The game of football is as close as any sport can ever come to being in a war. Sure, things like boxing or MMA are close in sheer brutality, but not so much in purpose. You see, football is a sport where eleven strong, highly trained men step onto a field with the specific purpose of defeating their enemy in any way possible. They are directed by a man who is older, more experienced, and who has access to more information than they do- the Coach. It's not the that eleven on the field aren't smart enough to handle said information, but that they must be more concerned with working as a team to directly defeat their enemy; they will not be able to take a step out of the action as it develops and see the overall picture like someone outside the battle can.
The Coach is the general, the players, the soldiers. The general tells the soldiers where to be and at what time, and the soldiers do the actual fighting. Seems simple enough, right? Well, it isn't. If you want a living, breathing picture of what can go wrong with this system, then take a look at the New York Giants.
I have been a Giants fan all my life. I've watched them since I was two months old, and my father used to sit me in front of a TV on Sundays, where I would contentedly watch Big Blue play for the full three hours. They were legends back in that time (for you old timers, I'm sorry, but I'm only talking about 1984-86). Lawrence Taylor ran around destroying backfields and clubbing quarterbacks, Little Joe Morris tore through opposing defenses, and Phil Simms would throw beautiful touch passes to old war horses like Mark Bavaro and Phil McKonkey. This all happened under the watchful eye of the man who was the absolute, clear cut authority on this team: Bill Parcells. He is famous for breaking troublemakers, for taking an old school approach to coaching the game of football. He who does not practice, does not play. If you suck it up in the game, you will be benched. If you mouth off, you'll be lucky to even get in the locker room to get your shit after you've been cut. His team was a disciplined, tough, blue collar type team that got three yards and a cloud of dust on every play, and did it well. Like the Army of the Potomac under U.S. Grant, they would simply pound you down until you were too tired to continue. Nothing all that fancy, just sheer guts and determination. With him, they won two Super Bowls, and fielded some of the most rugged teams the NFL had ever seen. Like
And oh, we lament how things have changed. The defense now is not as good as they once were; there are huge holes, and the guys themselves have barely played together longer than a month. The offense, however, has more talent than any former Giants offense has ever had. Though the young Eli Manning still is but a kid in a league of men, and Tiki Barber is getting a bit older, they still have more than enough talent to make a good playoff run that takes them to a Super Bowl. Of course, lack of talent is not where the true problems lie.
The problems lay with the attitudes of everyone on that team, including the glorious Coach Coughlin. The players are prima donnas of the worst type, between Shockey throwing his little bitch fit on the sidelines and then calling out Eli in the middle of the field because he was apparently open (forgive Eli for not having six fucking eyes, huh Jeremy?). He calls himself "emotional". I call him an asshole. He flouts the rules constantly, snipes at Coughlin, calls out Eli, and then he's the one throwing a hissy fit? Paul O'Neill was emotional; Shockey is a baby. To top it all off, he doesn't even produce. If you want to be like T.O. (minus the suicide attempt) and be a "tough guy", then you better put up his numbers. Otherwise, Jeremy, shut the fuck up and sit down (who knows, he might even read this, being as he's the arrogant pric type that searches his own name on Google every night when he gets bored). If I ever, ever hear anyone compare this punk kid to the warrior that was Mark Bavaro ever again, I am cutting someone's fucking throat.
Another one is Plaxico Burress. He didn't want to workout with the Giants this offseason, he wanted to go down to Miami with Shockey. Well, you can tell, because Plaxico is doing as much of a piss poor job as Shockey is. Yes, the second game was an awesome one. But he is another one who is a classic troublemaker, always making comments about things, the coaching, and whatever else crosses his mind, but he himself rarely puts up any numbers worth mentioning. Where were you the last eight games of the season, you 6'5 bastard? You should have been conspicuously hard to miss- instead, it was the old war horse Amani Toomer who stepped up last year, as he is doing again this year. And he's getting paid a lot less than you are.
So the soldiers aren't performing as they should. There are certain ones who are fleeing like rabbits from a fox, and yet I'm not really surprised. The guys talking shit are the ones who always have...and they are always the first ones to run from bullets (or footballs).
And what have we to say for the general? Well, Tom Coughlin is finally getting what's coming to him. Some men can pull off the Marine drill instructor routine, and they somehow inspire respect from their players because of it. The players know that this coach knows best, and, though he may be harsh, what he is telling them here will make them win the upcoming game. It is not unlike Patton or Stonewall Jackson- hard driving men who demand respect because they know how to win, and they know they know how to win, and you know they know how to win. Eventually, this inspires a rare kind of passion and strenght that becomes the backbone of most armies, and wins battles for those vastly mismatched.
But there is a point where this is useful, and a point where it is completely ridiculous. Coughlin doesn't just say, "Get to this meeting on time", he says, "Get here five minutes early". If you're actually on time for the meeting, but not five minutes early, you get locked out and fined $500. Are you kidding? That's not "disciplinarian", that's irrational. A boss like that will never keep any good workers under him- they'll quit in less than a year. In Vietnam, officers like that got fucking shot in the back, and often.
Now, I don't believe all of Shockey's bullshit about the Seahawks throwing all kinds of new things at the Giant, because it’s simply not true. Eli already said that it was nothing new, and Toomer said the same, except he was the only one to admit, “We just didn’t execute” (how about that one, Shock? A guy actually taking blame for not performing instead of dumping it onto the coaches lap.)
Yet, I do have to say that Tom Coughlin has got to stop treating the Giants like a high school team. Not only are these grown men that he talks down to so often, but they are professional athletes who kind of know what they’re doing. This isn’t the draftee army- this is the Special Forces. Don’t treat them like bumbling idiots off the street, or you won’t get anywhere.
Instead of inspiring respect, it has inspired hatred; in place of loyalty, disgust. Coughlin must get away from this tough guy persona and treat his guys like men. At the same time, the Giants need to listen more to people like Eli and Toomer, and start making an effort to shut assholes like Shockey up.
No army will fight if they don't respect their leaders, and no team will perform if they hate their coach. They'll do just enough to keep themselves alive, but certainly won't go out of their way to win. If things don't change, we Giant fans can expect another ten years of “rebuilding”... and Coughlin just might get shot in the back.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Friday, September 15, 2006
Mechanic
Working class hero- a steam engine mechanic from the 20's.
He was probably a tough SOB.
I bet he was a Democrat, too.
He was probably a tough SOB.
I bet he was a Democrat, too.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
The Triple B
I work in the loading zone of a garden center, mostly with cement and stones. I load patio blocks, loose boulders, bags of rock, bales of hay, fill propane tanks, etc. It's not bad as far as staying in shape goes; I consider the job all the endurance and GPP work I'll ever need (as long as you remember it's GPP that I do while smoking a cigarette and most likely hungover- there's nothing better than having a racous, wild Saturday night where you drank so much you woke up naked having pissed yourself, and then having to go into work at 9 in the morning on a Sunday.)
There always manages to be some old fucking guy who snuck around the gates and is there at 8:55, ready and waiting to bombard me with questions. They are always chipper, walking while swinging their arms like he's trying to fucking fly, with an enthusiastic, "Hey how we doing today!". It's always the same.
It's kind of funny to me, because I tend to already be on my third cup of coffee, trying in vain to sober up, unlit cigarette hanging out of my mouth because I either think it's lit or I lost my lighter the night before and have no means of fire; I also know I reek like booze. My answers to their asinine questions are normally slow and drawling, simply because I can't manage to get them out any quicker, and the words stumble around my pulled down Boston hat and squirm into the air.
Sometimes, I'll get people who I actually recognize because they have pissed me off so badly in the past. One that comes to mind is the woman I refer to as the "Triple B", which is an acronym for "Broken Bag Bitch".
You see, when you get ten or twelve trailers of bagged stone in a year, a few of the bags are bound to break, either by mishandling, the ride in from Pennsylvania, etc. You can't do much with them, and most of us that deal with them end up throwing them out. As a last ditch attempt of getting rid of them, we give them out two-for-one, which is really a decent deal for the consumer. But no, there's gotta be a couple assholes that ruin it for everybody. One of these assholes is the Triple B.
She drives in innocently enough, in her beat up white Dodge Caravan with black hubcaps. When I see people like this come in, I give them breaks, being as I figure they are working class fucks like myself. This bitch? Absolutely not.
She gets out of her truck, short, squat, with grey hair that came too early, waddling towards the wet pallets of mulch and stone, and utters that phrase, "Do you have any broken bags of anything?". She seems nice enough at first, but as you get to know her you can tell this broad ain't playing with a full deck. Flighty is not the word for what she is.
If the guys that work there remember who she is, she doesn't get helped at all; eventually she gets tired of being ignored and starts dragging the bags to the front of the yard herself. I'd like to say I feel bad for her, but I've moved thousands of pounds of rocks for her over the years, and never gotten any kind of tip; in the book of the hourly laborer, this puts you in the first circle of hell, right next to Judas.
I've worked there for so long that I have seniority over all the other guys that work, so I don't ever have to help this bitch anymore. No more lifting heavy shit for this freaky, cheap broad; no, I make the younger guys do it. They learn, the same way I did, that she is a cunt- they load all the rocks of all different types into her car, only to get a half-aware wave and an absent minded, "Thanks".
Once, just once, I'd like to grab her scream, "Well bitch, 'Thanks' doesn't pay that bar tab, or put a dollar in that strippers' G-string, or pay my fucking car insurance; so pull out your damn wallet once in a while and throw us a couple fucking dollars for helping your decrepid, pathetic ass out."
One day....
There always manages to be some old fucking guy who snuck around the gates and is there at 8:55, ready and waiting to bombard me with questions. They are always chipper, walking while swinging their arms like he's trying to fucking fly, with an enthusiastic, "Hey how we doing today!". It's always the same.
It's kind of funny to me, because I tend to already be on my third cup of coffee, trying in vain to sober up, unlit cigarette hanging out of my mouth because I either think it's lit or I lost my lighter the night before and have no means of fire; I also know I reek like booze. My answers to their asinine questions are normally slow and drawling, simply because I can't manage to get them out any quicker, and the words stumble around my pulled down Boston hat and squirm into the air.
Sometimes, I'll get people who I actually recognize because they have pissed me off so badly in the past. One that comes to mind is the woman I refer to as the "Triple B", which is an acronym for "Broken Bag Bitch".
You see, when you get ten or twelve trailers of bagged stone in a year, a few of the bags are bound to break, either by mishandling, the ride in from Pennsylvania, etc. You can't do much with them, and most of us that deal with them end up throwing them out. As a last ditch attempt of getting rid of them, we give them out two-for-one, which is really a decent deal for the consumer. But no, there's gotta be a couple assholes that ruin it for everybody. One of these assholes is the Triple B.
She drives in innocently enough, in her beat up white Dodge Caravan with black hubcaps. When I see people like this come in, I give them breaks, being as I figure they are working class fucks like myself. This bitch? Absolutely not.
She gets out of her truck, short, squat, with grey hair that came too early, waddling towards the wet pallets of mulch and stone, and utters that phrase, "Do you have any broken bags of anything?". She seems nice enough at first, but as you get to know her you can tell this broad ain't playing with a full deck. Flighty is not the word for what she is.
If the guys that work there remember who she is, she doesn't get helped at all; eventually she gets tired of being ignored and starts dragging the bags to the front of the yard herself. I'd like to say I feel bad for her, but I've moved thousands of pounds of rocks for her over the years, and never gotten any kind of tip; in the book of the hourly laborer, this puts you in the first circle of hell, right next to Judas.
I've worked there for so long that I have seniority over all the other guys that work, so I don't ever have to help this bitch anymore. No more lifting heavy shit for this freaky, cheap broad; no, I make the younger guys do it. They learn, the same way I did, that she is a cunt- they load all the rocks of all different types into her car, only to get a half-aware wave and an absent minded, "Thanks".
Once, just once, I'd like to grab her scream, "Well bitch, 'Thanks' doesn't pay that bar tab, or put a dollar in that strippers' G-string, or pay my fucking car insurance; so pull out your damn wallet once in a while and throw us a couple fucking dollars for helping your decrepid, pathetic ass out."
One day....
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Reactions to my Moroccan Plans
Most people have, at this point given me a pretty uniform response when I talk about my plans for a North African trek: "Why the fuck do you want to go there?"
My cliched but honest response has been, "Well, why not?"
Africa, and specifically Morocco, represents a frontier that has been long gone from America. It is a civilized country, and tourism there is actually starting to increase, however slowly. There aren't landmark sites like there are in France or England- there isn't really a Big Ben or Eiffel Tower.
It's more of an aura that the country has that seriously attracts me. The sections along the Atlantic Coast are big cities with lots of history, names that the American Media has romanticiszed, like Casablanca and Tangiers. The Straits of Gibralter are here, the gateway to the Mediterranean that was once seen as the ends of the Earth. Farther south it turns into Desolation Row- the mountains, and beyond them, the mighty Sahara Desert which runs to the Southern section of the dark continent.
I've been researching the whole thing heavily, and I'm finding out a lot of interesting things. Jack Kerouac was in Tangiers in the 50's along with other beat writers like William Burroughs at a time when nearly half of the population there were American expatriates. This makes it even more ironic that it was my first destination of choice, because apparently it was on Kerouac's list too. It seems that this is the country where the writers amble to when America dissapoints them too much...
There are bars on the sandy beaches, tight alleyways coursing through the old Medinas, camels offering passage through the greatest of all deserts. It is civilized to a point, but still wild to the point where you might be able to kill a man and still get away with it.
This, my friends, is what I've been waiting for.
My cliched but honest response has been, "Well, why not?"
Africa, and specifically Morocco, represents a frontier that has been long gone from America. It is a civilized country, and tourism there is actually starting to increase, however slowly. There aren't landmark sites like there are in France or England- there isn't really a Big Ben or Eiffel Tower.
It's more of an aura that the country has that seriously attracts me. The sections along the Atlantic Coast are big cities with lots of history, names that the American Media has romanticiszed, like Casablanca and Tangiers. The Straits of Gibralter are here, the gateway to the Mediterranean that was once seen as the ends of the Earth. Farther south it turns into Desolation Row- the mountains, and beyond them, the mighty Sahara Desert which runs to the Southern section of the dark continent.
I've been researching the whole thing heavily, and I'm finding out a lot of interesting things. Jack Kerouac was in Tangiers in the 50's along with other beat writers like William Burroughs at a time when nearly half of the population there were American expatriates. This makes it even more ironic that it was my first destination of choice, because apparently it was on Kerouac's list too. It seems that this is the country where the writers amble to when America dissapoints them too much...
There are bars on the sandy beaches, tight alleyways coursing through the old Medinas, camels offering passage through the greatest of all deserts. It is civilized to a point, but still wild to the point where you might be able to kill a man and still get away with it.
This, my friends, is what I've been waiting for.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Morocco
That is the country that I've decided on. I get out of college in January, and I figure if I work for a year I can have a few thousand saved up. Being as Morocco is a kind of last frontier, and the currency exchange rate is 10:1, that country is looking like my favorite.
The more I read about it, the more I want to go there. Though I have never seen the movie, just the word, "Casablanca" weighs heavily on me. Tangiers is the city on the Straits of Gibralter, formally seen as the ends of the Earth...the more I read, the more I want to go there.
It seems like a place that has a good mix of everything- enough European country that it's nearly settled, and has easy ways to get around, but enough of that uncivilized wonder to the point where you could kill a man and get away with it.
I'd like to elaborate more on my feelings about this place, but I fail now. All I can say is that the more I read, the more I want to go.
Soon, I will be drinking with the Mediterranean to my back and the Sahara desert to my front.
The more I read about it, the more I want to go there. Though I have never seen the movie, just the word, "Casablanca" weighs heavily on me. Tangiers is the city on the Straits of Gibralter, formally seen as the ends of the Earth...the more I read, the more I want to go there.
It seems like a place that has a good mix of everything- enough European country that it's nearly settled, and has easy ways to get around, but enough of that uncivilized wonder to the point where you could kill a man and get away with it.
I'd like to elaborate more on my feelings about this place, but I fail now. All I can say is that the more I read, the more I want to go.
Soon, I will be drinking with the Mediterranean to my back and the Sahara desert to my front.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Musings
A couple of weeks ago I saw a movie called Second Hand Lions that may have had a profound and lasting affect on me. The premise of the thing is that a shady woman leaves her son in West Texas with two great Uncles while she goes to "school" in Las Vegas with her boyfriend. These two uncles have somehow come across a tremendous amount of money, and some say it is through their wild lifestyle that they acquired all this wealth, while most have no idea how it came to pass and just made up stories about how they got it. Either way, this mother, upon learning of this massive soon-to-be inheritance, decides to leave her teenage son with them for an extended time.
The moral reason for leaving him there was so he could have a positive male influence on his life; of course, as she drives away leaving the young lad with two strange men, she whispers, "See if you can find out where that money is" and takes off.
What the young man initially finds is two hardheaded old bastards (Robert Duvall and Michael Caine) who come off as horrifically callous and unbelievably crude. What he eventually realizes is that these two guys, especially Duvall's character, have lived more than anyone he will ever meet. Leaving Texas in 1914, they arrived in Europe shortly before World War I erupted. Instead of leaving the continent, as more sensible men might, they decide to try and stay a step ahead of the Kaiser, staying away from the wavering fronts at all times in their tour, but still enjoying Europe's elegant atmostphere. After a night of drunken revelries, they somehow become signed up with the French Foreign Legion and spend a good deal of time in the Middle East as brawling, wild Americans in a foreign land. As the movie continues, more and more is learned about the adventures that these two guys had back in the early days of the American century.
Immediately after watching it, my mind drifted to the life that I am bound to lead. I realized that I have written so little in the past month because I have had nothing to write about. I read six or eight different books during the summer, and even they couldn't move me to any thoughts that I hadn't had before. What I need are the experiences, and the actually sights and sounds of these places.
I love the epic tales crossing continents, dimly lit bars in foreign lands where palm trees line the open windows and History weighs down heavily on those that tread there; conspiracies and money and lies and cigarette smoke and life, hard shots of odd whiskey that can take the stain off a table. If I am to write anything that will be remotely interesting and different, than I must lead a life that is interesting and different. That, unfortunately, does not mean moving out of Wayne, only so I can work for thirty years just to be able to afford moving back to Wayne; I'd rather burn that house with the picket fence down sooner than live in it.
As I walked through Barnes and Nobles today, I realized what all of the books I read have in common- one man traveling across the country or the world, writing from a nonfiction perspective, about the people and places that they come across. One book was David Horowitz's Confederates in the Attic, where he delves into the odd world of those who are still obsessed with the Civil War by touring battlefields in the South with "hardcore" reenactors (a strange brood they are). Another was a book (which I already forgot the name of) about two college dropouts, one of which played poker, the other sold T-Shirts outside Fenway Park. They were so heartbroken by the Red Sox loss in the 2003 ALCS that they decided they were, in fact, losers, and that they had to get out in the world...so they took the first flight to Baghdad. You Shall Know Our Velocity is another about two men in the streets of a far away African country; On The Road is a classic story of hitchhikers in the uptight American 1950's. A Star Called Henry and its sequel, Oh, Play That Thing, about an IRA hitman who must take to the sea for America after the Republicans turn on him...
I am seeing the trend my life is taking, and I don't like it. It seems like it may be too easy to get caught up in a regular job, getting benefits, getting paid well, and then end up never leaving New Jersey for the life I'm looking to lead, namely, that of a writer.
My world will be a world where I actually have something to write about that other people haven't often experienced. This blog may in fact be a vehicle to stay connected when I embark on this journey. What I can say is that I think it will happen at the end of next year sometime.
If anyone has any ideas for any interesting places to go, drop me a line.
The moral reason for leaving him there was so he could have a positive male influence on his life; of course, as she drives away leaving the young lad with two strange men, she whispers, "See if you can find out where that money is" and takes off.
What the young man initially finds is two hardheaded old bastards (Robert Duvall and Michael Caine) who come off as horrifically callous and unbelievably crude. What he eventually realizes is that these two guys, especially Duvall's character, have lived more than anyone he will ever meet. Leaving Texas in 1914, they arrived in Europe shortly before World War I erupted. Instead of leaving the continent, as more sensible men might, they decide to try and stay a step ahead of the Kaiser, staying away from the wavering fronts at all times in their tour, but still enjoying Europe's elegant atmostphere. After a night of drunken revelries, they somehow become signed up with the French Foreign Legion and spend a good deal of time in the Middle East as brawling, wild Americans in a foreign land. As the movie continues, more and more is learned about the adventures that these two guys had back in the early days of the American century.
Immediately after watching it, my mind drifted to the life that I am bound to lead. I realized that I have written so little in the past month because I have had nothing to write about. I read six or eight different books during the summer, and even they couldn't move me to any thoughts that I hadn't had before. What I need are the experiences, and the actually sights and sounds of these places.
I love the epic tales crossing continents, dimly lit bars in foreign lands where palm trees line the open windows and History weighs down heavily on those that tread there; conspiracies and money and lies and cigarette smoke and life, hard shots of odd whiskey that can take the stain off a table. If I am to write anything that will be remotely interesting and different, than I must lead a life that is interesting and different. That, unfortunately, does not mean moving out of Wayne, only so I can work for thirty years just to be able to afford moving back to Wayne; I'd rather burn that house with the picket fence down sooner than live in it.
As I walked through Barnes and Nobles today, I realized what all of the books I read have in common- one man traveling across the country or the world, writing from a nonfiction perspective, about the people and places that they come across. One book was David Horowitz's Confederates in the Attic, where he delves into the odd world of those who are still obsessed with the Civil War by touring battlefields in the South with "hardcore" reenactors (a strange brood they are). Another was a book (which I already forgot the name of) about two college dropouts, one of which played poker, the other sold T-Shirts outside Fenway Park. They were so heartbroken by the Red Sox loss in the 2003 ALCS that they decided they were, in fact, losers, and that they had to get out in the world...so they took the first flight to Baghdad. You Shall Know Our Velocity is another about two men in the streets of a far away African country; On The Road is a classic story of hitchhikers in the uptight American 1950's. A Star Called Henry and its sequel, Oh, Play That Thing, about an IRA hitman who must take to the sea for America after the Republicans turn on him...
I am seeing the trend my life is taking, and I don't like it. It seems like it may be too easy to get caught up in a regular job, getting benefits, getting paid well, and then end up never leaving New Jersey for the life I'm looking to lead, namely, that of a writer.
My world will be a world where I actually have something to write about that other people haven't often experienced. This blog may in fact be a vehicle to stay connected when I embark on this journey. What I can say is that I think it will happen at the end of next year sometime.
If anyone has any ideas for any interesting places to go, drop me a line.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
On Iraq
I have seen on the news that Bush, Condi and Rumsfeld are out and about trying to resurrect support for their dead and dying war. Bush is saying that same line he's been spouting for the last six years, all the bullshit that, "Terrorists hate our Freedom"! Condi is in the back nodding her head, and Rumsfeld is probably cackling over pictures of dead Muslim children (knowing him.)
Well, here's my take on it.
At this point in time, America has two choices in relation to this Iraq War:
1. We can be involved in the Iraqi Civil War, and sacrifice more American lives over an extended period of time with a strong possibility of failure (as we are doing now)
2. Pull out, and let the Iraqis fight their own civil war.
It is my line of thinking (a reasonable one, I think), that if the people in that country really want a democratically elected state, they will fight for it. Not only will they fight for it, but they will win. They will do exactly how so many others have done in the past, and make blood run like a raging river around the altar of freedom, and their communion will be taken with bullets to spare. But they will win.
To think that we could install a democratic state against the will of the people who live there is insane, no less insane then it was when we tried it in Vietnam with Diem, and then had him knocked off when he failed so miserably. If the population rejects this form of government, than no amount of US support or firepower will change that, and we will be in another protracted war with a guerilla insurgency that cannont be defeated convetionally- again, it may be like Vietnam with the French, where Vietnamese of all types of idealogies banded together just to get the foreigners out, and then split apart as soon as that goal is accomplished. By being there, we are doing more for the extremists in giving them a rallying point to kill Americans.
We have done all that we can do. Things are not going to change in Iraq. It is time to let them decide their fate, as all countries have in the past. Sometimes, a Civil War is necessary for the survival of the country as a whole- look at our own nation. England had a civil war, Ireland had a civil war, the French had their revolution, Spain had their civil war back in the 30's; in fact, I'm hard pressed to think of a single nation that has ever achieved anything that hasn't had a civil war. It's kind of like a rite of passage into the world...similar to the first time you got drunk and banged a fat chick; hey, everyone does it at least once.
Well, here's my take on it.
At this point in time, America has two choices in relation to this Iraq War:
1. We can be involved in the Iraqi Civil War, and sacrifice more American lives over an extended period of time with a strong possibility of failure (as we are doing now)
2. Pull out, and let the Iraqis fight their own civil war.
It is my line of thinking (a reasonable one, I think), that if the people in that country really want a democratically elected state, they will fight for it. Not only will they fight for it, but they will win. They will do exactly how so many others have done in the past, and make blood run like a raging river around the altar of freedom, and their communion will be taken with bullets to spare. But they will win.
To think that we could install a democratic state against the will of the people who live there is insane, no less insane then it was when we tried it in Vietnam with Diem, and then had him knocked off when he failed so miserably. If the population rejects this form of government, than no amount of US support or firepower will change that, and we will be in another protracted war with a guerilla insurgency that cannont be defeated convetionally- again, it may be like Vietnam with the French, where Vietnamese of all types of idealogies banded together just to get the foreigners out, and then split apart as soon as that goal is accomplished. By being there, we are doing more for the extremists in giving them a rallying point to kill Americans.
We have done all that we can do. Things are not going to change in Iraq. It is time to let them decide their fate, as all countries have in the past. Sometimes, a Civil War is necessary for the survival of the country as a whole- look at our own nation. England had a civil war, Ireland had a civil war, the French had their revolution, Spain had their civil war back in the 30's; in fact, I'm hard pressed to think of a single nation that has ever achieved anything that hasn't had a civil war. It's kind of like a rite of passage into the world...similar to the first time you got drunk and banged a fat chick; hey, everyone does it at least once.
As I once read, "If democracy is so great, you won't have to push it on people. They'll steal it."
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
T-Nation
This essay came in second in a contest on T-Nation.com, and won me tons of free shit. Thanks to TC Luoma.
Not for the weak of heart: www.T-Nation.com
Life, inevitably, is little more than a series of deaths. We're born, we come into this world burning with hope and an aura of invincibilty, and then sixty or seventy years later, we're in the ground, as dead as Julius Ceasar. There is no way to avoid this.
When we're young, we're flooded with testosterone- it flares up, explodes behind us forcing us ahead and driving driving driving until you feel your hair burn and you can't breathe without turning your head. We fight like furies, drink too much, drive like psychos on mescalin, and roar down the winding one lane roads of life, gazing at the drop off the cliff that lies near, but we laugh anyway because that could never happen to us, we will never die, we are fucking invincible!
Some of us careen off that cliff in a flaming car with alcohol soaked lungs, cackling until we realize there is no turning back, and then scramble to get out; it is too late. Some of us fall one day, our eyes roll back, and we drop, fighting and dying and knowing that it is over, and that it's not our choice. Some of us just get that urge to cut the wheel...and its the last urge we ever get.
The rest of us make it. And when we make it, a lot of times we just kind of...well, sit back. A comfortable job, a wife or two, a kid, and before some guys realize it, they're twenty years older and thirty pounds heavier. It isn't even the weight that really kills them though; its the lack of competition, the lack of a cohesive goal. In a gray world where everything has three sides and then the truth, weightlifting is one of the only black and white things around. If you're in this game, you don't get stale, and the only times you are stagnant is if you are doing something very, very wrong. As Henry Rollins said, "Two hundred pounds just sits on the bar saying, 'Lift me or don't". We are always succeeding or failing- there is no "almost", "coming close", or "gray area. You got that bar off your chest, or you didn't. That's all there is to it. For some of us it quells insecurities; for others, it's the thing that keeps us sane through all of life's tribulations. Whatever the reasons for engaging in this noble endeavor, the benefits are nearly uncountable.
This website is just that: a website. The information is here is reliable, and there are guys on here who have been lifting weights since World War II. Of course, this thing isn't going to do the shit for you. Just because all the information is in one spot doesn't mean that it gets any easier, the sessions get any less intense, or you have to work any less. Nothing in the world compares to the experience of years under the iron, and no fancy program can compensate for a lack of dedication to the craft.
However, when you hang out here, you learn the tough way. No one will feel bad for you if you're not trying hard enough, because frankly we don't care. But if you seriously want the strength and power, than this is the place you want to be. If you want to feel like a top dog, and learn how to do it... than this is your home.
This is the kind of place that rubs off on you. You come here, and you won't be stagnant, you won't regress, and, most importantly, you'll have no excuses. Its kind of how life should always be, but never will; no apologies, and balls to the wall. Turn the fire inwards, and make it work for you instead of destroying you. The lessons we learn in the humid, dank weight rooms are lessons that will transfer to all other aspects of our lives, and the perseverance shown there will remind us that the only thing holding us back is ourselves.
The fact is, we all end up in ground. We don't know if it's going to be today, tommorow, a week from now, or a half century from now. The only thing that we can do is grab this bitch called life by the teeth, and force it to go the way we want. Sometimes it rips our hands off, but more often then not it'll go where we decide to take it. T-Nation is a place that will teach you how to do this, and help channel your furies into something productive so your time in between birth and death goes your way, and no one else's.
Not for the weak of heart: www.T-Nation.com
Life, inevitably, is little more than a series of deaths. We're born, we come into this world burning with hope and an aura of invincibilty, and then sixty or seventy years later, we're in the ground, as dead as Julius Ceasar. There is no way to avoid this.
When we're young, we're flooded with testosterone- it flares up, explodes behind us forcing us ahead and driving driving driving until you feel your hair burn and you can't breathe without turning your head. We fight like furies, drink too much, drive like psychos on mescalin, and roar down the winding one lane roads of life, gazing at the drop off the cliff that lies near, but we laugh anyway because that could never happen to us, we will never die, we are fucking invincible!
Some of us careen off that cliff in a flaming car with alcohol soaked lungs, cackling until we realize there is no turning back, and then scramble to get out; it is too late. Some of us fall one day, our eyes roll back, and we drop, fighting and dying and knowing that it is over, and that it's not our choice. Some of us just get that urge to cut the wheel...and its the last urge we ever get.
The rest of us make it. And when we make it, a lot of times we just kind of...well, sit back. A comfortable job, a wife or two, a kid, and before some guys realize it, they're twenty years older and thirty pounds heavier. It isn't even the weight that really kills them though; its the lack of competition, the lack of a cohesive goal. In a gray world where everything has three sides and then the truth, weightlifting is one of the only black and white things around. If you're in this game, you don't get stale, and the only times you are stagnant is if you are doing something very, very wrong. As Henry Rollins said, "Two hundred pounds just sits on the bar saying, 'Lift me or don't". We are always succeeding or failing- there is no "almost", "coming close", or "gray area. You got that bar off your chest, or you didn't. That's all there is to it. For some of us it quells insecurities; for others, it's the thing that keeps us sane through all of life's tribulations. Whatever the reasons for engaging in this noble endeavor, the benefits are nearly uncountable.
This website is just that: a website. The information is here is reliable, and there are guys on here who have been lifting weights since World War II. Of course, this thing isn't going to do the shit for you. Just because all the information is in one spot doesn't mean that it gets any easier, the sessions get any less intense, or you have to work any less. Nothing in the world compares to the experience of years under the iron, and no fancy program can compensate for a lack of dedication to the craft.
However, when you hang out here, you learn the tough way. No one will feel bad for you if you're not trying hard enough, because frankly we don't care. But if you seriously want the strength and power, than this is the place you want to be. If you want to feel like a top dog, and learn how to do it... than this is your home.
This is the kind of place that rubs off on you. You come here, and you won't be stagnant, you won't regress, and, most importantly, you'll have no excuses. Its kind of how life should always be, but never will; no apologies, and balls to the wall. Turn the fire inwards, and make it work for you instead of destroying you. The lessons we learn in the humid, dank weight rooms are lessons that will transfer to all other aspects of our lives, and the perseverance shown there will remind us that the only thing holding us back is ourselves.
The fact is, we all end up in ground. We don't know if it's going to be today, tommorow, a week from now, or a half century from now. The only thing that we can do is grab this bitch called life by the teeth, and force it to go the way we want. Sometimes it rips our hands off, but more often then not it'll go where we decide to take it. T-Nation is a place that will teach you how to do this, and help channel your furies into something productive so your time in between birth and death goes your way, and no one else's.
Monday, August 21, 2006
For Boston
Boston will be my new home- I have decreed it...issued a fatwa if you will. Me and the girl took a one day trip up there from dirty Jersey, and I have fallen in love with this city of cities. What a place.
Boston has forever seemed like it was a world away, and certainly not just four hours in a speeding Honda (the girl's, not mine). I have read about it in the history books, in all the chronicles of the American Revolution. Boston Harbor was a thing talked about in relation to the abuse of the British, the fire under the powder keg that was America in the 1700's. Recently, with my love of the Red Sox, the town has taken on a mythical status that I could not really put into words. Fenway Park was a Mecca, something so far away that I could not really even tell what direction it was in, and yet I saw it on TVs all the time, the home field of my beloved team bathed in green, the massive wall in left field towering not only the field, but the town itself. I used to just look at the history of the town itself- now, I realize that the history of the town for the last hundred years is somehow intertwined with this team of men who hit a ball on a field for amusement.
The purpose of my trip was, in actuality, to see my team on their home field with my Red Sox Nation brethern. No more Yankee hats all over, no Jeter jerseys, no fucking A-Rod, no hot girls that I can't talk to because of their trademarked "Giambi" jerseys. No, this is my town, and my people.
The history wasn't initially a concern of mine, even though I do love American history with a passion (yea yea, I'm a fag. Live with it). I hadn't thought of any of it until we got out of the parking garage and began walking along Boston Common, my girlfriend looking at a crappy map of the city. She has a habit of trying to do too many things at once, such as drive while reading a receipt, or walk while looking at something completely other than that car that's about to hit her. It drives me fucking crazy, but that's probably one of those things that I'd miss if she wasn't there, because it's always the little bullshit things that you remember so well.
Boston Common was right by the garage we parked in, and it is a beautiful park. It reminded me immediately of Good Will Hunting, as I think the scene where Robin Williams is talking to Matt Damon about how much of an ass he is was filmed here, right along these soft emerald banks of this lake. On this gorgeous day, it looked just like it does on that jagged fuzzy tape that I have seen a thousand times since an old friend gave it to me, down to the swans and other birds that frequent the waters. I was also reminded of Thoreau's Walden, where he talks about the ice breaking in Massachusetts at a certain time of the year, signifying spring's arrival. I know that was in Concord, but it seems to apply here too for some reason.
We walked for a while, along the "Freedom Trail" that winds through the city. There is an old church that is the first stop, one with white wooden pews and red upholstery that once shelved the elite of Boston. Washington went to a service here during his time in command of the Continental Army, and the tablets at the front that show the ten commandments are from sometime in the 1600s when the church was built.
From the outside, I could see the glass panes in the upper story windows, the kinds that get the wavy texture from extreme age. If those eyes could talk, the stories they could tell...three hundred years of fiery speeches, inflammation, and rage. So much to tell, and no one to tell it.
The entire city feels much like that Church; the history just rises right through the ancient bricks and floods down the streets, swarming around everywhere you look. By walking through, you can feel it- you ain't walking through a Twentieth-Century city. I am used to New York City, the city that never sleeps, the city that is always crushing and destroying and rebuilding and climbing. There is not much regard for history in New York- or at least, there might be, but property values are far too high to worry about some old graveyard or battlefield. There was quite a few battles fought in NYC during the Revolution, including a large one in Brooklyn that nearly ended it before it started. To look at it now, you'd never know, between the ghettos and bridges and overpasses. It's as if that shit never happened, as if history was erased along with the green pastures and trembling streams that once occupied the isle of Manhattan. If you want a really trippy thought, picture Indians hunting in the middle of Chelsea or the Bowery. It happened once, I swear...
Boston is far different. There are few very tall buildings, and even they don't compare with the monsters that New York has to offer. The houses are low, three or four stories, made of old brick and mortar. The nicer places have winding ironwork on the outsides, the black railings as much a part of the decor of the city as anything else. Heavy wooden doors, ivy growing on tall buildings. A strange mix of city and town that I have never really seen in Jersey.
There is an old building, I think the old state house, where the Declaration of Independence was first read to the war hardened denizens of Boston from the East Balcony. The site of the Boston Massacre was right around there, although my girlfriend failed as the navigator and we never found the exact spot (she swore up and down that it was probably just a plaque in front of a bank or something, so we weren't really missing anything. Yet another thing I would remember about her.)
The city is remarkably clean, with smooth roads and and lack of the garbage all over the place that I am used too. The taxis aren't always laying on their horns, the screams of subways underfoot are absent. Things are quiet. I mean, I was there on a Saturday, but New York never stops. Boston, however, takes a break.
We came across a graveyard that is obviously something of a tourist attraction. Fat older men dressed like Colonial magistrates strut up and down, yelling in high voices to crowds of suburban tourists, the men with the beltpacks (ay, you tools) and the fat women pushing strollers, bored kids trailing behind with frowns on their faces. I wonder many times if they even care about what's being said, or whether they are just here because they think they should be, and they can go home to wherever and impress their friends by saying they saw the stack of granite that hides Paul Revere's body. I'd honestly be surprised if most of the people who visit the grave sites could even tell me what Sam Adams or John Hancock actually did, as most Americans don't know history from a fucking hole in the wall. A recent survey proved that many of those tested could not tell the difference between Iraq and Louisiana on a map. Another survey of college kids found that most think that things printed in the media should be approved by the government first (this is why I am pro-bird flu; less traffic, weeding out idiots, etc.). Sam Adams, for one, would be horrified.
His grave holds some kind of special meaning for me lately. I just finished the Jeff Shaara book Rise To Rebellion the other day, and old Adams seemed like my kind of guy. He was a rabblerouser, a man who controlled the mobs of Boston back in the 1760s. The Boston Massacre? Probably his influence. The Boston Tea Party? Yes, he was there. This guy tried for over twenty years to make life hell for the British occupation force, and every chance he got he rose up and started a riot over something. He raged for a strange thing called "independence" back when the idea still made men in taverns laugh. When the Declaration of Independence was signed, he stood smiling, his years of fiery speeches and ballsy actions finally amounting to something.
His grave has not fallen into disrepair like so many of the others here, and even the thing itself is simple and strong; a bronze plaque bolted to a boulder. Even in death, this man's legend is solid. This was, as his gravestone says, "A Leader of Men". Any man that can manipulate propanganda like that in order to start a revolution...well, that's the reason I'm proud to an American.
After taking the above picture, we had to roll. The reason for the trip was, of course, the Red Sox game at 1:00, and I couldn't be wandering around graveyards all day when the Sox are in the playoff hunt.
The whole city entranced me, but the highlight was still Fenway Park. It is a mess of great green walls rising over the abadoned wharehouses along the Mass Pike, and yet we drove right by it coming into Boston without me even noticing it.
Walking Fenway is like walking back in time, and I mean that in the most cliched way possible. Everything is made of dry red bricks and huge steel I-beams painted, like everything else in the town, green. Everything is small and compact, and the seats look like they should be made of wood. Unlike other stadiums, there is no mezzanine level- it is one sweeping incline, and then the nosebleeds. That's it.
I took this picture of a sign, and texted it to every Yankee fan I know.
A chorus of "Fuck you's" came back, along with the occasional picture of a toilet in response and a lone, "I hope the place burns down".
I fucking hate all of them.
The fields are perfect and the Green Monster looms in the distance, so appealing to the right handed hitter who has not been to Fenway before...
Having seats in the third row don't hurt either, of course.
Of course, I found during the game why I could never live up there. The game was tied going into the ninth, and I could barely sit still. If I had been drunk, I would have been praying (as I so often have before) to the baseball gods to let my Sox pull this one out. Sure enough, Mark Loretta hit a single in the bottom of the tenth. Ortiz walks. Manny comes up, and bang! The game is over on his RBI single in the bottom of the tenth. Thank God. I couldn't handle this shit everyday.
They needed this game because the fucking Yankees won too, as evident by the collective groan from the faithful when the scores on that great green board are changed to "Final" and we all curse that the Yanks pulled out another against the Angels. By October, I'll likely have an ulcer, and I'm beginning to think that the Sox missing the playoffs might be good for my health...
David Ortiz at bat, to a chorus of "MVP" chants
The whole place is truly an experience. The Monster, Pesky's Pole, even the old sign outside that says, simply, Fenway Park, Home of the Red Sox. It is so simple that it kills me. It's not hard to picture Carlton Fisk, Johnny Pesky, or Ted Williams batting here. The crowds are just as loyal, the scenes just as amazing. When you mix that with the overwhelming weight of History that the town exudes from every pore...well, you've got a place that Steve has gotta see a little bit more of.
Be afraid, Boston. Be very afraid.
Boston has forever seemed like it was a world away, and certainly not just four hours in a speeding Honda (the girl's, not mine). I have read about it in the history books, in all the chronicles of the American Revolution. Boston Harbor was a thing talked about in relation to the abuse of the British, the fire under the powder keg that was America in the 1700's. Recently, with my love of the Red Sox, the town has taken on a mythical status that I could not really put into words. Fenway Park was a Mecca, something so far away that I could not really even tell what direction it was in, and yet I saw it on TVs all the time, the home field of my beloved team bathed in green, the massive wall in left field towering not only the field, but the town itself. I used to just look at the history of the town itself- now, I realize that the history of the town for the last hundred years is somehow intertwined with this team of men who hit a ball on a field for amusement.
The purpose of my trip was, in actuality, to see my team on their home field with my Red Sox Nation brethern. No more Yankee hats all over, no Jeter jerseys, no fucking A-Rod, no hot girls that I can't talk to because of their trademarked "Giambi" jerseys. No, this is my town, and my people.
The history wasn't initially a concern of mine, even though I do love American history with a passion (yea yea, I'm a fag. Live with it). I hadn't thought of any of it until we got out of the parking garage and began walking along Boston Common, my girlfriend looking at a crappy map of the city. She has a habit of trying to do too many things at once, such as drive while reading a receipt, or walk while looking at something completely other than that car that's about to hit her. It drives me fucking crazy, but that's probably one of those things that I'd miss if she wasn't there, because it's always the little bullshit things that you remember so well.
Boston Common was right by the garage we parked in, and it is a beautiful park. It reminded me immediately of Good Will Hunting, as I think the scene where Robin Williams is talking to Matt Damon about how much of an ass he is was filmed here, right along these soft emerald banks of this lake. On this gorgeous day, it looked just like it does on that jagged fuzzy tape that I have seen a thousand times since an old friend gave it to me, down to the swans and other birds that frequent the waters. I was also reminded of Thoreau's Walden, where he talks about the ice breaking in Massachusetts at a certain time of the year, signifying spring's arrival. I know that was in Concord, but it seems to apply here too for some reason.
We walked for a while, along the "Freedom Trail" that winds through the city. There is an old church that is the first stop, one with white wooden pews and red upholstery that once shelved the elite of Boston. Washington went to a service here during his time in command of the Continental Army, and the tablets at the front that show the ten commandments are from sometime in the 1600s when the church was built.
From the outside, I could see the glass panes in the upper story windows, the kinds that get the wavy texture from extreme age. If those eyes could talk, the stories they could tell...three hundred years of fiery speeches, inflammation, and rage. So much to tell, and no one to tell it.
The entire city feels much like that Church; the history just rises right through the ancient bricks and floods down the streets, swarming around everywhere you look. By walking through, you can feel it- you ain't walking through a Twentieth-Century city. I am used to New York City, the city that never sleeps, the city that is always crushing and destroying and rebuilding and climbing. There is not much regard for history in New York- or at least, there might be, but property values are far too high to worry about some old graveyard or battlefield. There was quite a few battles fought in NYC during the Revolution, including a large one in Brooklyn that nearly ended it before it started. To look at it now, you'd never know, between the ghettos and bridges and overpasses. It's as if that shit never happened, as if history was erased along with the green pastures and trembling streams that once occupied the isle of Manhattan. If you want a really trippy thought, picture Indians hunting in the middle of Chelsea or the Bowery. It happened once, I swear...
Boston is far different. There are few very tall buildings, and even they don't compare with the monsters that New York has to offer. The houses are low, three or four stories, made of old brick and mortar. The nicer places have winding ironwork on the outsides, the black railings as much a part of the decor of the city as anything else. Heavy wooden doors, ivy growing on tall buildings. A strange mix of city and town that I have never really seen in Jersey.
There is an old building, I think the old state house, where the Declaration of Independence was first read to the war hardened denizens of Boston from the East Balcony. The site of the Boston Massacre was right around there, although my girlfriend failed as the navigator and we never found the exact spot (she swore up and down that it was probably just a plaque in front of a bank or something, so we weren't really missing anything. Yet another thing I would remember about her.)
The city is remarkably clean, with smooth roads and and lack of the garbage all over the place that I am used too. The taxis aren't always laying on their horns, the screams of subways underfoot are absent. Things are quiet. I mean, I was there on a Saturday, but New York never stops. Boston, however, takes a break.
We came across a graveyard that is obviously something of a tourist attraction. Fat older men dressed like Colonial magistrates strut up and down, yelling in high voices to crowds of suburban tourists, the men with the beltpacks (ay, you tools) and the fat women pushing strollers, bored kids trailing behind with frowns on their faces. I wonder many times if they even care about what's being said, or whether they are just here because they think they should be, and they can go home to wherever and impress their friends by saying they saw the stack of granite that hides Paul Revere's body. I'd honestly be surprised if most of the people who visit the grave sites could even tell me what Sam Adams or John Hancock actually did, as most Americans don't know history from a fucking hole in the wall. A recent survey proved that many of those tested could not tell the difference between Iraq and Louisiana on a map. Another survey of college kids found that most think that things printed in the media should be approved by the government first (this is why I am pro-bird flu; less traffic, weeding out idiots, etc.). Sam Adams, for one, would be horrified.
His grave holds some kind of special meaning for me lately. I just finished the Jeff Shaara book Rise To Rebellion the other day, and old Adams seemed like my kind of guy. He was a rabblerouser, a man who controlled the mobs of Boston back in the 1760s. The Boston Massacre? Probably his influence. The Boston Tea Party? Yes, he was there. This guy tried for over twenty years to make life hell for the British occupation force, and every chance he got he rose up and started a riot over something. He raged for a strange thing called "independence" back when the idea still made men in taverns laugh. When the Declaration of Independence was signed, he stood smiling, his years of fiery speeches and ballsy actions finally amounting to something.
His grave has not fallen into disrepair like so many of the others here, and even the thing itself is simple and strong; a bronze plaque bolted to a boulder. Even in death, this man's legend is solid. This was, as his gravestone says, "A Leader of Men". Any man that can manipulate propanganda like that in order to start a revolution...well, that's the reason I'm proud to an American.
After taking the above picture, we had to roll. The reason for the trip was, of course, the Red Sox game at 1:00, and I couldn't be wandering around graveyards all day when the Sox are in the playoff hunt.
The whole city entranced me, but the highlight was still Fenway Park. It is a mess of great green walls rising over the abadoned wharehouses along the Mass Pike, and yet we drove right by it coming into Boston without me even noticing it.
Walking Fenway is like walking back in time, and I mean that in the most cliched way possible. Everything is made of dry red bricks and huge steel I-beams painted, like everything else in the town, green. Everything is small and compact, and the seats look like they should be made of wood. Unlike other stadiums, there is no mezzanine level- it is one sweeping incline, and then the nosebleeds. That's it.
I took this picture of a sign, and texted it to every Yankee fan I know.
A chorus of "Fuck you's" came back, along with the occasional picture of a toilet in response and a lone, "I hope the place burns down".
I fucking hate all of them.
The fields are perfect and the Green Monster looms in the distance, so appealing to the right handed hitter who has not been to Fenway before...
Having seats in the third row don't hurt either, of course.
Of course, I found during the game why I could never live up there. The game was tied going into the ninth, and I could barely sit still. If I had been drunk, I would have been praying (as I so often have before) to the baseball gods to let my Sox pull this one out. Sure enough, Mark Loretta hit a single in the bottom of the tenth. Ortiz walks. Manny comes up, and bang! The game is over on his RBI single in the bottom of the tenth. Thank God. I couldn't handle this shit everyday.
They needed this game because the fucking Yankees won too, as evident by the collective groan from the faithful when the scores on that great green board are changed to "Final" and we all curse that the Yanks pulled out another against the Angels. By October, I'll likely have an ulcer, and I'm beginning to think that the Sox missing the playoffs might be good for my health...
David Ortiz at bat, to a chorus of "MVP" chants
The whole place is truly an experience. The Monster, Pesky's Pole, even the old sign outside that says, simply, Fenway Park, Home of the Red Sox. It is so simple that it kills me. It's not hard to picture Carlton Fisk, Johnny Pesky, or Ted Williams batting here. The crowds are just as loyal, the scenes just as amazing. When you mix that with the overwhelming weight of History that the town exudes from every pore...well, you've got a place that Steve has gotta see a little bit more of.
Be afraid, Boston. Be very afraid.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Goddamnit Boston...
I just want to say how disgusted I am with the Red Sox pitching. You can't throw fucking strikes? Stop walking in fucking runs! Are you shitting me? How did you assholes make the big leagues?
This will be three losses in two days, to the Yankees no less. Way to go Boston.
I want to punch the fucking TV.
This will be three losses in two days, to the Yankees no less. Way to go Boston.
I want to punch the fucking TV.
Friday, August 18, 2006
The Approach of Fall
I'm working on a couple essays about Boston right now, and I'm so hungover I want to fucking die.
However, I will say today that football season is not the only reason I'm looking forward to the fall...the elections draw near, and Democrats loom, poised to snatch the Congress back from evil men with evil minds.
"Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, drawing nigher,
Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly dying fire."
God help us.
However, I will say today that football season is not the only reason I'm looking forward to the fall...the elections draw near, and Democrats loom, poised to snatch the Congress back from evil men with evil minds.
"Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, drawing nigher,
Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly dying fire."
God help us.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Deck of Cards
Our lives are far easier than they ever have been. There has been no generation of Americans before this one who have had easier, more sedentary lives.
Fifty years ago, most of New Jersey was farms- New Jersey! The work is hard, and the labor is tough. It kept men in shape whether they wanted to be or not. "He who did not work, did not eat". There were no options.
In all of the years before this, America was a wild country, filled with constant threats of war, invasion, Indians, etc. This was a hundred years ago...so figure two generations of men ago, there were still Indians to be fought in their back yards.
Now, we fight traffic in a race to a dentist's appointment, or to be on time for a meeting at the office. Life has lost its fury for us. Simply put, there is no enemy left to fight. We who weightlift and work out are the few who are prepared anyway, I guess you could say...us and the right wing militias hiding out in stores of AK-47's in Utah...
----------------------------------------------
Last night I did a murderous workout at work that I was surprised I could even finish. I'm trying to take this week a little light, as my joints have been hurting, namely my shoulder with the bum rotator cuff. Staying away from heavy weights is important for now, but I can't go the whole week without doing anything...I'll feel like a pussy if I do.
In the heat of the August night last night, I read my novel of the American Revolution, hung up on the words of this tale where the ending is already beknownst to me but is enchanting anyway. The way Jeff Shaara writes, you can almost see the long line of farmers and workers, lined up with their rifles facing the greatest army on the face of the planet. They had to go through this to defend their homes, and I...must do nothing. My life is easy.
Of course, one day that could change. I doubt the men who fought in the Revolution ever thought that there would be a war in their own backyards, as there was in 1776. After reading all of this, though, it gave me some sort of inspriration to do the infamous "Deck of Cards" workout that I was planning on doing. I mean, it was half inspiration and half extreme boredom from that mind numbing job, but whatever. Besides this, there is always something inherently noble about working out with your own bodyweight. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Matt Furey, and I'm not under any illusions as to what doing this kind of workout does. However, it is knowing that I can be in reasonable shape no matter where I am in the world or what I'm doing, all with a decent circuit of pushups, pullups, and squats.
Yea, yea, these are the things that comfort me. Fucked up, I know.
Anyway, the workout is pretty simple, and is used in jails all across the country (I learned this from a friend of mine who'd sat in county for a while). You take the colors in a deck of cards, and divide them into exercises. Last night I made black equal pushups, and red equal squats. For every card you flip, you do the amount said on the card. Because I was pretty shot by the time I did this workout, I made Jacks equal 10, Queens equal 14, and Kings equal 15. Aces meant I did pushups to failure.
The results were impressive. Halfway through, I felt my chest burning like an oil fire, and my legs were shaking like a fiend with epilepsy. I could only just keep pushing on, because I knew that I wanted to finish that deck more than anything else in the world.
It took maybe 25 mintues to do the whole thing, but I finally did. It took some rest-pause sets and some light- headed-shit-I'm-gonna-puke sickness, but I did it. When it was said and done, I ended up doing about 175 pushups and the same number of squats.
With that, I tip my hat to the decaying graves of those Revolutionary War soldiers. It ain't much, of course. But if I have to defend my home the way you men did yours, I'll be ready, just as you were.
Fifty years ago, most of New Jersey was farms- New Jersey! The work is hard, and the labor is tough. It kept men in shape whether they wanted to be or not. "He who did not work, did not eat". There were no options.
In all of the years before this, America was a wild country, filled with constant threats of war, invasion, Indians, etc. This was a hundred years ago...so figure two generations of men ago, there were still Indians to be fought in their back yards.
Now, we fight traffic in a race to a dentist's appointment, or to be on time for a meeting at the office. Life has lost its fury for us. Simply put, there is no enemy left to fight. We who weightlift and work out are the few who are prepared anyway, I guess you could say...us and the right wing militias hiding out in stores of AK-47's in Utah...
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Last night I did a murderous workout at work that I was surprised I could even finish. I'm trying to take this week a little light, as my joints have been hurting, namely my shoulder with the bum rotator cuff. Staying away from heavy weights is important for now, but I can't go the whole week without doing anything...I'll feel like a pussy if I do.
In the heat of the August night last night, I read my novel of the American Revolution, hung up on the words of this tale where the ending is already beknownst to me but is enchanting anyway. The way Jeff Shaara writes, you can almost see the long line of farmers and workers, lined up with their rifles facing the greatest army on the face of the planet. They had to go through this to defend their homes, and I...must do nothing. My life is easy.
Of course, one day that could change. I doubt the men who fought in the Revolution ever thought that there would be a war in their own backyards, as there was in 1776. After reading all of this, though, it gave me some sort of inspriration to do the infamous "Deck of Cards" workout that I was planning on doing. I mean, it was half inspiration and half extreme boredom from that mind numbing job, but whatever. Besides this, there is always something inherently noble about working out with your own bodyweight. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Matt Furey, and I'm not under any illusions as to what doing this kind of workout does. However, it is knowing that I can be in reasonable shape no matter where I am in the world or what I'm doing, all with a decent circuit of pushups, pullups, and squats.
Yea, yea, these are the things that comfort me. Fucked up, I know.
Anyway, the workout is pretty simple, and is used in jails all across the country (I learned this from a friend of mine who'd sat in county for a while). You take the colors in a deck of cards, and divide them into exercises. Last night I made black equal pushups, and red equal squats. For every card you flip, you do the amount said on the card. Because I was pretty shot by the time I did this workout, I made Jacks equal 10, Queens equal 14, and Kings equal 15. Aces meant I did pushups to failure.
The results were impressive. Halfway through, I felt my chest burning like an oil fire, and my legs were shaking like a fiend with epilepsy. I could only just keep pushing on, because I knew that I wanted to finish that deck more than anything else in the world.
It took maybe 25 mintues to do the whole thing, but I finally did. It took some rest-pause sets and some light- headed-shit-I'm-gonna-puke sickness, but I did it. When it was said and done, I ended up doing about 175 pushups and the same number of squats.
With that, I tip my hat to the decaying graves of those Revolutionary War soldiers. It ain't much, of course. But if I have to defend my home the way you men did yours, I'll be ready, just as you were.
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