Them Phones, Them Phones Gonna...Walk Around

            It’s Friday night. Kids’re in bed. The Sonos is on the clock. There’s a cold one on my coaster and I’m feeling a little troubled. The dinner dishes have been tended to; coffee’s prepped for the morning. Everyone has clean clothes to wear. The bills are relatively paid. Car has gas in it. Grass needs mowed, but I’ve still got two days to get to that before my anxiety starts to churn. Summer’s sunset is upon us yet we’re mostly dialed in in the back-to-school department. Couple of fun trips on the horizon and of course, we have our health. In spite of all that, in spite of everything that’s relatively amazing about the world right now, there’s a fairly heavy albatross around our necks. And let’s be honest: It’s gaining weight by the day.

            I mean, I’m completely glossing over that our country is still way too unhealthy, way too full of hate, and way too helpless to do anything about the fact that there’s an idiot in charge of us all, but for the most part, I’d imagine that the lives of many United States citizens is pretty okay.

            What I’m talking about, of course, is the goddamned devices that most of us wake to, sleep by, and are engaged with perhaps more than anything across the average day. I don’t need to elaborate on this. You know exactly what I mean. I’m no exception and, what’s worse is that I don’t have a solution.

One Thousand Gratitudes, Part XVIII: 575-551

This has become tough.

Making the time, channeling the motivation, trying to find a pace, doing my best to avoid repetition.

This series has also posed the challenge of finding the appropriate mix of sincerity and humor. I don't ever want to take any of life's gifts for granted, but I want the writing to remain entertaining. To that note, I can only hope it has been.

Alas, the midway point flirts with visibility. This -- along with life itself, of course -- should propel the thing's energy, but the choppy waves ahead loom with threats of feigned originality, the whole bit of progress to be created anew.

I won't fail for trying. That I know.

One Thousand Gratitudes, Part II: 975-951

Here, then, is the second installment to this series. The idea of posting one per week might take me til May before this thing wraps, so who knows what things will look like this time next month. Again, no value in the order of appearance; these gratitudes appear as they came to me. The first installment is here; the original idea here.

Nine Hundred Seventy-Five: Mike Gordon

            The Phish bassist is one of the most unique human beings I’ve ever observed. Having studied interviews conducted with him, print pieces he’s written, songs he’s crafted, his onstage mannerisms, his tweets, and having met him and talked to him once, I think this guy is one of God’s finest works. I believe he is -- and has been for some time now -- the finest working bass player in rock, and if there’s only one more thing I can say about him it’s this: The way he bobs his head with most every note shows that he is in tune with the magic happening around him and his bandmates; he has, in fact, surrendered to the flow, and for that, the audience lives a richer life.

Nine Hundred Seventy-Four: tractors (John Deere, and otherwise, but mostly John Deere)

            I’ve only driven my late Grandpa Beck’s Craftsman, and that was probably 30 years ago. I know I’m not unique in this but I love John Deere shit. All of it, man. All of it. The small units, the big rigs, models, mugs, bibs, key chains, all of it. I love them, what they do, what these machines represent. I’ll probably never own one, never live on a farm, and never even have a riding mower, but I like the idea of all of those things. I’m not infatuated with the idea of humans conquering the earth, but the notion of the amount of fertile soil on this planet being so vast, so gigantic that we keep building bigger and bigger machines to help us harvest its fruits is pretty cool. The idea of a John Deere machine so big that my family could sit and eat dinner inside one of its tires both frightens and intrigues me, and as weird as that might sound, I’m grateful for it.

The Rise & Fall of the 10,000 Tweets

          It's been most of 20 years since I first discovered Lao Tsu's Tao Te Ching. I was in a pretty hippie-dippy lifestyle and mindset, and had all but shunned Catholicism. In short, it jived with me.

          I'm a little bit less of a hippie now than I was then, but I reckon I'm still a hippie at heart and there's a lot about eastern thought that I still dig.

          Whether it was age, immaturity, my daily bong hits for breakfast or a combination of all of the above, it was hard to wrap my head around every thing this text tried to communicate but it spoke to me nonetheless. I love the message in its passages and would be remiss if I didn't mention Benjamin Hoff's The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet as cornerstones for helping me better understand the concepts.

          When I finished the last book I was reading and returned to my shelves for the next project I came across my old copy of Tao Te Ching, and although it sat there silent, sandwiched between Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild and D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, it spoke to me again.

          And I couldn't have been happier to see my old friend.

          So I've spent the last two months with it, contemplating its lines, embracing some of its messages, shaking my fists at its simplicity.

          As a whole, the publication is as any other book is and should be: imperfect.

          That doesn't detract from its message, though. I think -- as a people, a chapter in the universe's history -- that so much good could be harvested from the world if we all made an effort to follow a sliver of what Lao Tsu wrote. Like books, I'm far from perfect and am humbled by revisiting these pages and having a greater understanding of my flaws and how I can become a better human being.

          Anyway: Whether it was a good idea or not, it occurred to me that I was nearing my 10,000th tweet and since the elements between heaven and earth are referred to as the 10,000 things, I thought I'd try to condense each chapter into a 140-character-or-less synopsis. There are a few exceptions around which I could not dance, and I should thank James Inman for turning me onto the Stephen Mitchell translation of the text, which I turned to often in this exercise. The results follow.

          I love you people.

Forty-Three Years After...And Then Some

We need one of the McCaffrey brothers to look us in the eye and say, "You're doin' it wrong."

          Alex is one of the most gifted writers I've ever known. Now is not the time to criticize him for letting his talent fester (Editor's Note: eight-plus <cough> months since last <cough, cough> post.) in a puddle of spilt microbrew (that he told y'all about on Untappd!) and smoked pork fat. Rather, it should be noted that -- when he's not busy masturbating the retweet button when his phone buzzes about tea parties and Colorado weather -- he's a pretty good follow on Twitter. He's good for a couple doozies a day, even if it is about the lunacies encountered in his daily public-transportation commute or the apparent flock of still-mourning-Tebow that inhabits Denver. For example:

           I won't argue his point, here, which is unusual for me; Alex and I have a healthy history of arguing within whatever medium upon which we can wrench our mitts, but I'll give him this one. I've never owned Freedom Rock, nor have I held a copy in my hands, or given it a listen. I find it amazing that it they actually sold copies of the album considering how many thousands of times that commercial aired when the compilation was released. His tweet is true, but I'll add to it: There are some pretty solid cuts on there, too. Namely, track two, which was written by Alvin Lee and performed by the band Ten Years After. You know it because of its token line:

"I'd love to change the world,

But I don't know what to do.

So I'll leave it up to you."

Beckoning Bill Burroughs: Three Women on Power, Eating, and Costumes

left to right: Antoinette, Brosh, Lawson, Burroughs

Almost three years ago to the day, I penned the last installment of one of many short-lived features on the old blog. The feature, Beckoning Bill Burroughs, celebrated the cut-and-fold technique the author used in the 1960s. In short, he would create a story by piecing portions of selected manuscripts together. Inventive or not, the patience required in putting scissors and glue to such a task remains remarkable, even if, in doing so, an arsenal of liquor and narcotics serves as the primary motivator.

Tonight I revive 'B' cubed, and the source of inspiration comes from a video I saw on Facebook:

"In Sochi"; A (Terrible) Rap Debut About the 2014 United States Men's Olympic Hockey Team

            

          Counted my Sochi 2014 chickens before they hatched by writing a rap about the United States men’s hockey team winning gold. My plans -- obviously -- derailed yesterday, but I’m proud of how far the sport has come in our country, and I was proud enough of the lyrics I’d written to connect with a rapper dude I know to discuss recording it.

            He booked us some studio time, and when the United States lost to Canada yesterday, I hung out on the scrap-the-whole-thing fence for the entire afternoon and evening. Late last night I decided to go through with it and put my humility with my hockey team: on the line. I’ve been supporting them for so long that it wouldn’t be fair to leave them hanging after defeat.

T.J. Oshie, Appetite for Destruction, and Tobacco

           I’ve been looking forward to today since yesterday. I’ve had it circled on my mental calendar for about two weeks. And for about four years. And also, for about 12 years. Eight years, too. And a number of other measurements of time as well. A couple of weeks ago, I was informed by a friend about a writing contest, and a regimented thing like that -- with a deadline -- is the sort of pants-seat kick I’m wired to need in order to get something done. So with the support of my wonderful wife, I worked pretty hard to put a few submissions together, and I sent them off yesterday. In mathematical terms, that means I was early, which never happens.

            But I was really only early with that deadline because of the four-, eight-, and 12-year marks. See, the United States of America men’s Olympic hockey team had a game today. It was super earls for us stateside, but in the evening over in Sochi (Editor’s Note: For the record, the “DawnsEarlyLight” hash tag will forever remain an all-time favorite for me.). And it wasn’t their first game; they beat Slovakia 7-1 Friday morning. Nor was it a medal game, a qualification game, a quarterfinal, or a semifinal. It was game two of three in the preliminary round. But Team U.S.A. faces Slovenia tomorrow, and then it’s on to round two. This -- a Saturday-morning tilt against a home-team Russia several have picked to win gold -- would be their true test of the round.

A Twitter Exchange: A Right-Wing Stranger and I Discuss Mike Priefer, Chris Kluwe

     

          I was eating lunch at a neighborhood bar and grill today and I looked up at a television broadcasting SportsCenter. Along the bottom line was the news that the Minnesota Vikings had decided to retain Special Teams Coach Mike Priefer, and I literally dropped my jaw. Honestly, I thought I’d misread it, so I waited for it to scroll again, and when I saw it again, I did as nerds like myself do: I took to Twitter.

            In the tweet I wrote, I threw in a couple of hash tags. From time to time I find it easy to lose track of the intention of the hash tag, which is to shore up searches, but it’s probably used more often in a sarcastic fashion. Anyway, the presence of the hash tag got the attention of someone who was apparently trolling the topic of Priefer -- and if you don’t know the back story, get it here, here, and here  -- and he responded.

Privilege Versus Punishment

           In recent weeks, it seems the Internet can’t host enough pieces about privilege, and I, for one, do not understand it. I feel like I did not miss the boat, rather the boat is something about which I’ve been told. It’s my own personal Groundhog Day. I wake up as Bill Murray’s character, see the advertisement and rush to the ticket agency. Upon arrival at the dock, there’s just, simply, no boat. My wife told me about this Feminist Breeder post, which stems from a 26-year-old piece entitled White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Napsack. My friend Ashley Fuller shared this on Facebook,  which apparently led to its creator doing this and most recently, I came across this piece, which I found via this exchange on Twitter, which stemmed from the Dr. V story on Grantland.com.

            I don’t wish to dissect the Dr. V piece as that has been done by professional writers, and done well. I’m not sure I support the underlying attack of all of those dissections, which is that Caleb Hannan violated an ethical boundary in outing Essay Anne Vanderbilt. I do think it peculiar that he revealed this piece of information to a member of the investment group that backed her product. But I can understand how and why he lost the scope of his piece and allowed Vanderbilt’s past to take over his story. In the end, the outspokenness of trans* supporters has rung true with this now-prevalent idea of privilege, and I recognize the opportunity to use this situation/story/unfortunate death of the subject as a platform for awareness. At the same time, the idea itself has perhaps trickled into another notion: that of punishment disguising itself as privilege. The theme of what Kate Fagan, for example, wants to address centers on awareness, aversion to defensiveness. And I, being one that tries -- albeit with struggles -- to be mindfully gracious, don’t get it.

Some History, Some Glory, and a Roster: Why You Should Get Behind the 2014 Men's Olympic Hockey Team

Now that the rosters have been announced, let's get down to business.

The History

Ninety-four years ago the Olympic Games brought ice hockey into the fold, and the first round called Antwerp, Belgium home. Seven nations participated in the new-to-the-Games event with the host country bringing up the final-placement rear. France finished sixth, while Switzerland and Sweden fell shy of medaling. Czechoslovakia took the inaugural bronze, and although the United States dispatched of the Swedes, it should come as little surprise that Team Canada blasted the competition en route to the gold. By the time the Winnipeg Falcons -- the all-Icelandic squad representing Canada -- were awarded their championship medal, they had outscored their opponents 29-1.

"I Was Riding Down the Road One Day" and That Someone, It Turns Out, Was Me

Back when this blog trickled out of the sports realm and into the whatever-I-felt-like-writing-about realm, I decided that it would be best for me to refrain from using curse words. I did this for some time, and applied the same rule to Twitter. The idea was that someone -- anyone -- was going to stumble across my writing, and say, I've got to tell the boss to throw this cat a pile of cash to do some writing, and that those chances would be hindered if I were immature enough to use profanity. Sort of like not wanting to have a bunch of blood-shot-eye, Jager-bomb-in-hand photos on Facebook while you're interviewing for jobs during the sunlight hours.

In hindsight, it was pretty dumb, but in hindsight, so have been many of the thoughts I've had since, well, adolescence. That said...

I fucking hate possums. Or opossums. Why do we have two frickin' ways of spelling this word? I looked at both entries on dictionary.com, and found myself with a better question than that: If the definition of these things includes the phrase "of the eastern U.S.", then why, in the name of all uncute marsupials, are these things everyfreakingwhere in the midwest?