From Mom's Basement

I’ve been running in a relay for most of my life. Imagine a high school track meet, imagine the baton being passed to me by my mother, then imagine both of us running with every ounce of our body to outlast the elderly person who overshadows our lives with every step he takes.

Imagine one of those cliche genies who will grant you a wish, only you can’t know the full implications of what will happen when you make it. You wish for world peace and aliens take over Earth, so the monkey paw says. My life is semi-charmed in that sense. I had a fairly sheltered and comfortable life as a child. A maid came once a week, I went to a private Montessori school, nobody hit me, and I’ve never had to fill out a financial aid document at college. I point this out in advance because I have a pretty immense guilt complex about the whole thing; I haven’t earned shit. I’ve been incredibly lucky in my life, I’ve squandered opportunity after opportunity, and every day for me is a battle between making up for lost time and keeping my stride just ahead of him.
Continue reading ‘From Mom’s Basement: The Metaphor That Wasn’t’

Posted in memoir, this isn't livejournal anymore

Rudy: Coach I just wanted to thank you. If it weren’t for your dumbass not playing me, I would have never known how to carry myself with the knowledge that I am the best player on the whole damn roster, which is paradoxically a great thing because it somehow intimidates people.

Ara Parseghian: To be honest Rudy, I had often thought about cutting you. I mean you’re such a little bag of shit that I think I could pick you up, and I’m about to start getting social security checks. But then you started not showing up to practice and I realized that you simply carry yourself with so much swagger.

Rudy: [staring at Ara like he is an annoying chihuahua] I realized that God makes certain people to be football players, but that if I wanted to get on the field, I had to stop pretending I give a shit about anything and just walk around with a chip on my shoulder.

Ara Parseghian: That’s the look! God, I love that look. I wish I could put your swagger in some of my players bodies, Rudy. These guys are just too talented and clean-cut, you can tell they’re all unemotional robotic sissies.

Rudy: Haha, yeah. So here’s the deal, my dad is coming down to see me play in a game. And you are going to put me in the game, believe that. I know you think this is some great program or something, but trust me, in 20 years this school is going to be a shitstain on the face of college football. A dreadfully overrated program full of whiny kids who look like the Brawny paper towel guy. But if you reverse your stupid decision to keep not playing me, then people will at least still manage to talk about the program as if it still has relevancy, and you can go to some prestigious bowls and get your asses kicked by a real football team.

Ara Parseghian: You know Rudy, if I activate you, I have to deactivate someone else. Someone who has talent. And plays a position. I don’t even know what position you play, I haven’t actually watched you in practice. Anyway, it’s a completely illogical storyline twist that I’d ever play you in a game since there is a roster limit. But now that you have come in and let me know that you want to play football, yet you didn’t really care about playing football, I am confused and aroused.

Rudy: Yeah, thats the weird thing about having swagger. It always seems to be a handy excuse for whatever action you take. So anyway coach, this is for everyone who has ever told me that this would be impossible. Because I wanna rub their faces in it. Unless you don’t let me play, then it’s not for them at all and I never asked you. And I think you’re fucking ugly and I’m going to try to bang your granddaughter.

Ara Parseghian: [sighs] OK.

Rudy: OK?

Ara Parseghian: I’m overwhelmed by your completely logical appeal to my senses. I think you’ll be a great asset to our team for some reason, even though you can’t actually play football. You can dress up like a football player next season. Just make sure to keep acting like you don’t care if someone calls a penalty on you. Especially if for some reason it’s pass interference.

Rudy: Great. I hope I can get run over by someone then act like it never happened the one time I actually manage to tackle someone. Speaking of tackling, give me your granddaughters phone number.

Ara Parseghian: Oh right, sorry. [hands over slip of paper]

Rudy: [keeps angrily scowling at coach] Thanks, fuckface.

Oh, and one more thing, I want $10,000 under the table just for improving your sorry team with my visage. I’ll be a fucking folk hero for a bunch of boring Midwesterners who chomp down mushroom and olive pizzas long after you’re dead.

Ara Parseghian: What?

Rudy: If you don’t, I’ll write “Pay Me Ara” on my shoes.

Ara Parseghian: I really don’t understand why, but I’m impressed by the stupidity and callousness that shows. I’ll tell the AD to steal the collection plates just for you, Rudy. Your swagger is unassailable!

Rudy: [leaves without saying a word]

Posted in fiction
Tags: intensity, rudy, swagger, swagtensity

Super Baseball 2020 is probably my favorite of the SNES sports games, not because it is a challenge, but because of it’s aesthetics. Baseball is visualized to take place in the year 2020, which adds in some funky new rules. For instance, robots (who break down easily) and women litter the ranks of the players. Only balls struck to dead center field are home runs, everywhere else the fans are shielded with glass and the ball will bounce back into play. In return, the foul zone is cut back to just the area between the bag and home plate, which is about an even trade off in my mind. You have a level of cash that is adjusted based on what you do on the field. Make a diving catch, gain $1000, swing and miss, lose $10. This cash is pooled, and you have the opportunity to buy “add-ons” to players, which is sort of a futuristic way of saying “put players on steroids”. They’ll be given 40% more power or 10% better fielding based on what you can afford.
Continue reading ‘Retro Video Game Review: Super Baseball 2020′

Posted in essay
Tags: baseball, reviews, video games

When I was as young as 19, I had a feeling that sports writing was going to be a passion for me. I had always been a fairly smart sports fan in my estimation. I can still remember studying for some high school finals while the Mets let Edgardo Alfonzo walk and signed Tom Glavine, and thinking what a damn travesty of a decision that was. Then watching 2003 opening day via MLB Gameday in a computer lab while Glavine got torched in his Mets debut by Corey Patterson. I’d watched from afar as people like Aaron Gleeman climbed the rung from anonymous sports blogger to semi-known sports blogger to website content writer, and I thought “one day that will be me.”

Me and a few close friends had started a site called Future Considerations (see sidebar) and started pumping out some quality work. We got some Deadspin links, I think around four or five of them. I wound up doing MetsGeek (again, see sidebar) for a little while, and eventually the combination of SB Nation’s growth with Amazin Avenue, the 2007 collapse, and my own haze of personal drama and questioning led me to hit the sidelines of sports writing and miss out on some pretty great opportunities.
Continue reading ‘Dreams and Hangups’

Posted in essay, this isn't livejournal anymore

To start with, I want to make sure I get across the point that The Decision was not anywhere close to the IMPACT of 9/11, nor did it have any sort of meaningful mark to the world. I hate trivializing bigger things to make a point in sports, and I won’t be doing that in this post.

I watched The Decision. I watched it beginning to end. With great fascination at the spectacle of the event. But that’s not really that unusual for me, I watch lots of games with the same level of interest, and I watch lots of shows intently as well. What separates TV from “show” to “event”, for me, is if you stay on the same station afterwards.
Continue reading ‘Was “The Decision” The Most Surreal TV Event Since 9/11?’

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: firebombs, lebron james, NBA

My dad and I both jerked off to the same picture of Tawnee Stone.
Different time,
different place,
different zone.
Same feeling of alone.

When we felt too tired to masturbate,
we chased dates;
on websites that let you rate.
Focused on that ideal mate.
The one that never came
because we tied ourselves closed.
Work, room, bed, home alone.

Not as I do.
Because someday,
things will take on a new hue.

Dad was never able to take me under his wing,
because he was making a porno folder entitled “schwing”.
Beatles songs to sing,
strung out with a face that said “loading…”
Teaching me everything
about addiction, overthinking,
and worrying.

Someday doesn’t come
unless you tear it out of the aether.
You taught me that too.

Posted in poetry

I haven’t shed a single tear since I found out my father died on Friday afternoon.

In my opinion, you need one of two elements to bring someone to cry: surprise or attachment. The news wasn’t a surprise, and obviously, as anyone who has read my earlier stuff about my father can attest, we had little attachment.

I find the scenario very sad, but it’s almost a non-dynamic situation. The second my dad could escape the city of Houston, he did. Alone and away from the people he had an attachment to, he slowly started to lose interest in things. He didn’t work. My uncle died, and this caused incredible grief and second-guessing for him. He drifted further from his friends and family. My grandmother died, and it only furthered his sorrow and self-anguish. Our weekly talks became monthly, then became non-existent.

As a (aspiring-to-be-read) writer, there isn’t anything sexy about that plot line. He moved. He was sad because he moved. He became sadder. He became sadder. He didn’t do anything about it. He never did anything about it. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to about him in the past couple of days claimed that they’d offered him advice about something: selling cars, his medical situation, his dental situation, his life. He would always get real touchy and offended by these. He knew what was best for him, and didn’t want your help with it.

He distanced himself from me. I’m not completely positive, but I always believed this was an act of martyrdom. Between being a poor role model, a chronic drug abuser, and his desire to keep me shielded from the reality of his situation, he removed all emotion from our relationship. When I talked with the people who owned the trailer park, they told me that he’d been saying he had prostate cancer for the last couple of months, since he’d gone to a doctor. His immediate family had never heard about that.

I explored his trailer, as I was allowed to look but not take anything yet; it was like exploring a stranger’s home. I had no idea that his place was as big as it was. I had no idea that he owned guns. The amount of loose papers pertaining to things that I’d had no idea he was involved in was staggering.

It was almost a perfect reflection of the indecision in his life: the bed entirely obscured by an acoustic guitar, recently clipped beard hair covering the sinktop and cascading down into the sink. He had all the right intentions, but he never acted on them.

The justice of the peace noted that as he came into the trailer, he found my dad’s wallet laying on top of a pack of Dr. Pepper right by the door, and hypothesized that since he can’t think of anyone who’d leave his wallet so close to the door, perhaps he knew he was going. If he did, he went without calling anyone that he knew.

I still haven’t cried, not even while rehashing all this to write it down. I don’t think I’m going to. Looking at all the effort he put into not letting us be close, it’s clear to me that he didn’t want me to feel the same pain and anguish that he felt over my uncle’s and grandmother’s deaths. It was the one plan in his later years that he was able to put into place and carry out, and because of that, I feel obligated to honor his last, silent request. No matter how ridiculous I think it is.

Posted in memoir
Tags: dad