The Reason I Haven't Written Much

From time to time, some friends of mine who enjoy my blogs will encourage me, usually via facebook to write something new. There are three of them who do this (Josh, Al, and Beth), and I'm not sure if they have worked out some sort of schedule for reminding me that it is time to write again, but I figured I owe them an explanation as to why their urging is often ignored. (Note: Now that I have started writing Husker articles for bleacherreport.com, I seem to have appeased Al.)

I'm fairly confident when it comes to my writing ability. In fact, it is one of the only things about myself I am confident in at all. The strange thing about it is, despite knowing that I am a good writer, whenever I post a new piece of work, I am paranoid that I've somehow "lost it" until I receive positive feedback on it. When I first started writing for the Bleacher Report, this was difficult for me because a lot of the feedback you receive as a sports writer is negative. It does not mean that you are no longer a good writer, or even that you are wrong about the topic. A lot of times it simply means that the only people dumb enough to disagree with me are the same ones that are dumb enough to be loud about it. This is not to say that I'm always right, its just that those who disagree with me in an intelligent manner I view as positive feedback because it allows me to enter into a discussion with the person and its usually rather productive.

I once heard from a best-selling author whose name currently escapes me (maybe Malcolm Gladwell) that writers have only a certain number of words in them and after they run out, all they can come with with is mindless gibberish. At some point, I became afraid that I would run out of words. So I guarded them. I decided not to write anything unless it was going to be absolute gold. I wanted everything I wrote to be the best thing you had ever read. At the very least I wanted it to be the best thing I'd ever written. Recently I realized that this is utterly moronic. Not the part about wanting everything I write to be the best you've ever read or the best I've ever written, I believe that's a great, although lofty thing to strive for. No, the idiotic part was guarding my words. If I died tomorrow, what difference would it make if I had more words left to write? I decided I would rather live a long life and at some point, run out of well-crafted words to write than I would die knowing I left some of them in the tank.

I am currently trying to become a professional writer. I've gotten some contacts from a friend of mine who works at a newspaper and I'm doing everything I currently can to try and make this happen. Who knows, maybe someday I will be a best-selling author, or maybe the high point of my writing career will have been being named the #2 Husker football writer for the Bleacher Report in May 2011. Either way, at the very least, I will know that even if I fail, it will not be because I did not try. Unfortunately, that's not something I've been able to say very often in my life but now is as good a time to start as any.

The Jesus Juke

A few weeks ago my brother wrote a blog about "The Jesus Juke" and those who perform it. For those of you who don't know, a Jesus Juke is essentially when "someone takes what is clearly a joked filled conversation completely reverses direction into something serious and holy" according to the man who as far as I can tell invented the term, Jon Acuff.

I'm sure we have all been there, everyone is having a harmless laugh and it comes to a screeching halt becomes someone feels the need to show how spiritual and religious they are while simultaneously condemning everyone around them as heathens. To be clear, there is a large difference between people pulling a Jesus Juke and people rebuking their brother or sister in Christ.

Anyway, my brother's situation was essentially that he was jokingly seeking revenge on his smoker neighbors. He offered his own idea of capturing farts in jars and unleashing them on his neighbors and was planning to ask for other clever suggestions for retribution which he had no intention of using. However he thought he would be opening himself up to a Jesus Juke and therefore decided against it. You can read all about it here.

The point is, I thought my four regular blog readers (you know who you are) might be interested in my take on the whole concept of Jesus Juking. Here is the comment I posted on my brother's blog:

I think the problem with the Jesus Juke is that it completely disregards the concept of humor. What does humor have to do with Christianity you say? Well, besides the fact that you can see God's sense of humor throughout your own life and history and the Bible (I'm not going to look up verses, just trust me, its there and its funny), God created us with a sense of humor. I believe firmly that the "image of God" we were created in involves not a physical image but rather our souls and reason and traits like the ability to love and laugh. If we were not made to have a sense of humor, I believe God would have not given us the ability to laugh.

That being said, had someone Jesus juked my brother for his humorous comment about farting in a jar, I may have felt the need to take a hot, steaming deuce on their front step. Not very Jesus like you say? Well I was just trying to let that person know that I didn't think the judgemental attitude they had about my brothers' smokers solution which led to their Jesus Juke was not the spirit of humility that God calls them to as Christians. I may not have done it in the right way . . . but then again, the Jesus Juker doesn't do it the right way either right?

The reason I can confidently say that the intent of Jesus Juking is as well-meaning as me pooping on someone's doorstep is because if you ever have had to rebuke someone in the love of Jesus, you almost always dread doing it. There is no joy in calling to correction the mistakes of a brother or sister in Christ, and it is not done in a public forum because all you want from that situation is for your brother or sister to grow closer with God, you have no interest in their humiliation. Jesus Juking is none of those things, it is an attempt to publicly shame those who we feel are not living up to the standard of what we think they should be, not of what God thinks they should be.

Jesus Jukers will deny my statement until the end, claiming they were trying to do the right thing. When they do that, just remember, I successfully defended the idea of me crapping on someones doorstep with the simple statement of it was well intentioned just poorly executed. But if this were really true, wouldn't they stop executing their good intentions in the form of a Jesus Juke? So next time you feel like Jesus Juking someone, think of it as taking a verbal dump on that person's metaphorical door step, and see if you still think its a good idea (Hint: its not). Sorry Raj, didn't meant to hijack the blog. Love you brother.

Any thoughts?

The Bad Kind of Spooning

When I was young my parents had assigned each of their children (me and my three older siblings) certain chores which needed to be done on a regular basis. In all honesty unless we had company coming over in the near future, and by near future I mean within a day or so, most of the chores were neglected. However there was one thing that got done in a fairly consistent manner and that was putting away the dishes. We were each responsible for a certain section of the kitchen where things were to be put away. As the youngest and therefore the shortest at the time, I was in charge of making sure the silverware made it into the correct spots in the silverware drawer, this was by far the easiest job but for some reason I still hated it. Despite the fact that putting away the silverware was really the only chore I had to complete pretty much ever I remember being in a terrible mood every time I was asked to do it. I remember trying to hold out for as long as I could so that most of the clean silverware would be used by the time I got around to putting them away so that I wouldn't have as much work to do . . . Ya know, because those five extra forks I didn't have to put away were really making a difference.

Still, despite the ease and infrequent demands of my chores, I felt as though I needed a way to pay my vengeance on my family for making me endure such horrible hardships. I don't remember how old I was when I finally developed my plan for revenge, but I'm certain that I was old enough to know better. It occurred to me one day that one of the most aggravating things you can do to someone was lick a piece of food before they got a chance to eat it. So I thought to myself, wouldn't licking the utensils they use to eat that food be just as bad if not worse than licking the food itself? And so it was settled, anytime I was upset at my family for any reason, everyone got their silverware licked before I put it in the drawer. I'm not sure how exactly I came to this decision, but I clearly remember only licking the spoons, I really have no idea why but I bet there was something brilliant behind it.

Perhaps the best part about all of this is that I learned at some point later on that my brother is an enormous germ-a-phobe. Apparently my family punishment was harshest on him. The ironic thing is, no one ever knew that I was doing this. I would go about licking every single spoon that came through the dish washer, and no one was the wiser. It wasn't until last Thanksgiving that I told any of my family members about my old spooning routine, yet somehow I found it to be an oddly satisfying way of getting back at my family for any wrongs I felt they had perpetuated against me. I guess it is kind of like when a chef spits in a rude customer's meal and they eat the whole thing without a clue, the chef is nonetheless happy with his form of justice. I wouldn't go so far as to call my little spooning trick justice, I mean after all my family really didn't do anything to me except ask me to do an incredibly easy chore about twice a week.

Anyway, I know its a little late, but I'd like to apologize my family for subjecting them to the bad kind of spooning, but I must say, all of that spoon looking may have paid off. I mean, I don't have to put away silverware anymore . . . I'm gonna count that as a win.

The Bathroom Proximity Factor

I pee a lot. I mean A LOT, I always have. Since I was a kid, I remember having to go to the bathroom all the time. So much so that it can become quite an annoyance. Pretty much the longest I ever go without going to the bathroom is about two hours. Actually, I don't know why I said about . . . it's exactly two hours, like clock work. Unless I've had a lot to drink, or there's other extenuating circumstances, then its like every hour and a half . . . or every hour . . . or ever 17 minutes, whatever. The point is, I have to pee a lot, its a much larger part of my life than I'd like to admit.

With that being said, the availability of a bathroom is extremely important to me. No one wants to pee there pants, so if you're someone who has to go pee a lot, like myself, bathroom availability becomes a big deal. I remember as a kid not liking to ride in the car for very long because you could pretty much bet the farm on the fact that I'd have to pee sometime during the trip. And when I say I didn't like being in the car very long, I don't mean riding a few hours to Grandma's house, I mean riding 15 minutes to see my dad at work. It got to the point that we had to allow extra time for my inevitable bathroom break and I had developed a list of approved gas stations whose bathrooms were nice enough that I didn't fear catching some sort of disease by using them. Gas stations with bathrooms on the outside of the building need not apply. (For the record, there's a gas station on the corner of 120th and Center whose bathroom was just immaculate. It even had framed pictures of puppies on the wall so it felt like you were peeing at home, however its changed ownership since I've last been there, so I can't currently vouch for its condition.)

However, as my need to frequent the restroom didn't diminish as I grew older, neither did the role of what I came to call The Bathroom Proximity Factor in my life. I began to realize that the ease of which I could locate and use a bathroom heavily influenced how much I enjoyed whatever activity I was taking part of. Road trips used to be torture until I learned to dehydrate myself for a couple days before the scheduled departure. Playing basketball in college was great because I was never away from the locker room for more than about 40 minutes at a time, so no problem there.

The Bathroom Proximity Factor even contributes largely into whether or not I like a job. Apparently its frowned upon to use the bathroom in the person's house you're working on if you're in the landscaping or house painting business. Needless to say those jobs didn't last very long and I'd be lying if I said I didn't pee under a few decks before deciding there had to be something better out there for me. Working from home seemed like a natural option until I realized no one would pay for anything I did at my house which is namely, eat, sleep and watch television. But finally I found Lens Crafters where I work as a Lab Technician (I make glasses). The restroom is right behind the lab, so its nice and close, and I can take bathroom breaks whenever I find them necessary. Is The Bathroom Proximity Factor the only reason I like working at Lens Crafters? No, but lets be honest, its a lot bigger reason than it should be.

The Greatest Weekend Ever

I figured out a while back that part of, or maybe even all of the reasons why people enjoy my writing is because I have the ability to make events sounds better or feel more interesting to my reader than they really were. I'd like to think I don't use too much hyperbole in this process, but rather I just highlight the absolute best things about a situation and describe them in an appealing manner. That being said, I've been trying to write a blog about two of my best friends getting married and the weekend that surrounded it for over a month now and I just haven't been able to do it. I would get half an idea of how to approach the topic and then it would evaporate just as quickly as it came to me. I couldn't decide whether to make it a humorous recap of all the shenanigans and tom foolery that we all took part it for three days or to write a tear-jerking, sentimental tale of true love and being a part of it. A moment ago, the problem with writing about this event dawned on me; the weekend was too good. Making an average road trip and wedding sound like the best time ever would be easy, but how on earth am I supposed to write about an event that words could never do justice, no matter how perfectly they were crafted?

I only spent one school year in the same state as Evan Stone, but he quickly became one of the best friends I will ever have. I can't properly describe the strangely close and mostly heterosexual relationship Evan and I have, so I would suggest you look at Turk and JD from Scrubs and use that as a point of reference. At one point during that same school year, I jokingly claimed that his girlfriend was my bff, I believe as a result of her promising to send me a batch of cookies with the next box she sent Evan. This girl, Becky, actually did become an incredibly good friend of mine and I couldn't have approved more when after Evan had moved away from me (tragically) and back closer to home (and closer to his girlfriend) in Illinois, he proposed to Becky and she said yes. That was in November of 2008. The wedding date was soon scheduled for June of 2010 and thus began the longest build up and most highly anticipated event of my life pretty much. Two of my best friends were getting married, pretty much all of my other best friends from college would be heading on a road trip to Illinois (the site of the wedding) for a long weekend and hopefully the best time of our lives. It's probably up for debate who was more excited for the big day to come; the happy couple or their road tripping, fun loving friends from Nebraska.

Usually when something comes with this much hype, it can't possibly live up to the expectations. I mean its just not even fair to expect it to. My friends and I were literally building up this weekend in our minds for over a year and a half. There was no way this thing could possibly come anywhere close to the dream we had painted in our imaginations. The scheduled departure day for Illinois came and things were at a fever pitch. I was excited beyond belief, but in the back of my mind I was a little bit worried. I realized that no matter how amazing this weekend was, and I was sure it was going to be phenomenal, I was probably still going to be a little disappointed. How could I not be? After 19 months of hype, a letdown was inevitable. It would have taken a miracle for things to turn out better than we had hoped for.

The weekend came, and passed all too quickly. I'm going to refrain from describing anything that happened specifically because it will never look as good on paper as it still does in my memory, and I just don't want to ruin that. Let me just say that I don't think any of us that made the trip to Illinois for Evan and Becky's wedding came home disappointed. I know for me it completely surpassed the hype. When we all made it back to Nebraska, one of my friends and I exchanged pretty much the same sentiment . . . what do we do now? We had been preparing all of this time for the greatest weekend of our lives, and we actually got it. How often does something turn out to be every bit as good as you had hoped for? Not very often, I know that.

I'd like to leave you with some deep philosophical conclusion to all this but the truth is I just don't have one. I know only a few things and here they are: I absolutely love my friends and will deeply miss these times I have with them once all of us inevitably go our separate ways. Evan and Becky are two of the greatest people I know, and I love them and both of their families so much. And last but not least, the fact that this weekend of their wedding lived up to all of the hype we'd built up for it gives me hope; hope that dreaming and wishing for things to be bigger and better than you ever thought they could be is alright, because every once and a while things work just the way you wanted them to. Just ask my friends Evan and Becky, their story is going pretty well for them. Now, I won't lie to you and tell you it happens all the time, it doesn't. It's a rare thing, but it only has to happen once in a blue moon to keep that hope alive, and thats good enough for me because like a man in a movie once told me, hope is a good thing, maybe the best thing, and no good thing ever dies.

The Decision Part 2

In my original post about Lebron James' decision I also included a section in which I discussed my thoughts on the manner in which Lebron made his announcement but took it out so it wouldn't distract from what I felt was the more important point of the blog. However, since I already wrote it, I figured why not post it as well, so here are my thoughts on how King James made his decision.

I completely understand that athletes mean way more to fans than fans mean to athletes. In fact, everyone understands this. Fans agree to dish out ridiculous amounts of money to watch their favorite athletes play, to wear their shoes and jerseys and anything else with their name on it. In return, athletes do their best to perform and pretend to give a crap about the fans. That's just how it works. Part of every athletes' carefully crafted image is how good they are at acting like they care about their fans. Everyone is perfectly alright with this arrangement . . . Until someone screws it up, and then all hell breaks lose. Lebron James royally screwed this up. He had every right to leave Cleveland for another team, personally I would have gone with Chicago but thats just me, but how you do things is a crucial window into your character. When we saw this glimpse from Lebron James what we found out was shocking and a little disturbing.

Deciding that he needed to have an entire hour devoted to himself to announce something that literally took about 15 seconds was essentially like a guy hijacking the halftime show of the Super Bowl to break up with a long time girlfriend who coincidentally had bought him tickets to the game (some analogy credit there goes to Bill Simmons). James didn't even have the common decency to tell the Cavaliers he was leaving before the rest of the world found out so they could start coming up with a practical contingency plan. He just strung them along for the ride, giving them hope until the very end. Lebron did however have time to refer to himself in the third person almost half a dozer times and to talk about all he had done for Cleveland. Maybe mailing it in during the playoffs was James' way of giving the Cavs his two weeks notice. By choosing to have a one hour self promoting special to announce his decision, James proved to be one of two things. He is either so unbelievably arrogant and self-absorbed that he didn't care that doing this on national television would rip out the hearts of everyone in Ohio, or he is just so naive (read: stupid) to have realized it would rip out the hearts of everyone in Ohio. Or there is a third option, that he is a little bit of both, unbelievably arrogant and a little bit daft. The point is you pretty much have to a royal douche in order to think you are important enough to hold a one hour special to announce where you want to play basketball. I used to be a Lebron James fan, I enjoyed watching him play basketball. I assume someday I will enjoy watching him play again, but right now I just think he's kind of a tool. The Heat will be fun to watch and watch them I will, but they will be more fun to root against. Here's hoping that Kevin Durant with his decision via twitter get the better of the King somewhere down the line.

Lebron James forgot something crucial when he decided it was a good idea to flip off everyone in Cleveland. While James, or any other athlete for that matter may not care about fans or what they think, they need to remember that without the fans, they wouldn't matter at all. Athletes are rich because fans are willing to pay to see them and where the same gear they do. Athletes are famous because fans care about what they do. If you took away the fans, Lebron James would be Sydney Crosby. Sure, people would kind of know who he was, and they might watch a playoff game or two, but overall he'd be irrelevant to our society as a whole. Without fans, King James would be less important than Landon Donovan was before the World Cup. So while fans might care way more about athletes than athletes care about fans, the athletes need to be careful not to upset the balance because at the end of the day, its the fans money that lines the athletes pockets.

The Decision

First off let me say that I don't care that Lebron James signed with the Miami Heat. Would it have been nice if he stayed home, and won a championship in Cleveland? Yeah, I would have liked that, let me say, I'm a little old school like that but whatever. The one real problem I have with the situation (other than the fact that by demanding an hour to make a 15 second announcement we learned that King James is a royal douche) was the fallout from the situation involving Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and "Reverend" Jesse Jackson (I only put reverend in parentheses because it is unclear to me is Jesse Jackson has ever actually given a sermon, seeing as all he ever talks about is race).

The problem I had with the whole fallout from "The Decision" is probably not what you think it is. I don't really have a problem with Dan Gilbert's comments regarding Lebron. Would he have perhaps been better served sleeping on that email for a night before publishing it? Yeah, probably. Did he go a little overboard? Maybe. But did Gilbert show most of all that he's a fan just like the rest of us? You bet, and that's what I love about his comments; they're the exact same thing that every other Cavs fan was thinking that night (although probably minus more than a few expletives). That being said, the PR guy who was on call that night needs to be fired immediately . . . Unless Gilbert's comments were a carefully thought out plan to unite his fan base with him, instead of the very real possibility of the owner being blamed for letting James get away. Either way, Gilbert's comments are not my problem.

My problem is Jesse Jackson's reaction to Gilbert's comments. The alleged reverend first said that Dan Gilbert's comments put Lebron's life in danger. Now it is true that James and his people have received threats, but if you think that the idiots who take sports so seriously that they would threaten the life of a guy who is 6'8 270 lbs wouldn't have made those threats whether Gilbert said anything or not, than you're just as dumb as the people making the threats. To me, it sounds like Jesse Jackson hadn't heard his name on TV in a while and decided this would be a good time to speak up. That being said, morons out their who are making threats on Lebron James and his mom, pull your head out and go get a job . . . or a girlfriend . . . or go do anything that matters because right now you are a disgrace to sports fans everywhere.

My real problem however, arose when Jesse Jackson said that Gilbert's comments were like that of a slave owner. I know, it is shocking that Jesse Jackson pulled the race card. Let me ask you this, had Larry Bird been born 30 years later and was drafted by the Cavaliers, and decided last week to leave via free agency in the exact same manner that James did, do you think Gilbert would have reacted any differently? The correct answer is no. Gilbert would have gone off on Larry Legend the same way he went off of King James. Let me ask you another question, had Gilbert made those comments about Larry Bird, would Jesse Jackson have said anything at all, much less to go as far as to compare him to a slave owner? The correct answer is once again no. That's what bothers me the most about this whole situation. Jesse Jackson might be the most racist man in America, because only he would make this about race, when to everyone else it was about basketball.

Now before you start calling me out as a racist or whatever, go ahead and take a look to the right hand side of the page. Yeah, I'm the brown kid in the picture with the sunglasses. No, I'm not black, if by black you mean African-American. I'm not black if you mean the color either but then again neither are African-Americans, their skin is brown just like mine. The point is, when people see me on the street, they don't know what I am, but Caucasian isn't one of their guesses. So don't go off saying I'm just some white guy that doesn't understand. I understand perfectly clearly that the less people care about the difference between black and white, the less Jesse Jackson matters, so Jesse Jackson likes to try and create racial drama. That way he's still famous. I'm not saying racism is gone in America, because not being white, I know that it's not. What I am saying is, racism has a different face now than it did in the past and ironically, the face of racism this past week wasn't Dan Gilbert the white guy, it was Jesse Jackson, the black one.