Addiction

Hi, my name is Rick, and I am an addict. I am addicted to addiction. I am a creature of habit and like being addicted to the familiar. Some are addicted to drugs, others to cigarettes or alcohol, or really bad Chinese action films dubbed into English by German bums picked off the street in Dubai. Hey, we all have our place in life. I am addicted to the feeling of comfort that comes with feeding an addiction. I guess that is why my addiction is so prevalent and popular. I have never done drugs, or even smoked a cigarette, but my vices feed the same part of the brain that these other, albeit more harmful, addictions feed. So I thought I would take the time to list my addictions, for what reason, I don’t know, but I’m hoping it will be funny…

…which brings me to my first addiction – humor. I love humor. I love laughing and making people laugh, although the latter is less frequent, so my dream of being a stand-up comic will have to be limited to the scribed form – and even that is up for debate. But come on, who doesn’t enjoy listening to Eddie Murphy’s ‘Raw’, or David Cross, or Dane Cook, endlessly, over and over, until you can do the entire routine to the utter dismay of your significant other. Watching and re-watching Seinfeld, Arrested Development, The Office, and Extras along with movies like Anchorman, Ghostbusters, Wedding Crashers, Monty Python, and Spaceballs leaves me in a state of constant bliss (or at least until reality returns). It’s like my brain must be humored to distract it from how unfunny real life can be. Although real life is pretty funny to, when you stop to watch it.

…which brings me to my next addiction – people watching. Not in that creep voyeuristic kind of way, more in the, hey, I’ve got nothing better to do for the next 15 minutes while I wait for the next available representative at any given state government public services office, so I will watch what people are up to. Nowadays it typically involves cell phones and not paying attention to anything. Although this can lead to humorous situations that include: a person, a cell phone, a comment without context or intent, and another really offended person within earshot. Then you have the whole, “no, I’m sorry, I was talking on my cell phone that is surgically attached to may ear that you could see being only seeing this side of my face.” You also have those people who have headphones growing out of their ears to eventually form a music listening device. Often found humming, unresponsive to the spoken word, and oblivious to traffic and other pedestrians. Somehow music has become their language and no other form of communication will get through. But, their love of music must outweigh their concern for personal safety, interpersonal communication, or their ability to hear things.

…which brings me to my next addiction – listening to my iPod. Yes, I will admit, I can be put into the aforementioned category above. So I enjoy putting my life to music as I move about this world. Plus I am addicted to music. Put them both together and all of a sudden life is like a motion picture with a running soundtrack (which I will blog about in the near future). As previous posts have shown, I reflect on life through music and when I have exhausted all other idea - or I’m feeling lazy - what better default topic than music? So when I am walking through campus or the city, David Gray can put it to music “Life in slow motion somehow it don’t seem real,” Josh Ritter can strum you along your way, and Elliott Smith can comfort you on those rainy days. Don’t get me wrong, the sounds of nature are beautiful, but musicians can enhance your visual experience like no other addiction can. It also keeps you from hearing all those idiotic conversations about celebrities or uninformed political debates where kids just argue based on whatever their parents yell at the nightly world news program. And let me tell you, missing out on those kinds of conversations I think has helped me avoid becoming dumber, that happens by other means.

…which brings me to my next addiction – NOT politics. Politics might be the best stupid reality show on TV. You’ve got drama, humor, ridiculous situations, and the best actors money can by. I have a great appreciation for government and the philosophical understanding of the purpose of government, but politicians and talking heads (which have been around as long as government) undermine the entire system. When people complain about the ills of government, it can all be traced back to a political figure or commentator looking out for their own self-interests. When the system is removed from money, stereotypes, and selfishness, then we can maybe, finally, see how a democratic government rightfully services its citizens. People are so fanatical about government and politicians, liberal/conservative, republican/democrat, so much so that neither side will listen to the other, no room for movement, like every single political radical is stuck in an elevator and I’m just waiting for the cables to snap and they all go plummeting 40 floors. Most of the country still categorizes themselves moderates, but it is the radicals that get the wasted airtime, soapboxes, and media attention. And if anyone is wondering why the country is becoming more polarized they simply need to turn on a TV on Sunday morning – which is true on so many different levels. The big three dividers: politics, religion, and football.

…which brings me to my next addiction – no, not religion – sports. As I am sure you have gather, I cannot get enough sports or competitive events. Leaving aside “competitive eating,” almost every other sport offers everything one needs to feed an addiction. Drama (check), fast pace action (check), instant gratification (check), brand new experiences every 3 seconds (check), and uninhibited, full-force, explosive, attention retaining, reach in and pull out your organs excitement (check), you’ve got it all. Do we care that half, if not more, of all professional athletes use performance enhancing medication? Come on, what is more exciting than seeing two inhuman physically shaped men colliding at superhuman speeds and watching every ligament in their knees exploding at once on live TV? Curling not exciting enough for you? Maybe they should institute blow torches or body checking for the sweepers – seriously, is it a sport if there is no defense? Well, I guess pro basketball is still a sport so…

…so I am addicted to addiction, not to one particular addiction but just the feeling of addiction. No drug can really satisfy all my addictive desires, could not even come close. Some say they are addicted to life, others say they are addicted to something I mentioned above. But what more comforting feeling is there then just being addicted to something. Not dependent or needy, but the feeling of satisfaction and familiarity that comes with quenching an addiction. I know that sounds like I’m one sidestep away from full blown alcoholic or drug addict, but this is a different addiction – an addiction to be addicted to addiction.

Average

In baseball, the batting average is the number of times a batter gets a hit divided by the total number of  chances, or at bats. Now there’s a lot more that goes into it besides that, like walks, being hit by a pitch, scratching one's crotch, do not count as an at bats, but I think you get the point. For most players, batting .300 (or 30%) is considered good, maybe even above average. Below .200 is considered bad, the “Mendoza Line.” No one has it over .400 for a season since Ted Williams in 1941. He hit .406, basically he got a hit 4 out of every 10 at bats – meaning he failed to get a hit 6 out of every 10 at bats. And he was considered one of the best hitters of all time. So the average player who, say, bats .250 (25%) fails to get a hit 3 out of every 4 at bats. Granted they are charged with a task of hitting a little white ball 3 inches in diameter coming at them at 80-100 miles per hour, using a long wooden stick, not an easy task mind you.

Well, baseball is a metaphor for life in some many ways, people have written volumes on the topic. A guy ‘strikes out’ when he fails to ‘score’ with a lady. I won’t even go into the whole reaching base references that you are probably already familiar with, even if you are not a baseball fan. To guys, sometimes the bar scene is like “playing the field” of baseball so it is just fitting I think of it as a spectator sport. Now some guys go with the swing away approach. "Can’t get a hit if you leave the bat on your shoulders." Others wait to get the count in their favor, for the uninitiated that means waiting for a time when you can expect a hittable pitch. In this analogy, I guess that would mean waiting for last call or something. Of course we have the doping charges of major league players using performance enhancing substances to ensure better chances of getting hits or even homeruns. I won’t touch that one but I think you can see the correlation. Some prefer to play at their home field, others on the road. Some like the day games but most still play at night. The adventurous ones stick around for the day-night doubleheader or sit through long rain delays. You have pinch hitters who can be called upon in potential scoring situations, but pinch runners are rarely used, only when speed is of the essences. Think of the seventh-inning stretch like that hour or two you do at the karaoke bar before heading into the late innings.

Sometimes life in the relationship world feels like the old Abbott and Costello baseball fielding line-up skit, “Who’s on First?,” – yes. Or better yet, maybe it is like your on opposite teams and the third base coach is giving encrypted singles to his team that you can’t decipher. A relationship should be more like softball, easy to hit pitches, bigger bats and balls, to get better changes at reaching base….and drinking only makes the game more fun. Instead we face the ace of the pitching staff every 5 days, some hot, upstarts the other 4 days, the hall of fame closer during those close games, and a gold glove winning middle infielder who won't let any balls get by them, turning an inning ending double play, and can make those diving stops, throw from your knees strikes to beat you by a half-a-step at first base.

I’ve always considered myself an average guy, maybe the most average you’ll ever meet. Does that mean I will only be considered successful a quarter of the time? Maybe. Of course I consider myself successful by waking up on time in the morning and making it back to bed at some point after dark…so far I’m batting 1.000 in that category. Go me. So what is our definition of average? Do we apply the bell curve to everything in life? Has life gotten so hard that we need to think of it like a 3 inch tightly wound ball covered in leather with some stitches coming at us at 95mph? Do we start testing with a passing rate of 25/100, but make the tests really, really hard?

Well, it is October; the baseball playoffs are on their way. A whole lot of hours of boringness capped with a few minutes of the best excitement of your life…sound familiar? So let the games begin and play ball!

Golf Weekend

Let me tell you a little something about golf, no other sport can a wider range of citizens partake, enjoy, compete, and/or succeed than golf. From the First Tee to retirement communities, golf is enjoyed by every race, ethnicity, or nationality across the globe without discrimination or prejudice. The only limiting factor of golf, although a very large limiting factor, is cost. Cost to play and cost for courses, clubs, accessories, etc. But, and myself being an example, golf can be access by anyone…even if it means playing a municipal, $3, sand greens course with no fairways or really anything except tee mats and a hole with a flag in it. Driving ranges must have been designed by overworked middle management employees who needed to deflect their frustrations.

Golf is almost therapeutic - if it weren’t for the endless confusion of how a little white ball could go in all directions except straight - yet somehow still fairly relaxing. Imagine a sunny, warm day sitting in a small electric powered cart, looking out upon a (hopefully) plush green fairway, waiting for your partner to play into an open green, sipping on a beer, no worries, no thoughts of work or other issues. Just playing golf. Just hitting a little ball hundreds of yards that equals the same amount as hitting it 4 inches.

I am not sure if it really can be put into words or described it to someone who does not play golf. It is like watching NASCAR or playing baseball, maybe fishing for some of you…or shopping for shoes I would have to guess. For years, spring and summer reminded me of playing soccer as a kid and fall reminds me (still) of running cross-country. But more and more, summer is becoming golf. I have only really been playing for about 3 years, at least on ‘real’ courses, but there is something about golf that is addictive, you can always improve, always work, and you see the benefits of your efforts, and that is addictive. And in those rare occasions when you can save up enough money, you get the opportunity to head down to Myrtle Beach, SC and hit the links with 23 of your closest friends and get out of work for a couple of days. Now if I could figure out a way to get out of work indefinitely, or maybe just tomorrow, then I would be set. Pictures will be forthcoming, until then, have a very enjoyable weekend, I will be.

Madness

Well, it’s that time of year again: March Madness. The drive for 65. The big dance. It sounds like a really bad high school date.

“Eh, ummmm, hey. I was just wonderin’, umm, if you would like to maybe go to the big dance with me?”
“Oh yes! I would love to! I have been waiting so long for someone to finally ask me to the big dance. All my friends will be there, this will be soooo cool!”

Then once you get there your date goes and hangs out with all their friends giggling at the awkwardly, socially challenged dates that spent all month working on the courage to ask them to the dance in the first place. Then by the end of the night there is that one couple who stuck it out the whole dance. They had been slowly working their way to each other, dancing with different partners through slow songs and fast songs, through waltzes and doing the robot, until finally they nervously take center stage, under the spot light. Their palms are sweaty, footwork shaky, eyes wondering to the onlookers. Eventually one leaves crying and the other taking the crown as king of the dance. But for 64 others, their dance ends in disappointment, standing by the punch bowl wondering what if they had made that move during the White Snake song, or hadn’t sung along with that slow Elton John song with 4 minutes to go. The Cinderella’s of the dance long for the glass slipper only to see it shattered during that Bon Jovi song. Even the ‘cool’ kids fall to the Eric Clapton “Wonderful Tonight” slow dance technique, because everyone can slow dance - you just rock back and forth like zombies until the music stops.

So how is this year’s dance going to play out? With chaperones like Billy Packard and Jim Nantz how can it not be the greatest ever? Seems like every year is just that much better then the last, who knew? We’ve got the seniors: Ohio State, Kansas, UNC, Florida. The Juniors: Maryland, Villanova, Georgetown, Duke, USC, UCLA, all looking to retake the coveted crown. The Bullies: VCU, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Virginia Tech, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, basically any school from Texas. The Intellectuals: Virginia, Penn, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt. The “do you even go to school here” schools: Corpus “Don’t call me Texas A&M” Christi, Weber “Big Sky” State, Niagara “we are more than the falls”, Miami “no not that Miami” of Ohio, Jackson “capital of Mississippi” State. And least we not forget the exchange students: Marquette, Xavier, Gonzaga. And watch out for those pesky up and coming freshmen: Wright St., Central Connecticut, Long Beach St., Albany.

This year looks like it gonna involve some break-dancing, the Texas two-step, the Virginia swing, new age, and I think I see a ballroom waltzes in there somewhere. Make sure you got your tux, the corsage, the right shoes, your hair done, because starting tomorrow, the big dance madness begins.