Thanksgiving 1982 or "don't tell your mother!!"

Growing up, I had almost no interaction with my extended family. We lived way up in the Northwest Corner of the state of Minnesota, which doesn't really provide a welcoming environment for visitors, even in the more optimal times in the year to visit. My family, as both my mother and father grew up in the same town, is from Hope, Arkansas, a town that may ring familiar in your minds, as it's the home town of Former President Bill Clinton and Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (and ironically, my mom and Slick Willie were the same age, but didn't get a chance to interact, as hope was a segregated town, as most of the south was in the '50's and 60's). I would later in life find out that one of the reasons we lived as far away from the rest of our family was because it meant they were less likely to visit- and after dealing with them after my mother as well as my aunt's deaths, I know full well why we lived on a frozen tundra during my formative years...
...Anyway, you'll notice that above, it says almost, not absolutely none, which means that we did deal with them sometime. And that sometime was Thanksgiving. Every year, our family had two Thanksgiving dinners, one east of the Mississippi River, and one West. Since most of the family lived in varying places in the south, the east was never really convenient for most people, so approximately 75% of my extended family would invade my house, every year, for Thanksgiving. I can tell you, there were very few times during the year I dreaded more (on my mother's death bed, to try to make me smile, she reminded me how much I hated Thanksgiving, that I said I preferred going to the dentist than having the family show up....I'm sure it had to do with the way my parents brought me up, as opposed to how all of them were brought up. This may provide a snapshot into what made me the mass of insanity you see before you...my parents were always big fans of the idea and concept of discourse and making an argument (I'm sure that's how debate makes sense to me), and they believed I should be involved in all the decision making that involved me. This meant that, even as a young kid, my parents involved me in the decision making process- don't read this as I got to do whatever I wanted to do, I just got a say, but most of the time, it was literally that, just a say, with no true ability to affect change. For example, I always made an argument that we shouldn't have these people come into our house, as it was apparent that nobody really enjoyed having them over (which I never understood until my mom was dying, and she confessed that, in 1973, she told her mother she had no interest in going to Hope for Thanksgiving, and, in a moment of pure, maternal sarcasm, told her mother "everyone can come up to Minnesota every Thanksgiving- we'll be the family meeting place"- under the impression that nobody would ever come, they came like we built the Field of Dreams, and for the two days on both sides of Thanksgiving dinner, our house would be invaded by between 25-40 people, depending on who brought guests (as everyone was always welcome, but one of those punk bitches who was invited by a relative stole my wallet one year, my Walkman another year, so my trust was not as high as my mother and father)....
...Thanksgiving at my house for the young kids is like a special kick in the junk. First of all, you did not get access to the best of the food. There are things on the menu that never find their way to the Kids Table, and when they did, they tended to be late and cold, and for some reason, they though it was the vegetarian table, because they were always a little light on the meat. Couple this miserable eating experience with the way that all of my family treated me (like a kid, which, as i described earlier, is not exactly how my parents treated me, which meant that I had, for about 5 days a year, to get treated worse than my parents would treat me, and I just had to deal with it. I would walk around the house, at first in a funk, and over the course of time, get progressively angrier about the situation, so that by Thanksgiving dinner, the climax of the story if you will, I was always about to explode. I walk into the living room, and I see my pops, chillin'- and I mean cold chillin' on the couch, watching the Dallas Cowboys game.I just had to ask him- "How can you be so relaxed?!? Don't you just want them to leave? What did you do to be that relaxed?" with each question having more desperation than the next, to the point where the last question was almost entire exasperated. My pops just looks at me and says, "Ask me next year, and I'll tell you."
Cryptic.
Weird.
Whatever. Dad's always been a little weird, I'm sure it's all the drugs he talks about having taken in college. He doesn't speak much of those times, but every once in awhile, it will slip out that he enjoyed to have an adult beverage, or occasionally would smoke the "wacky weed", or something about "magic mushrooms" which I totally didn't understand. I thought nothing of this random statement, as my dad had spouted, in my life, literally thousands of random statements over the course of my life, and in retrospect, where I get my desire to tell random stories- I guess they were right, that you are the sum of your parents plus your experiences....
...Fast forward to Thanksgiving the next year, 1982. My extended family has been at the house for the past few days, and now all the meat and the stuffing is in the oven, the vegetables and yams are on the stove and the process of setting up the tables for the meal has begun, which for some reason when everyone in my family lost their minds. It's this point when I storm through the house, and I walk in the living room, and there's my dad, with a shit eating grin on his face, watching the Detroit Lions football game.
"All right, it's now next year. How do you deal with this?"
Dad looks me in the eye, and asks "Are you sure you want to know?"
"Yes, yes I do."
"Don't tell your mother."
This was going to be good. My parents were honest- almost to a fault, and never kept secrets from each other- except apparently the ones they kept each other through me. But, without question, every time either of my parents broke me off with the "Don't tell your mother/father," it was always something awesome, something I knew was a big deal. There's another story in which "don't tell your father" is at the core of the story, and I imagine I will tell that story at a later date.
I walk with my dad through the house to the room that has always been described as "the work den." Both my parents worked, and they needed a place in the house where they could always get work done without the distraction of having kids interrupt them. For years, I had always imagined what the den was like, and I'd always wanted to work in the Den. I imagined these huge leather office chairs next to a huge Mahogany desk, with my parents books overflowing on shelves on the book shelves that surrounded the room.I envisioned a really nice stereo system my dad would listen to the Spinners or the Commodores or Earth, Wind and Fire, as he did some writing or prepared a lecture, or where my mother would listen to religious sermons, because she always enjoyed to listen to the word of the Lord as she relaxed....all I can say is I would be shocked to see what the den actually looked like...
...what I walk into is nothing like I ever expected to see. No leather office chairs. No bookshelves. No Mahogany desk. What I did see still kind of amazes me when I think about it. The first thing I see is a television (why is there a TV in the study?)- not a small TV on top of a dresser, but a PROJECTION television, apparently with an attached satellite (something that did not exist on the other TV's in the house, which had just recently been hooked up with cable). Also, there appeared to be a line of stools next to a long table (i would later realize this was a BAR), not one but TWO full sized couches, in what was the nicest leather I'd ever had the opportunity to sit on. I was correct about the stereo- there was an incredible sound system in the den, that somehow had apparently been connected to the television to allow some sort of sound system that came out of all angles (I would later find out this was an example of a surround sound theater system). There was also a refrigerator (full sized) in the den, as well as a shelf that seemed filled with non-perishable food items. As I began to really think about the room I was in, it occured to me it wasn't a den/study at all, it was a room in the house where one could decompress- just relax and stay away from the rest of the family (i was slightly offended when I first figured out what this was, and then I remembered the world outside those heavier than average den doors and realized that although this room wasn't made for this occasion, that it was appropriate for this occasion. This was a place I could just relax and watch some European soccer on the satellite, have a Coke and some Pringles and just forget my family was outside. I would have been just fine with the knowledge and the place to hide out. I thought this was what he wanted to show me...
...he has me take a seat on the couch, and relax a little. I started watching the soccer game when I realized he was reaching up in a cabinet to grab something that looked errily like a weird shaped vase. He was looking to choose between a couple of these vases, and decides to pull down one that is approximately a foot tall. He then goes to the desk (there was a desk in the room, actually a desk would be an inaccurate description, it was much more like a slice of formica table top with a file cabinet holding up each side, providing storage and a place to slide your chair between the cabinets), goes into one of the drawers, and grabs something that I only assumed had to be Oregano, except it smelled more like a skunk been let in the room. My dad, looks at me, puts some of this "oregeno" out of the bag and into the "vase" and brought it over to the couch where I was sitting. He went to the fridge and grabbed a carton of Orange Juice and a couple of glasses. So in front of me are some Pringles I grabbed, a couple of glasses of Orange Juice and this vase. Dad then says to me, and I can remember it as plain as day:

"You don't have to do this, but you asked how I deal with them. Well, this is it."

He then takes a lighter, and puts it to the green stuff (which by now I had figured out wasn't oregano, but was instead that stuff Laura Greenwald called "grass" and would smoke out of the back of the Waldorf School when I was in 5th grade- which was when I also figured out people talked a lot of shit that wasn't true, my first interaction with a "stoner" was Laura and I'm sure she was the smartest person in our class (which was really small and really smart). He seems to be sucking this water which makes it percolate, and then he pulls the "grass" off and smoke jets into his mouth. Seems overindulgent, and probably harsh. I then, once again, flash back to what the world outside the den is like, and it also occurs to me there's no way my mother's going to let me stay in the den during dinner (as was my original plan upon seeing the study). So, in the face of all the "Just say no" discussions Nancy Reagan was beginning to make popular, in the den/study of my own home, on Thanksgiving Day 1982, I took my first hit of marijuana.

Many people speak of not getting high the first time they smoked. I didn't have that problem. Dinner was a more acceptable experience, the food was awesome (for some reason, they let me eat the Grown Folks table, which I would get to do the rest of the time at the dismay of many of the other kids in the family, including a couple that happened to be older than I was (seniority my ass, it's my house bitches!!). It was the beginning of a very different, but awesome relationship with my dad, one I will always cherish. And it was the only real secret I kept from my mom about my dad...

In the Memory of Michael Kennedy, Sonny Bono or anyone else that died hitting a tree...

I'm sure if you're famous, you probably have people always around you, trying to be your friend, get things from you, and generally just trying to be close to you. That seems like would be totally annoying, and why, although I've met more famous people than the average Joe, I tend to 1) not be awed by them, but more curious of the situation that had our paths cross, or 2) not to bother or disturb them, unless my desire to know why they're there outweighs my desire to not be "that guy" that just bothers the fuck out of someone for some shit that's not relevant in their lives. But this flashes me back to one of the few times where my desire to have an opportunity at the kind of shit that stories come from...

...it's Christmas break, and I'm living in Utah, going to Weber State, the Harvard of the Wasatch. It's time to leave this hell-hole and head back to California. I had usually chosen to catch the bus into the bay, but had decided to take advantage of a great deal on this airline I'd never really ever heard of called Southwest Airlines (this isn't indicative of the starting of Southwest, just of my ability to afford airline tickets). Unfortunately, I was living in Ogden, so I had to get down to the airport, and someone (Bear, I imagine) dropped me off at SLC International like 5-6 hours before my flight. I did what any red-blooded American would have done, I went to the hotel bar, and had an adult beverage (well, let's not get it twisted, I had more than one, almost to the point of abject irresponsibility). At the time, my beverage of choice was the White Russian, which for those in the know understand that it's a drink made with Vodka, Kahlua and cream or milk. A great beverage, with one minor drawback, for me at least. The heavy cream in the Cauacsian is devastating to the lactose intolerant, and I am president of my local chapter. After more than I should have had, I was forced to hit the facilities, and although I didn't have a Larry Craig experience, I did have a prolonged experience in the facilities, to the point that I missed my boarding pass, and would essentially have to fly stand-by until i could get on a plane, which, since i missed the last plane of the day going home, meant I would be in Utah for yet another evening...

...but I was an adult, had a little cream in my pockets and had informed my mom of the situation, who hooked a brother up with a hotel room for the evening, so I could go to the airport in the morning and give it another try (told her i missed boarding in the restroom, left off the maniacally drunk part). So most of my experience was dealt with, except that I had no clothes, which were on their way to California without me. In my less than sober state, it took me longer than I would have imagined to convince myself to get out of the airport (I wouldn't have a hotel room for a few hours, and all my Utah friends had already left- going to the bar was inevitable, but i wanted to wait a little). As I start to head out of the airport, I scan the area, as the most observant/paranoid of us tend to do. As I look over to the payphones, I see this little, mexican dude, chilling on the payphone. Actually, I digress once again. As I peered around the room, the first thing I noticed was a green t-shirt with a pot leaf on it. As, at the time, I had been wanting to smoke some pot (Utah will do that to a brother) , this clearly grabbed my attention and shook it like a Haitian Earthquake. As I look up from the green t-shirt, and get a look at the guy on the phone, I feel like this guy should be someone I recognize. But at this point in my life, I've met many, many famous people, and so I kind of blow it off...

...until i decide to go into my mental rolodex regarding famous people, and i get to the page on Cheech and Chong, and realize that I'm looking at motherfucking Cheech Marin at the Salt Lake City International airport. And fortunately, this is back in the day before heightened levels of security- when the idea of traveling a personal stash was not unheard of, and when the implications were almost non-existent (at one point in my life, i was affiliated with a group of people that would fly around the country, or just fucking carry on, a 3 chambered bong that was shaped like the SS Enterprise, that more pot had been smoked out of than many countries could in a given year). So, as I look over at Cheech, I point at his shirt and give him a thumbs up, to signify my approval. He smiles and reciprocates. I then reach into my pocket, pull out a bag and point to it, and flash Cheech the Michael Jordan. He finishes the conversation and hangs up the phone, and Cheech Marin and I are off, walking through the SLC International. There's not a lot of small talk involved, it's much more like a business meeting....

...I indicate to Cheech that I don't have a place in mind, as I don't frequently find a need to get high at the airport, and Cheech, a Johnny on the spot guy if there ever was one, told me he had a place, a place that worked in every airport in America. Clearly, I'm intrigued by this. As we walk through the terminal, Cheech starts telling me about the rental car area...

"you know how the rental cars are all lined up in a row, like 5-10 cars deep? this means when they need to get the 8th car out, they have to move cars one through seven in order for them to do that. And, because the cars are blocked in, there's no need for cameras, because nobody can steal them. And they're ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS unlocked, with the keys in the car, so once you get in the car, you can even listen to music."

This was ingenious!! I would never had thought of that, and if I had been smart enough to come up with it, I could not have convinced myself to do it, as I would have believed there was no way to pull that off, that someone would be watching, and I would find myself in jail because I just had, just fucking HAD to get high at the airport. So Cheech Marin and I stroll out the rental car area like two kids that had just been given keys to the Kingdom, without a care in the world, about to smoke a little endo-nesia before he get's on a plane to Los Angeles, and I head to the hotel to check in my non-stuff (as it's all under the plane I didn't get on). We get out the rental cars, find a nice mini-van and start the process- the Michael Kennedy-Sonny Bono process. Cheech turns the vehicle on, but not over, as to turn on the radio/CD player. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a CD and puts it in the player ("always be prepared," he said- the irony of being told the Boy Scout Credo with Cheech Marin about to hot-box a mini-van was not lost on me either at the time or now) I have, on a variety of occasions, tried my best to remember the music he put in the CD, but for some reason, I could not put a finger on it (it might have been the cone joint Mr. Marin rolled, and I'm still not sure how he did it, although I have seen others since, at the time, it was like seeing Aurora Borealis for the first time). We chilled in the vehicle, all of the small talk blasted out of two dudes, smoking in stupified silence. When the cone was almost finished, Cheech snuffed it out, placed it in the ashtray (for the next person in the vehicle or the car lot worker, who could definitely use it). Cheech and I shook hands, said a fond farewell and he went back in the terminal to catch his flight, and I began my evening trek into Salt Lake City...

The Life raft, or, why I'll always be attached to debate

Over the course of the past few weeks, I've had to give the idea of a career change as a possibility (not by force, but as Wu-Tang Clan always says, "Protect Ya Neck!"), which meant (kind of) studying for professional school examinations and going online to find out if i've already missed deadlines for schools I would consider attending. But it also forces me to think of what a life outside of the activity would be like, and it's been so long since I've not been involved in debate that I was actually incapable of recalling a time, and had to flash back to my days at UC Santa Barbara to think of a time of non-involvement (and I wanted to be involved, even tried to start a team, but between the fraternity, the insane partying, wonderful weather and beautiful women, somehow managed to keep my calendar full). It sometimes forces me to think:

"why DO i do this?"

I mean, there are thousands of jobs in the world that would offer comparable compensation, with nowhere near the disadvantages. For example, every real job I've ever had has made at least what I make now, and I had one in the late 80's and a variety in the 90's. this is the end of 2009, if you adjust for inflation, you get an idea of the kind of money i gave up to teach and coach debate. Not to mention that, when you don't do this job, you get this crazy thing that most of us take for granted: free time. I can count the free weekends, i mean truly free weekends, not just when you don't have to travel, a weekend where you could sit around all weekend and eat cereal all weekend and watch cartoons like you were Tiger Woods trying to avoid the media, keep your endorsement empire and make sure that shark of a lawyer doesn't let that cold hearted vixen take more than the proscribed $20 million from the prenuptial agreement. Those kind of weekends never really exist for me, as when i do have a weekend of non-travel, it's almost always greeted with 250-500 papers/tests/quizzes/speeches to grade, so even my moments of uncommitted time are accompanied by a small boot in the junk called work. I find myself more and more frustrated until I remember:

Debate actually saved my life. Not theoretically, as I wouldn't be where I am without it, which is also obviously true, but that's not what I'm saying. I mean, I was killing myself, slowly or quickly, depending on your frame of reference, and the call to debate and the drive to debate stopped me dead in my tracks.

Most of the time, the things in your life that end up being groundbreaking and substantial are things you don't see as that big of a deal. For example, when I was 22, I got a call from a guy i knew (in retrospect, not really much of a friend, kind of a douche-bag of a friend that used me whenever he could). But he was taking a road trip to Reno for the weekend, and he gave me a call to see if I wanted to go (I always had a ton of comps from when we went Reno, and Caesars gave them to me when my dad died, so even in his generosity, he had an angle). I had just gotten out of a shitty relationship, in which i began to re-evaluate how I saw friends and friendship- he just happened to be a casuality of that war against impostor friends. He called, asked me if I wanted to go, I said no, he really tried to persuade me (obviously, I was part of the equation, but not part of the planning or processing of ideas), and once again, I say no. I actually wanted to go, but something said I should stay, so I did. Turns out that he and the other people he went with ended up getting killed (not all died, two lived, both paralyzed from the waist down) in an automobile accident where their car, a Honda Civic , overturned going into a sharp turn. I was supposed to be in that car, and wasn't. There's no way that, if i was in that car, my life wouldn't be 180 degrees different than it is now. Didn't seem like that big a deal at the time...

...this had no such problem of visibility of degrees of perception. I was in going to school in Oklahoma, on a debate scholarship, and, after being there for a couple of weeks, decided to not debate and just try to move on with my life- I had been run to my wits end by the activity, and all I wanted to do was graduate and move the fuck on with my life. The school I was attending was not expensive, so I could just afford to go there out of my pocket when the scholarship (that I tried to repay, but the program would not let me) was expired, and i had found a nice set of people, kind of debate people, but all of them no longer debating, to kind of align myself with. Life was beginning to move in the direction that real people move into, until one day i get a call.

Your mother has passed away.

This was the unraveler of my spirit and, for the most part, my sanity. I went off the deep end instantly. When my father died a few years earlier, I decided to use the wonders of speed to help me through the rough times (something i would not recommend), and so it was the first thing I went looking for. None of my friends did any of that shit, but they did have access to cocaine, and that became my drug of choice/self destruction. For the next few weeks, I did as much coke as I could get my hands on, which was pretty difficult for a variety of reasons (mostly because it was hard to get, it wasn't particularly expensive or very good, but beggars can't be choosy), all while trying to not let anyone know I was doing a ton of coke (more out of being stingy than anything else). At one point, I find myself in my dorm room, around 2:30pm, during one of my sessions (I had gotten quite a routine set up, snort blow, go to class, snort blow, go out drinking, snort blow, drink more, snort blow, go to class) was tearing through what was to be my second 8-ball of the week, when it hit me like a ton of bricks: I was doing it. Again. I was trying to kill myself by just destroying myself from within. I had to stop, but at this point, I wasn't even sure if I could (as Rick James says, cocaine is a powerful drug). I snorted a line, looked to the sky and said these words. "God, if you're there, I need your help, send me something right now to help me, I don't think I can do this myself." Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

Hello?
Hey, this is Jackie Massey at ENMU. You want to come here and debate with Glueboy?
When?
In the spring.
Sure. When do you need me there?
Jan 3. Don't fuck me. Whatever you're doing now, stop. Bye.

And, all of a sudden, it seemed I had a purpose again. I had something to do that would get me out of my doldrums, and help me get some focus back in my life again. Something that could infuse me with a driving passion again. I just wouldn't have imagined it being debate. I'm not even sure that, if Jackie Massey had walked up to me in the street, and made me the same proposition, even 30 minutes earlier, I would have probably said no. I couldn't have picked Glueboy out of a lineup (by the way, who the hell is this Glueboy character, I've met these dudes, and nobody ever introduced themselves that way). And Eastern New Mexico? Where in the hell is that (other than the obvious)? Is there anything out there? At all? This team has been historically miserable. What am i fucking getting myself into?!? Then it dawned on me, it's not what I was getting myself into, it's what I was getting myself out of- a self destructive pattern that would have invariably killed me.

Do I think it was debate that uniquely was capable of saving my life? Not at all. Based on where I was, if Juan Valdez had called me to go to Columbia to pick coffee beans with him, or if some redneck with a lab hadn't called and asked me to make drugs for him in a lab, or if Phil Ivey had approached me and told me that he just needed to have a black man standing around him to make him feel better, like a good luck charm, I'd have done any of them at the time. I don't pretend that it was the uniqueness of the activity that saved me. But I do recognize that the chance to debate gave me the life raft i needed to get through one of the rougher times of my life.

And it's the reason that, even if I were to go back to school, why it would be impossible to just walk away from the activity.

I feel I owe it too much. I owe it my life.

necessary reflections on mortality...

December 25, 2009

It's hard to think about the holidays and not be a little depressed about my parents being deceased. this is not a slight against my girlfriend's parents, who have embraced me as a member of their family, but it's just not the same. it's even a little scary, as their family and my family ate the same breakfast (ham and eggs, with pineapple). that being said, it's still a little difficult to pretend like everything is fine, and the day isn't getting to me. but this isn't the first time I've had the Christmas at The Family, and all things considered, it's a pretty enjoyable time, as I actually like my girlfriends parents (different than my parents obviously, but I enjoy their company, even if I'm not the best at showing that). but today, it's a little different. the death of a member of my debate family has had a larger effect on me than i would have imagined.

The passing of Scott Deatherage, former Director of Forensics at Northwestern University and the Director of the National Association of Urban Debate League has hit me harder than I would have imagined. It's not like I've had a ton of interactions with the man, he never coached me, never led a lab of mine, and as a coach, have never had kids in his lab. In other words, we had no real base of interaction, and combining that with neither of us being particularly social to people we don't know, we never had many chances to interact. this being said, it's still rattling me to my core more than it should. I think it's because death, in general, effects me more than it should. One of the downsides of having numerous people close to you die is that allows, more forces, a mode of empathy in me than I would like to have, as that empathy forces me to address the passing of people important in my life. It means that, when people are experiencing loss, I tend to find myself gravitating to them, to offer help to them in any way i can, and always offer my ear to them, as I know how it feels to want to talk and to not want to over-burden the people you've been relying on. I also know it's complicated to talk to someone who has lost someone important. Most people, with nothing but good intentions in their hearts, have a tendency to say exactly the wrong shit to you, trying to be helpful. There's nothing worse than not being allowed to react when something bad has happened, because you're trying to not hurt the feelings of someone trying to help you, it just makes the whole situation worse. Sometimes it's nice to be able to talk to someone that understands that sometimes, all you really want is a sounding board, someone to talk to, but someone that will just shut the fuck up and let them talk, which you'd only really, really understand are people that have been there before, needed that silence and wasn't able to get it. Just knowing the kind of pain they are going through makes me feel for the people left, and it means that death, collectively and individually permeates my core more than it should or is probably helpful, but i can say that it's the core of the person i have become, and sometimes i think it's the base of the limited forms of compassion and caring I am capable of showing.

So it seems that, as in all things, the process of death is always crucial in the creation of life.

a different post

I remember a time in my life when I wasn't the ball of joy you all know and love.

There was a block of time, i'm not really sure of the duration, but let's just say the doldrums were longer lived than presidency of either Jimmy Carter or George HW Bush. I had just been through the emotional ringer, having dated a woman who, upon her calling me up to break up with me and telling me, the first word out of my mouth was "sweet," I had been living in Ogden, UT for over a year, and with each day my spirit was being run through a Cuisinart, not to mention the doldrums of dealing with the death of my dad, which, even after over two years, still had me in the midst of a tailspin. In a world of self-loathing, it's really hard to get yourself on the right track. It seems that everything you're doing and/or trying to do leads to either less than optimal results. i was in an overwhelming rut, and needed to do something to get out of it. I decided, relatively impulsively, to transfer schools, from Weber State University to the University of Oregon. But when I say impulsive, I think you may misunderstand or under-represent what I really ended up doing.

On March 2, I was in Eugene, OR, before a debate tournament, debated the weekend, went back to Ogden, UT (which, if i didn't have around $2000 cash in the room, and didn't trust any of the MF's that would have looted my room while i sent people I could trust to get my stuff back to me, i would have just left everything, and I mean everything, to just wipe that part of my life away, and start new), and on March 17th, I was moved to Eugene, and enrolled in classes at the University of Oregon...

...while the move did wonders for my health (moving from a place with some of the nation's worst air quality to Eugene, which I am still convinced has some of the cleanest air you'll find in a population center in the country, will do that to you), the move didn't really do as much for my quality of life in other aspects of my existence. Although I was no longer in Utah, and no longer felt I was at a technical disadvantage (not being Mormon, being black, being bitter and alienated in general), my overall attitude towards life still pretty much made me a douchebag. After a couple of days, I found a bunch of guys from the dorms to hang out, chill, occasionally drink and always hit the tree with. So, all of a sudden, i have a social circle, i'm at a school that is academically superior, and thus more enjoyable, to Weber, the area is beautiful, with trees everywhere, a river that runs right by campus, and beautiful women, but yet I couldn't seem to get myself out of the doldrums (if this word is unfamiliar to you, I highly suggest The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster, an excellent book with a clear description of what i mean when I say it). It was going to take something remarkable to get me out of this, a virtual hurricane to come in and wash all of the shit and allow for a fresh start.

Kendra.

I would have never assumed it was possible for a person to have as much of an influence in the person i am and the person i have become that was not a member of my immediate family, and in the overall time-line of life, our paths crossed for only the blink of an eye. We were friends living in Oregon at one time, and then all of a sudden, i'm living in Missouri and she's moved to Hawaii. Never really mattered, we weren't those people to each other, but we were true confidantes, providing each other sounding boards to help juggle the madness of life.

She offered me one thing that, at the time, didn't seem like that big of a deal, friendship. But Kendra, as a person, was one of the purest people I'd ever met, someone that was genuinely nice. I had not really been around anyone like that before, as most of my friends are a lot like me, they hate. They may not even hate specifically, but will harbor general hate for the average person. Kendra always seemed to have a smile on her face for everyone, all the time. It's the kind of thing I would have assumed wasn't genuine, had I not spent the time with her that I had, thus having a necessary frame of reference to use as a measuring stick. her being really genuine kind of forced me to be more of myself around her, something i had gotten in the habit of not doing, as to not give anyone a snapshot into the soul. I had always been frank, and usually was able to convince the terms were able to be conflated. but the more time i spent around her, the more i figured out it was possible to be frank, but to simultaneously be ingenuine, and once you know it can happen, it's easier to avoid it...

...she also seemed to be willing to call me out about being a douche-bag as a person, and having to answer to someone about it, as opposed to most of my people, who would just let that shit slide, as my general hatred and vitriol almost always provides some modicum of humor. The more we hung out, the more I realized i was being a dick, for really no real reason...

...I think the reason we ended up being friends was because of her patience. At the beginning, I was a real dick, but apparently, she knew there was a (somewhat) decent person inside, who just needed a chance to show themselves. So she just let me be bitter, and just reminded me, constantly, how bitter i sounded, and that i needed to try to make more positive out of the things in life that were happening. In the world of retrospect, i can now realize that having lost someone as important as my dad was to me meant that I was unwilling to let anyone get to know me, at all. I was unwilling to give anyone a chance to get to know me, which means, in my world, they never have the chance to hurt me, either. But that's a miserable existence, with walls erected around you and nobody you can really relate to. The thing Kendra taught me, that I still to this day use, is to be willing to ask for and seek help from friends. One of my biggest weaknesses is a belief that all problems can be resolved, and i can do it with enough brainpower and effort. And a lot of time, this is true. But sometimes, you do need other people, to help you figure out things, to be a sounding board for ideas, or sometimes even a shoulder to cry on, and you need friends to help you through these rough times. Kendra reminded me that we need friends, and more importantly, she reminded me that I had the capacity to be the kind of friend that people deserved, and the kind of friend i could begin to expect, actually demand.

I've been dating my current girlfriend for a long time now, over 4.5 years. I know if my current girlfriend met the jackass i was in what i like to call the former life, there's no way possible she'd still be around. I'm at a really happy place in life right now, and like to sometimes reflect on the things that helped make it happen. I know that Kendra didn't see any of the things she was doing as unique or above and beyond, it was just Kendra being Kendra. And for that, I thank her.

The calm before the storm

Well, I'm in the process of trying to hold a speech tournament at my high school this weekend, and if there was a way i could guarantee that the year I took off my life was not the immediate year, I would clearly give up a year of my life to have this entire experience be over. I imagine it's a lot like most things you do for the benefit of others, a ton of stress until it begins, and after it begins literally until it ends, and then it's something like euphoria (in a world where euphoria could be truly achieved at school at 7:30am, waiting to teach classes, probably to listen to the remainder of Gettysburg address speeches). And if you think the Gettysburg Address is such a beautiful piece of rhetoric that it can't be ruined, you would be sorely mistaken- listening to it 60 times in a couple of class periods is like being booted in the testicles...

...so today, Plexico Burress begins his jail sentence. He's in the clink for 2 years for a gun charge. Now, Plex's gun charge isn't the pulled over with a gun under the seat kind of deal, nor is it the accidentally shot your limo driver in the face and cover it up kind of gun crime. The actual details of the crime border on comical. Mr. Burris decides he wants to go to a club in the city, and so he puts on a pair of sweat pants (really?!? must be nice to be famous. try getting into a club in a pair of sweats in most places, you're turned away at the door.) to hit the spot. But on the way out, he figures, "hey, I need some protection!" Rather than picking up some Jimmy Hats



he decided to bring the kind of protection that doesn't shit in a den, because as Ice Cube says, "a gat is a man's best friend". He puts the gun in the pocket of his sweats. As anyone that's tried to carry things as non-lethal as a cell phone or a set of keys, knows that a pair of sweats are not optimal insofar as making sure you don't just drop shit. Apparently, Plex missed this day in fashion school, and as he reached down for his gun, falling in his sweats, he accidentally discharged the gun...never mind that there are like five levels where it can be said that Plex engaged in some retarded shit...sweats at the club...gun in sweats...reaching for a falling, loaded gun...the list goes on.

this being said, these are all reasons Plex should 1) be the butt of thousands of jokes, 2) be made fun of in public by all around, 3) have some sort of community service. But putting him in jail for 2 years. Couple of things that should be mitigators...

1) it was his gun, and he shot himself. if he shot someone else, then by all means, throw the book at him. But he shot himself with his gun and paid for the hospital bills with his own money. It seems like this is the definition of a victimless crime. why in the world this justifies going to jail, i'll never know.

2) This is caused by the fucked off mandatory minimum issues we have with guns. Now Plex only chooses to go for two years as a deal. The sentence he would be up for was much longer, and he felt he had little to no chance to serve a much longer sentence, if convicted. Mandatory minimums are at the root of our clearly outdated and largely ineffective War on Drugs (which is probably more descriptive of many of our troops, with the war ON drugs campaign. The underlying warrant of these laws justify a world where Plex can get a 2 year sentence for, being an idiot and rocking a gun in a pair of sweats, and dante stallworth can fucking kill someone in his vehicle under the influence, and gets 30 DAYS, and only serves 24.

Some of our laws: FUBAR. Enough Said.

really, next time, strip clubs...

winning takes more than skills

It's been way too long since I last wrote, and I have no real excuse, other than I like to describe my life as too busy to actually get this done. However, in the last few days, I've been really ill (that sick in bed kind of ill, not the "you have cancer" kind of ill- at least not yet) and have been in miserable shape. My internal thermometer has been all off, and sometimes i was really hot and sometimes, i was really cold. Never really had anything like that happen to me, to the point where I had some calls to the Holy Man Upstairs, and just begged that whatever was causing the pain would stop, but unfortunately, it was the body destroyer version of the Entergizer Bunny, it just kept going and going and going...but at one point in time, I do remember saying I would write more if I could get out of bed and not feel like dying. Well, today was better than yesterday (which, physically, was one of the 10 worst days of my life), so after I made myself something to eat after a long period of fasting (not religious based or anything, I just couldn't process food), sat down and decided to watch some football, something I don't get a chance to do very often, based on my job, which if we're successful, means I'm usually preoccupied on Sundays...

I'm in the Bay Area, and have been here for the last 5 years, which means I've been in essentailly an NFL Black Hole, with the Raiders and Niners playing the kind of football that makes you really angry because the NFL has that fucked off rule that forces you to watch local games. Enter Tom Cable, an NFL coach that smooth knocked the fuck out of one of his own coaches, and Mike Singletary, an NFL Hall of Famer with a don't-fuck-with-me-or-i'll-fucking-kill-you mindset. Neither of these teams are vastly different insofar as personnel, but they both have instilled a new brand of accountability in their teams that make them believe they can win. They both have a no-nonsense approach to, well, everything, and they firmly believe that the best way to win a football game is tied to one's toughness, and they go out there KNOWING there won't be a team out there more willing to punch someone in the mouth than they will be. And these have been two of the most destitute programs in the NFL for the last 5 years Niners haven't been good since Mariucci, and the Raiders skill's left with Chucky). Talk all you want about skilled position players, but there's just something to be said for a good coach...

...when i first was involved any competitive activity, I was under the impression a good coach was someone with some vast amount of knowledge on the thing I need to learn, and so, naturally, I assumed that was the most important thing. But, as I began to get better at different activities in life, I began to realize the things I found in all good coaches were consistent, and not at all what I expected to be. But when it was all said and done, the overarching theme in all good coaches is twofold:

1) All good coaches understand the success and failure of their competitors is something you can help with, but ultimately is in their hands. This is the cross to bear of many coaches. I know one coach in particular, is a tireless worker, a excellent strategist and understands the ins and outs of the game like no other. However, for reasons I have never figured out, he seems incapable of producing winners- and for a long time, I couldn't figure out why, until recently. His students never figure out how to think on their own. They're really prepared if things proceed exactly as they have planned, but when things go awry, they are never really prepared to react well enough to win. Part of teaching is knowing how to teach people to excel in less than optimal situations, and when we spend too much time trying to catch fish for our kids, we sometimes forget to teach them to fish, which lets them eat for a lifetime.

2) Good coaches know that most of what coaching is pure motivation. Anyone that questions this just needs to look at the University of Washington this weekend. Last season, the University of Washington was one of the worst football teams in the NCAA last season, losing all of their football games last season (I will put this caveat: they quit on Ty Willingham last season, independently of getting really hurt- and the team on the field is who would have played for Willingham is they had been healthy). But when you quit on the coach, you need to bring in some new blood, and that's what they did with Steve Sarkesian, the offensive coordinator for USC, and he brought in a new culture of winning (for Seattle, who hasn't been good for quite some time). Making someone believe they can win is most of the battle. Once people believe they have the chance to win, it can happen. I was thinking back to a team that was debating when I was coaching in the upper midwest, and this small school with no real history of success went to, and cleared at the National Debate Tournament. There are tons of people, whose singular goal is to clear at the NDT and they never get it done. Their coach, who could be seen as a nice guy by some, was a lot of things, but nobody would ever confuse him with an excellent strategist, which is crucial to clearing at the NDT. They had a couple of things they were really good at, but for the most part they went in with the belief they could beat anyone, and with that confidence, they were able to excel. The ability to motivate people to success it actually more important to success than the tangible skills necessary to succeed. It's really hard to do well if you don't believe you can, even with mad skills, and you can succeed in a world where your skills aren't at their best if you have confidence in your ability to succeed.

There are a ton of other characteristics necessary to be a good coach, like the ability to listen, recognizing strengths and weaknesses, strategy, work, etc. But If you can motivate, and realize that, at the end, it's their ability to execute that really matters and to not take that power out of their hands, you'll find yourself doing the things that will facilitate greatness.

The next post is about strip clubs.