Advice, part 2: Enjoy

Let's see, I've warned you that it was coming, then I gave you week one, now it's time for you to sit back and

Enjoy

It seems a simple enough concept, but one fraught with duality. Stephen Stills put it beautifully with "[i]f you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with," and therein lie the two sides of Enjoy.

First, there's the side that says "be with the one you love".

Take some time to figure out what it is you really enjoy. It might be running or playing tennis or sitting in the bathtub eating spaghetti and drinking a beer. Whatever that thing is, find time for it in every day. Maybe it'll only be a few minutes here or there or maybe it'll be something you do every Saturday all day long, but make sure that you do it.

No matter the hectic, the tired, the must, the hafta, the anything else, find at least a little bit of time to do what you enjoy. It'll keep you sane. It'll keep you going. It'll be the carrot dragging you forward just long enough to make it to the finish line.

And when people tell you that you're not accomplishing anything by playing around with those pewter miniatures or reading that fluff celebrity magazine or screwing around on the magical interweb box, remember that you are accomplishing something. You're enjoying.

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The flip side is to "love the one you're with".

There is so much that happens day to day, moment to moment that we can't quite control. Tires blow out. Pipes burst. Your wife backs into your car in the driveway.

And almost none of it is really all that bad. Most of your life is pretty good. You're still alive. You're still eating. You're still breathing. You've got some friends, maybe even a pretty girl (or guy, who am I to judge) to spend your afternoons, evenings, and - if you're lucky - nights with.

Everything else that happens is just stuff along the way.

Smile through it all.

And I don't even mean to say this in the high, preachy voice of that tells you over and over again that it could be worse...at least you've got your health...think about the less fortunate. Nope, that's not what I mean.

I mean that the most random series of events had to take place for you to exist. Your mother had to meet your father. Your grandma had to meet your grandpa. Your dad had to look past all of your mom's faults and love her - at least for a few moments, if I understand my biology. On the most microscopic of levels, the exact sperm had to find that exact egg at that exact moment.

Why waste the rest of your life moping about.

You are a miracle.

Shut the hell up and smile.

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And the invariable flip side - enjoy in moderation.

Almost no matter the enjoyment - beer, swimming, playing with dolls, horseback riding, whatever - when it's more than just carving out minutes and day as you can, with everything there comes a level when you're enjoying just a bit too much.

Maybe the signs will be that your pants are quite fitting as loosely as they did last fall, and you might want to consider enjoying the pumpkin milkshakes just a little less.

Maybe the bank's knocking on your door, and you're answering with "take the couch, take the tv, all I need are my mint in the box action figures from Titanic".

Or maybe it's when your friends start saying that they haven't seen you in months, that they miss you, that your collection of belly button lint is really starting to smell.

Just note that enjoy doesn't mean obsess.

Bang Your Head!

Caught Inside Man - a Spike Lee Joint - over the weekend (review coming, don't worry) and was absolutely floored by the must running over the title and credit sequences. It's a ditty called "Chaiyya Chaiyya" - a remixed version for the film, anyway.

Here - thanks to the phenomenal YouTube - is the opening sequence from the film. The song itself starts about ninety second in.

After hunting around and being wildly disappointed by iTunes because the soundtrack is only available as the entire album (when I want only the one song - I thought we were in the post-album era) and by PLCH and my other local libraries who don't have the soundtrack, I went hunting online.

Turns out that the song's from a Bollywood spectacular called Dil Se... and is one of the larger musical numbers in the film - filmed entirely on the top of a moving train. It's kind of a cool sequence and lets you check the original version of the song - give it a listen with or without subtitles.

PS - turns out that the library has a copy of Bombay Dreams some sort of Andrew Lloyd Weber schmaltzfest with a version of the song in it. I've reserved it but am not terribly hopeful.

Take your pick...if you dare...

Take your pick over on the website.

Sir Paul and the tools of ignorance

Paul McCartney is a twit, a git, a wanker.

Had we been lucky enough long ago that the rumors had been true, then music would be better in the world for it.

But, no, the cute one lived and has continued to poison the airwaves with craptacular album after craptacular album.

And now that he's apparently older than dirt, and getting raked over the coals, it seems like the appropriate time to mock him further.

Thank heaven for the combination of YouTube and a gigantic friggin' moron who has no shame at all.

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In case you missed it - I'm trying to get you to check out the video of Paul McCartney who appears to be a total moron who can't cook and tells horrible jokes while doing bad children's-story-time accents. It's like a train wreck. I just couldn't look away.

The wrong forum...

It's pretty clear to me that television commercials are not the place for a rational, reasoned discourse on any issue. I know that, but I am still - from time to time - amazed at what passes along my tv screen from time to time. And things just seem to be getting worse as we head toward election day.

• The War on Terror spot
• Joe Lieberman's sunset ad
• Stop Shuler ad (amatuer, admittedly)
• An Ohio governor's primary ad
• GA Governor Perdue's CSI ad
• LBJ's famous daisy ad
• Count Chocola ad
• The first Nancy Johnson atrocity
• Gigantic Chris Bell commercial

God help us all...and, just so you know, it was the first ad in the list that really got me disgusted, particularly in light of recent news.

Dear lord, why?!?!?

Dear lord, why?

What have we done to anger you so?

First there were the catastrophes of 2005: Katrina, Monkey Business, plagues of locusts, mine disasters, Rita, and Match Point.

And now it looks like 2006 is shaping up to be even worse. Evidence #1...

Have we strayed from your path?

Have we not worshiped your image enough?

Tell us what we can do to get back in your good graces...please...

Hey! Hey! Hey! Ya! Ya! Ya!

It's hard to believe that it's been three years since "Hey Ya!" ruled the charts for months and months, rocking every last corner of the media world.

Sure, the original video rocks, absofriggin' rocks. We all know that. And there's a longer version that's, admittedly entirely clean (check YouTube for it if you wanna see it - it's got dirty words, so I won't be linking to it).

Since that summer blast of 2003, there have been an absolute rash of "Hey Ya!"-themed goodness.

For example, there's the great cover from Debrah Messing from Will & Grace, a cool lip synching version from four dorky guys, a video of the Peanuts gang rockin' out to "Hey Ya!", and - sadly - there have been a few crappy covers.

This past month, however, I got a chance to catch the most amazing cover of "Hey Ya!" by Mat Weddle. He's apparently part of a duo called Obadiah Parker who also covered the song. The dio version isn't as cool as the Weddle solo, but it still ain't bad.

And nearly everybody loves "Hey Ya!".

Advice, part 1: Do

(ok, big breath, take it nice and slow, here we go)

The much anticipated series of one-word advices (with long-winded explanations) starts...RIGHT NOW!


Do

I hate starting with something that seems to tightly tied to a corporate slogan, but Do feels like a quality starting point. It's the essence of so many things, the antithesis of so many mistakes.

Whenever you have something that you want or need to do, do it.

Don't procrastinate, don't put it off, don't reason it out of your life, just get up off of your backside and get it done.

The drip in your chimney is just going to get worse if you don't get it fixed.

The grass is just going to be harder to cut tomorrow when it's a little longer and you finally get around to cutting it.

The Red Sox will never again win the World Series in your lifetime - or, if they do, it won't be the same - so buy the frickin' tickets. Mortage the house, sell the baby, do whatever it takes to buy the tickets, moron.

And you've been telling everybody that you desperately want to get to Europe for years, so go.

Don't let anything stop you; don't make up reasons to not go, to sit and wait for a better time to do it.

The best time to do whatever it is you want or need to do is now.

If this means that you have to start making lists everyday and posting them huge on the refrigerator for eveyone to see so you'll be accountable, then do it.

If it means that you should grab one of those books that list places to see (or things to do) before you die - or to write one of your own - then do it.

This bit of advice - Do does have one correlary that you need to be aware of, however, and that's the also important Do No Harm.

We are not beings who live in isolation. Every action that we take has reprecussions, like ripples in a still pond.

Before you take that leap and throw yourself willy nilly into the great wide open, remember that your actions have reprecussions. Make sure that those reprecussions won't hurt other people.

That is the only way that I can suggest tempering today's simple directive to Do, because as Lincoln told us...

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."

Thanks for getting this far, folks...

Don't let the kids see that...Save it for yourself...

So, you've got the kids and ya wanna go see a movie, but all the movies at the local multiplex seem to be nothing but films made by the obviously liberal media, flicks clearly designed to undercut the very moral fiber on which this great country of ours is made.

What's a good conservative patriarch to do?

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Or, in another plausible scenario, you've got a night out with the guys. You wanna pop in a movie - but nothing that's entirely pornographic, just something with a whole bunch of sex, violence, and cursing.

How can you find the most depraved, filthy flick for you and your friend to work your way through without checking the local anime section of the local movie rental hut?

---

In either case, you should he checking out Kids In Mind where you can see exactly how many vulgarities and movie has or how many times any movie takes the Lord's name in vain, how many shooting or stabbings a flick has - either to avoid them or to hunt them out.

It's your business which...

Who doesn't love Star Trek?

Let's be honest, we all loves us some Star Trek - especially when mashed up with Charlie Murphy. There's...

• Karaoke
• Fancy technology
• Futuristic living
• And awkward moments

Some people don't like us...

I think Hugo Chavez, Venezuala's current President, is a fascinating character.

The first thing that makes him fascinating to me is that he's openly willing to absolutely lay the smack down on the US in about as big a forum as he could manage, the United Nations. He has been allying himself with Cuba and China and does just about anything that he can manage to slam the US and our status as the last global superpower.

The second thing that makes him fascinating is his history of political failure and success and failure and success again and again. This man's had more lives than Nixon, than Superman, than Jimmy Frickin' Hoffa.

Then there's the allegedly unfair press coverage that Chavez is supposedly getting here in the US. I don't honestly have any clue as to how Chavez is received in his country - whether to believe that 600,000 marched against him or that 200,000 marched in support of him at the same time.

Am I supposed to believe what Time said about him or what The Times said?

Then there's the fact that Pat Robertson apparently wants him dead which suggests to me that Chavez must be doing something right.

And, he's apparently offered us oil at $50 a barrel. Clearly the man's worth knowing about.

Plus, I just kind of like the jaunty parrot...

Fear, trepidation, and hope...ya dope...

It appears that another director is ready to step into the quagmire that is the movie version of Watchmen, and I don't know whether to be hopeful or not.

It's rare that any great work of art (fiction, nonfiction, music, whatever) is ever translated into another great work in a different medium, and Watchmen is a truly great, genre-shattering work of art. If you have any interest in graphic novel ([cough]comic books[/cough]) at all, then you should read Watchmen. To even begin to explain its greatness would do nothing more than show how inferior my prose is, so I'll just recommend that you swing by the Sharonville branch and pick it up - because it's seemingly always on the shelves. If you need some help, give me a holla, and I'll help you through the thing, but I doubt that you'll need any help.

Off the top of my head, great works that have been translated into great works in other media:

• Fight Club - book & movie
• MASH - movie & television show

Ok, I can't think of any others where I've read the original and seen the movie or television show and thought both were outstanding. Can anybody help me?

Here are some lists to get things started:

• Best movies based on tv shows
• Best book-to-movie adaptations
• Great adaptations - books to films - thorough list at the bottom
• Blog entry on best film adaptations of books
• Best sci-fi/fantasy movies from television shows
• Top 25 TV Show-To-Movies
• Greatest filmed adaptation of novels
• I can't find a list of tv shows that came from movies. Any help out there?

Oh, and arrrgggh...

In case you missed it...

Thoughts on educational stuff...

I'm taking two online classes at the moment, both dealing with educational theory and the use of technology in the classroom...

A posting that I just dropped over there interests me because of what I said and exactly how much/whether I believe it or not...

The professor's original questions:

Some interesting replies to some of the most engaging questions. Rarely do we stop to consider the answers to such meta-questions unless we are teachers. Can you calculate the square root of 2570 exactly without a calculator? Who cares? You might ask, and you'd be right to ask that question… who in fact does care and why do they care? What are they trying to do or make? What does it mean to be active or engaged in an activity? Can we learn without engaging in an activity? Better yet, is it possible to not learn if you are thinking about something? What is thinking anyway? Can we not think? (regardless of what your mother may have said to you when you were 14 years young… "Think…. can you please think?!") Can we be shamed into thinking correctly about something in order to learn it "properly"? Descartes and Locke had a lot to say about the changeless core that most of us believe endures to make up our identity and enduring self. Does our thinking and learning continually change us and transform us and our values? Many of your comments have both a social and emotional aspect as you related your stories and experiences. As several of you have pointed to, the things we hold in our memory and construct our knowledge upon definitely have emotional and social underpinnings.

As you read these questions and responses do you get the feeling that learning and thinking are such very personal activities that we cannot possibly predict what one individual may learn from certain online words, icons, pictures, movies, or simulations? Do you get the impression that each of us creates her or his own flow of meaning or dialogue around a particular topic? Do we learn more in our shaping of the question or trying to find our solution or answer? If this is so, what does “shared meaning after learning” mean to us as a group?

And my reply:

Do you get the feeling that learning and thinking are such very personal activities that we cannot possibly predict what one individual may learn from certain online words, icons, pictures, movies, or simulations?

If that were true in its purest, most extreme form, then there would be absolutely no reason to teach. Every person would have to learn every little bit of everything in their own way, and it would be stupid of me to even try to guide the class in the same direction. We wouldn't be a crew of twenty-plus heading in the same direction in one big boat, we'd be the plastic men in an electric, vibrating football game. Any little bump would send us all outward in a different direction from everybody else.

But I do think that the question is closer to the truth than it is far from the truth. We each take everything into our brain in ways that depend on everything from what we had for breakfast this morning to what mom/wife/dog said to us on the way out the door this morning to which way the wind's blowing to bring random scents to us as we learn.

I can hope to throw out experiences and situations that seem to have lead my students in a certain way in the past, but I sure as heck had better not assume that those same situations will lead this new group in the exact same direction this year.

Do you get the impression that each of us creates her or his own flow of meaning or dialogue around a particular topic?

We see through a glass darkly...everything that I take in is colored by everything that I have taken in before. Sure, you can't understand a man until you walk a mile in his moccasins, but even then, you still don't have the full picture.

If this is so, what does “shared meaning after learning” mean to us as a group?

It is a hope that we aren't alone, that somebody else can reassure us of our beliefs, memories, and thoughts so that we won't be fully and totally isolated. If we can't at least hope that our friends remember and learned the same things from our common experiences, then we might as well not have them.

(Wow, that last answer really turned out dark. Sorry 'bout that, folks - but on rereading it, I think I might believe what I wrote there.)

I hate my online masters program because it takes my time, because it feels redundant, because of so many reasons, but from time to time it does actually force me to think, and I have to say that I do a lot of my best thinking when I'm talking or typing. I find that so much of what I throw out there almost on a whim seems to ring true once I take a moment to listen to it.

For the friend who crosses you

Thanks, Sully, for pointing this one out.

If anybody has a good, quality Fredo in their life, this gift is for them. (I know it wasn't Fredo who got the horse in his bed, but he would've deserved it, and I can't remember which character got the horse head.)

The company that makes the horse-head pillow seems to be willing to make tons and tons of movie replica props, some of which they sell, but many of which appear to be custom one-off jobs.

A brief hometown update

A while back, I pointed out that I had some issues with MLB's Hometown Heroes program. Apparently I'm about two months ahead of ESPN's curve as they just posted their thoughts about the program...

• Their ballot analysis
• Their hometown bums proposals

Just thought I'd point out how much more informed you will be if you read my stuff instead of ESPN's.

All the same...that's the point!

It's a pretty simple concept...

A business is decently successful. The owner wants to have a few more locations but doesn't necessarily want to go too far out on a financial limb, so they offer folks the right to franchise the original business's success.

That way the various outlets, the newly franchised locations, all can have exactly the same high-quality products offered at the original location. That way I can safely wander into any MickyDonalds and get the exact same, identical, wonderful double cheeseburger without worrying that this double cheeseburger would be better or worse than every other double cheeseburger from every other MickyDonalds around this glorious country of ours.

It does seem, however, that a few places have dropped the ball on the whole franchising means everybody's the frickin' same tip.

First there's the various Dunkin' Donuts franchises 'round the country and their clear lack of respect for the glorious and noble apple fritter. In most of the Dunkin' Donuts that I know, the apple fritter is a batter with apple chunks mixed in, fried, and iced. That's the true classic (let me recommend the fritters just after 6am when they're nice and hot).

This past weekend, however, I stopped into the Dunkin' Donuts in Milford and got some sort of Frankenfritter - a fried dough ball into which apple goo has been injected - like a jelly filled fritter. This isn't quite as freakish as the Frankenfritter that I got down at the Dunkin' Donuts in Atlanta (in the CNN center where I stayed for the NSTA convention a few years back) where there wasn't any sort of batter with apples. The Atlanta Frankenfritter was a simple jelly donut (a big donut, admittedly) filled with apple stuff.

What the heck? The franchise concept means that every frickin' fritter is supposed to be the same. That way I'm happy with all my Dunkin' Donuts no matter where I am.

And don't even get me started on the randomness that is the Dairy Queen cookie dough Blizzard - which seems to be made with a standard vanilla ice cream (or whatever their soft serve technically is) and cookie dough pieces. Easy enough. But seemingly at random, some franchise locations add in chocolate syrup.

All I ask for is a little consistency. Is that so wrong?

OJ Mayo and the downfall of Western Civilization

I don't know whether to simply talk about one young man or to broaden things out and make this a commentary on our entire society. My honest guess is that I'll take a few diversions into each of those sides of the middle line that I'll try to walk here.

Let's start with my own admission of culpability in the whole thing. Last winter, one of the most-hyped high school basketball game in a long while: Oak Hill Academy vs. North College Hill. The two were ranked #1 and #2, respectively, in the national USA Today Super 25 high school basketball poll at the time. It turned out that Oak Hill beat North College Hill somewhat handily, but I didn't get a hcance to see it. I was out of town. And I lamented that fact, having hoped to see one of the supposedly greatest collection of high school talent in a while.

Luckily two of those talents were just juniors, so I'd have a chance to see the hometown North College Hill (which bordered on the first Cincinnati district in which I taught) this year, and especially to see OJ Mayo, the supposed second coming of Lebron James.

But that second chance wasn't to be as OJ has transferred out of Cincy and back to his hometown in West Virginia. And his first mate on the court, Bill Walker, was ruled ineligible for the coming season as he had apparently school hopped enough and used up his eight semesters of eligibility in Ohio.

I know all of this mostly because people from WVa sportscasters all the way up to ESPN have been reporting this - which heads toward my issue: high school sports are out of hand.

I am a born and raised Hoosier, and Indiana boy who loved seeing Damon Bailey break the state scoring record, and drove for hours in a driving snowstorm to see high school basketball tourney for the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. I love seeing the Vikings play just about anything from water polo to tennis to basketball. And I know that I am far, far, far from without sin on this issue, but...

If I had the chance to recreate the American educational system, I'm not sure that I would even build a gymnasium attached to a single high school in the nation, or maybe I'd just have 'em all built without a single bleacher or press row.

The priorities of the American education should not be split in even the slightest way toward education, no matter how many of them depend financially on the athletic department, no matter how many young men and women better their lives by gaining a college degree after an athletic scholarship, I often feel that we might be better if we fully jetisoned the athletic department, moving instead to a physical education system that focused on life-long health - teaching how to eat right and fit in daily workouts instead of sending kids to hoop it up in the gym, holding signing parties for the top ten in the class instead of the kid who can pick a quarter off of the backboard. With the athletics gone, we could spend all of our money on simply educating.

Of course, I'd be afraid for what the athletics might look like if they were given entirely to a body with no real governing body - you know, all AAU style and such.

Some advice (a preview)

It would be an act of the most ridiculous hubris to believe that anyone came to this blog looking for advice on anything more than which entertaining video to watch today (heck, for that, TransBuddha would be the better choice), and yet I feel like taking a stupid step.

Over the next half dozen Saturdays, I will be doling out advice in drips and drabs, one word a week.

It's a format that I have been attempting to put to words for a number of months now: single word advice explained in a larger context, somehow attempting to sum up my best life lessons (admittedly meager though they may be) in one word.

The list so far:

• Do
• Enjoy
• Give
• Improve
• Help
• Love
• Be
• Learn

So, next weekend, tune in here - or feel free to tune right out if you would rather wait for the Sunday's typical offering of frivolisoty - for whatever words of wisdom await.

If you'd rather get some classic sitcom goodness, learn about the greatest Thanksgiving Day radio promotion ever.

Crap reading

For those of you who have switched from the magazine to the laptop for your bathroom reading pleasure, I offer a topical page.