freud

my son stopped out back the other day, squatted, and poohed in his "big boy pants." right there, in our carport. in broad daylight. i guess he really had to go.

it is kind of heavy. don't you think? potty training. potty training.

i am really parenting now. sometimes i flash forward and imagine mark and me, in the future. he has come to me for money again and i am lecturing him on responsibility, (or something,) and he turns to me and he blurts out something he heard recently in a psychology class to the effect of, "i am this way for a reason dad. perhaps you should not have been so permissive in potty-training me."

mark is doing fine-i think. he ramped up quickly when we focused on urination and he has a good grip on that.

it is hard to know what is right in any number of moments. faith and i sometimes have differences of opinions but usually we bat them back and forth a bit and who feels strongest gets the final lean. and we act and we hope and we work and we cope.

because i don't think of myself as having been hard on my parents i am hoping to have the benefit of karma in such a way mark is not hard on me, (and he turns out all right.) terra, for her part, potty-trained quickly and seems unscathed by the experience.

still, i remember that psych 101 class. i remember freud's conclusions and i understand he has not been proven wrong about anything. the idea that parenting styles play a large role in determining who and how people turn out as adults makes all the sense in the world to me.

what do parents do? what did my parents do? what did your parents do?

do they think about these things as i am? do they tailor their parenting like a man creating a double-breasted jacket by hand or do they live and react daily all the while allowing factors such as moods and time constraints and measures of energy to play on their influence?

that is how i lose control of my master plan. sometimes i am tired and lazy from working and all the rest and instead of engaging with my kids i turn on the noggin channel. their little brains slip softly and smoothly into a lower gear, whirring along with the learning shows noggin presents but still enduring a decrease in synapses all the same. alas, i can read or work or watch a movie or facebook, (yeah, i used facebook as a verb-so what?)

do i feel guilty? at times. a little bit. unlike most guilt this one has a point. it checks me and helps me create more energy and focus for raising my children.

mark runs up to the act of pooping, (if taro gomi can use the word then so can i.) like a dragster heating up its wheels by gunning the engine so they spin ahead of the start line and ahead of the race, mark needs about three trips to the potty to actually execute a pooh. he knows he needs to go but then when he gets there he seems to become a little frightened and he changes his mind. i try to coerce him to stay but on that first trip (so far,) always to no avail. he cries and we put his big boy pants back on him and go about whatever may have been happening until some short time later he has to go again.

i told faith i think mark is experiencing a form of postpartum depression in that moment when he actually defecates. it is as if this thing his body has created demands exit and there is something in mark, in all of us, that is tied to our creation. it's not the major part of us. it's an overwhelmed fraction and hence, everyone poops. (right?) and so we all must have passed through this moment in life when we come to grips that this, our basest and most common art, these daily little creations, must be disposed of and discarded summarily. a two-year-old can only assimilate or consider so many facts or aspects of an issue, so perhaps they feel a base sadness in release but after so many times begin to realize they feel relieved too afterwards and soon, letting go becomes normal and they, (we,) never return to our initial misgiving.

faith and i are doing our best. we love terra and mark so much and we are trying to give love and guidance and support and nurturing as best we can. and i am trying to be responsible in thinking about these things. i don't want to just sort of guess and hope for the best.

here comes the bride

sara and tommy got married this past weekend and did it in high style.

atop the roof of a hipster hotel in a sleepy beach town overlooking the pacific ocean sara and tommy exchanged vows of love and trust and devotion then hosted a party that baked in the sun above 5-star ensconced tourists, re-adjourned on a campground seaside as some guests hit the surf and others barbecued while still others played the guitar and drank more beers, then moved again slowly and serpentinely back across pch to the shanty, a dive bar for closers of which, this wedding had seven counting the bride and groom.

cue kc and the sunshine band 'cause, "that's the way, unh-huh, unh-huh, i like it!!"

sanders vs. bernanke

ben bernanke is and has been in an especially important position. to have arrived at the prestigious position of chairman of the federal reserve, while initial privilege may have played a role, he had to have displayed an array of great skills in his arena which would include public relations. here, being questioned under oath by vermont senator bernie sanders, bernanke remains remarkably cool considering the facts of the case.

bernanke may have a sense of entitlement regarding not only the united states tax monies given to his agency to distribute to failing banks but also to the secrecy that has surrounded the transactions. however, he almost does not show it at all as he coolly answers questions as if his answers are respectable, honest and fair to the american taxpayers.

there is the one moment when sanders asks bernanke the names of the banks who received the tax monies of american citizens. bernanke has a moment where you can see his frustration. it is just a moment and it goes by fast but it is there, (for just a second.) otherwise this top banker plays his role and acts as if there are perfectly good reasons why the fed need not be accountable, (which of course is absurd.)

signs

i think humans are all the same for the most part. i mean, i think eggs are eggs and sperm are sperm and while we may look different in many ways, we are all just the same and subject to our environments. moreover, i think we are all pretty much exactly where we want to be, (in life,) and i think we broadcast ourselves daily.

with this in mind i have been considering what my appearance says about me. i think my wrinkles say something about me, about my age. the gray hairs and soft middle also give clues, (along with the slow march of my hairline.)

recently i have developed a phobia related to heights. i think it says something about me. it represents a malady. it feels like the first stage of alzheimers, which i also think is a sign-a sign of illness. i mean, isn't adhd just a clinical way of saying short attention span, or victim of marketing? even obesity, i am sure some suffer it because of a real flaw of chromosomes or a physical ailment, but they are the minority and the rest are merely compensating for feelings of inadequacy, (or ignorance.) they do not have the will to live a life of discipline. maybe they eat and do not exercise as a covert means of sneaking away from their abilities or their best selves.

i own a measure of that group, too. my metabolism has changed but i have not chosen the path towards better health and wellness through disciplined exercise and healthy eating. i sit softly on the precipice of obesity. is it laziness? yeah, it is. and ignorance. i am aware and blind at the same time.

i wonder too about people with skin problems or clinical depression or hunchbacks. what about drug or alcohol addictions?

i know some healthy people. of course, even they have areas where they fall short. (all things are shades of gray after all. right?) but relatively speaking, there is a class of people who are fit and look youthful for their age and work hard in their careers and in their lives and who have good social lives and are well balanced in most ways and who do not need idols nor crutches and who practice moderation in all things and who have a healthy sense of humor, live in the moment, plan ahead, practice kindness, accept responsibility, avoid excuses and pursue nobility.

in myself i have come to recognize the capacity to make poor choices and i am familiar with those areas where i, in fact, do still make poor choices, (regularly.) i am always trying to be better all the same.

"a man is only as sick as his secrets."

the people i know who hide things about themselves make me a little sad because i know the adage is true. they hide the pills they take or the jealousy they harbor. they hide the things they say about others. they compartmentalize their lives in order to keep track of things. it seems they think they are better for the lies, too, as if the fooling others more than offsets their own knowledge of their own lies.

in some part i think this is the secret of life. i often refer to it as karma, which stands in for my more complicated theory but in reality it hinges on being honest with oneself.

emerson suggested we all publish ourselves in every way, (every day.) (on a side note, i read through the first half of emerson's complete works about four years ago then had to set it down. i could not allow myself to read it all in a month because i refuse to read books twice and so, because his writing was in many ways profound, i had to interrupt myself and my learning in order to wait a season before finishing it. i plan on getting back to it in another couple of years or so.)

the point of all this rambling is this; when i recognize a personal ill, even if it is by some outward sign of that illness, i try to identify the cause and see if i can make a change. a few years ago i was especially unhappy in my job. i had endured a hard season and just when light should have appeared at the end of a tunnel, it stayed dark. the dissatisfaction forced me to search for the cause of my despair and i realized that i could spend my entire career in the spot i was in and that if i did that, i was going to feel like i had failed in some part by not venturing forth and challenging myself. i imagined rationalizing a long career in the contact center i had already been in for 12 years to my daughter some day when she arrived at adulthood and i thought it would be a hard sell because i would have spent years raising her in such a way as i would have lead her to believe i was capable of so much more than what i would have been had i sat tight in that place and played it safe.

this is not to pat myself on the back, however. sometimes i get it right and other times i fail miserably, like most of us i suppose. i just think it is a good to recognize that i am not hiding anything from myself, (even when i try.) i know everything about me.

(art is john goudie lynch's the inner self.)

mj

have you heard any of these acapella renderings of michael jackson's songbook? i guess those who post them are just isolating the vocal track.

i heard someone on the radio the other day talking about them so i decided to check a few out myself. (and again i say this age of new and emerging media is bombastic.)

michael jackson's voice is amazing. in a way it is nearly a shame he was such a good performer and such a fantastic and innovative dancer. these things took away from the legend of his voice. there is an acapella rendering of ben, from mj's youth when his voice was simply pure, but this vocal track from billie jean, represents mj's adult voice as one of the best ever. listen to the variety therein and the instinctive quality of bouncing around the register and complementing the beat.

toward the expanse

i lost a friend this week. bob was 45 and left his family way too early. from the seeking the positive, (or seeking the poignant,) department, a group of guys who regularly play basketball together will be somewhat closer and more involved.

i don't know when was bob's last sunday playing basketball up at the local middle school. i know i had not seen him in what had to be six or eight weeks. i have been playing basketball up at this school with a group of probably 30 regulars of whom about half show up on any given sunday for several years. the age range is about 25-55 and i can think of at least one player on the outside of both those numbers.

so on sunday i was late getting to the court because i got in that trap of thinking maybe this is the time roddick beats federer. when i arrived i warmed up on an adjacent court to where a group was playing three on three. when they finished and adjourned to a patch of shade astride the court, i moved to the main court to continue my pre-game shooting regimen.

as the players trickled back to begin anew, bob started walking away towards his car. "damn," i thought. i miss bob and have not seen him in a while. at the risk of sounding trite, bob was the nicest guy of all the regulars. he was affable, amiable, and easy to get along with though not necessarily easy to know. he mixed his basketball with a light-hearted banter of regular conversation and guy jokes.

bob must have been 6'4" so he was never missed. in my mind he was wearing alight blue t-shirt when he walked away though i do not even know if that is true. maybe i am just painting him in the color of sky because he was a soft touch amidst a bunch of creatures who fart and talk about it and make 10.3 gay jokes per hour and occasionally make a crass reference to some aspect of women's anatomy. (yes, i am guilty of this juvenile behavior, too.)

bob was as cool as light blue though. he came out and typically stayed to the end. he played hard and had fun at the same time. he had guys up to his house in the hills to play poker and attended when it was at someone else's house as well.

so when he reached half court of the other court between the court we played on and the gate out of the playground, i yelled out, "see ya bob!" bob pushed his hand into the sky and yelled back, "see ya," without turning for a peak. i came to discover bob had just told someone in the shade that he was feeling kind of sluggish, as explanation for his premature departure.

the next morning i got to work at 7am and got a phone call from one of my buddies who said bob had passed away after leaving the hoops action on sunday.

"what?" "do you mean he is in a coma?"

no. he's dead.

what?!

bob had gone home and began vomiting, my friend revealed. he had taken a cold shower and vomited some more then told his wife they should go to the hospital. on the way to the hospital bob had stopped breathing.

i later found out they had worked on bob in the emergency room for about 45 minutes. i still have no idea what the killer was.

my friend asked me to call another friend, which i did.

"what?! "are you serious?! "from what," my friend barked in a mix of anger and disbelief? "bob died," he said to his wife. bob's son had just finished the fifth grade, where my friend was his teacher all year and his wife had a group of his peers in the next classroom.

at the end of the day's hoops on sunday, there had been a schism. one group of guys agreed to come out and play on wednesday evening. another guy who could not play on wednesday lobbied for tuesday and seemed to generate some interest. as word went around about bob's demise many of the regular sunday morning hoopsters agreed to show up on tuesday night to play some ball and honor bob.

i think i counted 13 guys who showed up that evening. two guys came in street clothes who could not play but wanted to be there. this group usually just plays basketball and that is it. when the games are over they go their separate ways, back to their families and their jobs. on tuesday night they brought beer. when darkness fell they stayed and cracked open the cold ones. they conjured bob in all his incarnations. they wondered aloud about the future for his family. they invented possibilities for what had smitten bob.

after dark in the deep blues of night these weekend basketball warriors put the jokes and machismo aside. they discussed ideas, from the meaning of life and the meaning of mortality to how the fathers among us just have to, at all costs, work to be active, involved and memorable in the lives of our children.

at 45 and leaving behind his wife, high-school aged daughter and sixth grade son, (among others i am sure,) bob went to his reward way too soon. it is heartbreaking that this tragedy has occurred. it is heartbreaking in our basketball community and to others every day, everywhere, who endure. it is the melancholy of life. it is the south pole of emotion and that which every other feeling is measured and contrasted by. kahlil gibran said joy and pain were opposite sides of the same stone and we could only know the two in equal, (though opposite,) measures, even if we do tend to get them in disproportionate amounts. this is the pain.

bob's death will color our competitive basketball struggles evermore. our appreciation of being able to play with these guys, these salt granules of the earth, will be heightened by this depth we find ourselves mired in today. the amount of joy we gain from the camaraderie and the workout and the routine, the little lessons we learn from the winning and losing, the active friendships that will bloom into fullness, these things have new boundaries now. its like bob's final contribution to our sunday morning basketball ritual.

and this is where i do say something trite because i am a part of all i have known and i think when we break out the ball even this sunday, three hours before bob's memorial service, we'll honor bob by remembering him and by carrying a bit of him with us and by stretching tired limbs and pushing ourselves to play and compete.

rest in peace bob.

credit to gabe

i have a friend named gabe who may be my most interesting friend. i don't know that he is in fact the most interesting man in the world, but the guy on the beer commercials could be an impostor.

like most friends he has an array of talents and good qualities. the sum total however, is an interesting person who is good to spend time with. gabe is an artist. he is mexican-american and he could not more thoroughly represent that term. he enjoys all things in life. he appreciates the beauty of a lovely lady. he believes there are times for beer and ganja. gabe gets along well with children and conjures that facet of himself with ease.

i am reading 'notes from the underground,' right now, by dostoyevsky, and i cannot help but think of gabe when i am reading it. dostoyevsky's narrator, though living in a time and place so far from where i live, possesses all the sensibilities of both a modern day bohemian and an avant-garde elitist of some sort. or, gabe, (if you will.)

my life sensibility is one in which i am optimistic. i believe life has meaning and that mankind is always evolving for the best. in fact, when i discarded the religious beliefs that were passed to me by my parents, i adopted a world view that centered on the idea that man is always evolving towards the light, towards goodness, and therefore, all action on the part of man that contributes to that evolution is noble.

like gabe, dostoyevsky's underground man scoffs at such notions. he seems to believe life is meaningless and that the only sensibility it embodies is that of the absurd. for me it might be just as easy to face an absurdist life every day but i choose a path altogether more positive.

in days gone by gabe and i used to spend a great deal of our free time together, (and even some of our not free time as we worked together for a season.) over beers we often debated one another's world view and gabe was especially adept at defending his position. he is an intellectual in the truest sense of the word. not like some guy who went to the best schools and knows all the philosophies or the entire western canon, gabe is a natural who may drop a pearl of wisdom or insight into a conversation but it will not necessarily be easy to detect nor will it in any way be purposeful or self-serving. or, if it is self-serving the end will be for gabe's personal amusement.

i don't speak to gabe often because life is like that. we move and things change and as much as i enjoy gabe's company, i recognize the value in simply cherishing the gabe i know and knew and who i still get together with on occasion. moreover, i am always hopeful of knowing more people like gabe in my future.

the thing i admire though is the fact that gabe is different. he is his own man. he's an original. few dare to truly blaze their own path in life. of all the people i know or have known, way too many are constrained by convention and obligation. while gabe is flawed and it is not to me to identify these flaws, his primary sensibilities are to be true to his nature.

i have said before that gabe has great taste. some might say that i stole any number of my own tastes from gabe but i would not subscribe to that idea. rather it is likely that our tastes are in fact quite similar but he came upon some tastes before i did and so, introduced me to those flavors.

gabe is that character one most remembers from a group of friends. recently i hung out with gabe at his college graduation party and another old friend remarked about how colorful this group of friends had been, highlighting the number of nicknames we had and used.

bear. kool, or kool-kat. pep or pop-star. jizz-bloke. weasel. alfonsine. juice. chunk. magic. almost all of those ridiculous names were handed out by gabe. i suppose he had the gravitas to assign these names and actually have them stick and get used by others.

maybe gabe is just a regular guy or maybe he is a modern superhero, (in a world of short attention spans and bland tastes.) maybe he is out of touch or maybe he is just touched. in any case, it's good to know people like gabe.