Ptt-ooey…I Spitz Upon You!

Erasing the Mark
Unless you live in a cave, you know that a good part of the world has been glued to their living rooms watching Mission Impossible on the tube for the past week or so.

You know…the show where Mr. Phelps and his team take on improbable odds to accomplish the impossible goal no one else could possibly achieve?

But this time it wasn’t only that melodramatic taped message that self-destructed in five seconds. That was also about the amount of time it took me for to lose absolutely all respect for another cast member; one from a previous season; the person who performed the impossible half a lifetime ago: Mark Spitz.

Now obviously, the Mr. Phelps I’m referring to is Michael, not Jim, and the Impossible Mission was the eight gold medal mark he smashed on Sunday at the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.

Michael Phelps reestablished a standard few believed would or could ever be again visited, let alone broken. The entire world has celebrated his effort, climaxing in the gold medal he earned along with his U.S. 4x100 Individual Relay teammates. Phelps made that victory possible with a blistering 100 meters in the butterfly, the penultimate stroke in the race’s four-leg sequence, bringing the Americans back from a third place position to first, leaving freestyle anchorman, Jason Lezak, a comfortable, if not insurmountable lead to bring home the history-making hardware for his teammates and for Phelps.

The feat capped a week of world records and gold medals for Phelps and his U.S. teammates. The excitement was simply unfathomable. In both the 4x100 Freestyle Relay and the 100 Meter Butterfly, the fragile margin of victory required a pair of absolutely inhuman comeback efforts; first by Jason Lezak, catching Alain Bernard and the trash-talking French squad (Hey, Big Al, smash THIS!) in the last 10 meters of the anchor leg. Then on Friday night (Saturday AM locally), in the only final Phelps was involved in that didn’t produce a world record in these games (and unfortunately for me, the only one I didn’t see live on TeeVee), proved the indisputable mettle of a champion.

We’d seen Phelps dominate in each and every individual final prior to the 100 butterfly. However this time, the doubters appeared to have the last ‘I told-you-so.’

Serbia’s Milorad Cavic, who swam admirably, and in any other Olympics would probably have gone home with at least one and perhaps two gold medals, led Phelps in the Individual 100 Meter Butterfly by a quarter body length with just a few meters to go, yet somehow, Phelps powered one final giant sweep from his six-foot-seven wingspan at the wall to out-touch his opponent by a mere one-one hundredth of a second. Only by video replay review was it finally determined that he had in fact completed this amazing theft of probability. That was the gold medal that tied Spitz’ formerly impregnable mark of seven in the 1972 Munich Games. The 4x100 IM relay the following day sealed the deal.

Snatching History
I picked up on a swimming term this Olympics that I had never heard before, but that I think can understand if not physically identify with. NBC’s chief swimming event analyst, Rowdy Gaines, on more than one occasion made reference to a swimmer ‘hurting’ as they appear to labor physically during the latter stages of a race. On most occasions this slow fade of speed and propulsion can prove disastrous to the swimmer’s efforts.

Such was the experience of Alain Bernard of France. He was ‘hurting’ in the final few meters of the 4x100 free relay, and Jason Lezak made him pay for that discomfort.

It’s an obvious circumstance; the burning muscles, your lungs feeling as though they might burst from within your chest. Anyone who has ever participated in a sport that involves endurance — like running or swimming — knows the feeling well. Everyone is subject to it in varying degrees; everyone ‘hurts,’ and it’s the ability to manage that pain that largely determines ultimate success. Even in the shorter-distance sprints, the ability to give all your body can give is what separates the champions from also-rans. Like I said, no one is immune to the phenomenon (that is of course, unless your name is Usain Bolt…but then, that’s another story…).

It was no different for Michael Phelps. By his own admission he was “hurting a little more than usual” in the 100 Butterfly, as he fought the fatigue that everyone who doubted his ability to realize his incredible quest said he would. I mean, there’s a good pretty good reason Spitz’ feat had never been duplicated. The timing of the race schedule is the chief bugaboo; giving the would-be successor to Mark Spitz’ Olympic immortality sometimes less than two hours to recover between races, but always less rest time than most of his competitors.

Phelps himself had tried and failed to win eight golds in Athens in 2004, coming up short at six. To be certain, it was a far-flung goal to be sure, but one he felt driven enough to attempt again in Beijing.

Yet Phelps knew that even his usually dominant effort might not be enough. It was, however, his superlative effort that will go down in the annals of Olympic history as one of it’s most special.

As Cavic, rightfully optimistic of his impending victory, completed his final butterfly stroke just less than a body length from the wall, as is the case with most swimmers, he ‘glided’ in the last few inches for the touch. He knew he had the lead going into his last stroke. What he didn’t know was that he wasn’t racing an ordinary human.

In what would ordinarily be a fruitless last flail for a lesser being, Phelps employed that monstrous reach to propel his body out of the water, lurching to the finish to snatch history by tips of his fingers. “I just wanted to get the best time I could,” he would later tell the press.

Yeah, Michael, and Superman just likes wearin’ that cool blue underwear.

Spitz in a World of ‘Hurt’
But as inebriated as I was on the Michael Phelps kool-aid, something I read this morning made me really wake up and smell the coffee. No, it wasn’t some scandalous revelation that would taint his accomplishment. It wasn’t the piss-in-the-punch gossip story that I’ve been bracing myself for — ‘cuz you know, there’s got to be a catch here, right? I mean this 23 year-old kid couldn’t possibly be all that good, could he?

Well to be perfectly honest, no; no he isn’t. He’s had his share of growing pains and has made his requisite payments of stupid tax like most of the rest of us.

In November of 2004, after attending a Baltimore Ravens game in which he was introduced to the crowd, Phelps, just a few months off his six gold medal performance at the Athens Olympics was stopped and charged both with a DUI and drinking under the legal age of 21 in Maryland; he was 19 at the time.

So we knew this goin’ in. He’s not pure as the driven snow; he’s made mistakes in his personal life, but has apparently learned from them. So the story I read wasn’t an attempt to muddy the waters of his otherwise squeaky-clean image.

The story instead was about the man whom Phelps chased, caught and passed, and who now is showing his true colors to the world: Mark Spitz.

Maybe this is old news. Maybe people who know him, or have taken more time than I to read up on his personality and makeup aren’t even a fraction as shocked as I was when I read the AFP (French international news service Agence France-Presse article that details Spitz’ recent tantrum that he wasn’t invited as a VIP guest to witness the long-awaited passing of the torch of Olympic immortality that he alone possessed for 32 years.

Thanks to MakeMineMike for featuring it is his blog this last week (which I actually only came across yesterday).

I won’t bother detailing the entire story for you; I’m having a tough time holding my virtual tongue as it is , and I don’t want to say something I might regret. The fact is, this is an article from a foreign news agency which likely relished the opportunity to make Spitz appear petty. It was written on August 11th, early in the week and well before it even appeared Phelps would be successful in his second attempt to eclipse Spitz’ gold medal record.

However last Friday, August 15th, nearly a week later, after the shootin’ match is nearly over and Phelps has tied his seven-medal mark, Spitz did an about-face. No doubt ‘hurting’ over the fallout over his perceived pettiness of the previous article, Spitz probably hoped the likely greater distribution of the AP article would make it the one most people would see.

Will the REAL Mark Spitz please sit down (and go away)?
The Associated Press story reports Spitz as “almost giddy” in his excitement for Phelps’ achievement. He might as well have been sporting pom-poms and a tight sweater as he gushed, “I'm ecstatic,” he said. “I always wondered what my feelings would be. I feel a tremendous load off my back.

“Somebody told me years ago you judge one's character by the company you keep, and I'm just happy to be in the company of Michael Phelps. That's the bottom line.”

Compare that to this from the earlier APF artcle:

“I won seven events. If they had the 50m freestyle back then, which they do now, I probably would have won that too,” he said.

Now is this actually ego speaking, trying to minimize what up to that point was still only an outside chance that Phelps would ultimately prevail? Or is it justifiable hubris, as that from which Walter Brennan coined the famous line from the 60s TeeVee series, The Guns of Will Sonnet: “No brag; just fact?”

I don’t know for sure, but at this point I really don’t care. Even if it is justifiable, it wasn’t necessary. It served no purpose than to unnecessarily elevate himself at the seeming expense of the possibly greatest Olympic story our country has ever seen.

My question is why? Why poke the sleeping pit bull of an international press that would likely enjoy nothing more than to make the U.S.A. look bad? The obvious answer is, (invoking Austin Powers) that Spitz can’t bear the thought of losing his mao-jao.

It’s sad; it’s pathetic; it’s an embarrassment to him and to his country.

I find it amazing that the man had enough good sense to lose the porn moustache years ago but not enough to keep his yap shut now. So in that regard I do feel sorry for him. However in the grander scheme of things, I couldn’t be happier — if this is indeed the kind of man he truly is.

He’s getting what he deserves.

Suffice it to say, the respect I held my entire adult life for Mark Spitz is history; kaput; banished to the bottom of the pool. He is dead to me.

Ptt-ooey — I spit upon his smoldering, narcissistic, pile of yesterday’s ashes.

If this is what Mark Spitz is really all about, then shame on us for worshipping the ground he walked upon for so many years.

Shame on us for assuming that with greatness comes requisite personal honor.

Shame on us for believing that he likely ever considered the concept of team as even being in the same area code as his own China-sized ego.

But in the demonizing of ego, let’s make one thing perfectly clear.

This is not to say that Michael Phelps is bereft of a healthy ego; far from it. Ego is a mandatory component of any kind of sustained achievement. Self-confidence is the grease that the wheels of committed training need to get anywhere; one must first truly believe he’s worthy of the mantle of greatness to someday wear it. No doubt Michael Phelps believes he’s earned that mantle; and rightfully so.

But please note that I refer to a healthy ego — not to The Ego That Swallowed Munich.

In the AFP article Spitz all but holds his breath ‘til he turns blue-in-the-face over his assumed ‘diss’ from the U.S. and/or International Olympic Committee. He insisted that he should have been there to preside over Phelps’ successful assault. He in fact, according to the article, believes he should have been the presenter of Phelps’ record tying and/or record-breaking medal achievement.

But he wouldn’t dream of going to the game on his own dime; oh the humiliation!

“I never got invited. You don't go to the Olympics just to say, I am going to go. Especially because of who I am," Spitz told AFP in Hong Kong.

“I am going to sit there and watch Michael Phelps break my record anonymously? That's almost demeaning to me. It is not almost -- it is.”

WWSD (What Would Spitzy Do?)
Earlier I mentioned that ‘healthy ego’ of Michael Phelps. It bears mentioning that ego and kindness aren’t mutually exclusive. And in the persona of Michael Phelps, the two seem to work hand-in-hand.

Case in point, after winning ‘only’ six of his first seven medal swims in Athens, Phelps knew he could not break Mark Spitz’ record, but he could have tied it. Still ahead was the 4x100 individual medley relay, a race the U.S. had never before lost in Olympic competition. Well the U.S. did indeed win that race, but without the services of Michael Phelps.

Why the Phelps no-show? Did he come up with a debilitating hangnail the moment he realized he couldn’t accomplish his goal? Did he pull a ‘Manny’ and sulk because he didn’t want to merely share the glory? I’m sure some people might have pulled something along those lines, but not Phelps. And perhaps, had he competed in it, we would already be ‘over’ Mark Spitz.

Ian Crocker, the American 100 meter butterfly specialist and good friend with Phelps had finished out of the running for the final for his medal race, which Phelps went on to win.

With the opportunity to still tie Mark Spitz’ record of seven golds with the team 4x100 IM, Phelps decided to abdicate his position on the relay team to his teammate Crocker, so that he could have a chance to experience a gold medal and fulfill his Olympic dream as well.

The question comes to mind: would Mark Spitz have done this? Perhaps, perhaps not. But what do you think?

From the AFP article:

And Spitz thinks Phelps will succeed -- for one very good reason.

"He's almost identical to me. He's a world-record holder in all these events, so he is dominating the events just like I did," Spitz said. "He reminds me of myself."

Just between you, me, and the lamp post…I’m thinkin’ ‘not.’


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The Olympics Ate My Homework...

Blame the Flame
Yeah, I know, same song, nineteen-thousandth verse. Despite my good intentions, I’ve just not had time to get any really productive writing done now for more than a month. I’ve written some parts, but no complete posts. Oye. Whatcha gonna do…

For the past week, my chief rationalization has been the Olympics; it has dominated Michelle’s and my imagination (as well as our evenings) every single night since Opening Ceremonies one week ago.

I really can’t remember a ‘Big O’ that I’ve enjoyed so much (or paid as much attention to) since the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. And of course we were right in the middle of it back then; living in SoCal at the time, the Games were a local event.

But in recent years, the Olympics seemed to have lost their luster for me somewhat; I don't know why — save for the feeling that its significance was diminishing in in our culture. Fact is, the world has caught up, and the good ole' U.S. of A. no longer has its way with everyone as the Olympic power it once was. Not that we ever completely lost our Oly-Mojo, but it was clear that the U.S. Olympic Committee needed to take a step back and regroup a bit.

And this time around, things definitely seem different. Uncle Sam’s got his groove back, but no longer with the swagger he once had — and that's a good thing IMO. The Americans seem to be much more humble; much more respectful of their counterparts from other countries.

Even the dominance of Michael Phelps has a different sheen to it than that of something similar (yeah, as if...) that might have happened 20 or 30 years ago. Phelps’ blitzkrieg attack on Mark Spitz’ gold medal record has been a thing of beauty for both Americans and competitors alike to behold. Phelps has handled himself with grace and aplomb in the media, with his teammates, and with his rivals from around the world.

But the Michael Phelps story aside, for me there’s just been a buzz about this Olympic Games that seems so much more palpable than in recent years.

Old Acquaintances, Never Forgotten
I’ve been so proud of all our U.S. athletes' efforts, but particularly those of the Men’s and Women’s Gymnastics squads, both of which overcame tremendous setbacks to capture the Team Bronze and Silver medals, respectively, this week.

Of course the soft spot in my heart for Team USA’s gymnastics success has much more to do with personal experience than patriotism. I was a competitive gymnast for fifteen years, and with that perspective, the 1984 Men’s Team Gold medal accomplishment was incredibly satisfying for me personally.

The reason is that the members of that team were my contemporaries; most were a few years younger than me, but I had competed against a number of them throughout my gymnastics career.

NBC’s chief color commentator for gymnastics, Tim Daggett, attended UCLA during the 80s, and I went up against him in at least one invitational that I can recall (I actively competed in invitational meets until 1986). Bart Conner (who throughout the late 1980s and early 90s preceded Daggett in the TeeVee color analyst’s chair) and I went head-to-head twice; once in a duel meet (in which I came out on top) and again a couple years later in an invitational meet (when he nosed me out of a medal by a couple tenths of a point). He was always extremely cordial with me whenever we crossed paths; just one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet. He would go on to capture the Olympic Championship on the Parallel Bars in 1984, and I couldn’t have been more ecstatic.

Peter Vidmar, who was another of America’s top competitors in L.A., was another Olympian I prevailed against in duel meet competition — although at the behest of full disclosure, it may have helped that he was only in 8th grade at the time, while I was a junior in college.

Ehhhh…details, details)…

Additionally, the circumstance wasn’t even a regular meet, but a joint practice event in 1977 between my alma mater, Long Beach State, and USC. Vidmar was a local high school phenom in Los Angeles and used to hang out at the Trojan gym after school. USC’s coach asked him if he wanted to throw a few routines with the older guys and so he did.

I don’t remember what my margin of victory was, but I can tell you it wasn’t much. I remember thinking how lucky I was that I would never have to meet up with this kid in legitimate competition. It was no surprise that Pete would go on to become one of the leaders of our Olympic effort six years later with a Gold medal in Pommel Horse and a Silver in the All-Around.

Of course, those ‘84 Games were also the ones in which the U.S.S.R. returned the United States’ 1980 favor by staying home. And while the fact that the top Men’s Gymnastics power in the world would be a no-show certainly helped the Americans in the final standings, it no doubt tainted the impressiveness of their long-awaited accomplishment.

Nonetheless, that Gold Medal seized by the Men in Tights was their first since the previous time the Games were held in LaLa Land: 1936; so it was a proud time for anyone with a heart that beats red, white, and blue. It was a particularly proud moment for me, because these were my boys; my friends. It puts a lump in my throat just thinking about it even now.

I couldn’t help but think about that last night as Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson, who became the first one-two finishers in U.S.A. Olympic Gymnastics history, stood there on the podium. I was so proud and happy for them. No, there’s no six degrees of separation story here — other than the fact that I revered Nastia’s father Valeri, a great Russian gymnast in his own right throughout the 80s and 90s — rather, it was the look of overwhelming pride and accomplishment in her eyes as she stood atop the victory stand during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner. You could see the considerable effort in her countenance to fight back the tears, something that most of the ’84 Men’s team either could not or did not try to do — weeping openly on the medal stand with a gush of emotion that only something so grand, so wonderful, so fulfilling as an Olympic medal earned for one’s country could induce.

Witnessing that, lying on my living room floor in front of the television, was one of the transcendent moments of my lifetime. I’ll never forget it. I bawled like a baby, right along with Bart Conner.

I knew how Nastia felt last night, as I too felt as though I’d swallowed a softball, watching the proceedings from my favorite red leather chair. All week I had felt the nervousness; the in-the-pit-of-your-gut pang so familiar from my own experiences in waiting for the judges to raise that green flag, in anticipation of delivering another routine in competition.

I performed on the National stage twice — as NJCAA Still Rings Champion my in sophomore year of 1976 and again, qualifying for NCAA Finals in my senior year of ‘78. However, I never had to deal with the weight of performing for that grandest audience of all, the Olympics, saddled on my shoulders as these young men and women did this week. I can only imagine the intensity of their experience.

What I went through was tough enough, and the reward of my limited success was more than enough for me. But again, I can only imagine the incredible level of satisfaction Nastia Liukin, Shawn Johnson, and the rest of the U.S. Men and Women must be feeling right now. Although there were plenty of misses on their collective part, all experienced at least some level of once-in-a-lifetime transcendence in their efforts, either in team or individual competitions this week.

It was a wonderful thing to see, as well as to feel.

Goin to California
The bad news is, in a week’s time, I’ll be out of pocket for the climax of the final Olympic events, as well as again not being in a position to get any writing done. The good news is, I’ll be vacationing in my old stompin’ grounds.

I’m leavin’ on a jet plane next Thursday to sunny SoCal for nine days of family, friends and fun — the highlight of which will no doubt be the wedding of my best buddy of the Blogosphere, Michael, and his blushing bride, Adelphia.

Our fellow Blogland neighbor Aimee is making her way down from Oregon as well to attend the nuptials two weeks from today. I sure hope that yarmulke looks good with black socks and bermuda shorts…

I’m also looking forward to continuing my tradition of meeting new Blogland friends in realtime whenever possible. So along with seeing Michael and Aimee, whom I’d pressed the flesh with previously, this trip I’ll also be brunching with a duo of more recent cyber-acquaintances, Kay and (the other) Michael, the two newest adds to my blogroll. Both are tremendous writers and very intriguing people. It should be an interesting meet, and one of which I’ll certainly be writing later…

Shh’yeah…whenever can I find the time...


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Mowerly Musings, Vol V, No 1 — Waiting to be Sprung

Let’s Do the Time Warp Again
This is another of the many started-but-never completed-and/or-posted stories I’ve written over the past nine months or so. This one, however, is of much more recent vintage (primarily May 17, 2008) than many of the ones I’ve mentioned before.

And while I’m on that subject, let me say, I kinda had a feeling I would end up looking silly, making that June ‘blog bonanza’ proclamation as I did a month ago, and sure enough, ended up with egg on my face. I failed miserably in my goal to complete even a fraction of the post volume of my original intention.

However it did manage to get me going enough to post a few well-overdue stories, so no harm-no foul, I say.

I will continue to try and finish up what I started with regard my June Boon ambition, but I’m not going to necessarily shame myself into it this time. Thankfully my schedule has opened up a bit now to where I have the ability to write a little more in the evenings and on weekends, so we’ll see how things shake out here in the coming weeks.

But for now, I have this recent story to post; something not completely current, but still germane to the recent goings-on in the life of the new Casa AJ.

The new house we moved into this past January has been a harsh taskmaster at times, but we’ve finally begun seeing the fruition of our efforts to tame this beast that gives us so much pleasure at the cost of almost equal pain.

Working ourselves into the floor on a weekly basis for two months, we finally celebrated our oft-postponed ‘Open House’ party with friends, co-workers, and a few of our new neighbors a week ago last Saturday. The event was a total success, and I’ll be writing about it in a separate post soon.

But first, I’d like to post something I started back in May, when we were still early in the process of whipping our new home into shape; when the grass was green (it’s brown right now, BTW) and my yard was an open canvas.

If you’ve followed this blog for any considerable period of time you already know what that means to me. Spring is my favorite time of year because it brings to the fore one of my most Jeckyll & Hydean pastimes — yardwork.

I love it and hate it simultaneously, yet no other activity both relaxes and propels me into thought in quite the same way. It’s my ‘thinking time’ during the summer months, and as you know, I loves ta think.

However this spring, the love really had to be strong, because there was so very much to do — most of which was just hard, hard, backbreaking work.

There were flowerbeds that needed to be sculpted; shrubs that needed to be planted; earth that needed to be moved. I would’ve much rather been sitting up on my porch, watching someone else do all the grunt work, but alas, The Donald I ain’t.

‘Sweat equity’ was the call Michelle and I needed to answer. But as tough as it was getting through it, the end result was truly glorious — not only because of how it looked but also, the reason why it looked so good.

This is a story about a gift — and the sweat required in redeeming it.

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My Morning Jacket
It’s also My Midday Jacket...not to mention My Evening and Weekend Jacket as well. I’m talking about the straitjacket that has been my life over the past three months or so, and doesn’t promise to loosen up anytime soon.

Too much to do; not enough time to do it; No energy left over for anything else when I finally am able to scrape an hour or two together for myself.

It’s gettin’ old, folks — real old.

But no, this isn’t an apology for not posting, but rather a rant for not being able to. I have learned definitively just how much blogging means to me and how much less alive I feel when I’m not doing it, and I’m here to tellya, the latter circumstance stinks out loud.

My weekends have not been my own for several months now, and that doesn’t look to change a whole lot until perhaps later this summer, or whenever we finally get a handle on getting the yards up to snuff and are satisfied with the state of decoration of our new house.

Yeah, yeah I know — my problems aren’t exactly up there with world hunger and the price of gas — so please feel free to verbally abuse me via your computer screen right now; I probably deserve it.

Nonetheless, in the micro-reality that is the life of AJ, all is not as well as I would like it to be, not that it’s all that bad either. I suppose my plight is mostly of my own making, and in the grand scheme of things, what I’m going through right now is so beneath the worthiness of spending even this much time commenting on, it’s downright pathetic. But I’m doing it anyway, ‘cuz I need to.

No Rest for the Weary
For starters, I suppose I should have had a better idea of what we were getting ourselves into when we decided to buy an new house. Did I think the place was just gonna furnish itself? This isn’t my first rodeo after all; we did go through this exact same process a little more than fourteen years ago. Good Lord, is my memory that short? So to that end, it should be no surprise that my weekends are merely days away from my primary occupation, as opposed to being actual days ‘off.’

So while I’m tired, physically and mentally just about all the time now, there is at least the payback of seeing things come together here on the new homestead. Michelle and I are enjoying each other a lot these days and she is definitely feeding off the creative energy that the experience sends coursing through her veins. She recently finished the bulk of the new window treatments throughout our house and things are nearly to a point of completion with regard to the interior decor for now. She quite justifiably takes great pride in her decorating accomplishments, but it’s not time to sit back — not just yet.

Of course now spring has sprung and it’s time to refocus our creative energies on the outside of our home and to Michelle’s true passion: gardening. She’s a flower maven without peer when she gets all the wheels turning, and boy have those babies been in motion these past couple of weeks. We’ve spent the past two weekends scouring the local nurseries for ideas and picking up assorted flowers and shrubbery to plant along the way.

But we’re not just out planting flowers willy-nilly; we’ve got a plan. This weekend began the process of reshaping the default landscape boundaries left by the builder. We’re transforming our outside property according to the vision left for us by a landscape architect whose services were given to us as a housewarming gift — courtesy of one of our son's best childhood buddies growing up here in Williamson County.

The young man, who we’ll name, ‘Win,’ for purposes of this story, called in a favor (one presumably worth several hundred dollars at that) to provide this incredibly creative gift to us. We were absolutely blown away by his generosity. Just the thought of something so completely unique was special enough, but the timeliness and appropriateness of such an act is something I will probably never get over.

A Winning Combination
We were fairly close to Win’s family as he and Shawn were making their way through Boy Scouts, middle school, and high school together. The two were wrestling teammates and in Scouts earned their Eagle badge together as well. They were close for several years, but then seemed to drift apart after graduation (at least as far as our involvement with out son’s friend was concerned), with each attending different colleges but heading down fairly similar career paths.

Shawn studied forestry while working professionally on the side as an arborist, while Win continued to develop a lawn care service he’d started in high school, which really began to take off and grow (pun intended) while he was in college.

Win would expand his business to include the contracting of larger landscaping projects, such as the building and designing of hardscapes (stone and/or poured cement elements like outdoor fountains and walkways), decorative gardens, decks, pergolas, and the like.

Along the way, he became involved with a landscape architect that would help him design his projects and vice-versa; the young man Win would eventually hire to do the design for our new home — a likable fellow we’ll call ‘Tom.’

After we moved in to our new house in Late January, Shawn announced that Win had called him and told us of his surprise gift for his ‘second family.’ We were wowed, but didn’t really know what to expect. But soon enough we received a call from Tom, and yes, he was really going to do this wonderful thing for us.

It finally sunk in. We were beyond thrilled.

Over the course of about two months, Tom met with Michelle and me to gather our ideas and thoughts on the types of things we liked, to combine them with the feel and vision he himself was developing for our property.

After four meetings he was finished and we were presented with the final plan. Needless to say it was fairly ambitious, with multiple hardscape elements that won’t be cheap to execute, but will be very cool. There’s the outdoor fireplace in the back yard, a new concrete walkway in front and patio extension in back, not to mention a wonderful 17' x 8' pergola with a water feature, slated be the crown jewel of our lush country garden setting in the back yard. All these elements are highly artistic and perfectly befitting of Michelle’s and my collective personality. It was as if Tom was reading our minds. Our outdoor spaces will be comfortable and inviting without pretentiousness.

Tom’s plan is totally appropriate to the kind of things we might have actually built on our own given the proper inspiration. To that end, he’s provided us with the one thing that we (and most people, I would imagine) lack to accomplish a project of this nature: a roadmap.

We could never have come up with such a detailed plan to accomplish something on a scale so comprehensive as this. It would have all been so intimidating. This is just what the doctor ordered as far as I’m concerned. We’re totally stoked.

Tom obviously knew we wouldn’t be able to implement all this by ourselves, so there is certainly an element of commerce attached to this ‘gift.’ We will need both his and Win’s assistance in getting a lot of these hardscapes built, and to a lesser degree, some of the landscaping done as well, all of which means they’ll probably get a considerable return on the investment of their time and courtesy in the deal. But that’s more than okay with us.

Chances are we might have hired Win to do some things for us anyway if we’d been cognizant that his business had now moved into such a high-quality arena as it has. His clients aren’t just neighborhood Mom’s and Dads, needing their lawn mowed; his clientele now includes owners of million-dollar homes who pay him well to make their properties the envy of their neighbors.

Yeah...that sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? I could live with having the best-looking yard in the ‘hood (except for the million-dollar part; that’s where reality kinda slaps back).

The good news is that Tom’s plan, while fairly expensive to implement, isn’t ridiculously over-ambitious; it’s attainable, but we realize that we’ll probably need to spread out the total execution of the dream over at least a couple of years.

Most within reach in the near-term is the front yard, on which we’re trying to get as much done on this year as possible; but our back yard sanctuary will most definitely have to be a work in progress.

Hard Labor
And speaking of the front yard, I began this post on Saturday, prior to beginning the hellaceous task of relocating pieces of sod from one part of the front yard to the back, as we reshape the flower beds to accommodate Tom’s layout. This literally backbreaking labor is my absolute-least favorite activity in all possible gardening endeavors. Trouble is though, I’m damn good at it, so I just can’t bring myself to hire anyone else to do it — that along with the high cost of outsourcing such a labor-intensive project.

So now this morning I’m trying buck up the gumption to force myself to go out and finish the job. If I’m still able to move by this afternoon I’ll finally post this runaway train-of-a-story.

I’ve got my back brace on, my sweat bandana/do-rag is in place, and I have a look of determination that’d make Mister T shudder. I’m a man on a mission. I pity the fool that stands in my way.

Wish me luck.

---

Back to the Future…with Pictures!
Unfortunately I was unable to finish this story that afternoon, partly because I couldn’tmove, but also because it would end up taking an additional two weekends to complete the task of cutting in those flowerbeds and completing the first phase of our new landscaping plan.

It is now late-July and what we accomplished in May will likely be the extent of our yard-crafting ambitions for the season. Our goal was to have the front yard looking good for our open house and we accomplished that goal.

Over the fall and winter, we may — funds pending — begin to implement one or two of the hardscape projects in the back yard and/or the new stamped concrete walkway prescribed for the front. But for now, Michelle and I are content to sit back and enjoy the first fruits of our labor.

Here are the pictures I took, soon after completion of the front yard flowerbed augmentation.

We feel as though we’re off to a good start.


Michelle's green thumb and Tom's landscape design came together in this the first movement of what we hope will be a lovely symphony of flora in grace.




Hopefully by next summer we'll have a substantial portion of Tom's vision for the front yard implemented. It includes several Crepe Myrtles (flowering trees) and a hedge of Boxwood shrubs (similar to the ones linking the front of the flowerbed to the left) comprise the border of the front yard property. We're a ways off from that, but this is a start.




In the front yard, the hardscape feature we're hopeful of implementing as soon as this winter is the pair of stamped concrete walkways that will both replace and add to the existing smooth concrete path that's now in place. The existing path, parallel to the house will be replaced and augmented by an additional section extending from the front steps straight out to the sidewalk.


finis

More LA Stories: 2005 (Part X)

Days Three and Four — Monday/Tuesday (continued):
He Got Walkin’ Fingers…
Soon after arriving back at the Center, Dad, Helen and I went out for Mexican, and engaged in what would be the first of many conversations about what was going on in AJ’s world. They wanted to know the latest about grandkids’ Shawn and Amy’s college exploits and all about Michelle’s goings-on.

We did a lot of talking over my two days in Hemet, but I can honestly say that none of it grew stale. I love hearing my Dad’s stories, no matter how many times he forgets he’s already told them. He’s just such a great guy, with so much zest for life, even after 83 years on the planet and all the heartbreak and crap he’s had to deal with. Sometimes the gleam in his eye is downright blinding.

Dialing for Brothers
Also while I was there I had nice conversations with two of my remaining three brothers. No, they didn’t suddenly show up at the door. Instead, we let our fingers do the walking.

Dad calls Alex at least once a week, both to monitor his progress and to maximize the fleeting time he has to spend with his baby boy, who has been stricken with the family curse of Early-Onset Alzheimer’s disease. He’s still holding up very well after thirteen months on the Alzheimer’s-impeding drugs, Aracept and Namenda, but the die is indeed cast, and it will only be a matter of time before such communication with him will become impossible.

So I had another opportunity to have a long, yet difficult talk with my precious bro — which is why I call him so seldom. What a horrible paradox this has become for me. I want desperately to spend time with him, but I just can’t make myself sit down and call for the heartache and frustration involved in trying to communicate with him. Used to be that I knew it was no big deal if we went six month between phone calls — it went both ways, so I never worried about it. Now I worry about it. Old habits are hard to break, but this one is just devastating.

I hate myself for it.

Instant Karma
Also while I was there, my directly elder brother, Kenny called from his home in Taiwan. That’s right, I said Taiwan, as in The Republic of China Taiwan. And sheesh…speaking of walking fingers, mine felt like they’d just run a marathon after I got through writing out Kenny’s mailing address and phone number in Taipei during my phone conversation with him. Apparently they don’t do short addresses over there. My hand was starting to cramp up fer petesakes.

Kenny used to be somewhat of a jet-setter, spending about a third of his time in Los Angeles, where he needed to be to tend to his various entrepreneurial interests. He kept an apartment in Pasadena and visited Dad and Helen often. But now he lives in Taiwan full-time, choosing to be closer to home to spend time with his wife and growing family.

Hmm…perhaps I should have said, instant family.

Kenny is a trip, and always an interesting person to talk to. He’s Type-A-all-the-way; he’s a successful businessman and has done well for himself in the business world. He’s not one for doing things half-assed. And now it appears he’s jumped into fatherhood much the same way.

Following years of frustration from unsuccessful attempts at pregnancy, Kenny and his wife decided it was time to give nature a little help. They decided to give fertility drugs a go, and the results were more successful than they probably hoped.

The initial pregnancy in 2002 produced a single child, a little girl, but they weren’t stopping there (I think you probably see where this is going). Thirteen months later: triplets — all boys. And then again earlier this year: twin girls.

Between the ages of 49 and 52, my brother went from zero to six(ty).

They’ve now shut down the baby factory, but even as someone who came from a large family of five boys himself; even the talkative Kenny was a bit blown away by it all. The man is excited to be a Dad — but six kids in three years? Aye-yi-yi…

And in case you had any doubt, his kids do come from pretty good stock on both sides (if I may be allowed to boast just a little); so needless to say, they’re all gorgeous. They also carry more than just a modicum of local celebrity, not only because of the circumstances involving their conception, but also for being fathered by an Anglo-American. They’ve been on TeeVee on several occasions, on talkshows, as well as local commercials.

I really couldn’t be happier for my bro.

Dadtime
But in the end it was all about Dadtime. It was great to spend time with my Pop and Helen. We didn’t really go anywhere, except out to dinner on Monday night and then on Tuesday, once again, thanks to the generosity of my friend Cindy, Dad and I took in the Angels vs. the Toronto Bluejays game in Anaheim.

All the rest of the time we just hung out and talked. As he always does now whenever I see him, Dad requested some reading material from my blog, so I had printed out (and was amazed at the number of pages it took) my series from the 2004 trip, and delivered it to him when I arrived.

We talked again about him possibly taking some time to writing out his own memories from what I view as a fascinating and full life for my hero; my Dad. At last report, he still hadn’t started, but he’s gonna get to it soon, he promises.

That’s right, boys and girls, I come by it honestly.


Next: Day Five — Wednesday:
“From the desert to the sea, to all of Southern California…”

More LA Stories: 2005 (Part IX)

A change of plans...
I’ve decided to do this a little differently than first intentioned. I had mentioned previously that I would post-date these conclusions to older series I’m trying to finish off, in order to keep them in chronological proximity (as well as physical order) and then provide backlinks to the newer entries in a current post.

Well, I’ve decided to do it both ways. For the time being, since it looks as though I’m going to fail miserably in achieving my volume goal of four series completions and at least that many additional single stories being posted before June was out, I really just want to get out what I have been able to do during this period of well-intentioned-if-not-stellar literary activity.

I’ll post the parts as I finish them, and then, after a time, re-date them to fall back in order with the rest of their respective series components.

I will at that time post the aforementioned ‘Unfinished Business’ update entries that will provide links back to the parts for those who wish to find them more easily later.

At any rate, although I’ve not gotten as much done as I wanted, I can say that I’ve had a helluva lot of fun writing what I have. And once again, thank gawd I took good notes.

So I hope now that you’ll enjoy the concluding parts of my account of what was a very enjoyable and unforgettable trip to the homeland — now almost three full years ago — in August of 2005.

---

Days Three and Four — Monday/Tuesday:
Where’s The Champ when you need ‘im?
In another of the seemingly never-ending series of efforts to date myself, this next chapter in my story brings a particular TV commercial from the 1970s to mind. Back in the days before Don King and Mike Tyson transformed it from The Sweet Science into The Gong Show, the man who was the face of professional boxing was also its greatest ambassador. Muhammad Ali was everything a great sports figure could and should be. But one of the things I loved about him the most was the fact that in addition to being the Greatest of Them All, he was also the easiest to like.

Ali was a crackup. He was the Clown who wore the Crown. From the Ring to the small screen, The Champ was all about entertainment. And in a particular enterprise that some felt was well beneath his dignity, it was his self-deprecation that I found to be the most refreshing.

I remember him doing a TV commercial for Black FlagRoach Motel roach traps years ago (apparently he had a real passion for roach-extermination products — more on that later). “Roaches check in, but they don’t check out! he would say, with that same trademark, faux-menacing, raspy whisper he used for years to antagonize his opponents during many a pre-fight press conference.

With Ali’s Black Flag commercial, the term Roach Motel was added to the pop-culture lexicon; a reference that became much more attuned to describe the genre of typically low-cost motor hotels in which one might likely find the multi-legged creatures scurrying about when the lights come on, than to the actual product itself.

I don’t know if he was busy at the time, but I think I could have used The Champ to “knock out” some nasty-lookin’ cucarachas that were waiting for me in my motel room Monday afternoon when I arrived in Hemet to visit my Dad. I had run out of time and asked him if he could find me a cheap place to stay.

Poor Pop, God love ‘im. He was just trying to save me a few bucks, and he’d obviously never stayed there himself, so how would he have known? I really have no one to blame but myself anyway. In my haste to get ready to make this trip, the one travel arrangement I failed to complete was to book a motel for the two nights I would be in Hemet.

Strangers in the Night II
One might be wondering why I needed to get a room in the first place. After all, I was going to see my Dad, and I had stayed at their place the last time I visited, in August of 2004. The difference was that they had moved since my last visit — and recently I might add.

Dad and his wife Helen had just moved back to the assisted living center each had called home at a time when they were merely acquaintances, while my stepmom Maxine was still alive. They had just moved in to their new one-bedroom apartment just a few days before I arrived. Aside from the fact that they were still unpacking, and maintenance men were still installing light fixtures and such, there was simply no room to put me up there comfortably.

As I’ve mentioned before, Helen had been a mutual friend of both Maxine and my Dad, one of the first to reach out to them when they initially moved in, back in early 2000. Helen was already a widow, having lost her husband several years earlier. In the months following Maxine’s passing in late May of that year, Helen and Dad, became closer friends through her emotional support to him at an obviously difficult time following Maxine’s unexpected death — the result of complications from a viral infection — and the relationship just seemed to blossom from there.

After Maxine’s passing, Dad found the two of them spending more and more time together. And now suddenly becoming one of the more eligible bachelors at the Center, Pop had to literally fight off the ladies who began coming on to him. All the while Helen was simply there for him, never imposing the obvious affection that was growing in her own heart.

And the feeling was becoming mutual.


This is one of my favorite pictures. My Dad and me in the back yard during his visit to Tennessee in June 2001. And no, I wasn’t dyeing my goatee back then…

By the time Pop came to Tennessee for a visit in June of 2001, he was already smitten, yet not quite forthcoming in announcing the news to his family. He was concerned about what we might think, given that it had been just over a year since Mom had passed away. It took a couple of days before he mustered the courage to broach the subject with Michelle and me, fearing we might not approve. However nothing could have been further from the truth. Dad seemed a little taken aback when we assured him with no reservation that we were delighted he had found a lady friend to spend his time with. He insisted at the time that it wasn’t serious, but we knew better.

Six months later, my elder brother, Kenny, took his own endorsement of the relationship to another level, greasing the wheels of an all-out effort to get Dad and Helen to Las Vegas to get hitched. And so they did, in December.

As it turned out, it may have very well likely been a decision that saved my Dad’s life.

Far away from the maddening crowd
It was probably a more uncomfortable scene for Helen than for her new husband, but after losing out to her in the race for Pop’s affections, some of those old hens at the Center turned on Helen. She felt a little spurned by women she had long considered to be her friends. Combining that with the fact that he’d never felt really comfortable there anyway — and the real kicker — a recent sharp increase in rent and service fees added by the management company, Dad and Helen decided to get the heck outta Dodge.

They moved back to the old neighborhood where Dad and Maxine had lived for years prior to moving to the assisted living residence. They were both in good health (or so we all thought) and figured they didn’t necessarily need the round-the-clock nursing care (nor the price tag thereof) that the Center provided. They wanted to fend for themselves. Dad wanted to get back to the vegetable garden he had been forced to abandon when they’d moved the first time. They weren’t old like the rest ‘a those fogies. They could take care of themselves, thankyouverymuch.

Almost immediately, the repercussions of that move would come to roost.

A few months after they moved out of the Center, in May 2002, my Dad suffered a mild, but potentially fatal heart attack at home, and now without the on-call medical facilities that had been available to him previously, had Helen not been there to call 911, my Pop would most certainly have died. He ended up having quadruple-bypass surgery in the wake of his ordeal, having never shown any signs of heart disease prior to the event.

The good news is, he has worked hard to change his lifestyle and is completely recovered and in great shape for a man of nearly eighty-three years of age. But the better news is that he had Helen there, or chances are great that he wouldn’t be around to celebrate that ‘good’ news in the first place.

And though Dad’s health has been great for the past four years, Helen hasn’t been so fortunate. She began experiencing difficulties with her legs; sores that took forever to heal; and more recently, had to undergo surgery to remove a blockage in her colon.

So when out of the blue, a neighbor made an offer to buy their house which, in Dad’s words, was “just too good to pass up,” they reconsidered their previous decision and decided to give their old assisted living community another try (and have been very happy there ever since).


Dad and Helen in their new apartment, and still goin’ strong.

‘Cuz I’m a cheap ‘ol bugger...that’s why.
So now you know why I needed to get a room, but here’s how I ended up at The Roach Motel.

Going in, I figured on someplace inexpensive; just a place for me to lay my head at the end of each of the two days I would be spending entirely with the folks. However, as per my usual penchant for leaving things to the last minute, I ran out of time and never made a hotel reservation.

Having no easy access to a computer, I turned to my Pop for a little travel agency assistance, which he was quite happy to do. I had phoned him on Saturday to let him know I’d arrived and to ask if he would go ahead and make the arrangements at the local Motel 6, reserving a room for me on Monday and Tuesday nights. When he said he’d take care of it, I figured, ‘No Problem,’ and considered it a done deal.

When I arrived at Dad’s place on Monday, he proudly announced, “AJ, I think I got you a pretty good deal on that room.”

“Oh yeah?” I said.

“Why yesss,” he gushed. “I went to the Motel 6 just like you said, and they wanted $49.99 a night, plus tax! But I found a little motel over here on the main drag that only charges $45 a night out the door!

“Well okay then, thanks for doing that for me, Dad!” I said appreciatively.

Now I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t at least a little concerned at that point. Motel 6, say what you want about the stereotypical connotations associated with it, is at least a known commodity. You know, going in that you’re not staying at some kind of resort. But at least there is a reasonable expectation that the room, the sheets, and the linens will all be clean and fresh. One can expect there to be decent cable TV, and you can certainly expect that the only multi-legged creature in your bed is gonna be YOU.

There is a level of trust with Motel 6 that I’ve always felt good about. And while the notion of moving away from that was disconcerting at first, I can honestly say I really didn’t give it that much thought when it came up.

My Dad, don’t forget, was a Depression Kid, and anytime we were on vacation, it was Motel 6 all the way. So if he said he’d found an even better bargain, who was I to argue?

After a short visit with Dad and Helen, I left to go check in and drop my stuff before returning to Dad’s to go out to dinner.

I pulled in and went into the office. On the outside, it looked like a typical cheap motel: smartly landscaped; recently painted exterior; clean and innocuous office/lobby area. The lady handed me my key and I drove my car down a few hundred feet to where my room was, at the end of the row.

The manager had been sure to mention that the entire motel was a non-smoking environment, which was nice, but really didn’t mean all that much to me. While I do appreciate non-smoking to smoking, I’ve never been one to make a big deal over not getting the former.

When I opened the door I immediately realized that the motel’s smoke-free policy was not something they necessarily put into place voluntarily. I’m pretty sure they had to do it because the rooms were already so heavily saturated with the smell of smoke that one more wisp would have probably sent the whole place down into the damned center of the earth!

Oh. My. Freaking. GAWD! My eyes hadn’t watered like that since that time Michelle and I got caught downwind of the south end of a momma hippo, cuttin’ it loose at the San Diego Zoo several years ago.

I immediately began to re-think my stance of not being bothered by smoking-allowed environments. This was easily the worse one I’d ever encountered. Just when did they implement that “smoke-free” policy — AN HOUR AGO? Perhaps by “smoke-free” they meant that they no longer CHARGE people for the privilege!

And that was just the tip ‘o the iceberg. True to its Ali-inspired nickname, as I flipped on the lights I saw no less than three cockroaches scurrying off to points unknown. I just rolled my eyes. I had a notion, but I didn’t wish to insult or embarrass my Pop, who actually had tried to do me a favor. Looking at the place from the outside, there really was no way to know how the ghastly secrets that lurked just beyond the doorknob.

Oh wait. I forgot about the three-pound Yuban coffee can ashtrays that were mounted onto the building just outside the door of every room.

Yeah…that might have been a clue.

The best thing I can say is, apart from its aforementioned extremophylic permanent residents…and the broken toilet paper roll dispenser…and the cracked tile in the shower…and the TV on which it appeared they were showing the ice palace scene from Dr. Zhivago on every channel, the place was pretty clean. The bed was comfortable, and when I awoke the next morning I hadn’t yet turned into any kind of Slither-like monster, so hey, I was okay with it.


Next: Days Three and Four — Monday/Tuesday (continued):
He Got Walkin’ Fingers…

Oh and by the way, which one’s ‘Pink?’ — A Miniseries (2 of 2)

Us…and Them
As with many — if not most of the members of my generation, my chief musical influence growing up was The Beatles — having been completely immersed in their music from my early childhood on.

However by the time I reached high school, the Fab Four had already disbanded, although the individual band members’ solo careers were in full swing. And while the music was still important, ‘The Beatles Movement’ was beginning to lose steam as a vehicle of generational discourse as the decade of the 70s pushed onward.

While still retaining quite a bit of its ‘edge,’ socially, by the early mid-70s, Beatles’ music no longer pushed the envelope as it had done a few years earlier. it was by that time, pretty much engrained into the culture and universally embraced by all. Hell, even Sinatra was making the pop charts covering Beatles songs.

Those days of ‘Beatle Bonfires’ — the public burning of Beatles albums — had long since passed. The band that John Lennon touted to be “more popular than Jesus” were no longer a threat to proper society.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, The Fab Four’s music was now part of the furniture. It was a substantial component of popular society, and rock ‘n roll was here to stay.

But while the Beatles music was no longer the short, sharp shock to the system of John Q. Public it once had been, there was, however, a growing rock ‘n roll sub-genre that still struck a chord of fear in the hearts of god-fearing America; the now-burgeoning brand of raw, hard-edged Rock that conjured up visions of anti-war protests, free love, and all-things-hippyfied.

Acid Rock, baby.

As for me, generationally speaking, I happened to fall just beyond the outskirts of the hardcore Hippy movement. I never quite got into the ‘tune in, turn on, and drop out’ vibe that many of those just a few years older than I had. There were several reasons for that — beyond merely my age. In large part I believe a lot had to do with the family and religious environment in which I was reared.

‘Hard’ Rock sort of scared me when I was a kid. I was more-or-less taught that The Beatles were as ‘hard’ as any music I had business listening to. And I gladly bought into that concept. So there was no real draw to embrace anything that was too-seriously ‘counter-culture’ (a widely-used descriptor back in the day).

Likewise, as I became older, I didn’t seem to have any real reason to go there, but like any other normal teenager I still yearned for something a bit more dangerous; something a little beyond the boundaries of my conservative upbringing.

Nonetheless I stood fast in my reticence to embrace anything beyond the homogenized realm of the Top 40, though deep down I really wanted to check out the Dark Side.

It took the simultaneous challenge of two guys whose lifestyles were pretty much the opposite of my own for me to see what a hypocrite I was for holding to such a position, and I’ll always be grateful to them both for it.

One was a person I knew only in passing. The other was someone I’d known all my life.

Come inside dear boy; have a cigar…
My Hard rock indoctrinators were a couple of guys at opposite ends of my interpersonal spectrum.

The first was my brother, Kenny (a.k.a. ‘TK’ in previous stories). We were only two grades apart in school but light-years divergent in personality and our respective personal belief systems.

Growing up, we fought like cats and dogs, with the elder Kenny always coming out on top. But following the physical skirmishes of our early youth, there would be battles of a different kind later on.

In 1969 Kenny had accompanied our Dad, Alex and I in the move to California, following our Mom’s death. But the abuse that I was willing to endure from Step-Mom Maxine, Kenny refused to submit to.

Those first nine months in our new home were like World War III. After just one school year (his sophomore year in high school), my elder brother convinced the folks that it would be best for him to spend the summer back in Indiana, staying with son #2, our brother David. Maxine wasn’t wild about the idea at first, but didn’t put up much resistance. She was as much in need of a little vacay from ‘TK’ was my brother from her.

Although he insisted it was just for the summer, I knew he wasn’t coming back. Kenny returned to Indiana to live with our elder brother David and finish out his last two years of high school. It was then that his life changed forever. My brother found religion — but not the religion you might be thinking of.

Kenny returned to SoCal to find a career and soon thereafter became a Buddhist — and an evangelical one at that. He subsequently attempted to convert the entire family, a devout Christian group, but didn’t find any takers; especially not in me.

Anytime Kenny came around, we knew that cat & dog act so well, we didn’t even have to rehearse.

The topic or occasion, it didn’t matter — we argued so often back then, it could have been over anything. It wasn’t just religion; Kenny and I were so such diametrically opposed personality-wise, I’m pretty sure that we must have argued about the time of day at least once or twice.

My brother really tormented me growing up, and for years I kept that grudge around with me like a pet. So anytime we got together, it didn’t take much for sparks to fly.

Another thing about my brother, he’s a ‘Type A’ personality, and could talk circles around anyone. He was a born salesman. Dood could sell sand to an Arab. He would later fashion that go-getter persona into a tremendously successful entrepreneurial career; but back then, in my eyes, he was just my blowhard bro who managed to get my goat in every argument, every single fucking time, and oh, how that burned me up.

Kenny’s the type who is such a great arguer that you simply cannot win — or at least I couldn’t. The best I could ever do was to get him to ‘agree to disagree,’ and try my best to walk away with at least a sliver of my dignity intact, although those times seemed few and far between.

No, what I remember happening instead on most occasions was me storming off, purple-faced, from yet another shout-fest that didn’t accomplish anything except perhaps granting him the satisfaction that he’d done it to me again — at least that’s how it felt, anyway.

But lest you think that my brother is some kind of malevolent being, please, put the rope away. While our personalities are as far apart as east is from west, our bond as brothers has always been indestructible. Kenny and I have long since mended the fences we spent our first couple decades of life together tearing down. We agree — respectively so — to disagree about our differences on all issues. I love my brother unconditionally and I know that love goes both ways.

And while I know that I could never be ‘like’ him, I do very much appreciate the fact that despite of my resistance, it was he who was the most instrumental in shaping a lot of my opinions later in adulthood, including a decision to broaden my musical horizons that would prove to be a truly life-changing paradigm shift for your truly.

Brain Damage
On the occasion of yet another patented rock music debate in which I insisted that I could live without experiencing the head-banging joys of Led Zeppelin, Mountain or Black Sabbath, he told me simply, “You can listen to what you want to, but I think you’re doing yourself a huge disservice to not even give it a try.”

Funny what just a little bit of conciliation will do when you’re conditioned for nothing but all-out assault…

The context of the discussion was hard rock, or Acid Rock as it was popularly colloquialized in those days. As far as I was concerned, ‘that music’ was strictly t was the product of the drug-influenced late 60s/early 70s. And even though my Beatles were one of the bands chiefly responsible for the genre’s early beginnings, I still bristled at the notion that music celebrating anything ‘radical’ could possibly be worth listening to.

And that was the problem: I was confusing the music with the culture. Not all hard rock lyrics openly celebrated drug use, or promoted counter-culture themes; I just assume that they did.

What I didn’t realize was that despite the outer appearance or even the actual life-practices of the musicians themselves, music stands or falls based on its own merits. Listening to it wouldn’t give me Brain Damage; but it might just expand my way of thinking.

At the same time that Kenny was challenging me to think outside my self-imposed music box, a second influential figure in my journey to the Dark Side would weigh in — my desk-neighbor in my high school Advertising Art class: a soft-spoken, avowed surfer/hippie counter-culturist-type named Van.

Van was a guy I had known only casually throughout high school, and I don’t believe we had ever been paired up in a class before. But on a seemingly daily basis we talked about music. And again there I’d be, holding the party line against all things Acid, while Van would defend the viability of his hard rock faves.

However sometime, during our Senior year, between late ’73 and early ‘74, Van set out on a mission to complete the work that my brother had started. He began going out of his way — very diplomatically, mind you — extolling to me the virtues of the British band Pink Floyd, whose then-recent landmark album, Dark Side of the Moon was making a huge splash just about everywhere — even on the Pop charts.

I remember his passion for the album. Van insisted there was no possible way I wouldn’t love it.

The record was about a year old at the time, and I was of course already familiar with its two ubiquitous singles, Money and Time, both of which were receiving constant airplay on just about every rock or pop format station in the country.

And sure, I liked those songs well enough, but something else restrained me from taking the plunge and exploring the more of that ‘taboo’ genre of ‘hard rock’ — a category under which Pink Floyd certainly fell in those days. It was a label having much more to do with my religious mores at the time than with anything else.

No Sympathy for the Devil
You see, being raised a straight-laced Baptist, I just wasn’t into that stuff. And it wasn’t as though I considered the music as all that bad necessarily, the fact was, it was simply out of my scope at that time in my life.

Hey, I was into pop; I was a Top 40 guy, like the vast majority of kids I hung out with back then. I didn’t have a lot of money to spend on records. I was mostly a radio-head. The only albums I owned were the Beatles LPs and 45s I’d had since grade school.

Of course I can remember a time when those in my family and church frowned upon even Beatles music. I clearly remember my Uncle Bill on one occasion trying his best to dissuade me from listening to it, calling it “ugly,” “the devil’s music,” and so on. I also clearly remember thinking the guy was nuts, but fortunately didn’t offer that opinion out loud.

Elton John’s Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting was about as hard as I rolled back then, and in fact, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was one album I did own at that time, but only because a buddy of mine had given it to me for Christmas that year. But by way of comparison, that was pretty much my speed in music.

AM Top 40 still ruled the airwaves in the early-to-mid-70s, and I was just all about it. Motown, Elton John, Chicago; these were the sounds that streamed from my car radio and 8-track player. That was soon to change, however.

Van was relentless; he peppered me daily with incessant praises of Dark Side, insisting that I give it a listen. But while I liked what I’d heard on the radio just fine, I was pretty lukewarm to the possibility that the rest of the album could be all that special. However having been primed by Kenny’s challenge, Van eventually wore me down. I decided it was finally time for me to broaden my horizons.

So I went out and purchased the 8-Track, and was instantaneously changed forever. Not since the Beatles had I received such a musical revelation. The aural qualities of lead guitarist David Gilmour’s instrumental and vocal craftings along with Roger Water’s unbelievably intelligent, biting lyrics came together in a sound so far beyond anything I’d ever heard before that I simply could not believe my ears.

The album truly rocked my world.

Okay, I know you may be rolling your eyes just a bit, particularly if you’ve grown up hearing the now familiar tunes from DSOTM and perhaps haven’t quite received the same rapturous experience that I did. And if that’s the case, I simply say ‘to each his (or her) own.’ All I can tell you is how it affected me. You simply have to understand just how different, how forward thinking that work was at the time.

I suppose that now, decades later, as Rock ‘n Roll has evolved and many artists have ridden the musical coattails of Pink Floyd’s, and subsequently, The Beatles’ innovative sound, you simply have to be as old as I am to appreciate just how unique and different things really were back in 1974.

However in my opinion, despite the passing years and musicians who have come and gone, attempting to borrow from the genius that is Pink Floyd’s legacy, no one will ever render that sound ‘common.’ It’s still every bit as fresh and ‘out there’ today as it was back then.

Comfortably Numb
So there as I sat last Saturday, enraptured in the envelope of sound booming from my speakers. I reconnected to that special sense of being I felt as a young man with my whole life ahead of me. Many changes, many victories, and a few defeats as well would follow in the ensuing years.

However I’m doubtful that in my life, my ability to feel — to inject my emotions into the soundtrack of that music; the impact it had on me emotionally — could ever have been duplicated by anything else.

I dunno. it’s a very personal feeling I have, and one that’s pretty tough to describe. But it’s one of the things I treasure the most about my life. It’s the one thing that no one can take away from me; the one thing that no one needs to validate.

Only me.

Only me and my music.

Thanks, Kenny. I love you.


finis

Oh and by the way, which one’s ‘Pink?’ — A Miniseries (1 of 2)

(Originally written on September 20, 2007)

This is the first in a number of former, nearly-completed-but-never-posted stories that have been piling up in my dead-blog box for as much as two-and-a-half years running. This particular one was originally intended to be posted in September of 2007, soon after we moved into an apartment following the sale of our home.

Hitting ‘The Wall’…
I’ve experienced more than my share of creeping malaise these past few weeks since moving into this one-bedroom apartment. Seems the more I unpack the less moved-in I feel. For Michelle and me the disconcertion of suddenly becoming vagabonds after nearly a decade-and-a-half of blissful geographic stability has been tough to take, and even tougher to shake. Despite the payoff that no doubt lies at the end of our journey — in January 2008 — it’s been pretty hard for us to focus on anything beyond than this ‘moving experience’ in the interim.

However last weekend, while in the process of getting settled, a wonderful memory came streaming back to me, reintroducing me to some feelings I hadn’t felt in quite awhile; it was just the recharge I needed.

Run, rabbit, run…
2007 has likely been Michelle’s and my busiest year ever since beginning this long, strange trip together. What with the kids graduating from college, then directly on the heels of that, our deciding to buy a new house and everything that has entailed; selling our existing abode quickly and then facing the reality of calling an apartment our home-in-between-homes for six long months.

It’s all been more than exhausting, physically, and dealing with the melancholy sentimentalities of leaving our ‘first love,’ every bit as taxing, emotionally.

But now, with the advent of having to cool our heels here in our temporary digs while awaiting our new home’s completion, I was determined to take advantage of the situation in at least one regard.

For all the obvious hassle of having to moving back into an apartment again, it did supply a sort of perverse nostalgia that Michelle and I both felt right away; it kind of made us feel like we were back in college again. And with that in mind, to go along with the experience it only seemed right to me to have a jammin’ stereo system in place to announce our arrival.

Nah…just kidding; I’d never be so inconsiderate as to indiscriminately play my stereo loud enough to annoy the paint, let alone the neighbors. Nonetheless, it is the law that an apartment just isn’t an apartment without tunes — well at least in my book, anyway.

So last Saturday I went to Wal-Mart, bought a cheap-o audio cart and celebrated the reinstallation of my stereo system here in our new temporary home. I even set up my old turntable, anxiously anticipating hours of listening to my old LPs — something I’ve done precious little of the past several years. However, it wouldn’t exactly be records I’d listen to initially, but rather CD bootlegs of LPs.

Turns out that my son, Shawn, had gone through an ‘old-school Rock’ phase a few years prior and had acquired CD copies of some of my favorite oId favorite Rock ‘n Roll classics. Fortunately for me he’d made ol’ Dad a copy of them although I had all but forgotten I even had them since they weren’t in commercial jewel cases like most of my ‘legit’ CD collection.

I pulled out a few I hadn’t listened to in what seemed like a lifetime; moldy-oldie albums that I once owned (and subsequently wore out) as 8-track tapes and/or LPs back in the 70s.

In addition to the obligatory Led Zeppelin Four and Houses of the Holy, which I had always enjoyed a great deal, but never counted among my favorite favorites, a select few of those little silver platters really sent my head spinning that afternoon, immediately returning me to that time in my life when anything was possible; a time when David Gilmour’s wailing guitar was my muse, and Roger Waters’ lyrics were my personal Devil’s Advocate.

I returned to my Animal(s) past and visited The Dark Side (of the Moon), once again.

For a single Saturday afternoon, Pink Floyd was back together and playing in my living room.

It’s not as though I’d forgotten how much I loved Pink Floyd. But for some reason, listening to those classic offerings that afternoon carried me back to the particular remembrance of why.

It was a memory I knew right then and there I had to explore; to write about, and pay tribute to someone I rarely speak of in this space, but whom I deeply respect; a person as different from me as night is from day, but to whom I will always be grateful, for challenging me to be whom I have in many ways become.


Next: Us…and Them

June Boon

Holding Myself to It
One thing that makes it tough to hold ones own feet to the fire is the decision of just which way you’re gonna position yourself. Do you simply light the match yourself and try not to shrink away, or do you ask someone else to do the dirty-work for you, realizing that the latter option also makes it more difficult to change your mind and avoid the pain?

What the hell am I talking about, you rightfully ask? I’m talking about motivation; I’m talking about commitment; I’m talking about doing something I want to do, yet consistently find a way to avoid, day in and day out.

Same song, forty-second verse.

I’m talking about writing, specifically, writing here in my blog. As much as I wish it weren’t so complicated, I’ve decided that there’s only one way to successfully address the need I have to get back in the saddle, only one way to provide for myself the proper motivation to complete what I’ve started.

Waiting for the self-starting AJ to emerge just ain’t happnin.’ For some reason I just can’t seem to shake the creeping malaise of, “I’ll write tonight after dinner,” which quickly becomes, “I’ll write right after I watch this re-run of Law & Order,” which quickly becomes, “Okay…right after SportsCenter,” which almost always becomes, “Omigawd, it’s 3AM! I musta dozed off…”

It’s the only way I know I’ll be able to move on and finally silence the nagging of that fishwife–of-a-conscience I have. I realize now that I simply cannot do it without having someone else hold that match beneath my soles.

And I’m putting it all out here so that, hopefully, y’all can help me stay on task.

And while I’m certainly applying much more drama to the scenario than it will ever deserve, it’s unfortunately the only way I know to really gain my own attention. I really hate to be embarrassed, and I hate embarrassing myself even worse. So this is the best way I know to keep that from happening. No more excuses, I’m gonna get busy — or end up looking like a fool for making such a fuss about it (as if I don’t already).

I’ve had so many well-intentioned starts that soon thereafter turned into stops. It has gotten so bad that as of a few weeks ago I truly was ready to quit. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’ve felt paralyzed by the pressure — I have no trouble diving into a new story any time I sit down in front of my keyboard. It’s that I’ve simply had a devil of a time making myself finish what I start. That’s where the paralysis sets in. Every time I think about writing something new, I’m reminded of all the loose ends I have yet to tie up.

Why does it happen? Do I bore too easily with my own ideas? I honestly don’t know. I do know that I’m easily distracted. And it’s a really good thing I take lots of notes in the process of formulating any of my long-winded yarns, else there would be absolutely no hope of completing something as ridiculously overdue as LA Stories: 2005, which by the way I still do intend to complete, and do so, this month.

And that leads me to the subject of this sixth month of the calendar year; a month that once again has opened with the indication that it’s going to be another season of fire and brimstone here in Middle Tennessee. The first week of June established area records for consecutive ninety-degree-plus temperatures so early in the year.

The one benefit of the early heat is that today I actually have an excuse to be indoors, to escape being broiled to death while working out in the yard — a subject that will receive plenty of ink in the concluding parts of another series I’ll be completing this month: A Moving Experience...(an ongoing series).

Yep, I’ve been plenty busy — both at work and here at home — but that’s not enough of an excuse to really make me feel that my blog-silence has been justified. Nonetheless, I’m not going to just sit by and allow myself to make any more excuses. I’m gonna do something about it, and in the process, hopefully re-energize my writing to the point that it once again becomes a joy instead of a hangnail.

Post-Dated Posts
It’s too late to re-create the past — at least from a performance standpoint. Back in 2004, soon after the launch of my blog, I posted at least one entry every single day during the month of June. Obviously I can’t do that now, but my plan and pledge to myself is at least, from this point (June 8th) forward, to write every single day from now to the end of the month. Regardless whether or not I feel inspired from the outset, I’m gonna make myself get on that horse and hope that it’ll be a boon to my productivity.

Given all that I have left to do, merely from the standpoint of unfinished series,’ I’ll certainly have no shortage of material to deal with.

So here’s the schedule that I fully expect that everyone reading this will hold me to (including myself):

• Unfinished Business
  This is your signal that something old has become new: Before the month is out, I plan on concluding four — maybe five — ancient-to-recent blog series that never quite made it to the finish line.
  
  In order to keep the story parts together, listed chronologically, I’ll be back-dating them to a time roughly concurrent with the entire story. Whenever I do that, I’ll post a direct link to the new/continuing parts with an entry entitled: Unfinished Business.
  
  I still haven’t decided in which order I’ll attack them, but the series you can expect to see being sewn up over the next three weeks will be, LA Stories: 2005, Two Tales of One City...or Somethin’ Like That, Good Things Come…, A Moving Experience...(an ongoing series), and maybe, if time permits, The Lion Sleeps Tonight.


• Afterthoughts
  Well…only in a manner of speaking. Again, these are posts that came and went without seeing the light of day in Blogland; short-subject blogs that just weren’t short enough, apparently. I have several of ‘em; stories that seemed like easy slam-dunks when I began writing them, yet somehow became caught up in that annoying vortex that is my inability at times to close out an argument with myself. The stories range on a wide variety of subjects, from Classic Rock to Sports to Politics and Social Injustice. I’ve got at least a dozen of these old half-to-three-quarters-completed posts that I’ve debated now literally for years whether or not to push on thru the pipeline. I don’t know how many of them will make the cut, but I guarantee you I’ll be adding at least one or two of them into the mix within these next three weeks. I’ve decided not to back-date these stories, but to let them stand as they were as originally written and post them in the here-and-now. I may change a few time-related details, but will for obvious reasons I want to try and avoid completely re-writing them just for the sake of making them current.
  
  I’ll have to take them on, case-by-case, to see how that part plays out, but my main intention is to simply finish ‘em up, get ‘em out, and get along with it.
  
  Look for the first one to post probably tomorrow night, or sooner.

From Boon to Bust?
So after this, where to go next? Actually that’s a good question — one that I don’t have an answer to.

I suppose one of the reasons I’ve been stockpiling all these old stories is that I somehow felt the need to have something to post when I ran out of ideas. And right now I’m not totally convinced that hasn’t happened. I have to admit, I’m out of it, folks. I’ve really been struggling with the direction I want to go. I just don’t have the time that I used to, and the pressure I feel all around me as a result has sapped both my energy and my creativity.

Anymore I feel like an automaton at work, and even though I’m learning and improving my skill-set by leaps and bounds, I just want to run away and retreat to how things were 3-4 years ago. Life was so much simpler for me. I was having so much fun on so many different fronts. Things are just different now.

It’s not that I don’t think those feelings can return, it’s more that I think I’m in a state of mourning for my loss of temporary identity. Everything changed for me when my job was challenged. And while I weathered the storm well enough, I just can’t seem to shake the feeling that I’ve failed.

Listen, I’m not saying all this to elicit anyone’s sympathy, I’m just being real, and that’s what this space is about. The upshot of all this is that I honestly don’t know what will happen once I summon up all my resources to pour out what’s left of my blog story-surplus.

I’m sure I’ll think of something. Problem is, right now I have no idea what.

But enough with the negatory thoughts; I gotta think positive. The idea of this posting-blitz is that it will hopefully get me jump-started once again, and posting on a more consistent basis; so that’s the mind-set I’m gonna officially take from this point on.

Out with the swoon; in with the boon.


finis

Happy Birthday to You, AYBABTU

I had no idea.
Honest. Until 30 seconds ago, I hadn't given it a second thought. Then it suddenly dawned on me. I looked at my watch — not to check the time, but rather the date.

Yesterday was my anniversary. Yikes!

No...not that one, silly. Fat chance I’d forget that!

Actually, it was my Blog-a-versary.

While thinking about how to commemorate it, I decided it’s time I went a little deeper into the details of how it all came about — a subject I’ve rather shied away from in the past here.

Hope ya packed a lunch.

Goof or Dare
Four years ago, on May 24, 2004, I made my initial foray into this wondrous medium with In a Blog of My Own. It was originally just goof; a lark; a dare with myself, really.

My original idea was to experiment with writing, something that I never truly considered I could do particularly well, yet for a long time had wanted to try. After all, it was an activity I devoted a lot of my daily energy to, via e-mails and message boards, so why not? However the primary inspiration for this literary whim was one board in particular: a web-gathering of folks loosely devoted to the fandom of Washington Post Sports/Lifestyle columnist, Tony Kornheiser.

You see, for over five years now, this group of Mr. Tony enthusiasts have gathered online daily to comment, cavort and sometimes deride the often outrageously funny and always quirky observations of the man currently best known for his shoot-from-the-lip sports commentary show on ESPN television with co-host Michael Wilbon: Pardon The Interruption, and more recently, as the third-wheel color commentator for ESPN’s Monday Night Football telecasts.

But before there was PTI and MNF on the TeeVee, there was the TKS on the radio.

The Tony Kornheiser Show had been around a long time prior to my becoming aware of its host's brilliance. It began in 1992 as a locally-produced morning radio talkshow out of Washington D.C., where Tony continues to live today. But in 1998, the show was picked up nationally by ESPN Radio, and quickly became one of the 4-letter’s most popular offerings, broadcasting from 9AM to Noon (Central), to an apparent cult-like audience all over the world.

In early 2002, The Company where I work finally removed its previous restrictions on streaming Web content, allowing employees access to streaming audio/video from our desktops for the first time; I was finally able to listen to ESPN Radio during work as opposed to only those rare occasion whenever I went out to lunch and managed to catch a few moments (typically of The Dan Patrick Show) on my car radio while traveling to-and-from.

Prior to hearing it on the Web, what little I knew of Kornheiser, whose show preceded Patrick’s, was from those random snippets I heard while driving around. I had never read anything he’d written for The Post, nor the three humorous books he’d penned since 1995. I caught only bits and pieces of his show over the years, but never enough to really ‘get it’ prior to that opportunity to begin listening regularly in early 2002.

You see, the TK Kool-Aide is often an acquired taste. But by June I was guzzlin’ it by the gallon.

The Mister Tony Experience
I had never experienced anything so engaging, so hilarious, and so much fun — and that's no exaggeration. Kornheiser’s wit, humor and commentary on both sports and non-sports/pop-culture subjects was unlike anything I’d ever heard or even heard of. However I’ll spare you of the long-winded description of what the show was all about. I mean, heck, that's what Wikipedia is for, right?

The reason I'm bringing this up after all this time, however, is because the recognition of Tony Kornheiser as my literary inspiration is long overdue. Without him this space would not exist; this anniversary would be meaningless, and so many of the friends I’ve made here these past four years would still be strangers to me and I to them.

It’s that simple. No TK ≅ No blog.

My ‘Other’ Fellow-Bloggers
As much as I count many of my readers as true friends, I have perhaps even a greater affinity for that group of message board geeks I mentioned earlier. I’ve spent the better part of the past six years with that group on a nearly day-to-day basis. Our original reason for gathering together was indeed Tony Kornheiser, but the time has long since passed that we would hang out together regardless of whether Mr. Tony was around or not.

We all know each other pretty well. We know how to poke fun at each other too. we're well-acquainted with each person’s foibles and hot-buttons. Nonetheless, among that group, none (save perhaps one) of these guys even knows about my blog, or the huge part that All Your Blogs Are Belong to Us has played in my life.

And the irony is, when I created this blog back in 2004, it was primarily to catch their attention.

But much to my surprise — despite the fact that these are an extremely Google-savvy bunch of guys (many of whom are computer professionals) — no one apparently has ever found me here, save for the one fellow I actually told about the place (and he’s kept his mouth shut so far).

As I alluded to here way back when, the title of this site was a ‘running inside joke’ within the group, which I fully expected at least someone to notice, but no one never did.

Then after the joke got cold and I decided to actually dive in and make use of this forum, I suppose I was too concerned about being teased about the content — the kind of stories I tell and the personal nature of my writing — to openly announce my blog’s existence to ‘The Blog’ (the unofficial moniker of this message board group). I decided to just leave well enough alone and if someone found it, I’d take my lumps and move on.

But even after a couple of years, reasonably secure in my anonymity, I continued to shy away from the subject for concern that Google would leave a trail of cyber-crumbs too easy for one of them to miss.

Later on it was that same avoidance of being outed that kept me from elaborating on the August 2005 trip to Reston, Virginia in the first (and thus far, only) face-to-face meeting of our group. It was the much-publicized event in which we met together to play golf with Tony Kornheiser and some of his radio show staff at Reston National Golf Club.

It was a fabulous weekend! Everything from the greensfees to the hotel to the food was comped. But that’s another big story in of itself.

I posted a short teaser on the subject soon after I returned home, including a photo of the foursome I played with, featuring Kornheiser and his son, Michael. I thought for sure that would be the post that would blow my cover with The Blog, but alas, as of yet, still no one has said a word, although I’m quite certain that at least some of the radio show’s other listeners have surfed my site, but they too, to my knowledge, have remained silent.

But now, I really don’t care. If they find it, they find it. If they tease me, whatevs. I yam what I yam.

Bloger Beginnings
Perhaps I should ‘splain one thing that I’m sure must have at least somebody scratchin’ their heads. Why call a message board a ‘blog?’

The nickname of our TK message board, ‘The Blog,’ came about because it actually was one — right here on Blogger.com, back in the pre-Google days. However the format of the site, as well as their way blogs were posted, was much different at that point in time (circa 2002).

For reasons of brevity and going waaay off-topic if I took the time to properly explain it, allow me simply to say that it was weird and pretty unconventional, but the way things were set up on Blogger back then, one could take a group-authored blog and make a quasi-message board out of it. The reason we did is because it was free of both cost and censorship, and it was non-public, which is just how we wanted it. Still do.

However when Google saw a good thing and bought it, Blogger.com became something altogether different. The upgraded templates and new publishing processes were completely incompatible with our comfortably bastardized purposes, so we were forced to abandon our Blogger digs and find a new home. Fortunately via the efforts of one of our members (an IT professional) who went out and actually purchased a real message board program, we have since been ensconced in a more conventional Internet forum.

However the original moniker remains and we still refer to our group as the ‘TK Blog,’ and to each other as ‘bloggers,’ despite the fact that in all likelihood, only myself and one other member (who also has a Blogger site dedicated to Tony Kornheiser, but whom, again, still does not appear to know about mine) are the only ones who actually still are bloggers.

(E)mailing it in
And now, back to my underlying purpose of this post. I have a lot to be grateful for regarding my involvement as a fan of Tony Kornheiser and the ancillary trappings that have come along with it. It’s been a lot of fun. But besides being involved with a group that owed its existence to him, giving me both motive and opportunity for that involvement, I’m grateful to Kornheiser for also giving me the confidence to write and believe that I could be successful in expressing myself through the written word — all of which happened largely as a result of participating in his radio show as an oft-read e-mailer.

Now please understand, I have no delusions about being the next Dave Barry. There have always been and will always be funnier, more intelligent, — and certainly — more acclaimed contributors to TK’s show from a worldwide audience of millions than I have ever been. But from the summer of 2002 through the next 2-3 years, I was seemingly always on Tony’s radar. He read my e-mails so often that other listeners would jokingly try signing their e-mails with my name in order to increase their chances of making the cut.

And while I’ve never really believed I was all that, I was pretty damn proud of the fact that I could make the Orange Man laugh on a fairly consistent basis.

Naturally, the time constraints of anything being read on-air during a radio show are a large factor in whether or not the host can take time to include them. Given my disdain for brevity, that one factor probably worked against me as much as anything else. However it did force me to organize my thoughts and try to be as concise as possible — whether I was successful most of the time is debatable — but I know it did indeed give me a sense for composition and storytelling that I may well have never seen on my own.

Prior to my years of e-mailing the TK show, I’d never have dreamed of considering myself a writer — amateur or otherwise. And whether or not even now I have the right to think of myself in those terms, my life and my self-image, based on the feedback I’ve received from my readers here these past four years, has literally (pun intended) changed my life.

And so what about now, you ask — are you still listening to and e-mailing Kornheiser’s show? That answer would be — a little, and not much at all.

Critical Mass
Things began to change dramatically for TK after the launch of Pardon the Interruption in September of 2001. For years a local celebrity and writer of note for The Washington Post, Tony now began receiving a lot more attention, nationally. As a result, ESPN played up the radio show more to try and capture the coattail effect of its success. PTI received among the highest ratings of all ESPN’s regularly scheduled programming.

Even after moving the radio show from ESPN Radio, back to the local Washington D.C. market in late 2004 (but retaining most of his Internet listeners like your truly), Kornheiser’s star continued to rise.

He began receiving more and more requests of his time for various projects. He would constantly lament the fact that he now had “a dozen jobs,” and that something was going to have to give. Eventually, ostensibly, that ‘something’ would be his involvement with The Post, which had heretofore been his primary employer. He began writing less and less, finally condensing his weekly offerings into brief “columnettes,” as he dubbed them.

But as the print work diminished, the television work increased. The man who proclaimed in self-derision that he was born with “a face made for radio,” was seeing more face-time on camera than ever before.

Then three years ago, potentially his biggest break yet came down the pike — the opportunity to join Mike Tirico and former NFL quarterback Ron Jaworski (preceded the first year by another former QB in Joe Theissmann) in the broadcast booth for Monday Night Football. It was perhaps the biggest exposure that anyone in his shoes could have received, based upon the popularity of MNF. He actually didn’t want to do it at first, but would admit later, he simply had to go with the opportunity before him.

But the reason I’m going so deep into the Kornheiser resume here is because of the way that this move affected me and my involvement with the radio show. Due to the amount of preparation involved with the NFL season, the MNF announcing teams begins in earnest mid-summer with meetings and interviews of players, coaches and team officials, to get ready for the upcoming season’s broadcasts.

Kornheiser felt he needed the time to do right by his MNF commitment, so in 2006 he decided to leave the radio at the end of April, to begin fulfilling the new responsibilities that a daily radio show would render realistically impossible.

He left the air at the end of June, with the intent to rejoin the show the following January after the conclusion of the NFL season (a policy he has since followed for the last two years and will again in 2008). The break was actually a good thing for me, because basically, I was starting a new job too.

Buried Like Cheese...or Just Desserts?
At almost exactly that same time I was informed by my new boss at The Company that my job status was on rather iffy ground. They had made the decision to hire someone over me, a Webmaster position to oversee the implementation of the new, more modern corporate web site that The Company was paying an outsourced developer thousands and thousands of dollars to write.

It was a job I had hoped to be offered, but realized I was completely unqualified to perform at that point. I felt the wind of a door slamming on my career.

Suddenly, hearing my funny e-mails being read on the air wasn’t quite so important anymore. The whole scenario has been fairly well-documented in other posts, but the good news is that I didn’t lose my job, but am now in the process of learning and improving my skill-set to include those emerging modern web technologies that were never even mentioned, let alone expected of me prior to the new boss’s arrival.

And if that sounds like an excuse, well, it is. I made my bed by coasting and not pushing the envelope from within The Company’s existing IT regime years ago to give me a reason to learn what I needed to know, and now I guess I’m lying in it.

Quite frankly, as much as I’d like to, I don’t have time to listen to Tony Kornheiser anymore — save for the 30 minutes per day I can listen as it’s simulcast (albeit on a brief 15-minute delay) on XM Radio while I’m driving in to work — and I certainly don’t have the time and concentration required to come up with anything topical to say in an e-mail under my current circumstances.

To a lesser degree, the same goes for writing. I used to do a bit of that at work too; can’t anymore. Don’t have the time.

Sheesh; this post was supposed to be a celebration, but instead all of a sudden I feel totally bummed.

Manning Up
I guess I’m rightfully constrained to the obvious guilt I now feel over the time I spent concentrating a little too much on the TK show as opposed to what I was actually being paid to do. Nonetheless, the reality is that it may not have mattered; I was in a pretty impotent place back then, professionally. I had no power to change anything with regard to The Company’s IT department, who usually treated me with no more respect than a fly buzzing around the room. I was pretty much on my own; development resources were constantly in backlog. The only way things could have changed would have been for me to take the bull by the horns and do it by myself. Admittedly, I failed miserably on that count, always waiting for somebody else to make the first move.

Now of course we have Trey, my direct boss (as opposed to my big boss, Katie, the Marketing VP who hired him). He has been exactly what I’ve needed: a patient teacher who respects the skills I have, while gently pressing me to expand my knowledge in those areas in which I’m lacking.

It’s a lot more daunting than anything I’ve had to do in my nine years at The Company, but it will pay huge dividends down the road. And oh, yeah, it’ll also make it possible for me keep my job; that’s a nice bonus too.

Seasons
It really is interesting, the way seasons of life come and go; each one bringing with it sometimes life-defining circumstances and events. One day you think of yourself one way and the next, everything has changed; then just when you think things will always be that way, BAM — they change again.

I’ve often wondered what will be the ultimate purpose or effect that blogging will have had on my life. Tony Kornheiser once thanked me for my “enthusiasm” for his radio show. Who knows...maybe I was a bit too enthusiastic.

Whatever. What’s done is done, and really, the benefits I’ve gained from the end product of all this — my blog, my friends, my discovery of a means of self-expression I never knew I had before...

Oh yeah, whatever dues I have to pay, post hoc — hell, they’re chump-change.

This season of my life in which I’ve discovered writing is and always will be one of the most liberating, important moments of self-discovery I have or ever will know — of that I am certain. It does appear however to be on its way out with regard to my daily devotion to blogging, and that does indeed make me sad.

But was it worth it? I could go on and on about the way it has completely transformed my relationship with my father; all the great friends I’ve met, whom I hope will always be a part of my life; all the things I’ve come to appreciate about just thinking, and then dealing with the challenge of putting it all down in written form.

That’s a lot to learn at age 48, which is the age I was when I started this thing.

I guess something I’ve learned is that there really is no end to life, not at least until it actually ends.

Here’s to a few more rounds.

Happy Blog-a-versary to me.


finis