The Politics of Me

"What comes of this moment is up to us. What comes of this moment will be determined not by whether we can sit together tonight, but whether we can work together tomorrow." -President Barack Obama (State of the Union, 1/25/11)

This should be one of those quotes that transcends politics and galvanizes individuals. This is not a quote merely for politicians; rather, this is a quote for humanity. The President is still preaching hope in an effort that we figure out a way to understand the message and work together in mending relationships while trying to achieve common dreams.

Recently I’ve learned that my communication has been off as well (much like our politicians). Sometimes “off” meaning just a little off kilter. Other times “off” has meant completely shut down to the point that it’s been irresponsible and hurtful – I need to relearn how to communicate. This is a tough sentence to write considering communication (and words, specifically) is what I do for a living. However, what’s most important right now for me (and, by extension, for those around me) is that I start to take my own advice that I spout to others and become a responsible individual. I need to understand the control and power that I have (and elicit) and be careful how I dispense and flex that power.

I hate using the word “power.” It makes me seem like an egomaniac when all I mean is that every person has power in a relationship. Ideally it should be equal, but there are times when that equality becomes unbalanced or completely nonexistent. That’s what this quote means to me: there is an imbalance of power right now politically (plus, like I admitted, personally), and it needs to be actively worked on so that we can accomplish all of the great things that we have the potential to.

This quote also acknowledges that there is a common drive within a relationship and that that drive needs to be understood before any concrete changes can take place. Understanding means that you are not only aware that there will be concession from both sides, but you are also willing to actually make sacrifices for the betterment of both parties.

I’m ready to be at that stage.

I realize that making this too connected with my personal life is one of the most stereotypical “blogger” things I could do, and it has the potential to make people raise an uninterested "get-over-yourself" eyebrow at me. However, I feel like the only way to assume that others should be doing better is to do better yourself. Realistically, the parallels between the political aspect of this quote and the personal are virtually absent. That is why I’ve chosen to identify with this quote. My new focused is on what’s been good today and (hopefully) utilizing it so that I can have a better tomorrow.

Not As Important As They'd Like To Think

I don’t know if it’s bullshit or the truth that teachers are considered “a shaper of minds”? Mostly I think it’s bullshit. As a teacher, at best I would consider myself a “facilitator of thought” – and even that’s pushing it.

Of course, that’s only when you think about a teacher’s role in terms of content, which is how most evaluate the validity of the classroom, honestly.

I’m not sure that I disagree with that as a barometer in terms of who should be considered a “good” teacher and who isn’t. Students go to school so that they can learn something new each day, and I’m not sure that I provide that when it comes to content: or that I qualify as someone that knows the content at a “Mastery” standard (another qualification).

Basically this is how I feel: anyone can be compassionate and know more than someone who has (often) zero prior knowledge of a subject. That doesn’t/shouldn’t make them an authority over any subject.

When I have to tell people that I’m a teacher, I do so with the kind of embarrassment of pointing out a beat up, disheveled car in a parking lot. I’m hesitant to claim ownership over such a revered profession – even if that reverence is misplaced, ungracious or phony. People already know how they feel about teachers (or, rather, people know how they should feel about teachers): they have memories of their favorite “teachers”; they always have a sympathetic face and/or comment about how the pay is unfair because they know it’s “such a tough, thankless job.” Except here’s the thing, even after all that praise and compassion, they still think they could do the job just as well. And quite honestly, they probably could for the most part. Hell, I “learned” in one year.

The idea of cynicism isn’t often something I cling to, so this really is nothing more than the suppressed truth. Something I’ve always felt, but never fully articulated because by doing so I knew that it would devalue what I do. Which in turn devalues who I am. (Right?)

That is, unless I don’t think of myself as a teacher. Unless I focus more on my (um) importance on my ability to facilitate thought.

And even relying on that as a descriptor makes me squeamish because it implies that my thoughts should be the impetus for theirs. Like their own brain paths aren’t good enough to allow them to think for themselves. Seriously, all of these people telling us teachers that we’re “under-appreciated” and “underpaid” really has gone to our heads, huh? You’ll be hard-pressed to meet a teacher that isn’t willing to discuss all the ways that they are “under-appreciated” and “underpaid,” and it’s all because teachers buy into the idea that what they do is among the most important jobs available.

Saints aren’t saints because they claim to be.

Please don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I think teachers don’t do anything important. I do believe that there are certainly things that every student should know before they embark on the world (grammar and punctuation, for example) and that teachers do play a part in helping them learn. My point is simply that the system as it’s set up – giving the teachers the façade of power in classrooms and over other’s minds – is an abomination and needs to be demolished and rebuilt from the ground up. Trying to patch holes when there’s structural damage makes no sense.

In order for this to be a success, instead of teachers thinking that what they do is so important and necessary, they should be focusing on what the students need. Truly need. Not making a veiled attempt at connecting to their interests by playing a rap song every now and then. In order to be a good facilitator you need to have a definitive starting point, a message that you’d like to share (with the knowledge that they might not grasp/believe/want to hear/understand what you’ve set up) and an end result for when it’s all over. Then (and here’s the tricky part), you need to be willing to allow them to think for themselves and not insert your own opinions and goals as facts.

Instead, the class should be structured in such a way that active thinking should count always as active learning. As a group, teachers need to get off of their horses and realize that what they do is only moderately important to the longevity of an individual’s life. You may get lucky enough to truly inspire one person for real that sticks with them for any extended period of time – this goal, by the way, shouldn’t be any different for any other person – you should always be trying to inspire others.

However, the moment that a teacher presumes what they think is more important than a student’s individual thought, that’s where the bullshit becomes a heap.

'Ship-Wrecked

I waited to write any reaction to Oregon’s BCS loss so that you weren’t inundated with another “This Is How My Day Was Crushed” piece written by an embattled sports fan. Also, I was hoping that by waiting something new would come to light.

Nope.

In fact, the longer I’ve waited, the more it hurts. Sure I’ve been able to “move on,” and it’s no longer the first thing I think of, but I’m also aware that my demeanor hasn’t been the same since. My mood has been changed. This article probably will just end up being a cathartic exercise to see if that change is permanent or (hopefully) temporary.

We often equate real life experiences to our sports emotions: I’ve been cheated on before, heartbroken, rejected, dejected, misinformed and just flat out lied to. I’ve also been lucky enough to have found love. And in the end, that has helped those experiences (though still not worthwhile), fade into the distance because of where I am now – I’ve never felt that with a sports team.

I’m a lifelong Trailblazer, New York Mets and Oregon Duck fan – that’s a trifecta of shit right there. Three teams that always seem good enough but never actually accomplish anything. (And no, I don’t count the Mets World Series win because I was fresh out of the womb when it happened.)

In my life, I’ve experienced two NBA finals (both losses and took place before I was ten-years-old), two Rose Bowls and a National Championship with a litany of reasons why they never panned out: the Bad Boy Pistons; Magic’s “End-of-the-game-rrrrip-city-your-heart-out-of-your-chest-full-court-heave-with-no-time-left; Jordan’s three-point “shrug” barrage; Sean Elliott’s toe trapeze; Kobe’s lob to Shaq; and recently Greg Oden and Brandon Roy becoming the founding members of Portland’s new sports political subgroup, the Knee Party.

And that’s just being a Blazer fan.

The Duck’s list, while shorter, hurts just as much: Ki-Jana Carter’s 83-yard opening drive touchdown; Terrelle Pryor first snubbing the university and then passing around us last year; and now, well, this.

This one doesn’t even have a name yet.

That’s what’s so discouraging – neither team played great. Either team could’ve won, but history and fate decided to again play the role of Lucy to my Charlie Brown and pull the ball away and watch as I come crashing down.

(I realize that using a football example to accentuate a football metaphor isn’t the most clever approach, but what do you want from me? My team just lost. Good grief.)

When I was younger, I tried to make myself like teams that habitually won. The Bulls and the Yankees, for sure. But their victories meant nothing to me specifically. It’s like hearing about how your friend had an awesome threesome. You’re excited for him. You can get the details. But it’s not your story.

My dad was alive when the Trailblazers won their only championship in 1977 and says that it was "glorious" and one of the best days of his life.

After Monday’s loss – after he and I exchanged disheartened curse words in disbelief – he seemed to move on much quicker than me. (Although when we watched a recorded PTI from that day, we each decided to skip the BCS portion because we just couldn’t take the chance that they had picked Oregon.) I’m sure some of his cavalier attitude comes from his advanced age where you try and apply the wisdom not to dwell on what’s wrong and instead focus on what’s good; yet, I know too that he can also simply recall the memory of that fateful summer day in 1977 and replace the bad with the good. The day that he experienced his sports-threesome.

(As far as I know, or care to know, that’s where that analogy ends).

As I silently sat there, baffled and infuriated, I looked up with one simple request: I just want to know what it feels like to win a championship once in my lifetime.

… … …

That’s what hurt most about Monday – (we) were so close… We’re not the SEC. This doesn’t happen every year. Heck, we’re not even USC (who I think has only won one National Title anyway in this current reign of dominance); and while you can argue that we’re on our way, it’s not there yet, and it doesn’t make this one hurt any less.

Please don’t confuse this as me saying that I’m disappointed in my team. I’m not. Besides the ’99 Blazers (who also lost), the Ducks gave me the second best sports season I’ve ever been a part of as a fan.

… Second best.

Nate McMilan Is A Gone(er, Wait A Minute)

I suppose it’s a good thing that normal people aren’t given the reigns of their favorite sports teams or else it would be nothing more than a collection of over-amped, brow-sweating schlubs overreacting to every tiny detail when things weren’t going their way for too long – that being said, I still consider myself to be an even-keeled fan that is remarkably subjective.

I bring this up because for the past month and a half I have been pounding the drum within my inner-circle of friends that will listen to my opinion (which is both vast and shallow at the same time. And by “listen to my opinion,” I of course mean, “at least in the realm of talking sports,” and “until it’s their turn”) that the Blazers should be trying to find Nate McMillan’s replacement right now. Yesterday, in fact.

It’s not that I don’t like or appreciate what Nate has done for the franchise, I do. As a lifelong Blazer fan I can say that besides Rick Adelman, Nate has done the most for this franchise as a coach than anyone else in the modern era (obviously Jack Ramsay is on a tier to himself). I also realize me making that declaration is about as shocking as someone telling you they wouldn’t mind seeing Scarlett Johansson naked.

However, I do believe (or did. Or, still do. I don’t know) that Nate has used up his time with this group of players and unless you’re going to move half the roster (which Portland could have done any year before this, but now they seem to all be damaged goods) it’s him that should go. His unwillingness to flinch from a slow down game has been nothing short of frustrating while actually moving into the realm of the agonizing – like watching a child play with a toy the “incorrect” way, but you can’t take it away because they had it first. His “defense first” mindset is nice except that that is more of a player’s attitude than anything, and it seemed like their attitude had become soiled against this coach.

Six years and really nothing to show for it can have that effect.

Now of course since I am simultaneously a Blazer enthusiast and a realist, I understand that injuries have been this teams, um, Achilles heel; I’m also aware that his teams have overachieved despite all that’s gone wrong, but I had simply put all that aside and was hung up on his unwillingness to change the tempo which, given the current roster, needed to be updated.

Then, all the sudden, something happened: Roy went down for sure. (This will be the true test of whether Nate has actually changed or not, when Roy eventually comes back next season.) And while that should have further crippled this team’s psyche, it didn’t. Instead, Lamarcus played big in the post (Arguably, if he had done this the past two seasons, the team’s history would be a little different); Wesley Matthews and Rudy start flying around; Patty Mills is taking away fourth quarter minutes from an eleven-year veteran in Andre Miller (*Cough* Trade him, Joel, and a first round pick – or two! – for Steve Nash. *Cough*); Not to mention the team is finally doing what it couldn’t earlier in the season and hitting shots – even in the fourth quarter.

All the while, they’re still playing defense.

So Nate changed his approach. He adapted to his personnel and found a way to save what could have been a lost season. Now what am I suppose to believe? How am I supposed to justify replacing Nate? (Mind you, I never thought he should be fired. I just thought that it was probably time to move on.) Now I flip-flop between just “seeing how this year plays out” and “could Nate be the next Jerry Sloan and stay with one club for twenty years?”

This isn’t out of the realm of possibility either because, by all accounts, Nate gets along with management above him (The same can’t be said for the late great GM/Draft day thief, Kevin Pritchard); The players seem to respect (even like) him; and really, if you prove your system works, the respect comes from that and the fact that you own your post, much like Sloan. Plus Portland, much like Utah, is a fan base that respects quality and doesn’t necessarily rate success by number of championships. Whether good or bad, that’s how it is.

All that understood, coupled with Portland’s seeming resurgence, I honestly don’t know what I believe anymore.

The only thing I do know is that I will quiet down the drum I’ve been using to gather the posse because as long as Nate can continue to change his offensive mindset and open up the playbook, there’s no reason not to keep him.

(Of course, as a Blazer fan, I’m also more than ready to again have my heart crushed in a predictably unpredictable way.)

The Queen

Sometimes you need to write something even if you’re not entirely motivated to do so – fittingly, I watched The Queen for the first time tonight.

Beyond the immediate, immature jokes that ran through my head (“The Queen? Richard Simmons has a biopic? You know, asinine quips like that), I was really excited for this film that I had wanted to see for as long as it’s been out. I was finally in a place to watch it and really feel like I could appreciate what it was trying to tell the audience.

Again, the parallels between how this sounds and the way Helen Mirren portrayed a tortured figure hell-bent on maintaining her set of rules, regulations and tradition seems very close. At least to me. And while the final five minutes or so seemed sort of preachy and forced all of the gray areas to be filled with either white or black, the overall performance and pace of the entire production was well executed.

Technically speaking, the way the film took subtle attempts at humor to extenuate The Queen’s demeanor was remarkable. Mirren played Her Majesty with a quiet dignity that was questioned by her subjects throughout; the filmmakers took this chance to question that dignity (even openly mock it at times). Mirren’s Queen personified a “business as usual” establishment and a light beat down it to prove that that isn’t the only way to accomplish what you want done.

Besides the mundane humor, the music was the best thing the film had going for it. The “who-dun-it” atmosphere that it connoted was brilliant because the story really was a mystery at its heart. Whether that mystery was “why does she act/feel this way?” Or “when will she evolve with her people?” it left you wondering how it would all play out. (Which is even more of an accomplishment since you probably already knew the timeline.)

To a degree, this was one of the most ingenious biopics I have seen. Not because of what I have laid in the previous paragraphs, but because the entire movie could have actually been mistaken for a biopic about Princess Diana as opposed to a film solely about the Queen. Yes, it was done under the guise of a triumphant transformation and image/legacy-solidifying story about a woman who really wanted nothing to do with her. But the driving character in the film, the one whom everyone else reacted to, was Diana.

To that point however, perhaps it is the only way that a Diana movie could be made? When you think about it, everyone loved her unconditionally (“People’s Princess”) except the Royal Family. The Queen was the one who harbored completely legitimate feelings and resentment toward Diana for what she “gave up.” Or hell, to be more elementary about it, Diana is the woman who left her son. Not many in-laws still keep those types of people in a positive light.

By the end of the movie though, I didn’t care to learn more about Diana. I wanted another hour of the Queen.

Say your at a party and you see a pretty girl, but since she’s already talking to someone you decide to start talking to her friend because at least you know that at some point in the night the pretty girl will end up walking over. Now, you can’t talk to the friend about the pretty girl, you need to seem interested in her or else she’ll whiff your ruse. Except the more you listen, the more you want to know about her, and conversely, the less you start to care about the pretty girl. It’s become apparent that while she‘s everything you thought, the friend has so many layers that she proves to be the more interesting of the two.

Because of the atmosphere the film develops, The Queen lends itself to many comparisons. Intentionally and unintentionally. Whether it’s my inept “girl-at-a-party” scenario; the fairly calm “she-is-the-stag” scenario they highlight throughout her tortured decision-making process; or, at the end of the film, the forced “she-doesn’t-know-any-better-just-like-all-old-generations-of-government-and-society-alike” scenario that was crammed down your throat like you were an eight year-old staring at a dinner plate full of tomatoes.

I don’t really know how to finish this since I was pulled in so many different directions. Normally I would be able to concisely commit to a train of thought and deliver. However, since it was really about three movies in one, I’m not sure I yet know how to do it justice. But maybe that’s how it should be approached? Carefully. Cautiously, so as not to appear over zealous or out of touch with the message it portrayed. Another not-so-subtle comparison to its main character? Sure. But definitely an appropriate, and dignified, decision that could eventually be understood.

"Entourage," Season 7 Midterm Review

It takes a lot for a show to make its way into someone’s television date book. An appreciation and trust that what you’re going to experience is worth the time spent away from the rest of your life. For “Entourage,” that simply hasn’t been the case the last two seasons. Even though I watched them, they were so bad that I didn’t care to set the season pass reminder on my DVR this year and forgot about the opening episode. I’ve been watching with the On Demand option ever since. And boy am I glad that I have been.

You see, much like the deadbeat relative in your life, shows are given extra chances and special consideration to impress themselves upon you after they’ve fallen out of favor. Some shows, when given this chance, fail to recapture the spark that initially drew you to their glow in the first place, while others show just enough of their past self to get you going again. This season of “Entourage” has gotten back to the key elements that made it great in the first place: the trials of “making it,” credible camaraderie and, of course, gratuitous nudity and spending of millions dollars which extenuates just how much different their world is from ours. It’s all back. The show is starting to reclaim its vigor.

In fact, with each passing week’s show I’ve been more and more inclined to approach it as I had in the past – with that enthusiasm discussed earlier that we only reserve for our favorite shows. You know how when you drink too much of a certain beverage there’s that chance that you can never drink that drink again without those memories? Sometimes even the mere word (let alone the smell) is enough to induce the tickle on your uvula that forces you to the point where you plot out your exit strategy in case there’s no going back? Nobody likes those nights. And we all know shows that are the equivalent to those nights (cough, “Heroes. Cough, Jack and Cokes). Shows that were once brilliant but suddenly thought too hard, or became too lazy (or both) and killed any chance it had of survival. “Entourage” was close to being neck deep in someone else’s garbage can on a hot Saturday morning wishing it had never had the fun at all the night before because the pain wasn’t worth it the next morning… (Hmm, maybe you shouldn’t mix metaphors either?)

However, then there are those special nights where maybe you did go overboard, but you either don’t have any objection to the drink the next time, or you make yourself get over it because you know you’re gonna want to partake again. Only this time you dial it down and focus on what made the drink good in the first place. That seems to be the more likely road “Entourage” has taken. Like I said, it has rediscovered (maybe refocused) that initial playfulness that made us all excited to spend some time with it. If it keeps this up, it may even reclaim the douche bags that think it’s cool to have their theme song as their ringtone? It might be that good again. (We’ve all tried or thought about having it as a ringtone, but only those special d-bags think it’s a good long-term idea.)

This season, the idea of “making it” is different than it was before. They’re no longer no-names throwing themselves against the wall and seeing what sticks. Last season they wanted all of the characters to mature and evolve. Which is great, but I’m not sure the show’s creators initially answered the question of the story arc as to how you create conflict if your immature characters all of the sudden become powerful industry leader that have their shit figured out. The answer? Make them realize that there’s more to figure out. Only this time, since they are actually famous and in charge, there’s less time for forgiveness. They’re big time in Hollywood now and can’t get away with the same stuff. There’s Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and Blogs that are out incessantly to bring them down sometimes for no other reason than to just bring them down. There are more responsibilities when you’re on top to stay there.

The writers seemed to have figured it out, though.

They’ve made Vince a meaningful catalyst again completely connected to everyone else’s life. They are, after all, his entourage.

Vince should drive the show. And we should care about his successes and failures because they are tied to his friend’s successes and failures. But we need more to care about than whether or not he cuts his hair. Unless him cutting his hair is the beginning of his destruction. Now that’s something we wanna see play out. Remotes in hand and our comfortable spots reclaimed in hopes of welcoming back that quirky relative we always knew had it in them to be great again.

I love the dark side of Vince that’s being shown this year. I love that his care-free attitude – while often refreshing and relatable because most of us watching are hopeful in thinking that given the opportunity to make millions and hang out with our friends, we would approach it that same way – is getting him and (perhaps more importantly) the people he loves into trouble. This is the type of storytelling that drives back viewers. That makes them remember that they care about these characters. This is what connects their stories to those of us watching at home. We too can sympathize with literally or figuratively “hitting bottom.” And now we all want to see how they survive this because, in the end, they’re our entourage too.

… Of course, having them live lavishly and surrounded by insanely hot, naked women helps too.

Cool Runnings

For the first time in at least a decade it was “bobsled time.” My wife’s brothers came to visit us this week and we bumped Cool Runnings up in our Netflix queue so that they could have an opportunity to watch it. They live a fairly sheltered life, so the fact that they hadn’t seen a movie about an all black troupe of outsiders led by an abnormally hefty white male in the world of Olympic bobsledders shouldn’t be surprising.

My initial wonder in re-watching the movie was whether or not there would be subtle racism hidden in the crevasses of the story (as is the case with most outdated Disney movies)? Well, I’m sad to report (or happy to say) that no, there wasn’t. Sort of.

The movie, which takes us back to 1988 (or maybe ’86?) Jamaica, weaves a fairly formulaic tale of “little guy accomplishes big things.” Only in this instance the “little guy” is a group of bumbling caricatures donning remarkably stereotypical accents out to prove that anyone can succeed if they put their minds to it. There opponent? Several opposing bobsled teams of constructed of straight-laced caricatures also donning remarkably stereotypical accents.

Luckily for the movie (and really for filmmaking overall) the lovable losers of color had a smart, strong and capable white guy there to help out when things were down. Yes, John Candy played the role of the white dude from Avatar before Avatar was ever even thought of. (I’m pretty sure this is true even though apparently James Cameron had been thinking of the freakishly tall blue people for over a decade.) In fact, the similarities eventually lead one to believe (or at least ridiculously argue) that Cool Runnings was the inspiration for Avatar. I mean, think about it: unassuming group living in a utopia meet a nice white man that can help them in reconstructing their lives when something has gone awry. Whether that something be a pampered rich kid trips and devastates your Olympic chances, or a paraplegic “running” around as one of you comes just time for the massive, calculated invasion to which only he holds the key to saving your entire species of people. One in the same, really.

(The real fun part was reading the IMDb trivia and realizing that Disney basically massacred the true story so that there would be added layers of conflict within the move. For example, apparently countries and people were actually really nice and friendly to the Jamaican team. Not jerks, like the movie has you believe. That, however, doesn’t help to further the contrived “Us vs. Them” narrative that is so much fun for people to watch.)

After it’s all over, it really comes down to one main question: was it rewatchable? And yes, it was. It was just as goofy, simple and formulaic as I remembered. The moron with his lucky egg, the roided a-hole that doesn’t like his team, the suppressed rich kid, the over-weight has-been and the plucky go-getter captain were all once again welcomed into my family room for another trip down the slick trail, providing me with a sense of nostalgia as cool and crisp as the Canadian air they endured.