Day 97: Candy

The first truck load of Easter candy entered the house today courtesy of grandma and grandpa. Why are so many holidays tied to candy? Halloween, of course, but also Easter and Valentine's Day. Christmas is full of candy, tool. Not that I'm complaining or looking to change anything. I dig candy. In fact, I dig candy a lot. Always have. Always will. I love the supersized boxes of Nerds, Gobstoppers, and everything else that has become the rage at gas stations and grocery stores. Long gone are the days when one candy bar could hold a guy over all day. Today, it's all about the King Size! I'm all for it, when I'm the one eating it. Not so cool when it's a four-year-old chomping down.

Candy plays tricks on people. It makes the excited and happy. It also makes them greedy and devious. Little kids hate sharing their candy. It's like gold they need to hang on to. My daughter has already hidden her's under her bed so her sisters won't find it. Beautiful. Personally, I've always like to make my candy last. If I was eating a Salted Nut Roll back in the day, I ate one peanut at a time until all I had left with the nougat, which I ate one nibble at a time. Eating a Reese's Peanut Butter Bar meant starting around the outside and working my way around until I got to the middle. An efficient but wonderful approach that could keep my occupied for 15 minutes or so. I've never had much success making Sprees last. They're too damn good. I am an expert at getting every last lick out of a sucker, though.

Candy is a gift from some beautiful inventors who knew how to make kids lives for more enjoyable. I know all the downsides, but for Pete's sake, there are so many downsides to live to begin with, why ruin the fun by keeping something away from your child that's sincerely going to put a smile on their cavity-ridden face.

Day 96: I Love This Bunny

Years ago on the Saturday before Easter, I ducked into the pastor’s office at our church and slipped on the very same Easter Bunny costume you seen pictured here. Once I had slipped on my floppy feet and made sure my tail was nice and fluffy, I stumbled my way back upstairs with the help of a few bunny assistants, plopped myself in a chair, and proceeded to let little kid after little kid get his or her picture taken with me, all a part of the noncompetitive Easter egg hunt that the church puts on every year that’s open for any kid in the community.  

It was a bit difficult to get a full view of the kids’ faces because of the impossibly large bunny head that was planted on my neck, but I managed to make out some incredibly happy smiles on those little faces, mixed in with various expressions of terror here and there, which is pretty understandable given that there was a 6-foot tall bunny looming over them. Still, there were mostly squeals of delight coming from those little imps, which I’m sure was due primarily to the fact they were meeting the dude that they believe had already put chocolate in the bags they had gotten at the Easter egg hunt and that would be bringing them even more the next morning. Of course, being the consummate actor that I am, I was more than willing to take full credit for the chocolate and bask in the reverence the little tots displayed. Even the occasional wise acre who questioned “why are your arms so hairy” or “why are you wearing socks” or even my own daughters threatening to spill the beans to everyone within earshot by calling me “dad” couldn’t spoil the experience.

I’ve think about that day every Easter. It was honestly one of the most fulfilling days I’ve spent on earth. Anyone could have put that suit on and done the same, and in fact, many people have. But on that day at least, I was the man, or the bunny as it was, and the joy I received in return was immeasurable.

You only get so many Easters with your kids before they grow older and the prospect of searching for hard-boiled eggs colored really pretty becomes not that interesting. You only get so years to witness those smiles and the wonderment and surprise. Before you know it, what your kids want to do more than anything on Easter morning is sleep.

Every Easter, I also think of the several years of church services in which I’d help carry the cross of flowers from the sanctuary to the altar and how special that felt. No matter your religious views, moments like that are cause for great personal reflection. Moments like, at least for me, make me feel part of something for greater and significant than myself.

I’m grateful I have a few more years of Easters to share with my youngest daughter. I look forward to meeting the Easter bunny each year and hitting him up for some candy. I look forward to her also experiencing her own moments of reflection and joy.

Day 95: If My Wife Can't Be A Member, I Don't Want To Be, Either

Sometimes, it’s hard for me to believe I live in a country—supposedly the most progressive and open-minded country in the world—where the most famous golf club in the world is located but that won’t allow women into its confines as members. Since 1933, Augusta National Golf Club, the home to this week’s Master’s Golf Tournament, hasn’t allowed a woman to walk into its clubhouse as a full-fledged member. Oh, it’s perfectly acceptable if one of the men who is a member of the club invites you to come on over and play a round, but forget about entering the doors as an equal. It’s not going to happen because at least in the eyes of those at Augusta, you aren’t equal.

What even worse to me is that the club’s chairman Billy Payne nor anyone else who belongs to the club will tell us why all this is. Apparently, it’s all a big secret that can never be revealed. It’s forbidden. It’s against the rules. It’s not for our consumption.

Are women not allowed because they aren’t equal to men? No, that can’t be it because it’s not true. Is it because women aren’t as good of golfers as men? Well, I can personally attest to that being BS. Plenty of women have kicked my ass up and down the course. Is it because women can’t afford the membership fees? Well, that’s highly doubtful. I’m pretty sure Ginni Rometty, IBM CEO and the center of all kinds of media attention this week (IBM is a Master’s sponsor and, traditionally, the IBM CEO gets an honorary membership), can afford the green fees and give her caddy a little something for the effort. She could probably afford to build her own golf course if she wanted, but why should she have to? Isn’t what’s good for a male IBM CEO good for a female IBM CEO? Apparently not.

Are women not allowed because if a woman did become a member, the male members would’t feel free to sit back in the comfy leather chairs with their fat cigars and spew their long-held opinions on women? After all, it’s not nearly as much fun belittling someone who can fight back than it is behind her back. I’m guessing this has something very much to do with the “women aren’t allowed” mentality, just the way this probably had something to do with why a black man didn’t become a member until the early 1990s. And that only occurred after a whole bunch of pressure. I’m guessing that the weak-minded men who walk the hallways of Augusta National have never really been comfortable around women unless they were wearing a skirt, cleaning up after them, cooking their meals, doing their laundry, and fulfilling all the rest of their pitiful needs whenever beckoned.

Hey, I understand the nature of a private club. The “private” distinguisher means you can invite whoever you want in and keep whoever you want out. I get it. It’s sort of like a racist organization. Sort of like class warfare. Sort of like an all-white school. Yeah, the execution of exclusionary clubs has really worked wonders throughout history. Nothing like a gated community to erect a sense of peace and unity. Maybe it’s the way I was raised or the economic environment I come from, but I never understood the allure of a country club. It never appealed to me. I’m sure there are good people milling about inside, and I’m certainly not going to engage in reverse discrimination against anyone who is a country member unless they give me a reason to (i.e. Augusta National). I’m sure there are legitimate reasons why people seek to become a part of that society and culture. I just don’t understand it. I didn’t join a fraternity for the same reason. I didn’t understand why I was automatically handing over my loyalty and money to people I didn’t know. Still, I know plenty of men and women who belonged to a fraternity or sorority who are fine, decent, good people.

Still, to me, Augusta National is different. It reeks of something foul. There’s something about that situation that’s elitist and archaic and harmful. There’s something about not explaining why women aren’t welcome as members that stinks of secrecy and misplaced motives. Despite how beautiful Augusta National is and despite how much the golfer in me would love to walk those fairways, even if I had the monetary means to become a member of Augusta National, I’m not sure a club where an entire gender of the human race is not welcome is a good fit for me. I’m quite certain that I’m not alone in that thinking. I just can’t see myself feeling content surrounded by dozens of other men who seemingly don’t have a problem with excluding their mother, grandmother, sister, wife, girlfriend, daughter, niece, teacher, doctor, senator, banker, etc. just because she happens to be built differently. 

Day 94: An Ode To Baseball

The real opening day of the Major League Baseball season is today. That means my favorite sport is back in session. That means a summer full of bats cracking, gloves popping, bases stolen, and homers given up and snatched back in the park.

The real opening day means the Yankees are once again in line for its 28^th World Championship. The real opening day means Albert is in Cali, Prince is in The Motor City, and the Marlins are now in its new home in Miami. It means Jeter is still where he belongs. 

Baseball is green grass. Blue skies. Fireworks in July. Breath floating in the air in October.

Baseball is little kids squirming in their seats. Old men keeping book. Everyone doing the 7th inning stretch.

Baseball is Old Timers Day and The Home Run Derby and the ceremonial first pitch and mascots racing and kids running the bases.

Baseball is rain outs and throw outs and pitch outs and put outs and pick offs.

Baseball is stealing signs, pitching high and tight, taking the plate back, grandstanding, jaking it, cans or corn, three up and three down, squeeze plays, suicide bunts, double steals, triple plays, sacrifices, and men in scoring position.

Baseball is the curve ball, bean ball, drop ball, fast ball, and knuckle ball. It’s sliders and cutters and hangers.

Baseball is being fully extended and jammed.

Baseball is spikes up and coming in high.

Baseball is sunflower seeds and bubble gum. It’s peanuts and hot dogs. It’s beer and lemonade. It’s snow cones and pretzels.

Baseball is a dip and spit and sweat.

Baseball is Wrigley and Fenway and The Bronx and The Southside.

Baseball is rookies and veterans. It’s the DH and specialist. It’s the pinch hitter. It’s the pinch runner. It’s the third base coach.

Baseball is the dugout, the bull pen, and batter’s box. It’s chalk. It’s the foul pole. It’s foul territory.

Baseball is history. It’s stats. It’s for geeks and jocks. It’s for fathers and sons. It’s for mothers and daughters.

Baseball is hope. It’s spring. It’s new beginnings. It’s miracles comes true. It’s the dog days of summer. It’s the fall classic.

Baseball is the Grapefruit League and World Series.

Baseball is a radio, lawn chair, and summer afternoon. It’s late night highlights. It’s box scores.

Baseball is international. It’s the Dominican Republic and Japan. It’s Korean and Australian. It’s Canadian. It’s Puerto Rico. It’s always American.

I love baseball. I love the game. I love the tradition. I love the experience. I love to play catch. I love to play pepper. I love the sweet spot. I love a bat that has pop. I love pine tar and resin.

I can’t imagine a world without baseball.

Baseball is beautiful simple. It’s impossibly intelligent. It’s serene. It’s intense.

Baseball takes care of itself.

Baseball is the perfect game

Day 93: Real Men Write Poems

I get the feeling sometimes that a good many people perceive a man who writes poems as a pansy, tender, flimsy, and weak. I get the notion, but it's BS jock mentality. I have a punching bag in my basement that gets a routine pounding, and that leaves me usually feeling a whole lot better. It doesn't compare with writing a poem, though. Not even close. Writing a poem takes depth. It takes peeling back layers. Expose truths. It takes exploration. That's therapy. Punching a bag makes me sweat. Writing a poem makes me realize.

My plan is to publish a book a poem by summer's end. Whether that actually transpires, I don't know. I've been working on this thing, well, since I was 14. That's when I wrote my first one. Definitely not a masterpiece, but still something I covet dearly to this day. As bad as that poem was it opened up all kinds of doors and possibilities.

I'm not entirely sure why I love writing poems so much. I don't do it nearly as much as I used to or should, but no matter how much times passes between attempts, it puts me right back in a certain zone. If you've been in the zone, you know of what I speak. If not, I can't really explain it to you.

I firmly believe anyone can write a poem if he or she tries. I don't think everyone can do it with conviction, though. That takes spending time and more time and even more time, not something everyone has or wants to exhaust on words. Fair enough. It also takes be willing to go places that aren't comfortable or convenient or attractive. Poems for me, though, are good therapy. A chance to tell a story that I only I can tell. A way to go to places that only I see. A filter that I can pass my garbage through.

The funny thing about poems is that I don't particularly like to read them, at least not poetry written in the classical sense. It doesn't move me. It doesn't shake me. It doesn't transcend. I do love contemporary poetry. I do love poetry written from the street. From the gutter. From the depths. I love poems that are dark and sinister. That expose and tattle. I love poems that break bones. That kick in doors. I love poems that reek of dirt and that come from the dregs. I love poems that ooze failure and contempt. I think I tend to gravitate toward those emotions because they feel real. They have texture. They convey feeling closed in and trapped. You can feel the flames rising. I like poems, and any words for that matter, that break ground. That bury bodies. That grind and mash and beg and borrow. I love reality.

I'm pretty certain not many of my poems have ever reached those levels, but it's sure healthy trying to get there. You can save yourself a lot of grief and purge yourself of a lot of angst writing poems. At least I think I have. Most of my poems, though, seem to center around longing or yearning for something. A desire to be elsewhere or feel something other than what I currently am. Still, I'm capable of a good verbal attack once in a while, and when I want to be, I'm pretty proficient at penning a good revenge poem dripping with sarcasm and denouncements and contempt. Better to scrawl it out on paper than spew it out loud. Besides, I've found a good deal of what I write in the moment isn't what I really feel the rest of the time anyway.

I'm guessing I'll always write poems, and my pace will pick up when my last child gets older and I have more time to do so. I'm sure I'll make a fine cranky old man, and my poems will be flavored by such. I'm looking forward to it.

"Vogue"
Passing waiting-room minutes

in the pages of Vogue,

I invest myself elsewhere,

waking in NYC,

owning Paris,

tainting London,

breaking souls in Rome--

anywhere escaped of Nebraska soil.

I’m stepping out,

smelling fine,

entirely dashing,

completely sublime.

I’m a poet haunted,

painter revered,

actor possessed,

songwriter gone gold.

I’m self-made,

self-aware,

self-contained,

self-assure.  

My model accessory,

she's so skinny good,

fit to be tanned,

a sophisticated drunk,

a bedroom treasure.

My cigarettes burn sweet.

My liquor fuels favors.

My cocaine lights fires.

Another daybreak ignored.

My apartment bears witness,

pitches no black,

divulges no cracks,  

entices the elite.

Only the elite.

Only the elite.

Only the elite.

Only in the pages of Vogue.

Day 92: Axl, Do The Right Thing

If I could choose just one awards show to attend in my lifetime, it would be the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. This year’s version is April 14 in Cleveland at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The greatest family vacation I’ve taken was with my wife and kids. On our way to Philadelphia and then later Ocean City, N.J., we made a pit stop in Cleveland to tour the Hall. My only regret is that the Indians weren’t playing just down the street that day and that my kids weren’t a little older at the time. Knowing the intense and knowledgeable music fans that they’d turn into eventually, they would have flipped for the experience today. As it was, they were a little too tender in the foot to appreciate the relevance of seeing Elvis’ garb up close or the significance of laying eyes on the instruments the masters once played.

I used to be a major geek for awards shows when I was younger. Pre-Internet and cable TV, awards shows where really one of a very few opportunities you had to see stars from entertainment gather in one place. I never particularly cared who actually won the awards, I just wanted to witness for myself if Mr. Box Office or Mr. Music really was all he was advertised as being. If I was lucky, someone I actually gave a rip about would perform, like Dylan did at the Grammy’s back in the early 90s, howling out “Masters of War” upon being introduced by Jack Nicholson himself.

Today, I might make a point to watch the Oscars or I might not. Never the Grammies, Tony’s, Emmy’s, Espies, or anything else, for that matter. I simply don’t have the time or patience to sit through another pop culture barrage that leaves my senses dulled and pained. I have a four-year-old that can take care of that, and I actually give a damn what she says and thinks. I can’t say the same for the latest pop-warbling diva or would-be thug rapper. That may be my “bitter old man” speaking, but so be it. I know what I like, and run-of-the-mill entertainment that looks, sounds, and feels all the same isn’t it.

What I don’t get tired of, though, is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction. I love seeing rock stars in awkward situations, like wearing suits. I love seeing rock stars I’ve idolized all in the same room, and I love it more when they personally offend the geezers and establishment they’re sitting next to. I love seeing rock stars I didn’t necessarily like but appreciated in some way come together on stage with someone with a completely different approach. I love it more when two stars I love collide and amaze me, like Neil Young and Zeppelin, Tom Petty and Prince, and others. I particularly love the induction speeches, especially those that come from a huge star in his own right that’s filled with reverence and awe and appreciation. I love hearing how certain people who have done it all have been influenced by others who were pioneers. Elton John and Leon Russell? Who would have guessed? Keith Richards induction of Chuck Berry gave me goose bumps. So did Bono’s words on Bob Marley.

Although the acceptance speeches can be a bit hit or miss, occasionally you get that one that’s really spicy (The Sex Pistols, CCR, etc.) or the one that’s really awkward (Blondie, ouch.) I’m always moved when a band pays tribute to a fallen member, like The Ramones did for Joey. I’m also moved and thrilled when an underdog gets his day, Iggy Pop included.

Most of all I think, I love when band members that haven’t seen eye to eye for years and years put aside their differences and just do what matters: play music. Cream. Zeppelin. Talking Heads, bravo. I wish more than anything Guns N’ Roses would do as much this year. They probably won’t, though, which is a shame. What’s so important that you can’t? Money? Egos? Appearances? Nah. I don’t think so. It’s only rock and roll, after all. Why not let the animosity go for a couple hours, kick some ass for old time’s sake, and then go back to hating one another? I wish I could have a one-on-one intervention with Axl. I let him know what the real score is. I'd free him of his paranoid illusions. I'd ease his appetite for destruction. I'd make him see that Slash isn't such a bad guy. I'd make him realize that he'd be providing himself all kinds of good will by not being such a dick and just taking the easy way for once. I question his manhood. I question if he still has it. I ask him if he's afraid he can't hang with his old running mates, if he fears that they're better than him. Then, after I got him good and worked up, I'd put the damn microphone in Axl's hand, give him a swift kick in the ass, and tell him to "shut up and man up." Then I'd sit back and enjoy the ensuing madness that followed. 

I don't know when, but someday I’ll be in attendance for a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony and witness such history. That’s a promise to myself I intend to keep.

Day 91: Weather, You Won't Be Me

Yeah, so the two days in spring that Nebraska weather decides to shoot the daily high over 90, our air conditioner doesn't work. It's 85 degrees in my house right now (9:26 p.m.). Lovely. But I'm going to stay positive. I'm going to remember that I have a house when many don't. I going to remember I still have my own bed to sleep in while so many will be sleeping in a strange place among strange people, yet again. I still have all my family under this roof. So many can't say the same. I have the means to have the air conditioner fixed, and that's a positive. And at the end of this hot day, a broken air conditioner doesn't mean anything but a lack of cool air. No more and no less. If I get too hot, I'll just go downstairs and grab a blanket and be just fine. A broken air conditioner won't change the fact that I had a good day otherwise. I accomplished a good deal. I made inroads. I checked off items from my to-do list. Don't need an air conditioner for that.