kobe the blight

i continue to swim upstream on this one, against the great minds of the game and virtually every tom, dick and harry laker fan on the street but i insist kobe bean bryant is by far the most overrated professional sports player ever.  recently slam magazine proclaimed kobe is no longer mr clutch in the eyes of the league's general managers.  more to the point bryant ranks 38th over the last three years in clutch shooting, (this in spite of the fact that he gets more opportunities than even durant and james who have to share occasional opportunities with messers. wade and westbrook.) 

kobe is certainly a great basketball talent.  what does he do well.  he is a great pull up jump shooter.  from mid-range he is among the very best ever if not the best.  he is an excellent defender in the half court set.  (his transition defense sometimes makes me queasy.)  he is as fundamentally sound as one can be in terms of the compulsories: dribbling, shooting, defending, rebounding, jumping and so on. 

that said my biggest complaint about kobe as an avowed laker fan is not the poor clutch performance, which i have grown accustomed to.  rather it is his obtuse nature, which manifests as a low basketball i.q.  in concert with that complaint is the public adoration of bryant and his lofty reputation, which is perhaps more reminiscent of the emperor wearing no clothes than any other real life example in my lifetime. 

kobe always wanted to be great and i believe all those who say he has an incredible work ethic.  certainly his shot bears that out.  when he came into the league the lakers had acquired him in a trade that was something of a gamble but it made all the sense in the world.  the thing was he could have been the next michael jordan.  his arrival to the lakers bench in the '96-'97 season was always colored by that storyline.  with a slightly different build but considerably ahead of jordan in terms of maturity, (having entered the league at 18,) bryant's every made shot was the young kobe bryant poster waiting to be made.  when he bricked those shots in utah in the playoffs that rookie campaign he was forgiven for being 18.  even i thought hey, great experience for the young pup.  someday he'll make those.

that day never came.  kobe has five championships as a laker but i would submit that he never, ever made the big or important clutch shot.  one could correctly say he drew the defense's attention as he has been the lakers offensive focal point certainly during these last two lakers championships when he won the mvp award both times, (undeservedly, in my opinion,) but he never hit the shot.  that distinction belongs to the likes of ron artest,(yes, that is the one where kobe looked all hurt after the game at not getting the glory,) ron artest, (bryant shot 25% from the field and 54% from the line in that game 7,) brian shaw, robert horry, ron harper from the baseline against portland, and so on.

here are kobe's top 10 clutch shots.  (the first four occur in january, january, december, december and one in april as the regular season wound down.) 
more, here is one writer's top 20 nba playoff clutch shots of all-time, which includes a few lakers and one soon-to-be laker but no kobe bryant.  anyway, as it turns out others have made the case about kobe's undeserved clutch reputation, thank god.  (the great thing about that piece is in how it admits when kobe has been clutch, clearly clutch, was when he hit late pull up jumpers that weren't from a ridiculously lucky range.  one of those i recall vividly and he deserved the praise, the other occurred while i was getting married so i missed it.  lesson learned-don't confuse priorities.)

the laker's threepeat at the outset of the century relied on a number of contributors with shaq being key.  after being unseated by san antonio when the lakers lost to detroit a year later and the demise of the shaq and kobe lakers was imminent basketball enthusiasts seemed to enjoy engaging in the debate over who was more important to all that winning.  clearly shaq was more responsible and those who took his side always won the debate hands down.  that said mitch kupchak did the right thing in keeping the younger kobe bryant who still had that huge upside.  having won three championships without being the main guy, (though he had averaged 22, 28 and 25 in those regular seasons and 21, 29 and 26 in those playoffs,) it figured kobe would become an elite scorer and perhaps the gold standard in the association. 

in some ways that did come to pass.  kobe's average jumped to 30 ppg the first year after the threepeat when the lakers missed the playoffs.  the following year when they were back in the finals his average dipped back to 24.  the next year with shaq gone it spiked up to 35 ppg and he won the first of his two scoring titles along with the following year when he scored 32 ppg.  these two laker teams were dismal.

the storyline preceding shaq's departure was all about whose team it was, an ugly byproduct of david stern's marketing money grab in which the individual was made greater than the team even to the detriment of the game's rules and referring integrity.  with shaq gone bryant seemed to determine to make the lakers his and initially he professed to expect the lakers to continue to be as competetive as the league's top teams.  as shaq and wade won in miami, and as duncan and parker and ginobili won in san  antonio, billups and hamilton in detroit, and eventually pierce, garnett and allen in boston, it became increasingly clear a guy like kobe could not win sans shaq or a shaq.  enter pau gasol. 

gasol had been a monster in memphis.  in seven years in memphis gasol had averaged about 19 ppg and 8-9 rpg.  the offense ran through him but like kobe he was rather alone in tennessee.  he arrived at the trade deadline and propelled the lakers, who had kobe and a lamar odom in his prime, a solid derek fisher, and the emerging andrew bynum and trevor ariza, into the finals where they lost to the celtics.  gasol's numbers remained about the same except in rebounds where he increased his numbers by about two per game. 

unlike kobe, gasol is as unselfish a player as exists on the planet.  when he is surrounded by like-minded guys, as he is every four years on the spanish national team, he wins mvp awards and the basketball is lovely.  it is a team game after all.  sans gasol, of course kobe would not have won the last two championships.  then again it is unlikely the lakers would have won those last two championships without artest who seemed, in contrast to kobe, to rise to the occasion. 

i wish kobe was a different player, a smart player, a charismatic player, a humble player.  i would love to root for him.  i wish he had become the player i thought he would develop into all those years but it did not happen.  in the 2008-09 playoffs in the series against the nuggets, kobe played the best basketball of his entire career.  there have been glimpses of that level from time to time since then but that series in particular, he was unselfish and the lakers looked crazy good.  recently as the lakers have fumbled through a star-studded letdown of epic proportions kobe has been an enigma.  as capable as ever he has seemed driven by his ego.  it is after all, "his team," and the rest of the lakers, the coaching staff, the management and the city at large must recognize his brilliance or else.  as the lakers tumbled down the standings with kobe accompanied by perhaps the league's two best big men, bryant continued to assert his dominance.  early in the season he led in the scoring race as the lakers led in disappointment.  later as his scoring production dropped off but his assist production spiked, the lakers began running off small streaks of wins, which culminated in a national tv audience win over okc, them of the gaudy record and probably the best player in the game in kevin durant.  (durant was cited as the guy who eclipsed bryant in the estimation of league general managers as best clutch scorer.) 

kobe dropped out of the scoring title hunt but the lakers crept back into playoff contention.  then came the loss in boston the other night.  the lakers were blown out.  kobe had 27 points but zero assists. why do the lakers suck?  even with gasol out they lineup with bryant, howard, nash, world peace and antawn jamison.  that is a lot of (old,) talent.  those five are complemented by earl clark, steve blake, and perhaps one or two other guys who aren't named chris duhon who are worthy of a little time on the floor.  that team should be competetive.  add gasol and they should be beastly.  however, that does not account for kobe's ego, his propensity for turning the ball over, (15th all time, typically top 7 in in the league season over season,) the vacuous effect he has on his team's offense, which is derived from his ego: other players know the deal.  kobe's reputation precedes the idea of playing with the lakers and so everyone knows their ego must take a backseat.  that matters even if the guy is a low ego guy to begin with because it is a team game. 

while talking heads slobber all over the great kobe bryant, night after night kobe goes out there and scores his 25 points a game and protects his image.  when he is in a giving mode, (or mood,) the lakers tend to win.  when his short attention span pulls the entire team back down to the mentality of getting the ball to kobe and clearing out, (because you know, he is the self proclaimed best one-on-one player of all time,) kobe often faces double teams and fails and the lakers fail right along with him. 

as this season circles the drain i am hopeful someone named buss or kupchak will come to their senses and reward kobe with a great opportunity to win his 6th nba title, elsewhere.  if only they could trade him, you know, one of those four team deals in which the lakers get 3 first round picks from teams on the brink of the lottery, somehow...  i know, i know...

still, let howard go to brooklyn or wherever. he is good but he is not that good, not as good as gasol.  let nash retire with dignity.  perhaps a playoff contender could use his services?  put meeks and company out their and bite the bullet and rebuild.  there is no shame in rebuilding and the way to do it is around a great young talent. 

kobe, for his part, won five championships as a laker.  he will always be a laker and he will be beloved in los angeles, (if not by me.)  he is a supremely talented player, though his ego is ridiculous and he has always lacked a certain intuition for the game.  two more examples.  ever seen him play against dwayne wade?  wade owns him-always has.  i always grimace when the lakers play the heat and i see wade guarding kobe out around the perimeter forcing kobe to take three-pointers.  i always know the worst thing that can heppen is for kobe to hit one or two.  the lakers are in trouble for sure when that happens.  i remember once when the lakers actually bea the heat and wade said after the game how they had gotten what they wanted, for kobe to shoot the threes, but it just did not work out that time.  that was rare, indeed.  another example, have you ever heard kobe speak italian.  he claims to be able to.  he lived there for a number of years.  all i have ever heard of it is a few  stock phrases.  i don't believe he speaks italian.  maybe i am wrong but it is just like kobe to let us all believe he really is fluent, because you know, he is just so all around brilliant and all, but i have never seen him just stand there on camera or on the microphone and have an italian conversation with gallinari.  if kobe is fluent in italian, the i guess i am fluent in japanese, portuguese, armenian and spanish.  yeah, i lived in japan for two years, like kobe in italy i lived amidst an enclave of americans but still, if you'll believe i am fluent in japanese, i won't tell.  i mean, come on. konichiwa, genki desuka and domo arigato already.  what's it going to take for you to believe me?

reunited feels so good

i experienced a reunion of sorts recently with a bunch of girls i once worked with, and by once i mean like 250 days a year for eons.  they were like earth incarnate each and every one of them.  i love one quality in particular my old friends possess, a sense of being utterly natural and of the earth while at the same time being imbued with a certain sophisticated, adult sensibility that is peculiar to mommys and large families and survivors and girly-girls who are lovers to the core. 

a friend of mine has been doing stand up comedy.  she is a natural.  our friendship has perhaps deteriorated recently as she is friends with my soon-to-be ex-wife but i got nothing but fondness for her so when she announced her performance at the ice house in pasadena i knew i would attend.  and in some way i knew i would be seeing a bunch of these former friends from that place i toiled in.  i have to tell you about them but i will invert this pyramid and tell you we all ran into each other there and we had drinks and watched our friend perform and hung out a bit afterwards, and a couple of days later i wrote them a group note on facebook because though we do not much interact on fb we are friends there.  so this was the note i sent them.

dear ladies of water,
i didn't know how much i missed you and many others from my past life hocking bottled water in the name of all that is healthy and youthful until this past weekend. what a joy to see you all and have some time to chat. life has all these twists and turns but i have thought of you guys several times since saturday night and so i thought i would just send a group message to say i absolutely adore you, i think of you every so often and always fondly, and i hope whenever we see each other we do as we did on saturday, just pick up where we left off, laughing and ranting and drinking and grooving and talking and smoking and going on and on and all that raging against the dying of the light. hopefully lilly will keep gigging her comedy thing and she will cause us more opportunities, (try to hit my weekend lj,) but if not you girls are still #1 with me and i wish you all the best. thank you for making my month. (terry, let's do lunch one day soon. let me know when?)
ciao bellas.

the note was from my heart.  i miss these girls and so many others.  i miss that mentor i had.  i miss the cuban girl, the classy one who made wealthy girls seem like cretins.  i missed the filipino lady i said hi to more mornings than you can count.  i missed the tall, fun-loving guy who had big plans to escape to virginia but his real escape was from the responsibility of real friendship.  i miss the girl who taught me a handful of phrases in farsi.  i miss big john.  i miss the girl who would cry when she spoke of her daughter.  i miss the gay man who shared my political perspective.  i miss the black girls and all their references, which kept me on my toes.  i miss the tough guy who cried.  i even miss the small people, the ones who created strife or assumed too much.  i miss the ones who flirted with me and the others who tenderly ensured i would never cross a line from devotion to theirs.  i miss the kids who respected my words and asked my advice.  i miss the french guy who helped me learn an important lesson.  i miss my friends the monsters from east los with their homogenous lingo, their humble perspective and their incessant need for altered states. 

of these girls i made a point of catching up with my friend terry, who is 74 but really 24, (still.)  her free spirit and liveliness is beyond most girls one-quarter her age.  she is such a treat to be around and i am already trying to see her again soon. 

the comedienne was also an unexpected delight.  i used to try to help her work out her act but then when the chasm of divorce hit my family she landed across the divide and when i wasn't looking she went on stage and did it.  she became the "hood mom," and the people could be heard guffawing on so many youtube videos it was amazing.  she was always funny but now she is polished funny, with structure and purpose. 

it was great to see the girl from the nice team.  we were co-captains once and i guess she has carried the mantle on without me.  spurn the sea of mean, good girl.  spurn it.

there were others, others i had not shared so much with but with whom i was still utterly familiar.  we practiced warmth on this night.  we took a photograph.  we clinked glasses and laughed and talked and sang into the early morning.  (mea culpa neighbors-i apologize for being so youthful.)

it is ironic how surprised i am at the experiences of age.  i might have learned...  these moments keep happening to me, moments when i experience the joy of reminiscence or nostalgia or what the portuguese call; saudades, moments unknown by the younger me who reveled in the new, physical, colorful, blazing characteristics of life, moments which are born atop those previous times and memories because they are of nuance and subtlety, the tricks and subterfuge of memory and the certainty of sense and sensibility and feeling.  yeah man, the body deteriorates slowly and over time.  this used to worry me because i did not see myself staying interested in large swathes of life into mine middle age but alas here i am and i  am finding it, the interest and the interesting, the moments of joy and the moments of new, that which i can savor and ponder and on which i can be sustained.

various thoughts on vital subjects

a dispatch from my life. 

i have quiet nights recently.  on this one i am thinking of a high school friend i am told will likely pass away within the next day or two.  cancer.  i have a lot of high and wild ideas about cancer, about life really, about the unknown.  i have these notions about universal flow and karma, this sense there is balance in the world, it is always in the motion of balancing.  i think somehow i have some ideas about my own end, which diseases can't get near me and which ones i am likely to succumb to.  cancer. 

i haven't really been in touch with this person since high school but we were casual friends in a small, private high school setting.  she was easily the sweetest girl in my class.  her face was angelic.  i think she was the head cheerleader and her dad was a doctor but this girl was without even a hint of pretense.  i adored her on the down low because i was unclear in those days about who i was or who i would become and she seemed my polar opposite in that regard.  she was self assured like a girl who has a large and balanced perspective and as a result spends a great deal of time giggling at so much around her.

rilke said it was to love the questions and i can do that right now.  i wonder about death.  is it random who gets what disease?  how are actuaries so good at what they do?  are there tables and books full of science that algorithm our diets and our environments in order to one day pinpoint the time's of our demise?  does one's character and persona and outlook and yea, karma, play a role?

i have met a few people in life who were twisted to such a degree from what might be called normal or healthy human behavior or thought, or stasis, i think they were out of balance with the universe and so dark forces were at play.  it occurred to me those people might die prematurely as a result of what they allowed to become of their minds.  it also occurred to me they might transfer that karma somehow, the sins of the father might be visited on the son or the spouse might project the darkness onto their other half, unawares and unsuspecting but open by ignorance and their own choices. 

is this just me being like what i otherwise despise, creating my own fanciful religion with vague, under-explored ideas about justice?  or could there be something to it?

i love that passage from emerson about human character publishing itself evermore.  it does.  it is.  always and constantly.

there is an acquaintance of mine who supposes to be a nice person.  she adheres to some basic tenets of a formerly more active christian belief system and lifestyle she has fashioned into that which is most convenient.  ghandi rightly said religion without sacrifice was dangerous.  this acquaintance is not in any way unique.  i have a bevy of friends and acquaintances who hold certain beliefs but sacrifice so little for their religion in fact that they do not even attend church, (and i mean, like, ever.)  they claim to be christians but they seek to distance themselves from a certain mainstream christianity because they find it in any number of ways unsavory or wrong-headed.  convenience is the law they keep.  i diverge...

still, human character does publish itself evermore.  show me someone with a mean face, one where the lines are bunched up around the eyes in ways that tend towards scowl, and i'll show you someone who is or has been unhappy.  show me someone who is fat in any degree and i will show you someone who lacks self discipline in some proportionate degree.  show me someone who is socially inept and i will show you someone who does not value the realm of the social as much as the norm.  show me someone who doesn't read and i will show you someone who lacks insight.

my acquaintance is anxious to find the right man and get married and have children and get on with her life.  she is feeling a bit old by comparison to her friends.  she works out and eats right.  she purchased breast implants.  she attends the salon regularly and likes to get out for some occasional night life.  i think this acquaintance's character is publishing away.  she is working overtime to attract men physically.  intellectually she is something of a blank slate.  she has a few semi-formed ideas about morality and the superstitious or magical.  ultimately however i think she is a hot mess.  she is anxious which is anathema to achievement, or peace.  when i am anxious i try to figure out what is wrong with me.  (i am only sometimes successful-ahh cruel fate!)  she will find a man who likes her for who and what she is physically and we know that is temporal.  that relationship will not last, right?  my acquaintance needs balance.

the point is i think there is more at play than the idea that the cancer was random, or the heart disease was genetic, or the addiction was learned. 

what is important to me?  right action is important to me.  avoiding the pitfalls of karma is important to me.  whenever i rebuff bad behavior i think it is my nature to do so and there is a clear benefit to my being that is good karma, that is good health, good luck in some ways.  i know that the world will conspire on my behalf when i am open and honest.

when i was a 10-year-old kid and this man who was married to my mom hit me like he might have hit another grown man in a bar fight. in response there was an urge within me to become angry, truly angry.  angry in a deep seeded way, in a dark way.  even at that age i had this idea that i could get angrier and angrier and i could nurture that dark feeling in my stomach and hold it there so that i could explode later, transform myself into a terrible person, able perhaps to beat someone down with fists and feet or weapons.  i remember turning from that.  i remember knowing that i had to protect the kindness within myself, that it was important for me to not get so angry because acting on such a thing would result in a downward spiral, one in which the first act of mean violence would plant a seed of regret inside me that would grow and demand more terror to tamp it down.  if i reached that point i knew i would also have to create a world view for myself in which i somehow justified my actions.  i'd have this dark world view of absurdism or some such thing, one in which my evil actions were justified by some god or other man made notion, or the belief that all of humanity was somehow irredeemable and therefore it was to the strongest to take and pillory. 

my friend from high school is dying and nine days ago her husband posted in an online journal that life was still hard but that they were all expecting to turn a corner soon and the hope was that she would be cancer free by christmas.  that nine days ago and now i hear she has only a day or two?  (that's a question i don't love.)  the husband was thanking everyone for caring and praying.  he was actively and publicly believing in some combination of a miracle and results from an alternative treatment method that seemed to hold so much hope.  i don't know how i feel about that.

should he put on that positive, faith-based persona?  is that healthy?  or, should he be a bit more realistic and pragmatic about it?  should he admit where my old friend is in the scope of her illness and relative to her death for all to see and read?  should he encourage her to say all she has to say before she leaves because what else is there beyond human relationships.  fix them.  transform them.  nurture them.  build someone up.  profess your love in spite of this horrible condition that is death.  make peace with the idea that life and death are opposite sides of the same stone and death is meant to be bitter in proportion to how much we loved life. 

death always turns into a sermon.  i stopped by a friend's house today and he informed me on the funeral he had attended yesterday.  a friend of his from high school had a sudden heart attack and died at 43 or thereabouts.  the little flyer from the event sat on his coffee table adorned with an eagle soaring above a mountain and the words of a bible verse.

when i die, please, no bible or jesus or moral bullshit.  get together and say nice things about me.  (it would be in such bad form to discuss my many foibles.)  have drinks and feel free to shed a tear that you won't get to hang out with me again and in the process form greater friendships and tighter bonds with each other.  after all what else is there in a world with cancer? 

election day

An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it. - George Bernard Shaw, 1856
- 1950

294 days

yesterday i was anxious.  later i was relieved.  tomorrow i will be nervous and hopeful.  today i am grateful-so, so grateful. 

being unemployed feels like being accused of a crime.  for the last nine-and-one-half months i have been standing trial for the crime of being incompetent, unstable, (emotionally and professionally,) lazy, discontented, stupid, unlucky and an infidel.  i'll admit it up front and i'll proclaim it loudly for all the world to hear. i don't think there's any shame in it.  i'm sensitive. 

i'm sensitive because i grew up without my mother and never knowing my father.  at my age it feels like an excuse to even bring facts such as these up but there is a reason i am sensitive and that reason dates back to the '70s and beyond.

what happened to me, how i became unemployed is a long story.  the short version is i up and resigned from a job in direct defiance of a long term plan i had in place.  sans an undergraduate degree and employed in the same place for 12 years i meant to stay put and continue to rise through the ranks.  i aggressively changed that plan when i felt like i had been at the place too long, when i felt like i had enough confidence that i could succeed elsewhere without a degree to declare my competency, when my wife was working in the same place as me and at the same level, and when a new boss seemed to see me as just another of so many quarreling children on the team, i resigned to take a job at a start-up company.  what?  me worry?

it was pollyannish of me.  i assumed everything would work out somehow.  i was perfectly aware the company could fail but i soldiered on hoping i could make a difference and we would conquer the world of english language learning.  two months after i left elliot spitzer wrote a dark op-ed in the new york times foreshadowing a financial meltdown of epic proportions.  eight months later the world economy was in the tank.  12 months after that i was laid off, (affected in the third round of such layoffs.) 

seven months later i went to work for an ignorant, boorish man.  i knew it was not the right place for me, considering my personal philosophy.  still, for about my first year in his employ that small business owner showered me with great angel tickets, gift cards and glowing introductions all in addition to my salary.  he bought my truck and thereby relieved me of the burden of automobile insurance, gas expenses, and mechanical outlays.  i was favored.  around the one year mark the relationship strained.  he expected me to manage the entire business while spending 4-8 hours every day listening to him pontificate on best business practices as he saw them and other sundry items and complimenting him his brilliance and insight.  i faked it in the first year but slowly, (and surely,) i lost that ability.  i should have left his employ much sooner than i did but finding and securing jobs is not of my strengths. 

i interviewed for a job last september that was especially attractive to me.  however, i did not land it.  i was looking but i was not finding and in early december push came  to shove and i was laid off, (or resigned depending on how you interpret the events of december 5th.)  the first morning i woke up without a job i was worried but still felt like a champ.  i did not have to go to a job any longer wherein people were treated like material commodities to be used up and left by the wayside whenever they crossed management.  i did not have to go and espouse and enforce policies and philosophies that are and were at odds with how i believe business should be run in order to thrive.  i did try to promote discussions of these things and to shed light on my perspective, though it was difficult because people who talk constantly never listen.

throughout the entire time i was unemployed i never faltered in knowing i did the right thing by refusing  to work for that person any longer.  it is not that he is an evil or bad person.  it is merely that we are at odds in just about every way imaginable other than the fact that we both craved success.  my lot was untenable because i had to go about pursuing that success by a manner i found obtuse, unproductive and often times demeaning. 

i filed for unemployment and had no problem securing the maximum benefit of $900 every two weeks.  i am grateful to the american taxpayers for providing this safety net.  it was not enough to live on.  i have two children in private school and thankfully i was able to keep them in their school uninterrupted but it was not easy.  (i'll return to all the people i owe thanks to momentarily.)

i don't know who if anyone looked at me as incompetent.  i am sure it happened.  people judge other people in snaps. 

this person is unemployed?  what a loser.  let me now talk to him and see if there is some way i can take advantage of him since he must be a dullard.  (i have to explain this is not particularly indicative of my world view but i know these people exist and i am sure i came in contact with them.) 

there was a mom of one of the kid's classmates whom i spoke to shortly after terminating employment who reacted to what i was telling her as if i was an irresponsible jerk.  she did  not come right out and say anything so direct but she feigned an exasperated gasp of questioning as to how i could conceivably let that relationship get to the point of the employment terminating so suddenly.  she had not walked in my shoes and she certainly did not know the extraordinary circumstances that working in that environment represented.  she did not see the line of good people leave that place prior to me, some in fits of rage, others as coolly as a harvard business book, still others with a quiet reserved dignity.

at times i thought any number of persons might have just thought i was in some way unstable.  after all i had left a job i had been at for 12 years.  in fact i am not the most stable person.  the values represented by our society as it lives and breathes everyday are certainly not aligned with my values.  that said i think that is true of the majority of us.  so when i say i am unstable, i do not mean in an especially abnormal way.  it's a crazy world and i am an insane man.

i am not lazy but when i was an adolescent my parents did label me as the lazy kid in the family.  years later i realized i had to fight that stigma by telling myself i was not lazy.  i do have a certain yearning for efficiency.  sometimes i will combine projects, which can look like laziness.  still, in most of my work places i have been praised for my work ethic.  i can remember the first times i heard that and not believing it.  that is how insidious the idea of laziness was inside of me.  moreover i think this is the thing many people fear about the unemployed.  they go to work every day and they work hard and they see the money in numbers on their paycheck that they never get because it is paid in taxes for so many things including the social safety net that is unemployment insurance.  personally i have paid into that fund for 30 years so i know i need not feel guilty for taking advantage of it. 

i had a friend admit to me recently that she was milking unemployment as she worked on her 2nd novel.  she hoped to be published and find her way into a career of letters. however, a short time later she got a job offer and snapped it up.  from what i can tell she is happier than she has been in some time, writing news stories for a small local paper.  and that is the myth about the unemployed.  by and large they are not taking advantage of the program.  they may suffer any number of maladies.  they may be short on self confidence or initiative.  they may be plagued by alcoholism and addiction.  they may be slow, obtuse or socially inept.  they may even nervously tell you at a reunion of sorts that they are taking advantage of the system, which is merely yet another veiled form of guilt.  ultimately the unemployed have one thing in common with one another, their self esteem suffers as a consequence of being unemployed and not having an income.  i fought that everyday over the last 294 days.

was i or am i discontented?  sure, in some regards.  ours is a utilitarian society.  like most human beings i would rather earn my living doing something that nourishes me in deep, meaningful ways.  in my career i have sought ways to build creativity into my roles in order to increase my happiness.  as a trainer i savored the seasons of creating training, drawing flip charts and assembling powerpoints.  in the classroom i enjoyed diverging from the subject matter on occasion to keep everyone refreshed and engaged.  these things can help sustain me through tasks like listening to customer service calls and scoring them in order to subsequently coach someone on their performance, or taking a call myself from an angry customer.

regarding the indictment of being stupid i am fairly secure that my friends and family do not see me in this way.  strangers are another story.  a few months ago i joined a club in order to improve myself and in large part because i have had spare time being unemployed.  in a small group i was asked what i do for a living and i confessed to being unemployed.  a short time later, with only golden intentions, i was informed of a job fair for entry level csr's that would be happening in the coming days.  the person reminded me that i should dress up and bring a resume.  (did i have a resume?)  this stranger was not in any way being rude.  she did not know me from adam and perhaps she imbued me as an unemployed person with certain qualities she either found familiar or that she associated with people my age who find themselves unemployed.  in any case i am not stupid but it is yet another possibility which i was inclined to defend myself from even if i did not follow through and defend myself.

was it forrest gump who said lucky is as lucky does?  (perhaps that one should have been used in the previous graph?)  well, we make our own luck, right?  luck is the residue of skill.  so if i am unlucky at having become unemployed it is natural for me to take that on as yet another fault i need to clear from my own internal hard wiring.  maybe i was unlucky at having found my last employer but at the time it felt like great fortune after having been unemployed for a brief season previously. 

as an avowed agnostic and someone who is prone to just call myself an atheist, (because i like those people,) i do have certain people in my life who profess to know things about me mystically.  there were those who claimed i needed jesus to help me find a job.  others merely stated that this was all part of god's plan for me.  i guess i was meant to suffer my way back to a perfect state of fear and subjectivity.  so i confess, i am an infidel in as much as i am not a believer.  my unemployment, however, may have been a result of any number of things none of which are my disbelief.

so it is that this dreary season has come to an end.  i am employed and i have a start date two weeks from today.  this morning i received a call from the recruiter letting me know my background check was completed and that she will be in touch with me next week with the particulars I'll need for my first day of work. hooray!

it has been bleak.  as i was prone to tell friends and family throughout this process i believed my resume did a great job.  i had many interviews over the last 294 days.  i feel sure my interview skills betrayed me.  one of my first interviews was with a booming shoe company on the westside.  the manager there, i was told, really liked me but did not believe my lack of e-commerce experience could serve in the role i interviewed for.  the call center was so impacted with service levels completely in contrast to anything resembling good service so she needed someone with that specific experience who could get up and running quickly.  i had been found for the position by a recruiter who worked closely with that company and let me know later that the manager said she would like to revisit bringing me in as a quality assurance and training manager a few months down the road.  that was encouraging but never materialized.  at the end of it all i wasn't sure i wanted to drive to marina del rey everyday to work, anyways.  traffic...

i had a friend early on who tried to help me get my foot in the door with a great company in downtown los angeles.  this was a preferred company to be sure.  i had already interviewed with a recruiter who took no more than three days to get back to me and let me know they were looking for someone with more e-commerce experience.  my friend sent my resume to a high level contact he had who forwarded it to the head of the customer service department, (copying my friend who in turn forwarded to me,) and suggesting i came  highly recommended and she should review the resume ahead of possibly bringing me in for an interview.  that interview never materialized.  i guess i wasn't right. 

i interviewed twice for a job with an online printing company.  the human resources manager made no bones about the fact that she just thought i was perfect for the position.  she said she would be getting back to me with an interview date with the cfo who was back east that particular week.  the next week she never contacted me.  when i finally reached her she informed me they had filled the position.  three weeks later she called me back to ask if i was still interested.  i was.  i interviewed with the cfo who told me they had hired someone who worked for one week then quit because she had gotten a job with a really good company in downtown los angeles.  (yeah, i feel certain it was that position.)  so, he said, they had returned to the process and i was the first person to come in of what he expected to be many.  i can't be sure why i wasn't right for that job but they never called me again and i knew it was going that way when i left his office.  i felt like i was perhaps too strong a personality for him.  i have distinct ideas about what constitutes good customer service, how it should be delivered and how an organization can achieve this.  perhaps he wanted someone more mold-able. 

i interviewed in el segundo with an online makeup company.  the manager explained to me in the interview that she had lost her manager to a booming shoe company just up the coast.  (yes, i believe it was that booming shoe company.)  i think the question i got tangled up in was about how i, as a man, could lead a customer service team dealing with something so distinctly feminine in nature.  i remember saying my wife had strong feelings about makeup and i remember the manager responding by saying every woman has strong feelings about makeup.  i think that was it.  i thought i did well otherwise but i think i was disqualified for that position on the basis of that one moment in the interview. 

i interviewed for a dental group in south gate.  i thought i had a good shot at that position but the manager called me the very next day and let know he appreciated me coming in but that i would not be moving forward in the process.  this is yet another thing for which the unemployed need thick skin.  rejection.  i was rejected for all of these positions.  i was not good enough.  in spite of the fact i take great care to be informed in my area, i work hard to be a professional and to ensure i will be more than competitive in the work place, in spite of the fact i am articulate, knowledgeable, personable and computer and industry savvy, i was rejected about every three to four weeks for the past 294 days.  in case you don't know let me tell you something about this one particular point.  it fucking sucks.  more, it fucking sucks the self esteem out of your heart like a parasite.

a friend contacted me about a position with a really good company in glendale.  she had me jump through about 18,000 hoops then one week later she called to let me know they did not think my experience was right for the job.  she had also called me a few weeks earlier about a temporary contract position with an aerospace company.  (yeah, who knew those jobs still existed?)  on that occasion also my experience was unacceptable. 

there's more.  several more but those are perhaps the ones that have stayed with me a bit.  the job i landed is closely aligned with my experience.  the manager who interviewed me first exemplified my values.  she said to me her job is to ensure the csr's outside her office on the floor have good reason to get up and come into work.  she asked me about my philosophy for managing csr's and i told her i thought it was an especially stressful job, that these representatives have to be accountable to someone directly on the phone for maybe 2-5 minutes at a time with working breaks of another couple of minutes between such periods.  in the course of these calls the customer expects them to be empathetic, to genuinely care, to be an expert on the business of the company, to take responsibility for whatever has occurred and to fashion a solution in mere seconds.  i explained to that manager that in this role i think it is my job to help them be better and better at being all of these things to the customer and also to support them with tools to increase their rate of success.  that interview for me became a discussion.  we talked for about an hour and i was treated with the respect perhaps due a thoughtful and motivated person in the industry with 15-plus years experience.  she made it clear to me our customer service philosophies were in harmony, (if not unison.) 

next i interviewed with would be peers and as with a company down in cerritos i was worried i had perhaps been a bit too articulate and ambitious.  one of my recruiters had also suggested to me ahead of an interview with the booming shoe company that i was a strong personality and that could work against me on occasion.  still, she recommended me rolling the dice and being me.  in cerritos i felt certain it cost me but in retrospect i did not need to be at that telcom.  working with insecure people who are perhaps more interested in their personal career plight than in just working hard toward the company's objectives and thereby coloring their workplace reputation is less than ideal for me.  according the my human resources contact i was a unanimous choice in a lengthy process that included many candidates.  i could not be more pleased or optimistic about my new position.  in addition to matching up with a company that is vastly similar to the company i spent nearly 12 years with the people i have already been in contact with and who interviewed me reflect glowingly on the company.  (yes, in some part because they chose me.  you see-i am working on my self esteem?)

so it is that i am grateful.  i need to call these people and send out notes but here is a quick laundry list of those who helped me get through this mean season.

first and foremost my children helped me to persevere.  they were very much aware of the fact that daddy did not have a job but they were still just themselves everyday.  they smiled at me everyday.  recently mark said to me out of the blue as he walked up to me and hugged me, "best dad ever."  he's five.  man, i smiled for about an hour over that one. 

thanks to my friend gabe de la rosa who recommended me to that great company in downtown la.  thanks to my friend brian lamp who checked in on me every few weeks to let me know about places he had been looking for me and who always asked how i was doing and what irons i had in the fire.  thanks to a former associate who presented me to that aerospace company and to glendale's best online, diy legal eagles to no avail, and to my friend charles, who i once had the extreme bad fortune of having to terminate from my employ, who checked in at that glendale company on my behalf as he worked there for several years.  thanks to my best buddy steve who listened to my interview stories and got mad on my behalf i was not getting hired.  thanks to my mother-in-law and sisters and brother-in-law who always treated me with respect and dignity in spite of the fact my wife and i separated and i became unemployed within one month of one another.  the occasional babysitting was also appreciated.  thanks to henry and monique who always expressed disbelief when i did not get the job.  i told mo i needed an appointment with her before all of my interviews because she made me feel like a champ.  thanks to a former mentor and manager who has been helpful and instructive several times in the recently rocky course of my career; jeanie. she along with 10 other people responded positively to a plea for endorsements i made through linkedin.com and endorsed me.  along with jeanie i owe thanks to: david from my firefighting days, joe, stella and sarah who i worked with at the water company, vicky, rafael, jose and trina from the english language company, (for having spent less than two years there i met the best people,) and greg and ashley who i worked with most recently and who represent special endorsements for me because they come from that bad employer i had and they are two people who preceded me out the door both in an especially unhappy manner.  (moreover, both of these people are especially impressive people in the workplace.  it is hard to imagine how a company can succeed when it bleeds good people like these but then again, a consultant once suggested to me in a very wink-wink fashion in that very workplace that sometimes businesses succeed in spite of their owners.)  linkedin has a tool for requesting these endorsements and this was something i used only recently, as my desperation grew, so as you can imagine i was truly touched when they began coming in.  Jeanie responded practically immediately.  Joe wrote a glowing endorsement.  Ashley showed real caring and asked me to keep her up to date.  (note to self; call ashley when done writing.)  if any of these people every needed someone to testify to the pure golden quality of their individual characters, i will be first in line.

thanks also to my ex who expressed genuine happiness when she learned i had gotten the job and who was also considerate when i first became unemployed.  (we'll always have the sizzler.)  thanks to david and pete who kept me sane on a daily basis, who commiserated with me and agreed with my notions about the process and how vapid my previous employer was.  thanks to lily who adjusted my resume, cover letter and nearly my linkedin account too.  thanks to my brother and sara.  thanks to my dad and carol.  thanks to todd and chris.  thanks to the people at my kid's school who understood and gave us a discount for a season.  thanks to ashley who gave me discounted haircuts and gave terra the cutest doo ever.  thanks to dominique who accepted me last week ahead of my 2nd interview on short notice to tidy up my don draper haircut.  thanks to destiney, amy jean, tanya, alicia, joel, john, mary, wolf and perhaps most of all stephanie, all good people formerly employed in that horrific place, (of whom stephanie tells me i am the, "best boss ever," every time i contact her, well, both times i contacted her first for info and second to see if she was interested in a job i had been contacted about.)  thanks too, to linda, kathryn, bill, eddie, shane, steve, chris, mike, scott, jessica, sylvia, chad, mike, jesse, jesse, ruben, felix, rob, tami, lisa, rodney, dee2, katie and all of my friends and acquaintances who helped me feel normal and worth a damn during this time when it was easy to feel sorry for myself or less than.  i know it's not an academy award, this getting employed moment in time, but it's been hard and i love my people and think the world of them.

in memoriam: (big) gary patterson

“There are books which we read early in life, which sink into our consciousness and seem to disappear without leaving a trace. And then one day we find, in some summing-up of our life and put attitudes towards experience, that their influence has been enormous.”
― Anaïs Nin

so it is with men and acquaintances.  some come and go.  some are present forever and others pass in a moment but when they leave the earth and we reflect on them we come to realize their true stature. 

in the summer i reached the age of 12 my family, (as it were,) moved to 812 north calvados avenue in covina, california, 91723.  we moved in next door to a gigantic catholic family called the pattersons, the patriarch of whom was gary patterson, a man if ever there was one.

big gary was ubiquitous in that neighborhood.  he presided over it like the mayor and his children: cindy, patty, gary, laurie and mark, along with his wife marge and any number of other relatives who might have been temporarily residing at 804 north calvados avenue, were his ambassadors to the community.  big gary always knew what was going on in our neighborhood and beyond extending out to the covina valley. 

he passed a few days ago, no doubt leaving a gaping hole to be filled by his progeny and those he touched, (including myself.)  i had not been in close contact with the pattersons recently.  i saw big gary at my wedding some six years ago.  he was in good health after having lost a substantial amount of weight and i was so pleased to have him and marge attend our celebration that i had to drunkenly walk him out to his car and talk his ear off the whole way lavishing praise on him for his influence in my life.  in retrospect i did a poor job and i would like to correct that here and now even if only for myself.

big gary was love incarnate.  he was not divisive.  he was not political.  he was not small in any way, shape or form.  he played large, always.  big gary was a true believer in the teachings of jesus christ and the bible as evidenced by his devotion to church and his affiliations including the knights of columbus.  he preached the gospel of christ daily but not verbally, rather by example.  he was gentle.  he oozed loving kindness.

what is a man?  big gary was a mechanic and could repair an automobile.  he owned a liquor store at one time.  he played the tuba in the covina concert band.  he adored his wife.  he was a master photographer for a season and built his own darkroom in the back of his garage.  big gary was the definition of a family man.  he was a camper and late in life, well after i had left town and lost contact, he became ordained and ministered to the local police department as chaplain.

“The more one forgets himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.”
-viktor frankl

big gary transcended.  he called his children "honey," and kissed them goodnight on the lips.  when he gave advice he never quoted the bible or held up some ridiculous example of perfection as that thing to strive for.  rather he accepted people where they were and with all of their faults and he practiced compassion.  big gary did not get angry.  when his children erred, and by that i mean not just his own but any of us who were in some way connected to him, he did not get upset or raise his voice.  he expressed disappointment.  his face would become more round.  his eyebrows would curl down the side of his face and his cheeks would droop and his forehead would wrinkle and it was evident he shared the pain of the moment with him who would learn from experience.

big gary served his family and his community.  he was a man of the world who was always ready to give, whatever he had, whatever he could.  his children are a testament to this fact as well.

tomorrow i will attend big gary's funeral mass and i am curious as to how this church can be expected to contain all of these people who will come to pay their respects to the man.  he touched so many through his affiliations and by proxy through his children and extended family.  i imagine there will be too many of us strange strangers connected to one another only by having known of the legend of this great man.

i remember a time in my early 20s when his son gary, myself and our other buddy steve were in the kitchen sitting at the 50's style table there drinking beer and playing some sort of drinking game in the wee hours of the morning.  i don't know why but we were all in our underwear when in comes big gary to get a drink from the refrigerator, in his underwear.  like typical 20-year-olds, we were not exactly considerate of others in the house as it related to our noise level and i think marge had been annoyed at the racket emanating from the kitchen at 2am.  instead of tearing into us for being so loud and rambunctious, gary clad in the exact same uniform we were wearing just looked at us like a kindred spirit, got his drink, glanced back at us with a look of concern and shuffled back to bed.  i imagine he told marge he gave us the business but of course, he didn't.  we still quieted, a bit, for a while...  the thing is big gary said all he had to say.  (talk about laconic.)  i don't recall him saying a single word though i know we talked to him so there were probably words exchanged but it wasn't what might have been expected.  he knew his presence said all he wanted or needed to say which was, "hey guys, there are other people in this house."  no lectures on the evils of beer consumption in excess or how loud quarters bouncing off a formica table are at that time of night.  just a look.  in retrospect that look said go ahead and be 20-something.  i prefer you here in my kitchen than out there in the world behind the wheel of a car or in a strange place experimenting with alcohol.  that was love and wisdom.

the catholics of the san gabriel valley are going to miss big gary, as will the concert band enthusiasts, the brotherhood of knights of columbus, the good people of calvados avenue, the thin blue line, the bevy of grandchildren, the cousins and extended family members, his earthy daughters and his manly sons, (so like him,) and we will all carry a piece of big gary with us the rest of our days.  for me i will strive to be a father to my children as he was, long on gentle loving kindness and understanding, and i will think of him when i need to remember how to act. 

his wife marge will miss him most of all.  she was his other half and she embodies the same values he did.  i mourn her loss even while i celebrate this man and the fact that i was influenced by him.

                                                  little gary, big gary & mark.  the patterson men.

positively 1st street

from the i am so ridiculous collection...
in considering my internal dialogue i noticed i say a lot of derogatory stuff to myself.  i know better.  we all do-right?  verbally abusing myself snuck up on me, however. 

ego is a funny thing.  at times i have had such a large ego as to think it was just natural for me to be better at things than other people.  friends and family used to tease me about playing games, from pool or basketball, to cards or clue, they would say i was too competitive and that it sometimes made it less than fun for them to play.  i was compelled to try to adopt a casual tone about games. 

in fact i wasn't that great.  i am sure i had seasons of excellence like anyone else but in a grand scheme my life performance has been marked by mediocrity.  whoops!?!  there i just did it again.

so this is the type of thing i do.  while there may be truth in that statement, perhaps i am mediocrity personified, giving the thought utterance works against the effort to improve. 

i want to be the best me i can be. i still want greatness.

in my seasons of egotism i played mental games with myself.  in my recreational basketball league i took to berating myself when i made a bad play.  i seemed to think i was better than everyone else out there and in spite of conventional wisdom recommending a positive internal dialogue, i decided i wanted to be above that idea.  i disliked bravado and self aggrandizement in others and so my objective was to play better than others, (especially those guys who often thumped their chests,) and to do it quietly, but meanly in as much as i caused others to lose.  my ultimate joy was to make eye contact after the game with a guy who had made a few plays against us and who cheered himself demonstratively, or even to pat him on the back as i walked out of the gym a victor.  the same was true at night in the bars around the pool table.  i meant to be a machine who just quietly won over and over and over again.  it was the best way i could tell those self proclaimed sharks to the shut the fuck up. 

that worked at some points in time.  at basketball, as at pool or other contests, i came to understand how fleeting one's prime is.  as my skills eroded my inner commentary grew harsher.  on the basketball court when i missed shots, i might say to myself, "nice one."  it's a sarcasm born of a sly despair and ignorance.  in the work place on those occasions when i knew i had not done my best work i scolded myself for not finding more time or not starting earlier

this destructive habit occurred to me recently on the basketball court.  i had a good day when my knees felt very limber and strong and the warm weather helped make them so.  i played better than normal too, and i recalled that swagger of yesteryear.  i remembered a different dialogue, one in which i just assumed i was better than the guy guarding me and that there was no way he could stop me from doing whatever i wanted to do. 

i haven't had a lot of days like that recently so it stood in stark contrast to the meme of the day, which is that i am getting old.  the contrast got me to thinking.  i'm going to make a change.  i am going to positive up that internal dialogue.  (should be good.)

Kings - Stanley Cup Champions

it's no longer spring so it makes sense that a big procrastinater like me is finally doing some deep cleaning.  i'm in the kid's room, throwing out what doesn't fit and toys of bygone years, rearranging virtually everything and cleaning deep in the carpet, windows and sills and all the cracks and corners.  since terra had a last day of school party and so did not go to the parade with me i got her a souvenir pennant commemorating the kings championship and today i put it up on a wall in her room.  afterwards, i stood back and admired the pennant and for a split second a wave of emotion welled up in me.

why?  do i care this much about a sports team?  if so, that is beyond silly.  that is not it, however.  i stopped and thought about it and i realized i feel something deep because i remember what the championships of my teams meant to me when i was a kid. 

in 1977 when the raiders beat the vikings in superbowl xi at the rose bowl, i was 11 and it was the greatest thing in the world.  i remember fred biletnikoff's sliding catch at the viking one that set up a touchdown like it was yesterday.  i remember the raider's first touchdown so vividly because i was impressed like nobody's business.

the raiders set up in a goal line set at the vike's one yard line.  of course mark van eeghen or clarence davis were about to pound through the middle of the line for a score, i assumed in great anticipation.  the vikings figured the same thing but stabler and john madden had another idea.  stabler took the snap and turned to his running backs who filed towards him as if to take the hand-off and vault into the end zone.  the snake faked the give and tucked the ball into his abdomen as slyly as his nickname suggests and acted as if trotting away from the handoff but suddenly, he pulled up and turned towards the left side of his line where he saw dave casper springing free from a tepid, almost fake, block and look up over his left shoulder.  i remember the sun.  the crown city, my city, was awash with golden hues of brightness and stabler pulled the ball up to his left shoulder and tossed it like a nerf basketball over the top of the pile of humanity clustered in front of him at the goal line.  i could see the ball spinning with stabler's trademark counter-clockwise rotation, sunshine guiding it over outstretched claws of hands and sparkling off the brown leather as it reached casper, "the ghost," who caught it like a firefighter catching a baby, two hands under the oblong treasure, cradling into his gut to put the raiders up 9-0.  (what casper did next is not what a firefighter would do with a baby after the catch, by the way.) 

i remember just being amazed.  i looked at the tv with my jaw open like a flytrap.  i was ecstatic and i admired that play because it was just so much bigger than life.  i did not expect that play.  neither did bud grant and the vikings who were losing their fourth superbowl.  i had never seen anything like that.  when the raiders were beating the patriots and the steelers en route to that superbowl glory i had not seen a play like that.  they had been an awesome team, especially in the passing game and in sheer moxie, but this play surprised me and made me feel something deep inside.  the world was large and there was much more to it, than i had dreamt of in my philosophy.

in october of 1981 the dodgers won the world series.  for the third time in five years they played the yankees in that series after having lost the previous two times.  thhe dodgers lost both of the first two games in yankee stadium then came home and won three in a row at dodger stadium, (all buy one run.)  then they walloped the yanks in game 6 back in new york.  what a thrill that entire post season was.  i attended the one game playoff against the astros at dodger stadium to settle the playoff participant after each time won a half of the strike split season.  jerry reuss was brilliant that day.

i had attended several world series games in 1977 and 1978 when the dodgers lost to the yankess and reggie jackson so revenge was especially sweet.  jay johnstone had a big pinch hit home run i'll never forget.  when you are 16 and a pinch hitter comes up for your team you are always thinking home run, (which reminds me of how i thought the same thing in the playoffs in 1988 when mike scioscia came up against the mets.)  the dodgers were bigger than life that year.  ron cey got hit in the head, pedro guerrero hit a monster homer to rub it in near the end of game 6, steve yeager had clutch hits and fernando, burt hooten, jerry reuss and the rest of the dodger pitching staff mowed down yankees like a jefferson davis dream sequence.  (dave winfield 1-22 on the series?!)

those were big moments for me.  later as an adult i enjoyed seeng the angels beat the san francisco giants in the 2002 world series.  at that time i thought of myself as more of an angel fan than a dodger fan but i go back and forth, (to the horror of many.)  at that time the angels had darin erstad,who was my favorite player, and they were a homegrown, ragtag unit that was not expected to win it.  and now the kings have won the cup.  wow.

there is still a little kid inside me.  noam chomsky says sports are a diversion that distract and pacify people who are in many ways being taken advantage of or at least in a democracy, not being represented properly, and he is not wrong.  still, what a diversion.  sports represent the vary nature of life.  there is a great deal of human drama therein.  the games are relateable.  we know what it is like to succeed and to fail and so we cling to our teams and we live and die with them. 

i have lived and died with the kings for 20 years.  (i was a fan much further back but really latched on in the wayne gretzky era, even naming my first cat "gretzky."  i remember marcel dionne and the triple crown line and i have a signed team canada card rogie vachon once gave me.)  it was in the early '90s when i decided the kings were my favorite of all teams.  i fell in love with hockey and was dismayed at never having played the game, (though i did play quite a bit of floor hockey, as it was called, in college.)  hockey was new to me and i loved the combination of athleticism and toughness.  i was becoming more politically aware in those days and may have even felt guilty for being such a jock and avid follower of my teams.  so, i remained loyal to the lakers, raiders, dodgers and angels, but the kings were something of a powerhouse with wayne gretzky and luc robataille and company and so, i latched on to them.  a funny thing happened however.  the king's owner bruce mcnall had his empire come crashing down in a barrage of tax evasion charges and the no longer flush kings hit the skids.  from 1994 through 2011 the kings won one playoff series and missed the playoffs 8-10 seasons in a row to begin the new millenium. 

so what?  i remember that series they won like it was yesterday.  i remember adam deadmarsh's overtime game winner against the vaunted detroit redwings in overtime as he fell to the ice and shot the puck at the same time.  i also remember all those in between years.  hell, i remember the years of vitaly yachmenev, yanick perreault and alexander frolov.  these were some poor teams.  each year i would see the bright spots but each year by the midway point in the season it was obvious the kings were going nowhere.  i despised their ownership, too. 

then something even funnier happened.  the kings got good.  dustin brown and anze kopitar grew up.  they seemed to take something from each of the several coaches they had in their careers and got better.  the kings finally got a goalie; jonathan quick.  most importantly, the kings committed to winning, (from the same ownership group i had formerly detested.)  deam lombardi took over as general manager and brought in a host of old, eastern and northern, hockey people including first terry murray then of course, daryl sutter.  the commitment to winning manifested itself in the kings acquiring depth.  they got mike richards from philadelphia last off season, which was when i knew lombardi and company believed they had a real contender.  i believed too.  the timing seemed right for kopitar and brown in particular. 

the kings won the stanley cup because of their defense and their physicality.  throughout the playoffs it was easy to see that other teams did not want to hit as much as the kings.  they would for a spell then they would drop off and the kings would take a lead.   then the other team would try to match the kings physical play in one big hit and would end up taking a penalty, which the kings took advantage of even when they did not score on the resulting power plays.  it was willie mitchell and matt greene and alex martinez and slava voynov and drew doughty who anchored this team. 

what a glorious run, too.  in 1993 and 1999 i loved playoff hockey because of its edge-of-your-seat nature.  overtime games in particular, make for great theatre.  this year was not like that.  the kings dominated every round.  they started against the team with the best record in hockey, president's trophy winning vancouver canucks and they won the first two games in vancouver and never looked back.  when they lost game four it just seemed like they took their foot of the gas a little bit.  in game five they accelerated anew right into the second round where they met the st louis blues; the second best team in hockey on the regular season.  the kings swept them and there was never a worrisome moment for yours truly.  in the third round the kings faced the phoenix coyotes, a tough team who had a great second half of the season, just like the kings.  the kings won the first two games in phoenix and repeated the pattern they had established against vancouver of dropping the fourth game before winning the series. 

in the finals the kings met the new jersey devils.  the kings won the first two games on the road for the fourth straight series.  true to form they lost the fourth game at home and had to return to new jersey where this time, they lost game 5 as well.  i was worried, finally.  that said at the start of game 6 i predicted the kings would win the game 6-1.  i felt like new jersey had just been hanging with the kings and that the kings would breakout and with the nature of big games being that teams behind will often take more chances when they are on the ultimate precipice of defeat, (as evidenced by a host of superbowls with lopsided scores...or that dodger game six they won 9-2 in yankee stadium in 1981.) the kings went up 3-0 early on a five minute major penalty resulting from an unfortunate boarding hit on rob scuderi that required 30 stitches to sew his face back together.  dustin brown scored on a redirection of a drew doughty shot, the brown scored again on a hard shot from right between the circles which devil's goalie martin brodeur got a piece of but which deflected up the length of his torso and into the net and then terevor lewis scored one more time with about two seconds left in the penalty from in close on a rebound.  the kings never looked back.  (here's a season recap.  this one got me too, boo-hoo.)

it was an amazing run and so satisfying to a longsuffering fan like myself.  i love the lakers but the lakers are perpetual greatness.  they do as good a job as any sports team on the planet of putting the best product possible on the court game after game, season after season.  i hope the laker under the buss family ownership and with mitch kupchak as general manager continue this practice for many more years.  if they are able to do that they will never please me like the kings just did.  there is something about remaining loyal to a team for a long time and finally being rewarded. 

in the intermission between periods two and three of game 6 i went outside with the smokers at the bar just to stretch my legs a bit.  one king fan there assured me if the kings won he would cry.  i laughed a little, understanding the emotion at same time.  my friend, felix, explained that he too would probably shed a tear.  he said this with a smile on his face and cigarette in his mouth and i wondered if i was going to see a bunch of gronw men sobbing. 

with under a minute to play in the game, the 6-1 score all set to confirm my prophetic abilities, the large bar i was in grew cacophonous.  almost everyone in the joint stood, staring at tv screens, mouths agape, clapping hands, hooting and hollering.  cameras snapped, cheers went up, and as the clocked ticked zero the bar manager bear hugged me from behind and said in my ear, "can you believe it-your team won?!"  (tony became an avid kings fan during this post season so he was careful not to call them his team just yet, though i felt different.  as far as i'm concerned, welcome to the fold, tony.)  i was a little shocked but more i was just ecstatic.  i jumped up and down and high-fived david and felix and roy and tony the bar manager and the guy next to roy and the man behind me who assured me jonathan quick would win the conn-smythe tropy for mvp of the playoffs and the two guys in kings gear in the middle of the bar who had joined us in making the entire place a loud uproarious kings bar.  i also looked over at that tall, 20-something kid who said he would cry, his face on the table in the crook of his arms, crying like a baby by himself.  i high-fived his friends.  i looked over at felix who had then sat down and who also had a tear in his eye.  he was not cobbing or anything but his eyes were moist and when he saw me look at him he seemed to laugh a little in spite of himself.  the older man who owned the towing company and who had been at the same bar with me through most of these playoffs came over an caught me sitting and put a hand on my left shoulder from behind and patted me about five times real quick in on the belly.  "how about that," he asked jubilantly?!  i just leaned back in exhaustion and grasped his hand and shook it fervently a few times.  "i'm going to the parade," i said, and he assured me he would be there as well.

next came shots.  too many shots.  tony got my kings jersey off the mannequin from behind the bar and told me to put it back on which i did.  monday night karaoke started and those two guys who never stopped dancing got up and sang 'we are the champions.'  sweet. 

three days later i took my son to the parade and since my daughter could not go, i got her a pennant commemorating this historic victory.  the parade was great, 200,000 fans lining figueroa downtown and the kings rolling by on the tops of buses with lord stanley's cup in tow.  mark kept calling it the piston cup, which tickled me to no end. 

so here i was a week or so later putting the pennant up in terra's room when it all caught up to me for a moment.  i was so happy the kings had won.  i wished the kids were a little older to enjoy this as i had with the raiders and the dodgers and magic johnson's lakers of the early '80s.  throughout the playoffs i had engaged the kings with the games as much as possible.   they watched much of the phoenix series with me and when i erupted in cheering and clapping because the kings scored a goal, the kids would erupt as well or come running back into the room to find out what had happened.  "was it kopitar," mark would ask?  (several times it was kopi.)  as i stared at that pennant on the wall i recalled the last month of hockey, terra and mark, the bygone championships of other teams and the many years of falling short for the kings. i remembered the frustration of all the playoff defeats of all my teams and how they could, at times, (ridiculously,) ruin my mood.  i remembered my childhood, kareem abdul-jabbar, ron cey, mike haynes, orel, garret anderson, shaq, reggie smith's bat from the 1978 world series my dad got for me from a friend of his who was a dodger scout, gail goodrich, mickey hatcher, robert horry, jerry west, ted hendricks, frankie rodriguez, robbie keane, rick monday, wilt chamberlain, john lackey, jim plunkett and now justin williams and dustin penner and these glorious kings.  i remembered where i was when many of  those championships were won, even on the side of the freeway getting a speeding ticket when kirk gibson launched one into the right field pavilion. 

i didn't cry.  i could have.  i felt it from deep within me.  i paused looking at that pennant and felt satisfied.  i hoped my kids would remember this one just as i remember the lakers of 1973, barely.  the kings are the stanley cup champions, which consequently makes me feel like a champ too.

why am i being penalized?

i have been unemployed for about 28 weeks and my unemployment coverage in california ran out recently.  now i have no income but all the same bills, for which the maximum unemployment benefit i was receiving was not cutting the mustard to begin with.  what am i to do?

i am doing the only thing i can do now.  i am liquidating my retirement account.  in doing so i will suffer maximum penalty taxes for early withdrawal. 

how is it that when the world's banking industry was on the brink of collapse because of rampant gambling on wall street in the form of credit default swaps and bad mortgages clustered together into unrecognizable forms and sold helter skelter all over the globe, my retirement account was responsible and bore the burden of saving it?  how is that in the last five and one-half years my retirement account has not made one cent but rather has suffered a net loss?  should i have stuffed the money under my mattress?

so as i signed the papers yesterday to liquidate the account in order to sustain me and my five and seven-year-old children for who knows how much longer, (until i find a job,) i had to set aside the tax penalties up front so i do not have the irs on my case at the end of the year.  that is when the irony struck me.

i saved that money over the last 15 years in the workforce and without having any choice in the matter it was essentially raided in 2007 and on an ongoing basis since then.  the banks, by the way, have not paid any penalties.  rather they have paid small fractions of what they should owe not to me but back to the federal government. 

i am okay with that small amount of money going to the government but i am not okay with my being penalized now that i need the money.  it is beyond regrettable that i need the money to begin with.  taxing me extra on it is adding insult to injury. 

in the age of "too big to fail," i feel like i should be "too small to pinch."  doesn't that seem reasonable?  we'll see if i can find a sponsor for this idea in the coming weeks.

fear and virgins

a friend of mine posted a video she found inspiring on facebook last week and i could not help but be intrigued.  it was of pastor raul ries of calvary chapel, (calvary chapel golden springs in diamond bar.) 

i used to attend his church intermittently in the '80s and went to his mentor's calvary chapel in costa mesa in the early '90s.  sometime thereafter i lost my faith, which of course is a euphemism for an utter rejection of an ideology and a belief system.  so it was interesting to see this preacher before me some 25-30 years older than when i had last seen him. 

i clicked on the embedded video and watched as ries began to discuss the end times.  his voice was as familiar as the sound of paper ripping around the seal of a can of chewing tobacco under my fingernail.  neither of these sounds have i heard in years but both of them i heard so many times they are unmistakable.  as a kid i liked raul's voice.  it had that gritty sort of smoky sound perhaps like someone who talked too much.  the familiarity of that voice washed over me as i sat at my computer watching and listening.

raul talked about ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 and he conjured horrific scenes, surely instilling large amounts of fear in the hearts and minds of his supplicants.  he talked of "islamofascists," who would commit acts of terrorism in hopes of reaching heaven where 77 virgins would presumably greet them with legs open and accepting.  raul actually talked about how in the '70s he thought he saw other signs of the end times that were quite different from the signs he saw in the present but he presented these new signs as if they were so much more valid than the earlier signs he saw. 

i remembered those earlier discussions.  raul was for me like a tape recorder i had pressed pause on all those years ago and here i found him again and i pressed pause again and he sounded just the same, saying all the same things but with different boogeymen.  as a younger man i was engrossed in raul's preaching.  i found him engaging as he would talk about his own checkered past and how he was redeemed by jesus. 

i used to wonder how so many people after all these years could still believe saddam hussein and iraq had attacked the united states on 9/11, or from whence islamophobia came?  i noticed just today there is a "birther," running for office in california and he has a serious chance of winning.  (a birther, of course, is someone who believes the president is muslim or that he was not actually born in the united states, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.)

seeing raul ries preaching and hearing the audience respond from time to time helped me to understand these phenomenon.  fundamentalist christians of the calvary chapel ilk have little chance of knowing the truth.  every weekend, because they are good people who wish to be enriched and inspired by and through their faith, they march into these calvary chapels filled with positivity and open to learn all that god has for them.  and every weekend they likely hear ideology similar to what i heard.  it is indoctrination and worse.  it's laziness and fear-mongering.  it is raul ries and chuck smith and greg laurie and a slew of other modern day shaman capitalizing on the goodness of people, people who navigate the world daily with only the best of intentions and who are looking for something bigger then themselves to latch onto and help light there way.  instead of a positive message that encourages and uplifts them they are being spoon fed fear.

the end times are coming.  horrible things await those who reject this message including the lake of fire.  those who are different from you all want to kill you.  world war III is upon us.

it was quite the stroll down memory lane, too, as i heard the same message back when i attended the calvary chapel.  back then the end times were upon us because sin was running rampant, gay people were being accepted in society, (a sure sign of the apocalypse,) communist russia was the evil empire and one had better be ready because the lord was coming like a thief in the night and it would be real bad to be left behind.  i had forgotten how insidious it was. 

i got out and while i know few like myself, (i can't think of a single friend from those days who is not still a christian,) it just didn't occur to me raul ries could get away with this.  i was surprised he could preach this lazy doctrine of fear and maintain his place atop this still popular church, but then that is what fear does.  it paralyzes.  these people are afraid and they feel obligated to attend their church every week because it feels like part of their penance.  i remember feeling low as i arrived at church every week be it a sunday morning or night, or even on wednesday evenings.  i felt guilty just showing up there but i knew i had to do it and then by the time the service ended i felt like a champ primarily because i had endured the sermon.  i was earnest in my prayers throughout the service and then when the pastor made his call for salvation and the choir sang 'just as i am,' a good feeling of love swept over me and i was ready to go eat some lunch and to tackle another week.  after all, i was redeemed. 

i see now it is all a part of a formula.  the calvary chapel formula, as i recall it went like this:

• everyone shuffles into church in casual attire because this is just that kind of church, one where you can be yourself.
• there would be a welcome or perhaps an invocation to create some air of solemnity.
• next came the songs, those folksy, rock and rolley kind of hip songs but for jesus because this is just that kind of church, casual, where you can be yourself.
• every business needs funding; offering time, typically offered along with the sense of responsibility that it was to you to give 10% of your earnings to the church by god's order.  (not a bad business model.)
• next came the sermon.  i guess raul ries may be something of a specialist on end times because over the years it always seemed to be his go-to message.  it basically goes like this: the world is a dark and horribly sinful place with all manner of perversion and corruption but jesus is your savior.  accept him and live by his tenets and you will go to heaven for eternity.oh, and the end will be unbelievably ugly and intense and firey and painful an we're right there, right on the cusp of just that end so, well you know, you had better join this club, suit up every week and be sure to give us 10% of your cash.  that message would be capped with some quick word about how great it was to be a christian and to know one is saved...followed by the call to come on down to the altar and accept the lord.
• lots of emotions, crying, swaying back and forth with hands in the air, sinners going forward followed by flocks of supporters to insure the emotional connection and anchor.
• an advertisement of what will be featured in the sunday night service and the flock is bid adieu.

in retrospect i couldn't be more dismayed by this charade.  i am particularly appalled by a man who has been preaching the same message for 40 years, always telling his congregation the end is near and seemingly believing it himself, (near as in within the next 10 years but possibly next month,) not waking up one day and looking himself in the mirror and going wait a minute.  what am i doing?  some days i tell them to fear god, some days i tell them to fear the devil, some days i tell them to fear the world, and some days i tell them to fear islamists but always i tell them to fear.  how do you do that for 40 years without realizing you are a false prophet?  how do you live your own life without realizing fear is among the very worst conditions to live one's life under all the while selling fear?

i would have embedded the 35 minute clip i saw on my friend's facebook page but it is no longer available.  (whoever posted it has since deleted their youtube account.)  still, there are many examples of raul ries and other preachers, (many of them of calvary chapel,) doing their thing on youtube.