Running Down a Dream

Reality Has Always Had Too Many Heads

2010-09-02T22:14:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to Mr. Cole Griffith (who for unknown reasons decided to pose as my wife) for correctly naming "Atlantic City" by Bruce Springsteen as the Wednesday Song of the Day.

I thought about writing an introductory sentence that provided some sort of rational justification for what's about to follow, but I'm just going to give it to you straight, my friends and readers.

Here, in no particular order, are my 5 Favorite (Living) Canadians:

Morley Safer: I've really started to love 60 Minutes, and I don't think there's anyone on the show whose segments I enjoy more than ol' Morley's. Andy Rooney, if you read this I'm sorry, but that's the way I feel.
Malcolm Gladwell: The highest compliment that you can pay a writer is that they make you see the world in a new way, and there's probably not anyone who does that better right now than Gladwell.
Alex Trebek-I got chastised by the wife for this one, but I've always loved Jeopardy!, and no one epitomizes Jeopardy! like Trebek. Plus, he used to have an excellent mustache. Always a strong selling point in my book.
Neil Young-I almost chose the Crash Test Dummies to take Young's spot on the Canadian rocker list but thought better of it. My favorite Neil Young moment is probably his performance of "Helpless" with The Band during the Last Waltz concert.
Steve Nash-With all apologies to The Great One, I have to choose Nash as my favorite Canadian. Does this have more to do with the fact that Nash is a massive soccer fan than his NBA bona fides? Probably yes, but don't hold that against me.

They Blew Up the Chicken Man in Philly Last Night

2010-09-01T15:15:00.007-05:00

Congratulations once again to my beautiful wife for correctly naming "Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise" by the Avett Brothers as the Tuesday Song of the Day.

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend an Astros game with an old friend. We talked about baseball, we talked about memories, and we talked about work. My friend works in the journalism industry, and I felt compelled to ask where he thinks the print media field is going to be in 10-15 years. He said that he thought things were going to continue to move towards digital format but that if newspapers, especially local newspapers, were going to survive, they would have to offer top-notch local content that readers couldn't get from national sources such as USA Today, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

I offered my (admittedly) amateur point of view that if newspapers and magazines want to survive, they don't need to try to be the internet. They need to do what they do best, which is do top-notch, in-depth long form writing. Before you stop me and say that internet journalists can do top-notch, in-depth long form writing, I'll agree with you, but when I want to sit down and devote 15-30 minutes to reading a longer article, I want to have that article in my hands. I want to feel the paper in my hands and be able to turn the pages. Call me old-fashioned, but flicking the scroll button on a mouse is just not the same as turning a page.

Even if you know just a little bit about me, you know that I love books, but if I had to choose my favorite form of journalism, I think it would be the magazine/newspaper feature article that generally runs in the neighborhood of 7-15 pages. There's something about reading an article that feels like a short story that truly has the ability to take me inside of a subject and give me insight into a topic that I might have previously known nothing about.

Within the past year, my favorite feature article was Michael Hastings' piece on General McChrystal that appeared in Rolling Stone, but my favorite feature article ever is John Updike's "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu", which appeared in the October 22, 1960 edition of The New Yorker.

Oh, and before you say anything, I do realize the irony of linking to electronic copies of those articles when I've spent a few hundred words extolling the virtues of print media. I would have mailed all of you copies, but have you seen the price of stamps these days?

Decide What to Be and Go Be It

2010-08-31T20:32:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to my lovely wife (who asked that I drop the "lady friend" moniker) for correctly naming "Run" by Vampire Weekend as the Monday Song of the Day.

For years, whenever people would bring up the subject of controversial Oscar winners, I would, without fail, address the travesty that was the Best Picture category for 1998. As you may, or may not, remember "Shakespeare in Love" brought home the top prize in 1998. As a young, testosterone-riddled male, I couldn't fathom how the Academy could refuse to honor a film like "Saving Private Ryan" with a Best Picture win, and instead give the award to something as namby-pamby as a period piece featuring innumerable shots of Joseph Fiennes in tights, an odd leather jacket and a pencil beard.

Here's the problem, though: Up until, oh say, 5 minutes ago, I had not seen a minute of "Shakespeare in Love." Oh, sure, I would rail against the film and decry its victory, but now I'm not really sure how much legitimacy those tirades had.

If there's anything I've learned in life, and certainly in argument, it's not that you have to agree with everyone on everything, but if you're going to disagree, you probably should have at least seen/read/heard the film/book/article that you summarily dismiss.

That's a standard that I'm going to begin holding myself to...starting right after I tell you that the Justin Bieber album sucks even though I haven't heard a second of it.

We Mostly Work to Live Until We Live to Work

2010-08-30T19:45:00.005-05:00

It's truly been a pleasure to write in this space for the last 70 months. That's why today I'm beginning a little experiment. I'm going try to, no, I will, write something, anything, here everyday until October 25th.

Why October 25th? That date will mark the six year anniversary of when I first began this blog, and if I'm still enjoying the writing process on that date, I'll try to keep at it for another six years. If I"m not, I'll sign off for the last time and ride into the great blogosphere in the sky.

Until tomorrow, please enjoy the dulcet tones of The Band.

I Lost Track of the Score Long Ago

2010-04-14T07:54:00.005-05:00

Congratulations to Ms. Amanda Pierce (a.k.a. "The Lady Friend", a.a.k.a. "The Soon to Be Permanent Lady Friend") for correctly naming "California" by Phantom Planet as the Tuesday Song of the Day.

I would also be remiss if I didn't direct all of you to this website, where you can drop a note for the future Mrs. Scott and yours truly.

Part 30 (My Response)

I've told you this before, so hopefully you won't still be too mad at me, but I've never read Atlas Shrugged. I've read other Rand books, but I've never tackled Atlas or The Fountainhead. I'll just borrow your copy of Atlas when you finish in 2011.

The lady friend has said that I over-think these kinds of questions (favorite book, movie, album, TV show, etc.), so I tried to find a nice middle ground between thinking too much and too little about it by taking my gut reactions, looking them over a little bit, and then deciding if they made sense.

In high school, I loved A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I'm not sure if you hippies in Boulder were required (or even allowed) to read a book loosely based on John Knowles' experiences at a bastion of northeast elitism like Exeter, but I loved the book, not only for its vivid depiction of someone else's high school experience, but also for how accurately it portrays the volatility of high school friendships and relationships.

In college, the one book that stands out is A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. That's not to say that I didn't read a number of other books in college that I loved, but Heartbreaking Work was the first book that I remember reading and thinking, "I've never read anything like this before." It's also funny that I've recommended the book to other people and been surprised at how difficult they found the book to be.

In particular, I'm remember my Mom reading the book, and as we were discussing it she said something along the lines of "I guess you just have to be a guy in your late teens/early 20's to get that book." While I don't think that's universally true, I think there is something to the idea that sometimes we read books at these critical points in our lives, and if we had read that same book 10 years earlier or 10 years later, it would not have nearly the same affect on us. I don't think I would have connected with Eggers' description of how he tried to balance the loss of his parents, raising his 8-year old brother Toph, and at 22, trying to figure out who he was going to be, if I had read the book at 11 or at 31.

We've Been on the Run, Driving in the Sun

2010-04-13T06:26:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to Micah for correctly naming "Psycho Killer" by the Talking Heads as the Monday Song of the Day.

Part XXIX (Luke's Response)

Yeah, there is this awareness renaissance for most collegians that is seemingly always tied to literature. My answer has got to be the most common one you'll hear: Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugged was the first book I was able to unequivocally call my favorite.

It was my favorite not necessarily because the ideas therein resonated with my own, but because the book made me think like no other one had.

As is the case, the book was added to my life stew just after the right mix of ingredients had already been combined. Consider the following ingredients: Born in Texas to parents who attended a private, faith-based university. Raised in Boulder, CO among millionaire hippies. One side of the family prone to sign over their entire paycheck to a homeless guy; the other side of the family near-militant capitalists. Add the dynamic Bring all those ingredients to a simmer then top with a dollop of Atlas during sophomore year, and you'll have a memorable experience.

Funny you brought this up. Recently I was thinking about the book and it's affect on me. I wondered how the book would strike me now, so I started to read it again. I'll let you know what I think when I finish it in 2011.

What you got?

Don't Touch Me, I'm a Real Live Wire

2010-04-12T18:23:00.001-05:00

Part XXVIII (My Response)

No, the jump is not a difficult one at all, but when I think about whether we care about sports too much, I return to the idea that maybe we don't care about sports more than we once did, it's just become easier to have sports (or anything really) in our lives all the time now because of the explosion of television and the internet. Thanks, Al Gore!

The money that we pour into follwoing our teams could certainly do much more good if it was going to pay for anti-retroviral drugs in Africa, reinforced concrete in Haiti, or clean water in Southeast Asia, but then again, so could all of the money that we spend going to movies, buying books, iPods, and all of the other things that we use to amuse ourselves. I think you're right that the key point is not to realize that sport has the ability to teach us some very valuable life lessons, and then to use those life lessons in the arenas of life that truly do matter.

I'd like to take things in a different direction and ask you which book you read during college that, for whatever reason, still sticks with you. I'm not sure exactly why, but it seems like books that people read during high school and college stick with them through many seasons of life and become these old friends that we return to time and again. Even if we don't read those books again every year, we remember their characters, we recommend them to others, and we have this weird connection with anyone who mentions that they really enjoyed the book as well. I'm just curious what book(s) fit that description for you?

I Can't Seem to Face Up to the Facts

2010-04-09T08:10:00.001-05:00

Part XXVII (Luke's Response)

Great question. Worth pondering because, as we've said, of the meaningful function sport serves to us. I'm not sure we care about sports enough. Let me clarify. I'm not sure we care intentionally enough about sports.

We spend a great deal of time paying attention to sports, on TV and in person, but I wonder how much time we spend in reflection.

As you pointed out, some of the allure of sports is the "escape." They help break the monotony of our regular routines and offer a safe emotional release. But a tricky thing happens- we're prone to shift into a comfort-induced mental auto-pilot. I doubt that generally sports fans spend too much time in reflection over the existential significance of sport. And those are the deepest reasons sport is good. So we ought to be more intentional with our thought/reflection about sport. Let's examine the ways sport brings us together and helps us live deeply.

But in the more plain way, yes we probably do care too much about sports. It's not a hard case to make that at least some of the money we spend on sports could be more wisely spent. At least it could have more meaningful impacts.

The jump from sports fanaticism in America to piggy excess is not a difficult one, right?

The Train is Getting Way Too Loud

2010-04-08T08:18:00.001-05:00

Part XXVI (My Response)

Before I attempt to answer your question on the typical temperament for a sports fan, I'd like to follow up on your observation regarding Daryl Morey. I'm not nearly as interested in the NBA as you are, but due to the fact that I'm (largely) a Bill Simmons sycophant, and Simmons and Morey are buddies, I've come to appreciate Morey's work. I'm really writing all of this in hopes that he'll invite me over to dinner since we do live in the same city, but I'm not holding my breath on that invitation. Anyway, what I mean to say is that the identity, background, and yes, temperament of those who hold front office jobs for sports franchises is going to continue to change. We're going to see more people like Morey (MIT, computer science background) and Andrew Friedman (Tampa Bay Rays' Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations with a financial background, albeit at Bear Stearns) instead of seeing the usual mill of former players through the front office.

You were dead on when you said that sports fans are people of all personality types and characteristics, but sports fans strike me as people who both need and thrive in community. (Hmmm, I think we've discussed that term before. I'm sensing some threads coming together in this conversation.) The act of playing sports, even individual sports, is largely a communal experience, and one of the joys of following a particular team or club or franchise is sharing in the highs and lows of that franchise with others who feel the same way you do about your chosen team. I don't think you're going to find many extreme introverts among the mass of sports fans.

Since you've been asking the questions lately, I'll ask you a question: Working off of our earlier discussion about whether people care more about sports than they did in the the past, do we, as a society, care too much about sports today?

You Can Say What You Mean, but It Won't Change a Thing

2010-04-07T07:38:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to the newly married Joseph R. Halbert for correctly naming "El Scorcho" by Weezer, as well as providing the bonus information that "El Scorcho" is, in fact, on Weezer's second album, Pinkerton. Joey Halbert, ladies and gentlemen, is truly doing the Lord's work.

Weezer - New Music - More Music Videos

Part XXV (Luke's Response)

Around, indeed, she is. And she is easy. Ok I'll stop there.

That's well said- Maybe we don't necessarily care more about sports now, it's just easier to care now.

Lately I've been thinking on something that perhaps can tie in here. Temperament. I often wonder, "what type of person is that?" I see people on TV, people in sports/political/business positions and I wonder. For example, take Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey. He's in pro basketball for a living and he's a computer science type. He may be a mold-breaker among his colleagues, which makes him interesting. Seems there aren't many computer science types among pro hoops GMs.

I wonder what label to place on the person who keeps up with sports intentionally. What type of person is a sports fan? Of course, I realize there are people of all personality types and temperaments who love sports. But generally, what type of person is a sports fan?

The Redhead Said You Shred the Cello, and I'm Jello Baby

2010-04-06T07:39:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to Mr. Andrew M. Tuegel for correctly naming "Bullet the Blue Sky" by Larry Mullen, Jr., Adam Clayton, and those two other guys as the Monday Song of the Day.

Part XXIV (My Response)

I think there's something to your idea that we've all grown more attached to sports of late, but I'm not sure if that's because sports mean more to people in the 21st century or because we have so many more avenues to be connected to sports. Back in the 1940's, if you were a kid living in the Mississippi River Delta, and you loved Stan Musial and the St. Louis Cardinals, you had two realisitic ways of following the Cardinals: 1. The newspaper and 2. the radio. Other than that, you might dream about making the pilgrimmage to The 'Lou (thanks Jon Heintz and Mike Griff) to watch Stan the Man, but the radio and the newspaper were your two sources of Cardinals info.

Now, though? Well, a kid could wake up and look at his phone to see how Albert Pujols did in the Cardinals game the night before. If doesn't look at his phone, there's always the computer in the family room where he can hop on Cardinals.com (contrary to popular belief it's not a site run by the Catholic church). If his family doesn't have internet, they probably have TV where he can flip over to ESPN where they are running highlights 24 hours a day. If they don't have TV, he can listen in the family car to the local sports talk radio station. Failing all of those, he can look at that dinosaur of the media world, yes, a newspaper.

I paint that picture to emphasize that maybe we don't necessarily care more about sports now, it's just that they're around so darn much. With the advent of the internet, cable tv, mobile phone technology, things like sports that might have taken up a much smaller portion of the available broadcast/media world now have the opportunity to have their own networks, blogs, iPhone apps, etc, etc. Sports might just be that girl that we don't necessarily love too much, but we put up with her, because hey, she's around.

Through the Walls You Can Hear the City Groan

2010-04-05T09:49:00.006-05:00

Quick Note: Yesterday my Dad notified me that this email series with Luke is "boring." Duly noted.

Also, in the photo above, please notice how I am blatantly violating the "Don't wear paraphernalia for two different colleges at the same time, especially if those two schools are in the same division in the same conference" rule. Simply shameful.

Jacob Wrestled the Angel, and the Angel Was Overcome

2010-04-05T05:57:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to Mr. Greg Grubb for correctly naming "Sequestered in Memphis" by The Hold Steady as the Friday Song of the Day.

Part XXIII (Luke's Response)

Makes sense. Now I'm wondering about the trend of this phenomenon. Historically, have we always been this way, or are we more so now? That is, in the early days of baseball, for example, was people's devotion as intense as it is now? It seems we've grown more attached to sports of late. There are probably a large number of factors that contribute to a culture's devotion to sports. An obvious one might be average income. If I have to work four jobs just to survive, I'm going to have less time and energy to devote to a sports team. But if I have a job that affords me some free time, I'm more likely to invest in my team.

I also wonder what the zenith of this phenomenon is. At what point (and because of what factors?) will our devotion wane? We'll always have some interest in sports, but when will it be at a trough?

I Know I Look Tired but Everything's Fried Here in Memphis

2010-04-02T08:02:00.002-05:00

Part XXII (My Response)

I'm not saying that the "bulbous, hairy, occassionally inebriated dudes" always intend to follow their chosen team because they know that doing so will allow them to express and experience all of those emotions. I'm saying that sometimes we do things because we know how they make us feel, even if we don't understand exactly why.

It's funny that you labeled yourself a "sports heretic" a couple of emails ago, because I've heard Bill Simmons refer to Chuck Klosterman as a "sports atheist." The difference in the labels is that Klosterman has no team to which he attaches himself, and we all know Simmons' rooting loyalties rather well now, but you do have teams that you follow. As you've said, though, this following does not include getting pulled into some sort of funk when the Blue Devils, Evil Empire, or Lakers lose. It also probably means that you don't get too excited when they win either. You appreciate the act of following the team and enjoying the games, but you don't allow it to affect your emotional state. That's undoubtedly the healthier route as a sports fan.

On the other hand, though, you have people that you have already mentioned who go into a self-destructive tailspin whenever their team loses and go out and overturn cop cars and assault police horses when their team wins a title. I think the reason for the self-destructive tendencies is explained very well in Nick Hornby's book "Fever Pitch", which is Hornby's memoir on his life as a supporter of Arsenal FC in the English Premier League.

Let's leave aside for a moment any Red Sox-related associations you may have with the words "Fever" and "Pitch" and reflect on Hornby's work. He explained that at times when Arsenal would climb to the top of the standings in England only to come up with ever more creative ways of losing games and squandering their season, he was also going through a really rough patch in his own life. The struggles of Arsenal on the pitch came to mirror his own struggles, whether those be romantic, financial, or emotional. Once his life turned around, he still cared about Arsenal, but the times when they would horribly collapse, it didn't affect him as much. I guess the moral of his story is that people use sports as an escape from some of the drudgery of everyday life, and when sports leads to disappointment as well, people allow those feelings to take root.

I Had a Friend Was a Big Baseball Player Back in High School

2010-04-01T07:36:00.002-05:00

Part XXI (Luke's Response)

So bulbous, hairy, occasionally inebriated dudes paint their faces and yell in unison on Sundays to satisfy their need to express emotions? I'm kidding. I see your point. There is an interesting emotional attachment fans have with their teams.

Something that puzzles me is the extremes to which I've seen people take these emotions. Your team loses and you're despondent for a calendar year. Your team wins and you propose to your girlfriend.

To your point about the black/white nature of sports- I wonder if there's more to it. I wonder if we don't prefer the gray to the black and white. If there were no interest in the gray, i.e. the discussion, arguing, etc., a 24-hour sports television network would never survive. There wouldn't be people whose entire careers are made arguing about sports games. Of course I understand your point, because at the end of the day, there is a record book. There is a score that gets recorded. There is some sort of finality.

I heard a funny line from a sports talking-head this week, although not for the first time. Speaking of a men's college basketball game he said, "the better team lost." I love that even though we know who the winner is, we don't know who's better.

Indeed I am a Duke/Yankees/Lakers supporter. The reason is the same reason I'm a free-market supporter. I like to see the best. That's about it. Traditionally, Duke, NY, and LA (among others) have employed the best.

When I was growing up, the team on TV was the Nuggets. The crappy '90s Nuggets. Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, LaPhonso Ellis, Dikembe Mutombo. Although in fairness Mutombo averaged 4+ blocks per game in '93, I got tired of watching dump-bucket hoops. The best team in our conference those years was the Lakers. But am I still a Nuggets fan today? Of course.

I guess the biggest puzzle to me is the extent to which people take their sports fan-ness. I don't totally understand how some people's moods can be affected by the outcome of sports games. Enlighten me.

Trying to Imagine a Place Where It's Always Safe and Warm

2010-03-31T05:45:00.003-05:00

Part XX (My Response)

I'm going to try to restrain my opinions on your particular rooting loyalties (Duke basketball, Yankees baseball, and Lakers basketball) for a little while, but for now, I'll be glad to talk about sports fanaticism in general.

I mentioned this to you this weekend, but I really think you would enjoy Warren St. John's "Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer." St. John grew up in Birmingham, Alabama as a HUGE Crimson Tide fan, but when he decided to go to college at Columbia, he couldn't understand why no one there cared about the school's football team, when during his childhood, the Crimson Tide were the biggest thing going in the state of Alabama (sorry, Auburn fans). He goes back to Alabama, follows the team around during the 1999 season in an R.V., meets an entire cast of bizarre/lovable characters, and does a little writing about the idea of sports fanatacism in general.

The main reason that I think people are so fanatical about sports, besides the ones that you've already mentioned (triablism, vicariousness, competition) is that it provides a context in which we can experience all of these emotions that the world tells us are bad (hatred, anger, violence, revenge, etc.) in a setting where it's more socially acceptable, because, after all, it's just a game. People from the entire southeastern United States don't really hate Tim Tebow (well, maybe they do). They hate that he plays for Florida, a team that they loath.

Sports fanaticism is appealing also because it's an inviting alternative to the ambiguities of everyday life. At the end of a regular day, we may feel good about what we've done that day, we may be proud of what we've accomplished, or the day may have been an unmitigated disaster and we can't wait for it to end.

But here's the thing: All of that exists in this subjective gray area. Sports has none of that ambiguity. At the end of the game (unless it's that sissy game of soccer), we have winners and we have losers, and you can't really get confused about who's who because the answers are there for you on the scoreboard. With that understanding, we sit down to watch our teams play knowing that we'll have some sort of resolution (whether it be good or bad) in a few hours. It allows us to experience all of those aforementioned emotions in a way that isn't exactly real.

I'll stop there and let the conversation continue.

You're up, Reeves.

What Can a Poor Boy Do Except to Sing in a Rock n Roll Band

2010-03-30T13:28:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to Mr. John Middleton for correctly naming "A Long December" by the Counting Crows as the Monday Song of the Day. Congratulations to my sister, Katie, for coming up juuuuuuuuuust short. Sorry, Katie.

Part XIX (Luke's Response)

This is sort of a zig in topic, but the idea of balance is common to this and our conversation thus far. On my list of interests is sports fanaticism. Sports teams, in some people, arouse more passion than any other subject. More than politics, more than religion, and (sadly) more than some human relationships.

This is a topic I've wanted to discuss with you (and others who are warmly invited into this conversation via the blog). Many of these prompts we've been discussing are explicitly categorizable as, as you tag it "amateur philosophy." But some might say sports fanaticism doesn't fit there; that it isn't a serious topic. I'd argue the converse. Sports and sports fanaticism is a meaningful discussion topic. Tribalism, vicariousness, competition.

Of the discussion topics we've discussed, this one isn't merely a prompt for me. I really don't get it like many people do. Sure, there are teams for whom I root. But I don't think I treat sports like other people. I've more than once been derided, called a sports heretic. My sports loyalties aren't geographically based, nor are they divided by rivals. That is, I'm a fan of both Williams and Krzyzewski.

So because I know you've got more than one man's share of opinions on this subject, I'm leaving it vague and just saying, let's talk about sports fanaticism.

There will be blood.

Drove Up to Hillside Manor Sometime After Two A.M.

2010-03-29T06:08:00.002-05:00

Part XVIII (My Response)

Those last few lines definitely resonate with me. As I was sitting down to gather my thoughts before writing this (yes, I tried to gather my thoughts even if what you are about to read doesn't seem logical or methodical) I tried to find the root of that need for independence, that need for self-sufficiency. It would be convenient to say that attitude/world-view comes from one place, but in truth, it is like most things in life, a combination of a variety of factors and experiences that come together to make us who we are.

Part of it is probably in my nature as a man. I'm certainly no expert on the genders, and I'm not saying that men don't have cooperative tendencies and women don't have independent tendencies, but it seems like men have a greater proclivity towards this kind of a self-sufficient, Lone Ranger taking on the problems of the world outlook. If you (Luke or the readers) think that I'm way off-base in that, I really would love to have you set my straight and settle my hash.

Another part of it is that we love to say the right things about community, accountability, and responsibility, but when it comes down to it, those things are difficult. Many times, realizing that we are out-of-balance in some portion of our lives is a painful experience, and if we can live in our own world and convince ourselves that we'll pull ourselves up by our boot-straps (even though I don't even own any boots) and back into this state of balance that we have been discussing for the past few weeks. We know rationally that we will be in a better position if we allow others to point out our blind spots and give us advice, but in our hearts, it is much easier to live in the deluded state where we can figure it all out if we only continue to grind and work towards that balance on our own.

As the Day Grows Dim I Hear You Sing a Golden Hymn

2010-03-26T10:06:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to the recently-married Joey Halbert for correctly naming "Interstate Love Song" by Stone Temple Pilots as the Thursday Song of the Day.

Part XVII (Luke's Response)

One thing that's definitely worth mentioning- we shouldn't be leery of technology to the point that we're kept from participating in it. Whenever new gadgets/technologies come along, there are always haters. The anti-facebook people, the anti-twitter people, etc. History will reveal that I used to be one of these. Hell, I didn't have a cell phone until I was a junior in college. But now I'm of the school which says technology, especially technology that encourages togetherness among people, is good.

Usually I'm not the best judge of how balanced I am. That is to say that often people around me are aware of my imbalances before I am. And it then falls on my friends (or others around me) to alert me of such things. That's a friend's responsibility and privilege. And as technology continues to advance, and we continue to tread in ever-new directions, maybe it's on us (we friends) to help each other achieve balance.

And it's not a one and done thing. It's not like, "well we've achieved balance, good thing we don't have to worry about that again." Balance is something at which we must continually work. That last sentence is certainly true of me. One of the duties of the principal (the person in question, for example, me) is discipline. For me to achieve balance, I'm not relinquished of the need of discipline.

So achieving some balance between ever-imposing/connecting technologies and solitude is a lot like with the rest of life. We need to work hard. And we need help.

I'd guess you and I are similar in that we both like earning our own way. That is, the above-mentioned about accepting help, receiving guidance from others about our personal levels of balancedness sort of strikes a dissonant chord within us. Personally I'd rather buy a car from an Iraqi auto manufacturer than accept any help of any kind from anyone. I can handle myself, dammit! It's this stupid self-dependence which will be my constant opponent in my pursuit of balance. I'm curious for your thoughts on this self-dependent attitude. Are you like this? Does the idea of accepting advice/help rub you wrong?

Promises of What I Seemed to Be

2010-03-25T07:43:00.001-05:00

Part XVI (My Response)

Your experience at Austin Stone is exactly how I see churches adapting technology to the ever present need to make connections and build relationships. It's not technology for technology's sake. It's using technology as a means to an end not an end itself.

The last sentence of your response really caught my attention. We really are part of a generation that, as you say, has the "attention span of a gibbon with ADHD", although I think that might be unfair to gibbons worldwide. I've noticed a change in myself just over the last few months since I started working in terms of always wanting/needing something to occupy my attention. For example, before starting this job, I had never really paid much attention to my cell phone. Sure, with my phones in the past I had received calls and received (but could not send) text messages, but that was all my phone was there for. It wasn't a source of entertainment, it wasn't something that I used like an adult version of a mobile to distract me whenever I grew bored. Now, though, that I have the BlackBerry in hand, if there's ever a dull moment, I'll look down at my phone seeing who has posted something new on Twitter or looking to see if Liverpool has yet again disappointed me. I don't think it's to the point yet where others are distracted by me being distracted, but I have noticed the change in myself, even if no one else has yet.

Here's my question out of that rambling paragraph: What do we do to find the "balance" that we've discussed previously in this conversation between technology and solitude, between the amazing advances of the modern world and the quiet moments that man has been able to experience since the very beginning of time?

They'll Kill Him With Self Confidence After Poisoning Him With Words

2010-03-24T06:12:00.002-05:00

Part XV (Luke's Response)

Well certainly church must be effected. And must adapt. And perhaps in a way it never has before. Since the curve of technology development is exponential, and technology is what we're dealing with, it stands to reason that history hasn't seen us need to make this jump before.

There's a cynical view that church will become more techo-ish and lose a certain human element, but I'm more hopeful. I imagine community being enriched by technology, not necessarily weakened. But effort is probably the key, as you've said.

It's interesting how some church congregations have adapted already. A few months ago I went to Austin Stone with Girod. And of course I tweeted about it. Within the hour, @TheAustinStone had tweeted back to me following up on my experience. They asked if I wanted more info., they asked how my visit was, they welcomed me. All in 140 characters. It's this type of adaptation that I imagine churches making to reach this new kind of community. And perhaps it's because I'm of this "attention span of a gibbon with ADHD" generation, but for the most part, I'm cool with it.

They're Selling Postcards of the Hanging, They're Painting the Passports Brown

2010-03-23T06:19:00.002-05:00

Part XIV (My Response)

You're right that community must look different than it did 15, 30, 60 years ago, and your anecdote regarding the hand-written letter to a client is a perfect example. First, yes, you are better than all of us. That is freely acknowledge. Now, please quit rubbing our faces in our inadequacy. Second, the key to community in a "sound-bite community" world is to be intentional about how we interact with others. The likely reason that your letter generated such a reaction from the client is that he perceived that you were very intentional in setting aside time to hand-write a letter to him, and by extension this conveyed to him that you were concerned about the problems and issues he faced as a client. It's likely that this is (at least) partially why you chose to hand-write the letter, but sometimes people perceive motives from our actions simply by the shape those actions take. An email would have had the same content as a handwritten letter, but the handwritten letters conveys a sense of focus and attention to a specific situation that an email might not convey.

My question to you is: if community must look different than it did 15, 30, 60 years ago, how does that affect the most meaningful community in many peoples' lives, the church? I realize that dissertations have been written on such a topic, and it's far too big to answer in one blog post, but I'm very interested to read your thoughts.

You Asked Me How I Was Doing, Was That Some Kind of Joke?

2010-03-22T05:58:00.001-05:00

Part XIII (Luke's Response)

Good thoughts on a new definition/kind of community. Spot on. And I agree that the catalyst has been technology, more specifically the internet. Contact with people nowadays requires zero effort and almost zero intentionality. Does this lead to "soundbite community"? Where our relationships are as shallow as our contact is short?

Though it's tempting, I can't in good conscience say that community/relationships now are less meaningful than 15, 30, 60 years ago. People are different than they used to be. I don't need to cite a source for that claim, I think everyone would agree. Technology has changed us, such that for the function community served 60 years ago to be served again today, community must look different.

Last week after a long series of events with a certain client, I wrote him a note thanking him for his help/patience/cooperation. He called me when he received the letter, in shock. He couldn't believe that people wrote handwritten letters anymore. Now I'm not bragging, I'm just saying I'm better than most people. But really, the fact that he was floored speaks to a change in people, and by extension a change in the way our relationships/communities look.

I Won't Be Much For Conversation If We Go Into the Rest of This

2010-03-21T17:27:00.002-05:00

Current Reading
American Gospel: God, The Founding Fathers, and The Making of a Nation by Jon Meacham

The Heavy Stuff Ain't Quite at Its Heaviest By the Time It Gets Out to Suburban Minneapolis

2010-03-21T17:17:00.004-05:00

Part XII (My Response)

I've enjoyed an episode of "Lopez Tonight*." That's the first time in my whole life I've ever typed that. Thanks for sharing that moment with me.

It's pretty tough to argue with the idea that we each have our own community to isolation ratio. It's also pretty tough to argue with the idea that J.D. Salinger's was pretty heavy on the isolation and light on the community. The thing that fascinates me about Salinger is that "Catcher in the Rye" was published in 1951 when Salinger was 32. He goes on to release a few more items throughout the next twelve years, and his last published work appeared in the New Yorker in June 1965. That means that he lived almost 45 more years (almost half his life) without publishing anything else. That is what is amazing to me.

How many writers/musicians/actors/chemists/lawyers/architects/professors/doctors/etc. would receive critical acclaim in their profession 1/3rd of the way of their life, work until the 1/2 way point in their life in that same career, and then just remove themselves from that career and make no further contributions in that field?

Perhaps this ties in with our discussion about how each of us has our own isolation/community ratio, but I think that with the way that technology has changed our interactions with each other, that isolation/community shift in the world as a whole has gone towards the community side of the ledger. That's not to say, though, that the community shift I'm talking about is what people would have called "community" 30 or even 15 years ago. It's this kind of quasi-community where I'm interacting with people on a much greater frequency through avenues like Facebook, Twitter, email, text messages, or even phone calls, but all of those avenues may crowd out more conventional face to face community experiences.

*This is not even remotely true.

Remember the Promise as a Kid You Made

2010-03-20T10:18:00.001-05:00

Part XI (Luke's Response)

Back to the isolation/community issue. I think we agree that a balance between the two is best. But I want to think longer on the subject. Especially in a post-J.D. Salinger world (as we've briefly discussed), I find the idea of hermits (hermititude?) fascinating. Although we know little of Salinger, do you imagine he achieved a balance? Or do you imagine he went off the isolation deep end?

Generally I'd claim that man exists on a level that is "natural" to him until there is impetus for change. That is to say, every man is at every moment in balance. When he encounters something causing dissonance with his held beliefs/values, he acts in accordance with what's required for him to retain balance. For example- Owen has value system ZYX. At some point in his life, he encounters W. Now it's decision time. W doesn't fit into his value system of ZYX. So he either must adopt W or disregard it. After that his balance is again achieved.

I say Salinger did in fact achieve balance, not according to you or me or this mysterious "Owen", but according to Salinger. I think his isolation/community ratio was something like 90/10, where a normal social human might be closer to 50/50, or probably more accurately 10/90.

I also think specifically one's isolation/community ratio varies with age/maturity/season-in-life, etc. We've both admitted to a felt propensity toward introversion as we age, so our I/C ratio is different now than, for example, freshmen year.

Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini. That's the first time in my whole life I've ever typed that. Thank you for sharing that moment with me.

Forget About Instinct, It's Not What Pays

2010-03-19T06:46:00.003-05:00

Part X (My Response)

I agree with you that as a moral policy, extremism, or at least the striving towards an extreme, is the only way to go. I think there is a distinction from our earlier conversation about balance, especially in the context of the isolation v. community debate, where the decision is not necessarily a "moral" choice.

I guess morals are whatever we choose to give value to in our lives, what directs us in the way we make decisions on a daily basis, and how we choose to live, but it seems like there is something to gained from living a balanced life in the isolation vs. community context that cannot be gained by living in a morally lukewarm/apathetic manner towards others. There is some way to hold those two ideas in tension, balance and extremism, and I'm sure someone much wiser than yours truly would be able to paint a better picture of what that looks like in a human being's life.

On the idea of being both extreme while also being non-abrasive, I agree that that person is as rare as the proverbial Native American rapper, but the reason for that is likely that if you are truly extreme in your beliefs on how the world such operate on matters both large and small, you will do whatever you can to make that so. As I wrote earlier in our conversation, this desire often comes in conflict with the viewpoints and lives of others, who may be extremely devoted to their vision of how the world should operate.

If you are an extremist, it would seem to be a betrayal of your views to yield to the other person's perspective on an issue that you are devoted to. That's why it seems we must be extreme about the right kinds of things (care and concern for others, love, peace, justice, hope, etc., etc., etc.). How someone arrives at which are the "right kinds of things", well, as they say in East Texas, that is a whole 'nother can of worms.

I wholeheartedly agree with the statement that Christianity/religion is a good personal policy, but a bad political one. In my mind, here's the reason why: From a Christian perspective, I want the separation of church and state, not simply because I think that religion is bad for government, but more for the reason that government is bad for religion. When I read the Gospels/New Testament, I keep reading Jesus talk about how we are supposed to be in this world, but not of this world.

The church is supposed to be counter-cultural. It's supposed to exist in this sphere that is outside of government, outside of the realm of political power as calculated by the world, outside of "the establishment." Throughout the history of the church, we as Christians have always gotten into trouble when we became obsessed with intertwining government and religion. I'm all for the promotion of religion, but that promotion should be done by the church, and not by any power gained by being co-opted by the government or attempting to co-opt the government.

I'm starting to write a novel here, so I'll stop for now.

Leavings the Last Thing I Thought You Would Do

2010-03-18T08:06:00.001-05:00

Part IX (Luke's Response)

What if I postulated the following: not only is extremism generally the best policy, but it's the only moral policy. Such an argument would be an extension (albeit a distant extension) of the idea that the opposite of love isn't hate; the opposite of love is apathy. That is to say, lukewarmness is the ultimate evil; the stance for which there is no moral defense. This principle would oblige one to shed a commonly held view of balance as the ideal. "Balance" would either need to be redefined or abandoned.I'm curious of your response to such a value system as herein-above described. (You're welcome for writing "herein-above." I figure you probably don't get enough legalese.)

I agree with your statement that the real question has to do with our interactions with others. I actually think one can be both extreme and non-abrasive. Although, such a person is ultra-rare, almost a myth, like a Native American rapper.

I also empathize with your extremism/religion mental connection. Religious extremism is probably the most public. Last week in an office discussion about local politics and election time, the topic of church and state came up. My opinion (the correct opinion) is that a step towards a divorce between church and state is a step in the right direction. The actual wording of the proposed action was in the vein of posting the 10 Commandments on governmental/school buildings, etc. I made a statement that America must make moves in a direction away from a theocracy. A statement for which I was silently, ocularly persecuted. I said Christianity/religion is a good personal policy, but a bad political one.

I realize a discussion of church and state is not the same as a discussion on the virtue of extremism, but it's where my mind went. I'm just along for the ride.

Who Knew a Day Would Turn Into a Week

2010-03-18T07:58:00.002-05:00

I guess this really isn't the way my Dad and Grandma would want to make the front page of the paper, but as you can read here, my Grandmother is probably the toughest 84 (almost 85!) year old woman in East Texas.

This Time Will Be Different Until I Do It Again

2010-03-17T08:27:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to Mr. Joseph Halbert (who's getting married this weekend, folks) for correctly naming "Wishlist" by Pearl Jam as the Tuesday Song of the Day.

Part VIII (My Response)
The virtue of extremism...it's such a dirty word these days, isn't it?
Whenever we want to denigrate someone or something, we label it "extreme" or call them "an extremist." I do think you're right, though. There are some things about which we should be extreme. Like you wrote, it seems that the only way to be a true follower of a religion is to be an "extreme follower" of that religion. Much of what Jesus calls us to, especially in the Sermon on the Mount, is incredibly extreme. When I go back and read Matthew 5-7, I always notice how some portions make me very uncomfortable, and I know that's a good thing.
I think the real question of the virtue of extremism is what it causes us to do in our interactions with others. We may be extremely devoted to our cause, and in that devotion we lose sight of the values of others (i.e. the jihad that radical Islamic figures have declared on "the West" wherein their extreme devotion to their interpretation of the Koran has caused them to do great harm to those with whom they disagree) or we may be extremely devoted to our cause, and in that devotion we are attuned to the values of others (i.e. Jesus' call to love our enemies, to look for those in need, and to love without concern for reciprocity). I don't mean this to fall into the typical Islam v. Christianity divide, but the topics of extremism and religion are intertwined in my brain.
Your thoughts?

I Wish I Was a Messenger and All the News Was Good

2010-03-16T05:59:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to Mr. Peter Pope for correctly naming "Babylon" by David Gray as the Monday Song of the Day. It should be noted, though, that even if Peter's answer had been wildly incorrect, I probably still would have given him credit, because let's be honest, when you're in P.C. at Baylor Law, you need all the encouragement you can get.

Now, on to the next part of my continuing conversation with Luke Reeves

Part VII: (Luke's Response)

Now more on the nature of balance- are there things (causes, ideas, etc.) about which one should be extreme?

It seems that "balance" could be part of the answer to many of life's questions. But is extremism ever the best/right/reasonable answer? A religious person might answer that one ought to be extreme in their devotion to that religion. A political person might might answer similarly in regards to politics. And so let the conversation begin: the virtue of extremism. Go.

Sky is Fading Red to Blue

2010-03-15T08:35:00.007-05:00

I was thoroughly pleased to see this gentleman in the Nashville Airport yesterday: That's Chuck Klosterman for those of you scoring at home. I decided not to talk with Chuck, if only because I would looked like I was auditioning for a revival of "The Chris Farley Show."

Easily my best airport celebrity sighting since my parents and I shared a plane with the 1984 Boston Celtics.

Situations Running Through My Head

2010-03-15T05:59:00.002-05:00

Part VI (My Response)

I agree with you on the intrinsic value of activities and also agree with you on the idea that a meaningful life can be lived in isolation, but that may not mean that you have lived the "most" meaningful life. It's that pesky idea of potential. The idea of potential drives some people to paralysis because they're constantly wondering what is necessary to reach their full potential, and in that constant search, they never actually start moving down a path towards development. On the other hand, there are people who have no conception of what they might be able to become.

This is a bit off topic, but I think we're working free form here in a manner akin to jazz, but I do wonder what I will be like in ten, twenty, thirty, or fifty years if I actually live to see such milestones. It's convenient to think that I'll be pretty similar to the way I am now, but the idea not growing and expanding, moving and learning, developing into something different strikes me as a deeply frightening one. I guess that the problem that people and organizations have had to deal with throughout the ages: How do we keep our core values intact while also being sensitive to the way the world, and those who move in it, are changing?

I see the idea of pride in very similar manner to our discussion of isolation versus community. It once again comes down to balance. An excess amount of pride/selfishness can cause me to lose track of those around me and be sensitive to their needs. On the other hand (I need to find an alternate method of rhetorically shifting to the opposing viewpoint), an extreme lack of pride or selfishness can cause to never think of how we might develop, how we might grow, and how we might achieve. I'm not sure if I would go to the same place on the idea of selfishness as Rand, but I think a healthy amount of pride and self-worth is necessary for the greater good.

We May Race and We May Run, We'll Not Undo What Has Been Done

2010-03-12T06:40:00.003-06:00

Part V (Luke's Response)

I think there is such a thing as intrinsic good. The very act of reading, for example, can be in and of itself good. That is to say, I think a man literally stuck alone on a deserted island can live a meaningful life. He can engage in behaviors that in and of themselves have value, and thereby live a meaningful life. In the real world, I probably agree with your balance idea. While a man can live a meaningful life as a hermit, the most meaningful life is probably shared with people.

Chris Seidman's talk this morning at Highland was about pride. One thing he basically said was pride was the root of satan's fall and the root of man's fall.

My question to you is related to pride. What are your thoughts on terms like 'selfishness' and 'self-esteem', etc? Keep in mind I'm reading Rand, who once wrote a book called "The Virtue of Selfishness" (which I've read), but I see pride in a different way now than I once did. Your thoughts? I'm leaving this is purposely vague.

Without a Penny to Spend, They Dress to the Letter

2010-03-11T06:45:00.002-06:00

Part IV (My Response to Luke)

On this issue, I come down on the side of balance. I would call it Aristotelian, but then I would just sound like a blow-hard. It seems that from my observations, both of myself and others, that we all need to have time of personal reflection and solitude in order to discover ourselves and really understand what is going on in our heads/hearts, but if we don't spend some of our lives interacting and being challenged by others, we'll always fall a little bit short of where we might have been if we had been exposed to challenging ideas/circumstances from others.

With that said, it seems that we have an interesting situation in the modern, wired world. People probably spend more time in isolation physically than ever before with things like TV, iPods, the internet, etc. At the same time, though, we have all of those things fighting for our attention, so do we ever really spend time, as you frame it, stuck alone on an island in self-reflection? I don't think we do.

I know that I have to try to balance the time I spend in isolation versus community because I know that without a balance between the two, I'll either become a hermit or I'll become co-dependent on others, always needing their input and validation for everything I do.

Your thoughts?

JTS

With Me Hanging Round on the Street or Here on the Beach

2010-03-10T05:40:00.003-06:00

Part III (Luke's Response)

I'm curious for your thoughts on an idea. It's the classic solo vs. community issue.

Can a man stuck alone on an island live a deep life or does a deep life require others with which to engage and share?

When You Meet 'Em, Everyone's a Fool

2010-03-09T05:53:00.002-06:00

Part II: My Response to Luke

Ah, law. The world of the disclaimer.

I completely agree with the sentiment about a bit too much introversion being a bad thing. I've noticed that spending a bit too much time in my own world with my head in a book/watching sports/etc. has become an issue since I started law school. I attribute a lot of that to the fact that I've told myself that I made the best friends that I could hope for at ACU (yourself included) and that I would decide to spend my friendship capital on the friends I already had rather than expanding those friendships on a deep level to people in law school. I still feel good about that decision, but I have noticed that I find myself content on a Friday night to sit and read or watch a movie rather than trying to seek out other activities. That's also probably a function of the fact that I feel as though I'm in this transition period before Amanda and I get married and that I know I won't probably spend my free-time in the same way once we get hitched, and that's almost certainly a very good thing.

With all of that said, I know that I need to seek out these opportunities with people to really share myself and make connections, because in the end, that's all we really have in this world. Sounds cliched, but it's true. Most clichés are, I guess.

JTS

We Rarely Practice Discern

2010-03-08T17:31:00.005-06:00

Ladies and gentleblogreaders, in the hopes of reviving this here blog, I'm going to start running a series of emails that I am currently exchanging with the gentleman pictured with me above* (the one, the only, Luke Reeves).

I'll run the emails in a format where I'll post one of Luke's emails starting today, my response tomorrow, and continue alternating the responses to infinity and beyond.

Please feel free to offer your responses, thoughts, and insights.

Here goes nothing...

Part I

Justin,

Firstly, I loudly applaud the disclaimer at the foot of your email.

Secondly, I appreciate the note. As I reflect on the tail end of last year, I realize I spent a little too much time not acting human. By that I mean holing up at my house and not really interacting with people. As time goes on, a propensity for introversion is rearing its ugly head, so holing up becomes easier and easier. But that's probably not what's best. Hence the goal.

So bring it. What's been your topic of thought of late?

Again, thanks for starting this conversation.

reeves

*The picture above was taken immediately after the David Tyree catch in Super Bowl XLII. At some point in the distant future, I will direct my grandchildren to this picture to demonstrate just how improbable that catch was.

The Age of Miracles, The Age of Sound

2010-03-08T05:46:00.003-06:00

Current ReadingLenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire by David Remnick

At Midnight All the Agents

2010-03-03T21:33:00.004-06:00

Congratulations to my Dad for correctly naming "Long Cool Woman (in a Black Dress)" by The Hollies as the Monday (February 15) Song of the Day.

Current Reading
Namath: A Biography by Mark Kriegel

Saturday Night I Was Downtown, Working For the FBI

2010-02-15T16:39:00.002-06:00

Current Reading
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The Riot Squad They're Restless, They Need Somewhere to Go

2010-01-31T15:10:00.006-06:00
Congratulations to Mr. Joseph R. Halbert for correctly naming "Josephine" by The Wallflowers as the Thursday Song of the Day.

I strongly urge all Running Down a Dream readers to visit Joey's new blog, The Young Oak, which is probably the only blog that will feature erudite discussions of the WWE, theology, and Texas state politics.

Is Rick Perry truly the Texas gubernatorial equivalent of Triple H or Rowdy Roddy Piper? Is the McMahon family a prime example of the Trinitarian Nature of God? Read The Young Oak for the answers, my friends.

Closing on a different note, after finishing Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine just a few days ago, I found his May 25, 2009 New Yorker piece on Chief Justice John G. Roberts an interesting (quasi)-epilogue* to the book. It's not a quick read, but if you're interested in the current direction of the Supreme Court, I think it's worth your time.

*Sorry for channeling Peter King for a moment there. I realize only about 3 people who read this will catch that reference, but it's worth making.

When You Wake I Will Drive You Into Town

2010-01-28T22:30:00.006-06:00

Congratulations to Mrs. Ashley Ham for correctly naming "Louisiana Bayou" by the Dave Matthews Band as the Tuesday Song of the Day...

...and congratulations to Ms. Amanda Pierce, yes,the lady friend for those of you scoring at home, for correctly naming "The Underdog" by Spoon as the Wednesday Song of the Day.

Current Reading

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson

Completely Illogical Super Bowl XLIV Prediction: Colts 31-17, if only because Peyton Manning and Walter Isaacson attended the same school in New Orleans, the Isidore Newman School, and I'm reading Isaacson's book right now. Don't scoff, THE LOGIC SURROUNDING THAT PREDICTION IS AIRTIGHT.

Picture Yourself in the Living Room

2010-01-27T21:11:00.005-06:00

I couldn't help but notice tonight during the Annual Group Squat-Thrust Session that is the State of the Union Address that the Supreme Court justices are all seated in a very prominent position on the floor of the House of Representatives.

They are approximately at the President's 2 o'clock reference point as he looks out upon the audience, but strangely, despite all of the hubbub going on around them, they never stand up, they never applaud, and they remain as dispassionate as Dick Cheney at a Jay-Z concert.
If I were a speechwriter for the President, a Toby Ziegler, if you will, I would do whatever I could to get the justices out of their chairs and on their feet, even if that meant severely pushing the bounds of ethics and reality.

Some examples:
"Beginning in the 2010-2011 fiscal year, Supreme Court justice salaries will no longer be paid in U.S. Dollars. From that date forward, salaries will paid in gold dubloons. Yes, gold dubloons."
"Effective immediately, we're doing away with all of that 'Oyez, Oyez, Oyez' mumbo-jumbo when the justices enter the court for oral argument, and each justice will be able to choose his or her own entrance music. A stipend for pyrotechnics and/or a smoke machine will be provided to each justice."
"I know that some of you on the court are jealous of Chief Justice Roberts because of the notoriety that he receives for being 'the Chief.' Fear not, associate justices. After viewing the Sly Stallone film Over the Top, I'm instituting arm-wrestling matches as a method for allowing associate justices to challenge the chief's place of supremacy on the court."

The Coins In Their Eyes Represent the Money They Owe

2010-01-26T22:16:00.004-06:00

A Humble Request for Accountability--Ladies and gentlemen, blog readers young and old, I come to you seeking the company of those who would hold me accountable in the following endeavor: In my life-long quest to oppose James Cameron at every turn, I have to this point in my life (currently 26 years, 10 days, 18 hours and 35 minutes) avoided seeing a single movie by the aforementioned Canadian director.

Yes, that means no Terminator, no Abyss, no True Lies, no Terminator 2, no Titanic, and now, no Avatar.

I wish for all of you to hold me accountable in this heroic endeavor. People of the Internet and People of the Future, if you one day come across this blog on your journey across the interwebs, ask me, question me, even interrogate me as to whether I have seen a flick by "The King of the World" and deal with me ever so harshly if I have.

I'm Going Back to the Water, Been Landlocked Too Long

2010-01-25T21:12:00.004-06:00

Question of the Day: I'm not sure if this is just a church announcement decision, but why in the world do we announce how much a baby weighed when it was born?

Also, how much fun would it be if you could bet the over/under on what a given baby weighed when it was born? I'm pretty sure this is the type of thing that hacked off Jesus when he ran the money changers out of the temple...but...wouldn't it be one of the most memorable Sundays-ever if the preacher walked to the podium and said, "Before I announce the weight of the Walkers' new son, be mindful that the over/under on his weight is 7 lbs, 9 oz. Please place your bets accordingly."

Believing in Yourself Almost as Much as You Doubt

2010-01-19T22:09:00.004-06:00

Congratulations to both Ms. Stacey Villescas and my Dad for correctly naming "Back in the U.S.S.R." by The Beatles as the Monday Song of the Day.

What's that you say? You wonder why I mention my Dad when Stacey, a.k.a. ALV, was the only person who left a comment identifying "Back in the U.S.S.R."? Well, my Dad chose to give his answer via the telephone, which until this point was within the accepted method of communicating answers, along with carrier pigeons, smoke signals, and tin cans on a string.

But, upon further consideration, I've decided that in order to avoid any Bush v. Gore-type knockdown, dragout fights, I'm proposing the following rule, and since this is my blog, I rule by fiat and my word is law.

Henceforth, all answers, in order to be considered for the Song of the Day contest, must be submitted via the comment section of "Running Down a Dream."I will not accept answers in any other form, even if they are submitted by the people that brought me into this world. This is a blog of laws, not men or women.

Govern yourself accordingly.

Come and Keep Your Comrade Warm

2010-01-18T20:59:00.007-06:00

As noted in yesterday's post, I've recently begun reading Jeffrey Toobin's "The Nine." As I was reading the book, I flipped to the picture section in the middle (don't act like you don't do the same thing), and noticed the following picture.
We all recognize the event as President Bush's introduction of now Chief Justice John Roberts as his choice to succeed the departing Sandra Day O'Connor, but what I found interesting was the caption below the picture, which states:

"President Bush introduces Roberts as his nominee to replace O'Connor on July 19, 2005. To the side are Roberts' wfie, Jane, and daughter, Josephine. His son, Jack, is imitating Spider-Man."

To which I say, "Jack Roberts, that's the worst Spider-Man impression I HAVE EVER SEEN."

If the caption had said that Jack Roberts was imitating the Damon Wayans-version of "The Robot" in Major Payne, I could have accepted that. If it would have said that he was doing the world's worst sleight of hand trick by hiding something in his pocket, I could have accepted that. Do you think David Blaine is going to give you the call-up to the magic big leagues with those kind of bush-league tactics? Not happening.

But an imitation of Spider-Man? No way, young Jack Roberts. Does Spider-Man patrol the mean streets in a seersucker short suit and saddle shoes? No way in Hades, unless he wants to end up on the business end of a swirly.

With that said, I hope you're reading this, Jack. I hope that as we approach the 5-year anniversary of this event this summer, perhaps you've learned your lesson in imitating Peter Parker. There's nothing more embarrassing than kids who can't properly imitate superheroes.

You'd Know What a Drag It is to See You

2010-01-17T20:41:00.003-06:00

Current Reading
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin

I Spoke Your Name for Many Days, Pronouncing It in Several Ways

2010-01-16T21:13:00.003-06:00
Big day tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen.

The Houston half-marathon is calling my name. Look for me to be the guy way,way,way behind the Kenyan dudes.

If anything, I'll be better off than the Austin marathon in 2005, when at mile 2, I almost mistook a tongue-presser coated with vaseline for a popsicle. WORST. POPSICLE. FLAVOR.EVER.

Lesson learned.

See you on the other side.

They're Flying Too High to See My Point of View

2010-01-15T22:33:00.004-06:00

In celebration of my return from the blogging crypt, I'm beginning a new Friday series (and possibly more days if I run out of material, which is highly likely) entitled, "Thanks a lot, (Insert name of person or group of people)!" It may not seem catchy at first, but like "Co-stan-za", it will grow on you.

The first group to go under the proverbial microscope? Women (and possibly men, though I haven't seen them) who wear large belts on the outside of their shirts/blouses/pants, even though those belts are not going through any sort of fabric loops or fasteners. You know the belts I'm talking about. Belts made out of enough plastic to choke an entire ocean of dolphins. Belts that have crazy colors that have only been seen in Dr. Seuss books. Belts that look like they were purchased from an Eastern European power-lifting team and painted in one of the colors that you can buy a Volkswagen Beetle in.

Oh, I get it, ladies. You're trying to give yourself a waist, you're trying to "accessorize" (whatever that even means), or you're simply trying to keep up with the fashion Joneses. These are all seemingly (emphasis on "seemingly") valid excuses to wear belts that would shame even Hulk Hogan after he won Wrestlemania III.

Quick Tangent: I do love how the Wrestlemania events are the only other sporting events besides the Super Bowl to utilize Roman Numerals. Roman Numerals are like the Clint Eastwood of numbers. It's hard to believe that a movie with Eastwood won't have some serious sense of gravitas, and it's hard to dismiss out-of-hand any event that is measured with Roman Numerals. If they were good enough for Augustus, they must certainly be good enough for Vince McMahon and Andre the Giant, but I digress.

Back to the topic at hand...ladies, in the New Year of 2010, let's all agree to treat belts as functional objects instead of an excuse to look like a reject from a ship commanded by Captain Jack Sparrow. Use a belt to hold up your pants and not to look like you're headed for a shift loading a pallet-jack at Lowe's.

The Titanic Sails at Dawn

2010-01-14T21:50:00.004-06:00

Current Reading

Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis

They're Selling Postcards of the Hanging

2010-01-14T21:39:00.003-06:00
I'm not going to ask for your forgiveness, folks. I'm just going to say this...I'm back.

WITH.

A.

VENGEANCE.

Look for the posting to begin with a fury not seen since bloggers tried to expose the conspiracies surrounding the Kennedy Assassination. (Quick insight: It was Roger McDowell. Kramer taught everyone that.)

Past Reading

Manning: A Father, His Sons, and a Football Legacy by Archie Manning, Peyton Manning and John Underwood

Warm Like the Evening Sun

2009-12-16T16:54:00.003-06:00

Current Reading

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century by Steve Coll

Make Every Song Your Favorite Tune

2009-12-14T15:24:00.004-06:00

Current Reading

Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation by John Carlin

And a special bonus for you, ladies and gentlemen, Nelson Mandela's boot-camp:

Chappelle's Show
Nelson Mandela's Boot Camp
http://www.comedycentral.com/
Buy Chappelle's Show DVDs Black Comedy True Hollywood Story

All That I Wanted to Say, Words Only Got In the Way

2009-12-03T14:06:00.003-06:00

Current Reading
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Push Yourself Too Hard and It Might Get Hot

2009-11-20T17:41:00.004-06:00

Please read the entire article here, but one part of the NY Times' article on student protests at various University of California campuses in response to a recent Board of Regents' vote passing a 32% tuition increase for next year is just too good to leave alone:

Indeed, many of the long-term demands are far beyond the reach of the Santa Cruz administrators, including the impeachment of Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California system; the elimination of the Regents’ positions, and an end to all student fees and student debts.

As someone who has recently passed through those joyous years that are American higher-education, I certainly empathize with students who are staring at a 32% tuition increase, but people, people, people, an end to all student fees and student debts? Let's get a hold of ourselves here, ladies and gentlemen.

Sure, it would be fantastic if we could all live in a world where college educations were dispensed like Werther's candy, but this is the real world, and unless the UC system has just made a colossal breakthrough on that whole "money tree" research they were doing out there at U.C. Santa Barbara, I think you're going to have to accumulate a bit of debt in exchange for a diploma.

Come to think of it, though, a lot of professors do wear cardigans like the grandpa in the Werther's commercials. Maybe there's something to that comparison, but I digress.

What Have You Told Us At All?

2009-11-19T17:48:00.005-06:00

Unless you've been living under a rock or quietly humming the "Marseillaise" to yourself all day, you've surely heard of the newest reason to hate our Gallic friends, which is depicted below:
For those of you who have even worse vision than I do, that is a picture of French striker Thierry Henry blatantly palming the ball with his left-hand before passing to an on-rushing William Gallas, who placed the ball in the back of the Irish net to tie yesterday's World Cup qualifying match at 1.
Coupled with the fact that the French won 1-0 in Dublin in the first leg of the qualifier, Gallas's now-infamous goal sent the French to the World Cup and left the Irish to sit around and ponder what June 2010 will be like leading tourists on tours of Blarney Castle instead of taking on the world's best soccer playing nations in South Africa. I thought it would be more appropriate to give Irish players the job of leading tours at Blarney Castle rather than chasing down that pesky leprechaun from the Lucky Charms box, drinking themselves into oblivion, or surviving antoher potato famine, but I digress.
Because we all know that Henry's hand-ball was only possible due to the fact that the good men and women of the U.S. Military (with assistance from other nations) liberated France not once, but twice, in the 20th century, I feel that it is within my unwritten rights as a citizen of the United States of America to bring to light other instances where the French have unjustly been rewarded:
Today's Example--
1879: A Hungarian named Laszlo Goulash invents what the world now knows as "french fries." Of course, we only know them as "french fries" because a Frenchman named Phillippe Depardieu made a deal with Goulash whereby Goulash would agree to lend his name to Depardieu's new dish if Goulash would also agree to allow Depardieu to name the new potato creation after Depardieu's home nation. That Goulash guy got ripped off.
Please feel free to share any other instances that you are aware of where the French have taken something that is not rightly theirs.

In an Open Car or Wherever You Are

2009-11-18T17:22:00.003-06:00

Congratulations to Mr. Kalum Tuggle for correctly naming "I'm Coming Home" by Robert Earl Keen as the Song of the Day for both Thursday and Friday.

I'm pretty upset that my Dad kept this secret from me for so long, but it's good to see that he's opened up a law office in Beaumont.

Current Reading

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad

Ain't Nothin' Better Than Your Own Backyard

2009-11-13T08:17:00.002-06:00

Current Reading

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Packed My Suitcase and I Racked My Brain

2009-11-12T16:40:00.008-06:00

When I found out last Thursday that I passed the bar exam, I thought of Dr. Richard Kimble.
Well, that's not exactly true.

First, I thought, "Thank you, sweet Lord. Now I will not have to clean out my office with a great deal of shame for being the first person at this firm to fail the bar exam."

After that harrowing thought, though, my mind turned to a bearded Harrison Ford. There's a scene at the beginning of The Fugitive where Ford's character is being transported to the Illinois maximum security prison where he will be executed by lethal injection after being wrongly convicted of his wife's murder.

Some of Ford's fellow passengers decide that spending a few years in the slammer waiting for an injection is not exactly an appealing 5-year plan and attempt to escape. Seeing as though these folks already managed to fall into the clutches of the Illinois criminal justice system, they are not necessarily the sharpest pencils in the box and proceed to knock their bus into the path of an oncoming train. They really do put train tracks in the darndest places, but hey, movies are about the willing suspension of disbelief, right?

(Note: This really should have been a plot twist in Speed. Jan De Bont, if you want to start up production for Speed 3, call me.)

Since The Fugitive doesn't end after a mere 15 minutes, you obviously know that Harrison Ford will somehow escape from the menace of the onrushing train, but when he does escape you don't feel much relief for his character. Sure, he's managed to avoid being turned into a human penny on the railroad tracks, but he also stranded in the middle of the woods on a cold Illinois night, and oh, by the way, he has a first-degree murder conviction next to his name in the state records.

Not to be too much of a downer, but that's what passing the bar exam feels like. I've managed to avoid immediate death by passing the darn thing, but now I'm left out here in the wilderness trying to figure out how this whole "being a lawyer" thing actually works. Tommy Lee Jones hasn't shown up yet, but I'm sure he's off reminscing about his time at Harvard with Al Gore. He'll show up eventually.

Does that mean I'm not excited about the prospect of learning and developing as an attorney?

Certainly not.

If anything, it's a new adventure to start learning to do something that takes years and years to perfect, if perfection ever actually does happen.

I think that's why they call it "practicing" law.

We're Tiny White Specks on a Bright Blue Planet

2009-11-02T14:57:00.008-06:00

Congratulations to Mr. John Middleton for correctly naming "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin as the Monday Song of the Day.

I'm back in Space City after a quick weekend trip to visit the lady friend in Nashville. We thoroughly enjoyed our time on Saturday night at a soggy Neyland Stadium along with 96,000 of our orange-clad friends.

My favorite part of the entire visit to Knoxville happened during the "Vol Walk."
What's the "Vol Walk" you might ask?

Head Coach Johnny Majors came up with the idea for the Vol Walk after a 1988 game at Auburn when he saw the historic Tiger Walk take place. Prior to each home game, the Vols will file out of Stokely Athletic Center, down past the Tennessee Volunteers Wall of Fame, and make their way down Peyton Manning Pass and onto Phillip Fulmer Way. Thousands of fans line the street to shake the players' hands as they walk into Neyland Stadium. Through rain, snow, sleet, or shine, the Vol faithful are always out in full force to root on the Vols as they prepare for battle. The fans are pumped up with Rocky Top played by The Pride of the Southland Band.

Thanks, Wikipedia!

Back to our story...as the Vol Walk was beginning, and the players and coaches were approaching the entrance to Neyland Stadium where our group was standing, the excitement grew as we clapped in time to "Rocky Top." Suddenly, I had the sense that a very large person was standing just behind me. For those of you who are thinking ahead, no, it was not Manute Bol. Instead, it was a very large man wearing bib overalls and a Tennessee orange jacket. As Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffin walked by us, the aforementioned mountain of a man proceeded to yell "The LANE TRAIN" over and over again for a solid 2 minutes.

Was this guy the first person to recognize the rhyming properties of the words "Lane" and "train"? Almost certainly not.

Was this guy the only one who was fired up at the sight of his favorite team entering their coliseum to do battle against the foe from South Carolina? No again.

Did this guy contribute to my enjoyment of the "Vol Walk" and thus my enjoyment of the trip as a whole? UNDOUTEDLY.

Thanks, Overall-clad, Name-Rhyming Guy. You made our trip to Knoxville/Neyland Stadium a very memorable one.

Current Reading

The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy by Bill Simmons

Not a Word I Heard Could I Relate, The Story Was Quite Clear

2009-10-26T16:08:00.005-05:00

Tying up a few loose ends from this weekend...

Thanks to Tim Henderson for telling me about the following video depicting the emerging sport* of anvil shooting.

The best part of that entire video? "Women ask why would I want to do that? Men say that's pretty cool." That's the essence of the difference between the sexes, right? None of this "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" stuff. Guys just want to see large pieces of metal get blown to Kingdom Come and have no regard for the actual "why?" behind the action.

In other news, the lady friend passed along the following story about David Cross (a.k.a. Dr. Tobias Funke) allegedly dappling in the Columbian nose candy** while at the White House Correspondents' Dinner early this year. If true, I sincerely hope that Cross has footage of the event, if only so that we can see evidence of how Tobias Funke would interact with the Leader of the Free World whilst high as a kite.
If you heard a large amount of shouting coming from the Scott household on Sunday afternoon (I traveled home for a friend's wedding), it was because we witnessed another triumph of Good over Evil in this world as Liverpool defeated the English Evil Empire by the score of 2 to nothing courtesy of goals from Fernando "The Man, the Myth, the Legend" Torres and Davig N'Gog. My Dad gave N'Gog the less than stellar nickname of "Pear-head", but don't worry, David, I don't think the new nick-name will catch on across the pond.
*May not actually be an emerging sport.
**Not recommended for actual use by children...or anyone who might older than a child.

Because We Separate Like Ripples on a Blank Shore

2009-10-23T08:58:00.005-05:00

Congratulations to Mr. John Middleton for correctly naming "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits as the Thursday Song of the Day.

As I was typing the name "Dire Straits", I wasn't sure if it was just "Dire Straits" or "THE Dire Straits." This is the problem that has been created by one person, The Edge (a.k.a. David Evans) of U2.
Bill Simmons has worked through the comedy of this situation many, many times, so I don't want to kick, shoot, and beat a dead comedic horse here, but let's just say that last week when I was at the U2 show, and someone walked up and said, "Here's some backstage passes; you can meet the band." When I walked backstage, what should I say to them?

"Hello Bono, hello Adam, hello Larry, hello...THE...Edge."

"No, it's just Edge. No "the" in front of Edge."

"Oh, sorry. I thought you were the only Edge, not one Edge among many. You should really think about cornering that market on edges. People are going to start confusing you with that Anthony Hopkins/Alec Baldwin movie from 1997."
"Okay, I'll look into that. Thanks."

Current Reading
King of the Club: Richard Grasso and the Survival of the New York Stock Exchange by Charles Gasparino

We've Gotta Move These Refrigerators, We've Gotta Move These Color TVs

2009-10-22T13:36:00.008-05:00

One of the unwritten rules that exists for adults is as follows:

Rule 345: When meeting a new person, you should demonstrate interest in said person by asking where they are from (Whatever that means these days in a country as transient as America).

As such, when asked the aforementioned question "Where are you from?", I throw out "Tyler" as a response. This is obviously a bold-faced lie, but let's be honest, it's better than taking time to work my way through the dog-and-pony show of:

"Well, actually I'm from a town called Whitehouse, which is right outside Tyler."

"Whitehouse? You mean, where the President lives?"

"My goodness, such original humor from you. I've never heard that one before."

Quick Tangent: There are two instances where the fact that I'm from Whitehouse was a source of great amusement.

1. As I was sitting in English class during my junior year of high school, one of my classmates turned to me and said,"Justin, I get it. The drill team is called the "First Ladies", because we're Whitehouse." This guy may or may not have smoked a lot of pot, but I was simply thankful to be present when someone made a landmark intellectual breakthrough. It was probably equivalent to being near Robert Oppenheimer while he worked on the Manhattan Project. At least that's what I tell myself.

2. In keeping with the hallowed tradition of wit that is sign-making by Texas high school cheerleaders, one of the schools that we played in high school proudly displayed a sign that read "Murder at 1600" along their sideline. Given that the game wasn't played in the direct aftermath of the events of November 22, 1963, everyone had a good laugh and admired the humor available from Presidential address jokes.

Back to the story at hand...when I tell people I'm from Tyler, that usually leads to a discussion of "What was it like to grow up there?" I then put on my Tyler-area Chamber of Commerce hat and dish out platitudes like "It's a great place to raise a family" (again, whatever that means), but my favorite thing to mention about Tyler, and East Texas in general, that while it is certainly part of Texas (as if this fact were disputed by cartographers), it also feels like growing up in the Old South. For better or worse, you could pluck East Texas from the Lone Star State and place it in Mississippi, Alabama, or Georgia and probably not be able to tell the difference. There are old plantation homes in the city, downtown has brick-lined streets, and sadly, the city is still fairly segregated along racial lines.

I say all of that to say this...even though I've grown up my entire life in Big XII country, in a state with a national powerhouse like Texas, regional powers like T.C.U., Texas Tech, and the artist formerly known as Texas A&M, I'm fascinated with the SEC. Maybe it's just that I've a few good books on the SEC experience (Warren St. John's "Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer" and Clay Travis's "Dixieland Delight" in particular), and none on the Big XII experience, but in my book, you can't beat the SEC.

I can probably chalk it up to a few too many afternoons listening to the dulcet tones of Verne Lundquist wafting across the airwaves as CBS broadcasts from exotic locales such as Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Athens, Georgia, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Oxford, Mississippi, but I have drank the SEC kool-aid and I have drank it deeply. When teams such as Alabama and Auburn in the Iron Bowl each year, it doesn't seem as much a football game as an extension of some old Southern feud like the Hatfields and the McCoys.

Which is why I'm very excited to say that next Saturday, Oct. 31st (exact time to be determined), with the company of Cole and Audra Griffith, the lady friend and I will be attending our inaugural SEC game in Knoxville, Tennessee as the Gamecocks of South Carolina (led by the head ball coach himself, Steve Spurrier) pay a visit to Rocky Top.
Despite pressure from the lady friend to wear some variant of the color orange to support the home team (she's a current resident of the great state of Tennessee and is thus likely simply fulfilling her duty as taxpayer), I have made my decision to not wear any Vols' gear well known. Even though only a small group of people would know that I was a Vols' fan poser, I would know, and as Alex Rodriguez taught us, if you can't be honest with yourself, who can you be honest with? As such, I'll be wearing neutral colors into Neyland Stadium, and I will certainly not be wearing any South Carolina-related paraphernalia I want to come back alive from Knoxville and not in a pine box, after all.

We'll Find a Way Regardless to Make Some Sense Out of This Mess

2009-10-19T21:01:00.006-05:00

As we get things started tonight, please give your warmest Running Down a Dream welcome to Katie and Kevan Kirksey, the sister and brother-in-law, and their new blog, creatively titled "The Kirkseys." Edgy, I know. Be sure to regularly check in with them for their adventures in the Rose City, reasons why galaxy really is a terrible organization, and interior design tips. Should be good times, folks.

I suppose I shouldn't go down the dangerous road of beginning to play the excuse game, but if there's one overriding reason that I haven't been writing consistently, it's because my internet service has been less reliable than an Afghani election (cue rimshot).

I've said it before in another forum, but here goes again: I would say that Comcast is the Khmer Rouge of cable companies, but I don't want to be unfair to the Khmer Rouge.
With that said, I'm going to soldier on, overcome these momentary setbacks, and do my very best (SCOUT'S HONOR. Psssst, I quit the Cub Scouts.) to get back on the proverbial blogging horse. Hopefully the previous sentence set the all-time record for mixed metaphors.

Current Reading

Can I Keep My Jersey: 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond by Paul Shirley

You Fight for a Nickel, You Die for a Dime

2009-10-12T21:03:00.005-05:00

Great news out of Abilene today as ACU rose to the #1 spot in Division II football rankings for the first time in program history.

With the news, I've noticed a strange correlation between my departure from a school and that school's subsequent success of the gridiron.

I graduated from Whitehouse High in 2002. As of my graduation, the Wildcats had made the playoffs once in 23 years. After my graduation, the Cats made the playoffs in 2006 and 2007 and are now no longer a laughingstock in the East Texas football discussion.

After graduating from ACU, the program made the D-II playoffs for the first time in 2006, had an undefeated regular season in 2008, and as stated earlier, has achieved the inaugural #1 ranking in school's history.

Baylor has....well, Baylor is still Baylor.
So, even though the Bears have yet to reap the full rewards of my matriculation, I think fans of the Green and Gold should get ready for some unprecedented success on the banks of the Brazos.

Any donations and gifts that you would like to send to yours truly would be greatly appreciated.

Current Reading

Londonistan by Melanie Phillips

I Won't Be Much For Conversation If We Go Into the Rest of This

2009-09-30T21:10:00.005-05:00

Congratulations to Ms. Nina Patterson for correctly naming "Bartender" by Dave Matthews Band as the Thursday Song of the Day.

It's a bit odd watching a DMB performance after LeRoi's death, but I suppose it's the same thing that people felt when they watched Hendrix on YouTube back in the early 70's.

What?

You didn't YouTube in the early 70's?

Neanderthal.

Current Reading

Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin

Don't Forget Me If I Go

2009-09-24T20:10:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to Mrs. Katrina Kincaid for correctly naming "Backwards Down the Number Line" by the one, the only, Phish as the Tuesday Song of the Day.

I realize that this blog offers only a limited platform to put forth my viewpoints and opinions on subjects far and wide, but hopefully those of you who read this will heed my words and pass them along to your loved ones.

For the love of all that is good and holy, please, please, please stop making the "Hitler goes off on (insert team here)" video with footage from the movie Downfall. You all know the clips I'm talking about here, don't you?

Hitler the Dallas fan goes off on the Cowboys after Romo (literally) throws away another game.
Hitler, the Texas A&M grad. spews vitriol over the Aggies losing to Baylor at Kyle Field.
Hitler, the USC season-ticket holder, chastises his fellow Trojan backers for calling for the ouster of Pete Carroll after losing to U-Dub last Saturday.
I get it, ladies and gentlemen. It's funny that this guy who master-minded the deaths of 12 million people is now yelling about Romo constantly throwing picks instead of promoting genocide. That's funny, right? RIGHT?

Of course it's funny, but it's much like constantly eating pecan pie. Sure, it's good for the first few days. Okay, okay. It's good for the first few weeks.....but after a while, the enjoyment begins to fade. After that 53rd slice of pecan pie, or after the video of Hitler, the curling fan, screaming about how Finland came in third in last year's Curling World Championships, you realize that you need something new.

So, for the sake of all mankind, please do what you can to give these videos a mercy killing. Friends don't let friends make Hitler videos.

Do You Know Why We're Still Friends?

2009-09-22T19:38:00.005-05:00

Congratulations to Ms. Amanda Pierce for correctly naming "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" by Bowling Green, Kentucky's own, Cage the Elephant.

This post is currently being written with the assistance of Comcast High Speed Internet (trademarked). Yes, that's right, I'm working with enemy. From here on out, I'm basically, Vichy France, folks.

Current Reading

An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography by Paul Rusesbagina

There Ain't Nothing in This World For Free

2009-09-20T17:42:00.003-05:00

Even though my soon-to-be cable and internet provider probably has a security apparatus that rivals anything George Orwell could dream up, I wrote the following words a few days ago:

"I would call Comcast the Khmer Rouge of cable companies, but I don't want to be unfair to the Khmer Rouge."

Yes, that's right, after going without television for the past two years, I'll be re-joining the rest of you in the 21st century on Tuesday night. Well, that's when my appointment is scheduled. If my previous interactions with Pol Pot's favorite cable company are any indication, I might actually receive service in time to watch the 2012 election returns.

With TV on the brain, I submit the following idea to you, my dear readers: television channels a la carte. I know that some of you (coughTimKirkseycough) killed my idea last year about having barbers charge per minute for haircuts instead of a flat rate, but what about charging for TV channels a la carte?

If you're like me, you only watch a few channels (the major networks, Comedy Central, the ESPN family of networks, Fox Soccer Channel, GolTV, and a smattering of cable news networks) the vast majority of the time. What if you had to pay more per channel than you pay now (taking your total cable bill and dividing it by the number of channels in your plan), but you paid less overall because you only purchased (just for the sake of example) 15 channels?

There's surely some large impediment to this that I am missing, but it just seems like the trend in television delivery is towards a greater specificity of service tailored to the whims of each individual consumer.

What do you think, folks? A brilliant idea whose time has come or a potential disaster on par with New Coke?

Waitin' For When the Last Shall Be First and the First Shall Be Last

2009-09-17T18:53:00.004-05:00

I had promised myself that I was going to keep the Kanye-Taylor Swift commentary to an absolute minimum, but when one of your friends does something like this, it must be shared.
Credit: Jesse Eyer (well done, sir).

Men Walkin' Long the Railroad Tracks, Goin' Someplace There's No Goin' Back

2009-09-16T20:27:00.005-05:00

Realizing that it has been two LONG, LONG weeks since new words have been written in this space, I realized that I would be doing myself and the rest of this band a disservice if I didn't jump back on the ol' blogging horse* ASAP.

Yesterday was the first pay-day since starting the job, and for someone who has been operating in the student realm for the past twenty years (that's 80% of my life for those of you scoring at home), I almost had the following conversation with the person handing me my check:

Me: So, you mean I can keep this?

Co-Worker: Yes.

Me: And if I take it to a bank, they'll make my account a bigger number than it is right now?

Co-Worker: Yes.

Me: And there will be more of these in the future?

Co-Worker: Sure, payday is twice a month. The 15th and the 30th.

Me: Only in America. Only in America.

Co-Worker: What does any of this have to do with America? You know people get paid in other countries, right?

Me: I don't know. I've just heard Don King say that a bunch.

*In case you were wondering, that horse's name is Patches. Be sure to feed him some apples when you see him.

Current Reading

Rabbit, Run by John Updike

You're All Tied Up As You Should Be

2009-09-02T20:04:00.008-05:00

Congratulations to Ms. Stacy Villescas for correctly naming "Lovely Rita" by The Beatles as the Tuesday Song of the Day.

I'm guessing the song wasn't written about Rita Wilson, but that's mainly because I don't see Tom Hanks' name alongside McCartney and Lennon in my liner notes to "Sgt. Pepper's."

With yesterday's news that Adam "Pacman" Jones will be heading to the Great White North to play in the CFL for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, I'm slightly disappointed that the lady friend and I will be residing in Houston after the marriage.

"Why is that?" you might ask.

Well, according to well-placed sources (coughColeGriffithcough), Pacman's old house outside of Nashville is still for sale, and I've always wanted the opportunity to purchase a piece of real estate that was once in the running for the title of "Modern Day Location of Sodom and Gomorrah".
Here's the alternative, though. While Pacman is playing in the land of Canadian Bacon, Labatt Blue, and the word "EH", he's surely going to want to maintain a presence in the mind of NFL GMs.

What better way to do that then his own reality show? You're telling me that you wouldn't want to watch a special season of "This Old House" hosted by Bob Vila, Norm Abram, and special guest host Pacman Jones?
Pacman could stoke a rivalry with Ty Pennington (MOVE...THAT...IMPALA!!!), he could come out with a line of power tools at Sears (WATCH OUT, VILA), and he could increase his street cred with the obviously edgy audience of PBS viewers.

It's fail-proof, my friends.

Update (Thurs. morning): Apparently, the Pacman to Winnipeg transaction will not take place after all. I always knew that Canadians would never accept an American arcade hero.

May I Inquire Discreetly

2009-09-01T21:21:00.005-05:00

One of my favorite parts about starting work here in Houston has been the fact that I get to walk every day from the parking garage where I leave the Green Machine each morning to the SECOND TALLLEST BUILDING IN TEXAS (I thought that needed to be in all caps, and surely you agree) through the illustrious downtown Houston tunnel system.

It's not that I get that much of a thrill from walking below ground (although that might be some huge perk for people who admire moles or gophers), but it always seems like one of those places where you could see this scene from HEAT breaking out in front of you.

The bank on the tunnel level of the building has this giant vault with one of those huge rotating wheels on it, and both days I have gone up the escalator to the elevators on the ground floor, I kept expecting Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, and Robert De Niro to show up and start raising hell.
Who knows, my friends? Maybe that will be the special treat each and every Wednesday at THE SECOND TALLEST BUILDING IN TEXAS.

What Did I See? Where Have I Been?

2009-08-31T08:07:00.004-05:00
About to head out for the first day on the job...

I guess I'm done with all that "book learnin'" and it's time to become a real-lawyer, like this fellow:
or this guy:
Honestly, I don't think there's any middle ground.

At the end of the day you'll know the path I'm on by whether I'm talking about Tom Robinson and calling people "Scout" or whether I'm asking people who told them to put on the balm.

I Wear My Wartime Coat in the Wind and Sleet

2009-08-30T19:23:00.006-05:00

Still he is always an impressive figure at banquets such as this--an "immortal" sports writers called him, and that is how they have written about him and others like him, rarely suggesting that such heroes might ever be prone to the ills of mortal men, carousing, drinking, scheming; to suggest this would destroy the myth, would disillusion small boys, would infuriate rich me who own ball clubs and to whom baseball is a business dedicated to profit and in pursuit of which they trade mediocre players' flesh as casually as boys trade players' pictures on bubble-gum cards. And so the baseball hero must always act the part, must preserve the myth, and none does it better than DiMaggio, none is more patient when drunken old me grab an arm and ask, "Who's gonna take it this year, Joe?"

"The Silent Season of a Hero" by Gay Talese in Esquire (1966)

Current Reading
The Best American Sports Writing of the Century--Edited by David Halberstam and Glenn Stout

When I Have Nothing to Say My Lips Are Sealed

2009-08-29T22:07:00.005-05:00

What follows is an abbreviated version of a conversation that I had last night with the lady friend/fiancee:

I'm currently trying to figure out what this blog needs to be if it is going to survive in some form going forward. Due to the trend in the blogosphere world of blogs becoming more niche-focused and written from an expert/educated perspective on a particular topic* and moving away from the realm of personally-focused musings/rantings/ravings/observations, I'm not sure what purpose this blog serves at this point in time.

I recognize that this blog serves as a very valuable connection between myself and a number of different groups of people that I have had the privilege of being connected with during my life, but at the moment, I'm just trying to figure out the direction for the blog to take in the next few months, years, decades, etc, etc, etc.**

As mentioned earlier, as blogs become more and more focused in their topicality, it is tempting to move into that realm and to have a blog written entirely about the Texas Rangers, Liverpool FC, the current travails of the conservative movement in America, the work of Bill Simmons, or the wonderland that is the study of Texas high school mascots, but I don't think that's where this is headed.

This blog is probably just my way of indulging an amateur's interest in writing since I'm about to start doing "other things" in a permanent day job, but for whatever reason, I've taken it's future focus and topicality seriously. Feel free to mock me, feel free to remind me that I'm just another former law student who entertains fantasies of writing the next great American novel, or feel free to tell me to shut up and keep making fun of Nancy Pelosi's plastic surgery.

Whichever way you want to say it, just let me know what you think.

*Which I, by the way, think is a very, very good thing.
**Yes, I realize that blogging about what to blog about is painfully ironic.

The Only Rule is It Begins

2009-08-28T13:04:00.003-05:00

For the first time since the halcyon days of August 1988, I have arrived at the cusp of September and I do not find myself heading back to school. Perhaps it is because over 80% of my life thus far has been spent marking the year by the arrival and passage of school six weeks, semesters, and quarters, but to arrive at this point in the year without going back to school does feel pretty odd I must say.

Given that I've almost certainly seen the last of a classroom from a student's perspective, I suppose that from here on out I'll mark the beginning of fall as any good Texan would by noticing that football is right around the corner.

One of my favorite parts about my drive from Houston to Nashville was the opportunity to pass through a number of different areas of allegiance in the land where SEC football is King. As I passed over the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, I could see the towering mass of Tiger Stadium (a.k.a. "Death Valley") rising from the trees that cover the L.S.U. campus. My fingers turned the radio dial to an A.M. station in Baton Rouge discussing the upcoming season and how Les Miles and the boys were going to recover from last year's 8-5 campaign.

As I passed out of the Pelican State into Mississippi, the topic of conversation turned from Tiger football to Rebel football. I picked up a station out of Jackson that was wrapped up in the hype surrounding the '09 Ole Miss program. Would Jevan Snead continue to impress in the SEC? Were the expectations surrounding Houston Nutt's team too high or could the boys in Oxford really live up to all of their advanced billing? The radio hosts and callers didn't come to anything even approaching a consensus, but they all seemed to agree that this was the most excited they've been before a football season since Eli Manning was walking through The Grove on his way to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

After jumping on I-20 at Meridian, Mississippi, I quickly passed into Alabama, and once you enter the Yellowhammer State, the talk immediately turned to the Crimson Tide. I found an AM station out of Birmingham that was all Crimson Tide all the time. If you've been past Tuscaloosa on I-20, you know that the city does not appear to be very much from the interstate, in fact you cannot even see the most famous piece of architecture in town, 92,138-seat Bryant-Denny Stadium, and as I passed by the University of Alabama campus, and the hosts discussed the Tide's prospects this year, it was as if they were talking about a figment of their imaginations.

Finally, as I turned north out of Birmingham on I-65, I eventually crossed into Tennessee where absolutely no one was talking about Vanderbilt on any of the stations that I was able to find. Despite the fact that a number of the callers on the stations in Lousiana, Mississippi, and Alabama were berating their favorite teams, the Vanderbilt program would probably long for a little vitriol being thrown its way, because as Oscar Wilde once said, "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

Current Reading

Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey by David Horowitz

Nothing is Planned by the Sea and the Sand

2009-08-26T21:54:00.005-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, readers of all ages...

I apologize to each and every one of you for the recent dereliction of my blogging duty. I've been all over the place this past month from Houston to Tyler to Fort Davis to Hidalgo del Parral to Tyler to Houston to Nashville and now back to Tyler.
I'm heading back to Houston tomorrow in advance of starting work on Monday, and that means that from here on out I'm going to do my very, very best to update this blog on a consistent basis.

Also, even though I've been doing some recent flirting with that tempting mistress known as Twitter, this blog will always remain my first love.

I Ride a G.S. Scooter With My Hair Cut Neat

2009-08-17T17:55:00.005-05:00

A few notes on a Monday evening...

The rumors are true. I asked the lady friend to marry me on Friday night and before you ask the next question, she did in fact say "yes".
We're going to be getting hitched next April (most likely) in Music City, U.S.A. so anyone and everyone who has ever dreamed of seeing Phish play a wedding reception, please feel free to attend.*

Current Reading

The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars by Joel Glenn Brenner

*The aforementioned choice of reception entertainment has not received approval from the lady friend and will almost certainly not pass her muster.

I'm Wet and I'm Cold, but Thank God I Ain't Old

2009-08-11T21:23:00.004-05:00

It's not very often that a World Cup qualifying match gets the kind of advance publicity in the United States that tomorrow's encounter between the Red, White, and Blue and El Tri has generated, but then again, the U.S. is coming off its best-ever showing at a FIFA Tournament with a runner-up finish during June's Confederations Cup and looking to avenge a 5-0 throttling at the hands of our arch-rivals last month in the Gold Cup Final.

The fact that just last month Mexico pulled off a curb-stomping of the U.S. that Ed Norton would have been proud of is no reason for alarm, though. The resemblance between the lineup that Bob Bradley penciled at Giants Stadium and the one that will take the field tomorrow at the Azteca Stadium will only be slight at best.

Tomorrow, the U.S. will have the fantastic opportunity to re-awake the spirit of "Old Rough and Ready" himself, Zachary Taylor, and walk into Mexico ready to emerge victorious. I'm not sure where "entering into your archrival's national stadium, looking around at 114,000 screaming fanatics who would like nothing better than to see you eviscerated, and then emerging victorious" ranks on the "lifetime experience" list for an athlete, but hopefully the U.S. will be able to answer that question tomorrow evening.

Go get 'em, boys.

Be Sure to Leave All the Lights On

2009-08-09T22:21:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to Obi Wan Richtobi for correctly naming "Crosseyed and Painless" by the Talking Heads as the Saturday Song of the Day. Of course, I'm partial to Phish's cover of the song, so that's what I'm giving to you, the dear reader.

Last night I gave you my favorite shirt that I saw in Mexico, but tonight I'm giving you my favorite road sign. As we were driving through the Metroplex, I noticed the following sign along one of the interstates:

REPORT HOV VIOLATIONS
817-312-HERO

Really, TXDOT?

I hate to besmirch the good name of my father's former employer, but you're going to use the same word to classify those who report HOV violations that people through the years have used for people like, oh say, Sully Sullenberger, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Susan B. Anthony, and Gandhi?

"What's that, vigilant citizen? You saw a single guy driving in the HOV lane? And he was trying to trick the good people of Texas by using a blow-up doll in the front passenger seat? You, vigilant citizen, are only one thing: A HERO."

Lifting My Head, Looking for Danger Signs

2009-08-08T23:42:00.003-05:00

Two things:
I survived the bar exam and Mexico.
The single greatest piece of clothing that I saw in Mexico last week? A Mexican woman in her 60's wearing a "Dudes Prefer Blondes" t-shirt. For the record, she was not a blonde.
Current Reading
A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan

Lifting My Head, Looking Around Inside

2009-07-16T21:15:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to my fellow Houstonian, Mr. Kalum Tuggle, for correctly naming "Pancho and Lefty" by Townes Van Zandt as the Monday Song of the Day.

This will probably be my last regular post for the next two weeks until that joyous occasion known as the Texas Bar Exam finishes up on the 30th.

Over and out, and I'll see you on the other side.

Current Reading

Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich by Mark Kriegel

Living on the Road, My Friend, Is Gonna Keep You Free and Clean

2009-07-13T21:17:00.007-05:00

I suppose you only learn these things once you are able to gain a certain amount of distance between yourself and your alma mater, but if there's one thing I can certainly say about Baylor Law in comparison to the University of Houston Law School, it is this: Even though Baylor Law felt like a prison at times during my three years there, it certainly did not look like a penal institution.

The U of H law library? Well, I'm sorry I can't say the same thing. I'm looking forward to working with a number of U of H law grads when I start in August, but among the things I won't be gathering from them are the finer points of educational architecture.

Current Reading

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon

Sharp as a Knife, Facts Cut a Hole in Us

2009-07-10T20:19:00.004-05:00

As I mentioned on Monday, my own personal putdown abilities have never really progressed past the level of competency demonstrated by Rufio and the Lost Boys, but last Saturday, July 4th, I was on the receiving end of one of the more interesting putdowns that I've heard in my time.

The lady friend and I were walking back into the apartment complex from the fireworks display downtown when I heard two male voices coming from a balcony on the second floor of the complex. I looked up, and one of the wise-guys, with adult beverage in hand, noticed the yellow polo shirt that I was wearing and admonished me that "yellow is a SPRING color, dude."

I turned to the lady friend and said,"I had no idea Tim Gunn lived in my apartment complex."
Um, not that I know anything about "Project Runway" or anything like that.

Let's just end this story right now.

There Was a Line, There Was a Formula

2009-07-09T23:14:00.003-05:00

A quick hit tonight in honor of Michael Phelps, ladies and gentlemen.

I, along with noted U2 expert Andrew Tuegel, have joined the wild and woolly world of Twitter. Mr. Tuegel and I have formed a Twitter joint venture talking about "law, politics, pop culture, English soccer, baseball, and all things in between."

Follow us (or don't) at twitter.com/thepartylines.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled activities.

I'm Sick of All the Same Answers, Lost Chances, Cold Stones

2009-07-08T16:44:00.006-05:00
Congratulations to Mr. Stephen Olson for correctly naming "U.S. Blues" by the Grateful Dead as the Tuesday Song of the Day.

I could have given you the performance of "U.S. Blues" from The Grateful Dead Movie, but I thought that with all of the Phish videos that I post here I've probably met my monthly quota for footage of stoned white people dancing.

Last month I wrote about how constant access to communications devices such as Blackberrys, iPhones, and other smart phones is threatening to turn us into a society that needs to be constantly entertained lest we lose interest and move on to the next thing that catches our eye, but another troubling consequence of our current age is the tendency to reduce someone's life, especially at the time of their death, to a soundbite, to a more manageable chunk.

I truly wish I could contribute to the shocking dearth of programming/content generation that has accompanied Michael Jackson's death, but due to this blog's commitment to its readers, I'm going in another direction.

Robert McNamara, the United States Secretary of Defense in both the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, died two days ago at the age of 93. If there's a reason why journalism and media still matter, it is this: When someone like McNamara, someone who for good or ill had an impact the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, dies, doesn't that person deserve to have their life examined in all of its complexities and not simply glossed over as a footnote in the wake of Michael Jackson's death?
Here's an op-ed from former UT/current Columbia law professor Phillip Bobbitt on the hidden qualities of McNamara.

Finally, here's the trailer to Errol Morris's superb documentary on "the life and times of Robert S. McNamara", The Fog of War.

If you're a fan at all of documentaries, this one's a treat.

Shine Your Shoes, Light Your Fuse

2009-07-07T22:26:00.004-05:00

I just returned from a viewing of Public Enemies, and while I kept expecting to see this guy or this guy make an appearance as the aforementioned "public enemies", all we got for two hours and twenty minutes was a semi-mustachioed Johnny Depp and an intense, as always, Christian Bale.
I wanted the FBI to take down Carrot Top and Ronaldo, not Dillinger. Give me my money back, Michael Mann!!!

Alright, now that I got that out of the way, I should say that I enjoyed the movie, and if you like any of Mann's other work (including The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, Ali, or Collateral), I think you'll appreciate Public Enemies.

Gimme Five, I'm Still Alive, Ain't No Luck, I Learned to Duck

2009-07-06T21:09:00.004-05:00

The lady friend and I ventured down to Eleanor Tinsley Park in downtown Houston on Saturday night for some spectacular fireworks at the conclusion of the Freedom over Texas festival.

The fireworks were indeed spectacular, but I may have an actionable claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress against those who organized the soundtrack which accompanied the fireworks.

For the non-lawyer readers of the blog, the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress has four basic elements in most jurisdictions:
Defendant acted intentionally or recklessly;
Defendant’s conduct was extreme and outrageous;
Defendant’s act is the cause of the distress; and
Plaintiff suffers severe emotional distress as a result of defendant’s conduct.
Keep those elements in mind as I tell you that at one of the high points of the fireworks display the following song was re-introduced to my consciousness after I thought it had been banished all the way back in 2002.

Anyone know a good lawyer?

Wave That Flag, Wave it Wide and High

2009-07-06T20:47:00.003-05:00

Despite the fact that the above scene graciously gave me enough putdowns and comebacks to last my entire childhood, I reference Hook for another reason this evening, my friends.

I always loved those montage scenes in the middle of movies where one of the characters is training for some great task, whether it be the Lost Boys re-training Peter for the greatwar with Captain Hook, Rocky running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art before his fight with Apollo Creed, or the punch-dancing scene in Hot Rod (which really didn't have a discernible purpose but was enjoyable nonetheless), and I fully intend to re-enact one of those montages in the next three weeks as the countdown to the July 2009 Texas Bar Exam has now begun in earnest.

Whose music is that I hear in the distance?

Ah yes.

It's you, Europe.

Take it away, my friends because this is the final countdown. This one's for you, G.O.B.

We Ride Tonight, Ghost Horses

2009-07-02T21:09:00.003-05:00

On the list of things you don't want to read about an entity that holds a significant ownership stake in two of your favorite sports clubs, I think the following sentence ranks near the top:
"Club Officials Go Silent Over Chatter Major League Baseball Has Loaned Texas Rangers Money"

I'm Gonna Take Me That South-Bound All the Way to Georgia Now

2009-07-01T20:42:00.005-05:00

Congratulations to Mr. John Middleton for correctly naming "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden as the Monday Song of the Day. I've never been a huge Soundgarden/Audioslave/Chris Cornell fan, but I suppose that the fact that I was forced to listen to an entire Audioslave album during a pledging "visit" in the Fall of 2003 reinforced some sort of reverence for Chris Cornell's vocal abilities deep in the recesses of my mind.

Usually when people talk about the fickle nature of praise from the public, they will throw around the cliche that we live in a world where people ask "what have you done for me lately?" It's true that the modern news cycle moves so quickly, and we lose interest so easily, that we need constant peak performance or otherwise we will move on to the next big thing, but as I was reading a story today regarding litigation between J.D. Salinger and a Swedish author named Fredrik Colting (which you can read here), I was dumbfounded by the following sentence:

Mr. Salinger, who has not published any new work since 1965...

Think about that for a second. J.D. Salinger was born on New Year's Day 1919. He writes Catcher in the Rye and has it published at age 32. That's 1951. He continues writing for the next 14 years and has a piece published in The New Yorker in 1965.

Since then?

Nothing.

It seems amazing to think that someone who has lived to be 90 years old, and wrote arguably one of the most well known works of fiction in the 20th century, would publish a piece at 46 years of age and then go the rest of his life without having another word published in any form whatsoever.

Boiling Heat, Summer Stench, 'Neath the Black the Sky Looks Dead

2009-06-29T22:35:00.005-05:00
If this was a sports movie, and it sure felt like one for the first 46 minutes yesterday, it played to a conventional script for those who love Sisphyean futility.

The plucky underdogs stepped out onto the field with a team that many expected to embarrass them (just as the Brazilians had done to the U.S. only 10 days before by a 3-0 scoreline), but through a combination of opportunistic scoring by Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan in what were really the only two clear cut U.S. chances in the first half and bend but don't break defense led by Onyewu, DeMerit, and the stellar goalkeeping of Tim Howard, the U.S. of A. went into the break yesterday leading the legendary Samba Kings of Brazil, the only nation to have won the World Cup 5 times, by a 2-0 score.
The entire complexion of the match changed mere seconds after the teams had returned for the second half, however, as Brazilian striker Luis Fabiano snapped a left-footed shot past Howard in the 46th minute to bring the favorites within a single goal which seemed not to be a possibility but an eventuality.

It's hard to accurately describe that feeling that arises when you realize that something is inevitable, but from the moment that Fabiano scored, it was obvious to anyone watching the match that the Red, White, and Blue were already dead in the water.

When the tying goal came 28 minutes later, via Fabiano once again, one of the guys I was exchanging emails with as I watched the match summed up the fate of the U.S. in four words "Samba Kings will win" and I had no doubt he was right.
I say that you have to love Sisphyean futility to enjoy what happened yesterday if only for the fact that the audience for the Final likely included a large number of non-regular soccer viewers who were tuning in to see the U.S. take on the world's best and when those fans see their national team lose a (for soccer) seemingly insurmountable 2-0 lead, I'm not sure if that does more to help or harm the support of the U.S. Men's team in advance of next year's World Cup.

The angel on my shoulder tells me that the mere fact that the U.S. made it to the Final is on-balance positive for soccer in the U.S., but part of me believes that Patton was right when he told us that "America loves a winner".
I do know one thing, however. At least Cris Carpenter is happy.

In the Wink of a Young Girl's Eye

2009-06-26T22:37:00.006-05:00

3 Lessons for the Week

1)If you're a celebrity, and during the course of a day you happen to hear that two other celebrities have died, don't fly, don't take any type of prescription medicine, and certainly don't engage in any "recreational chemistry" with the leading Columbian export not associated with Juan Valdez. In fact, you probably just want to, in the words of Ron Burgundy, "lay low for a while".

2)Beginning with the understanding that neither political party can reasonably claim to be THE only party of "family values", I'm pretty sure that if the G.O.P. wants to continue to make that claim in the 2010 and 2012 elections, they probably need to make sure that they inform some of their more prominent leaders that monogamy is usually one of those things that people usually refer to when they throw around the phrase "family values".

I'm a life-long conservative, but there have been a number of points in the last 9 years that I've tried to explain to people that you can be conservative while also daily loathing what the Republican party has become. I'm not sure what the lowest historical ebb is for the Republican party, but the current edition has to come pretty darn close to that mark.

3) As flawed as sports are, they have this capacity to surprise me that I suppose I will always find appealing. Ever since becoming a devoted soccer fan in the last few years, I've read as much as I could about the sport (big surprise there, huh?) and tried to follow the game with a real desire to understand its appeal on a global level.

With that said, in the run-up to last Wednesday's match between the U.S.A. and Spain down in South Africa, I must admit that found myself more interested in a Spanish victory, if only because the Spanish team features a number of Liverpool players that I follow on a much more frequent basis than anyone on the U.S. squad. In spite of that Benedict Arnold predisposition, and in spite my large doubts on the chances of the men in the Red, White, and Blue, I must say that I was quite pleased to see the response they delivered on a cold night in Bloemfontein.

On Sunday, since my Mom will be in town, I don't think I'll be able to watch the Final between the U.S. and Brazil, but given the very positive coverage that Wednesday's victory is receiving in the media, this Sunday's match does feel like a building block towards a more substantial footing for U.S. Soccer in the approach to next year's World Cup in South Africa.

Don't Wanna See No Blood, Don't Be a Macho Man

2009-06-25T20:45:00.005-05:00

I'm sure the BLS powers-that-be will eventually have this piece of hilarity erased from the interwebs, but this, my friends, is just one of the many reasons that I love Wikipedia:

(From the Wikipedia article for Baylor Law School)

Nationally Ranked Advocacy Program

Taught by the Devil himself, the bedrock of Baylor’s nationally ranked advocacy program is the third-year Practice Court Program, a six-month course required for all third-year students.

Procedure, evidence, and advocacy are the tools of the trial lawyer, and the Practice Court Program is an over-intensive study of these essentials. So essential that Baylor Law is the only school in the country with this program.

Students try multiple lawsuits from beginning to end, ensuring that when they graduate, if they ever make it through this hellish program, they are able to hit the ground running.

My friends, this is what happens in a world where Wikipedia is accessible to a disgruntled current (or former) P.C. student.

I, for one, think such a world is quite enjoyable.

I Am Not the Actor, This Can't Be the Scene

2009-06-24T16:01:00.006-05:00
Congratulations to Mr. John Middleton for correctly naming "Brain Damage" by Pink Floyd as the Tuesday Song of the Day.

As many of you know, or will learn, the U.S. Men's National Team pulled off quite the upset today in South Africa with a 2-0 victory over the current #1 national team in the world, Spain, or as some like to call them "La Furia Roja". Let it never be said that Running Down a Dream does not try to reach a multi-cultural audience.
Courtesy of goals from Jozy Altidore and East Texas-native Clint Dempsey, the Red, White, and Blue will face either Brazil or host South Africa in the Confederations Cup Final on Sunday in Johannesburg.

If they do face the Brazilians, the U.S. will obviously remember the 3-0 pasting given to them by the Samba Kings last Wednesday, but for a team that just snapped Spain's world-record 35 game international unbeaten streak, it seems that, as the gentlemen from The Lonely Island know, Kevin Garnett was right.

Anything's possible.

If the Dam Breaks Open Many Years Too Soon

2009-06-23T20:52:00.004-05:00

It's practice problems like the following one that make studying for the bar exam tolerable.

(Feel free to submit your own answers in the comments.)

A law enforcement officer was transporting a prisoner on a plane to testify in a criminal case. Unknown to those on the plane, an assassin hired to kill the prisoner had bribed an airport baggage handler to sneak a timed-release crate of poisonous snakes into the cargo hold of the plane.

Once the crate was triggered to open, the snakes were able to slither into the passenger compartment through gaps in the conduits between the cargo hold and the passenger compartment. In the ensuing panic caused by the snakes, the officer was struck in the head by a fire extinguisher that another passenger threw at a snake, and suffered a severe concussion.

The officer filed suit against numerous parties, including the person who designed the conduit system on that type of plane. At trial, evidence established that the design for the conduit system that he used had been rejected in the industry because of the danger of pressure loss between the cargo hold and the passenger compartment. An industry-approved design that the designer could have used would have kept the snakes from getting into the passenger compartment of the plane.

As between the officer and the designer, which party is likely to prevail?

A) The officer, because the designer is strictly liable for designing the conduit system of the plane.

B) The officer, because of the high degree of care owed to passengers of a common carrier.

C) The designer, because the assassin's actions were an unforeseeable intervening force.

D) The designer, because the officer was injured by another passenger rather than a snake.

Any requests for assistance should be directed to the man pictured below:

Two TV Sets and Two Cadillac Cars, You Know It Ain't Gonna Help Me At All

2009-06-21T22:24:00.006-05:00

This is what we get with a culture raised on the combined diet of quick cuts of Sesame Street, Nintendo, and the internet.
Mr. Brotherton, the consultant, wrote in an e-mail message that it was customary now for professionals to lay BlackBerrys or iPhones on a conference table before a meeting — like gunfighters placing their Colt revolvers on the card tables in a saloon. “It’s a not-so-subtle way of signaling ‘I’m connected. I’m busy. I’m important. And if this meeting doesn’t hold my interest, I’ve got 10 other things I can do instead.’ ”

Don't get me wrong, though. I know that in a few months, I'm going to be handed a Blackberry during my initial days on the job and from there on out it is going to be a constant source of information and distraction. It just seems that we've lost something when we adopt the "entertain me or else" mindset that seems so prevalent in the continued upheaval of the technological age.

Current Reading
An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963 by Robert Dallek