Tuesday, March 28, 2006

The Cycle of Living
Written and shared for a youth conference workshop about creative expression and building assets.

[start]

I used to be scared of this paper and pen
And this keyboard click and monitor then –
Back then everyone was telling me,
“John, you gotta be better when you write –
that you really can’t write –
well, that you are what you write”
and since I couldn’t,
that I was nothing, right?

And as much as they loved me
And wanted to see me grow,
I think that the way they would show me
Really didn’t flow,
And they weren’t giving me much inspiration,
You know?

So, what took me from fear
To standing up hear
Telling you my story through words
And o-ver-ex-agg-er-a-ted hand gestures,
Trying to talk about lessons
With rhythm – not lectures.
What built me up to stand alone
With spotlights shining on the beads of the sweat
On my forehead –
Can’t hide behind another person
Can’t hid behind a phone
Can’t do nothing but be myself in reality
In front of strangers – with a sense of formality
Standing in front of my life – offering you
Words –
Hoping that you’re whispering in your own ears,
“Man it’s me. Man, it’s me who he’s talking about.
Man it’s me who suffered through humility
Who still has faith in humanity,
But man it’s me who wants to make it better so I
share,
Man, it’s me who’s here because someone cared.”

It took one person who cared to support me,
Instead of unintentionally degrading me,
To move me from can’t do – to will do,
And have done.
So I stand here before you and with you and behind you
–
As this pen’s son.

She shared the gift of writing
And now that is my sword –
My only way to honor it,
Is by paying it forward.

Because writing isn’t just about words
Or the feelings –
It’s about living.
Because writing is giving.

It’s the eye opening sequence for others
Who would have had no other pretense
Or access to know the story that I tell,
To understand how I got up when I fell –

To understand that beat. That rhythm. That thumping
in my chest
When it’s not about the rest, it’s about me
And the blogs and the podcasts transmitting through my
veins,
Speaking of victories, defeats, and happiness and
pain.
It’s the drawn back curtains, the open screen door,
It’s around the world in 80 days on my own personal
world wide tour.
Because to read me – is to know me.
And to know me – that’s all about humanity.
I share. You take.
You share I take.

It’s the cycle of writing. The cycle of giving.
Together
It’s the cycle of living

Ulam cooked @ 2:16 AM

 3 of the headscratch variety

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

speak difficult
rhythms could make a man,
but words escape like a fair weather fan.
dancing could make sense in silence
but words that mean nothing spark violence
(soulfully).
resistance breathes life into death
there's no high to this meth.

sameolshit,
speak deficit.

Ulam cooked @ 8:49 PM

 0 of the headscratch variety

Friday, March 17, 2006

finally..
after looking and trying quite dumbfoundedly for YEARS, I have finally begun to understand how to use Adobe Illustrator.

Yes, this image is quite simple, but it's my first project really, so I'm happy.

Ulam cooked @ 3:48 PM

 1 of the headscratch variety

Monday, March 13, 2006

Circles
I walked past the Director's office today and saw the new table she requested. Previously, it was a another Ikea piece, flimsy and faux, yet functional. Now, it's a round glass piece and quite stylistic. Headed towards the head, where great philosophizing does occur, I thought to myself: "Wow, that's a nice table."

Subsequently, I pondered what the world would be like if more things were round.

Rectangular buildings fit in boxed-foundations. More so than circles. On the ground, if you have a space that is defined by right angles, a building defined by right angles would obviously fit better. It's just geometry. Or is it physics? Anyway, I thought, what if all our buildings were round and instead of filling out each piece of land with concrete right angles we filled them with trees, shrubs, and grass? I guess it would be as efficient. Even a round table in a round building wouldn't make sense in a hyper-efficient world. There would be geometrical symmetry, but not a complete fit.

Our world doesn't make sense in non-right angles. We are a 90 degree culture.

But then I thought, what about the Jetsons? Remember, that was our western-pop-cultural idea of our future (sans non-token colored folks). Cars were round. Buildings were round. Cogswell cogs and Spacely Sprockets were round. That was our future - rounded and advanced. Are we still headed there?

Right angles and straight lines fit our efficiency-obsessed, ultra-structured, bottom-lined culture. We love Interstate 5 because it shoots straight towards La La Land versus the more scenic 101. Our relaxation is a nice day at the person-built park. Right angles and straight lines are direct, specifically defined. They maximize area and volume. Of course, the Jetsons were just as manufactured as we are now - and as we have always been, but roundness supercedes us.

In the bible, we're given the "ashes to ashes" analogy. In nature, everything is cyclical. Even in technology, and I'm talking about ancient technology, round things meant advancement. Pulleys, wheels, and rounded out boats moved things further, faster, and with more facility.

What am I asking? Ask yourself.

Ulam cooked @ 11:49 AM

 0 of the headscratch variety

Friday, March 10, 2006

new look
I lag like a mufucka.

So I cheated. Used the same layout style as Livin' Proof, but screw it.

This webpage got bigger fish to fry.

I got writing projects. I got ideas. I just gotta get to them.

word.

Ulam cooked @ 2:39 PM

 0 of the headscratch variety

Thursday, March 02, 2006

The Contract Year and "underachieving"
I sometimes say to folks that the writer who changed my perspective in writing was Bill Simmons, the ESPN.com Page 2 Columnist known as The Sports Guy. The guy is extremely popular and has an almost cult-like following especially in terms of his Mailbags - to the point that in recent responses to Isiah's umpteenth disasterous trade, most of the reader responses were almost trying to hard to crack jokes that would give The Sports Guy minor wood. I say minor, rather than major, wood because the emails were bland for the most part. Jokes? Yeah. But the spirit of them had a foundation from Simmons' writing and style of wit, but their ceilings were right up his ass. BTW, I'm guilty of the same type of brown-nosing too because I am working at trying to get into a Mailbag, even on the Cowbell aka Blog, by throwing in Saved by the Bell, WWE, and The O.C. analogies (among any other Simmons favorite).

I'm on a tangent.

Now, despite the wit and the humor, the article that particularly grabbed me involved a dinner Simmons had with Paul Pierce. When he wrote about Paul Pierce, he told us, the readers, of Pierce's basketball knowledge, his attachment to the history, and his generally ambient passion for the game-ALL of the game, past, present, future, fundamentals to flash, above and beyond the rim. He TOLD us in context. He SHOWED us in his words.

It was at that point when I removed myself from centerstage, even when writing about myself and my opinions, but looked for that spark in the person, place, thing, same name, etc. that I was talking about. At the time, I was a "retired" wrestling on-line columnist. After reading that, I jumped back in for a few months but found realness and passion. In particular, one of my favorite pieces that I remember writing was about the recently-deceased Eddy Guerrero and the greatness of his match management. This was no less than 3 years before he finally won the WWE Championship.

As a lesson from Mrs. K, my 12th grade English teacher tried to teach us at the time but I greatly failed at understanding what the fuck she was trying to get us to learn, that I eventually learned by example from Bill Simmons, I learned to SHOW not tell. If any of you AHS folks ever happen to stop by and read this, let me know if you remember what I'm talking about.

I'm on a tangent again. This reminds me that I should write about my greatest lessons in writing. Okay, next time.

So, again, Bill Simmons has given me food for thought for the day and I felt the need to pass it on to you. He has a feature called "Curious Guy" where he trades emails with folks in the sports or entertainment world and subsequently shares with us. This issue is with Marcus Gladwell, author and columnist at The New Yorker.

Here's the LINK

And here's a snippet initially talking about the phenomenon of the Contract Year in sports (specifically how some athletes have their All Star years the last year of their existing contract right before they enter Free Agency and how their game crashes the year after):
"This is one of my favorite topics. Let's do Erick Dampier. In his contract year at Golden State, he essentially doubles his rebounds and increases his scoring by 50 percent. Then, after he signs with Dallas, he goes back to the player he was before. What can we conclude from this? The obvious answer is that effort plays a much larger role in athletic performance than we care to admit. When he tries, Dampier is one of the top centers in the league. When he doesn't try, he's mediocre. So a big part of talent is effort. The second obvious answer is that performance (at least in centers) is incredibly variable. The same person can be a mediocre center one year and a top 10 center the next just based on how motivated he is. So is Dampier a top 10 player or a mediocre player? There is no way to answer that. It depends. He's not inherently good or bad. He's both. The third obvious answer is that coaching matters. If you are a coach who can get Dampier to try, you can turn a mediocre center into a top 10 center. And you, the coach, will be enormously valuable. (This is why Phil Jackson is worth millions of dollars a year.) If you are a coach who can't get Dampier to try, then you're not that useful. (You may want to insert the name Doc Rivers at this point.)

In the context of sports, none of us have any problem with any of these conclusions. But now let's think about it in the context of education. An inner city high school student fails his classes and does abysmally on his SATs. No college will take him, and he's basically locked out of the best part of the job market. Why? Because we think that grades and SATs tell us something fundamental about that kid's talent and ability -- or, in this case, lack of it.

But wait: what are the lessons of the contract year? A big part of talent is effort. Maybe this kid is plenty smart enough, and he's just not trying. More to the point, how can we say he isn't smart. If talent doesn't really mean that much in the case of Dampier -- if basketball ability is incredibly variable -- why don't we think of ability in the case of this kid as being incredibly variable? And finally, what does the kid need? In the NBA, we'd say he needed Phil Jackson or Hubie Brown or maybe just a short-term contract. We'd think that we could play a really important role in getting Dampier to play harder. So why don't we think that in the case of the kid? I realize I'm being a bit of a sloppy liberal here. But one of the fascinating things about sports, it seems to me, is that when it comes the way we think about professional athletes, we're all liberals (without meaning to be, of course). We give people lots of chances. (Think Jeff George). We go to extraordinary lengths to help players reach their potential. We're forgiving of mistakes. When the big man needs help with his footwork, we ship him off to Pete Newell for the summer. We hold players accountable for their actions. But we also believe, as a matter of principle, that players need supportive environments in order to flourish. It would be nice if we were as generous and as patient with the rest of society's underachievers."

ENJOY!

John Enjoi - Yes I Will

Ulam cooked @ 10:36 AM

 0 of the headscratch variety