Tagged: love
Passing Tests: A Primer On Purpose
Certain unpleasant circumstances (whose ultimate superficiality are yet to be determined) have led to me taking back full control of my step-son’s education. Long story short, I had it once, lost it in hopes of marital bliss, and have now taken it back. The long game is back in view—marriage be damned.
He’s newly 14. And he does not think. “But I repeat myself,” by Twain applies here.
Pilots take many, many tests. Merely to become a pilot requires passing many tests. It stands to reason, then, that as a group, we pilots know a thing or two about passing tests. Relatedly, we know a thing or two about the skill of memorizing information. One example, before returning to the step-son bit, of these test-taking skills conveniently aligned to memory skills is when taking a multiple choice test, there is a general rule, “too long to be wrong.” Get it? If three of the four answers are tremendously shorter than the other, it is more than likely (but don’t blindly skip reading the long one—always read in full the answer you select) that the test creator did not suddenly choose to waste their time by typing out an unnecessarily long wrong answer. Take away from this tip that we pilots (among other test taking masters) put to use other factors than content when viewing a test. Think of it like the self-defense advice to not forget about all available ways to use your surroundings during attacks etc.
One task that I have my step-son accomplishing each day, then, is reading from the classics (currently on The Apology of Socrates) one paragraph at a time and writing as brief as possible an abstract of the paragraph. This is not easy—and that’s the point.
We skipped chatting about Tuesday’s and so yesterday we had to cover two paragraph’s worth. Both attempts were unsatisfactory (he seemed to have skipped reading in favor of using some commentary I had previously provided to accomplish the summaries—which I take as evidence that his culture’s ignorant and unfortunate reliance on oral tradition still outweighs his reading level). This was disappointing, but that’s okay—the process is half the point.
But then there was one of those moments which make ya lose all hope. As I tried to grease the wheels a bit for the next day (I had read ahead), I said something like, “So as you do tomorrow’s paragraph, keep in mind that yesterday’s had Socrates dealing with politicians, then today’s had him dealing with poets-” I was suddenly interrupted by a boastful, “-Yeah, tomorrow’s is a short paragraph.”
Hmm.
At least he knows what a paragraph is?
As evidenced in “too long to be wrong” and throwing office chairs at gunmen, he’s not wrong in hoping to draw a connection between paragraph length and difficulty of meaning. But he clearly stopped listening at “tomorrow’s paragraph”.
In the end, this whole experience of family and children seems to be an experiment on “purpose”. My revised hypothesis today is, “If there is no purpose, then there can be no test.” This updates what I now see as the laudable—but I’m suspecting will prove to be merely laughable—claim to “teach kids to think”.
Where does purpose originate? Easy: the living god. But who knows his ways?
Onward!
Euphemism vs. Metaphor, A Joint Review of Collateral by Michael Mann and Parasite by Bong Joon-ho
Parasite is the more timely film, that’s certain. It also is the more biblical film of the two—so much so that it is fairly difficult to understand how it was ever mentioned by a wealthy person, let alone the winner of Best Picture. Albert Schweitzer’s “Men simply don’t think” is probably behind its uncommon success.
I have been putting off re-watching Collateral because with TGM and MI:42, and recent viewings of some easy to watch other TC fav’s, I had to do something in order to stop short of total devotion to the man. But last night I could feel the mood for a movie ebbing my way and I do love Michael Mann. Suddenly, however, a voice from outside myself sounded.
“Can I watch with you?”
It was my 14yo step-son. And it was at his bedtime, the very reason we stopped reading. In other words, I was taken aback at this development. Come to find out, tomorrow was no school.
“Uh. I wasn’t planning to watch a kid’s movie. But I guess we can take a look and see if there’s a compromise on Prime.”
There wasn’t.
“Sorry, man. I just don’t want to sit through a bad movie and I had already set my heart on a rated-R film. We’ll watch something this weekend. So that’ll have to do.”
I was racking my brain to determine just what made villainous TC a film for adults only. The violence was elite, but not gory. And there wasn’t even that much of it. As far as I could recall I wasn’t even sure what I liked about the movie so much. The problem that I have in these situations (deciding whether a movie is appropriate for uninitiated folks ), though, is I have been very wrong in the past. So I trusted my experience over my memory and did not think twice about my decision as I pressed play.
Elite is the word I would use again to describe Collateral. I like the “clean” aspect of that euphemism to “the best”. Then I remembered that’s what I like so much about it. It is no unstable hand at the teller. Whoever made the film had a story to tell and the power to demand it be told with precision. Every scene says as much.
But there is also a depth to the story that elite does not capture. And this is the rated-R part that I am glad I did not share with my step-son.
While Parasite puts wealthy people on blast, that film doesn’t dive below the surface, below macro-level societal questions. Collateral, on the other hand, has a cab driver and an attorney believably find reason to relate about whether they enjoy their work.
“Do you like what you do?”
What a simple question. And what a terrible question.
Terrible because of what you feel as you read this now. Terrible because if you confess that you do not like what you do, you next are forced to admit just what that implies. Maybe you are lying and do like what you do? Maybe you love misery? Maybe you are hiding an addiction that prevents you from doing something you like? Maybe you are lying to yourself about moving on to something you would enjoy someday? We could go on. And that’s the point.
Parasite is a metaphor. But Collateral is a euphemism. Parasite must be kept from the children because of the blood and gore and other adult scenes. Collateral must be kept from the children because Santa Claus is real, because Machiavelli cannot win.
Parasite must have that name to be great. Collateral must have that name to be attempted. But it really should be called, ‘Every Day You Prove You Are Meaningless’.” And since that issue is still up for debate, (unlike, Parasite’s, “Do wealthy people view the rest of us as parasites?” (answer: sure do)), then euphemism and Michael Mann win this battle.
I Need Security: Harmless Stupid vs. Insecure Stupid
Everyone knows there is a distinction between “stupid” and “ignorant”. The main difference being “stupid people who mean well” are different than “stupid people”. And we call “stupid people who mean well” “ignorant”.
In my experience, I have come to see one other division of the general category of “stupid”. I see “harmless stupid” as most humor and silly assumptions that do not negatively affect life, even if they do hinder success. One example of this that comes to mind is misattributing cause and effect—not ignorantly—but harmlessly. Like when the regularly scheduled sprinkler system goes off during the outdoor church service and people attribute it to the devil doing devil things. They aren’t ignorant of the situation, they just are stupid.
Different from this kind of stupid is the kind which causes insecurity in life. One easy example of this would be alcoholic parents. They may be great parents most of the time, but the weekly or monthly instances of uncontrollable outbursts or whatever particular scenes unfold (kids trying to wake up passed-out parents etc.) leads to insecurity in life.
With me? Make sense?
Routine, even if for harmlessly stupid reasons, is still secure. “Every Monday after dinner my parents drove exactly the number of miles as the calendar date. I never understood why. Still don’t. But we got ice cream afterwords and it was fun overall.” That’s a bizarre and stupid routine, but it is not problematic.
Put another way, and to get to the point of this post, I value security over intelligence.
Moreover, I do not believe that stupidity is necessarily insecure.
What I am not certain about is if I am actually right. All I know today is that I need security.
My wife hails from one of the most uneducated regions, continents, and countries on the Earth. While dating, I noted many harmlessly stupid comments and observations. (This was/is not too different than any other day, or any other interaction with folks.)
Little anecdotes about “everyone there believes all Americans are rich” were cute to hear and even carried an air of “why would they believe otherwise if the only source was Hollywood films?” intentionally-sympathetic soundness. Couple this with the fact that no educated American wants to admit the reality that, “What you just said is completely without thought at a level that is beyond ignorance and evidences some mixture of mental laziness and legitimate inability to think”—especially if the conversant is BIPOC.
To be clear—I have witnessed first-hand many, many American friends hear my wife tell the same anecdotes and they all respond the same way, ie, no one calls out what each of us plainly hears. And why not?
I cannot answer for anyone but myself, and my no-call was because I believed there was harmless stupidity.
But the other kind, the stupidity which leads to insecurity, that is now something I am dealing with every day. And I don’t know how to right the ship. I don’t know how to course correct.
Readers might offer advice about the big things, like kindness, compassion, empathy. And I wanted to believe those exist, but have slowly been convinced that those are culturally-based postures and so the problem in this culture-clash-called-my-family is not resolved.
So far, my solution has been to try “let’s start with truth” and go from there. “Could we agree to say true things?” But the language barrier is such that even this seemingly simple request relies tremendously on ignoring reality and relying on hopeful intentions.
He said: “What did you buy?”
She said: “Groceries.”
So far so good.
He said: “What is this item?”
She said: “Oh, underwear.”
Setback.
He said: “In your culture is ‘underwear’ in the same category as ‘food and soap’ and other things that we use up?”
She said: “It’s wrong to buy underwear now?!!”
So even something as supposedly universal as “truth” seems out of reach.
Of course, the easy solution is to resign. To simply not care. To “let go and let God”. To choose a “non-fighting” version of “peace” as the higher ground in every moment of every day. But the problem with that is I tell the truth. I don’t tell it in a “I’m just keeping it one hundred” provocateur kinda way (mostly not at least). I just need my words to mean things, and I need my kids to mean the same things when they say the same words.
In other words, I need security.
Teacher Emails in 2024: Grandparents Don’t Know, But Now You Do
It was Facebook, yes? That was the first hegemonic message board of the internet? Some college kids using the latest radio to communicate—and it was free in the main sense?
Twenty-odd years later, college kids (now called teachers) use apps, like “ParentSquare” or “Gradelink” and there are others, I’m sure, to deliver messages to parents. Keep in mind, when we were kids, parents would hear directly from teachers a total of “near never”. Seriously. When did any of your teachers speak directly with your mom or dad? Parent teacher conferences offered an opportunity for the conversation to take place, but the parents had to show up. Some did, some did not. No big thing.
In 2024, teachers, at least two a day, post updates on these apps. Read that again. I’m telling you that on average two teachers each write messages to parents each and every day. The number of messages is staggering. By my thinking, the only parallel to draw is when someone that is lying talks on and on. Total time and energy spent creating and communicating the lie far outweighs whatever the lie is meant to conceal. But the words keep pouring out.
Let’s get to it. Here is the doozy that I received yesterday. (Nothing has been redacted—I wanted you to have the authentic experience.)
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Quality of Play for Upper Division – Please talk with your student
Good afternoon Families,
Upper Division Teachers are asking for parents to have conversations with students early in this week about PLAY. Research and observations supports the value in play for learning, growth, and development. Both structured play (like organizing teams to play a soccer game, or run a game like 4-square, or playing UNO) and unstructured play (students imagining scenarios and acting out stories of their making with peers) are incredibly valuable experinences in growth and development.
Teachers have noticed recently that some of the unstructured play students in which small groups of students are participating in at recess sometimes resemble their video gaming or media experiences. Some of the things we have observed recently involve pretend armies, weapons (swords, light sabers, guns), and while we understand that students may have different permissions and levels of supervision at home while playing these types of games, we are discouraging the expression of these games at school to ensure the actual safety and the protect the perception of safety of everyone in our school community.
Because we are an open campus and we are purposefully structuring our space and day for multi-age academic and social groupings, it is important that Upper Division students remember to code-switch, or filter their words and behaviors at school. We are an academic workplace where the focus is on learning. Quality play is necessary, but not sufficient, for learning.
As part of our focus on Leadership, we would ask that you remind your students that while we are mindful of their interests and want them to enjoy thier play times, we will ask them to modify or change their play if is seems inappropriate. We would like this discussion to continue, so please also talk to students about how to respond to adults who interrupt their play if it seems unsafe, disrespectful, or unkind for our K-8 school community. While they are encouraged to challenge the process and enable others to action, a positive tone of voice and body language that indicates respect is necessary for success when negotiating with adults about code-switching. Modifying their play to be appropriate for the place and space is a non-negotiable part of our Social Contract.
Our Upper Division students are charismatic leaders who make a difference in the lives of their peers and teachers. We are all so glad to get to work with them every day and we are grateful that you share them with us. Please let us know if you have questions or concerns. And thank you for your active partnership in raising them to be caring and thoughtful individuals.
Thanks!
Upper Division Team
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I have read and re-read this manifesto many times, too many times.
In an English 101 course I enrolled in around 2013 at UCDenver, I learned the term “Discourse Community”. That is what you can call places like Starbucks and their odd size names. (Grande etc). Discourse communities occur everywhere and for many reasons—nearly zero of the reasons being nefarious.
Again, like my Report Cards in 2024 post, the trouble here is the teachers clearly know better. The writer of this email cannot be incompetent. The grammar is fine (subject-verb disagreement in second sentence and only one misspelling “thier” after the bold para). The flow is also fine (though a bit unaware of itself to be “good”). And most importantly, the entire message is focused and captured by the subject line. In other words, no one hijacked anything. It wasn’t a passive-aggressive, “Read Here How Great Your Child Is”, when the content is really saying, “They’re horrible and it’s your fault—do something.” Nope, it is focused and singular. These are rarities in 2024.
The problems, instead, are fourteen-fold and listed below for clarity:
1. What is “Quality of Play”?
2. What is “Upper Division”?
3. Why is “PLAY” capitalized?
4. No sources are provided for “Research and Observations”.
5. Did you just define “structured” and “unstructured”?
6. By “small groups” do you mean A. Only a few bad apples or B. Every time a small group forms? Follow-up: If “A”, what does research and observation show regarding putting everyone on blast, instead of using a “praise in public, criticize in private” type posture?
7. Do you look at my student’s browser or device history? Are you monitoring what we watch together (or separately) in our home? How would you know what their media experiences include?
8. What is an “open campus”?
9. What does “code-switch” mean?
10. Is “filter their words and behaviors” any different than “think”? If not, isn’t that more your role than mine?
11. Is, “Quality play is necessary, but not sufficient,” a threat to take away recess? Sub-question, why is “play” here not capitalized?
12. What does, “challenge the process and enable others to action,” mean?
13. You wrote, “Our Upper Division students are charismatic leaders who make a difference in the lives of their peers and teachers.” Is that different from saying, “These kids attend school in America in 2024”?
14. Finally, how would you distinguish an “active partnership” from a “partnership”?
In the end, why is there a “discourse community” for the parent/teacher relationship? Why? I don’t want the relationship in the first place, because in the first place it hides the teacher’s (possible) failure—nothing more. And in the second place, I do not have the time for it. This post took over an hour. Who has that much time each day? Certainly not teachers. Definitely no one but me.
Let’s stop wasting time, no? Is there anyone against that?
A Woman in 1899, Another in 1920, and One from 2024
Self-satisfaction begins with reading a variety of books. This morning, already, I have read from F Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise and Jack London’s short story “The White Silence.”
The necessary vital stats of these two giants for this post include London’s work preceding Fitzgerald’s by about 30 years; oh, and London wrote about life in the wild, whereas Fitzgerald wrote about life in, what later would be called, the concrete jungle—the city, specifically high society.
In writing about “life”, they also wrote about women. Women are everywhere, it seems. And not to be avoided.
In order of my reading today, here is a blurb from F Scott on women.
“I’ve got an adjective that just fits you.” This was one of his favorite starts—he seldom had a word in mind, but it was a curiosity provoker, and he could always produce something complimentary if he got in a tight corner.
“Oh—what?” Isabelle’s face was a study in enraptured curiosity.
And, now for the real test, from 30 years earlier and a world away, Jack London’s entry on women.
“Yes, Ruth,” continued her husband, having recourse to the macaronic jargon in which it was alone possible for them to understand each other; “wait until we clean up and pull for the Outside. We’ll take the White Man’s canoe and go to the Salt Water. Yes, bad water, rough water—great mountains dance up and down all the time. And so big, so far, so far away—you travel ten sleep, twenty sleep, forty sleep”—he graphically enumerated the days on his fingers—“all the time water, bad water. Then you come to great village, plenty people, just the same mosquitoes next summer. Wigwams oh, so high—ten, twenty pines. Hi-yu skookum!”
He paused impotently, cast an appealing glance at Malemute Kid, then laboriously placed twenty pines, end on end, by sign language. Malemute Kid smiled with cheery cynicism; but Ruth’s eyes were wide with wonder, and with pleasure; for she half believed he was joking, and such condescension pleased her poor woman’s heart.
“And then you step into a—a box, and pouf! up you go.” He tossed his empty cup in the air by way of illustration and. As he deftly caught it, cried: “And biff! down you come. Oh, great medicine men! You go Fort Yukon, I go Arctic City—twenty five sleep—big string, all the time—I catch him string—I say, ‘Hello, Ruth! How are ye?’—and you say, ‘Is that my good husband?’—and I say, ‘Yes’—and you say, ‘No can bake good bread, no more soda’—then I say, ‘Look in cache, under flour; good-by.’ You look and catch plenty soda. All the time you Fort Yukon, me Arctic City. Hi-yu medicine man!”
Ruth smiled so ingenuously at the fairy story that both men burst into laughter. A row among the dogs cut short the wonders of the Outside, and by the time the snarling combatants were separated, she had lashed the sleds and all was ready for the trail.
I know, I know. Way more from London. But it’s to serve a point, my point.
The earlier-dated passage from London required more words as the task before him included also announcing the different cultures.
But they both offer the same comment—and oh, how detestable the situation!
They both convey a man telling a fairy tale to their woman, and they both convey that women are beholden to men.
We are now one hundred years from F Scott and this question is, by my thinking, the pre-eminent question of our time. My generation has no other issue of more importance on the docket.
And for my part, I have determined resolution of the question. This will not shock regular readers.
I can put the matter in one of two ways, a kind of “glass is half-full” version and a kind of “glass is half-empty” version.
Half-empty: Women are no longer beholden to men. And without men, women are actively disintegrating civilization.
Half-full: Wise women would do well to choose to live as if beholden to men, regardless the true nature of their plight.
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For the record, Ruth is infinitely more attractive to me. According to the text, she displays taking “pleasure” and “ smiles ingenuously.” (Look it up, if you don’t know. I had to.) She also lashed the sleds.
What did Isabelle do? Nothing that an animal in heat couldn’t.
Because You’re Not a Moron
Thinking about any one child of mine (see earlier post today) naturally causes my thoughts to return to H-.
Want to know what some folks advise? I wish I was kidding. There are, supposedly, well-educated and well-trained men and women in the business of divorce that suggest, “Send cards and letters over the next 5 years or so at least for birthdays and holidays etc. That way, when she is 18 and maybe thinks differently and is free to do as she pleases, she won’t be able to (fact-check-proof) say, ‘You never even…’”
As I receive this advice, I always poo poo it, saying agreeably, “Yeah. I know. Of course I will.” But that’s a lie. Not the part about whether or not I will use the USPS to attempt to parent, but the part about my belief that it somehow works. My kid, H-, would have to be some kind of moron to think, “Oh, he actually did love me,” because she received some one dozen articles of mail each year for five years.
Seriously, can you imagine an adult woman falling in love with a man who did the same?
“But he sent me a Hallmark card every major holiday!!” the imaginary imbecile woman’s response to friends, after they chide her for ever having confessed that she nursed a dream of real relationship with a pen pal.
That woman would be a moron!!
And so would H- if the greeting card thing had any effect, by my thinking. And I’m not looking to raise morons here. Marry them? Yup. Divorce them? Yup. Produce them? Nope.
I have far too much hope placed on H-’s inborn ability to get to the bottom of the situation before she turns 18 (or after, for that matter) to waste any on the experts’ advice.
No, to be clear, the truth still lay where it always has.
After 12+ years of rocky, but never hopeless co-parenting (and more money transfers than sanity permits to reckon, both in total dollars and percentage of income), H- has recently been kidnapped by her mom (and any others over there who don’t actively work for H-’s freedom). Right now she has developed Stockholm Syndrome, which, when put plainly as if for 14 yr olds, means: she prefers the company and agenda of her kidnapper—despite the crime—than the terror that she now surely believes, wrongly, comes with freedom and knowing the truth.
Oh. And her mom is a money-grubbing whore. Always has been and always will be. The future for H- will include a realization of all this, followed by a tepid-at-first, then common-to-perhaps-loving-even return to me (including apologizing for ever doubting), plus a daily and disastrous relationship with her mother that is anything but encouraged by little ol’ me after said realization. Then, maybe later, the two will talk it out through the glass on those phones at a prison—as her mom is locked up for the what is illegal in the future—the general crime of allowing a heart of absolute moral blackness to continue to pump blood throughout her body.
(The fantasy sustains me; what do you want me to say?)
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Post recap: Don’t be a moron. Cards and gifts alone could only ever serve as “Exhibit A” of the dysfunction and moral crimes you live under.
She Wanted to Be Caught!
To the toddler, the crack of their door at night is more precious than all the gold and silver in the world. Shut the door and they cry and cry. But open it just a crack and they sleep restfully.
So what happened last night? I still don’t know. But I do know that the non-toddler family members were watching the latest Mission Impossible—the one, like all its predecessors, which always had the team simultaneously realizing and then stating aloud, “He wanted to be caught!”
The toddlers went down pretty easy—door was cracked. My hearing is the best out of the three of us, and so I was the first to hear some noises from their room and eventually paused the flick and rounded the corner to see that A- had climbed out of bed and turned on the hall light. Door was now wide open. J- was standing in his crib and now had Paddington—a gift from his older sister, I had to assume. As I laid him back down, he was in the mood to play, but I wasn’t, so I just covered him and turned my attention to A-.
“Gotta stay in bed, A-. It’s bed time.”
She put her arms out for a hug.
After the hug, I whispered to the dark room, “I love you. Goodnight.” Then I closed the door to just a crack and turned off the hall light as I went back to the movie.
A few minutes later, and I could hear more toddler shenanigans. Pretty much the same scene, but J- may have been closer to sleep than I would’ve guessed. Turning my attention to A-, I softly threatened, “It’s time for bed, A- If you get up again, I will shut the door.” She nodded like the perfect little angel that she is.
Back to the movie.
A few minutes later, back up stairs.
I left A-, saying, “I am closing the door. I told you this would happen.”
That was odd, I thought, as she didn’t make a peep of protest as I shut the door.
Back to the movie.
I just wanted to make it through the car chase scene, which I knew was about 10 minutes, and was sure to begin soon.
“Fart!” I suddenly had a sinking feeling. “She wants to be in the room with the door shut!”
Hitting pause once again, I went up the stairs to check on the two of them.
“No hall light on. Good,” I noticed as I turned the corner. Looking at the crack under the door, I saw the bedroom light was still off too. “That’s gotta be a good sign,” I thought. But in the movies the bad guys are always one step ahead of us good guys. So I did the unthinkable. I slowly turned the handle—so slowly. And then I opened the door a crack, and without the crack sound. As I continued in, I found little A- in some level of pre-sleep that was happy to be tucked in once again, but absolutely void of any contest. J- was out like a light.
Back downstairs we were able to finish the film without trouble. And I secretly acknowledged, with joy and anticipation, that the toddlers might actually allow me to sleep in a bit in the morning, given all these post-bedtime antics.
I was right.
Well, not about A- wanting to get shut in. But they did sleep in a bit.
My Eulogy for Apollo Creed
Ask my mom and she’ll tell you. She’ll tell you how frustrated I get by the little blurbs that people write about their loved ones when they die. I am always sending her screen shots of the ridiculously bad sentiments that accompany death. I think it all started when that University of Utah female student was murdered by her boyfriend—a 37 yr old bouncer she had no business associating with—and her parents, two professors, wrote about her recent GPA and athletic accomplishments. Give me a break. Like any of that has to do with who that young woman was.
Making the matter worse, I have also been dreading the oncoming harvest of all the Hollywood stars that I have loved for the last thirty years. Even as I sit here and type near my beloved Steinway, I look up and see my poster (purchased and framed some twenty years ago in college when I didn’t have any budget for such things) of Neil and Vincent, from Heat. “A Tale of Crime and Obsession.”
But it was Rocky III and Top Gun that defined my childhood. Family legend goes that I broke our family’s VHS tape that had Rocky III recorded on it by rewinding it so much. That is the film that had Apollo as Rocky’s trainer, not nemesis. I probably should credit Rocky III with my ability to go where whites otherwise do not go—among blacks. And I have Apollo to thank for that.
The scene when they go to Apollo’s gym and see all the scary, serious looking black boxers surely scared me when I was young boy. But as I watched, I learned from Apollo that they just had the “eye of the tiger” and then I saw them crack up and loosen up when Apollo let them know he was there because of them, not to fight them. Lesson learned: when it’s time to get serious about boxing—go to the dirtiest, meanest gym possible.
An odd tribute is in many comments about Carl Weather’s death. “There is no tomorrow!” the famous and perfectly delivered line from the very same Rocky film is all over the web. Why? It’s a Freudian Slip, surely. Or it must be, to my mind. It’s inconceivable that anyone could think it applies to death. I am not motivated to try hard or train hard now that Apollo has died. Mr. Weathers’ death does not inspire, it saddens and depresses.
That stated, here is my official eulogy.
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Apollo Creed had the most perfect physique of any fighters in the Rocky Saga. He did not have the most perfect physique ever formed, and other men still hold the crown within their particular group (MJ is the most perfectly formed basketball player, for example). But when it came to casting a character to oppose Rocky, and then train Rocky, the casting was perfect.
When I watched the new Creed films, I kept thinking, “Are humans just smaller these days?” And, “Why is Michael B. Jordan being cast as if he is strong like Rocky and Apollo were?” Even the new Russian didn’t hold water compared to Apollo Creed, let alone Ivan Drago.
I have since watched Rocky III while trying to imagine that Mr. Weathers wasn’t Apollo Creed in an effort to determine what his size was in reality—you know, using background props and other actors and actresses he appeared next to to more accurately assess his size—but I have so far been unable to downsize him. Those shoulders, those traps, those arms, his chest, his six pack, and his back. His legs, and his hair and mustache—all simply iconic. Man, those shoulders!
How many pushups have I done while he trained me? How many situations have I not shy’d away from while he encouraged me? How many friendly faces, inside and outside of gyms, have I encountered because of Apollo Creed? The number, like his size, is immeasurable.
Apollo, you were always more, more than I thought possible in more ways than you would ever guess. You aren’t in my heart—you formed my heart. Thank you.
USAFA Hoops vs. All Socks
I surprised the family and took them to the Air Force Academy Men’s Basketball game the other night. The Academy puts on a good show in all the ways they can plan and perfect (sound and lights etc.), and then everyone knows that the basketball skill just isn’t going to be there because it is a military academy. But the game was fun to be at and I have to admit this was my first time back on an Air Force base/installation since I separated over 11 years ago and it felt kinda awesome to be around like-minded folks. The highlight of that like-mindedness was when the grandpa-type guy behind us saw A- light up when she saw his popcorn and he just offered her some straight out of the red pin-striped box. It was more than wonderful moment.
Also the other day, I did the toddlers’ laundry and when I folded their clothes, I found that all the socks still had their pair. That too was a moment covered with awesomeness.
Which moment felt better? Hard to say. But it’s been a good week, that’s for sure.
What Exactly Do You Want Me To Do?
“Join me in lifting up these heroes and their families in prayer.”
That’s what Nikki Haley tweeted.
I’m not stupid and I’m not tone deaf. I know that this is the appropriate statement for public consumption after tragedy strikes.
But I am serious and earnestly want to know. It is tragic that Americans are being killed overseas because they’re Americans and I would like to do anything I can to support those who agree that it is a tragedy. So again, what, Mrs. Haley (et al), exactly do you want me to do? Turn agreeable? Blithely nod?
You want me to close my eyes? You want me to close my eyes and bow my head? You want me to talk with my eyes closed and head bowed?
You want me to close my eyes, bow my head, and think thoughts?
You want me to keep my eyes open and look towards outer-space and think thoughts?
You want me to talk to some named, but never seen, invisible being that folks write about, but never see?
You want me to, while thinking about the three dead and dozens injured, speak words in the hearing of others (or no one) that request something of some deceased-but-still-powerful ancestor?
How could I possibly join you if I do not know what you mean?
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Wouldn’t it be nice if people actually said something that meant something?
Something like, “If, like me, you believe that there is only one god powerful enough to comfort mourners, meter justice, and grant forgiveness, one living god that was, is, and is to come, the King of kings and Lord of lords, that his name is Jesus Christ, then join me tonight, at 8pm EST in reciting the prayer he taught us to prayer.”
Yeah, that’d be something worth posting.
Captain’s Log 