So, I'm thinking this random thoughts thing is working for me. Let's see where it goes today. As usual I offer thoughts will little factual backup, and few links.
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So, yesterday I spoke to kids at the Explore Charter School in Brooklyn for a program called ABC Day. I spoke with my friend Eric and we talked about being journalists. We spoke to eighth grade students, and told them the ups and downs of it, at least from our angle, and why we keep doing it. It was good to remember why I got into this line of work when I started and what has kept me at it all these years. Eric's presentation included a great piece he created for radio program Studio 360, about the use of music in Disney movies and shows, and went down a storm.
I have to say, I really don't feel all that informed about the charter school vs. public school debate, but I very much liked being in that school yesterday. The hallways were clean, the kids were well-behaved and respectful of their teachers. Everyone seemed to genuinely be there for the best reasons, and administrators seemed very much a part of the lives of the students. I even saw the principal directly comfort an upset student. The student had gone to the principal personally, and they had a little talk about whatever it was that had been on the child's mind.
I believe it is probably quite rare for most big city principals to be that close with their students.
And, yes, the students wore uniforms. I know that 15 years ago this would have seemed extremely upsetting to me, making the kids in the poorer areas conform like this, but it didn't bother me at all yesterday. In fact it seemed, to me, to help foster a sense of mission: we are here to learn, this is our learning uniform.
What can I say, I really liked it. I need to learn more about the pros and cons of how charter schools impact the rest of the educational budget and all that, but for now, count me a fan of at least one school. If they are all, or mostly, run as well as Explore then I can't see how they are bad for students, the world of education and ultimately our nation.
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The financial meltdown seems to just be getting started. Gold is shooting through the roof, and yesterday I read an extremely depressing article in Rolling Stone about how various parties are trying to scoop up land in Africa to farm it because they believe the world is headed for a food crash. When that crash happens they want to be the ones holding the food, because people will pay anything for food.
Money will mean less and less in this reality, because if you're starving your paper currency can't really help you.
God, this really seems like a "Mad Max" sort of reality that is being bet on. But the sad part is so many of the world's nations already believe this Malthusian scenario is likely. Various nations are fighting to buy this African land from the various political factions that control it, with some wildcat-style American capitalists coming in too.
Add in our horrific oil spill, malfunctioning economy, corrupt banking industry and even more corrupt culture in Washington, D.C. and you have a picture that is as grim as any I can remember.
I think we in America have been accustomed, over the past several generations to just sort of knowing that things will work out somehow. And they mostly have. A lot of this, however, has come from borrowed money in the past decade, more or less, but now there is no more money to borrow. What now? We are going to have to go on a money diet, in a big way, in this nation, and also go on a goods and services diet. Whether we want to or not.
On the one hand this upsets me, but on the other hand I know that we have so much crap we don't need in this country and we are always frivolously spending our money, borrowed money, on even more crap. There is a conspiracy to keep us buying stuff we don't need. Maybe the coming reckoning will finally downsize our materialism with what we actually need and can afford. If we did that, I am confident America and the world will be just fine.
However, I am loathe to give up my six guitars.
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I really hate to end today's entry on such a downer note. So I'm not going to. Speaking to those kids yesterday probably did more for me than it did for them. I remembered the best part of what being a journalist is about, and in the process I got to remember some of the best parts of me and who I am. I felt a reconnection with my idealism, ambition and love for writing, interviewing and sharing stories with the world.
I am continually inspired to learn from those younger than me, including colleagues, and know that I have far to go. I now know that I not only want to start tackling bigger, more ambitious projects, but I want to get much, much better at planning the next step in my career. I am inspired to become better at setting goals. I've coasted at times, but I don't want to any more.
Of course I am rambling, but I hope you get the idea. Happy Thursday, it looks like a nice one here in Brooklyn.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Some Random Thoughts On A Wednesday
As usual I make no great promises of my fairness, or even accuracy. These are random thoughts, probably without the benefit of links, unless I really feel it.
Another wet, cold, miserable morning. I am going to speak to children today, with my friend Eric Molinsky about what it’s like to be a professional journalist and writer. I have to remember to keep it positive, even though the reality is my profession has swirled the drain more times than the Tidey Bowl man. But as I read over my clip book from Forbes I did see, in fact, a lot of articles that made me proud of what I decided to do with my professional life.
In 1999 I visited a refugee camp in Thailand for Burmese driven out of their native land, because it is an autocratic, despotic nightmare. The camp was little more than a collection of mud streets and thatched huts. Mangy dogs roamed free. The people I saw that day were called White Karans. The Karans are an ethnicity, I believe. The White Karans are Christians and the Red Karans are Buddhists.
Both Karans became victims of the minority ruling party of Burma, which is one of the most inhumane and cruel in the world, and still, to this day, doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
But what I saw that day humbled me. The people I met were sweet, kind, open. They welcomed me, a total stranger, right into their lives, as they pumped water, or played music. In one case this music played was by a man who strummed a guitar with the remains of what had been his right arm, the rest blown off courtesy of a landmine.
I talked to as many as I could see, took as many pictures as I could, and was in awe of how much more, well I must say it, happy they seemed, even here than the average, neurotic American suburbanite. Would they gladly switch places, these Karans, with a free American surburbanite, even a neurotic one? Of that I have no doubt, but even amidst such harsh conditions they had classes and schools, and were an open friendly people.
Before I left I gave them what extra clothes I had, and a deck of playing cards. The little children were so starved for novelty that they swarmed me to each get a card. A card! Think about that. Our kids are bored with their opulence, and these kids were overjoyed to simply have something, anything, new.
When I made it back to my guesthouse in Mae-Sot, on the Western edge of Thailand I told another person living there about where I had been that day and what I had done. He, a younger man of 25, looked me in the eye and told me that refugee camp was actually the third one on that location. The first two had been burned down by raiding Burmese with guns, killing, no doubt, many people inside. And still they smiled.
That day I vowed, I will write about these people, somehow.
Cut to eight years later, I am a reporter at Forbes. I learn that the George Soros Open Society Institute, a group dedicated to fostering democracy through the world spends millios of dollars to foster the elected government in exile for Burma and foster pro-democracy movements on the ground. And to help take care of some of the same refugees I met so many years before.
Now, I realized, I could finally write about these people that I feared the world had largely forgot, I could finally find a way to fulfill the promise I had made to myself all those years before. And I did. True, since the article was in Forbes, we focused more on the Soros billionaire-guy angle than on the refugee angle, but I did the best I could with where I was to finally raise some awareness of this horrible ongoing tragedy. I got to do my job, I got to be proud, I got to feel like I made the world a better place, even if only slightly.
That’s what I remember, that and the few stories I have written like that, when I stand proud to be a journalist.
************************************************************************
My cat, Cromwell, has made a new habit of sleeping on my pillow at night. More than once I have been woken in the middle of the night to the feeling of a sandpapery cat tongue running through my hair. He’s grooming me! Yes, this is very sweet and all but also a bit strange. Last night he even started to lick my cheek. Thanks buddy, I love you too, but while it’s okay for us to love our pets, as the saying goes, it’s not okay for us to love our pets.
************************************************************************
The more time goes on the more and more the bank bailouts just seem all kinds of screwed up. Something is so wrong when we give hundreds of billions of dollars to a firm like AIG, for fear that if we don’t the economy will collapse, and AIG then turns around and pays tens of billions to firms like Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. These firms then, in turn, pay hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses. A bonus is something extra when you’ve done your job well. It is the last thing we get when there is extra money after everything critical has been taken care of. Obviously things were either never as bad at AIG as we were told, or they just didn’t care, they plundered us.
Of course AIG gave itself lavish bonuses too, including “retention bonuses” for the same losers who almost drove the company under. This is a mystery that can never be satisfactorily explained to me.
************************************************************************
I think I have become more than fed up with the gourmet comfort food craze in New York. Hamburgers costing $15-$25 are surely for people who have just received their bailouts from Wall Street.
Wall Street really has ruined just about everything good about NYC. The obscene paychecks these hucksters made drove up real estate prices so much that the middle class was virtually driven out of this great city. Then they become, as a class, Too Big To Fail, at least to ask our mayor. So we have to do everything we can to save them. Even though Wall Street, as a group, created no actual, lasting prosperity for Main Street over the past decade. In fact stocks, as measured by the S&P 500 are still down.
We were all better off when the financial sector was just one line of business competing amongst many for real estate in this town. Bankers are wily, dangerous and so, so greedy.
This leads me to a longstanding theory I have about recessions. It’s only a recession when it happens to rich people. For poor people it’s a recession every god-damned day. But when something bad finally hits the extremely wealthy in their paychecks, then the government pays attention, we are told it’s a crisis and something must be done to save these poor souls. This is so ironic because even in a recession the very wealthiest suffered by far the least, at least when you go by the unemployment figures. Sometimes it all is just that naked and obvious.
Another wet, cold, miserable morning. I am going to speak to children today, with my friend Eric Molinsky about what it’s like to be a professional journalist and writer. I have to remember to keep it positive, even though the reality is my profession has swirled the drain more times than the Tidey Bowl man. But as I read over my clip book from Forbes I did see, in fact, a lot of articles that made me proud of what I decided to do with my professional life.
In 1999 I visited a refugee camp in Thailand for Burmese driven out of their native land, because it is an autocratic, despotic nightmare. The camp was little more than a collection of mud streets and thatched huts. Mangy dogs roamed free. The people I saw that day were called White Karans. The Karans are an ethnicity, I believe. The White Karans are Christians and the Red Karans are Buddhists.
Both Karans became victims of the minority ruling party of Burma, which is one of the most inhumane and cruel in the world, and still, to this day, doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
But what I saw that day humbled me. The people I met were sweet, kind, open. They welcomed me, a total stranger, right into their lives, as they pumped water, or played music. In one case this music played was by a man who strummed a guitar with the remains of what had been his right arm, the rest blown off courtesy of a landmine.
I talked to as many as I could see, took as many pictures as I could, and was in awe of how much more, well I must say it, happy they seemed, even here than the average, neurotic American suburbanite. Would they gladly switch places, these Karans, with a free American surburbanite, even a neurotic one? Of that I have no doubt, but even amidst such harsh conditions they had classes and schools, and were an open friendly people.
Before I left I gave them what extra clothes I had, and a deck of playing cards. The little children were so starved for novelty that they swarmed me to each get a card. A card! Think about that. Our kids are bored with their opulence, and these kids were overjoyed to simply have something, anything, new.
When I made it back to my guesthouse in Mae-Sot, on the Western edge of Thailand I told another person living there about where I had been that day and what I had done. He, a younger man of 25, looked me in the eye and told me that refugee camp was actually the third one on that location. The first two had been burned down by raiding Burmese with guns, killing, no doubt, many people inside. And still they smiled.
That day I vowed, I will write about these people, somehow.
Cut to eight years later, I am a reporter at Forbes. I learn that the George Soros Open Society Institute, a group dedicated to fostering democracy through the world spends millios of dollars to foster the elected government in exile for Burma and foster pro-democracy movements on the ground. And to help take care of some of the same refugees I met so many years before.
Now, I realized, I could finally write about these people that I feared the world had largely forgot, I could finally find a way to fulfill the promise I had made to myself all those years before. And I did. True, since the article was in Forbes, we focused more on the Soros billionaire-guy angle than on the refugee angle, but I did the best I could with where I was to finally raise some awareness of this horrible ongoing tragedy. I got to do my job, I got to be proud, I got to feel like I made the world a better place, even if only slightly.
That’s what I remember, that and the few stories I have written like that, when I stand proud to be a journalist.
************************************************************************
My cat, Cromwell, has made a new habit of sleeping on my pillow at night. More than once I have been woken in the middle of the night to the feeling of a sandpapery cat tongue running through my hair. He’s grooming me! Yes, this is very sweet and all but also a bit strange. Last night he even started to lick my cheek. Thanks buddy, I love you too, but while it’s okay for us to love our pets, as the saying goes, it’s not okay for us to love our pets.
************************************************************************
The more time goes on the more and more the bank bailouts just seem all kinds of screwed up. Something is so wrong when we give hundreds of billions of dollars to a firm like AIG, for fear that if we don’t the economy will collapse, and AIG then turns around and pays tens of billions to firms like Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank. These firms then, in turn, pay hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses. A bonus is something extra when you’ve done your job well. It is the last thing we get when there is extra money after everything critical has been taken care of. Obviously things were either never as bad at AIG as we were told, or they just didn’t care, they plundered us.
Of course AIG gave itself lavish bonuses too, including “retention bonuses” for the same losers who almost drove the company under. This is a mystery that can never be satisfactorily explained to me.
************************************************************************
I think I have become more than fed up with the gourmet comfort food craze in New York. Hamburgers costing $15-$25 are surely for people who have just received their bailouts from Wall Street.
Wall Street really has ruined just about everything good about NYC. The obscene paychecks these hucksters made drove up real estate prices so much that the middle class was virtually driven out of this great city. Then they become, as a class, Too Big To Fail, at least to ask our mayor. So we have to do everything we can to save them. Even though Wall Street, as a group, created no actual, lasting prosperity for Main Street over the past decade. In fact stocks, as measured by the S&P 500 are still down.
We were all better off when the financial sector was just one line of business competing amongst many for real estate in this town. Bankers are wily, dangerous and so, so greedy.
This leads me to a longstanding theory I have about recessions. It’s only a recession when it happens to rich people. For poor people it’s a recession every god-damned day. But when something bad finally hits the extremely wealthy in their paychecks, then the government pays attention, we are told it’s a crisis and something must be done to save these poor souls. This is so ironic because even in a recession the very wealthiest suffered by far the least, at least when you go by the unemployment figures. Sometimes it all is just that naked and obvious.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Some Random Thoughts On A Tuesday
Wow, this waking up early thing to get more done is a new concept for me. It is almost 6:00 a.m. and everyone else is still asleep. The little girl is probably going to wake up within a half hour or so, that's been her recent pattern. And when she wakes up, we all wake up. But I have to admit it makes me feel good to be up doing something I actually care about, writing, and keeping up with ya'll. Again, these are some random thoughts, probably without links, or even proof, so you get what you get on this rainy Brooklyn Tuesday morning. (Okay, I added a few links.)
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Last night I watched the ESPN documentary "Muhammad and Larry" about the 1980 fight between The Greatest, Muhammad Ali, and The Most Under-rated, Larry Holmes. It was obviously sad and heartbreaking. By 1980 Muhammad Ali was obviously already on his way into dementia and Parkinson's. There is a lot of footage of him being out of shape, and getting beaten up by his sparring partners. It's so hard to forget that only six years before he was filmed for perhaps his greatest fight, "The Rumble In The Jungle," where he beat George Foreman.
So here are a few random thoughts about this fight.
My god, boxers age in dog years. It would only be a few years later that Larry Holmes himself would take a terrible beating (though he won) against a former Ali sparring partner Tim Weatherspoon. That was kind of the beginning of the end for Larry, though he came back a few times.
Larry Holmes comes across as a very cool dude. Doesn't need the limelight, is content with what he has, made himself a world champion, stayed married to the same woman for over 30 years. Ali, by contrast, as great as he is and was, seems much more insecure, always begging for people's attention. I think it is this latter trait, this need, that ultimately kept him coming back again and again, way past when it was too late. Well, that and the money.
Larry, today, seems like a content, happy guy and not all that punchy for a longtime professional boxer. God bless him for that.
I forgot how good Larry Holmes was. You see I was a bit of a fight fan in the 80s, so Holmes was the guy when I was growing up. To others he may have been in Ali's shadow, but I had mostly missed the Ali era, so that didn't mean much to me. So seeing a young, lean Larry Holmes in action was a blast of sweet nostalgia. Personally I think he would have given Muhammad some real trouble no matter when they fought in Ali's career, and might have beaten him.
Ali was only 38 when he received his royal beat down in 1980 from Holmes. That's the age I am now! And yet I feel that if I worked out and really put my mind to it I could get into much the same shape I was as a 25 year old. Am I as delusional as Muhammad Ali was?
The doc reveals that about two weeks before the fight that Ali started taking thyroid medication! This killed his energy and made it impossible for him to win. I have to admit, some part of me was thinking, man if Ali hadn't done that he might have showed Holmes a thing or two! But instead the entire fight, the entire fight, is Ali getting beaten up. He had nothing.
In the doc they also flash back to the Ali-Spinks rematch from 1978. I remember watching that on TV! I was rooting for Ali so hard, it was like seeing god on my television. And he won. But now, seeing the footage, I think the only reason Ali won was because Leon Spinks was probably coked out of his mind. (My lasting memory of the fight is from before the fight. As Ali is being lead to the ring the places goes absolutely crazy! Like rock star crazy, only more. I remember so clearly that someone had actually brought a painting of Muhammad Ali posed on a throne like a king to the actual fight! And they showed it on TV. This is my sharpest actual memory, that painting!)
In the Holmes fight the only energy Ali seems to have is for riling up the crowd before the fight. They must have been very excited. In fact one thing the documentary does that is great is talk to a longtime Vegas bookmaker who describes the atmosphere -- even for an old, washed up Muhammad Ali -- as electric. God, these people, these parasites. You really get a good view for why it must have been so hard for Ali to stay retired. All these people kept dragging him back, and he couldn't live without the crowd.
*****************************************************************************
I boxed for a little while when I was in my mid-20s. I think the main reason I did it was to learn how to take and give a punch. I never knew how to actually throw a punch, and wanted to learn, kind of like Peter Brady, in that episode where Mike Brady teaches him how to throw a mean right cross and beat up that school bully. ("My toof is loof!")
These days I don't think most parents teach their kids to stand up to bullies by ripping them right in the mouth, but times have changed. For the better? For the worse? Hard to say. Mike Brady wasn't a real dad, after all.
But anyway, yeah, I boxed. Or at least trained to box for several months. I learned to hit the speed bag (which was very cool). This made it extra sad in the documentary when they show an old Muhammad Ali not able to get any rhythm on the speed bag. Because, you know, he was about to go into the ring with the world's most dangerous fighter, and he had been doing it for decades. And because I could do it. To see him not be able to was so sad.
I would hit the heavy bag, which I liked too, and that weird bag that was on a rope that extended to the ceiling from the floor; this was my favorite. I skipped rope, but didn't do the road work, because I hated running and still do.
I even got in the ring a few times, which was very educational. Pain is a good teacher! Yes, I learned how to punch and be punched. Depending on whom I was fighting it could be a good deal more of the latter than the former. I learned, to my dismay, that I was a bleeder. Give me a good shot in the nose and it's raining blood on the canvas. Gross! I remember the normally hard-edged trainer, Dave, looking at me in disbelief as I kept on dripping.
But, honestly, I wasn't too bad at it. I had a few rounds that were pretty good, including one against this jacked up muscle head, kick-boxer guy, where we went toe-to-toe for the entire round, it made me feel good.
Boxing was a sport that had a lot of brotherly love in it. That's why you always see fighters clinch at the end of a fight, you actually develop a bond with someone via the process of trying to hit them, as they try to do the same to you. It's a real feeling, oddly enough.
I remember sparring with one older guy, who had to be in his 50s. He stopped me half way through the round and started to train me how to move better. Then when I landed a punch, using what he just gave me he said, "Nice right!" Now if teaching someone how to hit you better isn't brother love I don't know what is!
I punched very well for my size and weight (I was a middle weight, but on a good day, my coach said, punched more like a heavy weight, I swear he said it I didn't!), but couldn't dodge punches very well. As a result I could do okay against other total beginners, but I spared a decent amateur once, and let's just say he made the canvas real red real fast, I barely landed a punch.
That's the other thing about boxing, it's exhausting! Three minutes in the ring feels like a very intense 45 minute workout doing something else. We always think of punching, but when you punch and miss? It wears you out, and fast! That's why defense and blocking are so key. It takes just as much energy to call back a missed punch as to throw it, so you can wear a guy out simply by making him miss.
After a few months I quit, but I think about doing it again some day. I liked it, in its way, although sometimes I think I should consider a contact fighting sport that isn't quite so designed to give you brain damage.
And that's the thing about boxing, I can't watch it anymore. I know too much about what happens to these guys at the end, we all do. It's impossible to watch footage of a limping, silent Muhammad Ali and believe that this is a sport that should be supported, at least for me. No fighter could ever shut Ali's mouth, but when you take all of them together, they, over time, did it better than they ever could have imagined.
I wonder if other fans feel the same way about pro football. It's hard to watch a sport that you know ruins people's lives.
****************************************************************************
Okay, a few quick thoughts about the economy. I have heard from very reliable sources that up in New Canaan, CT things have started to really quiet down in the high-end real estate world over the past few weeks. This must be a reaction to the stock market turning down in that same time.
I fear we are headed for a double dip recession. When you look at the chart for the S&P 500 you see the market fall off a cliff in late 2008, like go straight down. Then the correction of the past year, or so, is virtually straight back up. This is not a sustainable pattern.
Also, it's kind of hard to believe we have a real economic turnaround when the only things that really go up are banker's bonuses and the stock market. Jobs are still terrible, housing has only turned around at all because of government supports and people are still totally grim about the future. Add in the massive BP oil spill and you have a bummer of a month in May.
Me? I don't try to predict where the markets are headed, it's impossible to know. But I would like to get invested again, even if things go down for some time. It's the only way to build up any sort of wealth at all if you make what I make, and weren't born wealthy.
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Last night I watched the ESPN documentary "Muhammad and Larry" about the 1980 fight between The Greatest, Muhammad Ali, and The Most Under-rated, Larry Holmes. It was obviously sad and heartbreaking. By 1980 Muhammad Ali was obviously already on his way into dementia and Parkinson's. There is a lot of footage of him being out of shape, and getting beaten up by his sparring partners. It's so hard to forget that only six years before he was filmed for perhaps his greatest fight, "The Rumble In The Jungle," where he beat George Foreman.
So here are a few random thoughts about this fight.
My god, boxers age in dog years. It would only be a few years later that Larry Holmes himself would take a terrible beating (though he won) against a former Ali sparring partner Tim Weatherspoon. That was kind of the beginning of the end for Larry, though he came back a few times.
Larry Holmes comes across as a very cool dude. Doesn't need the limelight, is content with what he has, made himself a world champion, stayed married to the same woman for over 30 years. Ali, by contrast, as great as he is and was, seems much more insecure, always begging for people's attention. I think it is this latter trait, this need, that ultimately kept him coming back again and again, way past when it was too late. Well, that and the money.
Larry, today, seems like a content, happy guy and not all that punchy for a longtime professional boxer. God bless him for that.
I forgot how good Larry Holmes was. You see I was a bit of a fight fan in the 80s, so Holmes was the guy when I was growing up. To others he may have been in Ali's shadow, but I had mostly missed the Ali era, so that didn't mean much to me. So seeing a young, lean Larry Holmes in action was a blast of sweet nostalgia. Personally I think he would have given Muhammad some real trouble no matter when they fought in Ali's career, and might have beaten him.
Ali was only 38 when he received his royal beat down in 1980 from Holmes. That's the age I am now! And yet I feel that if I worked out and really put my mind to it I could get into much the same shape I was as a 25 year old. Am I as delusional as Muhammad Ali was?
The doc reveals that about two weeks before the fight that Ali started taking thyroid medication! This killed his energy and made it impossible for him to win. I have to admit, some part of me was thinking, man if Ali hadn't done that he might have showed Holmes a thing or two! But instead the entire fight, the entire fight, is Ali getting beaten up. He had nothing.
In the doc they also flash back to the Ali-Spinks rematch from 1978. I remember watching that on TV! I was rooting for Ali so hard, it was like seeing god on my television. And he won. But now, seeing the footage, I think the only reason Ali won was because Leon Spinks was probably coked out of his mind. (My lasting memory of the fight is from before the fight. As Ali is being lead to the ring the places goes absolutely crazy! Like rock star crazy, only more. I remember so clearly that someone had actually brought a painting of Muhammad Ali posed on a throne like a king to the actual fight! And they showed it on TV. This is my sharpest actual memory, that painting!)
In the Holmes fight the only energy Ali seems to have is for riling up the crowd before the fight. They must have been very excited. In fact one thing the documentary does that is great is talk to a longtime Vegas bookmaker who describes the atmosphere -- even for an old, washed up Muhammad Ali -- as electric. God, these people, these parasites. You really get a good view for why it must have been so hard for Ali to stay retired. All these people kept dragging him back, and he couldn't live without the crowd.
*****************************************************************************
I boxed for a little while when I was in my mid-20s. I think the main reason I did it was to learn how to take and give a punch. I never knew how to actually throw a punch, and wanted to learn, kind of like Peter Brady, in that episode where Mike Brady teaches him how to throw a mean right cross and beat up that school bully. ("My toof is loof!")
These days I don't think most parents teach their kids to stand up to bullies by ripping them right in the mouth, but times have changed. For the better? For the worse? Hard to say. Mike Brady wasn't a real dad, after all.
But anyway, yeah, I boxed. Or at least trained to box for several months. I learned to hit the speed bag (which was very cool). This made it extra sad in the documentary when they show an old Muhammad Ali not able to get any rhythm on the speed bag. Because, you know, he was about to go into the ring with the world's most dangerous fighter, and he had been doing it for decades. And because I could do it. To see him not be able to was so sad.
I would hit the heavy bag, which I liked too, and that weird bag that was on a rope that extended to the ceiling from the floor; this was my favorite. I skipped rope, but didn't do the road work, because I hated running and still do.
I even got in the ring a few times, which was very educational. Pain is a good teacher! Yes, I learned how to punch and be punched. Depending on whom I was fighting it could be a good deal more of the latter than the former. I learned, to my dismay, that I was a bleeder. Give me a good shot in the nose and it's raining blood on the canvas. Gross! I remember the normally hard-edged trainer, Dave, looking at me in disbelief as I kept on dripping.
But, honestly, I wasn't too bad at it. I had a few rounds that were pretty good, including one against this jacked up muscle head, kick-boxer guy, where we went toe-to-toe for the entire round, it made me feel good.
Boxing was a sport that had a lot of brotherly love in it. That's why you always see fighters clinch at the end of a fight, you actually develop a bond with someone via the process of trying to hit them, as they try to do the same to you. It's a real feeling, oddly enough.
I remember sparring with one older guy, who had to be in his 50s. He stopped me half way through the round and started to train me how to move better. Then when I landed a punch, using what he just gave me he said, "Nice right!" Now if teaching someone how to hit you better isn't brother love I don't know what is!
I punched very well for my size and weight (I was a middle weight, but on a good day, my coach said, punched more like a heavy weight, I swear he said it I didn't!), but couldn't dodge punches very well. As a result I could do okay against other total beginners, but I spared a decent amateur once, and let's just say he made the canvas real red real fast, I barely landed a punch.
That's the other thing about boxing, it's exhausting! Three minutes in the ring feels like a very intense 45 minute workout doing something else. We always think of punching, but when you punch and miss? It wears you out, and fast! That's why defense and blocking are so key. It takes just as much energy to call back a missed punch as to throw it, so you can wear a guy out simply by making him miss.
After a few months I quit, but I think about doing it again some day. I liked it, in its way, although sometimes I think I should consider a contact fighting sport that isn't quite so designed to give you brain damage.
And that's the thing about boxing, I can't watch it anymore. I know too much about what happens to these guys at the end, we all do. It's impossible to watch footage of a limping, silent Muhammad Ali and believe that this is a sport that should be supported, at least for me. No fighter could ever shut Ali's mouth, but when you take all of them together, they, over time, did it better than they ever could have imagined.
I wonder if other fans feel the same way about pro football. It's hard to watch a sport that you know ruins people's lives.
****************************************************************************
Okay, a few quick thoughts about the economy. I have heard from very reliable sources that up in New Canaan, CT things have started to really quiet down in the high-end real estate world over the past few weeks. This must be a reaction to the stock market turning down in that same time.
I fear we are headed for a double dip recession. When you look at the chart for the S&P 500 you see the market fall off a cliff in late 2008, like go straight down. Then the correction of the past year, or so, is virtually straight back up. This is not a sustainable pattern.
Also, it's kind of hard to believe we have a real economic turnaround when the only things that really go up are banker's bonuses and the stock market. Jobs are still terrible, housing has only turned around at all because of government supports and people are still totally grim about the future. Add in the massive BP oil spill and you have a bummer of a month in May.
Me? I don't try to predict where the markets are headed, it's impossible to know. But I would like to get invested again, even if things go down for some time. It's the only way to build up any sort of wealth at all if you make what I make, and weren't born wealthy.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Some Random Thoughts On A Monday
Don't have real any real deep hypotheses for this Monday, but just wanted to take a few minutes and address some stuff that's been on my mind.
***********************************************************************************
Stella is definitely in the Terrible Twos. She's alternately happy, sad, happy again, loving, upset, crying, trying to speak, speaking, eating very well, not eating at all, the whole deal. It's like menopause for toddlers. I also think she has a molar coming in. She also makes this kind of low grade whining sound a lot. Kind of like this: uuuuuuuh. It's been driving me and her mom a little crazy.
But the good news is that despite all this she is still healthy and growing, and all that. She loves her daycare days (today is one, we do it two days a week) and is becoming a bit more of a hugger, but not too much more. She'll kind of hug us to keep us on our toes, so that we don't get too used to it, or expect it or anything. For example, two days ago I was down on her playmat with her, and she got behind me and gave me a hug from behind, shocking me. Then I wanted to give her a hug back and she acted like I had completely offended her. Frankly, that part reminded me a lot of my dating life back in my 20s.
She still loves to have us read her stories, and she LOOOOOVES TV, a little too much. We don't watch much, on the theory that too much TV gives you social development cancer (I just made that up, but I think you know what I mean), but every single freakin' day she picks up the remote control and screams and wails for the "teebee" which is what she calls it. We resist most of the time, but not every time. She loves "The Wonder Pets" which is a cute show, but has a character with a speech impediment. Also the lesson is the same every single time: use teamwork!
**********************************************************************************
Speaking of TV we've been watching "America: The Story Of US" on The History Channel, (which must have recently run out of documentary material on Adolf Hitler.) It's a great series, and one that is highly recommended. The episode on "Cities" which aired last night is required viewing for anyone that knows and loves NYC, as so many of the developments that hallmark the modern city started here. And the time they dedicate to showing how they actually built The Statue of Liberty simply gives me chills. It must have really been something to see when it was actually copper colored.
Even so, there is something about the show that Randi noticed that I did not. They go through all these great historic events, and cover many things that aren't typically taught in school, (like the race riots of the summer of 1919), but didn't cover the 19th Amendment, when women got the right to vote, at all. We get 10 minutes on The St. Valentine's Day Massacre and Al Capone, which is always fun, but the political enfranchisement of half the population seems to be not much of a big deal I guess. Randi's view is that this sort of bias is all too typical, even among liberal dudes.
(Maybe they will cover this down the road? Or maybe I somehow missed it?)
Still, there is lots of fun stuff to learn from the special. For example, we've learned that in the 18th century America's chief export and cash crop was beaver pelts. I now maintain that we would be wise to return to a beaver-based economy to get us out of our current economic malaise.)
**********************************************************************************
Speaking of the economy, I am still thinking of what to write for my second Huffington Post column. I want to write something about the business world, since I allegedly know something about it, but I am not sure what yet. I will keep you posted as ideas come to me.
My new job has been a fascinating educational experience, though. I am helping to write an investing newsletter. Much of my job consists of reading financial statements, and gathering items of interest about firms that we hope are good investments. It is very intense and gives me a new appreciation for how hard it is to find a great stock. My contention has long been that most people shouldn't "play" the market, they should carefully select a group of reliable index funds, and put money in every month, good or bad. I did this for a long time, and have no complaints about this strategy, although I did temporarily halt my payments when I lost my job.
Truth is I still think most people would be wise to invest with indexes and dollar-cost-average, but there are some people, not too many, who have gotten fabulously wealthy by picking individual stocks, and beating the indexes. So that is always on my mind: most people won't beat the market, by definition, but some will and make boatloads of money.
What I would actually DO with boatloads of money I can't say. I've never had to think about it! But it's a reasonably safe assumption to say that I probably wouldn't buy an actual boat.
!
**********************************************************************************
I am trying to work up the courage to do a bucket list thing, which is do five minutes of open mic standup this week. There are a few places in NYC that are allow nobodies to get on stage and give it a shot. I keep saying I will do it, and keep finding reasons to not do it. This week my reason is that I haven't had time to prepare my jokes or practice. I guess I can always find a reason to not do something, but I would like to give it a shot anyway, maybe right my jokes, or ideas, if they don't actually make the grade a actual jokes, down.
If I did it it would be Tuesday night, tomorrow! Zoinks! I will tell you if it happens and how it goes.
**********************************************************************************
I've been toying with this idea that organic food is the new kosher. But I haven't really planned the whole idea out yet in my mind. My idea is that for the most part the health benefits of organic food have been shown to be nominal versus conventional farming, but people are still lining up to buy organic food anyway. (I say this because a big study from the University of Sydney found this to be true.) I can link to the studies that prove this, but for now, trust me that I've done some research here. Or don't trust me, it's your right, I guess. I try to be a reliable narrator, though. I will link later, cause I have to get to work soon.
Why are people so hot to buy organic food, and pay more, during a recession, if the health benefits have never conclusively been proven? I have a few half formed ideas, but they're not more than that.
One idea is that we feel that organic food simply has to be "better for us" and better for the planet even if the actual vitamin content, for example, is just about neutral versus conventional food. I think a good amount of this relates to pesticides, which, it should be noted the Australian study didn't examine. I have heard that organic farms use fewer pesticides, but that the amount you get on your fruit at the supermarket is just about the same whether you buy organic or not. (I can look this up, but haven't yet. Assume, for now, that I am just throwing out ideas here.)
I think there is also a humane factor at play. There has been a lot of information that's come out about how horrific factory farm life is for animals, for example, and I believe a lot of people are willing to pay more if they believe it means a better life for the animals they consume.
Third, I think there is simply a huge mistrust of the practices and power of big agriculture. Like so many things in our business world the agricultural business has consolidated greatly over the past decade, another legacy of the lax Bush business environment. I think it's possible that many people simply don't trust the intentions of a firm like Monsanto, and would much rather give their money to a local guy, even if they don't actually know this person or ever see their farm.
I have also come to think that one part of it is spiritual, in a sense. And that is my belief that in some way eating organic, for some, is kind of the new kosher. People do it because it assuages guilt, and they feel that they are "doing the right thing," even if the direct benefits of it are hard to measure. Seeing that seal on their milk, or meat gives stressed out American families a sense that they are doing all they can to promote the good health of their kids, and they don't have to think about it too much more.
This is the part that seems, to me, how eating organic is like eating kosher. For a long time there was an argument I'd hear where people would say the ancient Jews were practical and that's why they kept kosher, because if pork or shellfish went bad it could kill you. This sounds reasonable until you learn more. The truth is the ancient Jews kept kosher to stand apart from the rest of the idolatrous world, not for practical reasons. (Think about it, thousands of years ago in the desert you couldn't keep any meat around for long.) They did it to look at themselves favorably and to know they were doing the right thing.
I think this is the part that connects kosherness and buying organic food. As religion is a less central part of so many modern lives something has to fill that void, so people can feel they are living right, and in accordance with what is moral. It's practically hardwired into us. There are so many modern liberal folks who eschew the scriptures but embrace the belief in the organic rules put down by the FDA. They believe in it, it gives the simple act of eating a sort of deeper meaning, morally, not just for health. It makes them consider what they are doing every time they chew, which is not so different than how religious Jews are told to consider the lord above in everything they do, including that most basic of all acts: consuming food.
It gives a modern, ramshackle, sometimes meaningless-seeming American life a sort of definition of what is good, and what is right, and feels like action. In every bite, and every time we buy something to eat.
Does this seem far fetched to you? I would love to see what you think, whomever you might be, out there in cyberland. I sometimes get readers from places as far away as Europe or the Mid-east. Invariably these folks come to the site because I wrote about boobs once or twice. But for the rest of you, I would love to see what you think.
--Dave
***********************************************************************************
Stella is definitely in the Terrible Twos. She's alternately happy, sad, happy again, loving, upset, crying, trying to speak, speaking, eating very well, not eating at all, the whole deal. It's like menopause for toddlers. I also think she has a molar coming in. She also makes this kind of low grade whining sound a lot. Kind of like this: uuuuuuuh. It's been driving me and her mom a little crazy.
But the good news is that despite all this she is still healthy and growing, and all that. She loves her daycare days (today is one, we do it two days a week) and is becoming a bit more of a hugger, but not too much more. She'll kind of hug us to keep us on our toes, so that we don't get too used to it, or expect it or anything. For example, two days ago I was down on her playmat with her, and she got behind me and gave me a hug from behind, shocking me. Then I wanted to give her a hug back and she acted like I had completely offended her. Frankly, that part reminded me a lot of my dating life back in my 20s.
She still loves to have us read her stories, and she LOOOOOVES TV, a little too much. We don't watch much, on the theory that too much TV gives you social development cancer (I just made that up, but I think you know what I mean), but every single freakin' day she picks up the remote control and screams and wails for the "teebee" which is what she calls it. We resist most of the time, but not every time. She loves "The Wonder Pets" which is a cute show, but has a character with a speech impediment. Also the lesson is the same every single time: use teamwork!
**********************************************************************************
Speaking of TV we've been watching "America: The Story Of US" on The History Channel, (which must have recently run out of documentary material on Adolf Hitler.) It's a great series, and one that is highly recommended. The episode on "Cities" which aired last night is required viewing for anyone that knows and loves NYC, as so many of the developments that hallmark the modern city started here. And the time they dedicate to showing how they actually built The Statue of Liberty simply gives me chills. It must have really been something to see when it was actually copper colored.
Even so, there is something about the show that Randi noticed that I did not. They go through all these great historic events, and cover many things that aren't typically taught in school, (like the race riots of the summer of 1919), but didn't cover the 19th Amendment, when women got the right to vote, at all. We get 10 minutes on The St. Valentine's Day Massacre and Al Capone, which is always fun, but the political enfranchisement of half the population seems to be not much of a big deal I guess. Randi's view is that this sort of bias is all too typical, even among liberal dudes.
(Maybe they will cover this down the road? Or maybe I somehow missed it?)
Still, there is lots of fun stuff to learn from the special. For example, we've learned that in the 18th century America's chief export and cash crop was beaver pelts. I now maintain that we would be wise to return to a beaver-based economy to get us out of our current economic malaise.)
**********************************************************************************
Speaking of the economy, I am still thinking of what to write for my second Huffington Post column. I want to write something about the business world, since I allegedly know something about it, but I am not sure what yet. I will keep you posted as ideas come to me.
My new job has been a fascinating educational experience, though. I am helping to write an investing newsletter. Much of my job consists of reading financial statements, and gathering items of interest about firms that we hope are good investments. It is very intense and gives me a new appreciation for how hard it is to find a great stock. My contention has long been that most people shouldn't "play" the market, they should carefully select a group of reliable index funds, and put money in every month, good or bad. I did this for a long time, and have no complaints about this strategy, although I did temporarily halt my payments when I lost my job.
Truth is I still think most people would be wise to invest with indexes and dollar-cost-average, but there are some people, not too many, who have gotten fabulously wealthy by picking individual stocks, and beating the indexes. So that is always on my mind: most people won't beat the market, by definition, but some will and make boatloads of money.
What I would actually DO with boatloads of money I can't say. I've never had to think about it! But it's a reasonably safe assumption to say that I probably wouldn't buy an actual boat.
!
**********************************************************************************
I am trying to work up the courage to do a bucket list thing, which is do five minutes of open mic standup this week. There are a few places in NYC that are allow nobodies to get on stage and give it a shot. I keep saying I will do it, and keep finding reasons to not do it. This week my reason is that I haven't had time to prepare my jokes or practice. I guess I can always find a reason to not do something, but I would like to give it a shot anyway, maybe right my jokes, or ideas, if they don't actually make the grade a actual jokes, down.
If I did it it would be Tuesday night, tomorrow! Zoinks! I will tell you if it happens and how it goes.
**********************************************************************************
I've been toying with this idea that organic food is the new kosher. But I haven't really planned the whole idea out yet in my mind. My idea is that for the most part the health benefits of organic food have been shown to be nominal versus conventional farming, but people are still lining up to buy organic food anyway. (I say this because a big study from the University of Sydney found this to be true.) I can link to the studies that prove this, but for now, trust me that I've done some research here. Or don't trust me, it's your right, I guess. I try to be a reliable narrator, though. I will link later, cause I have to get to work soon.
Why are people so hot to buy organic food, and pay more, during a recession, if the health benefits have never conclusively been proven? I have a few half formed ideas, but they're not more than that.
One idea is that we feel that organic food simply has to be "better for us" and better for the planet even if the actual vitamin content, for example, is just about neutral versus conventional food. I think a good amount of this relates to pesticides, which, it should be noted the Australian study didn't examine. I have heard that organic farms use fewer pesticides, but that the amount you get on your fruit at the supermarket is just about the same whether you buy organic or not. (I can look this up, but haven't yet. Assume, for now, that I am just throwing out ideas here.)
I think there is also a humane factor at play. There has been a lot of information that's come out about how horrific factory farm life is for animals, for example, and I believe a lot of people are willing to pay more if they believe it means a better life for the animals they consume.
Third, I think there is simply a huge mistrust of the practices and power of big agriculture. Like so many things in our business world the agricultural business has consolidated greatly over the past decade, another legacy of the lax Bush business environment. I think it's possible that many people simply don't trust the intentions of a firm like Monsanto, and would much rather give their money to a local guy, even if they don't actually know this person or ever see their farm.
I have also come to think that one part of it is spiritual, in a sense. And that is my belief that in some way eating organic, for some, is kind of the new kosher. People do it because it assuages guilt, and they feel that they are "doing the right thing," even if the direct benefits of it are hard to measure. Seeing that seal on their milk, or meat gives stressed out American families a sense that they are doing all they can to promote the good health of their kids, and they don't have to think about it too much more.
This is the part that seems, to me, how eating organic is like eating kosher. For a long time there was an argument I'd hear where people would say the ancient Jews were practical and that's why they kept kosher, because if pork or shellfish went bad it could kill you. This sounds reasonable until you learn more. The truth is the ancient Jews kept kosher to stand apart from the rest of the idolatrous world, not for practical reasons. (Think about it, thousands of years ago in the desert you couldn't keep any meat around for long.) They did it to look at themselves favorably and to know they were doing the right thing.
I think this is the part that connects kosherness and buying organic food. As religion is a less central part of so many modern lives something has to fill that void, so people can feel they are living right, and in accordance with what is moral. It's practically hardwired into us. There are so many modern liberal folks who eschew the scriptures but embrace the belief in the organic rules put down by the FDA. They believe in it, it gives the simple act of eating a sort of deeper meaning, morally, not just for health. It makes them consider what they are doing every time they chew, which is not so different than how religious Jews are told to consider the lord above in everything they do, including that most basic of all acts: consuming food.
It gives a modern, ramshackle, sometimes meaningless-seeming American life a sort of definition of what is good, and what is right, and feels like action. In every bite, and every time we buy something to eat.
Does this seem far fetched to you? I would love to see what you think, whomever you might be, out there in cyberland. I sometimes get readers from places as far away as Europe or the Mid-east. Invariably these folks come to the site because I wrote about boobs once or twice. But for the rest of you, I would love to see what you think.
--Dave
Thursday, May 13, 2010
TMI Alert: Baby Poop
Yeah, if you don't want to read about The Brooklyn Baby learning how to poop in the potty maybe this isn't the entry for you.
Anyway, assuming you're still reading here we go.
It's been a bit of a struggle to get Stella to go on the potty. Which is frustrating because she initially seemed to take to it so well. She was, dare we say, precocious about it. Before her bath we'd let her run around naked for about 20 minutes and then bring her over to the potty. She'd sit on it for a few minutes and eventually started to tinkle in it. Which was great. This was about four months ago or so.
Then, I guess, we just sort of got lazy about it. And stopped with the training so much, because we figured, oh, she's got this.
Needless to say, there were many pee-pees on the floor that followed, as did many poopoos on the floor too. God I hope she doesn't read this blog when she's like 15 years old.
But in the past few days we've been really focusing on it again. You see I would kind of bribe her to sit on the toilet by reading to her. She would sit for the length of the book and then get up, and move onto the next thing, without going in the potty. Then, most times, she would promptly go on the floor. Thank god baby pee has a mild floor cleaning agent!
But tonight, at last, we had success. And the irony is I didn't even feel like doing the whole routine tonight, because I thought we weren't getting anywhere.
But I gave it one more try. She got naked before her bath, I bribed her with a story and she sat on the potty. She made some little grunting sounds, which she does alot anyway, and that was it, I thought. Nothing. However, when she got up, voila! A huge poop. I mean it was like man sized. I was shocked!
And then we cheered and Randi gave her a Girl scout cookie. Amidst all this cheering and clapping and positive reinforcement Stella looked mildly surprised and a bit taken aback, I guess, by our raucous and happy reaction. But she took the compliments gracefully and destroyed the cookie. Then Randi wiped her now more accomplished tushie and I prepared her bath.
For a brief moment I thought I would take a picture of this proud moment, but then I thought better of it. It was a milestone, yes, but I think, in this case, my memory will serve just fine.
Anyway, assuming you're still reading here we go.
It's been a bit of a struggle to get Stella to go on the potty. Which is frustrating because she initially seemed to take to it so well. She was, dare we say, precocious about it. Before her bath we'd let her run around naked for about 20 minutes and then bring her over to the potty. She'd sit on it for a few minutes and eventually started to tinkle in it. Which was great. This was about four months ago or so.
Then, I guess, we just sort of got lazy about it. And stopped with the training so much, because we figured, oh, she's got this.
Needless to say, there were many pee-pees on the floor that followed, as did many poopoos on the floor too. God I hope she doesn't read this blog when she's like 15 years old.
But in the past few days we've been really focusing on it again. You see I would kind of bribe her to sit on the toilet by reading to her. She would sit for the length of the book and then get up, and move onto the next thing, without going in the potty. Then, most times, she would promptly go on the floor. Thank god baby pee has a mild floor cleaning agent!
But tonight, at last, we had success. And the irony is I didn't even feel like doing the whole routine tonight, because I thought we weren't getting anywhere.
But I gave it one more try. She got naked before her bath, I bribed her with a story and she sat on the potty. She made some little grunting sounds, which she does alot anyway, and that was it, I thought. Nothing. However, when she got up, voila! A huge poop. I mean it was like man sized. I was shocked!
And then we cheered and Randi gave her a Girl scout cookie. Amidst all this cheering and clapping and positive reinforcement Stella looked mildly surprised and a bit taken aback, I guess, by our raucous and happy reaction. But she took the compliments gracefully and destroyed the cookie. Then Randi wiped her now more accomplished tushie and I prepared her bath.
For a brief moment I thought I would take a picture of this proud moment, but then I thought better of it. It was a milestone, yes, but I think, in this case, my memory will serve just fine.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Why Are Middleschoolers So Annoying?
The past few times we've gone to our local playground it's been swarming with middle school aged kids. Of course they are in the area that is specifically for toddlers and pre-schoolers, so as they climb up and down the pint-sized jungle gyms and hog the swings and jump over the little kids this has lead to a certain amount of conflict between us and them.
Typically it seems to go like this way; it's an average nice day and the toddlers are doing their thing in the tot lot. Then the local middle school gets out and they start to swarm into the playground, so far so good. It's their playground too.
Soon, though, in fact inevitably, they start to filter into the tot lot despite there being a gate that separates it from the rest of the playground. They know they shouldn't be there, but they really don't care. Many of them, in fact, probably played in this very same tot lot when they were kids. Soon they are swarming on the big fake rock, running up and down the jungle gym, sliding down the slides, gossiping, and cursing too. They are being, in short, typical middle schoolers but it's way too much for the little kids to handle.
I see big kids jumping over little kids, the gate starts to swing open fast, the gate gets left open, allowing little kids (who's nannies are inevitably on the phone) to escape. I see big kid feet within inches of little kid faces. Soon the Brooklyn Baby Momma and I are having a conversation about how to get rid of these kids.
It's not like they have nowhere to go. They actually have the entire rest of the playground for themselves, including an entire other, and larger, jungle gym. They just like the taboo feeling of being in the little kid area, and having it for themselves.
By now we've confronted groups of older kids about two or three times. This is invariably what happens.
We see a group of kids dominating the jungle gym, climbing over our kid to the get to the top, and using foul language. After a while of this, and seeing other parents do very little, for the most part, we decide it would make sense to talk to these kids. So we explain that this is a tot lot and not for them, that they have other areas to play.
Invariably they agree with us. Time after time I've heard kids tell me that they know there are other areas for them, and that they know this area is for little kids. But, there's no real harm to just letting them do their thing here, they're not hurting anyone, they're being careful, what's the big deal?
In other words they do the same thing people always do when they get nailed doing something they know they should not be doing: they say it's different for them than for other people who are breaking the rules, the rules don't really apply to them in this case and why are we being like this to them?
Sometimes it gets a little more heated from there, as we persist in telling them that, no, in fact it's not okay and we don't want to make exceptions for them, especially as they were the kids that we just saw a few minutes ago climbing over our toddler to get to the top of the jungle gym and we heard them using bad language.
In lieu of a pointless argument with a gaggle of extremely defensive middle schoolers (because they quickly and inevitably go into shutdown mode and refuse to see that their actions could accidentally hurt a little kid) we have to get the security guard.
He's an older guy named Joe, and he radiates a security guard authority that makes the kids snap to right away. He goes over to the tot lot and you can immediately see the kids become crestfallen, "here comes The Man." That Joe is older, frailer and smaller than I am, for example, means nothing. They respect him, me? Not so much. Me, I'm just some generic white guy dad. Randi they respect much more, as she can use her TEACHER VOICE, but it's just so much easier to get Joe and stay out of it.
A couple of days ago, as Joe marched a group of middle school aged boys out of the tot lot, I saw one boy look at us, with anger seething in his eyes and he said to me that ultimate middle school put-d0wn, "Snitch!" At one time, way back when, this might have hurt my feelings, when I was in middle school, I guess. But now that I'm almost 38 and have a kid to worry about I can only laugh and remember.
But now we're the parents who snitch on the kids. So we're now obligated to do it each and every time they overdo it in the tot lot, which happens all the time.
But what is it about middle schoolers that makes it so easy to feel irritated with them? It's such a strange time in life. The kids are definitely out of their little, cute, cuddly phase, yet they still want to do little kid things. They aren't high schoolers yet, who are off doing their own thing, for better or worse. (In NYC this is too often for the worse.)
I actually understand why these kids are so defensive. For the boys they have suddenly become painfully aware of the opposite sex, at precisely the moment when the opposite sex has become even more painfully unaware of them, or so it seemed so many years ago. Your friends become your whole world, and acceptance means everything. Pushing boundaries and defying authority becomes more and more important. At the same time you become more sensitive to everything.
I will never forget the hurt of being excluded from a birthday party in seventh grade, for someone who lived up my block. From my window I watched kids, in some cases my own friends, walk up my own block and past my window, but I couldn't go. You know why? Because in seventh grade you're finally allowed to choose your own friends, and aren't obligated to invite all the kids you were forced to hang out with when you were toddlers and pre-schoolers. In other words, your parents can't set your social calendar anymore. It's liberating and terrifying.
At the same time you start to resent the way certain authority figures still put the squish on you whenever they feel like it, and they still don't treat you any different than when you were a little, little kid. That's probably why the kids seemed, in part, so hurt when Joe has to crack down on them.
The question then becomes when does it end? It ends, for the kids we see, when they go to high school and they become too old to go back to their old playground. By then they might even be tool old to "play" anyway, which is kind of sad in it's way.
As for now I've realized the best thing I can do is probably let Joe do all the heavy lifting and make it as little about us versus them as possible. The middle schoolers can be rude, crude and annoying but hopefully it's just a phase. Right, it's just a phase?
Typically it seems to go like this way; it's an average nice day and the toddlers are doing their thing in the tot lot. Then the local middle school gets out and they start to swarm into the playground, so far so good. It's their playground too.
Soon, though, in fact inevitably, they start to filter into the tot lot despite there being a gate that separates it from the rest of the playground. They know they shouldn't be there, but they really don't care. Many of them, in fact, probably played in this very same tot lot when they were kids. Soon they are swarming on the big fake rock, running up and down the jungle gym, sliding down the slides, gossiping, and cursing too. They are being, in short, typical middle schoolers but it's way too much for the little kids to handle.
I see big kids jumping over little kids, the gate starts to swing open fast, the gate gets left open, allowing little kids (who's nannies are inevitably on the phone) to escape. I see big kid feet within inches of little kid faces. Soon the Brooklyn Baby Momma and I are having a conversation about how to get rid of these kids.
It's not like they have nowhere to go. They actually have the entire rest of the playground for themselves, including an entire other, and larger, jungle gym. They just like the taboo feeling of being in the little kid area, and having it for themselves.
By now we've confronted groups of older kids about two or three times. This is invariably what happens.
We see a group of kids dominating the jungle gym, climbing over our kid to the get to the top, and using foul language. After a while of this, and seeing other parents do very little, for the most part, we decide it would make sense to talk to these kids. So we explain that this is a tot lot and not for them, that they have other areas to play.
Invariably they agree with us. Time after time I've heard kids tell me that they know there are other areas for them, and that they know this area is for little kids. But, there's no real harm to just letting them do their thing here, they're not hurting anyone, they're being careful, what's the big deal?
In other words they do the same thing people always do when they get nailed doing something they know they should not be doing: they say it's different for them than for other people who are breaking the rules, the rules don't really apply to them in this case and why are we being like this to them?
Sometimes it gets a little more heated from there, as we persist in telling them that, no, in fact it's not okay and we don't want to make exceptions for them, especially as they were the kids that we just saw a few minutes ago climbing over our toddler to get to the top of the jungle gym and we heard them using bad language.
In lieu of a pointless argument with a gaggle of extremely defensive middle schoolers (because they quickly and inevitably go into shutdown mode and refuse to see that their actions could accidentally hurt a little kid) we have to get the security guard.
He's an older guy named Joe, and he radiates a security guard authority that makes the kids snap to right away. He goes over to the tot lot and you can immediately see the kids become crestfallen, "here comes The Man." That Joe is older, frailer and smaller than I am, for example, means nothing. They respect him, me? Not so much. Me, I'm just some generic white guy dad. Randi they respect much more, as she can use her TEACHER VOICE, but it's just so much easier to get Joe and stay out of it.
A couple of days ago, as Joe marched a group of middle school aged boys out of the tot lot, I saw one boy look at us, with anger seething in his eyes and he said to me that ultimate middle school put-d0wn, "Snitch!" At one time, way back when, this might have hurt my feelings, when I was in middle school, I guess. But now that I'm almost 38 and have a kid to worry about I can only laugh and remember.
But now we're the parents who snitch on the kids. So we're now obligated to do it each and every time they overdo it in the tot lot, which happens all the time.
But what is it about middle schoolers that makes it so easy to feel irritated with them? It's such a strange time in life. The kids are definitely out of their little, cute, cuddly phase, yet they still want to do little kid things. They aren't high schoolers yet, who are off doing their own thing, for better or worse. (In NYC this is too often for the worse.)
I actually understand why these kids are so defensive. For the boys they have suddenly become painfully aware of the opposite sex, at precisely the moment when the opposite sex has become even more painfully unaware of them, or so it seemed so many years ago. Your friends become your whole world, and acceptance means everything. Pushing boundaries and defying authority becomes more and more important. At the same time you become more sensitive to everything.
I will never forget the hurt of being excluded from a birthday party in seventh grade, for someone who lived up my block. From my window I watched kids, in some cases my own friends, walk up my own block and past my window, but I couldn't go. You know why? Because in seventh grade you're finally allowed to choose your own friends, and aren't obligated to invite all the kids you were forced to hang out with when you were toddlers and pre-schoolers. In other words, your parents can't set your social calendar anymore. It's liberating and terrifying.
At the same time you start to resent the way certain authority figures still put the squish on you whenever they feel like it, and they still don't treat you any different than when you were a little, little kid. That's probably why the kids seemed, in part, so hurt when Joe has to crack down on them.
The question then becomes when does it end? It ends, for the kids we see, when they go to high school and they become too old to go back to their old playground. By then they might even be tool old to "play" anyway, which is kind of sad in it's way.
As for now I've realized the best thing I can do is probably let Joe do all the heavy lifting and make it as little about us versus them as possible. The middle schoolers can be rude, crude and annoying but hopefully it's just a phase. Right, it's just a phase?
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Dads Wanted For Storytelling Show
Hi All,
I am producing a storytelling show featuring dads in NYC. We are going to do it live on Father's Day and it's called ... Father's Day. If you are a dad and have a great story, or know a dad, send this on to him/them.
I love stories that are fun, funny and truthful. If this sounds like you and you feel confident doing five minutes in front of a friendly crowd email me at daveserchuk@hotmail.com.
The show will be at Ochi's Lounge, downstairs at Comix.
If you wish to participate send me a short version of your story, and tell me a little bit about yourself, and your history as a writer, performer, dad or what have you. You don't need a ton of stage experience to be in this show, you just need to want to tell a great, heartfelt story. :-)
--Dave, the BBD
I am producing a storytelling show featuring dads in NYC. We are going to do it live on Father's Day and it's called ... Father's Day. If you are a dad and have a great story, or know a dad, send this on to him/them.
I love stories that are fun, funny and truthful. If this sounds like you and you feel confident doing five minutes in front of a friendly crowd email me at daveserchuk@hotmail.com.
The show will be at Ochi's Lounge, downstairs at Comix.
If you wish to participate send me a short version of your story, and tell me a little bit about yourself, and your history as a writer, performer, dad or what have you. You don't need a ton of stage experience to be in this show, you just need to want to tell a great, heartfelt story. :-)
--Dave, the BBD
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