Boulevard Bolt and Thanksgiving

On the final Thursday of November, 1863, prompted by essays written by Sarah Josepha Hale, President Abraham Lincoln declared a national day of Thanksgiving. His belief was that even though America was entrenched in a brutal Civil War, all citizens still needed to be thankful for their blessings that God had given to them. He said,

“It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

On this Thanksgiving, 146 years later, I am thankful for many things, almost too many to go into here. The year of 2009 has not been the best year for me, in fact it very well may have been the worst. But what Thanksgiving is suppose to be about is to lay all of that negativity aside and find the joys and blessings that still exist in my life.

Tomorrow morning I will be running my favorite race of the year, the 5-mile Boulevard Bolt. I love the fact that the course is a simple out and back, I love that so many people cram onto Belle Meade Boulevard, and I especially love that the last mile of the course is downhill! Now over the years I have always had the good fortune to run into so many friends, people I use to teach with, and members of my running crew East Nasty. This year I hope for the same thing.

 

The Sunday Night Game

Instead of watching last night’s NFL Sunday Night Football, I hope others joined me by tuning into the championship game of Major League Soccer. Held in Seattle, Washington, in front of a crowd of 46,000, the L.A. Galaxy (easily the New York Yankees of soccer) took on Real Salt Lake (a team with a losing record.) Anyway, the game was great and in the end it came down to a shootout, with Real Salt Lake taking it in the 7^th round.

 I really wish soccer would take off here in the states, maybe not as big as it is overseas where they close down everything whenever a game is on, but at least to the point where we watch games in a similar vain to the NFL. To me it is almost more enjoyable. You have little to no commercials, gigantic celebrations whenever someone scores a goal, and an intense game where everyone is always playing with everything they have in their system. For those who say that soccer is not as fun to watch as football, then you were not watching last night’s game.  

Next week, the groups will be pulled for the upcoming World Cup, which will be held in South Africa this summer. Let’s hope that The US national team gets drawn into an easy bracket, and that by the time the games actually begin, we can get more people into the idea of watching the games with some excitement and anticipation.

BRUUUUUCCCCCCEEEE!

Where oh where to begin…

Despite the hill coming out of Shelby Bottoms Park, last night’s run was a success! My pace is coming back to just above a turtle’s speed, I feel like I can breathe both during and after the run, and “technical” sportswear is keeping me a bit dryer these days. After the run, while downing my blue Gatorade and trying my best to remember to stretch for longer than 30 seconds, Drew said to me that he and Sunday Bloody Mundy (Mundy for short) were heading over to the Sommet Center around 8pm to try and buy some scalped tickets for the Bruce Springsteen concert. Drew said, “Come on dude, it’s not like the Boss is here all the time, I think it would be a good idea to check it out.” So I agreed, and after kicking it with a few fellow East Nasty peeps at 3 Crow, I decided to head over to venue early to see what the scalping situation would be like. My hopes were that by the time the 3 of us all got to the concert, the scalpers would be dying to get rid of some of their tickets. It was to no avail though. By the time I walked to the front of the Sommet Center on the corner of Broadway and 4^th Ave., there was not a ticket vendor in sight.

Drew strolls up, and I told him that if we really wanted inside, the only way was going to be buying tickets from the ticketbooth, and at full price no less. Drew then said something to the effect of, let’s go and try the back door to this place and see what we can do there.

So, Drew and I head to the back of the Sommet, and he gives me the instructions, “Go and wait by that door (pointing to some unmarked door on the side of the building with no handles) and then call me once Hugh gets here.” Alright I said, knowing that this sort of stuff just always seems to work out for Drew. Sure enough, a couple of minutes later when Mundy gets there, I sent Drew a text message, and within the minute he was there letting us in!

So know we are in the arena, but without tickets. Once again, Drew steps up and says, just follow me. Somehow, miraculously, he leads us to a part of the lower bowl, where 3 seats just happened to be unoccupied. I think Hugh stated it best when he looked at me just moments after finding our “seats,” and said that Drew Jones very well may be the Ferris Bueller of Nashville.  

So onto the concert…um, how should I put this…it rocked!

First off, I only hope to be able to move half as good as Bruce Springsteen did last night when I am 60 years old.  Secondly, that concert was absolutely A-W-E-S-O-M-E, and anyone who says differently is a M-O-R-O-N! The set list was solid from start to finish, including the entire Born to Run album, “Dancing in the Dark,” “Badlands,” “Americanland,” “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” and “Ring of Fire.” The three of us, free seats and all, fist pumped to every song, sang aloud to every lyric, and wished it was us dancing on stage a la Courtney Cox style during “Dancing in the Dark.” Or perhaps that last one was just me.

Anyway, the concert was everything I ever could have wanted in a BRRRRUUUUUCCCCCEEEE concert, except for the omission of “The River.” Again to quote Mundy, it was well worth the price we paid to get in.

Dear TN Weather, Make Up Your Mind!

I almost feel like starting out with a Seinfeld impression, “What’s the deal with this Tennessee weather? I mean it’s hot one day, cold the next, then it is perfect outside, now it looks like the sun may never shine again…” and so on, then Kramer comes smashing through a door.

Seriously though, I went from short sleeves and flip flops on Sunday, to freezing my ass off last night walking into a brisk headwind, trying to get to my car and some form of warmth. Don’t get me wrong though, the cold isn’t all bad, I just wish the weather would makes up its mind and be either hot or cold. But I guess it is good not to complain too much, because I would much rather have this type of weather than actual snow. When those little flakes hit the ground here in Nashville, whether it sticks or just melts away, people lose their minds. The driving around town comes to a stand-still (even on the interstate) and people basically “roll-up the sidewalks.”

An Orientation on Life

With the beginning of every new job,  often we are forced to sit through hours of orientation that deal with the issues over health insurance, codes of conduct and the proper way of filling out a W-4 form. I get the fact that protocol must be given out, and that the proper paperwork must be filled out, but it still seems so useless overall. Today I wasted close to 7 hours, sitting under depressing neon lights, sipping watered down coffee, and trying my best to keep my mind focused on the information being presented. The whole time I just kept asking myself, what is the point of all this, and is anyone here taking anything away from this whole experience.

In the middle of it all I got to thinking about the ancient philosophers, and how they use to give orientations on life. Socrates, Aristotle, and many, many other great thinkers throughout history gave these thought provoking lectures on what they felt was the truth behind life. The painting above, The School of Athens, by Raphael shows all these great thinkers in their element, some talking, some listening, a couple creating art, and even a few doing math problems. When I look at this painting in light of the past 7 hours, where my brain basically turned into mush, it makes me long for this kind of Renaissance again.

How great would be if once a year we were required to take an all day seminar over the purpose of life? We could learn about cleaner ways to live, discuss big ideas and the issues that are meaningful to each one of us. Perhaps we could even learn a way as a society and as individuals to be less self-seeking. I fear that today’s day and age is moving further and further from this kind thinking. Hopefully I am wrong though, and soon we will all begin to talk to one another, learn from each other’s perspectives, and help our whole society grow together towards new heights…

Or can’t we at least get rid of these pointless meetings that take up our entire day, I would at least be happy with that.

If my Regular vision is 20/20, then my hindsight is legally blind

I’m sure that you have heard the phrase “hindsight is 20/20.” My mom in fact still to this day says that phrase all the time. The meaning of it can simply be interpreted as saying that when we look back on our past we can see our mistakes with greater ease and wisdom. For some reason though, I am not so sure that my own hindsight has such perfect vision.  

Example, I still look back to my time of growing up in North Canton, Ohio with great joy and excitement. Just last night I was re-telling some stories of my days of yore, and I painted my times in high school as nothing short of utopia. I mean, if I sit and think I am sure that I am can come up with some negatives about growing up, but it still would probably not outweigh the positives.

Perhaps it is my personality or upbringing that makes me focus on the good times versus the bad, but in doing so, I forget the bad and sometimes have to re-learn lessons already given to me. I wonder if anyone else has this problem, and if so, if it affects them the same way it has me.

Eckhart Tolle, a wise man and great author, constantly promotes the idea of only living in the present. Not looking into the past and over analyzing our mistakes and not looking to the future where we may or may not reach the markers we have set out for ourselves, only then, Tolle explains, can we truly live.

And maybe that truly is the answer, to only focus on the here and now, and let everything else fall by the way.

The new King Opus

Undoubtedly the author that I have promoted the most in my life is Stephen King. King is the reason that I started reading for pleasure, and he is easily the author that I have read the most. I was in 6th or 7th grade, and I had probably only read 10 books in total through assigned reading, then one day I picked up a book entitled The Dead Zone. I probably got it because it had the word “dead” in the title, and like all middle school kids, I thought the subject of death was pretty cool. What I got with my first experience with Stephen King, however, was an introduction on how to develop characters in a way that made them both realistic and different from me, all at the same time. I can remember certain scenes from that book, and I have only ever read it once, and that was over 15 years ago.

Everyone who is even slightly interested in the art form of writing should be forced to read King’s On Writing. I have given this one book to at least 20 people in my life so far, which also means that I have actually bought the thing at least 5 different times because some people did not give me my copy back. Friends of mine who are musicians liked how King discusses the idea of creating new stories, while artists that I know said that King’s argument on dedication and time management is borderline perfect. For us writers out there, the whole book is a treasure trove of how to write, what not to do, and a really great example of what solid writing looks like. For those of you who have not read it, the book is part memoir and part technical book. In my opinion, the whole thing is great.

]Today, Stephen King releases his 41st novel Under the Dome (that is not counting his books of short stories, screenplays, and comics that he has also written.) The book is just over 1000 pages long in hardback, and it feels like it weighs 20 pounds or more. So far it has gained favorable reviews, and writers even like Neil Gaiman are claiming it is the best book that they have read all year.

What is astounding about Stephen King is not his massive quantity that he has put out for the world to read (he has a poem and short story in the New Yorker also released this month), rather it is his quality of stories that he has created over the years. Now I am not going to lie to you and say that everything I have ever read by him was good, some of it just fell flat for me, but I will say that even at his worst there is still something to take away from everything King publishes. Also not everything that he writes is horror, in fact if you enjoyed The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption, or Stand By Me, then you already know that King just does fine in the drama category too.

But what it all boils down to is Stephen King’s ability to tell you a story and hold your attention. At least he always has with me. Here is the opening paragraph to his short story in the New Yorker. Not the happiest story in the world, but still it captured my attention.

“They’ve been married for ten years and for a long time everything was O.K.—swell—but now they argue. Now they argue quite a lot. It’s really all the same argument. It has circularity. It is, Ray thinks, like a dog track. When they argue, they’re like greyhounds chasing the mechanical rabbit. You go past the same scenery time after time, but you don’t see it. You see the rabbit.”

Book # 35

Today I finished book #35 for the year. First off I would like to note that this is the largest amount of books that I have read for my own pleasure in one year, and I still have two months left.  Secondly, this last book, Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years is something that everyone should read.

The central idea of the book is nothing extraordinary, it is sort of the author’s own look at the idea of living out your life to the fullest. He is extremely persuasive in his argument to get outside of our comfort zones, take risks, and make an extra effort to make our days meaningful, and in only 250 pages he nails the point home. The best way he proves this his argument is by doing it himself, and  also by telling the stories of those people he met along the way that also live great stories.

One passage that stuck out to me particularly was when he was talking about those who give up on working towards a meaningful life and become stagnant. He writes:

“I think this when most people give up on their stories. They come out of college wanting to change the world, wanting to get married, wanting to have kids…but they get into the middle and discover it was harder than they thought. They can’t see the distant shore anymore, and they wonder if their paddling is moving them forward.”

He thought of this while he was kayaking across a big channel of water with a group of friends. How many people do you know that have given up in their paddling? How many people do you know that have just drifted out to sea, and now have no desire to pursue the passions that once ignited their soul and minds? I know a good amount of people who could fit those descriptions, and I have definitely fit into those categories myself on occasion.

But now I am inspired. Now I want to start living a great story myself.

Falling behind…

So it is the 5th day into November and I am already behind in how many words I should have written down for my novel. I am going to try my best to over produce over the next couple days, especially the weekend, but it might already be too far gone. So far the main thing that this experience has taught me is time-management and just how much of our days are spent following things that we are not passionate about. In my usual work day I spend over 10 hours doing something that merely just fills up my day with a little pay at the end, and at the end of the day I try my best to be creative for, at best, two hours.

Robert Frost once said that the only thing he could truly say about the experience of living is three words, “it goes on.” That is way I have been feeling lately. A part of me wants to put the world on brakes and slow it down for awhile so I can try my best to get my head together. I want the time to be my best creative self, figure out what it is I want to do with my life, and try to come to grips with everything around me.

At the same time I have also heard that life is about understanding that we live in a world where we all are constantly being lost. To embrace that fact is to truly understand ourselves and knowing it helps us to move forward to where we are suppose to be going. As it is with most things in life though, it is much easier to write these words here and say them versus the reality of facing up to it.

So here I go, trying my best to live up to “it goes on,” and embrace my world without answers and direction.

1600 Words a Day

On my first day of writing for the NaNo Month (which is an attempt to write a novel of 50,000 words in 31 days) I exceeded my proposed word count goal by 100 words. For it to work out perfectly I need to write at least 1600 hundred words a day. So far so good.

It is an interesting process to take on. I have decided with my novel that I am going to try my best to write it the same way Jack Kerouac composed his epic On the Road, which means I will write it straight forward. This will, most likely, prove to be the most difficult challenge for me. In my writing in the past, I was used to planning out all the scenes, writing and re-writing various parts of the story, and usually composing various parts of the story all at a different time. Perhaps this new writing style will prove to be more beneficial to my overall ability to write.

The story is an interesting one. Even last night as I sat down to begin composing the introduction of it, I found myself taking the story in directions that I had not thought of before. The whole experience, from signing up to Nano Month website to completing my first day of writing has been a thrill for me. I am excited to carry on the story today and see where it takes me.

The title of the piece is Oh for Nothing, which is came from a line in the movie North by Northwest. I figure it was fitting since the character I am writing about takes a road trip from Tampa, Florida to Seattle, Washington. If I ever write something worth publishing, I will post it here so anyone can read it.