…that’s just ridiculous. Walk out brazenly, without a care in the world…that’s just insane. Sneak out carefully, through the side door…that’s going to have to do. Getting by on good enough seems to be the course of the day, and leave well enough alone seems to get thrown out and kept away from the pair’s feast upon fate’s expense.
********************************************************************
I thought I got things right in this one, primarily because the 'characters' are not introduced until later on. Also, there is a dream-like quality and a proper amount of physics references to satiate my tastes. I thought I had made enough abstractions from reality to give this moment its proper due -- by revealing a lot without having to do too much. And when you look at the first example I threw up there, I really do think that too much was revealed to allow for it to hide from its own reality.
Is it a cop-out that I'm using old material to write new posts? I apologize.
I don't Have an Accent
Your Linguistic Profile: |
85% General American English |
10% Dixie |
5% Yankee |
0% Midwestern |
0% Upper Midwestern |
I'm fairly certain that posting these blog quizzes is highly gauche, but that's alright, I suppose. I personally had no idea that there existed a midwestern and upper midwestern accent. I don't know what they are or what they sound like...not in the least bit. If anyone can help me with that, I would be most appreciative. At 85% General American English though, I'm well on my way to being an anchorman. For we all know that the most important requirement for making it onto network television is having a non-regional dialect. The fact that I'm more Dixie than Yankee seems to be quite befuddling as well. At any rate, I'll try to pick up some Dixie while down here in Texas.
What's the secret to my success?
Mentor is still pronounced Menner.
Coiffed is now pronounced Quaft.
Joe is now pronounced Peter.
Cuyahoga is still pronounced CHI-a-hoga.
Lebron is sometimes pronounced Bron-bron.
Tennessee-in' is still Tenne-believin'.
Thank You and Giggle 'Em Ags.
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