3-18-12

I’m back and ready to write. Sort of. What on earth could have driven me to return to tapping the QWERTYs? The answer is simple: having to write something else. You see, I have this essay that I need to finish for tomorrow. My natural inclination when I have to sit down and write something, though, is to find any other activity to do, including writing. So in an ultimate act of idiosyncratic irony, I’m procrastinating writing an essay by, well, writing a different essay. 

I have missed the blog. I’ve missed this outlet of creative and passive-aggressive energy. I’ve missed this fairgrounds of mental oddity and verbal bizarreness. I’ve missed this highway of self-reflexive thought that I’ve disguised as anything but that. I’ve missed ranting. I’ve missed raving. But mostly, and I am not kidding even a little, I’ve missed berating Emma. Let me clarify my point so as not to confuse any parties. I do not miss Emma. I miss the angst and passionate annoyance that she kindled in my spirit, bubbling inside me like the preliminary belches of lava within a volcano, causing my fingers to erupt across a landscape of alpha-numeric keys.

I couldn’t see it then, I was too close, but Emma did do one great thing in this world; in her own way, she drove me to write on a daily basis. For that, Emma, I say thank you. It may have even been worth the chewed and slobbered shoes, the confetti-fied books, the defecation in the hallway, the urination everywhere else, the unholy volume and persistence of her barking, the way you’d run away and never obey my calls to come back. Ehh, it definitely wasn’t worth it.

In Emma’s absence, I am in eager anticipation of a new muse. Casting calls are open. Now hiring. If you’ve seen this source of inspiration, please email at jd.binger@gmail.com.

I could wrap this blog up now…but I still don’t feel like getting to that essay. Sooo…..

Normally, if I wanted to procrastinate an activity I’d go eat something. It’s worked brilliantly so far. Clean my room or pound a PBJ? Do my taxes or do an internal revenue check of what’s in the cheese drawer? Finish grading papers or finish off the half-gallon of Praline Crunch ice cream….and the last two sleeves of Oreos….and the whole box of Fudge-dipped Coconut granola bars? Now, perhaps unsurprisingly to you, I’ve just recently come across a foible in my procrastination formula. I dwelled on the possibility that one day my metabolism could slow down and I’d be in a world of hurt. 

In fact, I weighed myself just a few days ago and saw I was a solid 210 lbs. (I’d way myself right now, but my bathroom scale has been missing since my sister came to visit last Wednesday….suspicious, Jen.) Granted, after eating everything under the sun and not working out for a full month and a half I have only gained five real pounds, but it’s still weight gained. Then again, I can lose that much weight in a day with some aggressive cardio and small meals. But the point is, there will come a day when my body-engine shifts from fifth gear to fourth, and fourth to third, and so on, and I don’t want to turn fat at 40. Then again, I would like to die fat and happy so I need to play my cards right. I just wish God would email me when I have one year left on earth, “Hey man – just wanted to let u no that this is the final countdown (make sure u play the song I attached while u read this.) Ur reaching ur expiration date in 12 months. Have fun. Talk to u l8er.  -  God.”

After reading that email, the first thing I’d do is drive to a grocery store and fill my carts (that’s right, plural) with cheesecakes and frozen pizzas. If there was extra room, I’d add sausage links, sausage patties, pints of Haagen-Daaz, donuts, candy bars, whole milk, and granola….I know granola isn’t that unhealthy but I just love it so much. It would be my sincere pleasure to be sitting in my bed my last couple months, morbidly obese, and use my whiskey-barrel belly like a TV tray stand…clutter it with half-eaten bagels, crossword puzzle books, and the remote…never having to reach beyond my own belly-button for whatever I want. A boy can dream. 

OK. I’m ready to get down to business. Time to go write. 

Just need to grab a bite to eat first.

iPresident

Don’t call me a genius, yet. But I may have stumbled upon a way to solve all of America’s problems. Sure, this idea wasn’t originally mine but writers are the biggest idea-thieves whether they cite their sources or not. It has nothing to do with raising/lowering taxes, changing our foreign policy, or tampering with the massive entitlement programs. It’s all about Jobs, Steve Jobs to be precise. That’s right, folks, I’m nominating Steve Jobs for president.

I’m officially announcing right now that I am officially his unofficial presidential campaign promoter. He won’t be running as a democrat or as a republican but instead will be opting for a third-party selection. It won’t be the Independent ticket, nor the Green Party, nor Jimmy McMillan’s The Rent Is Too Damn High platform. Steve Jobs is seeking (or maybe more accurately I am seeking for him) the nomination of the Apple Party.

Let’s peek at Steve Jobs credentials as our potential president.

America’s money mismanagement and debt crisis are crippling factors today as well as national security threats in the coming years. How did Jobs handle the finances while at the helm of titan tech company Apple? The website digitaltrends.com answers this question convincingly: “Here’s a frightening statistic: Apple Inc. now has more cash on hand than the entire United States federal government. As of Wednesday, July 27, the balance sheet for the US Treasury dipped down to $73.768 billion. That compares to the $76.156 billion Apple has in its deep coffers — a difference of $2.388 billion.” The author goes on to explain how the unthinkable happened. “Apple makes more money than it spends, while the US government spends more than it generates in tax revenue. In other words, Apple is doing a really good job at running itself, while the federal government is not.”

The US unemployment for August sat at 9.1% which is about 14 million workers. (I went to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website to try and wow you with lots of interesting tidbits but the “9.1%” and “14 million” parts were the only ones I could makes heads or tails of; pretty much everything else was way over my head.) This country is in desperate need of someone who can get Americans back to work. Is Steve Jobs (I’m sorry, but there’s just no way I can answer this without a pun) the man for the job? As of September 2010, Apple had about 46,600 full-time employees as well as nearly 3,000 part-timers. In other words, the answers is “yes”. (Might I add, he’s also fathered four children…talk about Jobs creation.)

You could keep the questions coming but the answers get easier and easier. Foreign policy? China, Iran, and North Korea won’t see a single iPhone until they start playing fair and treating people like people. Sure, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, you can build all the nuclear weapons you want, but you’ll never be able to experience the joy of blowing things up on Angry Birds. Consider yourself warned.

Costly wars? Who’s really going to want to poke sticks or throw stones at us if the former CEO of the greatest tech company of all time is in charge. He won’t only find a way to hunt you down and bring you to justice, but he’ll do it with such elegance, precision, simplicity, and intuitiveness that eliminating American enemies will become as fun and easy as downloading and playing an app.

The growing burden of welfare? The fastest and easiest way to cut our costs here is to implement a system of options. You can receive your month’s check from the government or get the equivalent dollar amount in iTunes downloads for music, movies, and more.

The red/blue division of America? I think we all can get behind a candidate who, if elected, would cut iPad prices in half. It’s a campaign promise he made, sort of, and it’s good as gold.

I have it on good authority, kind of, that the reason Jobs stepped down as Apple CEO was to spend time putting together the pieces of his presidential push. Jobs 2012: Think Different. Go to iPresident.com to read his view on the issues, or just read what I cut-and-pasted.

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Joshua

PS – If anyone’s interested, I’m still taking applications for the position of Official Assistant to the Campaign Manager of the Unofficial Campaign for Steve Jobs for President. Please include the following in application: cover letter, resume, references, a hand-drawn picture of a mythical creature, your favorite Star Wars quote, a DVD of any movie with Harrison Ford in it, some form of baked goods to eat while I review your application, as well as the last nine digits of your social security number.

A Traffic Light Story

I was driving home today from my usual very busy day of work and pulled into the left turn lane to wait for the red light to turn into a green arrow. As Dierks Bentley played on my radio, I noticed not far away an Escalade had been in a traffic accident: it’s front right fender had been smashed to dangling pearlescent-painted bits. I found myself having a strange, almost irresistible attraction to look at the damaged car. Apparently I wasn’t the only one with this moth-to-flame reaction as car after car driving by was filled with passengers craning their heads and necks to soak in the sight. This made me chuckle. Has there ever been a time in my life where I drove past a car accident and didn’t look? Have you (that’s right, reader, I’m talking to you) ever been disinterested in a wreck? It seems we have a sick fascination with smashed cars and the people who drive them. Well, at least in real life.

I can’t tell you how many summer action blockbusters feature an tire-screeching, glass-shattering, explosion-laden, city-destroying car chase. They’re regrettably predictable, except in the rare instance when they are creative and unique enough to hold my attention. Otherwise I’m bored from the engine’s first rev. The fast black car pulls a tricky maneuver and three cop cars crunch together in a heap? Snooze. A tricked out Chevy Suburban swerves in and out of interstate traffic sending Honda Civics spiraling out of control and caroming off of cement walls? Been there, done that. Giant robots reek havoc in a city, turning parked cars into patty-cakes, sending a hailstorm of bullets through hoods and doors, and igniting suspiciously powerful fireball explosions under vehicles launching them four stories into the air? I’d have a really witty retort here if I wasn’t so darn bored just thinking about it. An army-green Cold War tank reducing buildings to rubble while rolling over and demolishing any car caught under its treads? OK, actually that would be pretty awesome.

The point is, Hollywood (and by Hollywood I mostly mean Michael Bay) spends millions on these “thrill-ride” action sequences to capture our attention….and they do, sort of. They pull every trick in the book and destroy everything under the sun. And for what you ask? For nothing more than my lukewarm interest. How jealous it must make them, then, when I spot a parked car on the side of the road with some fender damage and I am unable to turn away. It doesn’t take much. A dented door? A snapped-off side-view mirror? A broken brake light? Heck, give me a flat tire and two feet of skid marks and I’m eyes. It’s not fair, Mr. Bay, I know, but it’s just the way it is.

My light finally turned green and as I rounded that left turn I saw the other car that the Escalade had supposedly collided with. My mind went blank for the next ten seconds. All I remember is passing that car with the police cruiser parker behind it and feeling myself flood with boyish excitement. I was pretty disheartened as I drove down the road because I didn’t see a single patch of damage anywhere on the car. My only word on that is, if you’re going to get into an accident, don’t waste my time by not suffering any body damage to your car; you don’t have to total the thing but leave a trail of broken glass, I mean, it’s the least you could do.

10 and 2 for life,

Joshua

Real Patriots Don’t Celebrate Birthdays

These are desperate times. The stock market is bobbing up and down more than a dingy in a hurricane. We have more unemployed people in this country than Portugal….let me rephrase that: than Portugal has people. To fill up your gas tank, it takes a full day’s wages plus a small piece of your soul. Prices everywhere are climbing higher. The population is losing morale like a balloon slowly leaking helium. I’ve decided that this is no time for me to take a vacation from writing because I’ve got to do my part to get our nation back on track. I’ve got to keep blogging for a better tomorrow. I mean, who else is going to put ‘recess’ back into ‘recession’.

Here’s my first idea. I don’t know who to talk to in government about this, maybe the Party Czar, but I think it’s about time we put an end to birthday parties. This weekend, we just celebrated a combined birthday bash for my niece (1) and my dad (60). Let’s take a closer look at what’s really going on in these events and the madness we’re leaving unregulated.

If I were brand new to this world, I really can’t imagine a more terrifying experience than a birthday party. First, let’s bring a bunch of giant strangers into a confined space and have them all surround me. Then, let’s stab some wax torches into a suspiciously spongy rectangle of foodstuff, set them on fire, and turn off all the lights in the room. Next, everyone chant some ancient song in the firelight while the burning torches get ever closer to my eyes. Finally, someone blow out the flames, and as soon as the room goes completely dark, everyone erupt into shouting and hand-clapping. Heck, if there’s time, right after the party why don’t you just host a voodoo ceremony and an exorcism. No way any of those could be a scarring events in the formative years of a baby.

Heck, even if you’re not a baby, birthday parties are still a crazy idea. Since when was it ever a good idea to round up a posse of 10-year-olds, force feed them sugar until their arms are shaking like tambourines and their eyes stop blinking, then hand the little spastics a plastic bat and tell them to break open the pinata – which if I may point out, is filled with yet more sugar. Swing, swing away Jimmy, oh, and try not to crush your friends’ skulls as dehydration cramps and sugar spasms attack your body. Yeah, that’s completely normal behavior. Sure, the liquid splenda running through their veins is actually enough to classify them as legally intoxicated, but never mind that because it’s a birthday party and we want them to have fun until they slip into a coma.

Let me hit you with a raw truth bomb: 74% of all house fires in America are caused by birthday candles. Let that sink in for a minute. 74%. Fires. America. Birthday candles. OK, so I just made up that stat but suppose it were true – just think how good that evidence would be in support of my argument. It’s something to consider.

Come on, let’s get real. When was the last time you looked forward to your birthday? There are precious few years when people actually get excited at the thought of them. Little kids get super jazzed up about birthdays but since people don’t have a long term memory until like 8-years-old or something, birthdays before then just don’t count. From 8-18 birthdays are fun. 19 and 20 are so-so – they’re just sort of lukewarm. 21 is something memorable, or for many people, something they can’t remember very well at all. And after 21, birthdays are simply either unimportant or even disliked.

So it looks like 8-18 are the years when birthdays are good things. But kids those ages don’t need anymore reinforcement in believing that the world revolves around them so let’s scratch and party and presents and just tell them the truth: to date, they are a money drain and an oil-spill of red ink and if they ever want to make something of themselves someday they need to understand how little the world cares about the anniversary of the day they fell out of their mom’s uterus.

In conclusion, there’s a wealth of money to be saved by avoiding birthday parties altogether. I’m about to fabricate another mostly unbelievable stat here but every year Americans spend 6.8 billion in birthday supplies: colorful crinkle paper, those hats with the elastic chin straps that sting like jellyfish tentacles, plastic crap made in China, paper plates/napkins/cups plastered with images of Justin Bieber or Dora the bi-racial explorer.

Well, I hope you feel as uplifted in reading this as I did in writing it. It’s a dark world and I’m just trying to do my part in shining a little more light. As I sit here in my cowboy hat and boxers, I can’t help but thinking that tomorrow somehow is going to be just a little bit better than today.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

Joshua

Challenge: The First

As promised, today I reveal my big challenge. For the next 30 days, I’m going to battle poison ivy. I know, I know, I picked a pretty monumental challenge for my first one. But heck, go big or go home. This idea dawned on me yesterday morning when I woke and up spotted a cute little red rash down near my ankle. I get a little emotional when I think about it. It’s like seeing the stocking stuffer at Christmas before you’re carried away in the flood of presents. In time, this little rash will grow and spread, slowly infecting yet-to-be-determined patches of my body with itchy, oozing, red blisters.

The ankle was the contact point where the urushiol oil landed on my body and immediately said, “I claim this land for Ivy!” If it’s anything like previous attacks, the thinnest skin will fall prey first to the onslaught. Often it’s the inside of my forearms that show the early signs of the grossness spreading. Streaky red lines faintly emerge then grow and grow like a spill of water spreading out on a towel. It won’t be long after then before the poison hits my fingers. That will be the best part of the whole process. Tiny bubbles will pop up at the base of my digits. Those bubbles will replicate faster than a forest full of bunnies on Valentine’s Day. Within a week and a half, I’ll have blistering itch-pads polka-dotted on my arms, legs, belly, back, face, and other places. My body will be a wonderland of itchy infection.

After a couple weeks, I’ll gain the upper hand. Inch by inch, I’ll push the ivy out of my system. With some good luck, by the end of the month the poison will be gone and my first challenge will be complete. Yea!

But in all seriousness, I hate you poison ivy. I hate you more than people who don’t turn off their phones during movies. I hate you more than those ads that pop up on your computer screen and flash and dance for a full two minutes before letting you get back to work. I hate you more than finding out that the milk’s gone bad after eating half a bowl of cereal. I hate you more than waking up really early in the morning and not being able to fall back asleep because I have to pee so bad. I hate you more than turning on the shower and being hit by a glacial-cold blast. I hate you more than the skyrocketing gas prices, more than beestings, more than being hit by lightning, more than losing nearly my entire mini-golf amusement park to a fire. Poison ivy, I hate you more than Emma.

I don’t know how to be any more descriptive or succinct, poison ivy. I want you to burn in hell. Burn, burn, burn. And while you’re there, I want you to think about all the people you made suffer. I want you to contemplate all the rashes, the swelling, the blisters, the oozing, the lesions, the open sores. I want you to feel their pain then just keep burning. I’ll send you a bottle of calamine lotion and an oatmeal bath. Hopefully, they’ll bring you as much comfort as they’ve brought me. I’ll include a letter with those gifts. It will read something like this:

Dear Poison Ivy,
I hate your stinking guts. You make me vomit. You’re scum between my toes.
Love,

Joshua

Mr. T, Matt Cutts, and an Epically Miniature Tragedy

I just recently watched a video from the TED website. If you’ve never heard of TED, check it out. It’s one of the Top 5 coolest places on the internet according to data I collected from myself. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design and their slogan is “Ideas Worth Spreading.” They post thousands of videos taken from their annual conference and elsewhere. These videos cover an amazing breadth of topics, dipping and dabbling into every field from sustainable agriculture to music of the future. I have found no lack of inspiration from watching these videos, only a lack of time to satisfy all of my curiosities.

Yesterday I watched a presentation by Matt Cutts. (Did you realize his name is 4/9 T’s? That’s kinda cool. I mean, no, it’s not mind blowing but it’s interesting. If I were him, it’s something I’d definitely mention during one of those meet-and-greet icebreaker games where everyone else spouts a generically uninteresting factoid about their underwhelming life. Then I’d be like, “Yeah, I have four T’s in my name and there’s only nine letters total.” Then my new nickname would become Mr. T and right away I’d start working my new catchphrase “I pity the fool” into conversations, appropriately or not. Like someone says, “Did you hear about that bank robber whose wallet fell out of his pocket as he ran out of the bank? The police almost made it to his house before he did.” Then I’d say, “I pity the fool.” Then someone else would ask me, “Hey do you know what time it is?” Unable to break from my new character and catchphrase, I’d have no choice but to answer, “I pity the fool.” Then they’d be very confused and in order to salvage my coolness I’d have to knock them out cold with one punch to the nose and say, “I pity the fool who don’t have no watch!” Then everyone would raucously cheer, hoist me onto their shoulders, throw heaps of golden bling around my neck, and we’d go around town beating up everyone who didn’t have a watch. A grassroots gang would organically form from our growing numbers and swelling swagger. We’d call ourselves the Tick-Tocks. I would be their leader. Eventually, Rolex would offer me a six-figure income to be their spokesman and travel around the world saying, “I pity the fool who don’t have no Rolex!” I’d take the job. The Tick-Tocks would fall apart, slowly overcome in the war of attrition by our rival gang, the Tick-Nots, consisting entirely of people who do not wear watches. Everyone would call me a sell-out. The harassment would escalate until one day a nut-job would throw a brick through my studio apartment window with one word scribbled across it in charcoal: loser. Then I’d schedule an immediate press conference and say, “Don’t hate me ’cause I make enough lettuce to support my shoe fetish. Ballas ball. Fightas fight. And winnas win. And I pity the next fool who says I ain’t a winna.” I’d stick with Rolex for another ten years. Then I’d take the money I’d saved and build a mini-golf course. It would be the best in the world with huge plaster sculptures of animals, national monuments, Star Wars ships, and food. I’d retire there and live in a life-size replica of the Millennium Falcon. But tragically, one night in a terrible wind-storm the tail of the larger-than-life Liger model would snap off and crash into the power lines starting a conflagration that would engulf nearly my entire mini-golf amusement park. The only structure untouched by the flames would be the giant Loch Ness monster since it was sitting in the middle of Loch Ness Lake. Then I’d discover that my insurance provider was a scam artist and I would not be receiving reimbursement for any of the damages. I’d be forced to make Loch Ness my new home, confined to spend the rest of my days in the belly of the beast. Thank goodness my name isn’t Matt Cutts, though, quite frankly, I’m flummoxed how he’s managed to avoid this fate thus far.)

…sorry I think I blacked out for the last ten minutes. I have no idea what happened. Furthermore, I take no responsibility for anything I said or did. Now where was I – that’s right, Matt Cutts’ presentation. Cutts briefly talked about his practice of taking on a new life challenge for 30 days, or in other words, parsing goals into bite-size pieces. Whether it was biking to work, removing sugar from his diet, or taking one picture everyday, he would set up a new challenge for himself in 30 day increments. He said it was a great way to test drive new life habits. Did he like it? Could he could it up? It alternatively was a great way to break old life habits.

He passively recommended easier challenges as opposed to very difficult ones as those were more likely to stick. One of the best byproducts of his challenges, he concluded, was the way it turned the blur and jumble of daily life into something he could enjoy and remember. No longer did days bleed into days unending. His 30-day challenges provided him a framework that promoted savoring the moment while looking withe excitement toward the future.

Cutts inspired me to do the same. My next post will tell you all about this new challenge of mine.

I pity the fool,

Mr. T

PS – I’m back to Navy Camp this week so internet will be rare…just saying.

USA – Why We’re Awesome

I don’t know what says, “I’m American and proud of it!” better than multicolored pyrotechnics hurtling through the air. Seriously, who else shows how much they love their country by blowing stuff up? People just don’t do this kind of stuff in other countries.

In India, everyone has a flag that they wave, then they listen to their Prime Minister talk about the country, then they watch a television special of a big flag waving on top of a building. I’m sure they’ve never had any noise complaints during their parties. On second though, I’m sure they’ve never had any parties.

In Canada, they kind of look around and go, “Eh, do we have enough people to actually be a country, eh?” Then they slap on their skates and play some ice hockey with the moosen and bears.

In Russia, they do the same thing they do for all of their holidays; they chug vodka until they’re stone-drunk then go dance with girls named Alexandrovna.

In Germany, still a little scarred from when they went way overboard on the whole nationalism thing, they now walk around their cities with their hands casually behind their backs saying, “Germany’s OK. It’s alright.” The overly patriotic ones say, “Germany’s OK. It’s alright,” while giving a single thumbs up.

In China, the King or whatever he’s called tells the child labor force that they can take home one of the fireworks they made that day for America. (Then the Emperor or whatever he’s called tells the adult slaves that they have to work extra hard to make up for the profit loss.)

In Mexico, the drug cartels drive around in flatbed pickup trucks tossing out free handfuls of cocaine and heroine chanting, “We totally kicked butt at the Alamo!” But they say it in Spanish of course, which sounds more like, “We totally kicked butt at el Alamo!”

In France, they congregate for a citywide assembly where they take their annual refresher courses on how to unload their guns, raise their hands slowly, and attach white pocket squares to a baguettes.

In Iran, well, actually they are a lot like us except they have people strapped to their explosives.

In Britain, gosh, I have no idea what they do in Britain. Maybe they sip on a cup of tea in the queen’s honor? Maybe they kick soccer balls at pictures of George Washington? I kind of hope they sit around their flats going, “Blimey, still can’t believe they beat us,” then munch on their greasy fish n’ chips.

Regardless of what everyone else does across the globe to celebrate their country, I love how we do it here. We shoot off fireworks, go for boat rides, grill brats and hamburgers and corn-on-the-cob, eat blue Jell-O covered in Cool Whip and berries, and spend time with friends and family.

When I was growing up, after Christmas and my birthday, the holiday I looked forward to the most was the Fourth of July. (Side not: does anyone else feel like the holiday is way less epic when we call it July 4? Heck, some years I haven’t even realized it was the Fourth of July because people kept calling in July 4. Maybe that says more about me than the moniker but still, let’s stick with proper titles please.)

I loved watching the fireworks fill the sky with color. I loved when my parents bought us those crappy fireworks like those puny little snaps that you threw on the ground. Or the sparklers that looked like fairy glitter sticks. Or even the high-pitched bottle-rockets that sounded like teeny-tiny witches riding away on super-fast brooms. It was cool and fun and I always felt like I was a part of something when we took part in this national ritual. For one night, we Americans pulled ourselves away from our TVs, walked outside under the stars, and Oohed & Aahhed together, laughed together, set the sky ablaze together. People around the country were all doing the same thing; lighting a fuse and running for dear life!

So I urge you, in the spirit of America light something on fire tonight. If you can, make sure it has some gun powder or gasoline in it, something that will go BOOM (or BOOMINGDALES as I heard on good authority that it is the new catchword to replace boom.) I’ll leave you with this – you love America to the extent that you blow stuff up. So before you purchase the eight-pack of rainbow sparklers, ask yourself, “What would George Washington do?” I don’t recommend finding a musket and shooting some dude from the UK but perhaps it wouldn’t kill you to put the sparklers back and grab some Comet Clusters, a handful of Barbarian Blasts, one or two Golden Gladiators, and a Pyro Pixie Powerbomb. Don’t do it for you. Don’t do it for me. Do it for America. And for the little Chinese kids making all that crap who will lose a hand if you don’t buy it. Boomingdales.

Joshua

Happy Valley Soccer Camp

This week Beej and I have been running a camp we set up called Happy Valley Soccer Camp. We have about twenty players from the area between the ages of 6 and 14. The camp starts at 5:15pm and goes until 8:45pm. These three and a half hours comprise my work for the entire day. This week’s been a lot of fun.

So far, everyday this week has started about the same. I wake up and think, “What, 9:30 already?” Then stay in bed, reach over and pull my computer onto my belly, check emails, brush up on the news, and get a few minutes of early Facebooking in. It’s my wakeup ritual and I love it. After I’m done, I’ll slip out of bed and head into the kitchen to pound some cereal. Emma will scurry over with her waggly ways, whine for no reason, then slobber on something. Then I’ll say to her as I do everyday, several times a day: “Emma, we’re not friends. I don’t love you; nobody does.” But this morning when I finished emotionally assaulting her, she still wouldn’t leave me alone. I was then forced to ask, “Emma, why on earth do you think we’re friends? Is it something I’ve done? Something I’ve said? Whatever it is, tell me and I’ll stop.”

By the way, I should tell you Emma is in heat. On the plus side, she’s not nearly as energetic as usual. Don’t get me wrong, she can still do her scoliosis dance but it doesn’t occur nearly as often. On the negative side, she bleeds now. I never thought I could find Emma more annoying, repulsive, or unloveable. I also never thought a liger was real but life’s full of delightful little surprises. (Yeah, that’s right, ligers are actual creatures. They’re the hybrid offspring of a male lion and a female tiger. Their step-brother is the tiglon, the lovechild of a male tiger and a female lion. So here’s my question; hypothetically, if a tiglon and a liger spent a summer night together in the safari and nine months later had two baby kittens, could one of those kittens be a normal tiger and the other a normal lion? Or would they both be tigligerons? These are questions that keep important men and women up at night. It’s been reported that Jane Goodall hasn’t slept in three months ever since having the question posed to her, “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” She’s been signing with her primate colleagues Peanuts and Bam-Bam but they seemed stumped by the riddle as well.)

I should also mention that because of her condition, Emma has to wear diapers now. Sometimes it’s nice to have those little mental images we can call up when we’re having a rough day. Feel free to use this one, I’ll share it gladly. I can’t resist from time to time holding her real tight, and saying in my best patronizing voice, “Who’s a big baaaaaby? You’re the big baaaaabby!”

But enough of Emma trying to take over this blog. She’s so egomaniacal.

So we have one kid in camp who is six years old. His name is Andrew. He was born in Korea but now lives here in the States. He’s a free spirit. My first encounter with Andrew I remember clearly. He walks up to me, grabs my arm with his two little fingers, then talks a long sniff and says sincerely, “Mmm. You smell nice.” Then he took another long sniff. Each day since that one he has asked to sniff my arm.

Andrew speaks a lot for a six-year-old in a new environment surrounded by lots of new faces. He actually really enjoys hanging out with the older kids in camp. They love it, too. He’s become the camp mascot. A coupe days ago, he was telling us what he had eaten that day. It was a lot. He’s small but all the food he listed would have filled me up. Then he finished by telling us he drank, “Two milk of bottles and a water of bottle.”

Then last night a family brought some dessert for a post-camp hangout. They invited a couple other families along with Beej and me to join them. It was great. Andrew was there as well. At one point, his mom dished him up a bowl of the dessert. As she tried to hand it to him, he said, “I have to go to the bathroom,” then took off running. In mid-stride, he turns his head and shouts, “Don’t eat any of it!” A few seconds later, he’s running back to the picnic table and right as his mom tries again to hand him his bowl he yells, “I peed on my hands!” Nothing some sanitizer and ice cubes couldn’t fix.

Camps been good. We wrap it up tonight. I can’t wait to hear what Andrew will say tonight.

Joshua

P.S. – I didn’t know where to include this. But in addition to the earlier portmanteaus, here’s a few more I like: turducken, firenado, refudiate, spork, flustrated, and misconscrewed.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor Part II

Neighbors are special people. They hold a certain position inside our culture and within our language. If someone is said to be neighborly it means they’re friendly, helpful, or kind. Similarly, the Bible references neighbor from time to time. In Mark it says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” That command to love your neighbor, if we look at it from another perspective, is saying that we are to love our neighbors because we are neighbors, too. I’m not going to go all exegetical on you, mainly because I can’t. But the important part in all of this is that the position of neighbor has an elevated status in society; it’s associated with virtue, holds a place of honor, is loved and respected, and comes with a certain measure of responsibility.

Some neighbors really fit this mold. Like Wilson from Home Improvement, they have all their affairs tidied up, they’re lawn is manicured, they spend much of their time grilling on the back porch, and they’re open at any moment to poke the top-half of their faces above the fence-line and share some much needed wisdom to help you solve the problem of the day. Some neighbors are like this. But neighbors come in all shapes and sizes.

I first heard the word menagerie when I was in high school studying Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie. Since then, that word had fallen into a dust pile in the basement of my mind and for years stayed there until I met my next-door neighbor. Her house is a menagerie.

Let me tell you what’s all being harbored within her house: a turtle, a wounded toad, two blood-thirsty dogs, lots of baby bunnies, small flocks of birds, a gang of cats (not strays but actual cast members from the musical), a fossilized dinosaur, a box of moosen, the Indian in the cupboard, several of those little green aliens from Toy Story, and some sort of strange plant/animal hybrid with tentacle-feet and toothy eyes. (Yeah, it was a long funny list. That’s what I do. But several of those are confirmed real, some are unconfirmed real, and a few maybe aren’t real…..not yet.)

I learned all of this the first time I met my neighbor. I don’t recall her name. Sheila? That’s not it but let’s call her Sheila. She’s the one I referred to in an earlier post who suffers from an incurable case of the Can’t-Stop-Talkings. (I think it’s a thyroid disease.) During our first conversation, I felt more like I was hearing the audio version of someone’s autobiography; only problem was I couldn’t find the pause button, and the volume knob was stuck turned way, way up. I could tell you about her husband’s occupation as an overseer in the coal mines, and how he needs a sturdy vehicle to drive up and down the mine shafts, and there’s only like three vehicles in the history of the world with the right kind of axle joints for this job, and the car salesman who tried to sell him a car with the wrong joints, and how he was like, “I know more than you do about these cars so I’ll just pick one and you can step aside.” Or I could tell you about her son who needs a job but can’t get one because he dropped out of high school and no one will hire him because he’s not 18 yet. Or more about her husband and how handy he is with tools. Or about how expensive it is to buy flies to feed her wounded toad.

Throughout her entire monologue, I mean our conversation, I was very much distracted by the fact that her eyes weren’t looking at mine. No, her eyes were focused and locked a few inches south of my chin staring right at my neck or chest….could never really tell. I kept thinking, “Eyes here, lady, my eyes are up here.”

I have a suspicion she was distracted at points during our chat, or maybe while she was spewing words at me she was having another conversation in her head with herself about her army of mouse-hunting ninja cats. Regardless of the reason, she wasn’t catching any of my growing-less-subtle-by-the-minute hints that we needed to wrap up our time together. I had a practice to get to; it wasn’t really a factor when we started the conversation an hour ago but now I had precious few minutes to spare. I gave her every clue in the book that I was ready to be done. Short of muzzling her, tipping her back on a dolly and wheeling her home, then safety-pinning a note to her shirt that said, “I am out of time. It’s been lovely, truly lovely, but now I must leave,” I’m not she was going to understand that I had to go. Fortunately, in the nick of time as I had just remembered where we kept the dolly, she said goodbye and we parted.

At the end of the day (and our conversation started at mid-morning), I decided that though she’s longwinded, and has a zoo in a county that’s most assuredly not zoned for zoo-ing, she’s a pretty great neighbor. We exchanged some stories and shared in each other’s life for a little while. I think that’s the essence of being a neighbor. Talking. Listening. Caring. Just letting someone know by word or deed, “I see you. I’m not ambivalent toward you. I like you. You belong here.” So does it matter that she has two dogs that would eat me given the chance, one of which has a crazy eye? Does it matter that her backyard looks like the aftermath of a tornado attack? Does it matter that she has a car parked permanently in her front yard used exclusively as a spare closet for extra storage? No. The CDC might care but I don’t.

Here’s to you, Sheila, or whatever your real name is!

Joshua

Team USA

Does anyone else chew gum in large part because you think it will help make your jaw muscles defined? Me neither.

Let’s talk about camp. So recently I worked soccer camp at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Camp is awesome. It’s the epitome of a good idea, a win-win, the full expression of Renaissance thought. Camp is great because here’s what you do – hang out with your friends, play soccer, coach soccer, get free meals, and get paid for it. If camp were a full-time job, I’d have found my calling.

For anyone who’s worked camp before or is on the camp circuit now, they know a few things about how it runs. One of the firsts thoughts on your mind at the start of camp is, “Will this be an easy week to have fun or will it be more challenging?” Your players have everything to do with this answer. You see, each coach is assigned a team of 12-15 kids. That week, those players are his players, his team. He sees them every morning, afternoon, evening, and probably somewhere in the dorms at night. Best case scenario: you get great soccer players who have great personalities. Translation: easy week to have fun. Worst case scenario: aliens take over the planet and force everyone to listen nonstop to Lady Gaga. Two or three levels above that scenario is what you get when you have a team of whiney personalities who happen to be talent-allergic players. In either setup, no matter how you spin it, it’s going to be a tough week.

I surveyed my team and surmised that my players had the skill equivalent of their female counterparts a full grade level below them. But at least they were excited and happy to be there. After you find out if you like your team or not, next you have to deliberate on how they stack up against the competition. There are usually eight teams in an age group, maybe twelve. The team who wins the championship at the end of camp gets a prize, often a piece of gear. Let me clarify that last statement, the whole team (players + coach) receive a gear-prize if they win the championship on the closing day. (The masterminds behind camp cleverly found a way of incentivizing winning to not only the players but coaches as well. Bravo to you, clever masterminds.) What’s even better is that each age group is broken down into brackets of four teams. That means that there isn’t one camp champion, but one champion per age group bracket. Teams are sorted into brackets based on seeding throughout the week. So by the last day, you could be in the top group, middle group, or perhaps the not-too-good-which-makes-winning-a-single-match-that-much-more-special group.

Some coaches dream about having that team of horses or hotshots who are good enough to be number one overall and win the top bracket in their age group. But I think that’s an elusive dream. I know coaches who have worked camp for years and never had one of these teams. There’s rumors spreading that actually getting “The Team” is an urban legend, like the pot-o-gold at the end of the rainbow. So unless you want to chase after the wind, a good coach doesn’t try to greedily win everything. No, a good coach doesn’t mind if his team sinks slowly down through the seeds because there is no more coveted position than first place in the last bracket.

That wasn’t my team. We were team USA. We won our first match, won our last match, and lost every single game in between. I’m not just talking full-field games. I’m talking about ladder games, card games, short-sided games, races, and even Rock Paper Scissors. We struggled at times but had a great end to camp by finishing in the top seven for our age group, which I considered a sizable accomplishment seeing as how there were eight teams in our group.

One of my kids was a boy named Parker. I ended up electing him as my camper of the week. He’s 11-years-old, has braces, freckles, and curly orange that looked more fake than real. Parker was the smallest kid on the field but tackled harder than anybody. He was always smiling and had a great attitude. After losing anything competitive for the last 72 hours, my team was emotionally drained. We had just finished a session and started walking back to the dorms when Parker called my name and said, “Coach, can I talk to you?” “Sure,” I said and walked over to him. I followed him over to a more secluded part of the field. Then he turned and I saw his face is wet and his eyes red and swollen with tears. I asked him what had happened. He went on to explain that he couldn’t find his bag which had his shoes, cell phone, and iPod. (Why kids younger than 16 need cell phones is beyond me but I still felt for this kid.) After losing in everything under the sun, now he lost his bag. We talked for a bit and I assured him that we’d find his bag and everything in it and he’d be alright. Coach Brandt even came over and talked with him. Then I said, “Alright man, why don’t you start heading up to the dorms.” He replied, “OK. But can I wait til I stop crying? I don’t want the other kids to see me like this.” Parker was the man.

I had another player who stuck out a bit. His name was Brian. He is a perfect example of what happens when you stay in the sun all day, don’t drink enough water, and play The Heading Game for a half hour. Brian worked himself into something of a concussion. I talked to him while he was with the trainers. I asked how he was doing. He didn’t respond. I told him I hope he feels better because we’d need him for the games the next day. Again, he didn’t really say anything. His eyes were glossed over and as cognitively empty as a pair of marbles. Then I said I’d see him later and stretched my hand out for a high five. He swung his hand and missed.

USA all the way! We may have been second-to-last, but nobody fouled harder than us!

Joshua