I love summer. I love swimming, I love wearing sandals, and I love the heat. Actually, I don't love the heat itself, but rather the fact that because of the heat so many women wear less around the pool and at the beach than they normally wear under their regular clothes. So, it's not so much the heat I love as the absence of cold. Cold sucks, unless you're a beer. (Sure there's stuff I like about winter, but this blog is about summer, so shut up.)
For me, summer brings with it a fairly drastic upswing in my activity level. This has always been the case, though the delta between my cold-season activity and warm-season activity is far more pronounced than it was when I was younger. Back then I managed to keep fairly active year round. At forty-four, this spring hit me like Deniro in "Awakenings." I stumbled up from the couch, blinking at the increasingly bright days as if struggling to make meaning of my surroundings. And that's pretty close to reality.
After a pretty serious snowboarding injury a couple of years ago I was sidelined for several months. It was physically impossible for me to be active at first. After a couple of months exercise was merely ill-advised from a medical standpoint. Finally, I got to the point where I was cleared to start ramping up my activity level, but somehow my body had lost interest at that point. My metabolism had remained at such a low level for so long that it simply didn't see the point in getting all excited over anything. If there is a physical malady analogous to clinical depression, my body had it for much of 2005 and all of 2006. For all intents and purposes I was hibernating.
Somewhere between our family spring break trip to Orlando and my Y-Princess trip to Camp Sea Gull with my daughter this spring I began to rouse from my coma. These two trips shared key elements that were crucial in waking me. First, they were fun. Secondly, it was physically impossible not to be physically active during the trips. You can't do Disney from the comfort of your couch. Add to that a day snorkeling and swimming with the dolphins at Discovery Cove... well, try dozing under water. As tired as I was by the end of any given day on these kid-focused trips, I realized that if I kept it up they would be the life of me.
So, I'm hell-bent on staying active these days; swimming with the kids and playing Frisbee golf almost daily. I know that over time my heart will thank me for pushing myself, but in the short term I'm only hearing from my knees, shoulders, and lower back; all of whom are steadfastly resolute in their conviction that we should never, ever leave the couch.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
Atlanta on $263.78 a Day
Okay, I made that number up, but it's not far off. I'm in town for a training developers' conference. Before you get excited, that's not nearly as glamorous as it sounds. Oh sure, Bob Pike is going to be there, and you could do worse if you're in the market for handfuls of cheap promotional pens, but at the end of the day it's just nine thousand-something nerds wandering around talking about how best to pass along nerd-knowledge in a digital age.
I'm here because my employer thinks there is value in having someone attend these things. Ostensibly the notion is that I'll attend a bunch of sessions where I'll learn tons of stuff about where the training field is going, what's out there on that virtual whiteboard horizon, how to capture the learner's attention and keep it when you know deep down that your subject matter is slightly less interesting than the interior of a toilet paper roll (if you're over five)... you know; nerd stuff.
I may not have mentioned before, but I am a nerd. Not old school or anything; I have no tape on my glasses, no pocket protector, no speech impediment, and I don't drool unless it is appropriate to the setting. I'm what you'd call a neo-nerd (if you were nerdy enough to use words like "neo"). I dress fairly innocuously, have interests outside the conventional nerd-sphere, and can pass for normal in most settings.
"What makes someone a nerd?" you ask. Scientists, philosophers, and podiatrists have been trying to answer that question since... okay, they haven't actually, but I'll give it a go. A nerd is someone who is passionate to the point of obsession about things other people find boring, confusing, or of no real interest. It doesn't really matter if your thing is Star Trek, Star Wars, or painting those tiny civil war replicas; nerd is nerd. (I'll be selling "Nerd is Nerd" t-shirts soon; watch this space!)
Anyhow, this nerd walked into a bar... The nerd was me, and the bar was the Vortex Bar & Grill in Atlanta. Cool. I liked the place even before I walked the two miles distance from my hotel room. I had Googled restaurants in the neighborhood, and hit on the Vortex as the place I'd have dinner because their Website, or more to the point, their attitude hooked me. The Vortex is a place where you can go and have a burger and a beer and have it their way. Don't smoke and don't want to be around smoke? Their Website suggests you go someplace else. Like to complain when things aren't to your liking? Take a hike. They advertise their two locations as being both "whine-" and "idiot-" free zones. They even had an explicit "86" policy, which stated that the lines between places open to the public and public places had been blurred for too long; that the Vortex was privately owned, and the management reserved the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time. Like I said; cool.
Their beer selection was so vast that I suspect they may have actually traveled forward in time, bringing back beers that have no actually been invented yet. (By comparison the selection at most places here in Raleigh is only half-vast.) You could get an "In Heat Wheat" from Flying Dog or a "Peg Leg Stout" from Heavy Seas or a zillion other strange or staid brews from their wall-to-wall coolers. (I had a St. Pauli N.A.. Nerd, remember?) The food menu was actually more substantial than I'd expected, but since they'd won best burger in Atlanta for some number of years I failed to commit to memory, I decided to have a burger. I ordered their "black and spicy," which featured a half-pound patty blackened with Cajun seasonings and topped with jalapeno jack cheese, red onion, lettuce and tomato. The only thing I had to add to it was my teeth. It was hands down one of the best burgers I've ever eaten.
So, that's my brief travelogue of three days and nights in Atlanta. The conference? If you're really, really, really into training and the exciting new technologies for delivering learning on-demand to a global audience, then it would still boor you to tears. Sure, I learned a couple of things; yes, it was time well-spent if you do what I do for a paycheck. But since you probably don't, nothing at all is more than enough to say about that.
I'm here because my employer thinks there is value in having someone attend these things. Ostensibly the notion is that I'll attend a bunch of sessions where I'll learn tons of stuff about where the training field is going, what's out there on that virtual whiteboard horizon, how to capture the learner's attention and keep it when you know deep down that your subject matter is slightly less interesting than the interior of a toilet paper roll (if you're over five)... you know; nerd stuff.
I may not have mentioned before, but I am a nerd. Not old school or anything; I have no tape on my glasses, no pocket protector, no speech impediment, and I don't drool unless it is appropriate to the setting. I'm what you'd call a neo-nerd (if you were nerdy enough to use words like "neo"). I dress fairly innocuously, have interests outside the conventional nerd-sphere, and can pass for normal in most settings.
"What makes someone a nerd?" you ask. Scientists, philosophers, and podiatrists have been trying to answer that question since... okay, they haven't actually, but I'll give it a go. A nerd is someone who is passionate to the point of obsession about things other people find boring, confusing, or of no real interest. It doesn't really matter if your thing is Star Trek, Star Wars, or painting those tiny civil war replicas; nerd is nerd. (I'll be selling "Nerd is Nerd" t-shirts soon; watch this space!)
Anyhow, this nerd walked into a bar... The nerd was me, and the bar was the Vortex Bar & Grill in Atlanta. Cool. I liked the place even before I walked the two miles distance from my hotel room. I had Googled restaurants in the neighborhood, and hit on the Vortex as the place I'd have dinner because their Website, or more to the point, their attitude hooked me. The Vortex is a place where you can go and have a burger and a beer and have it their way. Don't smoke and don't want to be around smoke? Their Website suggests you go someplace else. Like to complain when things aren't to your liking? Take a hike. They advertise their two locations as being both "whine-" and "idiot-" free zones. They even had an explicit "86" policy, which stated that the lines between places open to the public and public places had been blurred for too long; that the Vortex was privately owned, and the management reserved the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time. Like I said; cool.
Their beer selection was so vast that I suspect they may have actually traveled forward in time, bringing back beers that have no actually been invented yet. (By comparison the selection at most places here in Raleigh is only half-vast.) You could get an "In Heat Wheat" from Flying Dog or a "Peg Leg Stout" from Heavy Seas or a zillion other strange or staid brews from their wall-to-wall coolers. (I had a St. Pauli N.A.. Nerd, remember?) The food menu was actually more substantial than I'd expected, but since they'd won best burger in Atlanta for some number of years I failed to commit to memory, I decided to have a burger. I ordered their "black and spicy," which featured a half-pound patty blackened with Cajun seasonings and topped with jalapeno jack cheese, red onion, lettuce and tomato. The only thing I had to add to it was my teeth. It was hands down one of the best burgers I've ever eaten.
So, that's my brief travelogue of three days and nights in Atlanta. The conference? If you're really, really, really into training and the exciting new technologies for delivering learning on-demand to a global audience, then it would still boor you to tears. Sure, I learned a couple of things; yes, it was time well-spent if you do what I do for a paycheck. But since you probably don't, nothing at all is more than enough to say about that.
No, YOU grow up!
I like being a kid. It's one of my favorite things, and I submit that it is one of the best things in the world. It's better than candy, or cartoons, or playing cowboys and Indians. Of course, all of those are very cool, but being a kid is just better. In fact, the only thing better than being a kid, is being a kid with my kids.
My daughter, Loren, and I spent this past weekend at Camp Sea Gull with our Y-Princess tribe (The Crazy Crocodiles) along with hundreds of other daddy/daughter pairs. It was a wonderful, active, fun-filled, magical weekend. We shot arrows from bows and bb's from rifles, we panned for shark's teeth like they were made from solid gold. We ate cafeteria fare in a huge mess hall filled to the rafters with laughter and love and the wonderful noise of memories being made. It was amazing. That place was lousy with kids. Most of them were six or seven, but an awful lot of them were in their thirties and forties too.
Yes; I'm Greg, I'm a kid, and I'm forty-four.
Being a forty-four year old kid can be a mixed bag if you concern yourself with the opinions of others. First, there are the adults. Some of them are going to find your joy at the little things in life a bit strange. Others will find it downright bizarre. A few will quietly decide that it is evidence of some deep-seated emotional or mental problem. Maybe both. Maybe he's a Democrat, they'll think to themselves. And the other kids... there's no ignoring the fact that most of them are still in the single digits when I'm almost eligible for AARP discounts. Kids notice that kind of stuff. In a world where not wearing the right sneakers can land you on the outside looking in, being twice as tall as everyone else and having gray hair definitely puts a question mark after your name.
Years ago—when I was twenty-five, and just a kid compared to the kid I am today—I was playing in the sand at the beach when another kid approached me to check out what I was doing. I'm guessing he was about five. "What are you doing?" he asked, watching me carving a pair of feet out of sand (so it would look like someone was stuck there).
"Playing," I answered.
He puzzled over this for a minute. "Are you a grownup?" he finally asked.
What a cool question, I thought. I answered as best I could at the time; "I don't know."
He puzzled over this for a minute. "How old are you?" my new friend finally asked.
"Twenty-five."
He sighed wistfully, and said, "Yup, you're a grownup." He said it like an oncologist delivering the sad news that I only had seventy years left to live. Seriously, to the five year old, twenty-five puts you on the downward slope to oblivion. It's all over for you. See that tag on your toe, filled out in crayon? Humor aside, at that exact moment I kind of liked the idea that I was grown up. That random child's decree made me stop and think; yes, I suppose I am grown up now. (Of course, it's important to remember that I was playing in the sand at time.)
As time has gone on, I've come to realize that there is a lot inherent in the term grownup that simply doesn't fit me. The great thing, the cool thing, the Saturday-morning-cartoon-happy thing is that you don't have to be grownup at twenty-five or forty-four or fifty-three, etcetera, ad scooby doodum. You can be a kid for as long as you live. (Maybe longer, if certain religious ideas turn out to be true.)
Yes, little Timmy was wrong about me. I wasn't a grownup then, and I'm not one now. Sure, I pay my bills and my taxes, I drive a car, and occasionally wax nostalgic for the way things used to be. Paying your bills no more makes you a grownup than drinking and driving makes you Paris Hilton. Those actions are just functions of managing my life at this stage of my life. I did that when I was three. Of course, at three managing my life mostly meant hiding things; hiding the peas I didn't want to eat, hiding myself in games of hide-and-seek, or hiding the fact that I'd pooped my pants again.
Being a kid transcends the simple trappings of age. The physicist, Richard Feynman, won a Nobel Prize for his work on the atomic bomb. He also worked out mathematical formulas to describe the way a Frisbee flies, figured out how ants tell other ants where you keep your food, and removed doors from their hinges just so he could laugh at the frustration this caused in the grownups around him. He was a brilliant man who did amazing things, not the least of which was remaining childlike until the day he died, despite the weighty times and weightier achievements of his life.
Last summer, when my daughter Loren was six, we two were on our way somewhere in the car. Out of the blue, she said, "Daddy, I don't think I want to grow up. I want to be a kid." From her expression in the rear view mirror I could see that she was serious.
I thought about it for a moment, then I responded, "If I tell you something, will you promise to keep it secret?"
"Yes."
"I'm still a kid." I put it out there like it was a secret; something important that I was sharing only with her. In a way, it was. We talked for a while about the difference (as I see it) between getting older and getting old; which is a lot like the difference between walking and skipping. The great thing was that she already knew what I said was true. She'd seen me being a kid every day of her life. Telling her it was so just allowed me to hammer home the message that being a kid (just like being happy or being sad) was a choice.
At the end of the day, we're handed an age, but we can always choose our outlook, and I'm here to tell you that you could do a lot worse than to choose to view the world through the eyes of a child. Sure you're going to have to endure the occasional comments and glances of the grownups around you who don't understand, don't get it, but you know what they say... "Sticks and stones may break my bones..."
My daughter, Loren, and I spent this past weekend at Camp Sea Gull with our Y-Princess tribe (The Crazy Crocodiles) along with hundreds of other daddy/daughter pairs. It was a wonderful, active, fun-filled, magical weekend. We shot arrows from bows and bb's from rifles, we panned for shark's teeth like they were made from solid gold. We ate cafeteria fare in a huge mess hall filled to the rafters with laughter and love and the wonderful noise of memories being made. It was amazing. That place was lousy with kids. Most of them were six or seven, but an awful lot of them were in their thirties and forties too.
Yes; I'm Greg, I'm a kid, and I'm forty-four.
Being a forty-four year old kid can be a mixed bag if you concern yourself with the opinions of others. First, there are the adults. Some of them are going to find your joy at the little things in life a bit strange. Others will find it downright bizarre. A few will quietly decide that it is evidence of some deep-seated emotional or mental problem. Maybe both. Maybe he's a Democrat, they'll think to themselves. And the other kids... there's no ignoring the fact that most of them are still in the single digits when I'm almost eligible for AARP discounts. Kids notice that kind of stuff. In a world where not wearing the right sneakers can land you on the outside looking in, being twice as tall as everyone else and having gray hair definitely puts a question mark after your name.
Years ago—when I was twenty-five, and just a kid compared to the kid I am today—I was playing in the sand at the beach when another kid approached me to check out what I was doing. I'm guessing he was about five. "What are you doing?" he asked, watching me carving a pair of feet out of sand (so it would look like someone was stuck there).
"Playing," I answered.
He puzzled over this for a minute. "Are you a grownup?" he finally asked.
What a cool question, I thought. I answered as best I could at the time; "I don't know."
He puzzled over this for a minute. "How old are you?" my new friend finally asked.
"Twenty-five."
He sighed wistfully, and said, "Yup, you're a grownup." He said it like an oncologist delivering the sad news that I only had seventy years left to live. Seriously, to the five year old, twenty-five puts you on the downward slope to oblivion. It's all over for you. See that tag on your toe, filled out in crayon? Humor aside, at that exact moment I kind of liked the idea that I was grown up. That random child's decree made me stop and think; yes, I suppose I am grown up now. (Of course, it's important to remember that I was playing in the sand at time.)
As time has gone on, I've come to realize that there is a lot inherent in the term grownup that simply doesn't fit me. The great thing, the cool thing, the Saturday-morning-cartoon-happy thing is that you don't have to be grownup at twenty-five or forty-four or fifty-three, etcetera, ad scooby doodum. You can be a kid for as long as you live. (Maybe longer, if certain religious ideas turn out to be true.)
Yes, little Timmy was wrong about me. I wasn't a grownup then, and I'm not one now. Sure, I pay my bills and my taxes, I drive a car, and occasionally wax nostalgic for the way things used to be. Paying your bills no more makes you a grownup than drinking and driving makes you Paris Hilton. Those actions are just functions of managing my life at this stage of my life. I did that when I was three. Of course, at three managing my life mostly meant hiding things; hiding the peas I didn't want to eat, hiding myself in games of hide-and-seek, or hiding the fact that I'd pooped my pants again.
Being a kid transcends the simple trappings of age. The physicist, Richard Feynman, won a Nobel Prize for his work on the atomic bomb. He also worked out mathematical formulas to describe the way a Frisbee flies, figured out how ants tell other ants where you keep your food, and removed doors from their hinges just so he could laugh at the frustration this caused in the grownups around him. He was a brilliant man who did amazing things, not the least of which was remaining childlike until the day he died, despite the weighty times and weightier achievements of his life.
Last summer, when my daughter Loren was six, we two were on our way somewhere in the car. Out of the blue, she said, "Daddy, I don't think I want to grow up. I want to be a kid." From her expression in the rear view mirror I could see that she was serious.
I thought about it for a moment, then I responded, "If I tell you something, will you promise to keep it secret?"
"Yes."
"I'm still a kid." I put it out there like it was a secret; something important that I was sharing only with her. In a way, it was. We talked for a while about the difference (as I see it) between getting older and getting old; which is a lot like the difference between walking and skipping. The great thing was that she already knew what I said was true. She'd seen me being a kid every day of her life. Telling her it was so just allowed me to hammer home the message that being a kid (just like being happy or being sad) was a choice.
At the end of the day, we're handed an age, but we can always choose our outlook, and I'm here to tell you that you could do a lot worse than to choose to view the world through the eyes of a child. Sure you're going to have to endure the occasional comments and glances of the grownups around you who don't understand, don't get it, but you know what they say... "Sticks and stones may break my bones..."
Thursday, June 14, 2007
My conscience, like my lapel, is clear...
I don't do ribbons. Don't get me wrong; I understand why people wear them, and I'm all for some of the wonderful causes the ribbons are used to represent, but I just don't wear them personally. I don't have a pink ribbon for breast cancer or a red ribbon for AIDS or a really limp little flesh-colored one for erectile dysfunction. It isn't that I couldn't have them if I wanted; my anti-ribbon position is an affirmative stance. I don't wear ribbons because I do not want to wear them.
Why? Because ribbons annoy the pants off me more surely than a phalanx of sweaty soccer moms swooning over Al Gore. ("You know... you really need to watch 'An Inconvenient truth!'" Um, the really inconvenient truth for me today is that you are currently breathing my air.) I abhor empty gestures, and for me, ribbons are the emptiest. (Heck, there isn't even a gesture. The thing just hangs there.)
I remember back during the first gulf war (you remember... the good one) when some students at NC State were staging a "die-in" on campus to protest the war. Literally pairs of kids took time out of their busy schedule of copying off of each other and begging for extensions on papers they didn't really intend to finish, late or otherwise, to lie on the ground and do nothing for an hour or two. I mean, first of all these were college students; lying around doing nothing is hard-wired into their collective consciousness. As gestures go, it certainly wasn't a huge undertaking to drag their lazy asses out of their bong-water stained beanbag chairs and plant them on the sun-warmed bricks of the brickyard for a couple of hours.
If your intention is to show people how strongly you feel about something, shouldn't you do something that takes a little effort? For example, if one guy walked up to one of the protesters and calmly said, "I disagree with you," but another guy ran over and began kicking the patchouli oil out of a couple of them, well... I'm going to be inclined to think that the second guy feels quite a bit more passionately about the issue than the first.
Even more importantly the gesture was empty; it was devoid of value, meaningless, and several other synonyms for "empty." Lying down for a couple of hours does nothing to change the situation about which these people claimed to be so worked up. If you really care about an issue, shouldn't you do something substantive? Maybe write letters to your congressman or your senator, or better yet, Oprah? But hey, they were just college kids, so I should probably cut them a little slack. I mean, how many of them would actually know how to write a letter, anyway.
But this ribbon thing... I see fully grown adults wearing these things, proudly. "Look at my ribbon! See how much I care about {insert cause here}? I care a lot, and you need only look at my ribbon for proof! By the way, I couldn't help noticing that you don't have a {insert color here} ribbon on your person, which shows how much better than you I am, you worthless {insert expletive here}." These people wear ribbons on their lapels, stick them to their bumpers and windshields... they'd probably get them tattooed on their asses if society allowed them to walk around without pants. (Though at least that would be a gesture.)
Years ago I attended an AIDS benefit. (You remember back when people used to care about AIDS, don't you?) The entire evening basically went like this. "Hi, I'm Blaine (or Hunter or Justin or Thad; you know the type...). It's so nice to have you here! Let me give you a ribbon."
"No thanks."
"Really?"
"Yes, really. I'm fine, thanks."
"But, um... everyone else has a ribbon."
"Yes. I can see that. They're lovely, but I'm deathly afraid of pins."
"Oh... well can I scotch-tape one on for you?"
And so on...
Seriously, I spent the entire night trying to avoid having to explain why I didn't want a friggin' ribbon. Here I was at an event that was raising money for a worthy cause. The very act of being there was not only a gesture, but one that resulted in money going to the cause in question, and despite this I was hounded by people who couldn't understand that I didn't need to make an empty gesture to show I cared. If my money or my presence there or my oath never to have unprotected sex with a man didn't prove I was doing my part for AIDS, how was a ribbon going to?
And now, in the aftermath of the horrible, tragic, unimaginable, and did I say tragic events at Virginia Tech, here come the black "VT" ribbons. (Sigh...) I guess I should respect and understand people's need to wear their empathy on their sleeves (or lapels, or blouses, or bumpers...); heck, I guess I do respect it. But it still bugs me. It's bad enough that I have to be reminded that my children are growing up in a world where things like this can happen. (It's always been that kind of a world. It's the reminder I'm lamenting, not the reality that the world is a dangerous, capricious place.) To add insult to injury, I get to know what this sad, pathetic little person looked like; I didn't need a face to go with this evil, but I got one anyway. Of course, if just knowing what he looked like wasn't enough for some of you, NBC provided you front row seats for the "here's why I killed all those people; aren't I just too much?" show when they aired the killer's little home movie. (Shame on NBC for airing it and shame on you if you watched it.)
Almost before the echoes of the final shot fell still, the blamethrowing commenced. This person or that person didn't do enough or did too much or wore the wrong color shirt that day and we need to fire them or censure them or shun them (unshunning them only when we absolutely have to say something to them) and all in an effort to hold someone accountable when the only one accountable had his finger on the trigger when the gun went "bang!" This was a bad guy. Life is hard for a lot of us, but we make our choices and we follow a path that leads us inexorably to who we are and through what we do in this world. Cho was bullied, he didn't fit in, he had an axe to grind, he was considered unstable. It will probably come as no surprise to my readers that all of that was true of me at one time or another in my past, and despite that fact I have never felt the need to kill anyone over it. (And if I ever do, please, please blame me and only me.)
These days the norm is to fall over ourselves searching for answers, wear ourselves out digging for root causes, and above all to rush madly to find someone to punish for any disruption in the fragile facade that life is easy, that our neighborhood is safe, or (as Hunter Thompson so eloquently put it) "that someone, or at least some force, {is} tending the light at the end of the tunnel."
Whatever or whomever that force is, I bet you it is not wearing a ribbon.
Why? Because ribbons annoy the pants off me more surely than a phalanx of sweaty soccer moms swooning over Al Gore. ("You know... you really need to watch 'An Inconvenient truth!'" Um, the really inconvenient truth for me today is that you are currently breathing my air.) I abhor empty gestures, and for me, ribbons are the emptiest. (Heck, there isn't even a gesture. The thing just hangs there.)
I remember back during the first gulf war (you remember... the good one) when some students at NC State were staging a "die-in" on campus to protest the war. Literally pairs of kids took time out of their busy schedule of copying off of each other and begging for extensions on papers they didn't really intend to finish, late or otherwise, to lie on the ground and do nothing for an hour or two. I mean, first of all these were college students; lying around doing nothing is hard-wired into their collective consciousness. As gestures go, it certainly wasn't a huge undertaking to drag their lazy asses out of their bong-water stained beanbag chairs and plant them on the sun-warmed bricks of the brickyard for a couple of hours.
If your intention is to show people how strongly you feel about something, shouldn't you do something that takes a little effort? For example, if one guy walked up to one of the protesters and calmly said, "I disagree with you," but another guy ran over and began kicking the patchouli oil out of a couple of them, well... I'm going to be inclined to think that the second guy feels quite a bit more passionately about the issue than the first.
Even more importantly the gesture was empty; it was devoid of value, meaningless, and several other synonyms for "empty." Lying down for a couple of hours does nothing to change the situation about which these people claimed to be so worked up. If you really care about an issue, shouldn't you do something substantive? Maybe write letters to your congressman or your senator, or better yet, Oprah? But hey, they were just college kids, so I should probably cut them a little slack. I mean, how many of them would actually know how to write a letter, anyway.
But this ribbon thing... I see fully grown adults wearing these things, proudly. "Look at my ribbon! See how much I care about {insert cause here}? I care a lot, and you need only look at my ribbon for proof! By the way, I couldn't help noticing that you don't have a {insert color here} ribbon on your person, which shows how much better than you I am, you worthless {insert expletive here}." These people wear ribbons on their lapels, stick them to their bumpers and windshields... they'd probably get them tattooed on their asses if society allowed them to walk around without pants. (Though at least that would be a gesture.)
Years ago I attended an AIDS benefit. (You remember back when people used to care about AIDS, don't you?) The entire evening basically went like this. "Hi, I'm Blaine (or Hunter or Justin or Thad; you know the type...). It's so nice to have you here! Let me give you a ribbon."
"No thanks."
"Really?"
"Yes, really. I'm fine, thanks."
"But, um... everyone else has a ribbon."
"Yes. I can see that. They're lovely, but I'm deathly afraid of pins."
"Oh... well can I scotch-tape one on for you?"
And so on...
Seriously, I spent the entire night trying to avoid having to explain why I didn't want a friggin' ribbon. Here I was at an event that was raising money for a worthy cause. The very act of being there was not only a gesture, but one that resulted in money going to the cause in question, and despite this I was hounded by people who couldn't understand that I didn't need to make an empty gesture to show I cared. If my money or my presence there or my oath never to have unprotected sex with a man didn't prove I was doing my part for AIDS, how was a ribbon going to?
And now, in the aftermath of the horrible, tragic, unimaginable, and did I say tragic events at Virginia Tech, here come the black "VT" ribbons. (Sigh...) I guess I should respect and understand people's need to wear their empathy on their sleeves (or lapels, or blouses, or bumpers...); heck, I guess I do respect it. But it still bugs me. It's bad enough that I have to be reminded that my children are growing up in a world where things like this can happen. (It's always been that kind of a world. It's the reminder I'm lamenting, not the reality that the world is a dangerous, capricious place.) To add insult to injury, I get to know what this sad, pathetic little person looked like; I didn't need a face to go with this evil, but I got one anyway. Of course, if just knowing what he looked like wasn't enough for some of you, NBC provided you front row seats for the "here's why I killed all those people; aren't I just too much?" show when they aired the killer's little home movie. (Shame on NBC for airing it and shame on you if you watched it.)
Almost before the echoes of the final shot fell still, the blamethrowing commenced. This person or that person didn't do enough or did too much or wore the wrong color shirt that day and we need to fire them or censure them or shun them (unshunning them only when we absolutely have to say something to them) and all in an effort to hold someone accountable when the only one accountable had his finger on the trigger when the gun went "bang!" This was a bad guy. Life is hard for a lot of us, but we make our choices and we follow a path that leads us inexorably to who we are and through what we do in this world. Cho was bullied, he didn't fit in, he had an axe to grind, he was considered unstable. It will probably come as no surprise to my readers that all of that was true of me at one time or another in my past, and despite that fact I have never felt the need to kill anyone over it. (And if I ever do, please, please blame me and only me.)
These days the norm is to fall over ourselves searching for answers, wear ourselves out digging for root causes, and above all to rush madly to find someone to punish for any disruption in the fragile facade that life is easy, that our neighborhood is safe, or (as Hunter Thompson so eloquently put it) "that someone, or at least some force, {is} tending the light at the end of the tunnel."
Whatever or whomever that force is, I bet you it is not wearing a ribbon.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Who is this ''Alyssa'' person, and why should I care?
I don't like country music. Period. Please don't take offense if you happen to like it. I don't like shellfish either, and I know plenty of nice folks who seem to genuinely enjoy eating the very same science-fiction-sized insectoid sea-critters that I find so off-putting. My stance on country music isn't a matter of me being "above" that particular musical style, it's just one small facet of who I am.
Besides, I actually like some country songs; it's just country music that makes me want to cut my ears off with a dull pair of pinking sheers. It isn't so much the music itself that I despise as the category. In fact, I probably feel that way about most musical styles. In the end I either like or dislike the song, without regard to what aural box the industry decided to shove it into. As I think about it, it's more the trappings of this or that style that annoy me. Does a country singer lose his voice if he doesn't have a ten gallon hat or sideburns? Does having their pants down around their knees help hip-hop artists when they consult their rhyming dictionaries? But I digress...
A couple of years ago I received a cheap but functional shower radio from a coworker in one of those obligatory and largely joyless corporate gift-swaps. I slapped a couple of double-A's into it and stuck it to the wall of my shower, and from time to time I bother to turn it on and search the dial for one of the three stations that it actually receives. (I assume the transmitter for these is located somewhere in my backyard.) I switched it on yesterday, and after a few minutes of painstakingly twisting the tuning knob by no more than a couple of Angstroms at a time, I managed to tune in a country song.
The song was called, "Alyssa Lies." I knew that within a few seconds because it only took that long for the singer to croon "Alyssa Lies" roughly 74 times. For reasons I can only attribute to a knee-jerk desire to find fault with country music "on spec" combined with the fact that at 44 years of age, there is absolutely nothing I find interesting about my own body, I actually bothered to pay attention to the lyrics. Besides, in 2007 we're pretty much hard-wired by the media to want to know everything about everyone else, so my curiosity was piqued. Who the hell is this Alyssa, and what's she lying about? I figured Alyssa was some woman who'd done the singer wrong... that old staple of country music themes. But I was wrong.
As I listened to this stupid country song playing on my stupid orange shower radio in my stupid preformed fiberglass shower, I started crying like a little girl. I didn't "get misty" or "tear up" or "get verklempt" (as they used to say on SNL's "Coffee Talk"), I bawled like a frigging baby who's been spanked hard while dicing onions in a tear gas factory. I cried so hard that I actually laughed once or twice at how absolutely pathetic it was to be reacting that way to some stupid country song. I put one hand on the wall to steady myself, hunched my shoulders, and sobbed uncontrollably while the words of the song sank in...
"Alyssa lies, in the classroom.
Alyssa lies, everyday in school.
Alyssa lies to the teachers
as she tries to cover every bruise."
I guess the meaning of the song took me by surprise. It was so far removed from what I expected, and simultaneously so completely on-target where what's most important to me in the world is concerned. I don't know whether it's a good song or sucks. I lack the capacity to make a dispassionate, rational critique of it musically. I'm pretty sure it isn't a bad song, but it wasn't the music that hit me so hard. What yanked my heart out through my tear ducts was the thought of any child finding pain and sorrow where every child should find only love and solace.
Being a father is the single most important thing in my life. I realize that statement is something of a cliché, something every parent is supposed to say; but those of you who know me and have known me in the presence of my children have seen for yourselves that it's more than that for me. I am good at many things, but I am a great dad. I don't write that to brag, I write it to express how completely incomprehensible it is for me to know that anyone could do anything but cherish those whom God has placed in their care.
Loving and caring for my children is the one thing in my life that has from day one been effortless and joyful. I spent most of my life waiting for something to happen, feeling somehow unfinished and incomplete. That changed the day my daughter was born. As soon as she was delivered, the nurse took her over to the warming table and gave her a vitamin K shot. My little girl cried for the first time in her life, and when she did, I whispered a promise in her tiny ear that I have kept and will keep for the rest of my life, "Nothing that hurts that doesn't help." That's such a little thing to promise. Seems to me it's the very least every child deserves.
Besides, I actually like some country songs; it's just country music that makes me want to cut my ears off with a dull pair of pinking sheers. It isn't so much the music itself that I despise as the category. In fact, I probably feel that way about most musical styles. In the end I either like or dislike the song, without regard to what aural box the industry decided to shove it into. As I think about it, it's more the trappings of this or that style that annoy me. Does a country singer lose his voice if he doesn't have a ten gallon hat or sideburns? Does having their pants down around their knees help hip-hop artists when they consult their rhyming dictionaries? But I digress...
A couple of years ago I received a cheap but functional shower radio from a coworker in one of those obligatory and largely joyless corporate gift-swaps. I slapped a couple of double-A's into it and stuck it to the wall of my shower, and from time to time I bother to turn it on and search the dial for one of the three stations that it actually receives. (I assume the transmitter for these is located somewhere in my backyard.) I switched it on yesterday, and after a few minutes of painstakingly twisting the tuning knob by no more than a couple of Angstroms at a time, I managed to tune in a country song.
The song was called, "Alyssa Lies." I knew that within a few seconds because it only took that long for the singer to croon "Alyssa Lies" roughly 74 times. For reasons I can only attribute to a knee-jerk desire to find fault with country music "on spec" combined with the fact that at 44 years of age, there is absolutely nothing I find interesting about my own body, I actually bothered to pay attention to the lyrics. Besides, in 2007 we're pretty much hard-wired by the media to want to know everything about everyone else, so my curiosity was piqued. Who the hell is this Alyssa, and what's she lying about? I figured Alyssa was some woman who'd done the singer wrong... that old staple of country music themes. But I was wrong.
As I listened to this stupid country song playing on my stupid orange shower radio in my stupid preformed fiberglass shower, I started crying like a little girl. I didn't "get misty" or "tear up" or "get verklempt" (as they used to say on SNL's "Coffee Talk"), I bawled like a frigging baby who's been spanked hard while dicing onions in a tear gas factory. I cried so hard that I actually laughed once or twice at how absolutely pathetic it was to be reacting that way to some stupid country song. I put one hand on the wall to steady myself, hunched my shoulders, and sobbed uncontrollably while the words of the song sank in...
"Alyssa lies, in the classroom.
Alyssa lies, everyday in school.
Alyssa lies to the teachers
as she tries to cover every bruise."
I guess the meaning of the song took me by surprise. It was so far removed from what I expected, and simultaneously so completely on-target where what's most important to me in the world is concerned. I don't know whether it's a good song or sucks. I lack the capacity to make a dispassionate, rational critique of it musically. I'm pretty sure it isn't a bad song, but it wasn't the music that hit me so hard. What yanked my heart out through my tear ducts was the thought of any child finding pain and sorrow where every child should find only love and solace.
Being a father is the single most important thing in my life. I realize that statement is something of a cliché, something every parent is supposed to say; but those of you who know me and have known me in the presence of my children have seen for yourselves that it's more than that for me. I am good at many things, but I am a great dad. I don't write that to brag, I write it to express how completely incomprehensible it is for me to know that anyone could do anything but cherish those whom God has placed in their care.
Loving and caring for my children is the one thing in my life that has from day one been effortless and joyful. I spent most of my life waiting for something to happen, feeling somehow unfinished and incomplete. That changed the day my daughter was born. As soon as she was delivered, the nurse took her over to the warming table and gave her a vitamin K shot. My little girl cried for the first time in her life, and when she did, I whispered a promise in her tiny ear that I have kept and will keep for the rest of my life, "Nothing that hurts that doesn't help." That's such a little thing to promise. Seems to me it's the very least every child deserves.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
