START TIME: 7:45 PM
END TIME: 9:20 PM
WORD COUNT: 646
Choose one place in the world you would most like to visit. Explain your choice in terms of the social history of any significant period that interests you. – Kelli George
I’ve been lucky enough to travel a few places, but if we’re going to throw time travel into the mix, I would like to visit Japan in the early 1990’s to follow the career of Chad Rowan, the Hawaiian-born sumo wrestler know as Akebono.
If you’ve never seen a sumo match, it’s essentially like watching trucks fight. In a society where men’s height rarely exceeds six feet tall, Akebono stood 6’8” and weighed 500 pounds. He had longer legs than most sumo wrestlers, and he had the record and the reputation to achieve sumo’s highest rank, yokozuna.
And here’s the conundrum. A wrestler promoted to yokozuna has a few more responsibilities than soda commercials and grocery store openings. Sumo is heavily associated with the Shinto religion, and was this something that could be bestowed upon a foreigner?
Another Hawaiian, Konishiki, ascended to ozeki, one step below yokozuna. In 1992, the chairman of the Yokozuna Deliberation Committee announced, “We wanted to make doubly sure that Konishiki is worthy of being a grand champion. Therefore, we decided to wait another tournament.” Konishiki was quoted by the New York Times as saying, “If I were Japanese, I would be yokozuna already.” Apologies were demanded and given. He never made yokozuna.
Meanwhile, Sadaharu Oh holds the Japanese baseball home run record of 55 in a single season. Three foreign players have come close to breaking the record – Randy Bass, Karl “Tuffy” Rhodes and Alex Cabrera – and each time that they faced an Oh-managed club late in the season, they were intentionally walked rather than given a chance at breaking the record. Bass was walked on four pitches in four at bats and would have been walked a fifth time had he not practically thrown the bat at an outside pitch and hit a flare into right field. The pitching coach of Oh’s team explained it would be “distasteful” for a foreign-born player to break the record.
Akebono became a Japanese citizen, renounced his American citizenship, converted to Shintoism, married a Japanese woman and followed every example and cleared every hurdle to become the first foreign-born yokozuna.
Something as trivial as wrestlers and baseball may not seem to present much in terms of social history. But sport can serve as a prism with which to view a nation as a whole, and try to remember the backdrop for this time period in Japanese and American relations. Toyota was dominating the auto industry and sending General Motors on the road to ruin (before the American mania for SUVs resurrected American manufacturers for a while). They had purchased Pebble Beach and Rockefeller Center. China had yet to coalesce as an industrial center. The fearsome Other to the American manufacturing sector was the Japanese. The real estate bubble was in full roar in Japan and their economic “lost decade” was just starting to occur, and they didn’t know it. (Japanese financial firms gorged themselves on a combination of hyperinflated land prices and extremely cheap and easy credit, and when the prices of the assets collapsed several “zombie firms” were seen as too big to fail. Stop me if you’ve heard any of this before.)
So in a sport that was central to the American identity, Americans were not allowed to succeed so that the Japanese league could retain its cultural moorings, and in a sport central to the Japanese identity, an American broke through and succeeded (and ultimately led to limits on the number of foreign born sumo wrestlers allowed to participate in professional sumo in Japan). I thought that the contrast of a society devoted to exporting goods, having spent an overheated decade as an economic powerhouse, that was fighting to retain its national identity through sport would be an interesting thing to see, particularly with the foresight of knowing how fundamentally different Japan’s global footprint would be in only a few years.
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Friday, April 02, 2010
Writing Project Update - Plea For Continuance
It works like this. You can have something really good on Sunday night - I assure you, the question is excellent - or you can have something awful that I only have 20 minutes for.
I thought so. See you Sunday night.
NEXT UPDATE DUE BY: 4/4-5 midnight
I thought so. See you Sunday night.
NEXT UPDATE DUE BY: 4/4-5 midnight
Friday, March 26, 2010
Slaughterhouse 63
START TIME: 9:35 PM
END TIME: 11:01 PM
WORD COUNT: 504
“You've been doing these for over a year now, so what have you learned? Where have you gotten better and what are still weaknesses?”
Taking a clear look at this project is hard for me to do, because I’ve tried to impose a discipline on myself that writing has never really required. I know that I can write SOMETHING that comes out around 500 words in about an hour or so, that it may be confusing, or hilarious, or occasionally incoherent.
The most interesting part of the exercise, other than the topics at hand, is the timeframe that I chose to do it. I picked Friday nights with a midnight deadline because, in all honesty, I’m usually up. But increasingly I find myself keeping those hours in a sort of twilight, half-asleep-but not-awake haze that leads to unfinished sentences, meandering topics, and tacked on addendums in a futile attempt to cross the word threshold. I look at the finished results on Facebook as well as the blog site, and usually I’m amused to find out that the words are all spelled correctly, but I’ve forgotten to finish a sentence or a paragraph.
Slaughterhouse is not good writing, but fast writing, the same way that fast neurosurgery may not necessarily be good neurosurgery. Everyone who sets eyeballs on this reinforces the idea that I should write some more. I know that I should be writing about the projects that I’ve been working on, but right now it’s not as if the rest of my life is running with Swiss-watch precision. My work days scurry into the hours on either side of them. Training is ever-present. We’re beset with clouds of mulberry pollen all over the valley. I’m driving all over and actually enjoying life as a participant and not a spectator.
Where I’ve gotten better is just writing what I want and letting it go; avoiding the temptation to go back and repair everything was not easy to arrive at, but once I forced myself to realize I had to let the stuff I was doing stand by itself as I was prizing speed over quality, it made the rest of it go a little bit quicker.
I think I’ve done a better job of picturing who the target reader is, and interestingly, it’s no one who’s probably heard most of the stories or comparisons before. Occasionally I feel like I’m writing to the questioner but that assumes we each know the back stories – usually true but irrelevant to most of the broader audience. I have had the distinct pleasure of having other people quote back the experiences that I’ve had (and forgotten that I had written about) to me as I was talking to them about other topics entirely. That was surreal.
Weaknesses still include my maddening inability to write a beginning, a middle, and an end, the fact that I juggle points around whether or not they’re germane to the subject, and that more than a few of these haven’t provided any enlightenment but have the grim feel of punching the clock. Granted, it’s designed to be a punishment, but the reader shouldn’t feel like it’s theirs.
END TIME: 11:01 PM
WORD COUNT: 504
“You've been doing these for over a year now, so what have you learned? Where have you gotten better and what are still weaknesses?”
Taking a clear look at this project is hard for me to do, because I’ve tried to impose a discipline on myself that writing has never really required. I know that I can write SOMETHING that comes out around 500 words in about an hour or so, that it may be confusing, or hilarious, or occasionally incoherent.
The most interesting part of the exercise, other than the topics at hand, is the timeframe that I chose to do it. I picked Friday nights with a midnight deadline because, in all honesty, I’m usually up. But increasingly I find myself keeping those hours in a sort of twilight, half-asleep-but not-awake haze that leads to unfinished sentences, meandering topics, and tacked on addendums in a futile attempt to cross the word threshold. I look at the finished results on Facebook as well as the blog site, and usually I’m amused to find out that the words are all spelled correctly, but I’ve forgotten to finish a sentence or a paragraph.
Slaughterhouse is not good writing, but fast writing, the same way that fast neurosurgery may not necessarily be good neurosurgery. Everyone who sets eyeballs on this reinforces the idea that I should write some more. I know that I should be writing about the projects that I’ve been working on, but right now it’s not as if the rest of my life is running with Swiss-watch precision. My work days scurry into the hours on either side of them. Training is ever-present. We’re beset with clouds of mulberry pollen all over the valley. I’m driving all over and actually enjoying life as a participant and not a spectator.
Where I’ve gotten better is just writing what I want and letting it go; avoiding the temptation to go back and repair everything was not easy to arrive at, but once I forced myself to realize I had to let the stuff I was doing stand by itself as I was prizing speed over quality, it made the rest of it go a little bit quicker.
I think I’ve done a better job of picturing who the target reader is, and interestingly, it’s no one who’s probably heard most of the stories or comparisons before. Occasionally I feel like I’m writing to the questioner but that assumes we each know the back stories – usually true but irrelevant to most of the broader audience. I have had the distinct pleasure of having other people quote back the experiences that I’ve had (and forgotten that I had written about) to me as I was talking to them about other topics entirely. That was surreal.
Weaknesses still include my maddening inability to write a beginning, a middle, and an end, the fact that I juggle points around whether or not they’re germane to the subject, and that more than a few of these haven’t provided any enlightenment but have the grim feel of punching the clock. Granted, it’s designed to be a punishment, but the reader shouldn’t feel like it’s theirs.
Writing Project Update
WORDS WRITTEN THIS WEEK: 250. I haven't had time to touch anything project-related in a very long time.
RESPONSES TO LAST QUESTION: 1, correctly pointing out that I botched the syllable count in the third haiku.
SUBMISSIONS THIS WEEK: 3 (Ken, Ken, and Ken)
THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: You've been doing these for over a year now, so what have you learned? Where have you gotten better and what are still weaknesses?
500 WORDS DUE BY: Midnight 3/26-27
RESPONSES TO LAST QUESTION: 1, correctly pointing out that I botched the syllable count in the third haiku.
SUBMISSIONS THIS WEEK: 3 (Ken, Ken, and Ken)
THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: You've been doing these for over a year now, so what have you learned? Where have you gotten better and what are still weaknesses?
500 WORDS DUE BY: Midnight 3/26-27
Friday, March 19, 2010
Slaughterhouse 62
START TIME: 9:24 PM
END TIME: 10:46 PM
WORD COUNT: 501 (Seriously, look it up. I’m exhausted, but it’s for real.)
“In the form of a poem with a clear rhyme scheme or a clear structure of syllabic count, what are your thoughts on the NCAA tournament?”
Pretty sure I’m now
Assured of complete failure
With 50 games left
My West regional
Hacked apart with a Ginsu
Chose Florida State
Must have thought it was
January, football
And puzzled seniors
Of course they could beat
The Syracuse Orangemen –
What have those guys done?
National number one?
I should be watching the games
Or maybe TV
Lost to Gonzaga
Popular in March, disappears
Just like St. Patrick
And whoa, look, Georgetown?
This was not the Ohio
I picked to beat you
John Thompson would have
Twisted open someone’s head
Like a coconut
What? His kid coaches?
Suppose next you’ll tell me that
Ewing’s kid plays too
(Wikipedia:
“Jim, if you were any less
Informed, you’d be dead.
“He was drafted by
The Kings, traded to Houston,
Then wound up in New York.
Played in the D-League,
Hurt his knee pretty badly,
Joining Jamaica.”
“Jamaica?” I thought.
“How the irie have fallen –
Dad started Dream Team.”
Then I realized
Being prone to distraction
Had several drawbacks.
I returned to the
Scene of withering collapse –
My erstwhile bracket.
Louisville got thumped
Which made my bracket entry
10 points less funny
The name that I chose
Was “Pitino’s Dine and Dash”
True schadenfreude
You’d think a wealthy
Motivational speaker
Won’t tryst on the floor
But apparently
He was overtaken by
Passion, not hygiene
Guess I picked Marquette
With the misguided belief
Dwyane Wade was still there
Somehow and some way
My Elite Eight selections
Are still quite intact
Picked Temple; looks like
Those numbskulls get drubbed by the
Ivy League Champions
They lost to Cornell!
The hotel management school!
They’d better walk home!
Notre Dame lost, and
Suddenly my smile brightens
With dark-hearted glee
If the football team
Joined the Big East Conference:
Pounded like cheap veal.
But in March Madness
You collect conference bucks.
Doesn’t work solo.
UNLV lost,
Newly minted Las Vegans
Act disappointed.
They miss the days of
Ol’ Jerry Tarkanian
When they weren’t from here.
“If a kid can’t read
And after 4 years, reads some,
You’ve done right by him.”
Are you thinking that
A true university
Should aspire to more?
You must be in league
With those racist jackals at
The NCAA.
The world got to see
How genuinely crazy
This place really is.
The courtside is still
Nicknamed “Gucci Row”
By the media
UNLV’s coach
Lon Kruger, fits in here like
Bacon with gum drops
The former coach was
Bill Bayno, who got
Caught with some hookers
I know! In VEGAS!
You’ve really got to wonder
“Wow, what are the odds?”
God knows where he’s at.
Wikipedia must know;
I could not care less.
The happy mistake
That would have let me win this;
It never happened.
If my picks were an
Expensive thoroughbred horse
They would have a limp
Got me an express
First Class ticket to Suckville
Population: Me
Clicking on “Word Count…”
Like a crack-addled mule deer;
Am I almost done?
But I finished this
Insane assignment in time;
Victory is mine!
END TIME: 10:46 PM
WORD COUNT: 501 (Seriously, look it up. I’m exhausted, but it’s for real.)
“In the form of a poem with a clear rhyme scheme or a clear structure of syllabic count, what are your thoughts on the NCAA tournament?”
Pretty sure I’m now
Assured of complete failure
With 50 games left
My West regional
Hacked apart with a Ginsu
Chose Florida State
Must have thought it was
January, football
And puzzled seniors
Of course they could beat
The Syracuse Orangemen –
What have those guys done?
National number one?
I should be watching the games
Or maybe TV
Lost to Gonzaga
Popular in March, disappears
Just like St. Patrick
And whoa, look, Georgetown?
This was not the Ohio
I picked to beat you
John Thompson would have
Twisted open someone’s head
Like a coconut
What? His kid coaches?
Suppose next you’ll tell me that
Ewing’s kid plays too
(Wikipedia:
“Jim, if you were any less
Informed, you’d be dead.
“He was drafted by
The Kings, traded to Houston,
Then wound up in New York.
Played in the D-League,
Hurt his knee pretty badly,
Joining Jamaica.”
“Jamaica?” I thought.
“How the irie have fallen –
Dad started Dream Team.”
Then I realized
Being prone to distraction
Had several drawbacks.
I returned to the
Scene of withering collapse –
My erstwhile bracket.
Louisville got thumped
Which made my bracket entry
10 points less funny
The name that I chose
Was “Pitino’s Dine and Dash”
True schadenfreude
You’d think a wealthy
Motivational speaker
Won’t tryst on the floor
But apparently
He was overtaken by
Passion, not hygiene
Guess I picked Marquette
With the misguided belief
Dwyane Wade was still there
Somehow and some way
My Elite Eight selections
Are still quite intact
Picked Temple; looks like
Those numbskulls get drubbed by the
Ivy League Champions
They lost to Cornell!
The hotel management school!
They’d better walk home!
Notre Dame lost, and
Suddenly my smile brightens
With dark-hearted glee
If the football team
Joined the Big East Conference:
Pounded like cheap veal.
But in March Madness
You collect conference bucks.
Doesn’t work solo.
UNLV lost,
Newly minted Las Vegans
Act disappointed.
They miss the days of
Ol’ Jerry Tarkanian
When they weren’t from here.
“If a kid can’t read
And after 4 years, reads some,
You’ve done right by him.”
Are you thinking that
A true university
Should aspire to more?
You must be in league
With those racist jackals at
The NCAA.
The world got to see
How genuinely crazy
This place really is.
The courtside is still
Nicknamed “Gucci Row”
By the media
UNLV’s coach
Lon Kruger, fits in here like
Bacon with gum drops
The former coach was
Bill Bayno, who got
Caught with some hookers
I know! In VEGAS!
You’ve really got to wonder
“Wow, what are the odds?”
God knows where he’s at.
Wikipedia must know;
I could not care less.
The happy mistake
That would have let me win this;
It never happened.
If my picks were an
Expensive thoroughbred horse
They would have a limp
Got me an express
First Class ticket to Suckville
Population: Me
Clicking on “Word Count…”
Like a crack-addled mule deer;
Am I almost done?
But I finished this
Insane assignment in time;
Victory is mine!
Writing Project Update
WORDS WRITTEN THIS WEEK: 250. (Seriously? You mean it's already Friday?)
RESPONSES TO LAST QUESTION: 2, who interestingly each had different ideas of what the metaphors were. Were they right? Yes.
SUBMISSIONS THIS WEEK: 3 (Ken, Ken, and Ken)
THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: "In the form of a poem with a clear rhyme scheme or a clear structure of syllabic count, what are your thoughts on the NCAA tournament?"
Ye Gods. I've seen a grand total of eight minutes of basketball in the background all weekend. Let's give it a try.
500 WORDS DUE BY: Midnight 3/19-20
RESPONSES TO LAST QUESTION: 2, who interestingly each had different ideas of what the metaphors were. Were they right? Yes.
SUBMISSIONS THIS WEEK: 3 (Ken, Ken, and Ken)
THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: "In the form of a poem with a clear rhyme scheme or a clear structure of syllabic count, what are your thoughts on the NCAA tournament?"
Ye Gods. I've seen a grand total of eight minutes of basketball in the background all weekend. Let's give it a try.
500 WORDS DUE BY: Midnight 3/19-20
Friday, March 12, 2010
Slaughterhouse 61
START TIME: 9:45 PM
END TIME: 11:23 PM
"Describe an aspect of your life only using metaphors."
The metronome is ticking, ticking, ticking, and I’m losing myself in the rhythm. The notes are laid out in front of me and so much of this piece is committed to memory that I’m playing with something much deeper than fingers and ears and timing, but I’m going for precise, I’m not interested in playing just to hear it. I stopped having to actually play the piano to know what it sounded like many, many years ago. Maybe you can read the script from a movie and hear the actors saying the lines that you saw play out? That’s me. I can read the sheet music and hear the symphony. Look at the walls – I’ve been there and done that.
When a lot of people hear the piano, they can identify it as such. Everybody’s probably been near one or touched one and maybe learned a song or two. I did a little more – OK, a LOT more – than that, but I still need to practice. There’s an aspect of something more finite that someone who walked by the room right now would understand that I’m looking for. I want the piece to work completely, and there’s a spot over here that’s a little bit off. Something seems a little out of tune, the high E is a little too sharp, and the natural translation that I’m hoping for isn’t quite there.
Repetition, tuning, more tuning, more repetition.
The funny part about it is, I’m not that good of a piano player. Don’t get me wrong, I can play, and I can almost certainly play better than you. But the end result of all of this piano, night after night, day after day, is it’s hard for me to just sort of lose myself in what it sounds like to play for the hell of it. A lot of times it isn’t fun because I’m searching for those minutiae, the difference between me and some of the greatest pianists in the world. I’m listening for fluidity. I’m listening for how it will fit together with the orchestra. Right there is where the bass player comes in. Here’s where the drummer will do the fill with the cymbal.
But I can still let it go, and I still love it, and when it all sets up and I get something to feel the way that I want it, everything all lined up and straight and smooth and precise – I love it even more, and I know enough to appreciate it. What I’ve never understood, though, is the assumption that if I walk into someone else’s house, and there’s a piano there, that I couldn’t possibly want to play it because it isn’t a concert grand in a room with session musicians. If I didn’t love the sound of it I’d never have wound up in that room with those session musicians. I can play just to play, without flourish, without showing off, without a care in the world. It’s still fun. If it stopped being fun, I’d worry.
END TIME: 11:23 PM
"Describe an aspect of your life only using metaphors."
The metronome is ticking, ticking, ticking, and I’m losing myself in the rhythm. The notes are laid out in front of me and so much of this piece is committed to memory that I’m playing with something much deeper than fingers and ears and timing, but I’m going for precise, I’m not interested in playing just to hear it. I stopped having to actually play the piano to know what it sounded like many, many years ago. Maybe you can read the script from a movie and hear the actors saying the lines that you saw play out? That’s me. I can read the sheet music and hear the symphony. Look at the walls – I’ve been there and done that.
When a lot of people hear the piano, they can identify it as such. Everybody’s probably been near one or touched one and maybe learned a song or two. I did a little more – OK, a LOT more – than that, but I still need to practice. There’s an aspect of something more finite that someone who walked by the room right now would understand that I’m looking for. I want the piece to work completely, and there’s a spot over here that’s a little bit off. Something seems a little out of tune, the high E is a little too sharp, and the natural translation that I’m hoping for isn’t quite there.
Repetition, tuning, more tuning, more repetition.
The funny part about it is, I’m not that good of a piano player. Don’t get me wrong, I can play, and I can almost certainly play better than you. But the end result of all of this piano, night after night, day after day, is it’s hard for me to just sort of lose myself in what it sounds like to play for the hell of it. A lot of times it isn’t fun because I’m searching for those minutiae, the difference between me and some of the greatest pianists in the world. I’m listening for fluidity. I’m listening for how it will fit together with the orchestra. Right there is where the bass player comes in. Here’s where the drummer will do the fill with the cymbal.
But I can still let it go, and I still love it, and when it all sets up and I get something to feel the way that I want it, everything all lined up and straight and smooth and precise – I love it even more, and I know enough to appreciate it. What I’ve never understood, though, is the assumption that if I walk into someone else’s house, and there’s a piano there, that I couldn’t possibly want to play it because it isn’t a concert grand in a room with session musicians. If I didn’t love the sound of it I’d never have wound up in that room with those session musicians. I can play just to play, without flourish, without showing off, without a care in the world. It’s still fun. If it stopped being fun, I’d worry.
Writing Project Update
Words written this week: Very, very few. I was busy getting my head shaved and working like a crack-addled lab rat. It simply wasn't happening.
Last Week's Responses: One.
This week's questions: 4 (Ken, Ken, Ken, and Anonymous)
This week's question: "Describe an aspect of your life only using metaphors."
Does an allegory count? I'll have to look it up. We'll be wrapped up at midnight.
RESPONSE DUE BY: 3/12-13 midnight
Last Week's Responses: One.
This week's questions: 4 (Ken, Ken, Ken, and Anonymous)
This week's question: "Describe an aspect of your life only using metaphors."
Does an allegory count? I'll have to look it up. We'll be wrapped up at midnight.
RESPONSE DUE BY: 3/12-13 midnight
Friday, March 05, 2010
Writing Project Update
I just got home from work and Slaughterhouse won't be done in three minutes, so I'm taking the night off. I'll write Sunday if the chance arises. Thanks for your patience.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Slaughterhouse 60
START TIME: 9:37 PM
END TIME: 10:19 PM
WORD COUNT: 617
“Please give your personal application of "zeitgeist" to your last essay and include your view from your position on your space time continuum; also consider others younger and older.”
Now, what I was talking about in the first essay was the importance of attempting to participate in content or activities that were outside of someone’s defined comfort zone, because of the danger of living in a self-selected realm of knowledge. If you never make any effort to have your assumptions questioned, you’ll have no idea if you’re right.
Now the self-selected realm of knowledge that I’m picking from is a diverse range of opinion, because that’s important to me; I’m almost certainly reading someone’s work who you absolutely can’t stand, because part of why I’m reading them is to know why I disagree with them. I know that if I threw up my hands and dismissed every single person who disagreed with me as “haters,” that certainly doesn’t infer that I’m making a particularly persuasive argument. Unfortunately most of politics is currently conducted in this fashion.
From a cultural or music perspective, I’m at an age where I am simply no longer the target consumer. The people who buy music by the truckload, like I used to, Maybe you had to listen to a song by Beyonce that had nine writers and six words in it, but I actually know why I hate it because I tried so hard to get through it and couldn’t. I don’t really need to force myself to listen to anything new musically, because the audience is so fragmented that every radio station only plays the same 10-15 songs between the same 7-8 commercials. My sister and my younger coworkers have a much greater grasp on the cultural and music zeitgeist than I do; they’re around younger people, they see more movies, they have the pace and energy to worry about those sorts of things. I hope to God that there aren’t a lot of Us Weekly junkies over at the Strategic Air Command, but I think I know better.
And with where I’m at in my life – single, two kids, busy, self involved hobbies and interests – that’s why I’m not that immersed in it. I’m even a part of the growing number of Americans who don’t watch very much television, so all those big, collective moments that seem to happen every late spring that involve the disappearance of a beloved network television show that less than a few million people watch, I miss out on what all the fuss is about. I mean, were there people who missed any of those benchmark departure shows – Cheers, Seinfeld, Sopranos, Everybody Loves Raymond – who won’t have the opportunity to watch syndicated reruns or boxed episodes of the DVDs until the end of time if that’s what they so chose? Somewhere right now, a cable television station is showing a “Seinfeld” rerun.
I imagine when I was younger it was more important because it was a link to the rest of the world, and when I’m older I’ll be able to view current events against the perspective of more personal background and history. How much more fragmented things can get and retain a perspective that encompasses a collective zeitgeist, I’m not sure. If you think of something like Facebook, where the first page for everyone consists entirely of news from their friends, and the option exists to block news that you do not want to hear. (Since this usually relates to simulated criminology and agriculture, all is not lost.) The journey has been interesting, but the path ahead is murky. It’ll be intriguing to see where it goes.
END TIME: 10:19 PM
WORD COUNT: 617
“Please give your personal application of "zeitgeist" to your last essay and include your view from your position on your space time continuum; also consider others younger and older.”
Now, what I was talking about in the first essay was the importance of attempting to participate in content or activities that were outside of someone’s defined comfort zone, because of the danger of living in a self-selected realm of knowledge. If you never make any effort to have your assumptions questioned, you’ll have no idea if you’re right.
Now the self-selected realm of knowledge that I’m picking from is a diverse range of opinion, because that’s important to me; I’m almost certainly reading someone’s work who you absolutely can’t stand, because part of why I’m reading them is to know why I disagree with them. I know that if I threw up my hands and dismissed every single person who disagreed with me as “haters,” that certainly doesn’t infer that I’m making a particularly persuasive argument. Unfortunately most of politics is currently conducted in this fashion.
From a cultural or music perspective, I’m at an age where I am simply no longer the target consumer. The people who buy music by the truckload, like I used to, Maybe you had to listen to a song by Beyonce that had nine writers and six words in it, but I actually know why I hate it because I tried so hard to get through it and couldn’t. I don’t really need to force myself to listen to anything new musically, because the audience is so fragmented that every radio station only plays the same 10-15 songs between the same 7-8 commercials. My sister and my younger coworkers have a much greater grasp on the cultural and music zeitgeist than I do; they’re around younger people, they see more movies, they have the pace and energy to worry about those sorts of things. I hope to God that there aren’t a lot of Us Weekly junkies over at the Strategic Air Command, but I think I know better.
And with where I’m at in my life – single, two kids, busy, self involved hobbies and interests – that’s why I’m not that immersed in it. I’m even a part of the growing number of Americans who don’t watch very much television, so all those big, collective moments that seem to happen every late spring that involve the disappearance of a beloved network television show that less than a few million people watch, I miss out on what all the fuss is about. I mean, were there people who missed any of those benchmark departure shows – Cheers, Seinfeld, Sopranos, Everybody Loves Raymond – who won’t have the opportunity to watch syndicated reruns or boxed episodes of the DVDs until the end of time if that’s what they so chose? Somewhere right now, a cable television station is showing a “Seinfeld” rerun.
I imagine when I was younger it was more important because it was a link to the rest of the world, and when I’m older I’ll be able to view current events against the perspective of more personal background and history. How much more fragmented things can get and retain a perspective that encompasses a collective zeitgeist, I’m not sure. If you think of something like Facebook, where the first page for everyone consists entirely of news from their friends, and the option exists to block news that you do not want to hear. (Since this usually relates to simulated criminology and agriculture, all is not lost.) The journey has been interesting, but the path ahead is murky. It’ll be intriguing to see where it goes.
Writing Project Update
Writing Project Update
Words this week: Less than 500. I did a lot of video work for Space Monkeys promotion this week (the results of which you can see splattered across my friends' and my Facebook pages) and worked late on a number of occasions. Rest assure that everything's falling by the wayside pretty much equally, not merely the writing.
RESPONSES TO LAST WEEK: 5 - and you wouldn't believe this, but my office found it rather popular.
QUESTIONS THIS WEEK: There were 3, but this week's winner is Jay Lyden, who contributed the largest individual donation to the Space Monkeys and the St. Baldrick's Foundation. You can follow his example and get us closer to our goal by donating at https://www.stbaldricks.org/teams/spacemonkeys . Thank you!
THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Please give your personal application of "zeitgeist" to your last essay and include your view from your position on your space time continuum; also consider others younger and older.
I'll try not to meander, but I think I have an idea.
RESPONSE DUE BY: 2/26-27 midnight
Words this week: Less than 500. I did a lot of video work for Space Monkeys promotion this week (the results of which you can see splattered across my friends' and my Facebook pages) and worked late on a number of occasions. Rest assure that everything's falling by the wayside pretty much equally, not merely the writing.
RESPONSES TO LAST WEEK: 5 - and you wouldn't believe this, but my office found it rather popular.
QUESTIONS THIS WEEK: There were 3, but this week's winner is Jay Lyden, who contributed the largest individual donation to the Space Monkeys and the St. Baldrick's Foundation. You can follow his example and get us closer to our goal by donating at https://www.stbaldricks.org/teams/spacemonkeys . Thank you!
THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Please give your personal application of "zeitgeist" to your last essay and include your view from your position on your space time continuum; also consider others younger and older.
I'll try not to meander, but I think I have an idea.
RESPONSE DUE BY: 2/26-27 midnight
Friday, February 19, 2010
Slaughterhouse 59
Slaughterhouse 59
START TIME: 10:33 PM
END TIME: 11:32 PM
WORD COUNT: 738
"Write a scene as though your life were a sitcom."
INTERIOR
A set of half-wall cubicles in a very grimy basement, with four desks being shown.
At a desk in the back corner, a shorter Asian gentleman is staring closely at a too-small computer monitor, tapping his right foot obsessively and singing along with the radio. His desk is meticulously neat, pencils organized, and he’s wearing a suit.
In the opposite corner is a woman with stacks of magazines lining several bookshelves, four framed pictures of different cats (one of them showing an article surrounding it that makes it apparent it was cut out of a magazine, minimizing the possibility that she actually owns the cat in question), and multiple tins of cat food.
Toward the forefront, staring straight up, is a heavyset gentleman with a shaved head. He is staring at the ceiling at first glance. A second glance proves he is asleep. A quick listen reveals he is snoring.
A twitchy, loud guy in a sports coat with a laptop bag slung over his shoulder strides through the glass door on the left, past a paper sign that indicates the door must stay closed. Four months ago he replaced the paper sign with a mirror image of the words on the sign showing through the other side of the glass, as if the letters had suddenly decided to turn around and face the other direction. No one has noticed.
TWITCH (into cell phone) Loved? Adored? Popular? You’ve got to be out of your mind. We’ll be lucky if they don’t want to shoot us. I know right now what my day’s gonna be. I’m going to walk into this meeting and the only thing that I’m going to come away with, after an hour and a half, is that when I walked in the door downstairs, the security guard at the desk didn’t take the snap off of his holster. That’s the ONLY thing that might go right. It’s all our fault. That’s why we’re here.
Twitch sits down at his desk, grabs an orange gumball from a jar on his desk, mimes dribbling it twice, and throws it at the heavyset gentleman’s mouth. It bounces off of his eye, startling him awake.
HEAVY: What the hel….lo, Mr. Happiness.
A shot of the floor reveals nine other gumballs scattered about.
TWITCH puts on a phone headset and covers his left ear. He is still talking on the phone as he’s doing this.
TWITCH: Look, if they actually LIKED everything we did, if they were so happy with the course of their day that they sent us cards and pizzas and nice little notes that said we were good to them? You know what that would mean? It would mean that when they ruined everything, when they lost the file they were working on, when they caught the virus, when they moved a whole mess of folders around on a group drive for no reason at all, they couldn’t blame us and they would actually OWN UP to the fact it was THEIR fault. They’d have to go home and look in the mirror at night and splash a glass of cold water on their face, and say, “You know what? The computer works fine. I’m the one who ruined it. I have an easy job. I don’t mine coal or unload cargo ships. I’m not a landscaper working in 110 degrees. All I do is push some buttons so that other people don’t have to. That’s all. And I suck at it.” You think that’s going to happen? You think anyone’s going home tonight and saying, ‘Wow, Thank Christ for IT, otherwise I’d be looking for paper files in a cabinet for about a week instead of pushing a couple buttons.’ Trust me, our only hope is that we stay right where we are at the moment – a cab ride away from the overwhelming desire to take our own life. I gotta run. I’ll talk to you in a bit.
MAGAZINE LADY (reading from screen) Wow. Guess who died.
No one responds.
CORNER SINGER: (singing) “I thought I knew what love was/What did I know/Close pays car lawn for Trevor/Pie wood bust get ‘em snow”
TWITCH stares at him with his mouth agape and adjusts the volume in his headset. He looks at a large digital clock next to his monitor, which reads 7:02.
TWITCH (to himself): 30 more years of this and I can retire.
START TIME: 10:33 PM
END TIME: 11:32 PM
WORD COUNT: 738
"Write a scene as though your life were a sitcom."
INTERIOR
A set of half-wall cubicles in a very grimy basement, with four desks being shown.
At a desk in the back corner, a shorter Asian gentleman is staring closely at a too-small computer monitor, tapping his right foot obsessively and singing along with the radio. His desk is meticulously neat, pencils organized, and he’s wearing a suit.
In the opposite corner is a woman with stacks of magazines lining several bookshelves, four framed pictures of different cats (one of them showing an article surrounding it that makes it apparent it was cut out of a magazine, minimizing the possibility that she actually owns the cat in question), and multiple tins of cat food.
Toward the forefront, staring straight up, is a heavyset gentleman with a shaved head. He is staring at the ceiling at first glance. A second glance proves he is asleep. A quick listen reveals he is snoring.
A twitchy, loud guy in a sports coat with a laptop bag slung over his shoulder strides through the glass door on the left, past a paper sign that indicates the door must stay closed. Four months ago he replaced the paper sign with a mirror image of the words on the sign showing through the other side of the glass, as if the letters had suddenly decided to turn around and face the other direction. No one has noticed.
TWITCH (into cell phone) Loved? Adored? Popular? You’ve got to be out of your mind. We’ll be lucky if they don’t want to shoot us. I know right now what my day’s gonna be. I’m going to walk into this meeting and the only thing that I’m going to come away with, after an hour and a half, is that when I walked in the door downstairs, the security guard at the desk didn’t take the snap off of his holster. That’s the ONLY thing that might go right. It’s all our fault. That’s why we’re here.
Twitch sits down at his desk, grabs an orange gumball from a jar on his desk, mimes dribbling it twice, and throws it at the heavyset gentleman’s mouth. It bounces off of his eye, startling him awake.
HEAVY: What the hel….lo, Mr. Happiness.
A shot of the floor reveals nine other gumballs scattered about.
TWITCH puts on a phone headset and covers his left ear. He is still talking on the phone as he’s doing this.
TWITCH: Look, if they actually LIKED everything we did, if they were so happy with the course of their day that they sent us cards and pizzas and nice little notes that said we were good to them? You know what that would mean? It would mean that when they ruined everything, when they lost the file they were working on, when they caught the virus, when they moved a whole mess of folders around on a group drive for no reason at all, they couldn’t blame us and they would actually OWN UP to the fact it was THEIR fault. They’d have to go home and look in the mirror at night and splash a glass of cold water on their face, and say, “You know what? The computer works fine. I’m the one who ruined it. I have an easy job. I don’t mine coal or unload cargo ships. I’m not a landscaper working in 110 degrees. All I do is push some buttons so that other people don’t have to. That’s all. And I suck at it.” You think that’s going to happen? You think anyone’s going home tonight and saying, ‘Wow, Thank Christ for IT, otherwise I’d be looking for paper files in a cabinet for about a week instead of pushing a couple buttons.’ Trust me, our only hope is that we stay right where we are at the moment – a cab ride away from the overwhelming desire to take our own life. I gotta run. I’ll talk to you in a bit.
MAGAZINE LADY (reading from screen) Wow. Guess who died.
No one responds.
CORNER SINGER: (singing) “I thought I knew what love was/What did I know/Close pays car lawn for Trevor/Pie wood bust get ‘em snow”
TWITCH stares at him with his mouth agape and adjusts the volume in his headset. He looks at a large digital clock next to his monitor, which reads 7:02.
TWITCH (to himself): 30 more years of this and I can retire.
Writing Project Update
Words this week: 650. Nothing on the projects. I may need to start setting the bar a little higher, because I feel like I haven't had much time for anything.
Responses to last week: Two.
Questions this week: 3. (Ken, Ken, Ken)
Third question this week: "Write a scene as though your life were a sitcom."
Looking up, staring at the ceiling, wondering what I have done to deserve this.
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE RECENTLY COME ON BOARD
I started cross-posting these to my Facebook page a few months after I started it, and Facebook is where most people wind up reading it. For New Year's of 2009, I made a resolution that I was going to write 4000 words per week toward one of three writing projects: a memoir, a diet and fitness book, and a roman a clef about some of the more colorful aspects of a previous career. (I did make a good bit of progress on each.) If I didn't hit this word target of about 12-15 pages per week, I would write 500 words on Friday night, at random, on any topic that anyone wished. What I wanted to ensure is that I never stopped writing for longer than a few days at a time. I had a blog that was set up at jameslyden.blogspot.com, officially titled "Working Out The Bugs," a place where I could write something for an audience with no expectations of readership.
To ensure the randomness, I set up an email address at slaughterhouse@jameslyden.com. The mailbox automatically populates from my ISP when I push a button; I don't give myself a chance to study ahead, so the earliest that I know what's coming is usually Thursday afternoon. I don't start writing until 9 PM Friday night, and I have to have the whole thing finished by midnight. And whether I like it or I hate it, it goes up. I welcome and encourage feedback - you can do so publicly on FB through the comments or through email, and while I won't publish what other people write to me privately I post a count of how many people told me what they thought.
There really are no rules. Topics can be resubmitted over and over again; I will answer absolutely anything (because if I wanted to duck something I should have met my word target during the week) and if I quote something at length it doesn't count towards the word count - I have to write the 500 words myself. I may go back and correct spelling errors or if I left a sentence unfinished (sometimes I skip around) but I don't make structural changes or edits. They're designed to be dashed off, work quick, grind it out and let it rock.
I do try to write no matter the circumstances, but I have given myself a night off here and there, usually during my racing season. I've posted book excerpts and older material here some nights when there aren't enough questions or when I just know I'm not in the kind of shape to look at a screen for a few hours. I've put stuff together on my Blackberry while sitting in a laundry room or on a laptop in a hotel somewhere. It's part of the rhythm of my weekend and I have a lot of fun doing it. I don't know if it's made me a better writer, but I do know how to get just enough of an idea in place.
Thank you for reading, for contributing, for telling me it's awful or that it made you laugh. And one more thing...
THE 2ND ANNUAL ST. BALDRICK'S SLAUGHTERHOUSE AUCTION
Once again this year, rather than subjecting yourself to the cruel randomness that is the Inbox chopping block, you can buy your way to the front of the line. The largest individual donor to my page or to Team Space Monkeys by February 25 for the St. Baldrick's Foundation gets to choose next week's topic. Regardless of whether or not you want to win fabulous prizes, I'm shaving my head to raise money for juvenile cancer research. I would appreciate your donating to our cause here:
http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/jameslyden
Thanks for your help!
RESPONSE DUE BY: 2/19-20 midnight
Responses to last week: Two.
Questions this week: 3. (Ken, Ken, Ken)
Third question this week: "Write a scene as though your life were a sitcom."
Looking up, staring at the ceiling, wondering what I have done to deserve this.
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE RECENTLY COME ON BOARD
I started cross-posting these to my Facebook page a few months after I started it, and Facebook is where most people wind up reading it. For New Year's of 2009, I made a resolution that I was going to write 4000 words per week toward one of three writing projects: a memoir, a diet and fitness book, and a roman a clef about some of the more colorful aspects of a previous career. (I did make a good bit of progress on each.) If I didn't hit this word target of about 12-15 pages per week, I would write 500 words on Friday night, at random, on any topic that anyone wished. What I wanted to ensure is that I never stopped writing for longer than a few days at a time. I had a blog that was set up at jameslyden.blogspot.com, officially titled "Working Out The Bugs," a place where I could write something for an audience with no expectations of readership.
To ensure the randomness, I set up an email address at slaughterhouse@jameslyden.com. The mailbox automatically populates from my ISP when I push a button; I don't give myself a chance to study ahead, so the earliest that I know what's coming is usually Thursday afternoon. I don't start writing until 9 PM Friday night, and I have to have the whole thing finished by midnight. And whether I like it or I hate it, it goes up. I welcome and encourage feedback - you can do so publicly on FB through the comments or through email, and while I won't publish what other people write to me privately I post a count of how many people told me what they thought.
There really are no rules. Topics can be resubmitted over and over again; I will answer absolutely anything (because if I wanted to duck something I should have met my word target during the week) and if I quote something at length it doesn't count towards the word count - I have to write the 500 words myself. I may go back and correct spelling errors or if I left a sentence unfinished (sometimes I skip around) but I don't make structural changes or edits. They're designed to be dashed off, work quick, grind it out and let it rock.
I do try to write no matter the circumstances, but I have given myself a night off here and there, usually during my racing season. I've posted book excerpts and older material here some nights when there aren't enough questions or when I just know I'm not in the kind of shape to look at a screen for a few hours. I've put stuff together on my Blackberry while sitting in a laundry room or on a laptop in a hotel somewhere. It's part of the rhythm of my weekend and I have a lot of fun doing it. I don't know if it's made me a better writer, but I do know how to get just enough of an idea in place.
Thank you for reading, for contributing, for telling me it's awful or that it made you laugh. And one more thing...
THE 2ND ANNUAL ST. BALDRICK'S SLAUGHTERHOUSE AUCTION
Once again this year, rather than subjecting yourself to the cruel randomness that is the Inbox chopping block, you can buy your way to the front of the line. The largest individual donor to my page or to Team Space Monkeys by February 25 for the St. Baldrick's Foundation gets to choose next week's topic. Regardless of whether or not you want to win fabulous prizes, I'm shaving my head to raise money for juvenile cancer research. I would appreciate your donating to our cause here:
http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/jameslyden
Thanks for your help!
RESPONSE DUE BY: 2/19-20 midnight
Friday, February 12, 2010
Slaughterhouse 58
Slaughterhouse 58
START TIME: 10:26 PM
END TIME: 11:37 PM
WORD COUNT: 1096
You’ve reference Gu Gel a number of times. Performance enhancing everything has been in the news lately. What are the least natural occurring substances you put in your body/ingest on a regular basis? What’s your philosophy on man made chemicals?
(Your narrator grins broadly, and several people who learned long ago to stop asking “Why do your hands always shake like that?” glance down and sigh.)
I’m generally healthy. By the standards of the United States, I’m about the average of the bell curve when it comes to body mass, maybe I’m on the sweeter side of the needle when it comes to endurance, and I know that I have a very high tolerance for pain. (This became evident this week, when a doctor said that I had shimmied right past a common cold into bronchitis and a sinus infection. Apparently I’d been wandering around with an ordinary cold for a while and it wasn’t until it mutated into something a little zippier that I had to stand up (or, in my case, fall asleep) and take notice.
My philosophy on man-made chemicals is, I’m all for them. Man made chemicals began when somebody mixed some grapes with some yeast and realized that the result could knock you on your ass. I’m a fan of alcohol (particularly when I’ve been prevented from having any for a week because I’m tanked up on antibiotics) and its ability to erase the interminable span of time between evening and the next morning. I remember the Cheesecake Factory, across from the Ritz, had a drink on the menu called the “Twilight Zone” which was “double everything and fruit juice.” The bartender knew the reason I was there was I’d just cranked out some upgrade work at the hotel across the street, was still jacked on the raw terror of a high-wire database maneuver that could have thrown the place into chaos but had gone off without a hitch, and it was 1 AM and I needed all that adrenaline to disappear. The first was always like playing Where’s Waldo – is that 151? I think it’s 151! – and the second was always the one that would get me to sleep as long as I could cross the street and ride the elevator. But me and booze is an entirely different subject. (And here’s where I should mention I’ve never taken illegal drugs of any kind. Street pharmacology frightens me.)
The chemicals that Beth is referring to aren’t the stuff that’s sold off of backlit shelves, but by places that are ostensibly interested in my good health. I’ve found over the years that your body is your own laboratory, and you’ll never know quite how far you can push yourself until you try. The problem is the advice is always from someone who’s selling something, who’s bashing something, who’s really trying to get you to do something else entirely – and I hate it. You will not find anything more dangerous to your health than Redline, a powerful caffeine-based stimulant that has the world’s most comical warning label on it, including “The consumer assumes total liability if product is used in a manner inconsistent with its labeling” and they point out that there are two servings in a little blue bottle the size of a can of Red Bull. (Which tastes like yellow Triaminic. This stuff tastes like Children’s Tylenol.) There’s stuff hiding out in there that they barely have names for, and next to the US Recommended Daily Allowance there’s a little cross, because the boys at the lab haven’t figured out how much “vinpocetine” the human body needs in a day. They also say “Do not use this product if you are more than 20 pounds overweight” and have the slogan “Feel the freak/Feel the freeze/Watch the fat burn off with ease!” So a little bit of a mixed message, sure. But it has no calories. It has no sugar. They don’t even bother trying to pretend there’s natural flavors in it. It’s all lightning, and if you go for a run ten minutes after drinking one you’ll feel like something out of “The Matrix.” It’s wonderful.
This is the far outlier of anything I’m willing to put in my body, even further out there than the vitamins (my standard non-event day breakfast is a lot of vitamins and cold black coffee, no room no cream no sugar) and I, who can normally knock down espressos at 9 at night and sleep like a coma victim at 11, won’t drink any of it after 3 PM.
But aren’t there consequences? Aren’t you afraid?
Sure I am. I get my blood pressure checked when I visit the doctor and when I donate blood, along with cholesterol, and even just this past week I walked in dead sick and got 120/67. I can hear the people who (rightfully) point out that I don’t eat enough and I don’t sleep enough and it’s all going to come to a very bad end if I don’t knock it off with some of this foolishness and learn to pace myself like a normal human being. And I’d be more afraid of using this stuff when I was starting out and my heart rate monitor would occasionally show “200” than I would be now.
In terms of performance enhancement, I don’t use the stuff during a competition because it makes me too nervous. Gu’s a meal replacement – coffee and a piece of danish after a long night, making sure all of my blood sugar doesn’t crater and leave me a blubbering, Julie Moss-like mess after a carbohydrate bonk. Seeing as donuts would do a number on my stomach and the coffee wouldn’t be worth tasting again, the Gu does what I want. And nothing that I take is on the World Anti-Doping Association’s list of banned substances, so I’m in the clear in that regard, though I may need to look up this inhaler and nose spray they prescribed me this week.
I spend a lot of races alongside bodies a lot sleeker than mine, a lot faster than mine, that are in better aesthetic shape than me. I see bicycles that cost four times as much as mine and I see men with shaved legs and skinsuits. I nod to myself and think, “Better to work on the engine before the paint or the tires.” Yes, some of the fuel that I take isn’t the smartest thing to be doing. It’s the one area where I’m probably less cautious than I should be. But at the bleeding edge of success, there’s always a willingness to push yourself a little further than I think is reasonable, to know that I’ve hovered out over the edge of the cliff like Wile E. Coyote and been able to scramble back.
START TIME: 10:26 PM
END TIME: 11:37 PM
WORD COUNT: 1096
You’ve reference Gu Gel a number of times. Performance enhancing everything has been in the news lately. What are the least natural occurring substances you put in your body/ingest on a regular basis? What’s your philosophy on man made chemicals?
(Your narrator grins broadly, and several people who learned long ago to stop asking “Why do your hands always shake like that?” glance down and sigh.)
I’m generally healthy. By the standards of the United States, I’m about the average of the bell curve when it comes to body mass, maybe I’m on the sweeter side of the needle when it comes to endurance, and I know that I have a very high tolerance for pain. (This became evident this week, when a doctor said that I had shimmied right past a common cold into bronchitis and a sinus infection. Apparently I’d been wandering around with an ordinary cold for a while and it wasn’t until it mutated into something a little zippier that I had to stand up (or, in my case, fall asleep) and take notice.
My philosophy on man-made chemicals is, I’m all for them. Man made chemicals began when somebody mixed some grapes with some yeast and realized that the result could knock you on your ass. I’m a fan of alcohol (particularly when I’ve been prevented from having any for a week because I’m tanked up on antibiotics) and its ability to erase the interminable span of time between evening and the next morning. I remember the Cheesecake Factory, across from the Ritz, had a drink on the menu called the “Twilight Zone” which was “double everything and fruit juice.” The bartender knew the reason I was there was I’d just cranked out some upgrade work at the hotel across the street, was still jacked on the raw terror of a high-wire database maneuver that could have thrown the place into chaos but had gone off without a hitch, and it was 1 AM and I needed all that adrenaline to disappear. The first was always like playing Where’s Waldo – is that 151? I think it’s 151! – and the second was always the one that would get me to sleep as long as I could cross the street and ride the elevator. But me and booze is an entirely different subject. (And here’s where I should mention I’ve never taken illegal drugs of any kind. Street pharmacology frightens me.)
The chemicals that Beth is referring to aren’t the stuff that’s sold off of backlit shelves, but by places that are ostensibly interested in my good health. I’ve found over the years that your body is your own laboratory, and you’ll never know quite how far you can push yourself until you try. The problem is the advice is always from someone who’s selling something, who’s bashing something, who’s really trying to get you to do something else entirely – and I hate it. You will not find anything more dangerous to your health than Redline, a powerful caffeine-based stimulant that has the world’s most comical warning label on it, including “The consumer assumes total liability if product is used in a manner inconsistent with its labeling” and they point out that there are two servings in a little blue bottle the size of a can of Red Bull. (Which tastes like yellow Triaminic. This stuff tastes like Children’s Tylenol.) There’s stuff hiding out in there that they barely have names for, and next to the US Recommended Daily Allowance there’s a little cross, because the boys at the lab haven’t figured out how much “vinpocetine” the human body needs in a day. They also say “Do not use this product if you are more than 20 pounds overweight” and have the slogan “Feel the freak/Feel the freeze/Watch the fat burn off with ease!” So a little bit of a mixed message, sure. But it has no calories. It has no sugar. They don’t even bother trying to pretend there’s natural flavors in it. It’s all lightning, and if you go for a run ten minutes after drinking one you’ll feel like something out of “The Matrix.” It’s wonderful.
This is the far outlier of anything I’m willing to put in my body, even further out there than the vitamins (my standard non-event day breakfast is a lot of vitamins and cold black coffee, no room no cream no sugar) and I, who can normally knock down espressos at 9 at night and sleep like a coma victim at 11, won’t drink any of it after 3 PM.
But aren’t there consequences? Aren’t you afraid?
Sure I am. I get my blood pressure checked when I visit the doctor and when I donate blood, along with cholesterol, and even just this past week I walked in dead sick and got 120/67. I can hear the people who (rightfully) point out that I don’t eat enough and I don’t sleep enough and it’s all going to come to a very bad end if I don’t knock it off with some of this foolishness and learn to pace myself like a normal human being. And I’d be more afraid of using this stuff when I was starting out and my heart rate monitor would occasionally show “200” than I would be now.
In terms of performance enhancement, I don’t use the stuff during a competition because it makes me too nervous. Gu’s a meal replacement – coffee and a piece of danish after a long night, making sure all of my blood sugar doesn’t crater and leave me a blubbering, Julie Moss-like mess after a carbohydrate bonk. Seeing as donuts would do a number on my stomach and the coffee wouldn’t be worth tasting again, the Gu does what I want. And nothing that I take is on the World Anti-Doping Association’s list of banned substances, so I’m in the clear in that regard, though I may need to look up this inhaler and nose spray they prescribed me this week.
I spend a lot of races alongside bodies a lot sleeker than mine, a lot faster than mine, that are in better aesthetic shape than me. I see bicycles that cost four times as much as mine and I see men with shaved legs and skinsuits. I nod to myself and think, “Better to work on the engine before the paint or the tires.” Yes, some of the fuel that I take isn’t the smartest thing to be doing. It’s the one area where I’m probably less cautious than I should be. But at the bleeding edge of success, there’s always a willingness to push yourself a little further than I think is reasonable, to know that I’ve hovered out over the edge of the cliff like Wile E. Coyote and been able to scramble back.
Writing Project Update
Words this week: Around 3500. I wrote about work and I wrote about the Wagerfecta and I finessed and bent the world to my will and I wrote about the Space Monkeys and I wrote some cool stuff you won't see and I got bronchitis and a sinus infection and I slept a lot when I wasn't writing.
RESPONSES TO LAST WEEK: 2. Thanks - I hated it, it was lazy and cheap and tossed-off and it actually posted with a clause just hanging out there, like Ron White talking about Lug Nut Day. I also can't break down my entire belief structure in 500 or 5000 words. It's tricky.
QUESTIONS THIS WEEK: 6 (Beth, Beth, Beth, Ken, Ken, Ken)
THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: "You’ve referenced Gu Gel a number of times. Performance enhancing everything has been in the news lately. What are the least natural occurring substances you put in your body/ingest on a regular basis? What’s your philosophy on man made chemicals?"
Heh-heh-heh. Oh, this will be fun. Catch you in a bit.
RESPONSE DUE BY: 2/12-13 midnight
RESPONSES TO LAST WEEK: 2. Thanks - I hated it, it was lazy and cheap and tossed-off and it actually posted with a clause just hanging out there, like Ron White talking about Lug Nut Day. I also can't break down my entire belief structure in 500 or 5000 words. It's tricky.
QUESTIONS THIS WEEK: 6 (Beth, Beth, Beth, Ken, Ken, Ken)
THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: "You’ve referenced Gu Gel a number of times. Performance enhancing everything has been in the news lately. What are the least natural occurring substances you put in your body/ingest on a regular basis? What’s your philosophy on man made chemicals?"
Heh-heh-heh. Oh, this will be fun. Catch you in a bit.
RESPONSE DUE BY: 2/12-13 midnight
Friday, February 05, 2010
Slaughterhouse 57
Slaughterhouse 57
START TIME: 9:50
END TIME: 11:07
WORD COUNT: 970
“Assess President Obama's first year in office.”
See, I KNEW it. I know the political temperament of a lot of the Slaughterhouse readership, and I know some of you are ready to hurl a brick through your monitor at the very mention of his name, and a lot of you are looking to see if I can write something that rips the lungs out of every Republican from here to Crawford, Texas.
And I have a hard time doing this. First off, anytime somebody blames “the Government” for anything, I remember that I work for the taxpayers of Clark County, Nevada and the City of Las Vegas (doing what exactly, I’d rather not share), so I know that “the Government” is not some massive organism like Godzilla, stomping around and wrecking shit for the hell of it. It’s people who have been given a job to do because other people were too lazy or stupid or venal or criminal to just make things happen the way they were supposed to, so instead we get government. If you were smart enough to realize that we live in the middle of the fucking desert and you’re not going to be allowed to have a rice paddy or a cranberry bog because we don’t have the water for you to attempt that nonsense, you may not need much government. But maybe you argue against things like fluoridated water and vaccinations and zoning. Maybe you’re one of those people I see on television every once in a while screaming that the government should get its hands off your Medicare, which is akin to the butcher running after you in the parking lot and telling you not to burn his steak.
I believe in government doing a few small things for our country and then leaving us the hell alone; I believe that you can do pretty much whatever you want with your life as long as you don’t expect me to participate or pay for it. I believe there are things that we do collectively because it wouldn’t be as good to do them ourselves, like build a road or defend our nation, and that should be about it.
That said, I did vote for President Obama, I did help the campaign, and I extorted promises from several people who said that I would probably agree with a lot of his ideas – and believe me, my friends are anything but a bunch of giddy liberal crusaders who have shoulder-length hair and Phish albums – that the moment he turned out to be just another politician, they owed me drinks so that we could get drunk together.
It’s been over a year and I haven’t collected.
I like Barack Obama because he’s an intelligent man who has the capability to relate to other people as a human being. (If you want to doubt his intelligence I’ll expect a response as to why you weren’t the president of the Harvard Law Review.) Even though I didn’t vote for John Kerry because he made my skin crawl, I liked Obama's speech to the convention that talked about how we aren't red states and blue states, but people - and as a former Republican from a very blue state who's now more of a purplish character in a very blue city from a very red state, if you count all the empty parts - that resonated.
First off, he compares favorably to his predecessor. For everyone who said that the only reason the President sounds so smart is he’s reading from a TelePrompTer, I would respectfully point out that I have yet to see him wade into a sentence like a big game hunter with a knife between his teeth, and let’s all agree that presentation skills are part of the job. You never knew WHAT George W. Bush was going to say, sometimes with amazing results (“I can hear you, and the people who did this are going to hear from us soon enough”) and sometimes with genuine mystery (“So long as I'm the president, my measure of success is victory -- and success”). There was a reason he left office with an approval rating in the 20s.
Secondly, in the Sheer Raw Titanium Balls The Size Of Grapefruits category, you can’t beat the fact that both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were proposed as supplemental expenditures. This means that they were not voted on as part of the budget, and therefore they were not counted as part of a budget deficit. The Obama budget when he came into office was the first to incorporate both wars to get a true fiscal cost of what these wars were actually running us.
Have you tried this yourself? Have you explained to your bank that you’re declaring your mortgage “off budget,” so all of the money that you’re spending on a mortgage doesn’t count against your net worth? They take a dim view of that sort of thing. So when the Republicans start howling about the fact that B. Hussein is some no good commie socialist who’s plunging the budget into areas the likes of which we’ve never seen, ask how that off budget thing is working. There was nothing supplemental this year, and there isn’t next year, either.
And if a Republican wants to start hollering at you about “things that are going to bankrupt my childrens’ futures, you can point out their side passed Medicare Part D, which cost $634 billion to give drugs to seniors, and which Wikipedia notes, “By the design of the program, the federal government is not permitted to negotiate prices of drugs with the drug companies, as federal agencies do in other programs. The Veterans Administration, which is allowed to negotiate drug prices and establish a formulary, pays 58% less for drugs, on average, than Medicare Part D.[32] For example, Medicare pays $785 for a year's supply of Lipitor (atorvastatin), while the VA pays $520. Medicare pays $1,485 for Zocor, while the VA pays $127.” Nice of you to jump on for fiscal restraint now, once we’re down to the last can of tuna fish – particularly after the Star-Kist was going out the door by the case in the last decade.
I’m curious to see how the rest of the administration’s efforts turn out. It looks as if the Republicans are on the verge of forgetting that hey, we don’t like you either, and seem to feel there aren’t consequences to obstructing rather than governing.
In short, I think it’s an improvement, but I also think it’s too soon to tell.
START TIME: 9:50
END TIME: 11:07
WORD COUNT: 970
“Assess President Obama's first year in office.”
See, I KNEW it. I know the political temperament of a lot of the Slaughterhouse readership, and I know some of you are ready to hurl a brick through your monitor at the very mention of his name, and a lot of you are looking to see if I can write something that rips the lungs out of every Republican from here to Crawford, Texas.
And I have a hard time doing this. First off, anytime somebody blames “the Government” for anything, I remember that I work for the taxpayers of Clark County, Nevada and the City of Las Vegas (doing what exactly, I’d rather not share), so I know that “the Government” is not some massive organism like Godzilla, stomping around and wrecking shit for the hell of it. It’s people who have been given a job to do because other people were too lazy or stupid or venal or criminal to just make things happen the way they were supposed to, so instead we get government. If you were smart enough to realize that we live in the middle of the fucking desert and you’re not going to be allowed to have a rice paddy or a cranberry bog because we don’t have the water for you to attempt that nonsense, you may not need much government. But maybe you argue against things like fluoridated water and vaccinations and zoning. Maybe you’re one of those people I see on television every once in a while screaming that the government should get its hands off your Medicare, which is akin to the butcher running after you in the parking lot and telling you not to burn his steak.
I believe in government doing a few small things for our country and then leaving us the hell alone; I believe that you can do pretty much whatever you want with your life as long as you don’t expect me to participate or pay for it. I believe there are things that we do collectively because it wouldn’t be as good to do them ourselves, like build a road or defend our nation, and that should be about it.
That said, I did vote for President Obama, I did help the campaign, and I extorted promises from several people who said that I would probably agree with a lot of his ideas – and believe me, my friends are anything but a bunch of giddy liberal crusaders who have shoulder-length hair and Phish albums – that the moment he turned out to be just another politician, they owed me drinks so that we could get drunk together.
It’s been over a year and I haven’t collected.
I like Barack Obama because he’s an intelligent man who has the capability to relate to other people as a human being. (If you want to doubt his intelligence I’ll expect a response as to why you weren’t the president of the Harvard Law Review.) Even though I didn’t vote for John Kerry because he made my skin crawl, I liked Obama's speech to the convention that talked about how we aren't red states and blue states, but people - and as a former Republican from a very blue state who's now more of a purplish character in a very blue city from a very red state, if you count all the empty parts - that resonated.
First off, he compares favorably to his predecessor. For everyone who said that the only reason the President sounds so smart is he’s reading from a TelePrompTer, I would respectfully point out that I have yet to see him wade into a sentence like a big game hunter with a knife between his teeth, and let’s all agree that presentation skills are part of the job. You never knew WHAT George W. Bush was going to say, sometimes with amazing results (“I can hear you, and the people who did this are going to hear from us soon enough”) and sometimes with genuine mystery (“So long as I'm the president, my measure of success is victory -- and success”). There was a reason he left office with an approval rating in the 20s.
Secondly, in the Sheer Raw Titanium Balls The Size Of Grapefruits category, you can’t beat the fact that both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were proposed as supplemental expenditures. This means that they were not voted on as part of the budget, and therefore they were not counted as part of a budget deficit. The Obama budget when he came into office was the first to incorporate both wars to get a true fiscal cost of what these wars were actually running us.
Have you tried this yourself? Have you explained to your bank that you’re declaring your mortgage “off budget,” so all of the money that you’re spending on a mortgage doesn’t count against your net worth? They take a dim view of that sort of thing. So when the Republicans start howling about the fact that B. Hussein is some no good commie socialist who’s plunging the budget into areas the likes of which we’ve never seen, ask how that off budget thing is working. There was nothing supplemental this year, and there isn’t next year, either.
And if a Republican wants to start hollering at you about “things that are going to bankrupt my childrens’ futures, you can point out their side passed Medicare Part D, which cost $634 billion to give drugs to seniors, and which Wikipedia notes, “By the design of the program, the federal government is not permitted to negotiate prices of drugs with the drug companies, as federal agencies do in other programs. The Veterans Administration, which is allowed to negotiate drug prices and establish a formulary, pays 58% less for drugs, on average, than Medicare Part D.[32] For example, Medicare pays $785 for a year's supply of Lipitor (atorvastatin), while the VA pays $520. Medicare pays $1,485 for Zocor, while the VA pays $127.” Nice of you to jump on for fiscal restraint now, once we’re down to the last can of tuna fish – particularly after the Star-Kist was going out the door by the case in the last decade.
I’m curious to see how the rest of the administration’s efforts turn out. It looks as if the Republicans are on the verge of forgetting that hey, we don’t like you either, and seem to feel there aren’t consequences to obstructing rather than governing.
In short, I think it’s an improvement, but I also think it’s too soon to tell.
Writing Project Update
Words this week: 1500, and work's getting zany, so any progress in the short term will be hard fought.
Responses to last week: Three.
Questions this week: 4. (Dad, Ken, Ken, Ken)
Third question this week: "Assess President Obama's first year in office."
Oh, wow. You're going to make me talk politics here? Sigh. Here we go.
RESPONSE DUE BY: 2/5-6 midnight
Responses to last week: Three.
Questions this week: 4. (Dad, Ken, Ken, Ken)
Third question this week: "Assess President Obama's first year in office."
Oh, wow. You're going to make me talk politics here? Sigh. Here we go.
RESPONSE DUE BY: 2/5-6 midnight
Friday, January 29, 2010
Slaughterhouse 56
START TIME: 10:35 PM
END TIME: 10:50 PM
WORD COUNT: 530
This week's question: "You order all of your new books online at the library. Do you ever browse the shelves anymore?"
I always make sure to browse the shelves; my mind depends on it.
Because as human beings, it's easier than ever to self-select what information we interact with. We can now wake up in the morning to our favorite song, choose our lunch down to the growth origins of the vegetables we eat, watch and read nothing but news that we agree with, order only the books we want to read, watch television shows that a very small select group like us enjoy, and live in places with people exactly like ourselves.
In 1991, military personnel working at the PXs in bases in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, knew when the troops would be approaching the front. How? They'd sell out of AA batteries, the size that went into Sony Discmans. The Gulf War was the first one in which the soldiers had their own soundtrack.
There's a phenomenon going on called 'The Big Sort" and it's showing that people with like political beliefs are starting to cluster together - the "red" states are become redder and the corresponding is also true. Because we're creating a world where you can interact (virtually) with people who think and feel precisely the same as you do, there's no reason to attempt to interact civilly with people who share the same physical space. Think about your office. There are probably vast arrays of topics that you don't talk about, either by courtesy or by statute.
There are good things about this sort. If I were gay and living in a small community I would probably never be afforded a safe chance to meet anyone like me, but with the internet it becomes apparent that not only are there other people like me, but there are other people in my identical situation that are grappling with the same issues. If I have a rare disease I not only stand a better chance of getting treatment, I have a chance to see how others worldwide are coping.
The bad things, though, are that in an entirely self-selected universe, you run the risk of never being forced to think, see, hear, taste, feel, touch, or consider anything that would ever fall outside of your comfort zone - a perilous situation that leads to diminished powers of argument and reason. Let's say that you consider the steak at Texas de Brazil to be the finest on the face of the Earth. Could I ever get you to consider the entrees at Morton's, or Ruth's Chris, or Lawry's? Or if you were convinced that any one of those other places were the greatest, what would it take to get you to try something different (other than the sheer obnoxious force of my own personality)? The greater the certainty you have of your beliefs, the less likely you are to question them.
What is wrong with politics is only partially due to the participants. It's a climate in which one side believes the other is evil, dangerous, and stupid. And with both sides fanning the flames in opposition to those with the opposite colored pom poms, the situation will culminate in tragedy or doom.
So browse the shelves. It's really important.
END TIME: 10:50 PM
WORD COUNT: 530
This week's question: "You order all of your new books online at the library. Do you ever browse the shelves anymore?"
I always make sure to browse the shelves; my mind depends on it.
Because as human beings, it's easier than ever to self-select what information we interact with. We can now wake up in the morning to our favorite song, choose our lunch down to the growth origins of the vegetables we eat, watch and read nothing but news that we agree with, order only the books we want to read, watch television shows that a very small select group like us enjoy, and live in places with people exactly like ourselves.
In 1991, military personnel working at the PXs in bases in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, knew when the troops would be approaching the front. How? They'd sell out of AA batteries, the size that went into Sony Discmans. The Gulf War was the first one in which the soldiers had their own soundtrack.
There's a phenomenon going on called 'The Big Sort" and it's showing that people with like political beliefs are starting to cluster together - the "red" states are become redder and the corresponding is also true. Because we're creating a world where you can interact (virtually) with people who think and feel precisely the same as you do, there's no reason to attempt to interact civilly with people who share the same physical space. Think about your office. There are probably vast arrays of topics that you don't talk about, either by courtesy or by statute.
There are good things about this sort. If I were gay and living in a small community I would probably never be afforded a safe chance to meet anyone like me, but with the internet it becomes apparent that not only are there other people like me, but there are other people in my identical situation that are grappling with the same issues. If I have a rare disease I not only stand a better chance of getting treatment, I have a chance to see how others worldwide are coping.
The bad things, though, are that in an entirely self-selected universe, you run the risk of never being forced to think, see, hear, taste, feel, touch, or consider anything that would ever fall outside of your comfort zone - a perilous situation that leads to diminished powers of argument and reason. Let's say that you consider the steak at Texas de Brazil to be the finest on the face of the Earth. Could I ever get you to consider the entrees at Morton's, or Ruth's Chris, or Lawry's? Or if you were convinced that any one of those other places were the greatest, what would it take to get you to try something different (other than the sheer obnoxious force of my own personality)? The greater the certainty you have of your beliefs, the less likely you are to question them.
What is wrong with politics is only partially due to the participants. It's a climate in which one side believes the other is evil, dangerous, and stupid. And with both sides fanning the flames in opposition to those with the opposite colored pom poms, the situation will culminate in tragedy or doom.
So browse the shelves. It's really important.
Writing Project Update
Words this week: 1500, non-project related.
Responses to last week: Two, one of which made me laugh like crazy.
Questions this week: 5.
Third question this week: A curveball, one-off: "You order all of your new books online at the library. Do you ever browse the shelves anymore?"
Answer's attached, and this is one of my favorite topics.
RESPONSE DUE BY: 1/29-30 midnight
Responses to last week: Two, one of which made me laugh like crazy.
Questions this week: 5.
Third question this week: A curveball, one-off: "You order all of your new books online at the library. Do you ever browse the shelves anymore?"
Answer's attached, and this is one of my favorite topics.
RESPONSE DUE BY: 1/29-30 midnight
Friday, January 22, 2010
Slaughterhouse 55
START TIME: 9:13 PM
END TIME: 10:29 PM
WORD COUNT: 986
"Let's say you had a day to spend in Chicago - what would you do? Not what one should do, but what you would do."
I was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, and particularly in the last few years that I lived there I had the tremendous opportunity of working in the city, specifically a Five Diamond hotel on North Michigan Avenue (no, the other one; no, not that one either) and took advantage of my surroundings as often as I could. I know the city pretty well.
I get to go home about three times a year, so we’ll rule out the idea that in one day I’d like to see my family, or race in the Chicago Triathlon, activities that have a very specific schedule and set of destinations. Let’s make this the ultimate “this day’s mine” scenario.
First off, if it’s morning, let’s make it a Tuesday. I’ve already gotten my room at that hotel that I used to work at, and the wake-up call’s coming in relatively early, maybe 7:30. Breakfast will arrive shortly after that, so the lemon ricotta pancakes, pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice and small pot of espresso will be enough to get me moving fast and out the door. The morning temperature outdoors will be 61 degrees, which they’ll have told me during the wake-up call. I’ll look out the window towards a day with no clouds in the sky and start to put it together.
After a scalding hot shower and a quick review of the newspaper, I’ll head through the lobby and catch the elevator downstairs. The city’s already humming with shoppers and people making their way towards their destinations, the sidewalks already pulsing. In the old days I’d go kill a few minutes watching the few traders that do still shout at each other in the futures pits slug it out as the numbers on the board jitter around like the world’s most expensive sports book, but the viewing gallery is another casualty of September 11. Instead, I’ll walk south on Michigan for a bit, then catch a cab straight to Union Station. After a few minutes enjoying the sunlight in the Great Hall, I’m walking to the river at the bridge at Adams, so I can watch the sun shine down among the canyon of skyscrapers.
Next stop is the Sea-erm, Willis Tower Skydeck, which is better in the daytime, and I’ll try to pick out the spots looking west where, growing up, I could see it just driving around, a mere 15 miles away. I’ll give directions in the friendliest, most sincere voice I can manage to some genuinely lost people, hopefully making their stay a little more fun in the most American city there is. (New York’s a world city. Same with London and Paris. Los Angeles is American, but in a more fragmented manner than Chicago.)
It’s time for lunch, and that means the Park Grill at Millennium Park, watching how the sun bounces off of the Bean as everyone around looks at the sky, and the people realize that this is one of THOSE days, the ones that make six months of winter worthwhile, the ones that justify the sunglasses and maybe an unbuttoned shirt collar with a loosened tie, because it’s time to have lunch outside today. I’ll order a club soda with lime and watch people for a while – at the part of Michigan Avenue where the art students cross the tourists who intersect with the Loop lunch crowd.
I’ll go over the Promenade bridge and make my way to the lake, ultimately getting to the Shedd Aquarium to find the brightest yellow saltwater fish in existence, watch the field trip kids look at the electric eels, maybe see if I can watch the scuba diver feed them. Once I get back out of the dark, which is like leaving a movie, I’ll be looking right at the skyline, still breathtaking even after I’ve seen it thousands of times.
We’re at early afternoon, so it’s time to get ready for dinner. The hotel has left my suit pressed and ready to go in my closet and I got my shoes polished last night, so after a scalding hot shower I’m ready to go quickly. Tonight will be the tasting menu at the Everest Room, a seven course degustation coinciding with the sunset, because I’d like the same table I always liked in the old days, in the northwest corner next to the mirrors, looking out the 40th floor.
As darkness starts falling, I’m off to do something, but I’m not sure what. Reacquire my secondhand taste for Marlboro Lights at Blue Chicago? Have tickets to a show at Steppenwolf or ImprovOlympic? Catch something at Pritzker Pavilion? All I know is, if I got the opera tickets, I only have time for the pretheater degustation at Everest, but we all have our crosses to bear – and if I’m headed to a Sox game, I go somewhere for dinner that doesn’t need a suit.
It’s nighttime and it’s Tuesday and it’s warm. I scurry over to Navy Pier and catch the fireworks show from the edge, close enough that embers of paper risk singeing my clothes. After that, I’m going to the Observatory at the John Hancock Center, which is far better at night. I’ll look at the Mies buildings on the Gold Coast and at the rest of the city, maybe listen to the buzz from the skywalk.
If I don’t have my legs under me after all the traveling today, I’ll cross the street and go back to sleep. If the adrenaline still hasn’t worn off, I’ll head the four or five blocks to Underground Wonder Bar, grab a spot in the corner and make fast friends with whoever’s willing to provide me Sapphire and tonics while the jazz pianist plays until 4 AM.
I get back to bed before the sun comes up, confident that I’d done everything I could to make it the greatest day possible – one where every single second let me think, “God, it’s good to be home.”
END TIME: 10:29 PM
WORD COUNT: 986
"Let's say you had a day to spend in Chicago - what would you do? Not what one should do, but what you would do."
I was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, and particularly in the last few years that I lived there I had the tremendous opportunity of working in the city, specifically a Five Diamond hotel on North Michigan Avenue (no, the other one; no, not that one either) and took advantage of my surroundings as often as I could. I know the city pretty well.
I get to go home about three times a year, so we’ll rule out the idea that in one day I’d like to see my family, or race in the Chicago Triathlon, activities that have a very specific schedule and set of destinations. Let’s make this the ultimate “this day’s mine” scenario.
First off, if it’s morning, let’s make it a Tuesday. I’ve already gotten my room at that hotel that I used to work at, and the wake-up call’s coming in relatively early, maybe 7:30. Breakfast will arrive shortly after that, so the lemon ricotta pancakes, pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice and small pot of espresso will be enough to get me moving fast and out the door. The morning temperature outdoors will be 61 degrees, which they’ll have told me during the wake-up call. I’ll look out the window towards a day with no clouds in the sky and start to put it together.
After a scalding hot shower and a quick review of the newspaper, I’ll head through the lobby and catch the elevator downstairs. The city’s already humming with shoppers and people making their way towards their destinations, the sidewalks already pulsing. In the old days I’d go kill a few minutes watching the few traders that do still shout at each other in the futures pits slug it out as the numbers on the board jitter around like the world’s most expensive sports book, but the viewing gallery is another casualty of September 11. Instead, I’ll walk south on Michigan for a bit, then catch a cab straight to Union Station. After a few minutes enjoying the sunlight in the Great Hall, I’m walking to the river at the bridge at Adams, so I can watch the sun shine down among the canyon of skyscrapers.
Next stop is the Sea-erm, Willis Tower Skydeck, which is better in the daytime, and I’ll try to pick out the spots looking west where, growing up, I could see it just driving around, a mere 15 miles away. I’ll give directions in the friendliest, most sincere voice I can manage to some genuinely lost people, hopefully making their stay a little more fun in the most American city there is. (New York’s a world city. Same with London and Paris. Los Angeles is American, but in a more fragmented manner than Chicago.)
It’s time for lunch, and that means the Park Grill at Millennium Park, watching how the sun bounces off of the Bean as everyone around looks at the sky, and the people realize that this is one of THOSE days, the ones that make six months of winter worthwhile, the ones that justify the sunglasses and maybe an unbuttoned shirt collar with a loosened tie, because it’s time to have lunch outside today. I’ll order a club soda with lime and watch people for a while – at the part of Michigan Avenue where the art students cross the tourists who intersect with the Loop lunch crowd.
I’ll go over the Promenade bridge and make my way to the lake, ultimately getting to the Shedd Aquarium to find the brightest yellow saltwater fish in existence, watch the field trip kids look at the electric eels, maybe see if I can watch the scuba diver feed them. Once I get back out of the dark, which is like leaving a movie, I’ll be looking right at the skyline, still breathtaking even after I’ve seen it thousands of times.
We’re at early afternoon, so it’s time to get ready for dinner. The hotel has left my suit pressed and ready to go in my closet and I got my shoes polished last night, so after a scalding hot shower I’m ready to go quickly. Tonight will be the tasting menu at the Everest Room, a seven course degustation coinciding with the sunset, because I’d like the same table I always liked in the old days, in the northwest corner next to the mirrors, looking out the 40th floor.
As darkness starts falling, I’m off to do something, but I’m not sure what. Reacquire my secondhand taste for Marlboro Lights at Blue Chicago? Have tickets to a show at Steppenwolf or ImprovOlympic? Catch something at Pritzker Pavilion? All I know is, if I got the opera tickets, I only have time for the pretheater degustation at Everest, but we all have our crosses to bear – and if I’m headed to a Sox game, I go somewhere for dinner that doesn’t need a suit.
It’s nighttime and it’s Tuesday and it’s warm. I scurry over to Navy Pier and catch the fireworks show from the edge, close enough that embers of paper risk singeing my clothes. After that, I’m going to the Observatory at the John Hancock Center, which is far better at night. I’ll look at the Mies buildings on the Gold Coast and at the rest of the city, maybe listen to the buzz from the skywalk.
If I don’t have my legs under me after all the traveling today, I’ll cross the street and go back to sleep. If the adrenaline still hasn’t worn off, I’ll head the four or five blocks to Underground Wonder Bar, grab a spot in the corner and make fast friends with whoever’s willing to provide me Sapphire and tonics while the jazz pianist plays until 4 AM.
I get back to bed before the sun comes up, confident that I’d done everything I could to make it the greatest day possible – one where every single second let me think, “God, it’s good to be home.”
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