Getting Ready To Rumble...Oooh Yeah!

As I don't normally have cable, I'm exposed to TV I otherwise miss when I visit home.  This Thanksgiving I was fortunate to be treated to MSG Varsity's amazing Fall 2012 promo, depicting the greatest high school wrestling entrance of all time.

A former high school wrestler, I confirm this is almost perfectly my former high school fantasy brought to life.

Sanitized Democracy

One of the more important necessities for a vigilant, responsible populace is to remain suspicious of any aspirations to power  That includes, by definition, all those seeking higher public office. 

We benefit by being reminded of the phoniness of both politicians and their campaign's pizazz.  Thus I loved the implication of this photo I saw several days ago in The New York Times Lens Blog, speaking a thousand words, showing incumbent President Barack Obama receiving hand sanitizer after shaking hands with supporters at a campaign event last month.


photo: Damon Winter/The New York Times. caption: Mr. Obama got a squirt of hand sanitizer from a White House trip adviser Marvin Nicholson after shaking hands and posing for photos with a line of supporters backstage before he spoke at the Cleveland State University. October 5th, 2012

In the spirit of equal-time, I tried hard though in vain to find an analogous picture of Romney to juxtapose aside this one.  I believe he is equally eager to rush for the sanitizer after events.

A Note to my Future Self

There is a website, FutureMe, with a simple, very intriguing premise: write an e-mail timed to be sent to yourself in the future. Now, probably the most that can be accomplished with these e-mails to the future is a call to stay true to thine own self, to remember not become jaded or pretentious with age, and to be the kinds of adults our 10 year-old selves would be proud of.

What would be infinitely valuable - but is alas, impossible - would be to send a letter to the past, to our younger selves. Actually, earlier this year CBS's This Morning began a reoccurring segment based on that premise, where celebrities read hypothetical letters to their younger selves. So far, to my knowledge, Maya Angelou, Chuck Close, and Oprah have been featured.

As today marks closing ceremony of the XXX Olympiad, this session of regular posts will come to a close. I'm not sure when I'll return, but following traditional it will be at least again during the 2016 Olympics. I tried to image myself four years from now, what I want that person to be like, and I'm mailing the following letter to myself:

Dear Future T.J.,

In 2016, more than anything, my hope is that you are finding balance. You've just started a new job, a first job after grad school.  Be careful and mindful to keep a healthy perspective. You have a tendency towards workaholism; give your best for 40 hours but not a minute more. Don't let work bleed over into your other time. You're only getting paid for 40 hours and that's already too much time to lose. Although you've gained discretionary income, you've lost discretionary time. Money is one kind of freedon, but free time is another of which you now have less. With your time now more constrained, I hope that you're leaving time for yourself, for your health and your love of knowledge, continuing to learn through books, exploring art and the world.  There is more out there than you'll ever have time to experience, so don't waste a precious moment more than you have to on work. Whatever your career becomes, if any random person on the street doesn't understand an aspect of your job, it's probably not important enough to waste much anxiety on. Remember the past, and everyone who's ever done anything for you.  Pay forward the countless help you've received from your family, friends, mentors, and community. Roberta, especially, who you've been lucky enough to marry, has a good heart and kind soul. She likes you a lot. Remember all the support she's given you and how much color, warmth, and happiness she's added to your life. It's unimaginably better now than before she was a part of it.  Finally, of course, remember not to put too much stock in any advice I offer. You have the experience and developed perspective that only four more years of life could purchase. I only wish it were I that could receive advice from you. So for now, to a happy future: my best wishes, my best hopes, and my best regards, from 2012. - T.J.

My Grandparents as their Younger Selves

When home last Memorial Day weekend I was working on the desk in Scott's room and found a flash drive.  Curious as to what was on it, I plugged it into my computer and found an absolute treasure-trove of photos documenting my mother's family, her and her three sisters and four brothers, growing up in the 1950s and 60s.  I think originates from scanned photos my aunt made of what she found in my grandmother's house after she died in 2007.  Of course I copied all of them - there were literally hundreds of photos - to Skydrive.  Such things are priceless and now I have them forever.

While the photos were primarily childhood photos of my mother and her siblings, there were also a precious few of my grandparents from before their children were born.  Posted below are the two youngest portraits of them I found, my grandfather's Navy photo and a portrait of my grandmother from what would have been roughly the same time.  They wouldn't even have met yet.  It's a strange realization to me that since these photos were taken in the 1940s, they both would have been in their early 20s, younger than I am now.

My grandfather, Daniel (Navy photo)

My grandmother, Madeline (mid-1940s)

My grandmother especially - I can't believe how beautiful she looked.  I'm so proud.  It's also remarkable to me how I can see in her face then a blend of all the people who would become my aunts and uncles.

My Stolen Identity, and a Congressional Appeal

So, this happened:

I haven't mentioned it before but since late 2007 my younger brother Eric has with complete disregard been stealing my identity.  The worst part is not even what he did but when he did it - mere months after our youngest brother died, and even worse, he stole much more from our own mother, mere months after her son died.  Unfortunately, you can't choose your family.  Not surprisingly, there's something of an estranged relationship and I haven't spoken to him since 2008.  It'll be going on five years soon.

I have enough to write about the last four (almost five) years to write a book.  I'm only half joking.  Maybe one day when I have the time, and more importantly the courage to divuldge that much of my personal life.  Another reason to wait, unfotunately, is that my stomach tells me the last chapters of this story haven't been written yet.

While writing letters this morning to clean-up some of this most recent mess I was going through some files saved on my computer to pull supporting documentation - it's been incalculably helpful to keep everything and keep it organized - and I came across a letter I wrote to Congress dated December 28, 2009.  I think I sent a copy to both senators and my congressman.  At the time I was living in Atlanta, a broke graduate student unable to travel home, while fraud was taking place in Connecticut, New York, and even Nevada.  When I went to the police, most didn't know what to do with me.  It was a mix of advice of go to my home jurisdiction or go to where the fraud took place, always someplace else.  The old system of working through local police who are tied to their respective jurisdictions is clearly unsuitable for rectifying identity theft.  It's one thing if someone passes a bad check in your name two towns over, I was dealing with incidents two time zones over.  To their credit most police officers with two brain cells recognize this, and it's not their fault as their hands are tied by the existing rules.

Basically, the story behind this particular letter is that my brother obtained a duplicate copy of my driver's license which he was using for other fraud.  At some point, I believe he was pulled over for speeding and gave the trooper my copy instead of his own when asked.  Moreover, he didn't pay the fine, which resulted in my license being suspended.  Of course, that couldn't be solved over the phone.  I had to wait until I got home for winter holidays to go to court in New York, where the incident took place.  After waiting months I came to plead my case, a jerk prosecutor (maybe on a bit of a power trip) dismissively said he would see me in trial, without even hearing my story.  I should say here that there was an ending as "happy" as could be hoped for - I was sent back home in March for a job interview and, returning to court, had a much nicer, sympathetic prosecutor hear my story who instantly dropped all charges on my demonstrating evidence that a duplicate license copy was seized by police.  But, three months earlier, the whole thing was a headache given the distances, giving my frustrations and anxiety over my suspended license, the injustice of it all and my feelings of helplessness in the bureaucracy.  So when I could do nothing else, I could still write a letter.  I wrote to my representatives to appeal for...something, something else.  There had to be a better way.  Segments of my letter follow below (and I see now I did not edit it as well as I could have, but at that point, it was primarily about venting, more for me than for them...):

The Honorable ______
(Room #) (Name) Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

December 28, 2009 

....

My very-similar-looking brother, Eric – who has been incarcerated since August on various fraud and larceny charges – obtained a duplicate copy of my driver’s license which he used to impersonate me in various bank fraud schemes.  To my knowledge I have cleared my name with the exception of one issue: in late 2008 Eric was pulled over for speeding in New York State and gave the trooper my license instead of his own.  He never paid the fine and I was only alerted to the infraction on my license when I received a letter from the DMV earlier this fall informing me my license is being suspended.  The situation is a nightmare for me.  Despite local police contacting the Port Chester (NY) court, the prosecutor insists that the case go to trial where it was essentially phrased that I needed to prove my own innocence.  I am very anxious because I am a financially-limited graduate student and the cost of returning to the area for the trial exceeds the cost of the infraction.

My local police, as I have mentioned, have intervened on my behalf to no avail.  One obstacle they have offered to the charges not being immediately dropped is that the infraction took place out-of-state.  This should not be hindering an innocent citizen’s clearance of charges; it is an embarrassment that an artificial boundary is impeding justice.  Given the intra-jurisdictional nature of the problem, I would think that the Federal Government could facilitate the resolution of such situations.  I am imploring you to propose or support legislation that would provide identity theft victims in cross-state cases a federal resource in which they could turn to for assistance.  Victims would be indebted to you and such legislation for relieving some anxiety associated with an unfortunate experience.  Thank you for time, and humbly I appreciate your support.

Needless to say, no bill has yet named in my honor.  Of the three congressmen I wrote I only got one response, which did little more than to reference an enclosed brochure on identity theft and advise me to check my records with the three credit bureaus.  So in regard to my concerns, the same as no response.

Yesterday at the Gym

I arrived at the gym ready to go at 5:50pm.

I planned a warmup run for 24 minutes at 8.2 (about a 5k), then go up to 9.0 at 21:00 for 2 minutes, and then run out the last minute at 8.5 - my usual warm-up. However, I accidentally hit the emergency off button at about 8:30. I restarted for16 minutes, but my left shoe came loose at 5:40, despite a double knot. I restarted for the last 11 minutes - up to 9.0 at 8:00 and then down to 8.5 at 10:00, but it's not the same as a 24 minute straight run.

On the television was a follow-up story about a soilder murdered in Boston last April.  What I understood is that his suspected killer fled to the Dominican Republic, and police were seeking help.  Not sure what help could be given, but perhaps there were other suspects?

After the run, I wanted to do squarts but the Smith Machines were occupied.  While waiting, I did three sit-ups sets on the sit-up machines that allow you to add weight plates.  I'm not sure how much weight was on the machine but I could do at most 10 reps, and by the third set only 5 or 6.

As the Smith Machines were still occuped, I started I started doing deadlifts with the 60lb weights.  This is the maximum this particular gym has.  My former gym's dumbells went up to 75lbs, which is what I would typically use for deadlights.  Yesterday, my forearms gave out before my upper back did - eventually it became too hard to hold the weight, even though my upperback wasn't tired yet.    So I felt like the point of the exercise was being lost in the weakness of my grip.

To work my legs and core, I did the exercise where you hold weights over your head and squat.  I did it first with 30lb dumbells but barely could go down and up holding the weights.  I quickly switched to 20lb.  My arms (specifically my left) gave out before my legs did, and only after a few reps - actually, it's the front of my shoulders which hurt me most today, I think from holding my arms steady as I squatted, just from those few repitions!

I started doing squats with 45lb. dumbbells, although I was sure I'd have the same problem as the deadlifts as not being able hold them before my legs fatigued.  Fortunately, after two sets - where yes, my arms did give out  - the Smith Machine behind me opened up.  It's so much better because you can rest a quasi-barbell on your shoulders, and so concentrate on your legs without being limited by your grip strength (or lack thereof).

I was pretty sure I would be not at maximum after the previous exercises, but immature below my age I foolishly I tried to squat as if it was my maxmimum.  I tried doing two 45lb plates (two on each side) and almost broke my back. I only did three before I decided it wasn't worth the safety risk.  I switched a 45lb plate for a 25lb, did about 8 reps for two sets, then replaced the 25lb plate with a 10lbs and did two sets more.

Yesterday was supposed to be about hips, so I continued the theme to then do hip lifts - where you kind of get in a sit-up position and thrust your hips towards the ceiling (yes, it's embarrassing, so I went off in the corner by myself).  I did about 40 reps three times, and my butt went numb by the end  There was also a puddle of sweat on the matt after.

Finally, I did rows with cable using the grip where your hands are close together, first at 140lbs, then 120lbs, and then 2x 100lb.

Lastly, to cool down and loosen out, I ran - shuffled! - for ten minutes more on the treadmill afterwards.  I left sometime between 7 and 7:30, because Wheel of Fortune was on the television.


{I mention all this to record it for my older self, not to brag or anything, as in fact I don't feel I have anything to brag about.  The feeling I have is that I'm lifting less with much more difficulty than I could ten years ago, that clearly getting old.  I have to accept at some point I will (or already have) hit a peak in terms of physical strength.  I'm dissapointed that I couldn't remember specifics of repitition counts or didn't have the foresight to bring paper to record better.  I just wanted to record, on one random day at age 31, what I could physically do.  If it ever were more in the past, inevitably, at some point in the future it will be much less.}

Our Own Private Hells

An image I love, so encouraging, is a blatantly out-of-shape person exercising.

It must have been over ten years ago but I vividly remember an overweight middle-aged man shuffling down Westport Avenue early one morning and the look on his face was pain. It was struggling, but he was doing it. I'm sure he would have preferred to stop, but he was doing it. He knew he probably looked ridiculous, but he was doing it. He knew he should be doing it, and he was doing it.

To me, it was beautiful. I was awe-stuck and inspired.

Some (immature) people mock those struggling through exercises, and they're the worst kinds of people. It's especially cruel to disparage the out-of-shape, who may be so hanging by a thread for throwing in the towel.

There's a certain kind of person that goes to the gym to show off the fitness they already have. If the requisite for improvement is exercise to fatigure, then we should all be equalling falling out of the doors after, regardless of our starting level. In spite of personal cardio machine TVs, the massage chairs, and the air conditioning, the whole inescapable point of exercise is on some level to make ourselves uncomfortable.

Sometimes, it's a struggle for me just to finish my hour on the treadmill, just to breathe in the moist, swampy air. To convice myself I won't vomit. If I'm dieting, I'm cranky and consumed with just wanting to eat. Wiping boogers and slobber on my arms, I look to all my fellow treadmillers stomping along in their 8x3, self-imposed torture chambers. Many of us are suffering. It may be the hardest part of our days - just as draining as if we were prey running for our lives. If we're literally on the edge of our physical capacities, how could it be worse? It's amazing, when you think about a gym, all the person who are silently enduring their own private Hells. Struggling to take one more step, stretch one more inch, make one more rep, when the pain is unbearable and we imagine how comfortable quitting would be.

With these thoughts in mind I absolutely loved Nike's "Find Your Greatness" commercial than's been running recently. It recreates the man I saw running that morning years ago, clearly in pain, but doing it, anyway, for himself.

In Which I Enter the 2012 Olympic Quad-Off

Since at least high school I've always had big thighs. Strong, but big. Buying pants was difficult. In the 90s you were labled gay if your pants were any less than falling-off-your-waist baggy. Additionally, my big thighs were attached to what the other guys dubbed my "girl's butt". Getting changed for gym or weighing-in for wrestling were always embarrassing. Roberta says that they were all just jealous, that such assets on men are prized in Brazil. I only I had been born there instead, it could have all been so different.

I wondered what sport my legs would be most valuable for. Well, of course they'd be useless in all of them given my complete absence of any athletic ability.

On Sunday, this photo flew around the Internet, showing German Olympic sprint cyclist Robert "Mr. Thigh" Förstemann surpassing teammate Andre "Gorilla" Greipel in the "2012 Olympic Quad-Off":

German Cyclist Robert Förstermann Clearly Wins the 2012 Olympic Quad-Off

Roberta thought the image was photoshopped. I figured the Olympics is full of genetic freaks, anyway, and certainly those cyclists work their thighs. This would be the logical consequence.

Yesterday morning The New York Times published an article featuring Förstermann (inspired by the quad-off photo) entitled "Thigh-Popping Success on a Bike Lies in the Quads". Interestingly, the article linked to a blog post specifying the proper technique for measuring a thigh's circumference, and also listed a few athletes' measurements:

• Förstermann's thighs measure 34 inches (bigger than his waist, incidentally)
• Chris Hoy, a British cycling sprinter who collected his fifth gold medal on Sunday, has 27 inch thighs
• Polled athletes considered the minimal acceptable thigh circumference to be 23.6 inches. 

I could barely wait until I got home to learn how I, a mere-mortal, stacked up to Olympians. So, more or less: 24 and one-quarter inches. At least over the Olympic threshold! As I'm sure my lung capacity is much below the Olympic threshold, I doubt I'll be making any appearances in Rio de Janeiro, four years from now.

Still, I always loved riding a bike. I haven't ridden in a year or so, and then another year before that, so scared was I after a bad poison ivy episode I got on the Blackstone River Bikeway when I first moved to Rhode Island. I already planned to bring my bike to the shop this week for repairs to make the trek up to Lexington and Concord before the summer ends. Perhaps this photo is timely - motivation? I'll tape a photo of Förstemann's legs to my bedroom mirror to stare at before I go to the gym in the morning. Mr. Thigh wins the Quad-Off this year, but maybe we'll see you in Rio!

The Entirety of my Tweeting Experience

Around 2010 I finally joined Twitter. From certain people I have found a constant stream of "isn't that interesting?" items I might not have otherwise seen, several of which are good enough to pass on. While I primarily use Twitter to read conten, I have made attempts to, in the short form, recreate the purpose of this blog. I never enjoyed this. The 140 character limit is too constraining - if I'm the only person reading what I wrote, I might as well have more freedom to write. Until I become famous (and gain a million followers) I think I'll discontinue tweeting and stick with here as the primary medium to record my goings.  Bu,t I did want to also consolidate (and back-up/record) all my previous tweets into this space.

What follows is the entirety of my tweeting history - all eighty tweets in reverse chronological order going back to my first, "Whole Foods' Oreos are so much better than real Oreos..." back in October, 2010. Links are provided for context...

Silent No Longer: Cauliflower Ear

"Don't worry about your faces, none of you will ever be models" - a constant refrain from our wrestling coach. The purpose was to motivate us to use correct form (face close to the opponent's body) during a take-down drills without concern for the inevitable wear and tear on our faces (actually, one of us did become a model and soap opera star).

Over four years of wrestling I experienced all kinds of maladies: jammed fingers, split lips, a torn ankle, and an assortment of contagious skin infections.  The one I dreaded most, however, was cauliflower ear, a puffy disfigurement of the ear. I was certainly having no luck with the ladies in high school, and I didn't need any more marks against me. Is anything more important to 15 year-old?

Given the daily wear of intense practices, the inevitable finally happened. One night I glimpsed in the bathroom mirror with a growing knot in my stomach a definite puffiness. Even me.

At least, it could have been must worse than what I had - one night in bed after a prior wrestling practice I touched to where by upper ear joined my head and found blood - by ear was literally being torn off.

Other afflicted wrestlers spoke of going to the doctor to get their ears drained - I was never sure what exactly was filling the ear - and at least a couple times I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, poking my ear with a pin. Nothing came out, but I had heard there was only a short time window for treatment. Afterwards I could only focus on the preventative and I henceforth always used protective headgear at practice.

I just checked in the mirror, and sixteen years later I still have the faded signs: my right ear is definitely less "defined", with a bit more puffiness in the upper part of the ear lobe. Luckily, you can only really tell if you immediately compare one ear to the other - by itself it doesn't look so out of the ordinary. Moreover, as I move into my thirties, there are so much other aging-related wear that my ear is, in the scheme of things, small potatoes.

I was pleased to see the video NBC hosted in which USA wrestlers talk about cauliflower ear. Even within the elite, it is seen by some as either a disfiguring scar or a badge of honor, but it is so common that it's just accepted as going with the territory. As Jordan Burroughs says at the end of the NBC segment, "Once you get it you're like, screw it, I'll just keep it for the rest of my life".

I smiled with a certain nostalgia when he added, "I just can't be a model".

Matching the Soul to the Sport

Of course, different body types are more favorable to certain sports. A small man would have difficulty in basketball as a large man would have difficulty in jockeying. It is also just as true that certain sports fit better with particular personality types.

In some capacity during my youth I was involved in two contact sports: football and wrestling. Neither was ever a good fit: then as now I'm nothing if not confrontational. Athletic ability aside - in which I was certainly lacking - I never had the requisite desire to hurt my opponent. Instead, I only felt empathy - here was another kid just like me, who was probably swept up in winds larger than he was which landed him across from me - maybe playing for his dad's acceptance, his peers acceptance, or like me, both. In that realization, how could I want to hurt him? He did nothing to me. Instead of a blood lust, I was nauseated by guilt. My coaches or teammates, on the other hand, actively encouraged the desire to hurt. Undoubtedly this explains how I often viewed my teammates to be bigger bastards than the kids on the other side. And that view extended outside the team: "Get mean! Get tough!  Why don't you go out there and hit somebody?! You'd rather play in the band with all the queers and fags". I heard that at least every week from my father, off-season included.

At least in football, you are just one element of a team and are obscured to anonymity by a masking helmet and large padding. Wrestling had an additionally unpleasant, mano-a-mano element, focusing the center of attention on just two people during a match. Even more than being non-confrontational I was then, as now, extremely introverted. All those eyes that would be on me! I hated the thought. At tournaments I hoped to get called to the small mat, off to the side, where maybe no one else would even notice that I was wrestling.

Looking back, how else might it have been? Was there a sport more geared to my personality? There is a scene in Grease where Danny Zuko successively tries out basketball, where his aggression prompts the coach to push him towards wrestling, where that "he's a hitter" prompts the coach to push him towards baseball, and finally, it is decided that long-distance running, alone and solitary, would fit best. I deeply wished a knowledgeable adult would have taken me aside, working with me to find a sport tailor fitted. I fantasized that both athletic glory and my happiness were only a matter of match.

What could it have been? A non-contact, team sport, in which I'd be indistinguishable from the other players. I'm thinking crew? I'm thinking bobsleigh?

The Lives of Others

City living is always quasi-communal. It's inevitable, our lives' spheres are larger than the tiny apartments we're cramped into. We see our neighbors when glance from our windows, we smell our neighbors when they cook their dinners, and we hear them too often to ever be without earplugs.

When I lived in Washington and New York, my neighbors were close indeed. In New York, my (perpetually broken) bathroom window was arm's length from the corresponding bathroom window of the building next door. Perilously, the other bathroom was always occupied; disturbingly, its occupants (plural) were always in conversation; unfortunately, the conversation was always in an impenetrably foreign tongue. More positively, before our Wi-Fi was installed, we benefited from the unprotected network named "Denize", and over dinner discussed how to best repay the unknowing altruist we nicknamed Denise (sadly, we never found her).

Last month I moved to denser Cambridge, MA. A selling-point when I saw our future apartment is that it is on the top (fourth) floor - no creaking floorboards, heavy steps, or moving furniture from above. Typical city sounds aside, the apartment is blissfully quiet.

My neighbors are still there, however, just in other ways. Where I live is actually a group of buildings under the same landlord, which are close enough that I can easily peer into the rooms opposite mine. Here's what I've experienced so far:

• The male neighbor whose door faces mine, Apartment 44 is passionately arguing politics when I leave for work at 7:15am. The topic is the shooting massacre at The Dark Knight Rises premier in Colorado. He gets the New York Times delivered daily. I only have Sunday delivery.
• The female neighbor who I share a kitchen wall with I've heard while exiting the kitchen back entrance to take out the trash. She consoles her female friend to accept the lack of quality, dateable men their ages.
• The neighbors I most often see live in the apartment across from our kitchen window and two floor downs. There is a pretty young wife constantly in their kitchen. She is always cooking. Presumably its for the middle-aged man who occasionally joins her. From my vantage point he is much below her league - overweight and hairy, which I know because he most often appears shirtless.
• Directly across from our kitchen window is a young lady. She cooks dinner 7-8pm (as do we), and then eats in her kitchen, alone in a chair.
• An occupant of the corner apartment opposite our bedroom's - it would belong to the apartment of the women who eats alone - I saw once when I sat up in bed at night. She walked away (I could not see her face) from her half drawn blinds, in her underwear. I immediately laid down again to give her privacy. Her body type was heavier than the young lady I see eating dinner.
• Not directly across the way from our living room but the room to the right lives a blonde young lady. There is a perfect line of sight between her on her couch and me at my desk. We haven't made eye contact yet. I'm sure it will be awkward when we do. I try to avoid looking out that window an unavoidably into hers.
• The aprtment directly across from our living room, one floor down, is filled with plants and furniture, is always lit, and is always empty. I fear a year from now an elderly resident will be found mummified.
• The other rooms are fainter to see into. A couple apartments have large-screen TVs. I've only seen ESPN.
• Many of the current or former residents were physics and finance majors. Their textbooks fill the shelves of the lending library bookcase in the basement by the washing machines. The lending library is more accurately a textbook graveyard, for materials easier disgarded than packed on moving day.  There is also a copy of Perfectly Normal: Living and Loving with Low Libido, by Sandra Pertot, PhD.
• Although I can't see it, in the afternoons you can hear someone in the building block across the street practicing scales on a piano.
• Directly across from me, but one floor down, lives a cat. It likes to look at me from over a double window fan in the apartment's kitchen. We've engaged in brief staring contests. It's so-far the only neighbor I've yet to make eye-contact with, the only neighbor who knows I'm also looking out.

The Epic Trash-Talking Poetry of Muhammad Ali

In the history of trash-talking, Muhammad Ali's "poem" concerning his Rumble in the Jungle match with George Foreman surely ranks high:

Last night I had a dream, When I got to Africa,
I had one hell of a rumble.
I had to beat Tarzan’s behind first,
For claiming to be King of the Jungle.
For this fight, I’ve wrestled with alligators,
I’ve tussled with a whale.
I done handcuffed lightning
And throw thunder in jail.
You know I’m bad.
just last week, I murdered a rock,
Injured a stone, Hospitalized a brick.
I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.
I’m so fast, man,
I can run through a hurricane and don’t get wet.
When George Foreman meets me,
He’ll pay his debt.
I can drown the drink of water, and kill a dead tree.
Wait till you see Muhammad Ali.

Coincidentally, this poem is currently being featured in an well-produced adverstivement for Louis Vuitton (wait, what?).  It is preformed byYassin Bey (Mos Def) and I love the juxtaposition with the seemingly random calligrapher (artist Niels Shoe Meulman).

My Hero of Revolutionary Massachusetts, Samuel Whittemore

I recently completed a postdoctoral fellows, which focused on the care of older Americans. Prior to the program, lives of the elderly had never really been on my radar, until in a big way starting the summer of 2010. I became much more interested in the lives and conditions of the elderly. Probably the best decision I made during my fellowship was to read The Coming of Age by Simone de Beauvoir, a comprehensive treatise on aging and what should be, in my option, an essential read for the young and middle-aged, if for no other reason than that we will be old one day, too.

At some point a friend posted on Facebook the story of Samuel Whittemore and how he was in awe of the guy after learning his story. So was I, once I also learned about it. Whittemore lived during the Revolutionary War, and attacked British forces retreating from Lexington and Concord. This description is from Massachusetts State Senate proposed bill No. 1839 "to designate captain Samuel Whittemore the official state hero of the Commonwealth and provid[e] for an annual proclamation of a day in his honor".

On April 17, 1775, while working in his fields, Whittemore became aware of the retreating British army which had fought the militia men at Lexington and Concord. Although then over 80 years old, he immediately armed himself with his weapon; disregarded warnings of onlookers, and stationed himself behind a stone wall directly in the path of the troops which were being harassed by our militia. When the British army came into point blank range, Samuel Whittemore stood up, opened accurate fire, and killed three soldiers before he collapsed from numerous wounds inflicted by the enraged English combatants who then left him for dead. However, Whittemore recovered from his ghastly injuries and lived to be 90 years old. Samuel Whittemore is the oldest known Patriot to fight in the Revolutionary War. And most recently, the United States never had a braver warrior.

Specifically, those "injuries" wounds were that he was shot through the cheek, beaten, and bayonetted thirteen times. After the British left, the townspeople, searching for wounded, found not only Whittemore alive but trying to reload his musket! Whittemore lived in present day Arlington, MA - just one town north of Cambridge - and there is a monument dedicated to him there now. Before I knew I'd be moving here I considered taking a pilgrimage up here to visit the site. Now that I'm probably just a few miles away, there's really no reason not to. I was planning before the weather cools to take a trip along the Minuteman Bike Trail to visit Lexington and Concord. I should include a detour to pay my respects to Mr. Whittemore.

Never too old...

My Hero of the XXX Olympiad, Oksana Chusovitina

This may be first, a follow-up to a previous posting. Four years ago I wrote about the Soviet-born German gymnast Oksana Chusovitina, who at 33 was still competing in elite-caliber gymnastics, when most of her peers were teenagers. I was awe-struck by her story. I rooted for her, and deeply cheered when she took the silver medal on vault in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Before her set, I vividly remember the announcers commenting that history would be made today. She was an inspiration and left such a mark on me that I was still telling me about her prior to the start of these games. Surely nothing these games, I thought, could top a 33 year-old gymnast.

Except, of course, a 37 year-old gymnast.

Chusovitina is back, at 37, to compete in the 2012 London games - and she's expected to medal. She wants one more, with her son there to watch, before she retires to next coach for Uzbekistan's team. I'll look forward to cheering for her again.

#nbcfail

Give a Christmas present to somebody on December 20th and then there are only two kinds of people: the ones (like me) who will insist, religiously, on waiting until the 25th as Christmas presents are for not until Christmas morning.  Opening them earlier, moreover, will just leave you with one less to open on Christmas, a smaller pile, a little less joy that day.  Isn't the anticipation half the joy?  The other kind of people (for example, Roberta) will without hesitation rip into the wrapping paper, not being able to stand the anticipation, the waiting, the not knowing what the gift would be.

There is an equivalent for Olympic games which are time zones ahead (specifically ahead of me, by the way - it's always local time where the games are).  Atlanta (Eastern Standard) was the last "current" Olympics in 1996, but since then it's been Sydney, Athens, Beijing, and London.  For these, the main events we watch in prime time have already happened.  1996, Atlanta's year, was also the first steps of the Internet age, and I do not recall that the results then being easily available before the events aired.  Now, in 2012, I have to actively avoid most media during the day so that the results are not "spoiled" for me half a day before I'm able to watch them on NBC.  The United States men's gymnastics team is about to compete for gold now.  I"m not even sure I'll be able to stay awake to watch and see how they do.  It'd be nice to be able to grab video online, fast forward through, and see the results.  The results are there, of course, I could know them in ten seconds through a Google search.  I could, but I'm just not that kind of person, remember?

There are times when I would really want to watch online.  Today in women's volleyball the U.S. team beat Brazil and at best I could only follow on Twitter and get score updates every few minutes.  I would also love to see the sports they generally are not showing on television - wrestling, for example.

This isn't possible, this year, due to NBC.  I wasn't expecting how, in this age, live feeds would not be provided (I feel that they were for the Beijing games?).  NBC's website reads "Watch free video of the London 2012 Olympic Games on NBCOlympics.com". Well, not quite.  You need a cable subscription that includes MSNBC, etc., and then on top of that, only, access is free.  To a cable-less guy like me, out of luck.  The pangs of cord-cutting regret I felt on learning only through a cable subscription could I enter the kingdom, "fortunately", quickly evaporated when I heard about how poor the video quality of the are - often very glitchy, if they work at all - though the regular ads that come on it seems have perfect quality.  By the way, this has all been already summarized today already much better than here. A twitter hashtag, #nbcfail, has popped up and makes for fun reading, and gives some sense of revenge against those denying the people their Olympic access.

Anyways, those complaining of tape delay get a reprieve next time around: Rio de Janeiro's Olympics in 2016 will be almost Eastern Standard (one hour ahead in July).  For me personally, however if all goes as I hope, it won't matter: I want to be there in person.  It might be the best chance I have, until Norwalk, CT wins an Olympic big...

What the Candidates and Athletes Have in Common

Aside from a lot of sport, I've realized during the Olympics coverage that I'm also watching a lot of commercials.  Fortunately (or due to the expected audience), many have an almost Super Bowlesque quality.  However, I've also noticed I'm watching lots of political ads.  What cruel timing that years of the summer games coincide with presidential election years.  And I'm in Massachusetts, not even a swing state.  The one playing most often, supporting Barack Obama, features Mitt Romney singing "America the Beautiful" terribly off-key.  How do they expect us to support Team USA with that in our heads?

Another category of commercials relays how hard the athletes have worked.  Hitting the pool at dawn, alone with the weights, nursing injuries, etc.  Well, duh.  Honestly, I'm not fully sure of such ads' exact message.  The sacrifice the athletes have made?  Hopefully not that with enough hard work "anyone" could become an Olympic athlete (the more common non-athletic version are variations on "you, too, could be rich").  Certainly not true, that hard work, that total dedication every day over years  is necessary, but not sufficient.  How many unknown unnamed countless others have put in the same number of hours of those who will be standing on the podiums?  They are not in London this week.  Their times may be within seconds of the world record for all we know.  But there are just only so many spots on the national team.

I thought of a New York Times Magazine article a few years ago profiling, essentially, the machine that identifies basketball talent.  It starts with preteens.  Across the country, there must be - how many? - untold numbers of kids, spending everyday shooting baskets at a hoop, hoping its the start of a path that will eventually lead to a pro contract.  For most nothing will ever come of it.  Some will effectively win the lottery,  go the NBA, and will then be able for the camera to recall those long hours alone every day in the gym practicing free throws, and testify how worth it it was.  But we'll never see all the others who took the same number of shots and have nothing to show for a wasted youth.

So price of a even the possibility of Olympic success is, probably, the majority of a hopeful's young life in devotion to the perfection of their sport.

The price of a president campaign?  Presidential candidates spend hundreds of millions of dollars.  Millions even to lose the primary.  You'd better be prepared to spend an obscene amount just to run and most likely, statistically, it will all be for nothing.

For both athletes and political candidates, it's an all-pay auction.  Everyone is putting forward, above some threshold, an exorbitant payment.  Yet history won't remember most, only the few winners. 

The difference?  It's the athletes own time, their loss of a "normal" life.  The political candidates funds are usually largely donated - it's instead someone else's loss.  They're not really sacrificing.

Four Year Sports Famine, Two Week Feast

I don't watch professional sports.  I lose out on a great deal of social currency since I can't talk about how the Red Sox are doing.  Still, I prefer the hours, cumulative days - weeks? months? - of my life I'm saving.

I watch the the Super Bowl for the commercials, I'd go to baseball games only to eat hot dogs, pro basketball is probably fixed, I went to a college without a football team, I watched its basketball team only in what I considered for pay due to my pep band scholarship, golf is elitist - and boring, tennis is also elitist (though less so) - and elitist (though less so), I'm American, so soccer, cricket, rugby....well.....If I ever did I would only watch hockey for the fights, boxing is sleazy, MMA is ridiculous, almost two decades ago I came to terms with pro wrestling being fake, I'd only watch car racing for the crashes, demolition derby races don't seem to come out here, and spectators of professional video game or poker players need to seriously reexamine their lives.


I've regularly worn the apparel of teams for which I couldn't name a single player.


And with a passion I hate the smug, sportscasting analysts who, if they're not reminiscing of their past glory, are selling their product through insinuating your effeminacy if you weren't to buy in, since real men watch sports (specifically, in order: football, basketball, baseball, and sometimes hockey.  Nothing else).

But I love the Olympics, and during the summer games run every four years I make up for all the sports I pass on by completely binging during its two week run.  While there are some criticisms of the modern games, in general I believe they support the amateur spirit and dream of a united world.  It's far more satisfying to cheer on athletes out of patriotism than to give millionaires more money.  Most of all, its largely sports stripped down to their fundemental level, utterly purged of BS.  No abstruse, complicated rules.  See that line there?  Who ever crosses it first, wins.  That's it.

An Olympic Opening, 2012

Tonight, despite thick, under-conditioned air, I finished the 60 minutes at 7.8mph on the treadmill goal I set for myself at the gym.  I distinctly remember wanting to quit at 15, 20, 30, 45, and once I got to 50min, I knew I would finish.  Even at 53min, when my stomach was knotting, I pushed through (I wouldn't really vomit, would I?).  I counted down the last 90 seconds.  I thought of an athlete in the final 10 seconds of their gold medal hope.  When I finally finished, I was so happy I did it.  I immediately resolved to write this so I could read this again.  It's always worth it to finish.

The opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics is airing on NBC as I write this.  I've already caught the bug.  I know how I'll be spending the next two weeks.

Tonight on Facebook I posted Jamie McGregor Smith's feature in the New York Times Lens Blog, from her  work "Borrow, Build, Abandon", on the state of the 2004 Athens Olympics stadiums, which only eight years later have fallen into neglected decay.  How quickly splendid becomes forgotten.  I remembered my Latin, sic transit gloria mundi (thus passes the glory of the world).

Also: the opening ceremony featured Caliban's "Be not afeard" speech from The Tempest.  I love the line "...when I waked I cried to dream again".  I remember December dreams of my youth receiving an 8-bit Nintendo for Christmas, what I wished for more than anything, and what my mother would never buy, only to wake up to the creeping horror that I still didn't have a Nintendo.  So, five years ago, today, my youngest brother Scott died.  Regularly since then (and just again the night before last) I dreamt he was able to somehow "come back" and rejoin us the living.  It didn't usually happen, he said, but it did then, and we could hang out again and I'd be able to savor the second chance we were given.  We'd be able to just hang out again, talk, and I'd have my brother again, and I was so relived and thankful.  But soon I woke up.

It was a dream that was sad to wake up from.  I miss you, Scott.