START TIME: 9:36 PM
END TIME: 11:17 PM
WORD COUNT: 598
“Name five instances where weather changed American history.” –Sam Gold
OK, first let’s get the list out of the way so that I don’t have to worry about listing everything before we start slugging out the word count. Now I’m not going to rank these or say that any one is more significant than the other; they’re just the ones that popped into my head.
1. D-Day, June 6, 1944.
2. Hurricane Katrina, August 2005.
3. September 11, 2001.
4. Dust Bowl, 1933.
5. Chicago Fire put out by light drizzle, October 10, 1871.
The rationale:
1. D-Day, June 6, 1944.
The odds were against Operation Overlord and the invasion of Normandy from the start. Two things were required: a full moon, to illuminate navigational beacons for the aircraft, and spring tides to keep the water as deep as possible to make it around the defenses placed in the surf. The weather had been so lousy at the beginning of June that a number of the German defense leadership was on leave (General Rommel was on leave celebrating his wife’s birthday) so it wasn’t the starters that were out there when the invasion started. If this nearly impossible task had failed, America’s expansion of interests through the 20th century and rise as a true world power would have been impossible.
2. Hurricane Katrina, August 2005.
The costliest disaster in the history of the United States and its deadliest hurricane since 1928 created a diaspora in the southern united States away from a vital shipping and tourism center from which the city has never fully recovered. Hurricane Katrina also demonstrated the terrifying incompetence of the federal disaster recovery apparatus. Upon being given six days notice that the storm would be catastrophic, the mayor did not issue the order to evacuate the city until 19 hours before the storm made landfall. At least 1,836 people were killed in the wake of the storm’s destruction and subsequent floods.
3. September 11, 2001.
“The weather was perfect.” While bad weather affected D-Day and Katrina was a meteorological event, the lack of any weather patterns on 9/11 meant that the flights would not be delayed, the passengers would not have been present in greater numbers after their flights the night before had been cancelled, thus providing more resistance against a mere four “muscle” hijackers who had chosen flights that were light on passengers and heavy on fuel. Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, was delayed out of Newark. The disparities in time between the crashes would have been greater and could have minimized the loss of life on a day with more difficult visibility.
4. Dust Bowl, 1933.
I picked this for encouraging soil conservation and the rise of agribusiness in the wake of the expansion of the Great Depression. This also created the current Department of Agriculture Setup, which hands over great piles of money to small family farmers like ADM’s Andreas family. But it also contributed mightily to making California the most populous state in the nation, which will affect you all; a state with that many Congressional members has a lot of clot and the ability to say, “We would rather you provided Great Lakes water to us so we can continue to grow vegetables” and “The clean air standards for the vehicles that the American public is balking at buying will be raised if you’d like to sell cars here.”
5. Chicago Fire put out by light drizzle, October 10, 1871.
A sop to my hometown and the quintessentially American city. If the collection of wooden shanties and obvious violations of common sense that would ultimately make up the bulk of American zoning and fire prevention principles in the new century had stayed, Chicago would have stayed nondescript, without having the ability to undergo a complete redesign of its central core nearly 40 years after its establishment. It established that wood had been overused as a building material and inspired a spate of new design and construction techniques, which led to an appreciation for modern design and structure (and regrettably, an early lack of respect for tradition cast against the tide of progress).
Friday, July 31, 2009
Writing Project Update
Words this week: 2200. It wasn't happening this week. I was up for 37 straight hours Saturday in to Sunday, had the usual drastic training schedule, and had some items there that were non-negotiable. Through all of this, I got 2200 words into Implosion, mostly because there were some related topics occurring and it made sense. Sam was alerted he would probably get a topic answered tonight as early as Tuesday.
Responses to last week's topic: 3.
This week's entries: 11 (Johnny, 10 entries by Sam in less than a minute after midnight)
This week's question: From Sam Gold: Name five instances where weather potentially changed American history.
500 WORDS ON THIS TOPIC DUE BY: Midnight 7/31-8/1.
Responses to last week's topic: 3.
This week's entries: 11 (Johnny, 10 entries by Sam in less than a minute after midnight)
This week's question: From Sam Gold: Name five instances where weather potentially changed American history.
500 WORDS ON THIS TOPIC DUE BY: Midnight 7/31-8/1.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Slaughterhouse 30
START TIME: 9:55 PM
END TIME: 11:01 PM
WORD COUNT: 840
“Is it possible to live the life of both an athlete and a connoisseur well? What compromises might one be required to make that invalidate being considered one or the other? This presumes that you are not being held to the level of a Michael Phelps as an athlete or have an income that requires your toilet paper be made by Prada.”
I have weird dichotomies in my life.
As many of you know, a great deal of my time and energy is devoted to being a triathlete. Right now I have anywhere from 16 to 19 workouts a week, spanning anywhere from one-half to two and a half hours, as many as three times a day. It’s not uncommon for me to burn 2400 calories in a day, lose five pounds from morning to night (don’t worry, it comes back), and generally push my body through a lot of physical grief.
This means a lot of steamed spinach, a lot of vitamins, grilled chicken, hot sauce, tortillas, turkey burgers, celery sticks, and a weakness for Diet Coke. This is food for fuel and not for pleasure. (And when you exercise like I do, you’re allowed the occasional piece of pepper jack cheese.) Lunch is usually a can of soup, loaded with hot sauce, eaten at my desk. All of this is focused on an equation of calories consumed minus calories burned equals expected weight loss. This is all viewed against a backdrop of several spreadsheets that track my overall weight, lean mass, body fat and water percentage, and expected caloric maintenance, as well as training times over the past three years. It’s a very right-brained exercise.
And a few of you know that I’m “the human Rolodex,” the one who can ask three questions and determine the perfect place for you to eat, and who extends this knowledge base over five or six cities. My years with Four Seasons had me comparing notes with people who understood food and prepared this sort of thing for a living, and I got that job based on the fact I was a regular in The Café at the Ritz-Carlton, Chicago. The whole reason I work in Las Vegas is because of a French onion soup in Chicago. I have spent time in professional kitchens and have nothing but awe for chefs and their talents. I’ve been a training evaluator when they opened Four Seasons Las Vegas, making sure that a brand-new waitress correctly served me a Bombay Sapphire and tonic, chatting with my boss and senior management in a hotel that wasn’t open and didn’t have any guests, all the while thinking, “If I weren’t so tired, I’d be laughing my ass off that they’re paying me to do this.” I was 23 at the time.
So really, how can I be both? Foie gras and wind sprints don’t mix, do they?
Well, no, not at the same time. Some of the more decadent pleasures in my life need to be scheduled; you will not find me at the Irish pub across the street on a whim. I make sure that I don’t train as seriously from my last race in December to about mid-March. This lets me get any indulgences out of my system before I get down to the serious business of preparing for the racing season. My diet does not become absolute law until April or so, and there are always exceptions. It’s not unusual for me to run for four miles before going home to shower and head out for a wine tasting. As long as I get the requisite amount of work in, I don’t care. Life is not always about numbers on a spreadsheet. When I decide that I've earned something that's a little bit over the top and have had just about enough of living small, I have to jettison the expectation that I will continue to progress forward at the same rate. It's the same as taking a couple days off.
And that’s why one of the rules I follow with dogged determination is the tradition of the Last Supper. My meal the night before a race is always the same; shrimp cocktail, grilled swordfish, a vegetable, two slices of bread, and a large bottle of San Pellegrino, as hydration is key the day before a race. Since I want to make sure the seafood doesn’t make me sick, I have to be at a very credible seafood restaurant. In Tempe it’s Eddie V’s Edgewater Grille in Scottsdale. San Diego always finds me at Blue Point Coastal Cuisine.
Chicago, in a very short while, will be Parker’s Ocean Grill. Fully aware of what I’m going to do the next morning, I make sure to enjoy the lights, the calm, and the laughter of good company or the quiet of dining alone. In Tempe one of the waiters is also a triathlete and we wish each other luck, same as we have for the past four years.
I always close my eyes for a second and take my brain away from the thrashing pile of limbs that is the swim start, usually a little more than twelve hours away. The other patrons can’t see the permanent marker drawn onto my arms under my blazer, and neither can I. In the space of 24 hours both sides of my mind are satisfied. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
END TIME: 11:01 PM
WORD COUNT: 840
“Is it possible to live the life of both an athlete and a connoisseur well? What compromises might one be required to make that invalidate being considered one or the other? This presumes that you are not being held to the level of a Michael Phelps as an athlete or have an income that requires your toilet paper be made by Prada.”
I have weird dichotomies in my life.
As many of you know, a great deal of my time and energy is devoted to being a triathlete. Right now I have anywhere from 16 to 19 workouts a week, spanning anywhere from one-half to two and a half hours, as many as three times a day. It’s not uncommon for me to burn 2400 calories in a day, lose five pounds from morning to night (don’t worry, it comes back), and generally push my body through a lot of physical grief.
This means a lot of steamed spinach, a lot of vitamins, grilled chicken, hot sauce, tortillas, turkey burgers, celery sticks, and a weakness for Diet Coke. This is food for fuel and not for pleasure. (And when you exercise like I do, you’re allowed the occasional piece of pepper jack cheese.) Lunch is usually a can of soup, loaded with hot sauce, eaten at my desk. All of this is focused on an equation of calories consumed minus calories burned equals expected weight loss. This is all viewed against a backdrop of several spreadsheets that track my overall weight, lean mass, body fat and water percentage, and expected caloric maintenance, as well as training times over the past three years. It’s a very right-brained exercise.
And a few of you know that I’m “the human Rolodex,” the one who can ask three questions and determine the perfect place for you to eat, and who extends this knowledge base over five or six cities. My years with Four Seasons had me comparing notes with people who understood food and prepared this sort of thing for a living, and I got that job based on the fact I was a regular in The Café at the Ritz-Carlton, Chicago. The whole reason I work in Las Vegas is because of a French onion soup in Chicago. I have spent time in professional kitchens and have nothing but awe for chefs and their talents. I’ve been a training evaluator when they opened Four Seasons Las Vegas, making sure that a brand-new waitress correctly served me a Bombay Sapphire and tonic, chatting with my boss and senior management in a hotel that wasn’t open and didn’t have any guests, all the while thinking, “If I weren’t so tired, I’d be laughing my ass off that they’re paying me to do this.” I was 23 at the time.
So really, how can I be both? Foie gras and wind sprints don’t mix, do they?
Well, no, not at the same time. Some of the more decadent pleasures in my life need to be scheduled; you will not find me at the Irish pub across the street on a whim. I make sure that I don’t train as seriously from my last race in December to about mid-March. This lets me get any indulgences out of my system before I get down to the serious business of preparing for the racing season. My diet does not become absolute law until April or so, and there are always exceptions. It’s not unusual for me to run for four miles before going home to shower and head out for a wine tasting. As long as I get the requisite amount of work in, I don’t care. Life is not always about numbers on a spreadsheet. When I decide that I've earned something that's a little bit over the top and have had just about enough of living small, I have to jettison the expectation that I will continue to progress forward at the same rate. It's the same as taking a couple days off.
And that’s why one of the rules I follow with dogged determination is the tradition of the Last Supper. My meal the night before a race is always the same; shrimp cocktail, grilled swordfish, a vegetable, two slices of bread, and a large bottle of San Pellegrino, as hydration is key the day before a race. Since I want to make sure the seafood doesn’t make me sick, I have to be at a very credible seafood restaurant. In Tempe it’s Eddie V’s Edgewater Grille in Scottsdale. San Diego always finds me at Blue Point Coastal Cuisine.
Chicago, in a very short while, will be Parker’s Ocean Grill. Fully aware of what I’m going to do the next morning, I make sure to enjoy the lights, the calm, and the laughter of good company or the quiet of dining alone. In Tempe one of the waiters is also a triathlete and we wish each other luck, same as we have for the past four years.
I always close my eyes for a second and take my brain away from the thrashing pile of limbs that is the swim start, usually a little more than twelve hours away. The other patrons can’t see the permanent marker drawn onto my arms under my blazer, and neither can I. In the space of 24 hours both sides of my mind are satisfied. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Writing Project Update
Words this week: 1500. I was working on sleep, working on training, working on other stuff. I wrote a lot but it isn't anything I can count, or could publish.
Responses to last week's topic: 1.
This week's entries: 16 (Beth, Beth, Beth, Beth, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Beth, Ken, and Ken)
It's getting impressive out there. And I'll issue anybody the same challenge I also issued Sam: get me 30 Google followers and I'll write a one-off on a Wednesday night just for you.
This week's question: From Beth Badrov:
"Is it possible to live the life of both an athlete and a connoisseur well? What compromises might one be required to make that invalidate being considered one or the other?
This presumes that you are not being held to the level of a Michael Phelps as an athlete or have an income that requires your toilet paper be made by Prada."
RESPONSE DUE BY 7/24-25 midnight
Responses to last week's topic: 1.
This week's entries: 16 (Beth, Beth, Beth, Beth, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Beth, Ken, and Ken)
It's getting impressive out there. And I'll issue anybody the same challenge I also issued Sam: get me 30 Google followers and I'll write a one-off on a Wednesday night just for you.
This week's question: From Beth Badrov:
"Is it possible to live the life of both an athlete and a connoisseur well? What compromises might one be required to make that invalidate being considered one or the other?
This presumes that you are not being held to the level of a Michael Phelps as an athlete or have an income that requires your toilet paper be made by Prada."
RESPONSE DUE BY 7/24-25 midnight
Friday, July 17, 2009
Slaughterhouse 30 Excerpt - "You've Got Right Now"
NOTE: Part of a longer chapter on measurement tools.
WORD COUNT: 610 words
Numbers Are King
“No, we don’t want to think. We want to know.” – Marcellus Wallace, “Pulp Fiction”
The equation for losing weight, like I explained before, is very simple. You need to expend more calories than you take in. This will burn the fat your body has stored for just such a situation, and you will lose weight.
In order to do this correctly, you don’t want to spend a lot of time guessing about what you did each day, or what you ate each day. If you’re going to make this a goal you can accomplish, you can’t guess. You have to know.
Here are some ways to know the answers to these questions:
CalorieKing
I’ve used this software for three years and point it out to anyone who is looking to lose weight. With a food database of over 65,000 items, you enter a name, a serving size, and click on the meal that you had it with, and it shows up in a table and adds up all sorts of nutritional information. It helps you create a diet to achieve your goals and tells you what your calorie, fat, protein and carbohydrate targets should be to achieve it. Since it already tracks what you’re eating, you’ll see a bar graph at the bottom of the screen of how close you are to hitting, or exceeding the established targets.
There’s more.
It will also track how many calories you’ve burned through exercise. These calories will be subtracted from the calorie total that appears on the CalorieKing screen. Feel like going to the Cheesecake Factory tonight? A lot of their menu is in CalorieKing, so you can look beforehand how much work you’ve done today and what you can eat and still expect to lose weight or hold steady. They have everything from lawn mowing to skiing and multiple speeds of running and cycling, so as long as you have a watch and, in some cases, a way to measure the distance you’ve traveled, you’ll know what your calorie burn is.
Now, there will be days when you don’t meet CalorieKing’s thresholds. A successful day has two green check marks at the top of it – you were under your calorie budget and did more than 30 minutes of exercise in a day. But here’s the deal, and it’s right at the core of the program: if you spend a day where you don’t switch your diet or do some exercise, it’s foolish to think you’re going to lose any weight. And the way our program is set up, you know how important it is to do as much as you can TODAY to reach your goal. CalorieKing is a great visual tool that helps me see how I’m doing, and knowing how that data translates into results.
At my desk I have a quote from Dizzy Gillespie:
“If I lay off the horn for a day, I know it. If I lay off for two days, my peers know it. And if I lay off for three days, the whole world knows it.”
He was one of the greatest and most distinctive trumpeters of all time, and knew that he had to continuously work to get better. Lance Armstrong and Team Astana ride on off days in the Tour de France, even though there’s only three off days during a race that lasts 2100 miles. Eventually, the fitness program that you’ve undertaken, the one that made you swear at the alarm clock and hate this book’s author with the intensity of a thousand suns, will become routine. Your day will feel strange if you don’t work out. I promise.
WORD COUNT: 610 words
Numbers Are King
“No, we don’t want to think. We want to know.” – Marcellus Wallace, “Pulp Fiction”
The equation for losing weight, like I explained before, is very simple. You need to expend more calories than you take in. This will burn the fat your body has stored for just such a situation, and you will lose weight.
In order to do this correctly, you don’t want to spend a lot of time guessing about what you did each day, or what you ate each day. If you’re going to make this a goal you can accomplish, you can’t guess. You have to know.
Here are some ways to know the answers to these questions:
CalorieKing
I’ve used this software for three years and point it out to anyone who is looking to lose weight. With a food database of over 65,000 items, you enter a name, a serving size, and click on the meal that you had it with, and it shows up in a table and adds up all sorts of nutritional information. It helps you create a diet to achieve your goals and tells you what your calorie, fat, protein and carbohydrate targets should be to achieve it. Since it already tracks what you’re eating, you’ll see a bar graph at the bottom of the screen of how close you are to hitting, or exceeding the established targets.
There’s more.
It will also track how many calories you’ve burned through exercise. These calories will be subtracted from the calorie total that appears on the CalorieKing screen. Feel like going to the Cheesecake Factory tonight? A lot of their menu is in CalorieKing, so you can look beforehand how much work you’ve done today and what you can eat and still expect to lose weight or hold steady. They have everything from lawn mowing to skiing and multiple speeds of running and cycling, so as long as you have a watch and, in some cases, a way to measure the distance you’ve traveled, you’ll know what your calorie burn is.
Now, there will be days when you don’t meet CalorieKing’s thresholds. A successful day has two green check marks at the top of it – you were under your calorie budget and did more than 30 minutes of exercise in a day. But here’s the deal, and it’s right at the core of the program: if you spend a day where you don’t switch your diet or do some exercise, it’s foolish to think you’re going to lose any weight. And the way our program is set up, you know how important it is to do as much as you can TODAY to reach your goal. CalorieKing is a great visual tool that helps me see how I’m doing, and knowing how that data translates into results.
At my desk I have a quote from Dizzy Gillespie:
“If I lay off the horn for a day, I know it. If I lay off for two days, my peers know it. And if I lay off for three days, the whole world knows it.”
He was one of the greatest and most distinctive trumpeters of all time, and knew that he had to continuously work to get better. Lance Armstrong and Team Astana ride on off days in the Tour de France, even though there’s only three off days during a race that lasts 2100 miles. Eventually, the fitness program that you’ve undertaken, the one that made you swear at the alarm clock and hate this book’s author with the intensity of a thousand suns, will become routine. Your day will feel strange if you don’t work out. I promise.
Writing Project Update
Words this week: 4100. Significant progress on "You've Got Right Now."
Responses to last week's topic: 1.
This week's entries: 6 (Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, and Ken)
This week's question: An excerpt from "You've Got Right Now" on the importance of numbers. This should be pretty close to midnight as I'm doing stuff with the kids.
RESPONSE DUE BY 7/17-18 midnight
Responses to last week's topic: 1.
This week's entries: 6 (Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, and Ken)
This week's question: An excerpt from "You've Got Right Now" on the importance of numbers. This should be pretty close to midnight as I'm doing stuff with the kids.
RESPONSE DUE BY 7/17-18 midnight
Friday, July 10, 2009
Slaughterhouse 29 - Excerpt - "You've Got Right Now"
Excerpt - 1,343 words
Please send all comments (good, bad, or disinterested) and feedback to slaughterhouse@jameslyden.com.
Author's Note:
This is from an early, introductory chapter of the book. A lot of what's in place right now is a bare-bones structure that will be filled in over the next few months. I hope you enjoy it. Think of this like standing next to a bubbling stock pot and the chef hands you a spoon. What's it missing? Is it any good? What would you change?
The book is at a very embryonic phase right now, and your feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you for your help!
________________________________________________
You may be 20, 50 or 100 pounds overweight. I cannot control or change how you arrived at whatever number that is. I cannot go back in time and take the bacon double cheeseburger out of your hand, or tell you why you shouldn’t skip that workout, or tell you that it’s OK for you to say that you’ll start the diet tomorrow. I didn’t even have the power to go back in time and do this for myself.
And in things that you couldn’t control either, like injury and illness, that isn’t anything I can change. This book is not a magic wand. What you weigh right now is something that I don’t have any control over at all. The diets that you tried that didn’t work, the exercise videos you bought and didn’t even watch all the way through, the treadmill that you’re drying laundry on – I can’t fix those.
So we can forget about the past.
As for the future, you and you alone can decide what you’re going to do with it. You’re reading this book and you’re doing the crunches in your mind, looking forward to being the next person to smoke me as we head toward the finish line at the Chicago Triathlon. You’re seeing yourself there waving at my family and friends, maybe pumping your fist a little, getting a few strides ahead of the guy in the yellow shirt. And yes, that scenario’s entirely possible. Another scenario is you reading this book and staying motivated for three days, or two weeks, or three months. And at that point, it doesn’t matter how fast you were GOING to be at the race where you were going to outrun me. You lost because you never showed up.
So if we knock out the past and we knock out the future, we’re only left with the present. And the present is not always your friend. The present is where the meeting runs late, and the kids have stuff to do after school, and you don’t have time to exercise in the morning because you didn’t get to sleep until 1 the night before, and there’s just no time. There’s an old saying, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.”
Here’s a good example of the present. Do you know who said this?
“He’d always say “Tomorrow. I’m going to start tomorrow, doc, I know what I have to do and I’m going to start tomorrow.”
The quote was Dr. Michael Newman. He was Tim Russert’s doctor. Now Mr. Russert was in the middle of covering an election of momentous significance. He had said three weeks earlier that Barack Obama would be the Democratic nominee. This was the year that EVERYONE was interested in his field of expertise. The young people who had abandoned politics in droves were involved again, more so than ever.
And he was gone. The reason we know about that quote was Tim Russert’s doctor was on NBC News telling us about it after he’d died of a heart attack.
And that’s just his career, which I’m sure as important as it was and as talented as he was, wasn’t the most important thing in his life. He had a son who just graduated from college. Luke Russert had a national radio program and had shown some interest in working in journalism. You think Mr. Russert – who had written two books on the importance of the relationship of his own father – would have liked to have been around to offer similar guidance to his son?
But that’s OK. He had tomorrow to do it. So do you, right? You can’t die now, with all of these obligations and people to care about. Not you.
Bullshit. You know the answer.
You’ve got right now.
But maybe you’re not worried that you’re going to die of a heart attack because you’re younger. They will invent some pill that will allow you to eat chicken wings at 11 at night and you have nothing to worry about. That’s a great idea. And I can assure you, there are researchers looking at it even as we speak. In fact, let me give you a few names:
Fen-Phen
Ephedra
Hydroxycut
Redux
Those WERE the pills, people. Do you know what they did? They KILLED some people when they took them. Those people who were desperately trying to get skinny and not have a heart attack? Bad news. It happened anyway. And it happened faster than it needed to because when given the choice between working hard and taking pills, they thought the easy way wouldn’t kill them.
Now I’m not exempting myself from this level of stupidity. I’ve taken ephedra in the beginning and found it to be effective, but I could understand where it was not a good idea. I’ve taken Redline, drank a whole lot of black coffee, and done other things with my workout program that while they may have been legal, they may not always have been considered safe. I can assure you, though, that those were not the choices that allowed me to lose the weight in the first place.
What I had to learn early on, though, was that there would be days where I was not perfect, where I desperately wanted food that was awful for me, where I didn’t want to put my body through yet another workout, where life would intervene. And it was only when I acknowledged my humanity that I succeeded.
Too many people start that diet with one last blowout meal, sometimes even a few days of them, before they finally decide to get it started. This is like a NASCAR driver showing up to a race and deliberately letting the air out of his tires before beginning. Look, your goal is not to create any more negative past. You are merely sabotaging yourself when you do this. If you’ve decided that this is the direction you’re going, don’t start it off with one more empty “tomorrow for sure.”
You don’t know if you have tomorrow - you’ve got right now! So let me explain what I mean by “acknowledging your humanity.”
Too often our belief is that dieting has to be absolutely perfect or it isn’t going to work. That the only way that the weight is going to disappear is if we eat nothing but carrots and celery sticks and drink nothing with more calories than Crystal Light, to work out three times a day and swear off anything that may ever have been considered delicious.
Well, I have a serious issue with this. I’m a human being, and therefore I will make mistakes. I also love food and wine and laughter and fun. Many of my mistakes will revolve around these things. But if given the choice between being absolutely perfect and saying “no” to anything that isn’t in a very narrow range of my diet, all of the time – or every once in a while treating myself to something that’s not necessarily good for me but makes me smile, knowing that it might take one more day or another week to get where I want to go – I take the second option. Your life and mine is a series of choices just like this; how you manage them will determine your results.
Now I don’t take the second option every time. When you get on these sorts of missions to change yourself, and I’ve been on mine for nearly four and a half years, frequent exercise and watching your diet becomes a significant part your life. I have friends of mine who realize that, “Wow, you look GREAT!! How did you DO it?” and “Are you SURE you don’t want any onion rings?” are questions that answer each other.
And I also had people who liked asking, “When are you going to slow down?” “When is this going to stop?” and “When are you going to give this up?” They have moved on.
I – like them – have realized, you’ve got right now.
Please send all comments (good, bad, or disinterested) and feedback to slaughterhouse@jameslyden.com.
Author's Note:
This is from an early, introductory chapter of the book. A lot of what's in place right now is a bare-bones structure that will be filled in over the next few months. I hope you enjoy it. Think of this like standing next to a bubbling stock pot and the chef hands you a spoon. What's it missing? Is it any good? What would you change?
The book is at a very embryonic phase right now, and your feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you for your help!
________________________________________________
You may be 20, 50 or 100 pounds overweight. I cannot control or change how you arrived at whatever number that is. I cannot go back in time and take the bacon double cheeseburger out of your hand, or tell you why you shouldn’t skip that workout, or tell you that it’s OK for you to say that you’ll start the diet tomorrow. I didn’t even have the power to go back in time and do this for myself.
And in things that you couldn’t control either, like injury and illness, that isn’t anything I can change. This book is not a magic wand. What you weigh right now is something that I don’t have any control over at all. The diets that you tried that didn’t work, the exercise videos you bought and didn’t even watch all the way through, the treadmill that you’re drying laundry on – I can’t fix those.
So we can forget about the past.
As for the future, you and you alone can decide what you’re going to do with it. You’re reading this book and you’re doing the crunches in your mind, looking forward to being the next person to smoke me as we head toward the finish line at the Chicago Triathlon. You’re seeing yourself there waving at my family and friends, maybe pumping your fist a little, getting a few strides ahead of the guy in the yellow shirt. And yes, that scenario’s entirely possible. Another scenario is you reading this book and staying motivated for three days, or two weeks, or three months. And at that point, it doesn’t matter how fast you were GOING to be at the race where you were going to outrun me. You lost because you never showed up.
So if we knock out the past and we knock out the future, we’re only left with the present. And the present is not always your friend. The present is where the meeting runs late, and the kids have stuff to do after school, and you don’t have time to exercise in the morning because you didn’t get to sleep until 1 the night before, and there’s just no time. There’s an old saying, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.”
Here’s a good example of the present. Do you know who said this?
“He’d always say “Tomorrow. I’m going to start tomorrow, doc, I know what I have to do and I’m going to start tomorrow.”
The quote was Dr. Michael Newman. He was Tim Russert’s doctor. Now Mr. Russert was in the middle of covering an election of momentous significance. He had said three weeks earlier that Barack Obama would be the Democratic nominee. This was the year that EVERYONE was interested in his field of expertise. The young people who had abandoned politics in droves were involved again, more so than ever.
And he was gone. The reason we know about that quote was Tim Russert’s doctor was on NBC News telling us about it after he’d died of a heart attack.
And that’s just his career, which I’m sure as important as it was and as talented as he was, wasn’t the most important thing in his life. He had a son who just graduated from college. Luke Russert had a national radio program and had shown some interest in working in journalism. You think Mr. Russert – who had written two books on the importance of the relationship of his own father – would have liked to have been around to offer similar guidance to his son?
But that’s OK. He had tomorrow to do it. So do you, right? You can’t die now, with all of these obligations and people to care about. Not you.
Bullshit. You know the answer.
You’ve got right now.
But maybe you’re not worried that you’re going to die of a heart attack because you’re younger. They will invent some pill that will allow you to eat chicken wings at 11 at night and you have nothing to worry about. That’s a great idea. And I can assure you, there are researchers looking at it even as we speak. In fact, let me give you a few names:
Fen-Phen
Ephedra
Hydroxycut
Redux
Those WERE the pills, people. Do you know what they did? They KILLED some people when they took them. Those people who were desperately trying to get skinny and not have a heart attack? Bad news. It happened anyway. And it happened faster than it needed to because when given the choice between working hard and taking pills, they thought the easy way wouldn’t kill them.
Now I’m not exempting myself from this level of stupidity. I’ve taken ephedra in the beginning and found it to be effective, but I could understand where it was not a good idea. I’ve taken Redline, drank a whole lot of black coffee, and done other things with my workout program that while they may have been legal, they may not always have been considered safe. I can assure you, though, that those were not the choices that allowed me to lose the weight in the first place.
What I had to learn early on, though, was that there would be days where I was not perfect, where I desperately wanted food that was awful for me, where I didn’t want to put my body through yet another workout, where life would intervene. And it was only when I acknowledged my humanity that I succeeded.
Too many people start that diet with one last blowout meal, sometimes even a few days of them, before they finally decide to get it started. This is like a NASCAR driver showing up to a race and deliberately letting the air out of his tires before beginning. Look, your goal is not to create any more negative past. You are merely sabotaging yourself when you do this. If you’ve decided that this is the direction you’re going, don’t start it off with one more empty “tomorrow for sure.”
You don’t know if you have tomorrow - you’ve got right now! So let me explain what I mean by “acknowledging your humanity.”
Too often our belief is that dieting has to be absolutely perfect or it isn’t going to work. That the only way that the weight is going to disappear is if we eat nothing but carrots and celery sticks and drink nothing with more calories than Crystal Light, to work out three times a day and swear off anything that may ever have been considered delicious.
Well, I have a serious issue with this. I’m a human being, and therefore I will make mistakes. I also love food and wine and laughter and fun. Many of my mistakes will revolve around these things. But if given the choice between being absolutely perfect and saying “no” to anything that isn’t in a very narrow range of my diet, all of the time – or every once in a while treating myself to something that’s not necessarily good for me but makes me smile, knowing that it might take one more day or another week to get where I want to go – I take the second option. Your life and mine is a series of choices just like this; how you manage them will determine your results.
Now I don’t take the second option every time. When you get on these sorts of missions to change yourself, and I’ve been on mine for nearly four and a half years, frequent exercise and watching your diet becomes a significant part your life. I have friends of mine who realize that, “Wow, you look GREAT!! How did you DO it?” and “Are you SURE you don’t want any onion rings?” are questions that answer each other.
And I also had people who liked asking, “When are you going to slow down?” “When is this going to stop?” and “When are you going to give this up?” They have moved on.
I – like them – have realized, you’ve got right now.
Writing Project Update
Words this week: 4500. Significant progress on the fitness book, which I'm tentatively titling "You've Got Right Now: Losing Weight and Getting Fit in the Real World."
Responses to last week's topic: 5.
This week's entries: 5 (Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam) asking questions about various aspects of US History. You'll want to go the to 6:19 mark of this video to see what my response is to that.
This week's question: There's only one question this week, but this time YOU'RE going to answer it.
I'm posting an excerpt from an early chapter of You've Got Right Now. If you're a Slaughterhouse reader, you may or may not know that over the past four years, I've lost 114 pounds. No drugs, no surgery, just a process that changed how I think about the relationship between food, and exercise, and life. I alluded to this philosophy in the Silverman movie, but I'm pretty certain that I can turn this into a book.
It will be well-researched and comprehensive. It will take a good bit of time to write, but as opposed to thinking about three projects at once, this will be the one project I stay with, and I will hammer at it until it's a manuscript. I think with what I've accomplished I've earned the right to write about how I did it, because I think I can help people. I'm shooting for Thanksgiving to have a first draft of it finished.
Here's the deal: if you read this, tell me what you think at either slaughterhouse@jameslyden.com or james@jameslyden.com. I know some of you see this on Facebook; you're under no obligation to comment there unless you want to. Even if you send me an email that says "Not interested; not my thing," I'll understand. If you have any suggestions or ways that I can look at this a little bit differently, from drastic oversights to a better title, I understand that too and would appreciate your feedback. While the book is not a democracy, I'm interested in helping people and hearing what you have to say.
Thank you for your consideration.
Responses to last week's topic: 5.
This week's entries: 5 (Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam) asking questions about various aspects of US History. You'll want to go the to 6:19 mark of this video to see what my response is to that.
This week's question: There's only one question this week, but this time YOU'RE going to answer it.
I'm posting an excerpt from an early chapter of You've Got Right Now. If you're a Slaughterhouse reader, you may or may not know that over the past four years, I've lost 114 pounds. No drugs, no surgery, just a process that changed how I think about the relationship between food, and exercise, and life. I alluded to this philosophy in the Silverman movie, but I'm pretty certain that I can turn this into a book.
It will be well-researched and comprehensive. It will take a good bit of time to write, but as opposed to thinking about three projects at once, this will be the one project I stay with, and I will hammer at it until it's a manuscript. I think with what I've accomplished I've earned the right to write about how I did it, because I think I can help people. I'm shooting for Thanksgiving to have a first draft of it finished.
Here's the deal: if you read this, tell me what you think at either slaughterhouse@jameslyden.com or james@jameslyden.com. I know some of you see this on Facebook; you're under no obligation to comment there unless you want to. Even if you send me an email that says "Not interested; not my thing," I'll understand. If you have any suggestions or ways that I can look at this a little bit differently, from drastic oversights to a better title, I understand that too and would appreciate your feedback. While the book is not a democracy, I'm interested in helping people and hearing what you have to say.
Thank you for your consideration.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Slaughterhouse 28
START TIME: 9:15 PM
END TIME: 10:30
WORD COUNT: 637
What is the role of US firearms in Latin American Politics in the 20th Century? –Sam Gold
Fellow Space Monkey Sam Gold pointed out to me this week that in many of the conflicts in Latin America during the 20th Century, the United States had armed both sides – Batista and Castro in Cuba as well as a number of uprisings owing to rural revolts.
At first I thought this was one of those interesting tidbits that you always hear regarding war, such as the rule of thumb that the country who is going to win the war has the worst coffee (it speaks to a level of luxury among a citizenry that could be called upon to defend themselves and their leadership; good coffee means you have a standard of living that you may be unwilling to sacrifice your life for) or Thomas Friedman’s “The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention” in which he observed that no two countries with a McDonald's franchise had ever gone to war with one another (this theory was blown to bits during the NATO bombing of Serbia, but it’s also more dependent on the more nebulous definition of war)
But then I thought about it a little more, and I realized that the weapons themselves were probably secondary to our foreign policy regarding Latin America during the 20th century. I had to do some light Wikipedia-ish reading on this because I hadn’t paid sufficient attention to these sorts of topics when they emerged in my AP Comparative Government class, but everybody’s pal Teddy Roosevelt elected to take up the white man’s burden by establishing the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which provided for the defense of Latin America, as well as openly granted the United States to power of intervention in Latin America’s affairs.
So if you factor in the idea that, right or wrong, the march through the cold war consisted of rural areas rising up to take on the established military juntas; the suppliers of arms in these conflicts had to be from whoever the nearest and most reliable provider was. In nearly every instance that would have been the United States. To say that US firearms meant we had a puppet-master like desire to control Latin America…well, yeah, but it stretched far beyond our desire to have them shoot each other with our stuff.
We installed right-wing dictators to battle insurgent communists and when some of those people proved insufficiently pliant, we bumped them off (which is why we won’t see that Henry Kissinger jetting overseas anytime soon, because a Spanish court would like to ask him a couple questions about excessively ventilated, popularly elected left-wing Salvador Allende). Over a century we behaved only slightly better than the Spanish Empire that used to control the entire region before the Spanish-American War. Hundreds of thousands of people simply disappeared. The whole story is sordid and highly unflattering, particularly on the eve of America’s birthday, as the kids remind me. Our attempts to establish a set of colonies without being colonizers did not always leave us on the side of the angels. Against this backdrop, it’s easy to allude to the use of American ordnance as the countries waged a dirty war against each other as prima facie evidence of Krushcchev’s rantings of capitalism selling itself the noose to hang itself with.
I liken the whole situation to soda fountain licensing. Lewis Black talked about, when he was doing a show in Atlanta, the soft drink people lock up category exclusivity, so if you walk into a restaurant and ask for Pepsi, and they don’t carry it, no one starts ranting about how they’ll go across the street instead. I figured both rebel and puppet government grabbed US firearms for the same reason people order popcorn at the movies; because it’s there, it’s easy, and it would be more of a surprise if it WASN’T there.
END TIME: 10:30
WORD COUNT: 637
What is the role of US firearms in Latin American Politics in the 20th Century? –Sam Gold
Fellow Space Monkey Sam Gold pointed out to me this week that in many of the conflicts in Latin America during the 20th Century, the United States had armed both sides – Batista and Castro in Cuba as well as a number of uprisings owing to rural revolts.
At first I thought this was one of those interesting tidbits that you always hear regarding war, such as the rule of thumb that the country who is going to win the war has the worst coffee (it speaks to a level of luxury among a citizenry that could be called upon to defend themselves and their leadership; good coffee means you have a standard of living that you may be unwilling to sacrifice your life for) or Thomas Friedman’s “The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention” in which he observed that no two countries with a McDonald's franchise had ever gone to war with one another (this theory was blown to bits during the NATO bombing of Serbia, but it’s also more dependent on the more nebulous definition of war)
But then I thought about it a little more, and I realized that the weapons themselves were probably secondary to our foreign policy regarding Latin America during the 20th century. I had to do some light Wikipedia-ish reading on this because I hadn’t paid sufficient attention to these sorts of topics when they emerged in my AP Comparative Government class, but everybody’s pal Teddy Roosevelt elected to take up the white man’s burden by establishing the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which provided for the defense of Latin America, as well as openly granted the United States to power of intervention in Latin America’s affairs.
So if you factor in the idea that, right or wrong, the march through the cold war consisted of rural areas rising up to take on the established military juntas; the suppliers of arms in these conflicts had to be from whoever the nearest and most reliable provider was. In nearly every instance that would have been the United States. To say that US firearms meant we had a puppet-master like desire to control Latin America…well, yeah, but it stretched far beyond our desire to have them shoot each other with our stuff.
We installed right-wing dictators to battle insurgent communists and when some of those people proved insufficiently pliant, we bumped them off (which is why we won’t see that Henry Kissinger jetting overseas anytime soon, because a Spanish court would like to ask him a couple questions about excessively ventilated, popularly elected left-wing Salvador Allende). Over a century we behaved only slightly better than the Spanish Empire that used to control the entire region before the Spanish-American War. Hundreds of thousands of people simply disappeared. The whole story is sordid and highly unflattering, particularly on the eve of America’s birthday, as the kids remind me. Our attempts to establish a set of colonies without being colonizers did not always leave us on the side of the angels. Against this backdrop, it’s easy to allude to the use of American ordnance as the countries waged a dirty war against each other as prima facie evidence of Krushcchev’s rantings of capitalism selling itself the noose to hang itself with.
I liken the whole situation to soda fountain licensing. Lewis Black talked about, when he was doing a show in Atlanta, the soft drink people lock up category exclusivity, so if you walk into a restaurant and ask for Pepsi, and they don’t carry it, no one starts ranting about how they’ll go across the street instead. I figured both rebel and puppet government grabbed US firearms for the same reason people order popcorn at the movies; because it’s there, it’s easy, and it would be more of a surprise if it WASN’T there.
Writing Project Update
Words this week: 400, tops. I was busy doing everything but writing this past week. I couldn’t even tell you where those words went. Momma said there’d be days like this. (Mom also wondered why I haven’t been published yet…thanks Mom!)
Responses to last week's topic: 2.
This week's entries: 7 (Sam, Sam, Sam, Ken, Ken, Beth, Beth) Sam used the “Silver Bullet” approach of sending the same question three times over the space of 30 seconds. As you can see, this is going to be a MAJOR change of pace, but let’s slug it out anyway. Life can’t always be fun and games, and if I wanted to write what I wanted to I should have dragged out an excerpt.
This week's question: What is the role of US firearms in Latin American Politics in the 20th Century?
Ain’t this a beauty?
500 WORDS ON THIS TOPIC DUE BY: 7/3-7/4 midnight Friday/Saturday
Responses to last week's topic: 2.
This week's entries: 7 (Sam, Sam, Sam, Ken, Ken, Beth, Beth) Sam used the “Silver Bullet” approach of sending the same question three times over the space of 30 seconds. As you can see, this is going to be a MAJOR change of pace, but let’s slug it out anyway. Life can’t always be fun and games, and if I wanted to write what I wanted to I should have dragged out an excerpt.
This week's question: What is the role of US firearms in Latin American Politics in the 20th Century?
Ain’t this a beauty?
500 WORDS ON THIS TOPIC DUE BY: 7/3-7/4 midnight Friday/Saturday
Friday, June 26, 2009
Slaughterhouse 27
Start time: 7:48 PM
End time: 11:39 PM (got to meet up with friends, so I started early and closed late after a 3.5 hour break)
Word count: 590, not counting the hyperlink and intro
Your birthday is Tuesday, so how would you choose to spend it? - Ken Faikus
The man's right. In four days, God willing, I'll turn 34. (For some details on what I thought about birthdays in general, check out Slaughterhouse 21 at http://jameslyden.blogspot.com/2009/05/slaughterhouse-21.html.)
I would wake up early, around 7 or so, and head to the edge of the couch, because the sun would rise in such a place that the light would shine through the aquarium and create a rainbow on the wall behind it (1979-1992) unless I had a race the day before, which would be a reason to sleep (2008). I would go play tennis (1989) and would make sure to spend as much of the day possible outside. I would not work (1991-2002, 2004-2008) because it's not a day to be spent in those pursuits. I would check out my horoscope (1984-2008) and wonder about the days of the celebrities who had the same birthdays as mine (1986-2008). The main comparison would be to one Michael Gerard Tyson. A clear eyed assessment is done.
Midday would be dependent on the evening's plans. I might be unable to sleep on an airplane, wondering why in the hell I had to bring wire clippers, AAA batteries, and a baseball cap to France (2007), or driving a BMW Z3 convertible at 135 MPH towards Searchlight (2001), or browsing through Marie Laveau's voodoo shop in New Orleans (2000), or even swimming in the Caribbean after an all-day excursion around the pitons of St. Lucia (1999), or at an amusement park on a season pass (1995). The day may be more subdued, like heading to the movies for the first time in forever (2008) or playing basketball at Waiola Park (1993). One year it was a trip to the DMV for one of those coveted blue border driver’s licenses (1996) even though I hadn’t exactly had a problem procuring drinks beforehand, sometimes to excess (1995). If Brian was working, we’d try to meet for lunch (2001-2006, 2008)
But there would be a lot going on in the evening, and since everybody else would usually be working, I would need to be prepared early. Dinner was my choice, wherever I wanted it to be, so we were off to Giordano's (1985-1990) or, as I got older, J. Alexanders (1994) Riva (1997) or Gibsons (1996), where I had the great good fortune to see a horse-drawn carriage dragged down State Street at high speed after the right wheel had broken off. My memory for the look on the face of the couple being dragged before the carriage was spun into the back of a taxicab has kept me from ever setting foot into a hansom cab for 13 years and counting. There were always terrific crowds of friends at El Torito (1993) and Lalo's (1991-1992) and I always had a chance to spend time with my family. If I was in the country, they would either sing to me obnoxiously or call to do so, as would my aunt and uncle (1978-2008).
Nights consisted of miniature golf with wagering (1993), or Lyle Lovett in concert at Ravinia (2004), or walking through the rain on Bourbon Street (2000), or playing tennis on the side of the house and hoping not to be eaten alive by mosquitoes (1989). They’d also involved shots of tequila (1997) and illicitly imported Cuban cigars (1994) but one of the things I remember most clearly is driving home sometime in July after 3 in the morning, listening with a broad smile to Brian’s car playing “Today Was A Good Day” by Ice Cube (1993)
So, the key components are simple. Friends. Food. Laughter. If my years include those, I don’t care if I live to be a thousand; I’ll be just fine.
End time: 11:39 PM (got to meet up with friends, so I started early and closed late after a 3.5 hour break)
Word count: 590, not counting the hyperlink and intro
Your birthday is Tuesday, so how would you choose to spend it? - Ken Faikus
The man's right. In four days, God willing, I'll turn 34. (For some details on what I thought about birthdays in general, check out Slaughterhouse 21 at http://jameslyden.blogspot.com/2009/05/slaughterhouse-21.html.)
I would wake up early, around 7 or so, and head to the edge of the couch, because the sun would rise in such a place that the light would shine through the aquarium and create a rainbow on the wall behind it (1979-1992) unless I had a race the day before, which would be a reason to sleep (2008). I would go play tennis (1989) and would make sure to spend as much of the day possible outside. I would not work (1991-2002, 2004-2008) because it's not a day to be spent in those pursuits. I would check out my horoscope (1984-2008) and wonder about the days of the celebrities who had the same birthdays as mine (1986-2008). The main comparison would be to one Michael Gerard Tyson. A clear eyed assessment is done.
Midday would be dependent on the evening's plans. I might be unable to sleep on an airplane, wondering why in the hell I had to bring wire clippers, AAA batteries, and a baseball cap to France (2007), or driving a BMW Z3 convertible at 135 MPH towards Searchlight (2001), or browsing through Marie Laveau's voodoo shop in New Orleans (2000), or even swimming in the Caribbean after an all-day excursion around the pitons of St. Lucia (1999), or at an amusement park on a season pass (1995). The day may be more subdued, like heading to the movies for the first time in forever (2008) or playing basketball at Waiola Park (1993). One year it was a trip to the DMV for one of those coveted blue border driver’s licenses (1996) even though I hadn’t exactly had a problem procuring drinks beforehand, sometimes to excess (1995). If Brian was working, we’d try to meet for lunch (2001-2006, 2008)
But there would be a lot going on in the evening, and since everybody else would usually be working, I would need to be prepared early. Dinner was my choice, wherever I wanted it to be, so we were off to Giordano's (1985-1990) or, as I got older, J. Alexanders (1994) Riva (1997) or Gibsons (1996), where I had the great good fortune to see a horse-drawn carriage dragged down State Street at high speed after the right wheel had broken off. My memory for the look on the face of the couple being dragged before the carriage was spun into the back of a taxicab has kept me from ever setting foot into a hansom cab for 13 years and counting. There were always terrific crowds of friends at El Torito (1993) and Lalo's (1991-1992) and I always had a chance to spend time with my family. If I was in the country, they would either sing to me obnoxiously or call to do so, as would my aunt and uncle (1978-2008).
Nights consisted of miniature golf with wagering (1993), or Lyle Lovett in concert at Ravinia (2004), or walking through the rain on Bourbon Street (2000), or playing tennis on the side of the house and hoping not to be eaten alive by mosquitoes (1989). They’d also involved shots of tequila (1997) and illicitly imported Cuban cigars (1994) but one of the things I remember most clearly is driving home sometime in July after 3 in the morning, listening with a broad smile to Brian’s car playing “Today Was A Good Day” by Ice Cube (1993)
So, the key components are simple. Friends. Food. Laughter. If my years include those, I don’t care if I live to be a thousand; I’ll be just fine.
Writing Project Update
Words this week: 600 or so, varied media and some good summary ideas, but nothing to the projects in terms of raw word count, other than relaying an idea of about 200 words that will make the diet book.
Responses to last week's topic: 1
This week's entries: 2 (Ken, Ken)
This week's question: Your birthday is Tuesday, so how would you choose to spend it? - Ken Faikus
500 WORDS ON THIS TOPIC DUE BY: 6/26-27 midnight Friday/Saturday
Responses to last week's topic: 1
This week's entries: 2 (Ken, Ken)
This week's question: Your birthday is Tuesday, so how would you choose to spend it? - Ken Faikus
500 WORDS ON THIS TOPIC DUE BY: 6/26-27 midnight Friday/Saturday
Friday, June 19, 2009
Slaughterhouse 26
Slaughterhouse #26
START TIME: 9:46 PM
END TIME: 11:06 PM
WORD COUNT: 698
“So I was thinking, what if one of the best baseball prospects in the minors
was named Bartman and the Cubs had an option to sign him. Would they? What
position? Successful? Would he be on the team that actually took them to
and won a World Series? Would his decisive series play come in the same
game as the original Bartman incident? Would he have any relation to the
original Bartman?"
There were three people that popped into my head when I first saw this question.
The first was a young man named Jeffrey Maier, who was a 12-year-old Yankees fan who reached over the right field wall during Game 1 of the American League Championship Series in 1996 and deflected a ball into the stands. The play was called a home run for Derek Jeter and the Yankees went on to win the series. (Yes, this happened so long ago that the Orioles were actually contenders.)
So we have here a Bartmanesque character, though this one’s reach created a positive gain for the home team. The home run tied the game at 4 and the Yankees won in the 11th inning. The funny part was, there was some news drummed up in 2006, when he became the leading career hits leader in his university’s history and was featured on ESPN. Two sources reported Baltimore might draft him. This may be a match for the scenario described above.
The next person I thought of was last year’s Rookie of the Year, Evan Longoria. The guy hits 27 homers and bats .272 his rookie season with the Rays and they go to the World Series. Now, if his name was “Steve Longoria”, or hers was “Emily Longoria”, or even if she had the human compassion to change her FIRST name, rather than just tacking on Tony Parker’s surname, he wouldn’t have to hear a surfeit of jokes or awful Desperate Housewives puns. Anyone named Bartman would be better off pretending their middle name is their last name, and if there’s anyone by the name of Bartman playing in the majors now they have escaped the attention of Baseball Reference.
The third person was actor David Herman, who you probably know better as Michael Bolton in “Office Space,” who, when it was suggested he change his name, responded, “Why should I change it? He’s the one who sucks.”
So much of success in sport is based on confidence, and I would be willing to bet that anyone who could make it all the way up through the minors would have had to survive the inevitable, insufferable ESPN profile (you know Kenny Mayne is just licking his chops for the day something like this occurs), the jeers from fans, the night after night of the local sportscaster making leaden jokes, and still manage to overcome any of the million little things that affect an athlete would probably be a credit to whatever organization he wound up with.
I don’t think it could happen, though. I don’t think it could happen for the same reason that Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak won’t be broken. We are too immersed, too aware, and too bombarded by the opinions and summaries of others, furtively trying to explain what it all means. Joe D had the same group of a dozen or so newspaper guys. Their work showed up in the newspaper, and that was it. Now, with television everywhere – nowadays by the time someone gets to 30 there’s cameras at batting practice – there’s no way the process doesn’t interfere.
I wouldn’t see an MLB Bartman being related to our man in the blue sweatshirt. I think any hope of him being a baseball enthusiast in a normal manner has been dashed. If he ever has kids – and that’s really got to be the match.com profile of a lifetime – I could see him wanting to make them cage fighters or defensive tackles. I couldn’t think of anything crueler than having to sit at a Little League game and you hear your name, announced over the loudspeaker, and some bozo has to make a smart remark. About something you did by mistake 6 years ago. Position? He’d catch. (And when I thought of that I was thinking of the fact he’d wear equipment and feel sort of protected and concealed; but when I wrote it down I realized the heckles wrote themselves.)
Though personally, I’d love to see a line of Cubs jerseys that would be specifically sold to irritate Cubs fans – “SIANIS 45”, “BARTMAN 03”, “MAC 03”, or “CAT 69.” Then again, I’m a White Sox fan.
START TIME: 9:46 PM
END TIME: 11:06 PM
WORD COUNT: 698
“So I was thinking, what if one of the best baseball prospects in the minors
was named Bartman and the Cubs had an option to sign him. Would they? What
position? Successful? Would he be on the team that actually took them to
and won a World Series? Would his decisive series play come in the same
game as the original Bartman incident? Would he have any relation to the
original Bartman?"
There were three people that popped into my head when I first saw this question.
The first was a young man named Jeffrey Maier, who was a 12-year-old Yankees fan who reached over the right field wall during Game 1 of the American League Championship Series in 1996 and deflected a ball into the stands. The play was called a home run for Derek Jeter and the Yankees went on to win the series. (Yes, this happened so long ago that the Orioles were actually contenders.)
So we have here a Bartmanesque character, though this one’s reach created a positive gain for the home team. The home run tied the game at 4 and the Yankees won in the 11th inning. The funny part was, there was some news drummed up in 2006, when he became the leading career hits leader in his university’s history and was featured on ESPN. Two sources reported Baltimore might draft him. This may be a match for the scenario described above.
The next person I thought of was last year’s Rookie of the Year, Evan Longoria. The guy hits 27 homers and bats .272 his rookie season with the Rays and they go to the World Series. Now, if his name was “Steve Longoria”, or hers was “Emily Longoria”, or even if she had the human compassion to change her FIRST name, rather than just tacking on Tony Parker’s surname, he wouldn’t have to hear a surfeit of jokes or awful Desperate Housewives puns. Anyone named Bartman would be better off pretending their middle name is their last name, and if there’s anyone by the name of Bartman playing in the majors now they have escaped the attention of Baseball Reference.
The third person was actor David Herman, who you probably know better as Michael Bolton in “Office Space,” who, when it was suggested he change his name, responded, “Why should I change it? He’s the one who sucks.”
So much of success in sport is based on confidence, and I would be willing to bet that anyone who could make it all the way up through the minors would have had to survive the inevitable, insufferable ESPN profile (you know Kenny Mayne is just licking his chops for the day something like this occurs), the jeers from fans, the night after night of the local sportscaster making leaden jokes, and still manage to overcome any of the million little things that affect an athlete would probably be a credit to whatever organization he wound up with.
I don’t think it could happen, though. I don’t think it could happen for the same reason that Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak won’t be broken. We are too immersed, too aware, and too bombarded by the opinions and summaries of others, furtively trying to explain what it all means. Joe D had the same group of a dozen or so newspaper guys. Their work showed up in the newspaper, and that was it. Now, with television everywhere – nowadays by the time someone gets to 30 there’s cameras at batting practice – there’s no way the process doesn’t interfere.
I wouldn’t see an MLB Bartman being related to our man in the blue sweatshirt. I think any hope of him being a baseball enthusiast in a normal manner has been dashed. If he ever has kids – and that’s really got to be the match.com profile of a lifetime – I could see him wanting to make them cage fighters or defensive tackles. I couldn’t think of anything crueler than having to sit at a Little League game and you hear your name, announced over the loudspeaker, and some bozo has to make a smart remark. About something you did by mistake 6 years ago. Position? He’d catch. (And when I thought of that I was thinking of the fact he’d wear equipment and feel sort of protected and concealed; but when I wrote it down I realized the heckles wrote themselves.)
Though personally, I’d love to see a line of Cubs jerseys that would be specifically sold to irritate Cubs fans – “SIANIS 45”, “BARTMAN 03”, “MAC 03”, or “CAT 69.” Then again, I’m a White Sox fan.
Writing Project Update
Words this week: Maybe 1000 or so. There were a bunch, but nothing that you could call productive from a literary standpoint. There was a lot of training this week and a lot of stuff that will wind up in that book, but nothing I've had a chance to write about yet.
Responses to last week's topic: 1, along with responses to the past few weeks. It's been up and down, I know. I appreciate your following along.
This week's entries: 4 (Beth, Brian, Brian and Beth)
This week's question: This week's question was a little bit interesting, because the Slaughterhouse inbox was cc'd on another topic. Since the rule is 3rd email, here was Beth's question:
"This time of year always gets my baseball brain working, and... this may be
blending two worlds and violating some process rules, but I am offering up
this question to Slaughterhouse and the group at large...
It comes from a place of love and not meant to be obnoxious (sincerely,
Brian. Not meant to antagonize...)
Listening to sports talk radio and my children screaming, I heard scouting
reports and they were talking about a prospect named, Bartman. I think it
might have been football.
So I was thinking, what if one of the best baseball prospects in the minors
was named Bartman and the Cubs had an option to sign him. Would they? What
position? Successful? Would he be on the team that actually took them to
and won a World Series? Would his decisive series play come in the same
game as the original Bartman incident? Would he have any relation to the
original Bartman?"
Spickinawhich, when it comes to "process rules," there AIN'T no rules. Only rule is third one in the Inbox. Unless I call auction or something else, there's no rules at all for submissions - send them to slaughterhouse@jameslyden.com. Thank you!
500 WORDS ON THIS TOPIC DUE BY: 6/19-20 midnight Friday/Saturday
Responses to last week's topic: 1, along with responses to the past few weeks. It's been up and down, I know. I appreciate your following along.
This week's entries: 4 (Beth, Brian, Brian and Beth)
This week's question: This week's question was a little bit interesting, because the Slaughterhouse inbox was cc'd on another topic. Since the rule is 3rd email, here was Beth's question:
"This time of year always gets my baseball brain working, and... this may be
blending two worlds and violating some process rules, but I am offering up
this question to Slaughterhouse and the group at large...
It comes from a place of love and not meant to be obnoxious (sincerely,
Brian. Not meant to antagonize...)
Listening to sports talk radio and my children screaming, I heard scouting
reports and they were talking about a prospect named, Bartman. I think it
might have been football.
So I was thinking, what if one of the best baseball prospects in the minors
was named Bartman and the Cubs had an option to sign him. Would they? What
position? Successful? Would he be on the team that actually took them to
and won a World Series? Would his decisive series play come in the same
game as the original Bartman incident? Would he have any relation to the
original Bartman?"
Spickinawhich, when it comes to "process rules," there AIN'T no rules. Only rule is third one in the Inbox. Unless I call auction or something else, there's no rules at all for submissions - send them to slaughterhouse@jameslyden.com. Thank you!
500 WORDS ON THIS TOPIC DUE BY: 6/19-20 midnight Friday/Saturday
Friday, June 12, 2009
Slaughterhouse 25
START TIME: 9:56 PM
END TIME: 10:58 PM
WORD COUNT: 679
This week's question: "What non-essential item would you like to have had credit for inventing?" - Beth Badrov
I’ve always been fascinated by inventions, and more specifically, the future. Whenever I’m feeling a little too beat up by the workplace, I can look at the little blue USB Flash drive I have on my desk that’s solely for running virus updates and definitions back and forth between my desk and a secure server located in a secure cage in a secure facility. I realize that on that little amulet, I can wear around my neck more storage capacity than all of mankind had available 40 years ago. (In addition, these are now available at 64 times the size that drive can contain, and it’s only two years old.) What cheers me up about this is not the sneaker net process; it’s the idea that in a very short amount of time I’m going to see something else that makes me smack my forehead and wonder what we’ll get to see next.
But flash drives are slick, and technology is going to make even those items seem kludgy and bulky before my son’s old enough to drive. I would have liked to take credit for one invention, one that I appreciate more now considering my current location than nearly any other.
I would have liked to have been Willis Carrier, the father of modern air conditioning.
Think of how many inventions there are that legitimately change the world, things that we have absolutely no substitute for. You may think of things like vaccines, and while I’d certainly consider that an amazing achievement, human beings would contract another disease. You can hold up the automobile and I could point at horses and streetcars. You can look at the telephone and I can point to a Morse code machine or the smartphone in my pocket. (It’s probably my grandchildren who will one day look at a Bell rotary handset, the big heavy telephones with the clear red plastic hold buttons and inserts where you could type in the lines, and wonder why you can’t use it to get driving directions.) But I would argue that Willis Carrier’s invention changed the entire world in ways more profound that we even realize.
First off, without air conditioning, America does not become the industrial powerhouse that gives us and, more to the point, the middle class the highest standard of living in the world. The ability to cool factories extended the workday and increased productivity during the summer months. When this was extended to a residential model in the 1920s, it made it possible for Americans to move away from the industrial cities of the North, thus paving the way for Miami, Los Angeles, and my current abode.
There are a lot of stores in the Chicago are which don’t have central air conditioning installed, maybe just a window unit over the front door. It was a revelation for me to come to the land of misters, of meat locker indoor temperatures, of air conditioning repair technicians advertising a one hour response. (It was probably an AC tech who zipped past me in the Rolls Royce the other day on the 215, and having spent a decade here, I can say without a second’s hesitation he deserved it.)
Air conditioning has changed how far we travel, how we live (skyscraper living could only be possible by taking advantage of the efficiency of large-scale chillers) and how we’re entertained (the popularity of movies owes a lot to air-conditioned theaters rising to prominence during the Great Depression, where most homes didn’t have air conditioning but the theaters could use it as a selling point that they did). But I think more than any of the other inventions that I considered, air conditioning confirmed that we could manipulate our environment for something beyond survival, but comfort. I think air conditioning is a greater indicator of modernity in a society than any other item (and I’m sure that there’s some old-school “Civilization” players who might argue with me), but I’d love to have changed the arc of the average citizen in the direction of being more comfortable.
END TIME: 10:58 PM
WORD COUNT: 679
This week's question: "What non-essential item would you like to have had credit for inventing?" - Beth Badrov
I’ve always been fascinated by inventions, and more specifically, the future. Whenever I’m feeling a little too beat up by the workplace, I can look at the little blue USB Flash drive I have on my desk that’s solely for running virus updates and definitions back and forth between my desk and a secure server located in a secure cage in a secure facility. I realize that on that little amulet, I can wear around my neck more storage capacity than all of mankind had available 40 years ago. (In addition, these are now available at 64 times the size that drive can contain, and it’s only two years old.) What cheers me up about this is not the sneaker net process; it’s the idea that in a very short amount of time I’m going to see something else that makes me smack my forehead and wonder what we’ll get to see next.
But flash drives are slick, and technology is going to make even those items seem kludgy and bulky before my son’s old enough to drive. I would have liked to take credit for one invention, one that I appreciate more now considering my current location than nearly any other.
I would have liked to have been Willis Carrier, the father of modern air conditioning.
Think of how many inventions there are that legitimately change the world, things that we have absolutely no substitute for. You may think of things like vaccines, and while I’d certainly consider that an amazing achievement, human beings would contract another disease. You can hold up the automobile and I could point at horses and streetcars. You can look at the telephone and I can point to a Morse code machine or the smartphone in my pocket. (It’s probably my grandchildren who will one day look at a Bell rotary handset, the big heavy telephones with the clear red plastic hold buttons and inserts where you could type in the lines, and wonder why you can’t use it to get driving directions.) But I would argue that Willis Carrier’s invention changed the entire world in ways more profound that we even realize.
First off, without air conditioning, America does not become the industrial powerhouse that gives us and, more to the point, the middle class the highest standard of living in the world. The ability to cool factories extended the workday and increased productivity during the summer months. When this was extended to a residential model in the 1920s, it made it possible for Americans to move away from the industrial cities of the North, thus paving the way for Miami, Los Angeles, and my current abode.
There are a lot of stores in the Chicago are which don’t have central air conditioning installed, maybe just a window unit over the front door. It was a revelation for me to come to the land of misters, of meat locker indoor temperatures, of air conditioning repair technicians advertising a one hour response. (It was probably an AC tech who zipped past me in the Rolls Royce the other day on the 215, and having spent a decade here, I can say without a second’s hesitation he deserved it.)
Air conditioning has changed how far we travel, how we live (skyscraper living could only be possible by taking advantage of the efficiency of large-scale chillers) and how we’re entertained (the popularity of movies owes a lot to air-conditioned theaters rising to prominence during the Great Depression, where most homes didn’t have air conditioning but the theaters could use it as a selling point that they did). But I think more than any of the other inventions that I considered, air conditioning confirmed that we could manipulate our environment for something beyond survival, but comfort. I think air conditioning is a greater indicator of modernity in a society than any other item (and I’m sure that there’s some old-school “Civilization” players who might argue with me), but I’d love to have changed the arc of the average citizen in the direction of being more comfortable.
Writing Project Update
Words this week: About 5000, with 3500 of them on last Saturday's soccer game, which is going to be an Implosion chapter. If you haven't seen it yet - an honest-to-God excerpt that's actually happy - check it out here.
Now theoretically, this means that I've handed out an excerpt and I can send everybody home. But I can't resist doing these anymore. I love getting the topics and I love working quickly, next to no research, completely without a net. I like starting arguments and hearing back from people, and I think I'm getting better at organizing my thoughts, figuring out who my reader is, and working fast. And - in a development I'm stunned by and grateful for - I have followers. Thank you all for everything.
Responses to last week's topic: 3, and all of them were positive, even though I hated it. Some nights I finish these and I'm glad I broke the tape. Some nights I read them a couple of times and play with the words while I'm reading them aloud, some nights I know I've done what I wanted to do and take an admiring step back, and some nights I hate them. This was one of those I hated.
This week's entries: 4 (Beth, Beth, Beth, and Beth)
This week's question: "What non-essential item would you like to have had credit for inventing?" - Beth Badrov
500 WORDS ON THIS TOPIC DUE BY: 6/12-13 midnight Friday/Saturday
Now theoretically, this means that I've handed out an excerpt and I can send everybody home. But I can't resist doing these anymore. I love getting the topics and I love working quickly, next to no research, completely without a net. I like starting arguments and hearing back from people, and I think I'm getting better at organizing my thoughts, figuring out who my reader is, and working fast. And - in a development I'm stunned by and grateful for - I have followers. Thank you all for everything.
Responses to last week's topic: 3, and all of them were positive, even though I hated it. Some nights I finish these and I'm glad I broke the tape. Some nights I read them a couple of times and play with the words while I'm reading them aloud, some nights I know I've done what I wanted to do and take an admiring step back, and some nights I hate them. This was one of those I hated.
This week's entries: 4 (Beth, Beth, Beth, and Beth)
This week's question: "What non-essential item would you like to have had credit for inventing?" - Beth Badrov
500 WORDS ON THIS TOPIC DUE BY: 6/12-13 midnight Friday/Saturday
Friday, June 05, 2009
Slaughterhouse 24
START TIME: 9:32
END TIME: 10:48
WORD COUNT: 548
Question: “What is ‘normal’?”
The hack thing to do would be to stroll over to dictionary.com and play cut and paste. These are fast and occasionally sloppy and disjointed, but I’m not a hack. If you don’t know what normal is and you want the easy definition, I’ll pause for a moment while you look it up.
I think normal is the enemy of interesting, the equivalent of plain, and yet still something worthy of aspiration. As a personality trait, it can either be an insult or a compliment.
Normal is coloring within the lines, driving the speed limit or right up against it, not because of a posted sign but because that’s what feels right. Normal is not sticking out in any manner, neutral shades against a riot of color, all peaceful white noise in front of a backdrop of every imaginable sound, from the cacophonous to the sublime.
There’s something about you that isn’t normal, and believe me, everyone around you is acutely aware of what it is. From how you look to what you do to how you talk or what you feel, the odds are pretty much a stone cold lock that it’s something the people around you could recognize. Could imitate. All of us, as human beings, start out as a little gob of meiotic cells that by every appearance is normal. The vinyl circle gets embossed with thousands of groves that turn two ounces of plastic into the Temptations. Or Tina Turner. Or the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Our grooves are DNA, and I guess “normal” is what makes up the canvas.
I don’t think I know anyone who’s “normal” as I don’t think that any of us are. I don’t run into a preponderance of abnormal people, but all of the people I interact with on a daily basis are normal enough to not be considered insane or troubled, but not so unusual that there’s orderlies with butterfly nets, chasing after them while they’re clad in a hospital gown.
And if the opposite of normal is considered crazy, or flawed, or imperfect, I happen to know a lot more people along those lines; does their existence as a majority make THEM normal, like a class-action kind of normalcy? Does normal get defined in increasingly smaller, concentric circles, so that the Venn diagram that makes me normal among my friends and family makes me abnormal by the standards of others? I write. I ride bicycles. I like pommes frites and an analgesic painkiller called Biofreeze. How many people are in that particular intersection of circles? That’s my normal, but I don’t think that’s the normal for a lot of other people.
So ultimately, I think trying to define what is “normal” without conext is the same as trying to define what is “blue” without context. What kind of blue are we talking? NO adjectives! Is it blue like the Cubs’ jerseys or blue like the Lions’ logo? Blue like the sky or blue like a cobalt glass vase? There’s so many variants that the word needs some help.
So with that, Nancy, I apologize; the definition was atrocious. The only thing that you can take away from this is the ability to say, “I asked him what “normal” was and he couldn’t answer it.”
END TIME: 10:48
WORD COUNT: 548
Question: “What is ‘normal’?”
The hack thing to do would be to stroll over to dictionary.com and play cut and paste. These are fast and occasionally sloppy and disjointed, but I’m not a hack. If you don’t know what normal is and you want the easy definition, I’ll pause for a moment while you look it up.
I think normal is the enemy of interesting, the equivalent of plain, and yet still something worthy of aspiration. As a personality trait, it can either be an insult or a compliment.
Normal is coloring within the lines, driving the speed limit or right up against it, not because of a posted sign but because that’s what feels right. Normal is not sticking out in any manner, neutral shades against a riot of color, all peaceful white noise in front of a backdrop of every imaginable sound, from the cacophonous to the sublime.
There’s something about you that isn’t normal, and believe me, everyone around you is acutely aware of what it is. From how you look to what you do to how you talk or what you feel, the odds are pretty much a stone cold lock that it’s something the people around you could recognize. Could imitate. All of us, as human beings, start out as a little gob of meiotic cells that by every appearance is normal. The vinyl circle gets embossed with thousands of groves that turn two ounces of plastic into the Temptations. Or Tina Turner. Or the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Our grooves are DNA, and I guess “normal” is what makes up the canvas.
I don’t think I know anyone who’s “normal” as I don’t think that any of us are. I don’t run into a preponderance of abnormal people, but all of the people I interact with on a daily basis are normal enough to not be considered insane or troubled, but not so unusual that there’s orderlies with butterfly nets, chasing after them while they’re clad in a hospital gown.
And if the opposite of normal is considered crazy, or flawed, or imperfect, I happen to know a lot more people along those lines; does their existence as a majority make THEM normal, like a class-action kind of normalcy? Does normal get defined in increasingly smaller, concentric circles, so that the Venn diagram that makes me normal among my friends and family makes me abnormal by the standards of others? I write. I ride bicycles. I like pommes frites and an analgesic painkiller called Biofreeze. How many people are in that particular intersection of circles? That’s my normal, but I don’t think that’s the normal for a lot of other people.
So ultimately, I think trying to define what is “normal” without conext is the same as trying to define what is “blue” without context. What kind of blue are we talking? NO adjectives! Is it blue like the Cubs’ jerseys or blue like the Lions’ logo? Blue like the sky or blue like a cobalt glass vase? There’s so many variants that the word needs some help.
So with that, Nancy, I apologize; the definition was atrocious. The only thing that you can take away from this is the ability to say, “I asked him what “normal” was and he couldn’t answer it.”
Writing Project Update
Words this week: Around 1500 on a number of topics, none of them germane to sharing. There's been a lot of training this week but these Friday nights have kept me from dropping the other projects to concentrate too exclusively on exercise. Thank you all for your feedback and encouragement.
Responses to last week's topic: 0.
This week's entries: 4 (Ken, Ken, Nancy, Nancy)
This week's question: "What is "normal"?" - Nancy Beagle
500 WORDS ON THIS TOPIC DUE BY: 6/5-6 midnight Friday/Saturday
Responses to last week's topic: 0.
This week's entries: 4 (Ken, Ken, Nancy, Nancy)
This week's question: "What is "normal"?" - Nancy Beagle
500 WORDS ON THIS TOPIC DUE BY: 6/5-6 midnight Friday/Saturday
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Slaughterhouse 23 - The Vacation Edition
Start time: 10:27 AM CDT
End time: 11:28 AM CDT
Word count: 986 (Composed entirely on my Blackberry.)
"Write a commencement address." -Ken Faikus
Good morning graduates, distinguished educators, long-suffering parents, proud families and honored guests.
I am proud to be given the privilege to address you today. There are several reasons this honor is typically bestowed on someone who did not graduate from the institution they are speaking at, and to the best of my knowledge, they are as follows:
One, there is a cardboard scale model of a building in the administration office that is soon to bear the speaker's name.
Two, the speaker has a unique life experience to impart to the leaders of tomorrow with a mind, and usually a face, buffeted by the cruel winds of fate, experience, and reality.
Three, the speaker is someone of sufficient celebrity to merit inclusion on the commencement montage during the Friday nightly newscast.
I stand before you as none of these things. Frankly, I stand before you mystified as to why I was chosen for such a prestigious honor. What wisdom could I import to you? What can I tell you about the most important things that I've learned, that will not cause you to shake your heads and mutter, "Wow, dude, I'm never giving a dime to that endowment campaign."?
My answer to you is this.
We are all, each and every one of us, on a Japanese bullet train towards Death. We don't know where the last stop is or how soon it's coming, but it's there. Sooner or later, every one of us gets off the train, but the train keeps moving, back and forth.
I hate to focus on mortality at such a festive occasion, but you're celebrating a major milestone today. So if life is a ride on a Japanese bullet train (and the exact word is "shinkansen", but I'm as illiterate in Japanese as I am in every language that isn't English) make sure that you stop to recognize the importance of the time between.
You're in America, so many of you have probably flown on airplanes. I live in Las Vegas. And one of the runways there runs parallel to Sunset Road and is lined with palm trees. When I took my first trip out there I was 21, and when the plane landed and I looked to my left, I saw those trees by the dozens and realized I was in a very different place than home. But when I saw the one tree with the top of it bound up, since it had just been planted, even as we're landing at 200 miles an hour I was turning my head and trying to figure it out. Obviously being from Chicago didn't give me a lot of insight into what palm trees looked like when they were planted.
Once I lost sight of it the rest of those toothpicks just flew by, and we were at the gate. One long stream of same with just that little bit of difference.
And that's what you need to look for. That one little variant, that one person who you notice, that one thing that sticks out. Find what's interesting on your surroundings and I can guarantee you will never be bored-and in an age dominated by so many avenues of leisure and so many ways to distract yourself, that's better than any other insight I can give you.
The other important thing to remember, part of the reason that new palm tree was so interesting to me was not only that I'd never seen one like that before, I'd just been up in the air for four hours above clouds and would have considered nearly anything to be interesting. I will tell you this as a young person and you'll laugh, but after a marriage, a job, a kid, you'll understand; value the quiet. It's when you can think for a little bit, escape in a book for a little bit, lose yourself for a little bit. As the world creeps in around you one of the first things to go is that freedom. Hang onto it if you can.
As your journey continues you'll figure more of it out, like where the dining car is and why some stations have people to push you onto the train and jam everyone in as tight as sardines. Some of you have overcome tremendous obstacles to be here, and all of you no doubt face many more, but tell the people who matter to you that you love them; you don't know when their next stop is.
As the non-rich, non-famous, minimal-wisdom guy speaking to you today, all I can ask is for you to live as if there's a better tomorrow that we all have to share. There is a place in this world for optimism and cynicism and skepticism and atheism and baptism and little kids who sing Christmas carols off key. A well developed sense of humor will get you through everything, and a poorly defined version of irony will make you wealthy and famous, as long as you're Alanis Morrisette.
And with that, our common experience comes to a close. You look at the woman next to you; she's going to start the next social networking fad. The weird looking kid on the aisle? He's got two chords in his head that could change the world and he MIGHT find the third one in the next decade. The guy three rows in front of you - he's going to start the next Enron and probably head to federal prison. Look up here at me; I'm going to be on a plane in three hours looking for the next palm tree, and hoping to God my luggage came along for the ride.
Before I stop speaking, I'd like you to take a second, close your eyes tightly, and make sure to commit this moment to memory. This achievement belongs to you for the rest of your life.
Congratulations to you all.
End time: 11:28 AM CDT
Word count: 986 (Composed entirely on my Blackberry.)
"Write a commencement address." -Ken Faikus
Good morning graduates, distinguished educators, long-suffering parents, proud families and honored guests.
I am proud to be given the privilege to address you today. There are several reasons this honor is typically bestowed on someone who did not graduate from the institution they are speaking at, and to the best of my knowledge, they are as follows:
One, there is a cardboard scale model of a building in the administration office that is soon to bear the speaker's name.
Two, the speaker has a unique life experience to impart to the leaders of tomorrow with a mind, and usually a face, buffeted by the cruel winds of fate, experience, and reality.
Three, the speaker is someone of sufficient celebrity to merit inclusion on the commencement montage during the Friday nightly newscast.
I stand before you as none of these things. Frankly, I stand before you mystified as to why I was chosen for such a prestigious honor. What wisdom could I import to you? What can I tell you about the most important things that I've learned, that will not cause you to shake your heads and mutter, "Wow, dude, I'm never giving a dime to that endowment campaign."?
My answer to you is this.
We are all, each and every one of us, on a Japanese bullet train towards Death. We don't know where the last stop is or how soon it's coming, but it's there. Sooner or later, every one of us gets off the train, but the train keeps moving, back and forth.
I hate to focus on mortality at such a festive occasion, but you're celebrating a major milestone today. So if life is a ride on a Japanese bullet train (and the exact word is "shinkansen", but I'm as illiterate in Japanese as I am in every language that isn't English) make sure that you stop to recognize the importance of the time between.
You're in America, so many of you have probably flown on airplanes. I live in Las Vegas. And one of the runways there runs parallel to Sunset Road and is lined with palm trees. When I took my first trip out there I was 21, and when the plane landed and I looked to my left, I saw those trees by the dozens and realized I was in a very different place than home. But when I saw the one tree with the top of it bound up, since it had just been planted, even as we're landing at 200 miles an hour I was turning my head and trying to figure it out. Obviously being from Chicago didn't give me a lot of insight into what palm trees looked like when they were planted.
Once I lost sight of it the rest of those toothpicks just flew by, and we were at the gate. One long stream of same with just that little bit of difference.
And that's what you need to look for. That one little variant, that one person who you notice, that one thing that sticks out. Find what's interesting on your surroundings and I can guarantee you will never be bored-and in an age dominated by so many avenues of leisure and so many ways to distract yourself, that's better than any other insight I can give you.
The other important thing to remember, part of the reason that new palm tree was so interesting to me was not only that I'd never seen one like that before, I'd just been up in the air for four hours above clouds and would have considered nearly anything to be interesting. I will tell you this as a young person and you'll laugh, but after a marriage, a job, a kid, you'll understand; value the quiet. It's when you can think for a little bit, escape in a book for a little bit, lose yourself for a little bit. As the world creeps in around you one of the first things to go is that freedom. Hang onto it if you can.
As your journey continues you'll figure more of it out, like where the dining car is and why some stations have people to push you onto the train and jam everyone in as tight as sardines. Some of you have overcome tremendous obstacles to be here, and all of you no doubt face many more, but tell the people who matter to you that you love them; you don't know when their next stop is.
As the non-rich, non-famous, minimal-wisdom guy speaking to you today, all I can ask is for you to live as if there's a better tomorrow that we all have to share. There is a place in this world for optimism and cynicism and skepticism and atheism and baptism and little kids who sing Christmas carols off key. A well developed sense of humor will get you through everything, and a poorly defined version of irony will make you wealthy and famous, as long as you're Alanis Morrisette.
And with that, our common experience comes to a close. You look at the woman next to you; she's going to start the next social networking fad. The weird looking kid on the aisle? He's got two chords in his head that could change the world and he MIGHT find the third one in the next decade. The guy three rows in front of you - he's going to start the next Enron and probably head to federal prison. Look up here at me; I'm going to be on a plane in three hours looking for the next palm tree, and hoping to God my luggage came along for the ride.
Before I stop speaking, I'd like you to take a second, close your eyes tightly, and make sure to commit this moment to memory. This achievement belongs to you for the rest of your life.
Congratulations to you all.
Writing Project Update (Vacation Edition)
Words written this week: I'm away from my files and my writing, consumed more with trivia contests than training, more drinking in Wrigleyville than writing in Vegas, and too busy looking forward to look back. Make it 200 or so.
This week's question: By design, I can't access the Slaughterhouse mailbox from anywhere but my desk. Therefore, I hadn't planned on writing this week, but I've found that few things pass the time quite so well while you're in a laundry room waiting on the clothes to dry. Ken has been asking for the seasonally apropos "Write a commencement address." I will oblige.
500 WORDS DUE BY: 5/29-30 midnight, but thanks to this Blackberry I should be done earlier than that. Or later, if my thumbs are slow.
This week's question: By design, I can't access the Slaughterhouse mailbox from anywhere but my desk. Therefore, I hadn't planned on writing this week, but I've found that few things pass the time quite so well while you're in a laundry room waiting on the clothes to dry. Ken has been asking for the seasonally apropos "Write a commencement address." I will oblige.
500 WORDS DUE BY: 5/29-30 midnight, but thanks to this Blackberry I should be done earlier than that. Or later, if my thumbs are slow.
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